The Triumph and Trade of Egyptian Objects in Rome: Collecting Art in the Ancient Mediterranean (Issn) 3110700409, 9783110700404

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Stephanie Pearson The Triumph and Trade of Egyptian Objects in Rome

Image & Context Edited by François Lissarrague, Rolf Schneider & R.  R.  R. Smith Editorial Board: Bettina Bergmann, Ruth Bielfeldt, Jane Fejfer, Luca Giuliani, Chris Hallett, Susanne Muth, Alain Schnapp & Salvatore Settis

Volume 20

De Gruyter

Stephanie Pearson

The Triumph and Trade of Egyptian Objects in Rome Collecting Art in the Ancient Mediterranean

De Gruyter

Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Förderungsfonds Wissenschaft der VG WORT.

ISBN 978-3-11-070040-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-070089-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-070093-0 ISSN 1868-4777 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020950605 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National­bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Egyptian gods inlaid as frieze on “Egyed Hydria.” Bronze inlaid with silver and gold. Found in Egyed, Hungary. 1st c. AD. Budapest, National Hungarian Museum, inv. MNM RR 10/1951.104. Photo: Hungarian National Museum (© MNM). Cover: Martin Zech, Bremen Typesetting: Dörlemann Satz GmbH & Co. KG, Lemförde Printing and Binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen www.degruyter.com

Contents Preface .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII I. Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. Why “Egyptianizing”?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. The Limits of Iconography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Hellenism and Other Inherited Mistakes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Egypt Three Ways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a. Believing in Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b. Fashionable for Centuries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c. Politics at the Dinner Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. New Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8 15 17 20 20 22 23 25

II. The Lure of Egyptian Treasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

1. The Upper Cubiculum Shows off its Riches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. How Art Collections Become Frescoes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Fantastic Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Pharaoh’s Crown as Women’s Jewelry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Egyptian Gods as Lamp Stands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33 42 53 59 65

III. Triumphal Splendor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

1. Drinking the Sweet Poison. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Egypt in Egyed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Vessels in Frescoes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Vessels in Triumph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Turn for Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. Enter Octavian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Tables for Kings and Collectors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. Another Egyptian mensa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

83 86 89 95 99 102 107 113

VIContents

IV. Trading in Luxury. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

1. Shipping between Campania and Alexandria . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Ready Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Textiles in Italian Homes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. A Cloth over One’s Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Triangle Borders on Egyptian Textiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. Safe Passage to India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Where is East? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

121 128 131 139 144 150 155

V. Sculptures for Cult and Collecting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

1. Corinthian Statuettes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Collecting Diverse Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Art and Divinity in Gardens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. The Pleasures of Herculaneum’s Palaestra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Invisible Isea. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

161 167 174 179 184

VI. Conclusion: Why Egypt?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . List of Figure Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Works Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

196 201 223 229 259

Preface

This book arose from the recognition, early in my graduate career, that Egyptian art in Rome was far more complex that it was usually given credit for at that time. My focus then was Roman wall painting, particularly that of the so-called Third Pompeian Style, which incorporates Egyptian motifs. Egyptian material depicted in Roman fresco became the subject of my Ph.D. dissertation, completed in 2015 and immediately made available online in unpublished form. Yet the dissertation made clear to me – as did new scholarship that emerged during my graduate studies, discussed in the introduction  – that there was much more to be done. Far more than just wall painting was implicated in my theory that Romans used Egyptian material as highly prized collectibles. Rather, a great range of objects needed to be taken into account: from those made in Egypt to those made elsewhere, from wall painting to jewelry, textiles, and sculpture. And so this book project was born. Some principles outlined in the dissertation are certainly present here, but the arguments are new, the scope vastly expanded and, indeed, shifted from the rather limited fresco corpus treated in the dissertation. The focus here on trade and triumph, as well as on sculpture as a special genre, are part of an attempt in this book to explore the mechanisms and mindsets that marked Roman collecting of Egyptian art – as well as the ways that this topic has been studied in the scholarship so far. This emphasis on structures, including our own ­structures of knowledge-making, has made this book a very different study from the pointed, specific work of the dissertation that started me on this path. It is a great pleasure to thank the generous people who helped me write this book. Foremost among them has to be Christopher Hallett, whose valuable guidance has continued long after my graduation. The many colleagues who read parts of the manuscript, helped with references and images, and indulged one conversation after another have my eternal gratitude: Caitlín Barrett, Judy Barringer, Domenico Esposito, Norbert Franken, Valentino Gasparini, Aglaya Glebova, Matthew Harpster, Jitske

VIIIPreface

Jasperse, Laure Marest-Caffey, Lindsey Mazurek, Martina Minas-­Nerpel, Lisa Pieraccini, Corinna Reinhardt, Andrew Stewart, Molly Swetnam-­ Burland, Peter van Alfen, Miguel John Versluys, Claire Weiss, and Willeke Wendrich. Museum colleagues astounded me with their generosity in sending images and permissions, particularly during the worst months of the Covid-19 pandemic: Daria Lanzuolo in the Photothek of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Rome, Martin Maischberger and Agnes Schwarzmaier of the Antikensammlung Berlin, and our colleagues in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Hungarian National Museum, and Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna – you showed me the meaning of dedication. A postdoctoral stipend from the Getty Research Institute helped this project immeasurably, not least in the form of countless wonderful exchanges with Getty Villa colleagues – thank you. Special thanks go to Rolf Schneider for shepherding this book into publication. Thanks also to Bert Smith, the ICON series editors, Mirko Vonderstein, Martin Hallmannsecker, Katrin Hofmann, and the De Gruyter team. And last but not least, to my friends and family for their patience and neverending support during this long journey.

I. Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

In the first centuries BC and AD, Egyptian imagery became so pervasive in the Roman Empire that even today visitors to the city can still see its traces. Obelisks rise in Rome’s grand plazas, some imported from Egypt and others newly commissioned by Roman emperors. Troves of Egyptian and Egyptian-inspired sculpture unearthed throughout Italy fill the national museums. Pompeian houses have preserved a wealth of Egyptian-inspired domestic objects, from fresco decoration to luxurious tableware. Together, these objects give some idea of just how present Egyptian art was in the Roman Empire during these two centuries: the ancient cityscapes were positively brimming with it. It was a pervasive, indeed integral part of the Roman visual landscape. And to judge from the extraordinary number, size, and quality of the extant objects, it seems that Romans across the empire expended enormous resources on acquiring and displaying them. How can we make sense of the Romans’ ardor for Egyptian material? Since the first studies focused on this material in the 1970  s up until the early 2000  s, the Roman use of Egyptian art was generally argued to be politically or religiously motivated (discussed in depth below). Although recent studies have emphasized the plurality of Roman responses to Egyptian objects in Italy, as well as the importance of context for understanding them,1 the early arguments are so deep-seated that they continue to be repeated – even in the face of new methods and evidence. Perhaps this is in part because some of the most celebrated examples have not been revisited, or seem not to fit into the new frameworks proposed. Certainly, recent work has focused on case studies or subsections of the corpus that cannot relate directly to every object. It is therefore time to take stock of the arguments in a holistic way, to see how they have affected our understanding of the material. In doing so, this book proposes that something fundamental has been left out of our accounts of Egyptian art in the Roman Empire. Namely, the spectacular nature of the Egyptian objects that Romans came into contact with. A far cry from the scattered, simple scarabs known in Italy in the Archaic period, and the dearth of material in the Republican period, the Egyptian items in early imperial Roman Italy are crafted from the most precious materials by the best artists of their day (Fig. 1).2 They include tableware, sculpture, jewelry, furnishings, and textiles of breathtaking beauty, a range of genres that has never been so comprehensively addressed together as in this book. Indeed, the range and quality of Egyptian objects acquired by Romans at this time was determined by a fact that requires more attention than it has gotten: the Egypt known to Romans of this period had been most recently ruled by the Ptolemies, a

4

Fig. 1: Obsidian skyphos with Egyptian figures inlaid with stone, glass, coral, and gold. From Villa San Marco, Stabia. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. H: 12.5 cm. D: 18.3 cm.

Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

dynasty that became synonymous with bombastic displays of wealth and high living. From the fourth century BC down to Cleopatra’s reign, the Ptolemies commissioned colossal gold statues of themselves, thousands of golden crowns carried in procession, huge sculptural ensembles in gold and precious stones, and banqueting barges with silver oars and purple sails.3 That almost every trace of these has been lost from the archaeological record in both Egypt and the rest of the Roman Empire is a hindrance, but sources do exist. This book shows how Ptolemaic material guided the Roman use of Egyptian objects. The sheer extravagance of the Ptolemaic material had an unavoidable, indelible impact on how the Romans viewed and used their own Egyptian objects: as works of extreme preciousness. This is belied today by the disproportionate lack of such remains in the archaeological record, which allows other, still extant material to be unwittingly taken as representative of the Roman experience of Egyptian objects. We must look more carefully to reconstruct the fuller picture. If we consider fabulous luxury objects among the Egyptian items that Romans were familiar with, it is easier to understand why the Romans engaged so earnestly and passionately with Egyptian art. It embodied both materials and craftsmanship of obvious value, such as a bronze hydria minutely inlaid with silver and gold (Fig. 3). Yet this book goes a step further. It argues that the Romans prized Egyptian art because it was art, and the Romans were art collectors. In light of the current discourses about Egyptian objects in Rome  – and even more so the traditional, rather inflexible interpretations of them discussed later in this chapter – this is a radical idea. It raises the question of what art is, and how we define both “Egyptian” and “Roman” art. Yet, for the

Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

5

­ urposes of this argument, the answer need not be complex. The Romans p recognized Egyptian material as valuable cultural material, often of outstanding craftsmanship and beauty, and they used it accordingly. How they used it is, indeed, the ultimate criterion for defining art; Duchamp demonstrated as much with the urinal. For the Romans, the patterns of use show that they considered Egyptian material to be “art” just as much as they considered Greek material to be art. This is argued in the following chapters by revealing the specific mechanisms through which the Romans acquired Egyptian goods, and how they subsequently displayed them – in summary, their patterns of use. Acknowledging the status of these items as art by no means excludes political and religious significance from the ways Romans understood these items, but expands these ways considerably. Recognizing Egyptian objects in Rome as art carries with it substantial changes for our approach to Roman visual culture. It broadens our notion of the limits of “Roman” art beyond the traditional Western canon to include something of the Egyptian one. The perceived divide between Egyptian and Roman art is perhaps more permeable than previously supposed. In light of the long scholarly tradition of considering Egyptian objects in Rome a sign of “Egyptomania,” a term which immediately excludes the possibility of a respectable engagement with art, this shift in perspective would represent a big change.4 Thus it is worth considering why the idea of art has been missing from the scholarship on this material so far, and why it might even still be rejected. Let us therefore examine several fundamental yet problematic assumptions underlying influential previous studies on Egyptian objects in Rome.

Fig. 2: Obsidian skyphos with vegetal design inlaid with stone, glass, coral, and gold. From Villa San Marco, Stabia. Naples, Museo Archeologico ­Nazionale. H: 8.8 cm. D: 13 cm.

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Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

Fig. 3: Egyptian gods inlaid as frieze on “Egyed Hydria.” Bronze inlaid with silver and gold. Found in Egyed, Hungary. 1st c. AD. Budapest, National Hungarian Museum. H: 24.3 cm.

Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

7

1.  Why “Egyptianizing”?

Several entrenched trends of art history have colored the study of Egyptian art in Rome, even up to the present day. The broader tendency to consider Egyptian material in Rome not as “art” per se – or even to treat it summarily or disparagingly, not least in the foundational scholarship1 – is rooted in various developments in the western intellectual tradition. To my mind, these developments are threefold, and stretch over as many centuries. First, the Enlightenment engendered an esteem for originality over imitation that still defines our aesthetic values, encouraging us to dismiss the Egyptian objects made in Italy as wan Roman “imitations” of Egyptian art – just as Roman art was historically dismissed for being imitative of Greek art.2 Second, the art historical hierarchy of genres in which decorative arts have long been considered “minor” has led to less regard for wall paintings, furnishings, and tableware perceived as “ornamental” than sculpture and painting considered more serious, usually political or mythological in subject. Under these circumstances, Egyptian material in Rome can only lose: for it often consists of such decorative genres considered “merely ornamental”  – whether due to a vague idea that the Romans could not possibly have been earnest about such outré pastiches, or because of an analogy to the equally undervalued modern European Egyptomania or chinoiserie.3 Alternatively, other genres such as sculpture are considered essentially too important to have had aesthetic value as well (see Part V). The statue of an Egyptian god, the assumption seems to be, must surely have served religious rather than aesthetic sentiments – categories that are presumed to be mutually exclusive. Finally, the birth of Classical Archaeology out of Philology has also had an effect.4 The vitriol directed at Egypt in ancient Roman texts may be diametrically opposed to the Romans’ evident love of Egyptian objects, but the texts are so convincing that even modern readers can be swayed. A dismissive attitude to Egyptian material in Roman contexts can easily be contracted from ancient Roman authors spouting venom about Egypt and especially Cleopatra.5

Why “Egyptianizing”?

9 Fig. 4: Roman statue of ­Arsinoe II, modeled after Ptolemaic statue. From Gardens of Sallust, Rome. Vatican City, Musei ­Vaticani. H: 240 cm.

The term “Egyptianizing” long used in the scholarship is slippery.6 In part because it has not been rigorously defined, it can be taken to mean different things.7 It is applied to objects that in some way refer to Egypt, but whose relationship to each other and to Egypt is not further defined by this term. “Egyptianizing” pieces are depictions of Egyptian subjects either in a style considered non-Egyptian, or in a style considered Egyptian, but on an object found outside of Egypt. Objects so described might include Roman-made granite statues in an Egyptian idiom (Fig. 4); fresco scenes

10

Fig. 5: Fresco of garden ­containing statues of pharaonic figures beside birdbath. Room 31, House of the Golden Bracelet, Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79. Now in the holdings of the Soprintendeza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei.

Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

featuring Egyptian flora, fauna, or figures (Fig. 5); or statuettes of figures with Egyptian attributes (Fig. 6). All of these types of object, the thinking goes, cannot be called simply “Roman” because this conveys nothing of their Egyptian content. But neither can they properly be called “Egyptian,” because often they have been found outside of Egypt – as is especially clear in the case of Roman wall painting, where there is no possibility that the object was crafted in Egypt and subsequently imported to Rome. Thus they are called “Egyptianizing,” as if they have not yet completed the process of becoming fully Egyptian.8 A special problem arises when assumptions about the ancient artist’s nationality enter the picture. “Egyptianizing” pieces are sometimes proposed to have been made by an Egyptian artist in the geographical locale of Roman Italy rather than Egypt.9 Certainly, it is possible that some of these images were made by artists who emigrated from Egypt to Roman Italy after Octavian’s conquest. Particularly court artists of Alexandria might have been brought to Rome along with the rest of Octavian’s spoils (see Part III). But this concrete possibility has not, to my knowledge, been addressed. Rather, the theory remains more of an expectation that artists express their culture (however that may be defined) through their work. Yet as Marian Feldman has pointed out, a fictional artist figure can too easily be fabricated based solely on our notion of a nationally-defined

Why “Egyptianizing”?

11 Fig. 6: Bronze statuette of male figure wearing nemes headdress. ­Bologna, ­Museo Civico ­Archeologico. H: 40 cm.

artistic style, a concept based on a modern Nationalism that emerged only in the nineteenth century.10 This method will never lead to a wrong conclusion because it is circular: the art appears to modern eyes to belong to a certain cultural tradition, therefore it must have been made by an agent from this tradition. That Roman artists had the agency and desire to practice “esthetic selection according to taste or purpose” in their appropriations of other artistic traditions is now widely accepted, but has not been fully incorporated into studies of Egyptian art in Rome. It bears repeating emphatically for this material.11 “Egyptianizing” as a term obscures the fact that Roman patrons happily collected artworks of Egyptian subjects with apparently little regard for whether they were made in Italy or imported from Egypt. While a modern viewer may be inclined to categorize some pieces as Egyptian and others as imitations, Egypt-inspired, or Egyptian-looking, the Romans had only one word to describe all of it: aegyptius, “of Egypt.”12 It is a conveniently all-embracing designation. That is, the Romans could distinguish the Egyptian artistic idiom from, say, the Greek (despite being annexed into the empire, Egypt was still seen as distinct in many ways), but they were not as concerned with differentiating Egyptian from Egyptian-looking objects as the modern scholarship is.13 That the Romans considered both locally-made and imported Egyptian imagery to occupy a single conceptual category is confirmed by evidence from the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Here a stone slab with hieroglyphic

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Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

Fig. 7: Marble statue of Isis in Archaic style. From ­portico of Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. H: 98 cm. D: 36 cm. W base: 35 cm.

text was thought to be just as suitable to the space as a marble statue of Isis in Archaic Greek style, both erected in the temple precinct (Fig. 7).14 The former was imported from Egypt, to judge from its textual content (dedicated to a priest of Horus, Sakhmet, and Amun-Re in Hnes, Egypt), while the latter could not have been, since Egypt has no source of marble.15 But both were considered appropriate. The paintings in the temple portico confirm this pattern: they depict landscapes with Egyptian shrines and fauna, felt to harmonize with the rest of the decor even though the landscapes themselves – given the suspiciously Greek-looking mountains and trees – cannot possibly represent Egypt (Fig. 79). The definitive publication of this sanctuary separates the objects into Egyptian and Egyptianizing, and even comments in surprise on how few objects actually from Egypt it contained.16 But the Romans did not make these distinctions in the outfitting of their sanctuary; they obviously felt that all elements in this ensemble were equally appropriate to the Egyptian nature of the cult itself. The term “Egyptianizing,” then, is based on a peculiarly modern set of assumptions and conveys very little information. It (needlessly) presumes but is unable to determine the artist’s place of residence or training, and it defines an object based on modern art-historical stylistic categorization rather than Roman concepts. To renounce it, therefore, is to remove

Why “Egyptianizing”?

13

an impediment to our understanding of the material. And while Molly Swetnam-Burland has set a good example by substituting less value-laden terms like “Egyptian-inspired,” the question still looms: If the Romans did not differentiate Egyptian from “Egyptianizing” material, should we? What is gained by the distinction? It might serve a study of the production of the objects, but it clouds a study of their use and reception. If the Romans considered these to be one category, perhaps we can better understand the Roman perspective on this material (and avoid distract­ ing terminology) by recognizing it as one category. Therefore the present work – deliberately and provocatively – opts to describe the corpus using a single term: “Egyptian.” In so doing, I beg our Egyptologist colleagues for their forbearance: they of course know, with an academic precision only possible in the present day, which objects were made in Egypt and follow the Egyptian canon, and which were not and do not. But this, for the present work, is not the point. The point is to better understand how the Romans encountered, used, and thought about these objects – and they simply did not use the modern Egyptological apparatus. With my controversial use of the term Egyptian, I aim to put some uncomfortable distance between us and our entrenched, modern, western perspective in order to gain a refreshingly new, and more properly Roman perspective on these very worthwhile objects. At the same time, this book makes frequent use of the term “pharaonic” in describing the Egyptian imagery. The word is meant simply to indicate that the iconography and style are typical of Egypt under the pharaohs, before the Greek invasion made Hellenistic artistic traditions a vital part of Egypt’s artistic production. In my usage, “pharaonic” would refer to, for instance, the crowns and kilts rendered in eminently legible frontal, profile, or composite perspective seen in the obsidian skyphos discovered in a Roman villa in Italy (Fig. 1), as well as in a relief at Dendera, Egypt, depicting Cleopatra and Caesarion (Fig. 8). The term “pharaonic” is meant to be distinct from the chimerical “Alexandrian” designation that has been proposed as a hybrid of pharaonic and Hellenistic art, or as a special subset of Hellenistic art, but which remains as elusive as ever.17 “Pharaonic” is also distinct from “Nilotic,” a term applied to a great wealth of paintings with vaguely riparian subjects, only sometimes with specifically Egyptian flora and fauna.18 These are excluded in the present study because – as acknowledged in the scholarship but not yet investigated – they seem to operate differently than pharaonic imagery. In both chronology and context, Nilotic scenes do not appreciably overlap with pharaonic imagery in Roman usage.19 Nilotic scenes appear much earlier than pharaonic imagery does, cropping up in mosaics in the late second and early first century BC and thriving well into the Byzantine period.20 An even more important distinction, as argued below, is that pharaonic

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Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

Fig. 8: Relief depicting Cleopatra and Caesarion wearing pharaonic crowns. Temple of Hathor, south outer wall. Dendera. 47–30 BC.

imagery often draws inspiration (in both iconography and style) from identifiable objects with which Roman artists were familiar, such as textiles and jewelry – whereas Nilotic scenes do not betray such a clear connection to precious objects. The artists, that is, conceived of and executed pharaonic imagery differently than they did other Egyptian subjects. This has to do with the availability of objects that the artists could access and use as models, which changed due to historical developments – as discussed in the following chapters.

2.  The Limits of Iconography

Another reason that the artistry of Egyptian art in Rome has been undervalued in the scholarship is a privileging of iconography. The traditional methods of studying Egyptian art in Rome have been iconographic and iconologic – that is, the identification of an image’s constituent elements (its iconography) and the analysis of their meaning in conjunction with textual and other material sources from the same period.1 These methods are indeed fundamental to much ancient art historical research, yet a few words of caution are in order. For one, privileging the iconography over, for instance, the use context of an object or its material encourages isolating the Egyptian elements in a way that allows them to be interpreted, however wrongly, as symbols. What is more, models for these symbols are often sought in pharaonic Egypt, and any resulting comparanda are taken as a guide for interpreting the Roman objects. Yet for objects used in the city of Rome, or elsewhere in the Mediterranean, their provenance outside of Egypt, as well as their modifications of pharaonic forms and materials, is an inextricable part of their significance for the people who came into contact with them. Any meaning that a putative model in Egypt may have had is irrelevant until proven otherwise. Insofar as the “Egyptianness” of these objects has led scholars to seek comparanda in Egypt, therefore, it has become a distraction. The Roman significance lies elsewhere.2 Further, the modern definitions of iconographic elements do not always coincide with the ancient ones. Sphinxes, for instance, are generally regarded as Egyptian in the scholarship on Egyptian art in Rome.3 But the Romans knew two varieties of sphinx, a Greek and an Egyptian. The Greek sphinx was associated with the riddling figure in the story of Oedipus. Augustus had a seal ring adorned with a sphinx, but this was seen by his contemporaries to allude to Greek culture rather than his Egyptian conquest – since they apparently joked that the sphinx brings riddles (aenigmata).4 Of course, some viewers may have connected the sphinx in this case to Egypt but were simply not recorded in this ancient account; meaning-making is flexible. This example serves as a cautionary

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Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

note against assuming a fixed and isolated meaning for an iconographic element defined in modern terms. The fixation on iconography has downplayed the significance of other factors like style, material, and context. Yet these too have the power to communicate, and can have a specifically Egyptian valence leveraged by Roman artists. Katja Lembke and Anne Roullet observed long ago that Romans used certain colored stones for Egyptian imagery, a phenomenon now elucidated in Sander Müskens’ excellent study.5 Interestingly, however, Roman artists never use the pharaonic style independent of an Egyptian subject matter. They apply it only to Egyptian subjects: Nilotic animals, and figures wearing pharaonic attributes. While Egyptian decor thrives in precisely the same reception and garden spaces as Greek decor, never is a cupid, satyr, or fisherman depicted in pharaonic style. For Egyptian material in Rome, then, we cannot speak of a “semantics of style” as Hölscher formulated for the various Greek artistic styles used in Roman art.6 Insofar as the pharaonic style in Rome is always conjoined with a subject from a limited pool, it is less appropriate to speak of a style at all than a category of object. We should also take notice of the Egyptian imagery that does not make it into the Roman repertoire. Frescoes show that the Egyptian elements adopted by Romans are relatively limited. Numerous subjects that are ubiquitous on Egyptian walls, for instance, never appear on Roman ones. The lack of sacrificial cattle slaughters and triumphant pharaohs stomping barbarians may not be surprising (although the “smiting” scene appears in Egypt throughout the Ptolemaic and even Roman periods), but absent too are the subjects more suited to Roman interiors, such as bevies of dancing women and charming duck hunts.7 Just so, Roman fresco never adopts the multiple registers of figures seen in Egyptian tombs and temples, nor does it devote itself wholly to an Egyptian subject or style. Instead, it deploys a carefully curated set of Egyptian elements incorporated into a standard – indeed, sometimes called quintessentially Roman8 – wall composition. Much the same can be observed in temples to Egyptian deities in Roman Italy, which never recreate Egyptian pylons or ground plans, no matter how many pharaonic-style reliefs, sculptures, and columns may decorate the complex.9 The Roman use of Egyptian art was premised not on comprehensive imitation, nor on boundless mixing or morphing, but on targeted incorporation within a Roman frame.10

3.  Hellenism and Other Inherited Mistakes

Concentrating on the iconography of Egyptian objects in Roman contexts has also lead to pointing out the differences between the presumed “original” pharaonic model and the Roman “version.” The free adaptations of Egyptian art created in the Roman Empire outside of Egypt has even led some scholars to speak of “mistakes” or “misunderstandings.” Examples include the selection of certain features of Egyptian art to deploy in combination with non-Egyptian features, the Egyptian royal fake beard depicted as a natural beard, or “forgetting” to include a back pillar.1 But really such adaptations tell us that the fake beard and back pillar simply had a different significance for the Roman artist and viewer. This shift in meaning is emphatically not an “uncomprehending distortion.”2 By definition, in fact, it is impossible for Roman artists to misinterpret their models – for as they make new imagery, they make new meaning. “Mistake” is simply a byword for an image we do not understand or agree with. Given the artistic prowess and great sums of money that the Romans put into their Egyptian art, we can be sure that they did not consider these to be mistakes. What a modern viewer may see as a pastiche or weak imitation, the Romans saw as a choate and highly respectable whole – like the Roman mode of mounting portrait heads atop idealized bodies.3 Despite our own modern aesthetic preferences, then, the Roman use of Egyptian motifs must likewise be valued as an earnest – and, given its popularity, wildly successful – engagement. Even more so because such adaptations are not unique to the Greco-Roman usurpers. As Miguel John Versluys has pointed out, “native” Egyptians too “misinterpret” canonical iconography.4 Self-aware manipulation of the visual tradition is seen in archaism, as much a feature of pharaonic Egyptian art as Roman art. In the Late and Saite Periods, Egyptian rulers consciously appropriated earlier styles in order to legitimate their place in the lineage of power, just as in the Middle Kingdom rulers drew on and modified Old Kingdom forms. They thereby created an art which itself became “classical” for later periods looking backward. Throughout this process, some aspects of the traditional pharaonic imagery naturally changed. These may be seen

18

Fig. 9: Bronze bowl decorated with lotus leaves, laurel wreath, and pharaonic crowns. Provenance unknown (bought in Kene). Late Hellenistic. Cairo, Egyptian Museum. H: 10.4 cm. D: 16 cm.

Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

today as qualitatively lesser, but this is to ignore the unmitigated impact of these pieces on their contemporary audience.5 In fact, the Egyptian material that Roman artists drew on is in part responsible for the modern consternation. Namely, the Romans looked not only to pharaonic material but also to Hellenistic Egyptian ­material – which in itself could contain modifications of older pharaonic models. Ptolemaic objects can thus appear “hybrid” to modern eyes even before the Romans got ahold of them and transformed them still further. If the rulers of Egypt themselves created “hybrid” forms, can these still be regarded as a mistake? Combining a Greek laurel-branch border with pharaonic crown motifs (Fig. 9) is no more “contradictory” than a king choosing to wear both the diadem and the pharaonic double crown. Greek and Egyptian

Hellenism and Other Inherited Mistakes

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forms were carefully deployed simultaneously for maximum effectiveness.6 When they appear in Roman contexts, then, such forms may have been inspired not only by pharaonic but also Hellenistic Greek source material, and Ptolemaic material combining both. Like the Roman worship of Egyptian gods, the Roman use of Egyptian goods is an interpretatio romana looking back in some cases to an interpretatio graeca rather than directly to pharaonic Egyptian sources.7 To go one step further, the Romans surely encountered Egyptian material (particularly from the conquered Ptolemaic palace) which to modern eyes would not appear at all “Egyptian” – in the sense of pharaonic – yet which the Romans may have strongly associated with Egypt. Ptolemy II’s pavilion and parades were full of objects and iconography which, at least from the detailed description provided by Callixeinus and mediated by Athenaeus, appeared quintessentially Greek.8 If the pavilion’s golden Delphic tripods or Sicyonian paintings were seen out of context, their connection to the Ptolemaic pavilion would not be immediately clear; but if they appeared in Octavian’s triumphal parade among the other loot from Egypt, viewers would have immediately associated them with Egypt. This associative level of meaning-making is not to be overlooked when we consider the role of Egyptian art in Rome.

4.  Egypt Three Ways

It is against this background, and in light of these complexities, that we can now turn to the three traditional readings of Egyptian art in Rome. They fall roughly into three categories: claiming that Egyptian objects represent religious devotion, political allegiance, or aspirations to high fashion. These readings have helped reify the idea that the Roman appropriation of Egyptian elements was not connected to a sincere appreciation of their artistic qualities. This is because these readings have generally been presented as more or less exclusive, as if the objects can be explained as having functioned purely religiously, or politically, or modishly. Admixtures of two or more of these realms, let alone an additional one like aesthetic appreciation or negotiations of identity, have scarcely appeared until recently.1 And while new studies focus on the variability in how objects and viewers interact, the old monolithic readings still persist. In the present book, the three traditional readings receive only minor attention in order to more efficiently explain the thesis that these objects were seen as art. Yet this is not meant as a mutually exclusive alternative to the previous readings. I do not want to suggest that religious, political, fashionable, and indeed any other motivations were not simultaneously present in the dynamic between viewer and object. To the contrary, this dynamic is a kaleidoscope of these factors and many others. It is only because the question of artistic valuation of these objects has never been considered in a sustained way that my focus lies precisely here.

a.  Believing in Religion Interpreting Egyptian objects in Rome as primarily (if not exclusively) religious was practiced largely uncriticized throughout the twentieth century. This goes for objects discovered in the city of Rome, particularly on the Palatine and the area around the Iseum Campense, as well as elsewhere in Roman Italy.2 Representative is Roullet’s framing of her study of

Egypt Three Ways

21

“the Egyptian and Egyptianizing Monuments of Imperial Rome” through the spread of Egyptian religion.3 As early as the 1930  s Matteo Della Corte set a similar tone for Egyptian material discovered in Pompeii, proposing that the figure of an Isiac priest painted in the House of Octavius Quartio (then called the House of Loreius Tiburtinus) represented the homeowner, and so the dozens of large storage vessels in the garden must have held sacred Nile water for use in Isiac ritual. As late as 1995 the dining room of this house was still called “the Isis sanctuary.”4 The conviction that Egyptian art in Rome must be religious has led to some desperately convoluted arguments. Karl Schefold, for instance, suggested that the Egyptian frescoes in the Villa of Agrippa Postumus at Boscotrecase were related to Isiac cult. But because they were roughly contemporaneous with the ban on Isiac cult in Rome, he concluded with consternation that they must have flouted imperial law, and could only have existed because “the artists could not do without them.” Alfred Grimm proposed an unlikely alternative: the paintings were perhaps chosen by the emperor’s daughter Julia as “conscious opposition to her traditionalist and moralist father.”5 While not impossible, neither explanation is as likely as one that does not require the emperor’s family to defy imperial orders. The trend continued in the early 2000  s, despite new scholarship opposing such religious interpretations.6 Most prominently, a magisterial exhibition by Stefano De Caro sought to trace an evolution in the Roman reception of Egypt across nine centuries, defined by the “new beliefs” adopted from Egyptian cult.7 Thus in De Caro’s view, religion is the backdrop for understanding all Egyptian material in Italy, from the earliest Egyptian trinkets found in eighth-century BC graves to the Pygmy paintings in late first-century AD houses. But the assembled material, instead of presenting the desired unified picture, shows just how little of the material was used religiously. The first Egyptian imports to Italy are paltry scarab stones, beads, and lumpy statuettes of demons that were placed in graves. These seem indeed to have served an apotropaic or ritual purpose,8 but they have nothing to do with the bulk of the material treated in the rest of the catalog and in the broader scholarship on Egyptian objects in Rome. The vessels, paintings, statues, jewelry, textiles, and other objects from the imperial period are generally not only larger, more finely worked, and made in more precious materials, but also emerge hundreds of years after the grave goods were deposited. In the intervening gap, no continuous trend of Egyptian imports to Rome is detectable.9 The Egyptian objects on the Italian peninsula in the eighth century BC are not part of the same phenomenon as those in the first century BC. At the same time, we shall see that some Egyptian objects could have held a religious connotation for their Roman viewers – but this requires careful explanation. A religious connotation is not to be confused with a

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Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

religious usage. Many objects were prized by Romans for a certain sacral aura without referring in any way to a specific religious belief or practice on the part of the owner. Such an aura seems to have been desirable in Roman decoration, in which Greek objects too could be chosen for a religious effect within the decorative scheme.10 In this book we shall see that the same held for Egyptian objects. Of course, some objects were unequivocally used in cult, whether Egyptian or Greek.11 But many, as we shall see, were not. Rather, religious and artistic were overlapping categories, not mutually exclusive ones. The very qualities that led an object to be prized by collectors made it a suitable votive: its beauty, value, and significance. So although the Enlightenment may have taught us to separate religion from other areas of life (especially from the State), this is not reflective of ancient thinking. Religion was so imbricated in Roman life that it is not necessary, and perhaps not even possible, to try to isolate objects related to religion from those unrelated to it.12

b.  Fashionable for Centuries Another attempt to make sense of Egyptian objects in Rome – sometimes as a reaction against the religious readings – construes them as products of fashion.13 For several reasons, this needs to be reconsidered. Often the term “fashion” or the idea of being “purely decorative” is used as a convenient, succinct substitute for the religious and political readings of Egyptian motifs now often found lacking.14 Included in this reading are comparisons with modern European chinoiserie, a further disservice to the material because chinoiserie too (objects that represent Chinese subjects and styles in European contexts, most commonly nineteenth-century household decor) has long been defined, and dismissed, as mere modishness.15 The comparison therefore frames both sets of material as simplistic fashion trends that require no further explanation. Parallels with Egyptomania and Orientalism in modern Europe might be fruitful, but only if used in a sustained analysis. Fashion as an explanation for the Egyptian motifs is generally envisioned as functioning in one of two ways: either as an autonomous and ineluctable force, or a purely personal preference.16 Both of these construe fashion as the work of a single agent, one who acts independently from historical context. If fashion is an autonomous force, the thinking goes, its fluctuations are simply sui generis and require no further explanation. If it is instead driven by personal preferences – and transient ones at that – it reflects nothing more than the whims of single individuals. In either case, no more can be said about the significance of the “fashion” – it is a closed hermeneutic loop, referring to nothing outside itself.

Egypt Three Ways

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Fashion, however, is not a lone active agent. It both drives and reflects a series of choices made by people, and these people in turn are influenced by historical circumstances.17 It is therefore as historically contingent as any other aspect of material culture, molded by political, social, and ideological institutions, and acting upon these institutions – exactly as “art” does.18 Although “decoration” is still often classified separately from “art,” and its shifts over time are labeled “fashion” instead of “artistic change” or “development,” it is an equally significant category of material culture that is just as inextricable from its co-agents and historical context.19 Fashion presents not an answer but a series of questions: “How do successful fashions begin? Why do certain fashions emerge at the particular moment they do, while other potential fashions never emerge at all?”20 Not only, then, does the concept of fashion lack explanatory power: it itself is the phenomenon requiring explanation. What is more, I would argue that Egyptian elements in Rome do not constitute a fashion at all, because the term presupposes a short duration. Fashion has long been defined by transience. Oscar Wilde wrote, “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”21 Even in the ancient world, fashion hairstyles in Roman women’s portraiture last less than a generation, and sometimes even change markedly within a single woman’s lifetime.22 But Egyptian subjects in Roman art are popular for so long that they must have resonated deeply with generations of Roman patrons, far more than a transient fashion trend.

c.  Politics at the Dinner Table One of the most popular ongoing ways to interpret Egyptian art in Rome is as an expression of support for Augustan politics. Specifically, the objects are said to reflect Octavian’s victory at Actium in 31 BC and Rome’s annexation of Egypt in 30 BC – and sometimes even to symbolize the victory of Rome over Alexandria or the battle at Actium.23 This goes for objects whose relation to politics, and especially Octavian’s conquest, is distant at best – far from the capital city, dated to nearly a century after the conquest of Egypt, and not associated with any known personage, political or otherwise. Most notable are the readings of Egyptian imagery in Pompeian houses of the first century AD. The hypothesis is that homeowners throughout the Italian peninsula chose decorative motifs with a political message. Particularly in the domestic context, however, a political valence seems improbable, as Romans discuss these spaces explicitly as retreats from politics.24 These readings emerge not only out of an overabundance of evidence concerning elite male political actors, but specifically out of an emperor-

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Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

centrism in the history of Roman art. Early in the life of the discipline, a focus on state relief and portraiture encouraged the development of methods that connect political events and figures with the material evidence.25 This is a productive approach for this material. But the temptation has been to take this mode, so fruitful for these genres, and to apply it to the study of all Roman art – including the decorative arts that had not yet received much attention by the time the procedures of the field were codified. This urge is so strong that it continues to mold textbooks of Roman art, which are still almost always organized by political dynasty rather than by theme, context, genre, or geographic region.26 In the same vein is Roullet’s introduction of “Egyptianizing” imagery, structured around each emperor’s proposed role in spreading Egyptian religion and iconography.27 Yet we must be careful about when this emperor-centrism is appropriate. Eric Moormann has pointed out that in political readings of Roman wall painting, the benefit of hindsight and a panoptic perspective has encouraged scholars to reconstruct certain histories with emphasis on elements that, in the ancient period, may have been far less perceptible.28 Penelope Davies has even proposed that the Actian reading of Egyptian imagery reflects the effect of Augustan propaganda on scholars themselves, Augustus’ claims to domination so effective that his victory is read into more monuments today than in his own day.29 Relying on sources, whether textual or archaeological, that only preserve select details is an inherent problem of our field that we can only mitigate if we recognize it. While I oppose a political reading of these paintings, then, I do not mean to suggest that they have no relation to the conquest of Egypt. There is an observable change in the Egyptian material in Roman Italy around 35–25 BC, precisely the time of the conquest.30 How the conquest concretely affected the material culture is the focus of Part III, part of the new direction proposed here.

5.  New Direction

The following investigation expands the possibilities for understanding this material by arguing that Egyptian art was used in Rome as art. It does so based on the mechanisms by which the objects were acquired and displayed. These mechanisms become a lens to understand the objects’ significance. Each part of this book, II–V, focuses on one mechanism and one or two genres of object. Part II introduces the place of Egyptian objects in Roman collecting culture by means of the best-preserved evidence for how collectors displayed their treasures: wall painting. Roman fresco painters depicted precious objects on the walls as part of their standard repertoire, from silver vessels to statues to textiles, transforming three-dimensional objects into two-dimensional decoration. This was already standard for the Greek objects flooding into Rome in the second century BC; and starting around 35–25 BC, it characterized Egyptian objects as well. Egyptian objects in the most precious materials of the day feature among these representations, hinting that they were highly desirable collectibles. The frescoes thus act as a unique source of evidence for precious items that were once common in Rome but have since vanished from the archaeological record – whether reused, melted down, hidden for safekeeping and never recovered, or simply subject to disintegration over time. Of course, fresco compositions depart from reality in their own way. They are not a photograph of the things they purport to represent (even documentary photographs are biased).1 But interestingly, how the frescoes transform the objects they depict into something even more luxurious is a product itself of collecting culture.2 Part II demonstrates this for the wall paintings of one important case study, the Upper Cubiculum in the so-called House of Augustus (whose problematic attribution is discussed there). Close examination reveals that these paintings depict two great genres of collector’s treasure, the focal points of this chapter: jewelry and candelabra. This book pays unprecedented attention to the physical material of these objects because the material qualities and context of an object can tell us what iconography cannot – namely, that Egyp-

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Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

tian objects belong in the frame of Roman collecting culture, as Greek objects do. Where did Roman collectors acquire this new Egyptian material – as well as their desire for it? Noting the first appearance of this material in Rome around 35–25 BC, Part III argues that a crucial mechanism was the triumphal procession after Octavian’s conquest of Egypt. Prior scholarship has taken for granted the connection between Egyptian material in Rome and Octavian’s conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, implying an ineluctable yet diffuse political influence on the visual arts. Part  III argues that the conquest itself did lead to Egyptian material in Rome, but differently than assumed. The catalyst was Octavian’s triple triumph. The triumph featured an unprecedented wealth of precious goods which, paraded before a dazzled Roman audience, became desirable and attainable as never before. Seen in this light, the conquest and triumph were pivotal to artistic production – not because they produced an iconography of triumph that was then taken up in Roman houses, but because Romans grew familiar with these objects, acquired them, and ultimately wanted them depicted in paint on their walls, just as they did Greek objects since long before. Octavian’s Egyptian conquest resulted in so much Egyptian material flooding into Rome that this historical event, particularly the triumph, revolutionized the artistic landscape in Rome.3 The focal genres of this section are precious vessels and tables – perhaps unexpected items in a list of treasures today, but for the Romans quite important. Especially so because the Ptolemies’ fantastic furnishings for banqueting, processed as spolia, would have inspired Romans seeking to create a beautiful, cultured oasis for their own meetings with acquaintances over food and drink. This chapter shows how Octavian’s triumph concretely operated as a mechanism to deliver art from Egypt to patrons in Roman Italy. It is worth stressing that just because a political act enabled their arrival in Rome does not mean that these artworks bore a political reference when deployed in Roman contexts thereafter.4 Such an interpretation would rest on a modern confusion about art and spolia. The Romans were not confused about this. Conquering generals seized artworks and other booty by the boatload during their campaigns, and paraded them through the streets of Rome as a display of their conquest. Yet while the spolia in triumphs were often works of art – even artistic masterpieces – this neither reduced these artworks into simple symbols of conquest, nor implied that all artworks, however similar to those paraded in triumph, were spolia. “Spolium” is not a genre of object; it is a phase in an object’s life, defined by a context. The artworks were spolia while they were paraded in triumph; but prior to that, they had been simply artworks, and afterward, what they inspired artists to create and patrons to acquire was art, not spolia. Although some Romans will certainly have read Egyptian objects in terms

New Direction

27

of the conquest and triumph, these viewers were probably not in the majority.5 Thus there is some value in linking the political events with the Egyptian material in Rome, but not in the way that has been thought so far. Rome’s conquest of Egypt resulted in not only the short-term effects of Octavian’s triumph, but also the long-term effects of Roman rule in Egypt – the subject of Part IV. Foremost among these was the proliferation of trade networks in the Mediterranean. This topic is so well-researched in some fields that to many archaeologists and historians it may seem old hat. Yet these methods have not been brought to bear on the study of Egyptian material in Rome, which until now has been considered mostly from art-historical and religious-historical perspectives rather than an economic or movement-theory one.6 Part IV shows how the new, feverish circulation of objects fed both supply and demand. Questions about the circulation of objects and the “object biography” approach have certainly long been part of art-historical inquiry, but this book examines circulation on a larger scale, zooming out in order to see object movement in terms of economic factors and major historical events.7 The exemplary object genre here is textiles. That Egyptian objects were acquired in exactly the same ways as Greek ones were – in the same trade of luxury goods and artworks – reinforces the notion that the Romans considered Egyptian objects to belong to these same categories. Part  V considers statuary, the type of Egyptian object perhaps most resistant to arguments about art and luxury goods. Because statues have traditionally held a special place in the art-historical canon as an exceptionally esteemed art form – in contrast to mere decoration or even painting – Egyptian statues have been read as a more respectable engagement with Egypt than many other Egyptian genres in Rome.8 In this case, respectable tends to be equated with religious. Thus Egyptian statues in Rome are more likely to be considered religious in function than paintings, furnishings, or jewelry with Egyptian subjects. But this chapter examines Egyptian statues in context to reveal that they often come from gardens, the Roman collector’s paradise.9 In these surrounds, the mechanism of display suggests that the statues were considered artworks. They may quite possibly have had the sacral aura so sought-after in Roman décor, but an actual religious use is, in many cases, not implied. For again, the usage usually cannot be determined based on the statue alone, but only by its context. In gardens, Egyptian statues most likely were intended to enhance a life of otium – that is, of pleasure and well-being – in the same way the numerous wall paintings of such objects in garden settings did, and the same way that Greek sculptures did. Thus, although the Romans’ motivations for acquiring and displaying Egyptian objects will have been as numerous and diverse as the individuals, several generalization can be made. We will see over the coming

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Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art

chapters that the preciousness of the materials and the virtuosic artistry of the Egyptian objects collected in Rome speaks to their value as artworks. The mechanisms of their acquisition do the same. And finally, so do their display contexts. A connotation of religiosity certainly enhanced the Roman esteem for Egyptian objects, but did not prescribe a religious usage. Above all, the Romans wanted Egyptian art because it was beautiful, because it could conjure pleasurable associations, and because, in so doing, it could positively contribute to their own constructions of self. That is, because it was art.

II.  The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

How I propose to understand Egyptian artifacts in Rome can be introduced with one particularly salient case study which simultaneously serves as a methodological advisory. The frescoes in the Upper Cubiculum of the so-called “House of Augustus” in Rome (Fig. 10) contain painted Egyptian motifs which constitute one of the great textbook examples of Egyptian art in Rome. In this chapter, too, they serve as an outstanding example of the corpus. We thus begin with a careful investigation of the walls, more attentive to the details than any previous study has been. For while the Egyptian content of the paintings has often been mentioned, it has rarely been discussed beyond the most basic iconography. In so doing, the present examination shows how isolating the iconography from its surrounding context has allowed these elements to be incorrectly interpreted as symbols. If the standard iconography-based treatment of Egyptian art in Rome cannot hold even for the canonical example, the approach needs an overhaul. In fact, these motifs are depicted with shadows and details emphasizing their three-dimensionality, and are integrated into a Second-Style composition just like other precious objects whose presence indeed defines this Style. They are depicted as actual objects, placed around the room to be admired among the other precious items both two- and three-dimensional. Such fresco compositions are illusionistic versions of collectors’ showrooms.1 Shifting our investigative focus from iconography to artistic devices and context thus allows us to see a bigger historical picture of which these Egyptian objects are a part: Roman collecting culture. This starting point provides a very necessary reminder of the variety and lavishness that characterized elite object collections, including Egyptian objects. These are captured in the paintings in all their splendor, in gleaming gold and sparkling precious stones. They also range in size and type from minutely worked jewelry to towering candelabra, sculpture, panel paintings, glassand metalware, and textiles. Jewelry and candelabra are investigated in depth in this chapter. That Egyptian objects feature prominently among the treasures depicted in fresco indicates that Romans held Egyptian art in high aesthetic esteem, and considered it to be a suitable enhancement to their most elegant spaces and furnishings. In addition, this method lays the groundwork for the subsequent chapters in establishing wall painting as a valuable source of evidence about Egyptian objects. Although it is easy to forget, these paintings depict no mere abstract dreamscapes or designs, but reproduce real three-dimensional items that actually existed in Roman art collections – objects that sometimes even stood within the same rooms that the painters were deco-

Fig. 10: Overall view of frescoed walls in Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” facing east. Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

rating. Recognizing the close parallels between the painted and real treasures allows us to use the paintings to learn more about precious materials that have long since disappeared.

1.  The Upper Cubiculum Shows off its Riches

On the southwest side of the Palatine Hill in Rome stand the remains of a peristyle house, the so-called “House of Augustus” (the attribution and eponym of this house are problematic; here, a connection to Augustus is neither assumed nor excluded).2 In the relatively small Upper Cubiculum on the second floor of this house is a cycle of superbly executed paintings. Formally they belong to the Second Style defined by August Mau and Hendrik Beyen, popular in Roman Italy from ca. 75–10 BC.3 The paintings follow the typical tripartite division of the walls and illusionistic architectural elements framing large panel paintings at the center of each wall. The lower zone is predominantly black with a white molding below and a yellow one above. In an extra twist of illusionism, the white molding abuts an illusionistic floor surface that appears to extend the real floor. The upright panels in the main zone give way to large-format mythological landscape paintings on white panels in the center of each wall, now severely faded. In the upper zone, a yellow ground sets off floriform stalks with outstretched tendrils. To either side, segments of friezes and cornices sit atop red bases. More vegetal forms stand upon the cornices and stretch up to the top of the wall, as if holding up the thin green band that marks the transition to the stucco ceiling. As a whole, this painting scheme perfectly conforms to the Second Style of wall painting known from many other examples. Even if the Upper Cubiculum is one of the finest extant examples of its kind, it by no means breaks the mold – every aspect of the design finds parallels in other examples of Second Style. The Egyptian-themed elements woven into the decoration are numerous, but have not been sufficiently addressed in detail and in context. Even the definitive publications of these paintings do not present the decoration fully or accurately, yet the integration of these elements into the composition is crucial for interpreting them.4 The fact that they are a minute component of the fresco composition, and that they join many non-Egyptian elements on the walls, speaks against the bald symbolism previously suggested for them. Their vegetalization and other artistic transformations

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The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

Fig. 11: Detail of south wall: black frieze with crowns and bells, silver pitcher with vegetal decoration and uraeus handle. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

The Upper Cubiculum Shows off its Riches

35

have also been ignored, although these are key to understanding them. By looking closely, we will see repeatedly that these elements have been so radically modified away from their pharaonic models that they require a new interpretation, not simply that of the pharaonic models transposed upon them. Among the more noticeable Egyptian motifs are those based on pharaonic crowns, woven into the narrow black frieze that runs around the walls above the orthostates. The motifs vary from wall to wall as well as within the same wall. The back wall features the same set of motifs along its length, while the side walls are divided down the middle; the friezes along their eastern extents mirror each other, and on their western extents likewise. On the eastern extent of the south wall, the frieze contains a row of motifs vaguely modeled on the pharaonic “Horus feather crown” (Fig. 11). This type of double-feather (shuty) crown, depicted as an attribute of Egyptian pharaohs from the Fourth Dynasty onward, generally consists of two feathers standing on ram horns and flanked by cow horns.5 Cleopatra is shown wearing the Horus feather crown in a relief on the outer wall of the Hathor temple in Dendera, Egypt (Fig. 8): standing behind the next pharaoh, Caesarion, she wears a crown with two pillar-like feathers overlain by a pair of upright curving cow horns. A large solar disc sits between the cow horns, sprouting from a modius (a blocklike base). The two tall, straight, smoothly tapering feathers – perhaps falcon feathers – are distinct from the ostrich feathers which occur elsewhere in the paintings, discussed below, recognizable from their curved sides and lobes at the tips.6 In the black frieze of the Upper Cubiculum, the whimsical reimagining of the Horus feather crown preserves the erect pair of feathers but reduces them to a skinny shaft with a groove down the center. Although stylized, this motif is not an obelisk, as the two definitive publications would have it, but a crown.7 The cow horns are recast as curlicues and playfully exaggerated, now more numerous (four instead of two), longer (nearly as tall as the feathers), and curlier (one pair twisting inward, the other outward) than any cow horns. A vestigial solar disc sits at the base, now a gemlike red or green circle that enhances the jewelry-like effect of the golden “feathers” and “horns.” A gold disc reduced to a near pinpoint sits atop the feathers. Blue wings spread gracefully upward to either side, perhaps a fully-fledged version of the two sideswept ears of grain that can be paired with this crown, as worn by bronze statuettes of Isis from Roman Italy (Fig. 12) – but such large wings are unprecedented in extant statuettes. The delicate jewelry-like appearance of the crown motifs is enhanced by the whimsical baubles surrounding them, a line of inverted bells whose pearl-like clappers stretch skywards; these fantastical ornaments, it seems,

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The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

Fig. 12: Bronze statuette of Isis wearing shuty crown. Likely from Rome. 1st c. AD. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, An­ti­ken­sammlung. H: 14.5 cm.

can defy gravity. Like the crown motifs, they may be a recognizable reproduction of a real-world model, but they have been transposed to a purely fantastical realm. Variations on the same Horus feather crown appear in other parts of the black frieze. Those on the western extent of the side walls feature a massively enlarged solar disc topped again by a shaft of “feathers” (Fig. 13). Two uraeus snakes wearing lotus-flower ornaments on their heads cling to the disc. Further removing the crown motif from its pharaonic model and placing it instead in the realm of ornament is the arabesque tripod on which it stands, one leg formed by a dangling pendant, the other two by bombastic branching swirls. Lion griffins to either side grasp the tendrils in their paws. Two more variations of double-feather crown appear in the frescoes. One is the atef crown, the longest-lived crown in Egyptian art, appearing from the early Old Kingdom through the Ptolemaic period.8 In the New Kingdom it is embellished with further symbols that earn it a new name, the anedtj crown, which likewise appears in the paintings. Both versions

The Upper Cubiculum Shows off its Riches

37

are illustrated in a relief depiction of Ptolemy XII on the pylon of the Horus Temple at Edfu (Fig. 14). The atef crown consists of a bundle of reeds cinched near the top, producing a flaring tip, and ostrich feathers with lobed tips that flank the reed bundle to either side. Often the reed core of the crown is smoothed into a bowling pin shape neatly framed by the two ostrich feathers.9 A crown of the anedtj type – the atef crown supplemented here mainly by a solar disc – is thematized in the Upper Cubiculum as an acroterium of sorts, surmounting the vegetal pediments of the aediculae and partial aediculae or syzygiae on the side walls (Fig. 15).10 Here the crown motif is so integrated into the twisting, organic ornament that it almost seems to be the head of a vegetalized creature, a swamp thing with winding tentacles. It is very plainly no longer a pharaonic headdress.11 Another variation on the anedtj crown appears in the black-ground frieze on the back wall.12 An oversized solar disc at the base is topped by a tapering central core and two gently wilting feathers. They are painted in

Fig. 13: Detail of black frieze with crowns and griffins on south wall. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

38

The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

Fig. 14: Temple of Horus, pylon, western extent: relief depicting Ptolemy XII smiting enemies. Edfu. 57 BC.

Fig. 15: Shuty crown as acroterium on north wall. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

a gold tone and feature a jewel in the center of the solar disc, like jewelry. They alternate with bells and flowers, linked into a chain by looping stems that accentuate their elegance (Fig. 16). Just above the frieze, a final variation demonstrates how extensively the wall painters modified their pharaonic models. The crown motif occupying the red podia in the upper register, lacking a solar disc, is so distorted as to be nearly unrecognizable. The reed core is merely a rough triangle with a flaring tip, and the two ostrich feathers do not cleave to it but splay outwards. Two more protrusions below the “feathers” may imitate the uraei of the anedtj, but only vaguely. Supporting the whole ensemble, sweeping out in large arcs, are two arms that somewhat recall ram’s horns – twisted, wide-set, and pointed, as in the Ptolemy XII relief – or perhaps uraei, as they widen at the upraised (head) end and wear a cluster of three recurving

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39

petals as uraei often do. Yet to even discern the crownlike elements within this vegetal concoction, we have to turn to a comparandum in the Aula Isiaca, located on the Palatine relatively near the Upper Cubiculum and likely decorated around the same time (Fig. 17).13 A white-ground frieze encircling the tops of the walls features the familiar alternating crown motifs and flowers linked via a series of looping stems. The feathers in the crown motifs are easier to discern, carefully detailed with lines indicating barbs, and the uraei flanking the crown are more recognizable as snakes, meticulously shaded and detailed. They adopt the same rearing pose and three-petaled head ornament as the spreading arms of the Upper Cubiculum example, and are similarly bound with towers of vegetation. But in fact this last crown motif in the Upper Cubiculum has not only been vegetalized to the brink of recognition, it has been utterly transformed: for the painter has made this crown out of ibises. Their long beaks are so fine as to be nearly invisible, allowing their curving necks and head to more closely resemble uraei. Their tail feathers, pointing straight upward, form the core of the crown, their wings the ostrich feathers to each side. The reference to pharaonic headgear is deeply buried within this formidable vegetal-animal hybrid.

Fig. 16: Detail of black panel and black frieze with crowns on east wall. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

40

Fig. 17: Fresco of shuty crowns and uraeus snakes on east wall. Aula Isiaca, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

Could the pharaonic crown imagery in the frescoes indeed represent triumph? If so, we might expect similar imagery in Augustan victory monuments – but there is none.14 This is remarkable particularly because Octavian touted his war as a crusade against Egypt rather than his onetime brother Antony;15 we might therefore expect to see a forceful use of Egyptian imagery on the monuments, intent on driving away any notion that the war was fought against another Roman citizen. Yet as far as we know, Octavian never erected a monument that specifically commemorated his conquest of Alexandria. Instead, he erected numerous monuments to his victory at Actium. And even in the Actian monuments, Octavian chose not to deploy pharaonic iconography. His victory monuments offer no parallels whatsoever to the frescoes in the Upper Cubiculum.16 The one unmistakably pharaonic piece of imagery that the princeps demonstrably appropriated for himself in Rome was the obelisk, inexplicably twenty years after the conquest.17 And as it happens, even obelisks may have had another, non-political use as artworks, as argued in Part V. Could the crown motifs then be intended to represent victory in the form of spolia, as has been suggested?18 Stacks of spolia do in fact appear in Roman wall painting with some frequency, in a period precisely coeval with the Upper Cubiculum paintings. The atrium of the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii contains a frieze of shields, helmets, and weapons of all kinds.19 Among the swords and shields is a pelta; beside it, a helmet in a pointed eastern shape. Another elegant example decorates the stuccoed ceiling in the Villa of the Papyri, dated to the later first century AD. Shields of all sorts lie in a jumble, overlapping and leaning against each other; axes, spears, and swords protrude willy-nilly; and miniature helmets, greaves, and a cuirass balance atop and beside the heap. Other frescoes in this period depict individual helmets and shields on the walls, particularly in gardens, as if they have been hung up on nails. Roman wall painters, then,

The Upper Cubiculum Shows off its Riches

41

knew very well how to depict spolia. Paintings of spolia include weapons and armor; the depicted objects remain strictly limited to the trappings of war. By contrast, the Upper Cubiculum depicts crowns. Crowns find no equivalent whatsoever in other representations of spolia: the only headgear represented at all among the spolia are helmets, but these are just more pieces of armor, not ceremonial headdresses and royal insignia. The second major difference separating the Upper Cubiculum crowns from depictions of spolia is not what is depicted but how it is depicted. Certainly, the detail and precision of the pharaonic motifs in the Upper Cubiculum suggests that the painters drew on some concrete source material to create their whimsical versions of the crowns. But the crowns are hybridized with plants and even animals, abstracted into patterns, displaced into fantasy. The spolia, for their part, are painted in an illusionistic mode, meant to look like real shields and helmets. In the friezes they are solid, lying heavily atop one another. Moreover, they are deliberately jumbled, probably to create an impression of great quantity.20 Gravity is assumed here as it is not in the Upper Cubiculum paintings: not only do the pharaonic crown motifs float in their black abyss, joined by bells whose clappers defy gravity, but they are arranged into a perfectly ordered pattern, each element precisely placed and highly stylized. There is no whiff of disorder to create a “reality effect” as in the spolia friezes. These are not depictions of crowns, but creative reimaginings of crowns. Even though this has been noticed in the past,21 it has not subdued the presumption of pharaonic iconography as a supposedly triumphal symbol.

2.  How Art Collections Become Frescoes

Although the crowns cannot represent spolia, the search for three-dimensional models of some sort behind the paintings goes in the right direction. For although Roman wall paintings have long been recognized to depict fine things, this is far from the whole story. In fact, the paintings depict not simply fantastical objects suited to the cultivated lifestyle of the homeowner, but objects drawn from real life – and sometimes from the very house they decorate. This mechanism of inter-generic imitation has not earned due attention, although it has been masterfully argued by Sara Yerkes for late Second- and Third-Style paintings.1 Just as the frescoes reproduce Greek artworks prized by Roman collectors, so too do they show the Egyptian artworks. This fact deserves our utmost attention, particularly in light of what it can tell us about the depicted objects and their uses. Ancient painters make clear their mode of creating two-dimensional paintings based on three-dimensional models by consistently juxtaposing the two. Frescoes can be paired with their real-world counterparts. The Corinthian oecus in the House of the Labyrinth in Pompeii, for instance, contains real stucco columns that are echoed by the sturdy golden columns in the frescoes (Fig. 18). Garden spaces in Pompeii are regularly filled with both real plants and frescoes of plants.2 Garlands painted in household lararia reflect the practice of hanging actual garlands in the shrines, just as the larger garlands illusionistically strung along whole walls imitate real leafy garlands in festival settings. Eric Moormann has shown that the Third-Style fresco decoration of numerous Roman temples usually included candelabra, reflections of the luxury furnishings that stood nearby.3 The play of 3-D and 2-D is ubiquitous. It is easy to lose sight of this fact, since modern discussions of especially Second-Style wall painting usually highlight its theatrical and larger-thanlife qualities rather than its realism – architectural views imitate Hellenistic palaces or theaters, the Fourth Style is a “folly” of surrealism4 – but the paintings nonetheless make constant reference to the painters’ visual encounters.

How Art Collections Become Frescoes

43 Fig. 18: Juxtaposition of threedimensional columns with fresco of columns. ­Corinthian oecus, House of the Labyrinth, Pompeii. Ca. 50 BC.

Accordingly, the stone delicacies of choice for collectors of the first century BC are the same that dominate their First-Style frescoes.5 Precisely at the time that Roman collectors were seeking out stone columns, the First Pompeian Style of wall painting represents the same in stucco – stone columns, veneer, and ashlar blocks. These imitations are not only fully molded in three dimensions – the profile edges of the stone “blocks,” the pilasters and pilaster capitals are all individually shaped – but brightly painted too, often even with patterns meant to recall the veins and speckles of real stone. This is evident for instance in the well-preserved vestibules and atria of the House of the Faun in Pompeii and the House of the Samnite in Herculaneum, where large stone blocks are imitated in brilliant colors, and the dentil cornices and fluted columns protrude prominently from the walls.6 A phenomenal degree of care went into molding these stucco elements in order for them to imitate their models as closely as possible; for any stray stroke of the carving tool, any unsightly crumb of stucco would betray the true nature of the material. Precision was required to copy the necessarily massive and smooth surfaces of stone architecture.

44

The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

Fig. 19: Imitation of costly stone in Second-Style fresco. House of the Griffins, Rome. Ca. 75 BC.

The precision of the coloristic rendering too (nearly every type of stone is identifiable) highlights the status of these stone elements as real, costly objects. The centrality of stone continues in early Second-Style paintings (ca. 75 BC) while dispensing with the three-dimensional stucco modeling. On a completely flat wall, they reproduce stone architecture using fresco alone. The House of the Griffins in Rome (Fig. 19) illustrates the transition from the First Style to this new two-dimensional rendering of the precious materials. In the main zone, alternating panels are detailed with waves and daubs imitating alabaster; in the upper zone are oblong rectangles of a deep serpentine green. The dado shows off stone in a different way, opting not for opulent expanses of veneer but rather a technically virtuosic opus sectile (cut stone) imitation. Standing in front of all this are offwhite columns with red bands circling the shaft, polished dark gray bases reflecting the light, and unusual volute capitals with red accents. Significant effort has gone into the pedestals supporting the columns, whose basketweave pattern has been painstakingly rendered in perspective in order to create the illusion of depth. The dramatic foreshortening emphasizes their concrete, tangible nature. Again, the desire to point up the three-dimensional models that inspired the paintings is overwhelming. Understanding that Roman wall painters draw from life, we can hardly be surprised that such flagrantly expensive columns existed in three dimensions as well. Ancient texts attest a craze for actual column-collecting. The most outrageously acquisitive members of the Roman elite at this time installed massive imported stone columns not only in grandiose buildings dedicated publicly, but in their own houses. L. Licinius Crassus (governor of multiple provinces in 94 BC) erected twelve-foot Hymettan marble columns in his atrium; M. Aemilius Scaurus (the great general Pompey’s agent in the Levant in the 60  s BC) transported a number of immense

How Art Collections Become Frescoes

45

columns from the backdrop of his theater to his Tusculan villa in 58 BC; and Mamurra (a collaborator of Julius Caesar’s) pioneered the use of columns exclusively in marble to adorn his house, as well as marble veneer for all the walls. The powerful general and collector L. Licinius Lucullus, famed for his successes in the Third Mithridatic War (73–63 BC), was also so notorious for importing an exotic new marble that the stone came to be called marmor luculleum after him.7 Pliny bemoans the shift from the erstwhile use of stone columns out of sheer practicality (to hold up the roof) to their new use for sheer splendor (lautitiae causa).8 This is, of course, typical Plinian wistfulness for a more parsimonious past; but far from pure fantasy, it points to an increase in the far-flung varieties of imported stone and the frequency of their use in elite Roman villas. For such superlative collectors, columns may have been precious goods of unusual size, but precious goods they remained – and they were accordingly treated as markers of great wealth and taste, just like smaller treasures. In fact, stone columns could be made even more precious by the addition of gold vines wound around them and gilded bronze capitals. Deep red pilasters with gilded bronze capitals appear in the Odyssey Frieze from Rome, while blazing red columns encircled with golden vines figure in the Boscoreale cubiculum (Fig. 20). These examples make clear that painters preferentially depict costly stone elements because they are much more than simply architecture: they are collector’s treasures. The illusionistic columns in the foregrounds of many early Second-Style walls may serve a nominal weight-bearing function in the illusionistic scheme, but more important is how they are highlighted as beautiful objects. Their fine fluting and elaborate capitals unite them with the imitation veneer in their status as expensive items, emphasized through golden attachments that gild the lily. Such stone columns embellished with gold also existed in three-dimensional versions. In the second century BC, Cnaius Octavius commemorated his naval victory over Perseus by dedicating a double portico with bronze-topped columns near the Circus Flaminius. Agrippa’s Pantheon apparently had similar columns.9 Pliny notes that such bronze architectural additions were seeping into private contexts as well, bringing them even closer in connection to the wall paintings. What is more, the Flaminian portico earned the nickname “Corinthian” because of its capitals – the name usually applied to precious bronze statuettes, one of the most rapaciously sought-after collectibles in Rome.10 That such decorative bronze capitals were equated, even if ironically, with these superb collector’s items is indicative of their status for Roman tastemakers. Depicting these stone creations in paint not only reduces their bulk to a size that can fit into any room, but also increases their preciosity through the clever artistry of illusionism (discussed in the following section).

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Fig. 20: Second-Style fresco depicting columns with gilded bronze capitals, gilded bronze vegetal ornament, and ­gemstones. From Villa of P. Fannius Synistor, ­Boscoreale. Ca. 50–40 BC. New York, The ­Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Recognizing stone architectural elements as collector’s treasures means revising the standard understanding of the stone depicted in Second-Style wall painting. According to the standard argument, lavish stone vistas (Fig. 21) must have fulfilled the Roman eagerness to follow Hellenistic precedent by evoking Hellenistic palaces.11 To be sure, this would have allowed the Roman homeowners to conjure a setting appropriate to the elite, worldly, cultured lifestyle they sought to cultivate. Yet these depictions had much more to offer their patrons and viewers than simply that. To judge from the wall painters’ mode of depicting objects in their actual surrounds, and from the preciosity of the portrayed materials, it seems appropriate to view costly stone architecture in fresco as an appeal to Roman collecting culture. This also helps to explain why wall paintings reproduce only these lavish constructions and none of Rome’s other impressive architecture. The much more common architectural backdrops of Rome, such as brick insulae or shop facades, do not appear in fresco; nor do some of the most impressive constructions of the time, such as aqueducts and baths. Wall

How Art Collections Become Frescoes

47

painters were highly selective in what they took from their surroundings as source material, and these constructions did not cut it. This is because the architectural elements they chose to paint were themselves precious luxury goods. Collectibles continue to appear throughout Second-Style paintings, and in the later phases of the Style are no longer limited to just stone. Starting around 50 BC a great variety of precious goods appears. Illusionistic architectural frameworks are now filled with metal vessels, incense burners, theater masks, lush garlands, and glass bowls and baskets of fruit. Sculpture too is added to the array, growing especially popular in the Fourth Style, where the painters exert themselves to reproduce identifiable statue types  – these famous pieces being common components of Roman art collections.12 In Room 15 of Villa A at Oplontis (Fig. 21) yellow theater masks face each other across the illusionistic porticoes, while bronze shields line the perspectival walls to either side. Peacocks – living luxury goods – perch on the half-height walls, their tails falling over the stone veneer and thus breaking the pictorial plane, reaching into the viewer’s space. The illusion of depth heightens the realism of the painted riches. Sometimes the painters’ models even survive in situ near the frescoes they inspired. In Villa A at Oplontis, the paintings of marble crater fountains in the viridaria (Fig. 22) exactly match an actual marble crater

Fig. 21: Second-Style fresco depicting architecture and luxury goods. Room 15, Villa A, Oplontis. Ca. 50 BC.

48

Fig. 22: Painting of marble crater as fountain in viridarium of Villa A, Oplontis. 1st c. AD. Fig. 23: Marble crater fountain displayed in east garden of Villa A, Oplontis. 1st c. AD. H: 109.5 cm. Diam.: 94 cm. Base: 48 × 48 × 6.2 cm.

The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

fountain displayed in the villa garden (Fig. 23).13 The wall painters in this case had a very convenient model for their paintings. Indeed, the influx of marble vessels imported to Rome on a massive scale in the first century BC prompted wall painters to respond with a dizzying number of wall paintings of such vessels in Pompeian gardens, which also frequently contained real marble basins.14 Viridarium L in the Villa Farnesina contains two paintings closely resembling the immense, squat marble basin from the “Gardens of Agrippina” in Rome, where holes in the bottom for plumbing and drainage confirm that this marble basin was used as a fountain exactly as shown in the paintings.15 Panel paintings (pinakes) too make their way from public spaces into the fresco repertoire. Often they are even depicted with wooden shutters (Fig. 24). This conceit is taken from the real pinakes in Rome’s porticoes, which were framed by shutters to protect these Greek “old master paintings” from light and other damage.16 Of course, illusionistic pinakes hardly need shutters to protect them. Here the shutters signal that the painters are drawing inspiration from three-dimensional models found in real art collections. The conceit is found repeatedly from the Second through Fourth Styles.17 Pinax fever reaches its zenith in fresco compositions of the late Second Style, when the so-called pinacotheca composition emerges (ca. 35–25 BC).18 Named after the pinakes that are “hung” on the wall in imitation of a real assemblage of paintings, the pinacotheca aims to reproduce a top-quality art collection.

How Art Collections Become Frescoes

49 Fig. 24: Detail of illusionistic pinax with wooden shutters in Cubiculum B, Villa ­Farnesina, Rome. Now in Palazzo Massimo, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

The pinacothecae in the Villa Farnesina in Rome feature some of the finest artistic specimens. They are marked off by both their superlative quality and the way they are carefully displayed on shelves and in niches (Fig. 25). On the side walls of one Cubiculum B, pinakes with vaguely erotic subjects are again depicted with shutters. The composition of the back wall centers on a large mythological panel painting, its importance heightened by the hefty aedicula serving as a frame. To either side of the central aedicula are two square pinakes with delicate lines and white ground clearly meant to reproduce the style of Greek master paintings (Fig. 26). In his textbook Fred Kleiner calls the white-ground paintings “another example of the conscious evocation of the Golden Age of Athens in Augustan Rome,”19 but their reference to fifth-century Greece must be interpreted in light of the rest of the painted program: they seek not to divert the viewer’s attention toward Athenian history, but rather to draw attention to themselves as collector’s items. For each panel painting is set upon a stand which is itself meant to be admired: tiny Sirens bear up the white-ground panels with their arms bent at perfectly right angles and their heads topped with kalathoi. Their geometrical poses and the special headpiece deliberately designed to act as a support indicate that the Sirens are not living creatures but rather objects, namely pinax stands. This is confirmed by the fact that they stand on elaborately carved marble bases – and by the fact that in the pendant room to this one, Cubiculum D, two white pinakes in analogous positions on the wall are supported by stands with similar caryatid figures that are clearly meant to be bronze: the griffin foot at the bottom of the stand leads upward into a series of metallic bulbs and rings before culminating in the tiny figure. The Sirens in Cubiculum B pick up

50

Fig. 25: Pinacotheca fresco in Cubiculum B, Villa ­ arnesina, Rome. Now in F Palazzo Massimo, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

the same idea of setting a figure atop a knobby griffin foot to serve as a kind of semi-animate pinax support. Similarly, Cryptoporticus A of the same Villa Farnesina (Fig. 27) contains “archaistic” pinakes carefully constructed to give the impression of age. Decorated with a long series of illusionistic columns, the hallway echoes the architecture of a public portico serving as a painting gallery. The panel paintings between the columns depict figures engaged in mannered, inscrutable actions, often vaguely religious, and dressed in deliberately archaistic clothing. One pinax depicting two women (the one at left brandishes an archaic oversized temple key) enhances the archaistic effect by means of a grisaille palette and lack of background, reducing any hint of pictorial space to two sticklike shadows (Fig. 28). The surrounding wall shows that the artists were fully prepared to paint details of an elegance requiring a single-hair paintbrush; yet in these pinakes the artists chose a very different mode of representation. This deliberate archaism points to a truly connoisseurial mode of collecting, an interest in the historical aura surrounding a masterpiece.20 It is this fine sense for “antiquity” that made pharaonic Egyptian art too so desirable in these collections, as we shall see. Wall painting’s consistent and direct engagement with three-dimensional objects is a strong indicator that the paintings offer a glimpse, in some form, of actual collectibles. Treated with care, wall painting can shed

How Art Collections Become Frescoes

51 Fig. 26: Fresco depicting archaistic pinax in Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Now in Palazzo Massimo, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

light on the sorts of objects that actually existed in Roman collections, sometimes even in the houses where the painters worked – although the marble crater at Oplontis remains one of the precious few discoveries wherein both the three-dimensional object and its painted version were found in the same house, and no such close parallel has yet been recorded for Egyptian objects. This is due to the universally poor preservation of luxury objects, but it also reminds us to be cautious in using the frescoes as evidence. The paintings are not a fully transparent lens for viewing the three-dimensional world.

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Fig. 27: Fresco depicting porticus hung with row of pinakes, Cryptoporticus A, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Now in Palazzo Massimo, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 28: Detail of fresco depicting archaistic pinax, ­Cryptoporticus A, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Now in Plazzo Massimo, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

3.  Fantastic Transformations

Wall painters did not confine themselves to rote reproduction of their models, but were constantly balancing between imitation and transformation. They knew that their medium allowed them imaginative freedom, and they took advantage of that. If we are to understand the paintings as portrayals of objects that existed in the real world, therefore, we must be clear on how the painters manipulated their models. How they did this is mercifully consistent. In fact, the transformative artistic processes behind the paintings can also be seen in other media of this period; artists in many media were creating a common visual language of luxury. Three special tricks can be identified among the ways they embellished their models. The first of these is a “vegetalization” whereby objects are melded with plantlike tendrils and flowers. An elegant example is preserved in a fresco fragment of unknown origin now in the Naples museum (Fig. 29). Against a white background is a flowery confection in mauve and blue-green, like a tower of blossoms piled one on top of the other. They are surrounded by swirling mauve lines in concentric curves and curlicues. It seems to be a purely fanciful concoction until one notices the uppermost element, an intensely yellow tray holding a stylized pine cone. The hatching on the pine cone’s surface and the strong yellow of the tray set them off from the floral elements, emphasizing them as keys to understanding the motif as a whole: it is an incense burner. Among so many twisting tendrils it is almost unrecognizable, but the tray and pine cone are unmistakable. Just such incense burners (usually indistinguishable from candelabra and thus treated together1) can be seen throughout the fresco repertoire, as we will see shortly. Another device is the miniaturization of certain elements. This can be an overall reduction in the scale of an everyday object, or a narrowing of its shape that results in a delicate, elongated variant. While miniaturization reaches its peak in the Third Style, its beginnings are palpable in the late Second. The columns to either side of the central aedicula in the Villa

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The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

Fig. 29: Fresco fragment depicting vegetalized incense burner. Provenance unknown. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

Farnesina, Cubiculum B are so thin as to resemble plantlike stalks; they have even gained vaguely vegetal segments along their length (Fig. 25). By the Third Style, columns are so thin as to look like simple lines unless very closely inspected. They can be topped with vessels or birds that are themselves so minuscule as to blend in at first with the decoration more like a pattern than a portrayal of a three-dimensional thing (Fig. 30). The subjects are drawn from life, but shrunk down to become even more precious confections. By leaning in to peer at the tiny motifs, the viewer encounters the paintings as intimately as if they were rare jewels cupped in the hand. Lastly is a sort of “hybridization” in which human, plant, animal, and object forms are combined in unexpected ways. The frescoes in the so-called House of Livia, on Rome’s Palatine Hill, illustrate this within a typical Second-Style architectural framework (Fig. 31). A dark maroon aedicula is topped in this case not with a normal pediment but a fantastical creature whose outline imitates a pedimental peak, its head forming the apex and its wings the sloping sides. The curve of the wings perfectly mirrors that of the volute pediments seen in many other Second-Style schemes, perhaps called appagineculi by Vitruvius.2 This creature, which

Fantastic Transformations

55 Fig. 30: Detail of Third-Style fresco with miniaturized column, birds, vessel, and Egyptian pinax. Villa of Agrippa Postumus, Boscotrecase. Ca. AD 10. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

56

Fig. 31: Second-Style fresco depicting hybrid ­architectural form with head and wings. ­ ablinum, House of Livia, T Rome. Ca. 30 BC.

The Lure of Egyptian Treasures

seems at first to consist only of the pointy-eared head and wings, in fact morphs into a plantlike structure at its wingtips. A tendril growing out of the wing curls once before ending in a pedestal that serves a winged female figure as a seat. The pedestal itself is shaped vaguely like a column capital, but also like the calyx of a plant (with the same contour as a calyx crater) – an effect underscored through the leaflike shapes traced onto its surface in diagonal lines. Because of the seamless transitions between animal, vegetable, and architecture, and because the entire hybrid being is rendered in shades of purple and blue, the effect is of a single cohesive entity. The devices of vegetalization, miniaturization, and hybridization produce an effect at times so surreal that they might seem only possible in the two-dimensional world of painting. The painters are not constrained to following the laws of gravity or material integrity, and they fully exercise their freedom. Yet the same embellishments appear in many more art forms than just fresco. In fact, the paintings adopt them from other genres. As Sara Yerkes has shown, vegetal and floral forms already characterized the luxury objects that inspired the paintings. She argues that vegetalized forms emerge in wall painting in the mid-first century BC precisely because they look to the vegetalized furnishings being feverishly collected at the time (and not because they reference some Augustan aurea aetas, as has been claimed).3 So although these embellishments might

Fantastic Transformations

57 Fig. 32: Bronze table with sphinx legs from Temple of Isis in Pompeii. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. Naples, Museo ­Archeologico Nazionale.

make the models less immediately obvious, they by no means weaken the connection. To the contrary, they attest that the objects informed the paintings so powerfully that they even inspired the ways the painters conceived their compositions. The manifold decorative and artistic genres in the Roman house were in conversation with each other. Luxury media of all sorts looked to each other for new ideas, from textiles to stucco, vessels to jewelry. An example can be found in a bronze table from Pompeii, which represents the same triad of devices as seen in the frescoes (Fig. 32). The three legs consist of dog legs below, while halfway up they transition into exuberant tendrils and sphinxes. Even the top of each dog leg is made fantastical by the addition of a tiny, protruding, bearded face. It is flanked by wings and surrounded by elaborate vegetal patterning. Each sphinx has a vegetal tower sprouting from her head to help support the tabletop. Overall this arrangement cleaves closely to fresco motifs; the paintings differ only in the more variable color palette (used to emphasize the component shapes), and in that the painters leverage the advantages of their weightless medium to extend the vegetalization and miniaturization even further, with longer tendrils and thinner legs.

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Why did wall painters elaborate upon the three-dimensional models in these complex ways? One answer can be found in the power of ornament to increase preciousness.4 By transforming luxury goods into fanciful fresco versions, the objects are elevated from an already opulent subject to finely wrought confections of a second order. They become even richer and more refined than their models – a sort of “hyperluxury.”5 The increased intricacy adds value to the paintings in part by highlighting the artists’ virtuosity, which in turn points up the patrons’ role in selecting such capable artists for the delight of their viewers. This helps to explain the increase in such whimsical embellishments over time: the escalation may have been a sort of artistic arms race, a struggle to create ever newer and more virtuosic forms. While the objects and architecture in high Second-Style schemes are sizeable, firmly placed on solid ground, and often rendered so illusionistically that they appear to be real, in late Second Style the objects start to transform through vegetalization, miniaturization, and hybridization. These devices reach new heights in the Third Style, even becoming its defining characteristics. By the time of the Fourth Style, the resulting “grotesques” are so beloved in Roman fresco that they covered the walls of Nero’s Domus Aurea and earned the name (as well as a second heyday) from their Renaissance rediscoverers. Here the representations are so fantastical that they have been dismissed as purely imaginative. At first the objects can indeed be difficult to disentangle from the artistic elaborations; this is the very reason that the frescoes’ three-dimensional referents have gone largely unrecognized. But they remain identifiable as hyperluxurious versions of concrete objects transformed via the same three artistic devices. Above all, it is remarkable that the Egyptian material is subject to the same transformations as the non-Egyptian. Rather than being an exception, it belongs to the same coherent system of decoration. Like the rest of the fresco compositions surrounding them, the Egyptian elements demonstrably derive from imported luxury goods that are elaborated by vegetalization, miniaturization, and hybridization. Vegetalized Egyptian motifs in the decorative repertoire reflect this general principle rather than a “Nilotic” allusion, as has been suggested.6 Precious Egyptian objects are completely at home among the standard expressions of the leisured lifestyle enjoyed by wealthy Roman homeowners throughout Italy, as we shall now see.

4.  Pharaoh’s Crown as Women’s Jewelry

The pharaonic crown motifs depicted in the Upper Cubiculum of the “House of Augustus” (Fig. 11) offer a perfect example of these workings. As ever, the painters’ inspiration from three-dimensional models is not difficult to recognize in the preserved archaeological evidence. Earrings and rings incorporating pharaonic crown motifs in lavish materials are known already in the Hellenistic period. A pair of gold earrings decorated with shuty crowns was excavated at Kalymnos, an island in the southeast Aegean Sea, confirming that such objects circulated widely by the end of the Hellenistic period. Another such pair excavated in the Crimea was found in a grave which also contained the earliest archaeologically dated cameo gem, a specifically Alexandrian art form – perhaps a sign that these treasures were imported from Egypt itself.1 Most similar to the frescoes are two breathtaking earrings linked by a long golden chain, now in the British Museum (Fig. 33). As in the frescoes, the earrings use a large red stone for the sun disc and golden curlicues for the ram horns emerging from the crown’s base. More important is the chain connecting the earrings, to be worn across the front of the body, resting against the wearer’s neck. It would have created a loop between the golden crown ornaments exactly like that in the fresco, where the crown-like trinkets are joined to each other by concatenated curves that echo a looping gold chain. Numerous extant earrings and rings feature this same crown motif, ranging from the Hellenistic period to the second century AD.2 Most of the find spots of these pieces are unknown (usually they are assumed to come from Egypt, but again this is based on the iconography and thus inadvisable); yet from two secure find spots in the Aegean and Black Sea regions, it seems that such pieces were potentially widespread. The Upper Cubiculum paintings hint to their presence in Roman Italy. Why should jewelry appear in these wall paintings? Again the connection is to collector’s darlings, for gems and jewelry counted among the most lavish luxury goods collected and displayed in Rome at just this time. Indeed, their use goes far beyond that of adornment in private female por-

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Fig. 33: Pair of earrings decorated with shuty crowns with garnet sun discs, linked by a long golden chain. Ca. 330–30 BC. London, British Museum. H earring: 7 cm. L chain: 43.23 cm.

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traits, itself an indicator of their value.3 Pliny writes of a magical sardonyx “set in a golden horn” that the empress Livia dedicated in the Temple of Concordia in Rome,4 just one of a great number of such dedications. Marc Antony apparently proscribed the senator Nonius in order to obtain his beryl ring,5 and many of the most prominent men in Rome owned hugely expensive, even kingly gem collections (dactyliothecae). Pompey got hold of the king of Pontus Mithridates’ dactyliotheca and dedicated it in the Capitol. Notably, Pliny says that even this royal collection paled in comparison to Scaurus’ private one! Julius Caesar dedicated an impressive six dactyliothecae – presumably acquired from six previous owners – in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, and Marcellus placed one in the Temple of Apollo Palatinus.6 The trade in gems and jewelry was therefore not limited to women, nor to personal adornment, but rather fully aligned with Roman practices of collecting and display.

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What is more, gemstones were used as wall decoration in elite spaces. Gems nestled among gilded bronze leaves and tendrils were found in a cult chamber near the Horti Lamiani in Rome (Fig. 34). Precisely this sort of twisting metalwork with ovoid jewels is depicted in fresco in the Farnesina cubiculum, as well as in Oplontis and Boscoreale, where they are entwined around columns (Fig. 20). Another variation appears on the side walls of the Farnesina room, where yellow rectangles are filled with floral designs – again not abstract ornament, but an imitation of such golden vegetation inset with brilliant red gemstones glinting in the light (Fig. 35). Glass substitutes for such gemstones have been found embedded in the plaster of wall paintings in the Domus Transitoria on the Palatine Hill, and Hilary Cool has recently suggested that a similar function (or perhaps as appliqués glued onto ceilings) may explain the dramatic increase in such glass pieces in Pompeii in the first centuries BC and AD.7 That such precious metal and gem decoration is depicted in Roman fresco has until now gone largely unnoticed, although a certain jewellike effect in Roman wall painting has been observed.8 Of the black room at Boscotrecase, von Blanckenhagen wrote that the ethereal landscape vignettes floating in the center of the main panels “emerge like jewels from the dark expanse that surrounds them, each a rich little island glittering in the vastness of a dark sea” (Fig. 30).9 Yet he did so without realizing that this is not just a poetic way to describe the aesthetic effect, but in fact strikes to the heart of the method by which the paintings were made, with the painters explicitly copying jewelry. At Boscotrecase the cameo-like tondi and the swags of pearls held up by swans, as well as the golden color used against the black ground, is further testament to this. The Upper Cubiculum contains jewelry-like motifs both with and without Egyptian motifs. Again both sorts are deployed interchangeably. On the back wall of the Upper Cubiculum (Fig. 10), a frieze analogous to the pharaonic crowns contains instead dark purple drinking cups (canthari) alternating with flowers. A series of arcing stems and dangling beads gives the impression of pendants strung on a chain. Meanwhile, in the

Fig. 34: Gold sheet and vegetal gilded bronze ornament with gemstones. From the Horti Lamiani, Rome. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. Rome, Museo Palatino.

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Fig. 35: Detail of fresco depicting vegetal metal ­ornament and gemstones. ­Cubiculum B, Villa ­Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.

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black-ground frieze on the side walls, tiny amphorae cupped by flowers are strung together with swags of pearls held by swans (Fig. 36). It is a delightful play of incongruities: amphorae are transformed from one of the largest and coarsest pottery types into a row of delicate pendants on a pearl necklace. That the strands are borne aloft by swans underscores their place among the pleasures of Aphrodite, her token animal joining the personal adornments. More pearls appear in the frieze of winged shuty crowns seen above, stretching up from the tiny bells. Tiny vessels with dangling chains and beads abound in Hellenistic and early Roman jewelry. Like the frescoes, the jewelry plays the same game of turning coarse clay amphorae into precious miniature gold trinkets. The British Museum earrings above, in addition to their tiny shuty crowns, include amphora pendants made of gold with garnet bodies. Another pair of earrings from early Roman Egypt features amphorae made of emerald spheres; they are covered with ruffles of gold and have handles shaped like dolphins (Fig. 37). The idea of turning vessels into jewelry may have been facilitated by alabastra, the ultimate miniature perfume vessels worn on the wrist. Certainly it was conceived as jewelry in the case of a stunning rock-crystal piece strung on a gold chain, dated to c. 30–20 BC and thus contemporary with the Upper Cubiculum paintings.10 Seen in this light, it is clear that the amphorae in the frescoes do not refer to the

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Fig. 36: Fresco depicting strings of pearls held by swans. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 37: Pair of gold earrings with miniature amphorae made of emeralds. From tomb in el- Ashmunein, Egypt. 2nd c. BC. London, British Museum. H: 6.7 cm.

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Fig. 38: Stone molds for metalware. Reportedly from Alexandria. Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum. H: 2.5 cm. W: 4.5 cm. L: 8 cm.

Nile, as has been proposed, but once again arouse delight in luxurious adornment.11 The use of amphorae as tiny ornaments, as well as the analogous decorative function of Egyptian and non-Egyptian motifs in small-scale metalwork, is exemplified by several stone molds for making metal trinkets, discovered in Alexandria (Fig. 38).12 These molds contain two minuscule amphorae as well as exactly the same pharaonic feather crown as in the frescoes above. They were meant to be cast in metal to adorn mirrors and utensils, furnishings, and perhaps jewelry. The crowns appear alongside various other shapes, ranging from mirror handles with vegetal decoration to isolated grape leaves, curlicues, and crocodiles. That both pharaonic and Greek iconography were used by the same workshop, cast even in the same stone mold, confirms that ancient artists and viewers were fluent in both iconographical canons, and did not feel compelled to separate them as modern art historians do.13 The Upper Cubiculum paintings embody the principle of hyperluxury especially powerfully. The conceit of recasting one sort of object as another, in this case vases into jewelry, is taken one step further in the frescoes: the pharaonic crowns and amphorae are refracted through two orders of representation, from their original materials to jewelry to paint. The clever playfulness of translating one medium into another is key to understanding both the frescoes and the objects they depict. It is the reason that painters reproduce real objects, virtuosically reimagined, rather than simply dreaming up decoration with no basis in the physical world: their Roman patrons reveled in such games to highlight their prize objects.14

5.  Egyptian Gods as Lamp Stands

The frescoes in the Villa Farnesina offer an outstanding example of these visual principles in representations of a host of collectibles, including candelabra. The villa was built on the right bank of the Tiber in the midfirst century BC. With its waterfront location, vast floor plan, and lavish reception rooms, it certainly belonged to one of Rome’s great tastemakers.1 While most of the building was demolished during the nineteenth-century canalization of the Tiber, a handful of its wall paintings were removed and preserved, and now stand reassembled in the Palazzo Massimo museum. Among them is the celebrated Cubiculum B, whose pinacotheca frescoes show a top-notch art collection laid out for display (Fig. 25). The paintings are masterfully designed to show off artistic prowess on multiple levels: not only do they boast a wide variety of illusionistic objects, but the paintings themselves are treated as a precious item on show. A stripe of green at the bottom of the walls sets off the entire painted program, acting as a plinth of sorts upon which the floor of the depicted architecture rests. Even the illusionistic architecture in the frescoes, that is, is literally placed on a pedestal: it is meant to be admired as one of the objects on show among the host of others. With this pinacotheca composition, the villa’s owner, along with the painters, wanted to present the viewer with a piece of superlative artistry. This extends to the objects on display, as we saw with the archaistic pinakes treated earlier. In addition to panel paintings, this art collection contains caryatids and bronze statuettes in the upper register of the back wall. At the extreme left and right sides of the wall are small aediculae that each house a small yellow female figure holding a torch (Fig. 39). Her color indicates that she should be read as a gilded bronze statuette, while her strange pointed hat and the shape of the aedicula – with a lunate pediment, uraeus-like acroteria at each end, and architrave like a cavetto cornice – suggest a vaguely Egyptian flair.2 Beside the aedicula is a caryatid whose pose and color contrast sharply with the stiff statuette, so fluid and lifelike are they; yet she is unquestionably an object and not merely a

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Fig. 39: Detail of fresco depicting bronze statuette holding torch beside candelabrum figure. Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.

female figure, judging from the delicate purple column emerging from her head and the flower-bud of a base under her feet. We saw a similar mixture of a living figure with a furnishing in the Sirens serving as pinax stands. That the whole room aims to present a meticulously detailed view into a fine art collection means that the component Egyptian elements must be read within this context. Six large figures in the red middle register circling the room have been recognized by their attributes as “Egyptianizing.”3 One of them appears on the short wall by one of the doors (Fig. 40). He has a golden beard as well as breasts, highlighted by intricate swallowtail folds in the purple garment. The ram’s horns on his head have led him to be identified as Zeus Ammon and interpreted, along with the other Egyptian figures in the room, to signal Augustus’ Egyptian conquest.4 But this

Egyptian Gods as Lamp Stands

67 Fig. 40: Detail of fresco depicting a candelabrum in the form of a figure resembling Zeus Ammon. Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.

reading omits a crucial fact: the Egyptian figures are represented not as living beings, but as precious objects. This Zeus Ammon is not an animate figure but a lamp stand, or candelabrum. His legs meld into a hermlike shaft and terminate in a blossom rather than feet. Supporting the figure is a slender floriform stem, greenish in hue and segmented by a series of buds and rings.

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Fig. 41: Piece of furnishing ­support in the shape of Dionysus in Archaic style. Bronze with gilding and silver inlay. Ca. 50 BC–AD 50. Cleveland Museum of Art. H: 39.7 cm. W: 16.1 cm. D: 17.8 cm.

Close comparanda can be found among extant three-dimensional candelabra. A bronze statuette of Dionysus in Archaic style now in the Cleveland Museum of Art parallels the Zeus Ammon with its Archaic beard and voluminous drapery (Fig. 41). It too seems to have been a furnishing support, as it has a ring on its head and its feet were not made to stand on a flat surface. Its traces of gilding and silver inlay betray that even for furnishings, no expense was spared. The effect of such a statuette in its role as a furnishing is seen in the Farnesina painting. Here a stemlike shaft not only props up the figure from below but continues upward from his head to support a flaring element somewhat like a kalathos or crater, which in turn supports the cornice in the upper register. This recalls a series of bronze candelabra known from the same period in Pompeii, in which a floriform base supports a shaft that transists into a figure and emerges

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again from its head, terminating in a kalathos at the top. In one example, the figure is a herm of Dionysus whose shaft is extendable (Fig. 42).5 The same goes for the other Egyptian figures in the frescoes of Cubiculum B, again usually identified as gods but actually furnishings. One figure (Fig. 43) wears a towering double-feather crown and gradually fades into a vegetal and animal creature below: her legs conjoin into a shaft like a herm, and her feet are entirely replaced by a bud. Two curving tendrils emerge from the leafy base, while two buds above them spit out the front half of a griffin. The two cornucopiae carried by the figure likely identify her as Isis, but they also make clear her inanimate status. She is shown here not as a goddess but a furnishing, standing ramrod straight and holding her two cornucopiae in perfect symmetry. The curve of both cornucopiae reverses the normal formula (usually the point of the cornucopia is hugged close to the body, leaving the top to curve away at the shoulder) because the cornucopiae are conflated with rhyta, their tips aiming straight down at the expectant mouths of the griffins below. These cornucopiae therefore are not simply attributes meant to identify the female figure as a goddess, but are part of her playful reconceptualization as a precious object. The painter may have been inspired by a candelabrum like the one discovered at Ephesus, in which a bronze head of Omphale is paired with just such upward curving tendrils morphing into living beings.6 The Egyptian-figured candelabra in the Farnesina paintings stand alongside others with non-Egyptian figures. Isolating the Egyptian elements from their surrounds has led to misguided interpretations; they need to be resituated. Joining the Zeus Ammon and Isis candelabra is one figural candelabrum somewhat resembling Cybele in her “mistress of animals” pose (Fig. 44). She holds out a phiale in each hand to two panthers who lick at the contents like gentle housecats. Her headdress is a fantastical creation without parallel, a flaring broad hat overlain with long golden filaments sprouting from the hatband. Like the Isis candelabrum to the right, the legs of this Cybele figure meld into a shaft growing from a calyx, and vegetal scrolls unfurl from the stem before morphing into the torsos of the accompanying animals. The final figure on this wall, smaller than the other two, is just as vegetal but has no pets (Fig. 45). Her only striking attribute is her hat, which extends into a comically tall spike at the top of her head and seems to have earpieces that hang down to her breasts in perfect curlicues. A pale half-moon hovers behind her head. Perhaps the hat is based on that of the flamines, Roman priests represented for instance on the Ara Pacis; but if so, it is exaggerated beyond recognition. If the Egyptian figures nearby were meant to express adherence to Egyptian religion, what then were these figures meant to say? It seems unlikely that they served such

70 Fig. 42: Bronze candelabrum with floriform base, extendable shaft, and Dionysus herm topped with rings and kalathos. From Pompeii. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico ­Nazionale.

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an intent. In the pinacotheca setting, all candelabra are art objects, and “Egyptian” is just one available variation. Egyptian figures were beloved supports for all kinds of furnishings known in three-dimensional examples. A bronze statuette that probably served as a stand, perhaps for a lamp, depicts the Egyptian god TutuTithoes, a sphinx with a uraeus snake tail and the royal nemes headdress, surmounted by a large bulb and floriform support (Fig. 46).7 The stacking of an exceptionally fine polychrome statuette (the eyes were inlaid) with an upright flower and rings along the length of a sleek support is exactly what we see in the painting, where the figure’s legs form the support ringed with floral elements. A small bronze ba-bird (an Egyptian figure roughly equated with the “soul”) is known in three versions as the leg of a small lamp stand.8 The Egyptian elements are folded right into the typical hybrid, vegetal forms of villa furnishings.9 In the “House of Augustus” too, Egyptian elements are woven into candelabra. Two appear on the back wall of the room, nested into the lush towers of vegetation in the yellow upper register (Fig. 47). In each case an upside-down calyx forms the foot of the tower, its flaring sides morphing into exuberant shoots that bend and curl before finally ter-

Fig. 43: Detail of fresco depicting a candelabrum in the form of a figure resembling Isis. Cubiculum B, Villa ­Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Fig. 44: Detail of fresco depicting a candelabrum in the form of a figure resembling Cybele. Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.

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Fig. 45: Detail of fresco depicting a candelabrum in the form of a female figure. ­Cubiculum B, Villa ­Farnesina, Rome. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Ca. 35–25 BC.

minating in a cup-shaped capital fastened to the underside of the nearest architrave. Growing up from the base is a stem with vertical ridges. It is interrupted by a spreading ring that resembles an umbrella (called a phial in botanical terminology), itself topped by two more calyces and then two large flowers stacked atop one another. Very similar (albeit smaller) floral towers appear against a black ground on the north and south walls. Four more join the two largest ones in the yellow register, standing on the architrave segments nearby. They are sleeker and less flowery but nonetheless vegetal: each bell-shaped foot sprouts a perfectly fanned frond that perches on the corner of the architrave like a fragmentary palmette acroterium. The foot gives rise to a single tall, tapering stem with two simple curling shoots at the sides and a sole calyx and white bell-like flower at the top. More of these forms appear in the stucco ceiling, this time with female figures like caryatids inserted into the vegetation (Fig. 73). However fantastically vegetal these structures are, they unmistakably draw upon three-dimensional marble and bronze candelabra popular in the same period. This is clear by comparison with other paintings of such flowery hulks that feature not a bloom at the top but a plate for burning

Egyptian Gods as Lamp Stands

73 Fig. 46: Furnishing support in the shape of the Egyptian god Tutu-Tithoes (sphinx with snake tail). Bronze. ­Provenance unknown. Late 1st c. BC–early 1st c. AD. New York, The ­Metropolitan Museum of Art. H: 14.5. cm.

incense, a pine cone, or an omphalos. A Second-Style painting in the House of the Cryptoporticus, Pompeii, depicts candelabra with stacks of bells, calyces, and phials in what is obviously meant to be bronze (Fig. 48). The material and the omphalos at the top confirm that these are candelabra; that they even cast shadows on the wall behind them emphasizes that they are illusionistic “real” objects. They also include female figures within the vegetal totem pole, similar to the candelabra in the Farnesina cubiculum, and very close indeed to the candelabra on the Upper Cubiculum’s own ceiling. It is no coincidence that at just this time, real marble candelabra reach the peak of their production and importation to Rome. Sara Yerkes has shown how closely the candelabra in the paintings cleave to the bronze and marble ones known from Pompeii and the Mahdia shipwreck (Fig. 49).10 Judging from their find spots, they primarily served as adornment for architectural spaces, as statues did. The correlation with Roman collecting activity is thus so strong in both place and time as to support the theory that this entire category of object emerged specifically as a response to collectors’ desires.11 The candelabra in the Upper Cubiculum derive from

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Fig. 47: Fresco of floriform candelabrum topped with pharaonic crown. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

Egyptian Gods as Lamp Stands

75 Fig. 48: Fresco depicting bronze candelabrum with female figure. House of the ­Cryptoporticus, Pompeii. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD.

just such specimens; the “flower tower” is instantly recognizable. While no extant three-dimensional candelabrum features pharaonic crowns as the painted versions do, the idea that such a crown could be used as ornament, in this case applied to a larger object, is known from jewelry as well as fine bronze vessels, such as the lotus-leaf bowl from Egypt (Fig. 9) and the stunning Egyed Hydria (Fig. 3). It is this collecting culture, particularly with its fine sense of antiquity, that made Egyptian art so desirable to a Roman clientele. The wall paintings of the Villa Farnesina enshrine illusionistic panel paintings in an archaic style, both in the cubicula and the cryptoporticus, because conjuring up an esteemed past era was a leitmotif of Roman art in elegant living spaces. There was a desire to showcase ancient traditions within the most refined (indeed, fashionably modern) surrounds.12 Roman collectors desired artworks in the Greek Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic styles – so too, then, the pharaonic Egyptian style. This was one more of the Romans’ multiple “Classicisms.”13 The connoisseurial esteem for these artworks is made even clearer by the way they were brought to Rome and acquired by collectors. That Greek

76 Fig. 49: Marble candelabrum found in shipwreck near Mahdia, Tunisia. 1st c. BC. Tunis, Bardo Museum. H: 143.2 cm.

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art was captured in military campaigns and displayed in triumph, feeding Roman art collections, has long been clear. As we shall see in the following chapter, the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC is responsible in the same way for the influx of Egyptian goods into Roman collections and, through them, wall paintings. Their appearance is therefore not necessarily due to political motivations on the part of the owners, but to the magnificent triumphal procession that made Egyptian objects part of the Roman market in precious items as never before.

III.  Triumphal Splendor

How did the Romans come to know Egyptian goods in precious materials such as those in the Upper Cubiculum frescoes? And why did they appear so suddenly – identifiable archaeologically to a ten-year period, around 35–25 BC, when the Upper Cubiculum frescoes were painted?14 This chapter argues that such Egyptian goods were introduced to Roman collectors by Octavian’s triumphal procession in 29 BC, celebrating the conquest of Egypt. Triumphs showcased fabulous artworks that drew the eye of local elites, who then sought out similar pieces, be it by import or by commission from local workshops.15 The traditional post-triumph dedication of spoils in civic spaces would additionally have made them visible for a long time thereafter, offering patrons and artists a chance to draw inspiration from the objects over a long period. Octavian’s Egyptian triumph was a catalyst, driving Egyptian objects into elite Roman houses in a sudden burst. Thus it is no coincidence that exactly the sort of objects universally displayed in Roman triumphs are those picked up by elite Romans for their homes. Indeed, certain genres of spoils carried in triumph translated exceptionally well into elite households. Alongside the heaps of gold and silver, sculptures, paintings, and cartloads of coinage, precious metal vessels and furniture in bronze and exotic wood are recorded in nearly every triumph whose contents are documented. Precious vessels were a staple of Roman triumphs because powerful rulers across the Mediterranean amassed fine tableware and furniture as the necessary tools for hosting banquets, be it for festivals or for visiting dignitaries (rather like porcelain in European courts, or the White House china).16 When these rulers were defeated and their possessions captured, as Cleopatra’s by Octavian, these fantastically costly items became highly-valued spoils. Precious vessels played a central role in Roman triumphs from the Republican period onward, as the texts abundantly attest, and Octavian’s spoils will have been no different. This is the reason that we see precious vessels with Egyptian shapes and decoration appear in elite art collections in Roman Italy at this time, the earliest instance being the Upper Cubiculum frescoes in the previous chapter. Three-dimensional examples have also been discovered: most stunningly the four inlaid obsidian vessels from Stabia, Italy (Figs. 1, 2), and the breathtaking bronze hydria from Egyed, Hungary (Fig. 3).17 These have been analyzed already as individual finds or ensembles with the other objects in the same set, but have not yet been situated within Roman collecting culture, which valued luxurious vessels on a par with other artistic genres. This chapter argues that these pieces belong to that tradition, and that Egyptian imagery was selected to decorate them because of its aesthetic value, among other reasons.

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Banquets were closely linked to triumphs in another respect. Vessels were often displayed in triumphs in ensembles meant to evoke a banquet setting, meaning that the tables they stood on became central players as well.18 Tables and vessels were presented in triumphs in a way that was eminently transferrable into elite homes. Ritualized fine dining was so central to Roman culture that these captured goods were immediately relatable for the onlookers of a triumphal procession. Roman collectors, like vanquished kings and Roman triumphators before them, used these items for their beauty, and to represent their wealth and sophistication. It may seem surprising that tables could command astronomical sums and arouse the passion expressed in earnest textual sources – but we shall see that this was the case. The many tables with Egyptian decoration that survive today embody the confluence of Roman collecting culture, banqueting tradition, and the arrival of Egyptian treasures in Rome after the conquest. Indeed, banqueting culture was especially relevant in the case of the Egyptian conquest, because the Ptolemies’ principle of tryphe, luxurious abundance, made lavish banqueting a trademark of their rule.19 This was almost certainly reflected in Octavian’s Ptolemaic spoils, even if, as we shall see, documentation of these spoils is meager. That the triumph was a mechanism by which Roman collectors discovered attractive objects may also help to explain another factor, one we already saw in the previous chapters. Collectors seem partial to items with a sacral aura. Certain objects, like candelabra, even demonstrably start off in religious contexts before being picked up by collectors – or produced directly for collectors, skipping the religious usage entirely. Because temple inventories were regularly seized by conquering Roman generals, including Octavian, it is possible that the spoils paraded in triumph may have disproportionately comprised items from religious contexts. If so, this could have heightened the Roman collectors’ desire for these pieces in particular.20 So although Octavian’s triumph has long been seen in the scholarship as the key to interpreting Egyptian material in Italy, the role that the triumph actually played is here argued to have been dramatically different than assumed. It is the singular event of the triumph itself, not the political conquest per se, that precipitated the dramatic change we see in the material record.

1.  Drinking the Sweet Poison1

The set of obsidian vessels from Stabia exemplifies the extent to which vessels with Egyptian decoration became a darling of collectors, crafted to meet their desires (Figs. 1, 2). The Villa San Marco at Stabia, a rambling villa on the Bay of Naples, yielded up the remains in a large reception room with a sweeping view of the bay (room 37). The fragments could be partially reconstructed into what seems to have been four vessels: two large drinking cups, a smaller cup, and a shallow offering bowl. All four vessels are crafted in a stunning inlay technique whereby the body of the obsidian vessel was incised, then inlaid with minute gold strips around the edges and pieces of brightly colored stone and coral in the center. The intricacy is remarkable; in some cases the glass pieces measure hardly a millimeter on a side. The artistry is even more impressive considering the glasslike nature of obsidian, which makes it prone to chipping. Defying this brittle material, the artist of the smallest cup carved astoundingly thin, sinuous plant forms into the surface. It is a display of virtuosity. At just under nine centimeters tall, the cup condenses a great wealth of costly materials and artistry into a minuscule package. The decoration on the two large skyphoi has earned them the most attention of the set. The scenes are pharaonic in style, with the typical costumes, poses of offering, primary color scheme, and composite perspective. Two standing figures in elaborate dress flank a shrine with a lunate pediment. Inside the shine is an Apis bull (on one side of the cup) or a ram (on the other side), standing on a table with sphinx legs. Two Horus falcons stand on pedestals to either side of the central animal god. At the extreme ends of the scene are two more figures crouching on pedestals made of recurving papyrus stalks. The Egyptian theme extends to the shallow bowl decorated with Nilotic scenes, which is however poorly preserved; several lotus flowers, a papyrus boat, a hippopotamus, and a water bird are recognizable.2 A very similar piece is a shallow two-handled cup from Pompeii, which uses the same technique to depict a grapevine inhabited by birds and dragonflies.3

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Several aspects of these vessels place them squarely in the tradition of precious object collections and banqueting culture. The fact that the four vessels and particularly the two large skyphoi were made as a matching set is typical of vessel collections for banqueting. Pairs of matching skyphoi occur in silver sets, such as the two silver cups from Boscoreale which take a shape extremely similar to the obsidian skyphoi and depict complementary scenes of imperial rulership. Two more skyphoi of this shape depict the Twelve Labors of Hercules, six to each cup.4 Collectors’ interests are further represented in the material itself, obsidian. The difficulty of obtaining obsidian from the few North African sources, and of working a stone so prone to splitting, made it extremely expensive. The Stabia skyphoi and phiale, each carved from a single piece of obsidian, are thus ostentatious displays of mastering a difficult material. Further, the Romans strongly associated obsidian with Egypt. Pliny observes that the stone was “discovered in Ethiopia” and used for poorly reflective mirrors as well as for jewelry. Even whole statues could be made of obsidian. Pliny tells us that a prefect of Egypt apparently brought back an unspecified obsidian statue to his residence in Rome, which Tiberius later restored to Heliopolis.5 The four obsidian elephants in Pliny’s encyclopedia, “mirabilia” dedicated by Augustus in the Temple of Concordia, will also have originated in Egypt  – perhaps spolia from the princeps’ Egyptian conquest.6 In the Stabia vessel set, therefore, the choice of obsidian strengthens the connection with Egypt already present in the imagery. Obsidian was used in precious furnishings of other sorts too. Certainly a polished slab of obsidian alone was considered worthy enough to insert into a prominent wall in the House of the Orchard seen above, as well as the House of the Ephebe and the House of the Gilded Cupids.7 A rare furniture fitting in the Metropolitan Museum may also belong to this genre, a long strip of stone carved with a wave pattern that once probably adorned a Roman couch.8 The roughened recessed surface between the waves may have received a colorful inlay, as seen too on the Stabia vessels. Similar dark stone decorative strips with inlay, here in slate, have been found in numerous sites on the Bay of Naples and seem to have adorned the walls of shops and houses.9 Carved obsidian slabs with pharaonic motifs were used as wall decoration as well. The ruins of a sixth-century church at Kephalari (Argos, Greece) have yielded up several stunning incised obsidian fragments from the first century AD. One depicts a standing figure wearing a kilt and broad collar, shown in composite perspective. A further fragment depicts a vegetal motif, another an acanthus scroll. The decoration is roughed out to receive colorful stone or glass inlays. Their back surfaces preserve traces of plaster, indicating that they had been set into a wall.10 Even if the plaster traces survive from the sixth-century period of reuse – set into the church

Drinking the Sweet Poison

85 Fig. 50: Fragment of fresco with vegetal design on black background, perhaps imitating intarsia. From portico of Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79. Naples, Museo ­Archeologico Nazionale.

walls as spolia – instead of from their first-century use, the flat shape of the plaques implies that in their original first-century context too they were intended for hanging on or inserting into a wall. In the frescoes of the Temple of Isis at Pompeii, several black squares with colorful vegetal designs may refer to this practice (Fig. 50); in color scheme and design they closely resemble the small obsidian skyphos from Stabia. Or they could refer to ebony, perhaps the only evidence for inlaid ebony in the ancient world.11

2.  Egypt in Egyed

The Stabia cups have not usually been interpreted as ritual vessels, perhaps because they have the typical shape of banqueting cups or because they were found in a villa. But another spectacular vessel with Egyptian decoration has been treated very differently. A bronze hydria discovered in Hungary, named the “Egyed Hydria” after the village where it was found, is one of the most spectacular Egyptian objects yet discovered in the Roman Empire (Fig. 3). Its Egyptian features include both the decoration and body shape, although the foot and spout are not certain to belong.1 The vessel is inlaid with beautifully wrought Egyptian figures in silver and gold. Papyrus and lotus buds spring up from the foot, pointing toward a laurel-leaf border. Above this is a ground line on which a series of gods stands, separated in some cases by frogs sitting atop unusually tall and straight lotus flowers. A double wave pattern floats over the gods’ heads and marks the transition from the vase’s body to the shoulder. On the shoulder is a frieze of pharaonic crowns in painstaking detail: the shuty, atef, hm-hm, and thirteen other variants are included.2 Notably, the crowns are separate from the bodies of gods or pharaohs and arranged free-floating in a decorative frieze. This represents a crucial step in which the artist deploys the crowns not as divine attributes per se but as a self-contained decorative border. It is precisely this that we see in the Upper Cubiculum frescoes, and in the laurel leaf bowl in Cairo (Fig. 9): the crowns do not adorn figures but float in space, abstracted into a repeating ornamental pattern. The hydria has been interpreted as an item used in the worship of Egyptian deities, based primarily on the iconography and somewhat on the shape (especially the dubious beaked spout).3 But there is good reason to question a religious use. The iconography alone is no indicator, and the find context of the Egyed Hydria and bowl in a field does not allow for a precise interpretation.4 Although it could relate to the Iseum at Savaria (modern Szombathely), or the recently discovered Iseum at Scarbantia (Sopron), it was discovered 10 km away from these sites – as far away as from the nearest Roman military base, Mursella, which by

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contrast has not been supposed to relate to the hydria.5 What is more, the hydria may have formed part of a set that sheds light on its usage. It might have been the companion to a shallow bowl depicting Nilotic scenes.6 In the tondo, a raging hippopotamus bites a crocodile in a profusion of water plants. The scene is framed by an elegant acanthus scroll interpolated with flowers, with a laurel border at the rim. Sets of a pitcher and handled bowl like this are indeed commonly depicted at sacrifices in the Roman world, because they are vessels for handwashing.7 Yet the Romans washed their hands at other opportune moments as well. The pitcher and bowl also appear at banquets, and the frescoes in the tomb of Vestorius Priscus in Pompeii show the tomb owner preparing to wash his hands before handling his important documents.8 The silver service depicted on the adjacent wall of Priscus’ tomb (Fig. 51) is typical of displays of banqueting vessels in wealthy Roman houses; here the pitcher and handled bowl stand together on the lower shelf. The pitcher and bowl, that is, do not have a singular religious function; their use in such contexts is determined by their use in washing. That they feature in Roman graves might refer to the washing of the corpse, to funerary banqueting, and to the currency of these fine vessels as prestige items, as much as to religion per se. A concentration of such sets in graves in Pannonia suggests that the Egyed pieces too may have belonged to a funerary assemblage.9 Further, the technique of the Egyed pieces underscores their connection to collecting culture – and to Egypt. This technique of inlaying bronze with silver and gold and patinating the surface characterizes the so-called “Corinthian” bronzes so prized by the Romans.10 Any actual link to Corinth was vague, and apparently not terribly important to the bronzes’ status among elite Romans, which was legendary.11 Collecting Corinthian bronze vessels became such a mania in imperial Rome that Pliny the Younger even defended a friend’s moral standing by averring that his complete service in Corinthian bronze was just “a curiosity, far from being his passion” – and to demonstrate his modesty, he merely used antique plates of pure silver.12 Corinthian bronze statuettes were equally prized, as we will see in Part V. On the Egyed Hydria, the careful attention to coloristic effects in the inlaid silver and reddish copper alloy aligns both with the Corinthian tradition and with the Roman’s general use of inlayed metals to evoke “Egyptianness” in their bronzes.13 In fact, the Egyed vessels were treated with an intentional black patina brushed onto the surface that matches astonishingly closely a note by Pliny on a certain Egyptian treatment of silver: The people of Egypt stain their silver vessels, that they may see represented in them their god Anubis; and it is the custom with them to paint, and not to chase, their silver. This usage has now passed to our own triumphal statues even; and, a truly marvelous fact, the value of silver has been enhanced by deadening its brilliancy.14

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Fig. 51: Fresco depicting silver service on table before red curtain. Tomb of Vestorius Priscus, Pompeii. 1st c. AD.

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“Seeing Anubis” must refer to treating the silver to turn it black, the color associated with Anubis. Indeed, Pliny goes on to explain that the “painting” consists in brushing on the surface not a pigment but a corrosive agent that thoroughly and quickly tarnishes the silver, turning it black. While the Egyed Hydria is bronze rather than silver, a silver example may be found in a bowl in the Naples museum, which uses a “difficult to define” technique to render two back-to-back vegetalized pelta motifs in black.15 Whether the bronze pitcher and bowl were imported from Egypt or locally made, their surface effects were carefully worked in alignment with what the Romans knew of Egyptian production.16

3.  Vessels in Frescoes

Precious vessels with Egyptian decoration, as pieces highly prized by collectors, also appear in fresco. As Sara Yerkes has shown, frescoes include miniaturized motifs drawn from the villa furnishings of the day – primarily candelabra, seen in the previous chapter, and vessels.1 Beaked pitchers similar to the Egyed Hydria thus appear in the Second-Style painting in the Upper Cubiculum of the “House of Augustus,” standing within the profusion of other precious goods discussed above (Figs. 11, 13). They are characterized by a pointed spout, a body shape tapering sharply down to a narrow foot, and a handle formed by an Egyptian uraeus snake. They are reflected on the north wall by two spheroid situlae, analogously placed. The better preserved of the two shows a peaked lid, simple curved handle, and dainty foot. Both the situla and the pitchers are sheathed in leaves and flanked by spiraling tendrils that emerge from either side, apparently not literal silver attachments but fantastical, gravity-defying vines. These pitchers in the Upper Cubiculum are commonly called “Isiac,” and indeed, similar vessels appear in the hands of priests in paintings of Isiac ritual.2 Yet in this room, they are isolated from any ritual action. If they were meant to signal a religious function of the room, or a religious belief of its owner, they would do so only ineffectively. So embedded are they within the fresco composition, rife with objects of all sorts, that they rather blend into the assemblage of riches along with the other objects. They appear no more laden with significance, or with a different significance, than the others. Beside the pitchers and situlae in the Upper Cubiculum, tiny white canthari perch atop the aediculae nearby (that on the left column of the central aedicula can be seen in Fig. 10); a similar motif is preserved in fresco from the Villa at Portici.3 The delicate handles and light color of the canthari refer to silver vessels, which are known in three-dimensional examples from the same period. One is the superb cantharus from Meroe (now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston), another the two splendid matching silver canthari from the Villa Pisanella in Boscoreale.4

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That such precious vessels were found even in this fairly modest (albeit large) villa rustica indicates how widespread such pieces were in Roman houses in the area. Indeed, vessels constituted one of the categories of luxury object most commonly depicted in the Second-Style fresco tradition to which the Upper Cubiculum firmly belongs.5 Early examples include hefty bronze or golden amphorae amidst the baroque architecture in the House of the Labyrinth in Pompeii (Fig. 18) and the Boscoreale villa of P. Fannius Synistor (Fig. 20). Thereafter, in the later Second Style, luxury vessels grow more delicate, such as in the Upper Cubiculum paintings. Some vessels, like the Stabia skyphoi, have a shape that tended to be used in a banquet, while others, like the beaked pitcher and situla, tended to be used in religious ritual. Still others mix these shapes, like the bronze crater with uraeus handles found in the House of the Great Altar in Pompeii.6 Yet all these sorts of vessel appear analogously in wall paintings of collector’s prize pieces. In the fresco context, at least, any religious connotation of a certain vessel shape is subordinated to its function in the painting as a beautiful object. At the same time, the sacral connotation need by no means have been effaced; to the contrary, it may have been desirable for certain patrons, given Roman homeowners’ relish for a religious overtone. Eric Moormann has shown that Third-Style frescoes (which themselves depict candelabra) decorated Roman houses as well as numerous temples, the compositions indistinguishable.7 Temple and domestic frescoes are hardly separable. I suggest that the same obtained beyond the frescoes, among the three-dimensional objects. Vessels with a potentially sacral connotation, like a beaked pitcher with a uraeus handle, could have been cultic items in the hands of a priest – and in the hands of a collector, costly treasures that possessed a desirable sacred aura. It is within this frame that we must understand other lavish Egyptian vessels in fresco that have likewise received religious interpretations. A squat beaked pitcher features in the garden paintings of Room 12 in the House of the Orchard, Pompeii (Fig. 52). The broad upper zone contains trees and bushes against a black sky that emphasizes the foliage, while a slightly narrower lower zone features a more traditional blue sky and yellow lattice fences. In this lower scene, a beaked golden pitcher rests upon a flower crown, supported by a massive marble base like a birdbath. It is bejeweled and squat. Rose bushes and two ribbed marble birdbaths filled with water stand to either side. The pitcher on the base is assimilated to the marble basins surrounding it by the shared ribbed form. Traditionally this pitcher has been read as a symbol of Egyptian religion, but again its significance shifts when considered in context, as home decoration which often had a sacral aura even without referring to the homeowner’s specific religious practices.8 Most photographs omit the lunette at the top

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of this wall, but an early photo reveals that it too was decorated with precious metal vessels – this time in a still life of Hellenic agonistic nature. The artist or owner of this room seems to have liked the gleam of precious metal vessels of more than one kind.9 In addition, on the north wall of the same room a golden situla sits on tall base in the shape of sphinx with upstretched wings (Fig. 53). To the right of the situla is a marble basin with a fountain in the center.10 While the situla, like the squat beaked pitcher, is a vessel used in Egyptian cult, its particular framing here implies something more. Sphinx bases like this are very common for birdbaths and other basins in such garden paintings; a variety inhabit the viridarium paintings at Oplontis (Fig. 54). That the sphinx here holds up a situla is a play on this theme, particularly if the situla was recognized as a water-bearing vessel like the basins. Again the situla and marble water basin are equated with each other through their analogous position in the garden. Egyptian goods are very common in a garden setting, as we will see in Part V. They even appear in Room 8 in this same house, where pharaonic figures on marble plaques are placed among plaques of other subjects (Fig. 55). The vessels, then, should be understood in the broader frame of the Roman preference for Egyptian art in garden settings.11 The vessels are aligned with the statues and birdbaths, all beautiful objects in luscious green surrounds. If the Roman homeowner associated these vessels with Egyptian ritual, this would have added a favorable aura

Fig. 52: Fresco depicting garden and bejeweled pitcher. Room 12, House of the Orchard, Pompeii. Ca. 10 BC–AD 40.

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Fig. 53: Fresco depicting garden with golden situla and water basin. Room 12, House of the Orchard, ­ ompeii. Ca. 10 BC–AD 40. P Fig. 54: Detail of fresco depicting marble fountain with leg in shape of winged sphinx. Viridarium, Villa A, Oplontis. 1st c. AD.

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of piety to the decor.12 But this is very different from intending them as a symbol of cult worship. Viewed within their architectural context, the paintings in Room 12 grow even more normalized and less cultic. Certainly cult ritual was not actually staged in this room: the raised bed platform at one end of the room is a common architectural feature in bedrooms and intimate reception rooms. What is more, Room 12 communicates directly with Room 11 to the north, a large triclinium with black third-style walls bearing four large myth panels. Room 11 also has vessels in the decoration, including beaked pitchers and canthari, here miniaturized and placed within the architecture of the upper zone.13 Vessels of all sorts obviously play a large role in this house’s decoration. Because of their shared door, the two rooms must be viewed as an ensemble, rather than Room 12 as a singular room for cult practice. The narrow wall between their doorways onto the peristyle is inlaid with a rectangle of obsidian, a sign of the homeowner’s interest in precious goods; perhaps he even knew of the stone’s Egyptian origin.14 Just so, Room 8 (the blue-sky orchard room painted with Egyptian reliefs, Fig. 55) communicates directly with Room 7, the ala to the south. Pairs of rooms like this are common in Pompeii and seem to be

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Fig. 55: Fresco depicting garden and marble relief plaques with Greek and Egyptian subjects. Room 8, House of the Orchard, Pompeii. Ca. 10 BC–AD 40.

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reception suites.15 So these “cubiculi floreali” with Egyptian motifs, often cited together for their iconography, not only do not stand together in the house, but in fact form suites with other rooms entirely. Rooms without any Egyptian connotation, as far as we can tell. While isolating Rooms 12 and 8 from their context can lead to a distorted interpretation of their Egyptian iconography, recontextualizing them paints a different picture.

4.  Vessels in Triumph

From these examples, we can see that precious vessels counted in both material and artistry among the very finest collectibles. While a modern ranking of highly coveted pieces might place painting or sculpture before tableware, in antiquity, tableware  – and indeed other sorts of furnishings – were as prized as these “fine art” genres.1 Purchases of expensive tableware are recorded by Pliny, scandalized at the sums being paid. The rhetor Crassus, around 100 BC, bought a set of two chased goblets for 100,000 sesterces and others for 6000 sesterces per pound – a measure which emphasizes the sheer quantity of precious material.2 This is reflected in the archaeological evidence, not only in the impressive hoards of silver tableware from even relatively modest Campanian villas, but in the way such pieces were displayed.3 A silver bowl from the House of the Menander attests that vessels were displayed quite explicitly as artworks. The bowl was found together with a custom-made stand for holding it upright, the bust in the golden tondo meeting the viewer face to face.4 Stands for fine vessels could also be adorned with Egyptian motifs. A small silver stand with uraeus snakes decorating the legs offers an especially beautiful example (Fig. 56). Discovered in a hoard of Roman-period silver in Hildesheim, Germany, it likely served as a stand for a fine vessel. Two similar uraeus-snake legs in museum collections suggest that it was not an uncommon form.5 Given vessels’ status as a highly prized object genre, it is hardly surprising that they were taken as spoils by conquering generals and paraded in triumph. Pliny names tableware foremost among the items that led the Romans into moral decline via covetousness – which indeed began with a triumph. “It was the conquest of Asia [189 BC],” he says, “that first introduced luxury into Italy, inasmuch as Lucius Scipio carried in procession at his triumph 1400 pounds of chased silverware and vessels of gold weighing 1500 pounds.” To Scipio’s triumph we could add that of Aemilius Paulus over Macedonia in 167 BC, containing an impressive list of precious metal vessels:

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Fig. 56: Miniature silver stand with uraeus snakes atop bearded heads, vegetal legs, and lion feet. 1st c. AD. From Hildesheim, ­Germany. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antikensammlung. H: 15 cm. Diam.: 8.8 cm.

After these followed the bearers of the consecrated bowl, which Aemilius had caused to be made of ten talents of gold and adorned with precious stones, and then those who displayed the bowls known as Antigonids and Seleucids and Theracleian, together with all the gold plate of Perseus’ table.6

Pompey’s triumph over King Mithridates in 61 BC seems to have dramatically furthered the market for fine vessels in Rome in that he brought back pieces not only in metal but costly stone as well. Pliny laments that Pompey brought the first carved murrhine cups ever seen in Rome, and thus sparked a taste for them which is “daily on the increase.”7 Not only agate but other stones carved into elegant drinkware featured among Pom-

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pey’s booty. Appian describes Pompey’s requisitioning of King Mithridates’ royal possessions (in what is now Turkey): The city of Talauri Mithridates used as a storehouse of furniture. Here were found 2000 drinking-cups made of onyx welded with gold, and many cups, wine-coolers, and drinking-horns, also ornamental couches and chairs, bridles for horses, and trappings for their breasts and shoulders, all ornamented in like manner with precious stones and gold. The quantity of this store was so great that the inventory of it occupied thirty days. Some of these things had been inherited from Darius, the son of Hystaspes; others came from the kingdom of the Ptolemies, having been deposited by Cleopatra at the island of Cos and given by the inhabitants to Mithridates; still others had been made or collected by Mithridates himself, as he was a lover of the beautiful in furniture as well as in other things.8

Appian’s text highlights another reason that vessels were so prominent in triumphs. They were cherished for their symbolic value  – for they usually represented the possessions of the conquered royal household itself. So much is clear not only in Pompey’s case but in the triumph of Manius Acilius Glabrio, victor over Asia Minor and triumphator in 191/190 BC, whose spoils included “numerous heavy vases of embossed silver, as well as the silver household furniture and magnificent apparel which had belonged to the king.”9 Just so Aemilius Paulus’ triumph “with all the gold plate of Perseus’ table.” The “bowls known as Antigonids and Seleucids” further attest the close association of Hellenistic rulers with luxurious vessels, such that the vessels even took on their dynastic names. Indeed, rulers across the Mediterranean fulfilled their official function in part by hosting grandiose banquets, whether for visiting dignitaries or in festivities for their own subjects. Ritualized banquets were one of the most direct channels for a population or local rulers to come into contact with their king. As a highly visible, indeed interactive ritual of kingship, feasting was even more symbolically loaded because it was “[o]ften associated with major religious festivals and the ‘great events’ of the court – the main dynastic rites of passage such as inaugurations, weddings, and anniversaries.”10 Feasting and its trappings, that is, were essential to kingship. For the Romans this was significant because, firstly, every royal household contained a trove of banqueting supplies that could be captured as booty. Moreover, it meant that a king’s tableware was an essential symbol of his monarchic rule – a form of government which the Romans loved to revile. Parading tableware in triumphal processions communicated dominance over decadent foreign kings, the subjugation of luxury (nominally), and the reaping of wealth for the Roman treasury. It is this dominance over the conquered king that Octavian tried to show in another, more unusual way – or at least unusual in Suetonius’ account of it. Suetonius claims that Octavian, upon capturing Cleopatra’s palace, “melted down all the golden vessels intended for everyday use.”11 Even if true, this action would not have left a noticeable hole in the tri-

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umphal spolia. Vessels in silver, bronze, glass, and precious stone would ­certainly still have been present. Even more likely is that Suetonius’ statement is symbolic, a way for Octavian to distance himself from Cleopatra and Antony’s indulgent lifestyle – just as he distanced himself from Antony by giving back cult statues to the cities Antony had robbed them from.12 The princeps, Suetonius implies, would never use “everyday” vessels in gold. Yet the preservation of a murrhine cup betrays him, revealing the princeps’ connoisseurial eye, since this genre counted as one of the most prized in antiquity.13 Indeed, Suetonius writes that the emperor “was criticized too as over-fond of costly furniture and Corinthian bronzes.” It is perhaps to balance out this condemnation that Suetonius follows it with a defense specifically tailored against immoral indulgence.

5.  Turn for Home

The long tradition of triumphs in Rome offered more than simply a chance for victorious Roman generals to show off their spoils and exploits. Witnessed by a huge portion of the population eager for these spectacles, triumphs set trends. Public display was central to triumphs, ensuring that spolia got a broad viewership. The conundrum that triumphs presented  – booty from conquered lands must be celebrated in the name of martial prowess, but succumbing to luxuria must be avoided at all costs  – could be tidily solved through public display of the spolia. Cicero praises Marcellus for not having erected his booty in his house, garden, or villa.1 Just so Suetonius’ claim that, when Octavian conquered Alexandria, “he kept none of the furniture of the palace for himself except a single murrhine cup (unum murrinum calicem):” the statement is meant to redeem the emperor as a triumphator who did not keep his spolia for private use, but exhibited it.2 Cato accused Manius Acilius Glabrio of having held back gold and silver vessels taken from Antiochos III’s royal estate rather than showing them in his triumph (190 BC). Even though this was certainly a calculated political play on Cato’s part, it was a viable tactic only because of the tradition that captured wealth be shown – and the anxiety that it might be used at home instead.3 Similar is the case of M. Aemilius Scaurus in the first century BC. Having grown rich on extortion, some related to wars in the Levant, Scaurus dedicated a theater building in Rome decorated with some 3000 bronze statues and 360 colorful stone columns 12 meters high. Trouble arose, however, when he moved a portion of these along with other prize pieces into his private villa – a cache worth 300 million sesterces, provoking his slaves to burn it all to the ground out of spite.4 If the pieces had remained in the public building, instead of inciting such outage by being “privatized,” they may have escaped that fiery fate. But the draw was strong; the sources attest that privatization was an active problem. The path from triumph to private collection was short.

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The ever-wider circulation of precious items through triumphs – and the Romans’ susceptibility to avarice sparked by the triumphs – was noticed by the Romans themselves. Livy blames M. Claudius Marcellus, general in the Gallic Wars and Second Punic War, for introducing Romans to the decadence of luxury goods by this very means. In Marcellus’ triumph of 211 BC, Livy bemoans, “For the first time, [the returning troops] imported into Rome couches of bronze, valuable robes for coverlets, tapestries, and other products of the loom (vestem stragulam pretiosam, plagulas, et alia textilia), and what at that time was considered luxurious furniture – tables with one pedestal and sideboards.”5 The widespread consumption of luxury goods in Roman society (and its deleterious effect), to Livy’s mind, began with this single triumph observed by thousands of acquisitive eyes. So too he blames the triumphs of Scipio Asiaticus and Manlius Vulso for having introduced Romans to certain fabrics and furniture which then caught on like wildfire.6 Quite clearly, to Livy’s way of thinking, the elite treated triumphs as a source of ideas for new types of precious object which they then went on to acquire. Pliny too is explicit about this mode of transmission from triumphal procession to popular taste beginning in the Republican period. He claims not only that a triumph introduced Romans to fine vessels as collectibles, but that other fine materials followed the same mechanism: But it was this conquest by Pompeius Magnus that first introduced so general a taste for pearls and precious stones; just as the victories gained by L. Scipio and Cnaius Manlius had first turned the public attention to chased silver, Attalic tissues, and banqueting-couches decorated with bronze; and the conquests of L. Mummius had brought Corinthian bronzes and pictures into notice.7

Pliny also says that the legendary collector Lucullus brought the first cherry tree to Italy from Asia Minor after he defeated Mithridates of Pontus, and marvels at its expansion since then to the edges of the empire. Indeed, triumphs introduced many new plant species as booty from a foreign land, and so inspired Roman homeowners that the plants began to be imported in great quantity and even became standard motifs of wall painting in Roman homes.8 The same mechanism thus seems to drive the acquisition and display of specialist plant species as other collectibles – both categories being central to the Romans’ ultimate space of leisure, the art-strewn garden (discussed further in Part V). Following these Republican triumphs, luxury culture in Roman houses skyrocketed. Pliny says that in 77 BC, there was not at Rome, as we learn from the most trustworthy authors, a finer house than the one which belonged to Lepidus himself: and yet, by Hercules! within fiveand-thirty years from that period, the very same house did not hold the hundredth rank even in the city! Let a person, if he will, in taking this fact into consideration, only calculate the vast masses of marble, the productions of painters, the regal treas-

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ures that must have been expended, in bringing these hundred mansions to vie with one that had been in its day the most sumptuous and the most celebrated in all the city; and then let him reflect how since that period, and down to the present time, these houses have all of them been surpassed by others without number.9

In the mid-first century BC, that is, private Roman art collections exploded as a result of treasures brought back from military campaigns – and they continued apace until Pliny’s “present time” 119 years later (he dedicated his Historia naturalis in AD 77).

6.  Enter Octavian

These are the mechanisms we should imagine attending Octavian’s Egyptian triumph as well. This triumph’s effect on the populace, related by the textual sources, approached a legendary level. The effect was heightened by this being the first triumph held in Rome for four years. Since 47 BC, triumphs had been held at least once per year for fourteen years. Then the four-year “dry spell” set in.1 The return of a triumphal procession in 29 BC – and a triple triumph at that, celebrated in three processions over three days – must have been long-awaited. All the more so because of its significance as the herald of the end of the civil wars, as Octavian spun it. It was time to celebrate Rome’s peace and concomitant prosperity. Octavian put on a triple triumph, one day for each victory. The first day commemorated his victory over the barbarians in Europe, the second his victory over Antony at Actium, and the third his defeat of Cleopatra.2 The contemporary poet Propertius gives an evocative picture of the triumph in his lines, “if I sang of Egypt and the Nile, when, dragged into Rome, it went lamely with its seven captive streams; or the necks of kings encircled with chains of gold and Actian prows speeding along the Sacred Way.”3 Golden chains, kings (probably Gallic), and ship’s prows are certainly a good start, but they hardly represent a fraction of the riches. Dio Cassius says of the triple triumph, Now all the processions proved notable, thanks to the spoils from Egypt, – in such quantities, indeed, had spoils been gathered there that they sufficed for all the processions, – but the Egyptian celebration surpassed them all in costliness and magnificence.4

According to Suetonius, the riches brought back to Rome were so immense that they impacted the entire economy: “by bringing the royal treasures to Rome in his Alexandrian triumph, [Octavian] made ready money so abundant that the rate of interest fell and the value of real estate rose greatly.”5 Ancient authors measure the quantity of spolia in triumphs in days – the days required to process it through the city, continually, carried

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by thousands of hands. When Pompey defeated Mithridates, shipping just a portion of the resulting booty to Rome reportedly took thirty days. Displaying it all in triumph was apparently impossible within the limited span of two days. Similarly ostentatious was the general Aemilius Paulus’ triumph 167 BC with spoils from his Balkan conquests: “Three days were assigned for the triumphal procession. The first barely sufficed for the exhibition of the captured statues, paintings, and colossal figures, which were carried on two hundred and fifty chariots.” There was also a colossal weight of silver booty, well over half of the entire silver holdings of Rome’s state treasury just a few years later.6 For other triumphs, the masses of gold and silver are measured in hundreds or even thousands of talents – one talent being equivalent to between 25 and 33 kilograms. Although no such detailed characterization of it survives, Octavian’s Egyptian triumph would have benefitted from the extreme wealth of the Ptolemies. The greatest concentration of wealth was in Cleopatra’s palace, described by Lucan in the most glowing terms: Her palace itself was like a temple, such as a lesser age would scarce achieve, the very ceiling panels proclaiming riches, the rafters coated with gold. The walls gleamed with marble, no mere façade, agate stood there proudly, porphyry, alabaster underfoot to tread on throughout the whole hall, while ebony from Meroe, no mere cladding, took the place of the usual wood in forming the great doors, supporting the place, not simply decoration. Ivory covered the atrium; the doors were inlaid with Indian tortoiseshell, colored by hand, its plates adorned with many an emerald. Jewels gleamed from the couches, their furnishings flickering with tawny jasper, the covers deep dyed with Tyrian purple, dipped more than once in the cauldron, some embroidered in shining gold, others ablaze with scarlet, in the Egyptian manner of weaving on the loom.7

Lucan says that even the abstinent mythological founder figure Cincinnatus, “snatched, soiled with sweat, from his Etrurian plough” would have craved those riches to parade before his countrymen.8 Another way to conceive of the enormous quantity of riches is through an anecdote of Plutarch’s. He says that a friend of Cleopatra’s gave the princeps two thousand talents not to tear down the queen’s statues.9 Two thousand talents roughly equates to some 64,000 kg of silver – just for the forfeit of one small, if symbolic, category of the vast wealth that Octavian brought home. A passage in Vergil’s Aeneid not only underscores the grandeur of Octavian’s triumph but indicates that the spolia remained on display long after the triumph. The cityscape thus acted, crucially, as a stage. The

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description of the shield of Aeneas is a pointedly exultant conclusion to Book 8, not objective documentation, but it nonetheless gives a valuable impression. Next Augustus, entering the walls of Rome in triple triumph, is dedicating his immortal offering to Italy’s gods, three hundred great shrines throughout the city. The streets are ringing with joy, playfulness, applause: a band of women in every temple, altars in every one: before the altars sacrificial steers cover the ground. He himself sits at the snow-white threshold of shining Apollo, examines the gifts of nations, and hangs them on the proud gates.10

Dedicated spoils offered Roman patrons and artists the chance to admire the new riches on a long-term basis, pivotal for the objects to be seen, talked about, coveted, perhaps even sketched. Already in Republican triumphal tradition, the enshrining of spolia for long-term exhibition was standard practice.11 In this way a triumph was not simply a single event, however colossal, lasting only a few days; its material traces remained on show for weeks and years to come. That Octavian’s Egyptian spoils remained on display in the public sanctuaries for more than two centuries after the triumph is suggested by Dio’s comment in the present tense that Cleopatra’s erstwhile riches “repose as dedications in our temples and she herself is seen in gold in the shrine of Venus.”12 Octavian dedicated his Egyptian spolia in numerous buildings around the Forum. His prefect in Egypt, Cornelius Gallus, writes in the so-called Gallus Papyrus that he looks forward to seeing the temples decked with the princeps’ spoils. Dio Cassius also describes Octavian dedicating new temples and filling them with booty from Egypt, as well as clearing out offerings from old temples to create his own showplace for his Egyptian spoils. The extent of the riches in Roman temples is illustrated in the above passage by Lucan in which he compares Cleopatra’s palace to a temple in the most glowing terms. The simile “her palace itself was like a temple” can only work if Roman temples were commonly understood to contain these riches. Outside of Rome too, in Octavian’s two Nicopoleis – one near Actium and one near Alexandria – the new superlative sacred precincts were adorned with spoils from the battles. Certainly the ship’s prows once inserted into the terrace wall at Actium belong in this category.13 No list survives of the precise sort of objects exhibited in Octavian’s Egyptian triumph like those that exist for the Republican triumphs. Dio Cassius notes only Cleopatra’s effigy, and her actual children as prisoners.14 But he also notes that Cleopatra had ransacked sanctuaries and kept the spoils in her palace, “and so helped the Romans swell their spoils without incurring any defilement on their own part” – so temple inventories would have been included.15 Further hints can be gleaned from various sources.

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The statue of Cleopatra in the temple mentioned above may have been a spolium dedicated to Venus by Octavian (rather than being an honorific statue erected by Julius Caesar, as in Appian’s account).16 Certainly a large gold statue like this would accord with the purpose of a triumph, namely to impress mortal and divine viewers alike. Pliny comments on “the Father Janus, a work that was brought from Egypt and dedicated in his Temple by Augustus; it is a question by which of these two artists [Scopas or Praxiteles] it was made. At the present day, however, it is quite hidden from us by the quantity of gold that covers it.”17 The “quantity of gold” on the statue may refer to a mass of other spolia piled so high around the statue as to leave it hardly visible, or to a Roman gilding of the statue that masked any trace of the artist’s hand. Pliny’s passage is a good reminder that Octavian’s Egyptian booty contained not only pharaonic pieces but also quintessentially Greek ones, such as the Janus statue by a Hellenistic master. In his book on bronze, Pliny further observes that two enormous statues (presumably bronze) in the Forum of Augustus, and two more before the Regia, had served as supports for Alexander the Great’s campaign tent; if Augustus dedicated them himself, he may have gotten these relics as well from the Ptolemies.18 Paintings featured in Octavian’s triumph, as usual.19 Plutarch records that “an image of Cleopatra herself with the asp clinging to her was carried in the procession.” Pliny notes a painting by Nicias of “a Hyacinthus, which the Emperor Augustus was so delighted with, that he took it away with him after the capture of Alexandria; for which reason also it was consecrated in the Temple of Augustus by the Emperor Tiberius.”20 And new research has speculated that several of the most spectacular gems known today went from Ptolemaic possession to Octavian’s hands during the conquest.21 This list of a few specific items is but a minute fraction of the economy-changing wealth that Octavian brought back from Egypt. To fill in the gaps, we can look to Republican triumphal processions, whose model Octavian closely followed. Julius Caesar’s quadruple triumph of 46 BC is an especially important comparandum.22 Not only was this the only other triumph ever dedicated specifically to Egypt, but the young Octavian was an eye witness. He was led behind Caesar in his triumphal chariot, assisted at the sacrifices, and was even awarded military honors (at age sixteen, without having fought in the war).23 The quadruple triumph included ivory models of the towns Caesar had conquered. Other conquered lands were represented by their prize materials: Gallic citrus wood, Pontic acanthus, Alexandrian tortoiseshell, African ivory, and Spanish silver. By selling off some of the spoils, he earned some six hundred million sesterces.24 The triumph included types of object which had never before been seen in Rome: a giraffe;25 a “Pharos lighted with a semblance of flames displayed on moving platforms;”26 and “the sight of Arsinoe, a woman and

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one considered a queen, in chains – a spectacle which had never yet been seen, at least in Rome.”27 Over 60,000 silver talents and 2800 gold crowns were displayed, and among the extensive games was a combat of elephants, twenty against twenty (upstaging Pompey, who had failed to include elephants in his own African triumph).28 Costly fabrics also featured, in the form of ridiculously extravagant silk awnings – in Dio’s words, “a device of barbarian luxury.”29 Notably, the Republican spoils were valuable not only in material  – silver, gold, pearls, ivory, exotic woods and stones, plants and animals, as well as captured rulers and subjects – but in the artistry of their fabulously intricate forms. Pompey paraded a portrait of himself worked entirely in pearls, as well as “a square mountain of gold, with stags upon it, lions, and all kinds of fruit, surrounded with a vine of gold” – a somewhat inscrutable description, but clear in its declaration of wealth.30 An indication that artistry also played a part in Octavian’s triumph is the statue by Scopas or Praxiteles seen above in Pliny’s text. The Ptolemies’ own parades may offer insight into the material contained in Octavian’s triumph. After all, the ostentatious Ptolemaic spectacles were meant to condense the legendary wealth of Egypt into a single procession for the legitimation of the ruler, just as Octavian’s was. One of these parades, staged by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, is recorded by Athenaeus based on the account by Callixeinus of Rhodes, in the second or perhaps third century BC. (If the latter date for the author is correct, Callixeinus may even have been an eye witness.)31 He describes a seemingly endless procession of oversized gold statues and implements, with the occasional herd of elephants and cartload of spices. The multiple colossal gold statues of royal family members recall the golden statue of Cleopatra dedicated by Octavian; perhaps this spolium came from just such a Ptolemaic procession. Gold crowns also feature as prominently in the Ptolemaic parade as in the Republican triumph lists, with some 2300 crowns total, one of which was reportedly 120 feet in diameter and studded with gems. Finally, gold and silver tableware, particularly cups and pitchers, reappear time and again – just the stuff that Republican generals were so keen to bring back to Rome.32 Plutarch relates that Antony’s son gave away a tableful of golden beakers “of ancient workmanship and highly valued for their art.”33 Such displays were well-known to Cleopatra, who purportedly rowed up the Nile on ships with golden prows, purple sails and silver oars, and whose stunning palace was described above.34 These sorts of displays would have offered Octavian a perfect model for his own.

7.  Tables for Kings and Collectors

Among the preserved lists of spolia paraded in triumph, a genre that appears surprisingly frequently  – often in connection with vessels  – is tables. Instead of jumbled in wagons like the arms and armor, the display of these goods was ordered. Vessels were deliberately staged along with tables, and even couches and textiles, rather than as single pieces, to imitate banquet settings, as Ida Östenberg has shown.1 Livy writes that Marcellus’ triumph in 211 BC was the first to introduce Romans to bronze banqueting couches “and what at that time was considered luxurious furniture – tables with one pedestal [monopodia] and sideboards [abacos].” Pliny places the moment of introduction slightly later (Cnaius Manlius’ triumph over Asia in 187 BC) but notes the same bronze couches, abaci, and monopodia.2 Pompey’s triumph put vessels on sideboards as if in a dining room. Even the textiles are described as accompanying couches, linking them unequivocally to banquets.3 These stagings were a nod to the origin of the pieces, whether they had been the trappings of a defeated king’s banqueting set or of a raided temple treasury. Perhaps too they would have reminded viewers of the public banquets that accompanied triumphs, such as the one put on by Julius Caesar in connection with his Egyptian triumph – reportedly outfitted with twenty thousand dining couches.4 Such actions made fine tables highly visible and ultimately ushered them into Roman houses. No one did tables better than the Ptolemies. A dedication by Ptolemy II in the temple in Jerusalem consisted of a jewel-encrusted, solid gold table. Josephus devotes a lengthy passage to recording its every particular, from the wave and rope borders around its surface to the gems shaped like fruit inserted into the goldwork. He emphasizes that the masterful construction (no joints were visible) together with the virtuosic artistry made the piece a suitable divine offering. A precious if comparatively small remnant of this tradition may be found in a strip of gold foil inlaid with big, bright cabochon gems discovered in Rome’s Horti Lamiani (Fig. 34). Perhaps it was inlaid into a furnishing; certainly it aligns with Josephus’

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description of the “ivy and tendrils of the vine” adorning Ptolemy’s golden table.5 Banqueting culture was especially relevant in the case of Egypt because of the Ptolemies’ ostentatious banqueting culture. Ptolemaic banquets were one form of display meant to embody Egypt’s overwhelming abundance or tryphe as a metaphor for the rulers’ own ostensibly limitless power.6 While this had been practiced since Ptolemy II – most famously in the fantastic tent described by Callixeinus – Cleopatra and Antony made their banqueting even more explicit by founding The Inimitable Livers association premised on fine dining.7 By referencing Egypt, then, banquet items doubled their ability to project limitless bounty: once through the very fact of being a player in a lavish banquet, and again through the allusion to Egyptian tryphe. More than that, tables themselves were prized among Roman collectors to an extreme degree, and even encouraged a sort of connoisseurship. Tables constitute an astonishingly rich corpus in both quality and quantity, long overlooked in the scholarship. Table legs have been presented in modern publications as standalone sculptures, even called “statuettes,” as if their functionality would detract from their artistry. Modern descriptions ignore the holes bored in them to hold a table top, or suggest that the holes relate to some other, albeit unknown function.8 Although attempts to view tables as artworks is somewhat in line with the Roman view – which held these pieces indeed to be miniature sculptures of surprising value – it clouds our view of what material the Romans prized, and why. Such fine small statuettes serving as furnishings walk the line between prized statuary, like the famous Corinthian bronzes, and the other luxury genres enjoyed by collectors. They are sculptures that happen to support a beautiful slab of polished stone or wood, perhaps framed with an inlaid precious metal band. A table in the House of the Great Altar, Pompeii was celebrated as “accuratissima” and “elegantissima” by its excavator for precisely this reason (Fig. 57).9 A sleek sphinx wearing a nemes reclines on a lion-footed base, its hands extended to hold a vase now lost. To either side of it, slender bronze supports rise up to join in an arch decorated with a head of Athena; thus Greek and pharaonic iconography cohabit side-by-side. Inlaid vegetal decoration in silver on the supports and base enhances the beautiful effect. The marble table top seen in the excavation photos is encased in a bronze frame intricately inlaid around the edge. The table had no apparent association with religious activity but stood in a reception room, one component of the rich decor. The overall effect is by modern standards perhaps overwhelming; but evidently this was exactly the desired look, as the piece is by no means unique. Similar Egyptian statuettes as furnishing supports are known in multiple examples from Pompeii and Herculaneum, including a

Tables for Kings and Collectors

109 Fig. 57: Bronze table with reclining sphinx on base and bust of Athena at top. From House of the Great Altar, Pompeii. 1st c. AD. Naples, Museo ­Archeologico Nazionale. H: 77 cm. W: 53 cm.

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standing figure wearing a kalathos and a bronze Bes figure known in one copy from Pompeii and one from Herculaneum (Fig. 58).10 The bronze furnishing leg now in The Metropolitan Museum represents the same genre in more costly materials, if it is indeed ancient  – taking the shape of the Hellenistic Egyptian god Tutu-Tithoes, a sphinx with a snake tail, and adding a floral support on its back (Fig. 46).11 Table legs can even cite famous sculptures, such as the Hellenistic statue group of Marsyas being flayed.12 While we may not recognize a famous model behind the extant Egyptian table legs – nor did perhaps the Romans – their analogous placement to such quotations of renowned artworks suggests that they would have been seen by discerning eyes. The Roman esteem for tables is attested in the textual sources. Martial lists among the markers of high taste cups of crystal, Tyrian fabric, and “tables of Mauretanian marble supported on pedestals of Libyan ivory.”13 He also depicts Mamurra – a great art collector, whom Pliny excoriates for being the first to use solid marble columns and veneer in his own house – ogling tables in the marketplace along with ivories, gems, drinking cups, and other fine objects. Indeed, this prince among collectors goes on to measure “a dinner-couch for six, wrought with tortoise-shell, [and] sorrowfully regretted that it was not large enough for his citron table.”14 The consummate and ruthless collector Verres, in his depredations of Sicily, confiscated a citrus-wood table from one of the inhabitants. He also stole out of the temples “Delphic tables made of marble, beautiful goblets of brass, an immense number of Corinthian vases”  – where the tables appear right alongside vessels, and more particularly, the famous Corinthian bronze vases.15 In gushing over tables, the written sources repeatedly mention three types: the abacus, the Delphic, and the citrus-wood. The abacus seems to have had a rectangular shape good for displaying fine silverware, as in the paintings in the Pompeian tomb of Vestorius Priscus (Fig. 51). The latter two types appear to have been top-notch collectibles in their own right.16 Delphic tables were a three-legged variety so named because the form recalled Apollo’s tripods at Delphi, or (relatedly) because Apolline offerings were made on them.17 Indirectly, the name hints at a time when tripods and tables were brought to Rome from Greece, as attested in the textual accounts of triumphs. The name also elevates the objects by association with an esteemed Greek city. And at the same time it conjures the religious aura so sought-after in rich Roman houses.18 Marble versions of these tables proliferate in Roman houses, the same material transition that is observable in candelabra at precisely the same time.19 The table found in the Palaestra at Herculaneum has massive rivets at the top and bottom of each leg, clearly imitating the fastenings in bronze, but now in marble relief devoid of practical use. A table support in the Metropolitan Museum features two powerful animal legs at oppo-

Tables for Kings and Collectors

111 Fig. 58: Furnishing support in the shape of Bes. From ­Herculaneum. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico ­Nazionale. H: 24 cm.

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site ends of a hefty marble slab.20 Clearly the two animal legs are drawn from wooden or bronze legs like those seen above, but require the thick marble connector for stability. Like a statue translated from bronze into marble, the marble version needs extra support. Marble tables, then, like statues and candelabra, look back to a bronze (or wood) tradition while also evolving into a prized form themselves for widespread use. Citrus-wood tables, meanwhile, are perhaps the most surprising genre of valuable object in Roman antiquity. King Juba of Mauretania owned one which Pliny says fetched “the price of a considerable domain, if anyone, indeed, could be found who would give so large a sum for an estate.” The price of an estate for a table! The largest citrus-wood table was bought by another king of Mauretania, where the best citrus wood for this application grew. Ptolemæus was famed for having owned a table “four feet and a half in diameter, and a quarter of a foot in thickness.” It was so skillfully worked that its sheer artistry “rendered it more valuable than if it had been by nature a single piece of wood.” The Emperor Tiberius himself, as well as an extravagantly rich freedman of his, Nomius, also indulged in citrus-wood tables of record-breaking size – although Tiberius’ “was only covered with a veneer of citrus-wood, while that which belonged to his freedman Nomius was so costly, the whole material of which it was composed being knotted wood.”21 Wooden tables could be made still more expensive by cleverly interlocking different pieces of wood, or inlaying the corners and seams with silver.22 Even Stoic philosophers could be wooed by citrus wood. Pliny recounts numerous examples: even Cicero, he says, paid one million sesterces for such a table. Dio Cassius is scandalized by the philosopher Seneca’s hypocritical conduct: “Though he censured the extravagances of others, he had five hundred tables of citrus wood with legs of ivory, all identically alike, and he served banquets on them.” The sentence thereafter accuses Seneca of lewd acts with boys.23 Drawing a connection between precious items and moral turpitude, especially taboo sexual behavior, is a trope of Latin texts; that it applies to tables places them squarely in the tradition of the most highly prized luxury goods.24 Indeed, a connoisseurship of tables developed just as it did for master paintings or bronze statuettes. The quality of the wood, in terms of both physical and aesthetic properties, was scrutinized, debated, and canonized. Pliny devotes dozens of lines to the most sought-after patterns in the wood grain, the swirls like peacock eyes being praised but those like poppy heads scorned. Tiger stripes are good; splotches and black spots are bad. Table connoisseurship was an involved business. Tables were also made of precious metals inlaid with metal, shell, and gems, again accruing value not only through the material but the artistry.25

8.  Another Egyptian mensa

Within this category we must consider perhaps the most famous of surviving Roman tables, the Mensa Isiaca. This very large, rectangular bronze tabletop (128 × 75 × 7 cm) today has no leg associated with it, although the underside reveals numerous attachment points (Fig. 59). Inlaid into the upper surface are dozens of figures rendered in pharaonic style, breathtaking in their detail. Meticulously pieced together in niello, copper, and silver, the figures are divided into three horizontal registers. The middle of these is again divided, this time vertically, into a large central panel and two smaller side panels. Within each register, male and female figures make and receive offerings with outstretched arms. All the registers are divided from each other not by simple ground lines but by strips of hieroglyphs. Additional hieroglyphs floating beside each figure would seem to denote names, but in fact are nonsense; seemingly the language was not used here for its semantic value.1 On the edge of the upper surface is a floral frieze of looping stems connecting flowers and heads of the Egyptian demon Bes. It is very similar in composition to the crown frieze in the Upper Cubiculum on the Palatine (Fig. 16).2 This unique piece has been such an item of iconographic fascination that its function has not been discussed. It is usually reproduced in images that show only the top face, devoid of three-dimensionality. Some images even crop off the edges in order to achieve a perfectly rectilinear contour, or reproduce instead the schematic drawing by Athanasius Kircher. Yet the piece had some function in antiquity. Frequently it is said to have been part of an altar, but this is based on the assumption that Egyptian iconography in Rome is religious.3 From its size and shape, it rather resembles an abacus of the sort used to display fine vessels in the atrium or dining room of a Roman house, such as that shown in the tomb of Vestorius Priscus (Fig. 51). Its size exceeds that of other known bronze tables, but it is within the realm of the extant marble ones, and its longer side measures remarkably close to the four Roman feet (roughly 120 cm) which Pliny names for the diameter of superlative citrus-wood tables.4 Such a table laden with

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Fig. 59: “Mensa Isiaca.” Bronze table top inlaid with silver, copper alloy, and niello. Turin, Museo Egizio. L: 74 cm. W: 126 cm. H: 7cm.

Triumphal Splendor

vessels as offerings at a sanctuary is depicted on the “Cup of the Ptolemies,” a superbly carved sardonyx drinking cup. That table’s decorative edge parallels the Mensa Isiaca’s, and its sphinx legs might be appropriate to the Mensa as well. An enormous marble table leg from a Roman villa in Albano (nicknamed the Villa of Pompey) confirms the use of this type in grandiose villas of the first centuries BC and AD (Fig. 60). The two stately Hellenistic sphinxes flanking an acanthus scroll are just the right size to support a tabletop like the Mensa Isiaca, with the sphinxes’ heads lightly projecting from underneath it (169 × 88 × 22 cm).5 More than this, the material and technique of the bronze tabletop aligns it with one of the most treasured collector’s genres. The minutely inlaid figures in various metal alloys correspond to the special technique of Corinthian bronzes. Alessandra Giumlia-Mair’s analysis of the Mensa Isiaca revealed the meticulous artistry that went into its construction, including what seems to be the hallmark of Corinthian bronzes, an artificial patination. Here it was used to create a variety of colors, from iridescent black to orange and red, in similar compositions to those in the Egyed Hydria. This alloy signature hints that both pieces were made by the same workshop, one therefore specialized in luxury goods for Roman patrons.6 Considering its great size and artistry, this very fine table would have been a showpiece regardless of its display context in a villa, sanctuary, or civic space. Indeed, this is the magic of high-quality artworks in Rome: their preciousness suited them to multiple contexts. They were collected

Another Egyptian mensa

115 Fig. 60: Marble table leg in the form of sphinxes flanking an acanthus scroll, from the so-called Villa of Pompey in Rome. Late 1st c. BC–early 1st c. AD. Rome, Palazzo Doria ­Pamphili. W: 169 cm. H: 88 cm. D: 22 cm.

by Roman generals in the houses of gods during campaigns abroad; dedicated in Roman temples, porticoes, and houses; and inspired many other rich Romans to acquire similar pieces for their homes. As we saw above, three-legged Delphic tables got their name from a Greek temple context, while they functioned in Rome as a cherished collectible (possibly with a sacral connotation).7 Ptolemy’s bejeweled golden table was a dedication, but such a piece is mentioned along with a purple coverlet and shining sideboard by Sidonius Apollinaris, writing in Gaul in the fifth century AD, to set the stage of a festive meal at home.8 The very same objects were able to serve in multiple contexts precisely because they had high aesthetic, cultural, and monetary value, and perhaps even a whiff of temple or triumph about them. If triumphs brought vessels, tables, and many other goods within the reach of Roman collectors for the first time, this was nonetheless only the first stage of a much longer-lived exchange to come. Egyptian goods would continue flowing into Rome for centuries, again indebted to Octavian’s conquest, although in a roundabout way. Egypt’s annexation into the Roman Empire resulted in new infrastructural and administrative interventions that paved the way for long-term trade with both Egypt and the world beyond. Not only candelabra, vessels, and tables entered Italy by these channels, but also tortoiseshell, pearls, and most importantly, textiles. These goods are the focus of the next chapter, which examines how trade affected the Roman reception of Egyptian objects.

IV.  Trading in Luxury

As [Augustus] sailed by the gulf of Puteoli, it happened that from an Alexandrian ship which had just arrived there, the passengers and crew, clad in white, crowned with garlands, and burning incense, lavished upon him good wishes and the highest praise, saying that it was through him that they lived, through him that they sailed the seas, and through him that they enjoyed their liberty and their fortunes. Exceedingly pleased at this, he gave forty gold pieces to each of his companions, exacting from every one of them a pledge under oath not to spend the sum that had been given them in any other way than in buying wares from Alexandria.1

This passage from Suetonius’ biography of the emperor Augustus sets the tone for this chapter in several respects. It illustrates the flow of goods from Egypt to Italy, specifically through the great Campanian port of Puteoli. It evokes the largesse that the princeps made part of his political image, and the gold coinage that he revised and put into circulation – among other currency reforms that boosted trade. (The amount of gold handed out by the emperor in this anecdote is prodigious, around one Roman pound per person.) Finally, it puts into the mouth of the Alexandrians the concept explored in this chapter: the emperor’s policies led to increased shipborne trade between Egypt and Italy, making wealthy merchants and new markets for imported goods. These phenomena are consequences of Rome’s conquest of Egypt, which had both short- and long-term effects on how Romans acquired and used Egyptian goods. Some of the short-term we saw in the previous chapter. Octavian’s triumph had, on the one hand, a sudden effect. The triumph brought enormous wealth into Rome all at once. But this had long-term effects too. It generated ready money and low interest for many inhabitants of the empire, enabling merchants on both sides of the Mediterranean to conduct business more easily than before, as we shall see presently. Thus the Egyptian spoils were more than a one-time windfall in the sole possession of the emperor. They were just one of the economic developments jump-started by the conquest that then played out progressively, over several generations. The annexation of Egypt into the Roman Empire was much more than a symbolic milestone. Integration into the Roman Empire itself brought with it very real physical factors that encouraged trade in both density and distance as never before. Roman state-imposed structures (both physical infrastructure and legal provisions) immensely impacted commerce in the empire and beyond. The ease of transactions was amplified by a more homogeneous coinage across the empire than ever before. A centralized Roman administration also meant unprecedented investment into roads and ports, as well as a new measure of safety for travelers. This improved infrastruc-

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ture increased connectivity, which in turn increased the flow of goods between Rome, Egypt, and even India. These interventions are complex and intertwined, and thankfully have been written about by specialized historians.2 The present chapter seeks merely to show some of the ways that the Roman state’s new involvement in Egypt affected the commerce of luxury goods, because these goods included the Egyptian items that landed in Roman collections. The import and use of Egyptian material in Rome would never be the same again. Textiles serve here as a case study in the long-term changes in the Roman trade in luxury goods after Egypt’s annexation. Because textiles rarely survive from Roman Italy, some of the best archaeological evidence for them, as for the other genres examined so far, is in wall painting. The paintings depict textiles of many different patterns, used largely as curtains. It has not yet been remarked in the scholarship that some of these patterns are identifiably Egyptian. These are vital to understand the trade networks by which such precious items circulated.3 Not least, the textile trade shows us that the Romans happily traded through Egypt to India, but that their passion for Egyptian art did not carry over to Indian art. What the Romans saw in Egyptian art – an aura of cultivated artistic tradition, and a note of sacrality – seems to have been less present in Indian art. Attending to the economic basis for how people came into contact with Egyptian objects, we can get better purchase on one key aspect of the evidence that so far has not been satisfactorily explained. That is the continuing popularity of Egyptian goods throughout Roman Italy even in the first century AD, one hundred years after the conquest. This suggests that there is more at work than simply political allegiance to Augustus.4 The explanation offered in this chapter is that it took time to build up the infrastructure that brought costly Egyptian imports to Roman consumers. In addition to the immense advantage of being demonstrable, this mechanism has broader explanatory power than the Roman consumer’s susceptibility to “propaganda” previously suggested. Instead, we can talk about access, desire, supply, and demand. If collectors’ appetites were whet through triumph, they clamored to be stilled through trade.

1.  Shipping between Campania and Alexandria

The splendid wares depicted in the tomb of C. Vestorius Priscus in Pompeii (Fig. 51) offer an entry point to explore the trade in luxury goods between Roman Italy and Egypt. These tomb paintings of the later first century AD are primarily concerned with evincing the good life that the deceased man had created for himself. C. Vestorius Priscus is depicted in one scene standing in a large doorway, presumably to his house, joined by a servant, writing implements, handwashing vessels (see Part III), and coins – the trappings of a rich and educated man. Indeed, Priscus served as aedile in the city in AD 75/76, and he appears in another of the tomb paintings surrounded by his political colleagues in commemoration of this status.1 Another painting shows a large banquet attended by servants, while still others show a garden bedizened with marble herms and a birdbath  – typical signs of the good life (see Part V). In this same vein is the painting of a fine table lain with a sumptuous silver service, standing before a rich red curtain. Two handwashing vessels sit on the lower shelf, while the upper surface is crowded with drinking horns, cups, bowls, spoons, and long-handled ladles. It is a less literal display of wealth than the coins lying on the table in the other painting, but leads in the same direction, indeed much more spectacularly. I suggest that this scene reflects the mercantile activities and resulting wealth of the Vestorius family, whose dealings in Egypt have much to tell us. The Vestorius family was involved in commercial enterprises with Egypt, including manfacturing and shipping. Vitruvius and Pliny mention a Vestorius who made a new sort of Egyptian blue; evidently he imported the “caeruleum” mineral (probably azurite) from Egypt to refine it in Puteoli.2 One Vestorius in Puteoli in AD 38 has the cognomen Harpocras minor, clearly a reference to the Egyptian god Harpocrates, although this does not illuminate his exact relationship to Egypt. The reach of the family’s activities is even greater than that: they seem to have actively traded from Puteoli to Egypt, through Egypt’s Eastern Desert, and into the Red Sea. Indeed, this went on over multiple generations, since graffiti of their

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name are found along this route from the first century BC to the first century AD. Another member of the same gens operated in Egypt in the second century AD.3 This Campanian family’s mercantile activities are impressive, but far from unique. In the first centuries BC and AD, Puteoli (and, to a lesser extent, Ostia) was a bustling portal to Egypt. Puteoli’s large harbor made it the locus of imports from all over the Mediterranean.4 Alexandrian ships and Alexandrians themselves are described as a common sight there. Suetonius recounts Augustus’ encounter with Alexandrians in the Puteoli harbor, seen above, and in his biography of Nero mentions that the most enthusiastic audience members at Nero’s musical performance in Naples were “Alexandrians who had flocked to Naples from a fleet that had lately arrived.” Seneca notes of the Egyptian ships heralding the arrival of the annona that “The Campanians are glad to see them; all the rabble of Puteoli stand on the docks, and can recognize the Alexandrian boats, no matter how great the crowd of vessels, by the very trim of their sails.”5 L. Calpurnius Capitolinus and his brother earned statues at Puteoli dedicated by merchants from Alexandria, Asia Minor, and Syria. Possibly the same Calpurnii built a tomb at Ostia, another of Italy’s primary ports, decorated with a plaque depicting a ship. The family of Plocamus Annius, an Augustan-era tax collector at Berenike, built the Basilica Anniana in Puteoli, and had a house at Ostia with a plaque showing a ship carrying dolia.6 The wine trade between these regions was especially robust. Lucan lists Falernian wine, the most famous of Campanian wines, among Cleopatra’s riches – and says that it was aged in Meroe, the royal city of Sudan. Italy’s most famous luxury product thus became a symbol of the far-reaching luxury trade.7 But more than a symbol, it was a reality. The Augustan harbor at Myos Hormos is composed of amphorae which on the whole are traceable to Italy, even to Campania – perhaps used to transport Vesuvian wine to Egyptian consumers and, once emptied of their precious contents, reused as building material.8 Campanian wine amphorae have been found in abundance in Myos Hormos, Berenike, India, and another major shipping hub of the Red Sea coast, Adulis (in modern Eritrea; see Fig. 61).9 Ostraca at Berenike that served as “customs passes,” allowing merchants to bring the stated amount of wares through the port, attest wine from Campania going as far as India.10 The greater circulation of wealth traded around and beyond the Mediterranean is evident in the archaeology, which reveals ships carrying precious cargo on an unprecedented scale. Shipwrecks in the Mediterranean ramp up in the late Hellenistic period and hit an all-time high in the first centuries BC and AD before dropping off again. A. J. Parker’s study summarizes the proportions in two charts. A bar chart shows the astronomical rise in shipwrecks precisely as Roman generals begin their fruitful

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campaigns and the Roman collecting industry kicks into gear (Fig. 62), while a pie chart shows that the periods 150–1 BC and AD 1–150 combine to make up nearly half of the known wrecks (Fig. 63). While many ships carried oil and wine, an astonishing number also carried villa furnishings. The famous Mahdia wreck that contained the marble candelabrum in Part II also carried bronze lamp attachments and sculpture. A wreck at Kizilburun dated to 100–25 BC contained stone basins with stands, and slabs perhaps used as table tops.11 A luscious green glass boat in miniature, used as a jewelry box and discovered in Pompeii with its costly “cargo” still intact, is a playful nod to this booming shipborne luxury trade.12 Numerous shipwrecks demonstrate a close connection between Egypt and Italy, containing cargo picked up in both places on the same run. At Kamarina (Capo Ognina, Sicily) sunken cargo included a Campanian bronze lamp and an Egyptian one, both dating to the late 1st–early 2nd c. AD. Wreck B on the Skerki Banks, a shallow zone between Sicily and

Fig. 61: Map of main trading sites discussed in the text, including detail of Egypt’s Eastern Desert with main roads and sites between Nile and Red Sea (sites mentioned by name are shown as black dots, others as white dots). *Exact location of Muziris is unknown.

124 Fig. 62: Bar chart of number of known Mediterranean shipwrecks over time.

Fig. 63: Pie chart of proportion of known Mediterranean shipwrecks by period.

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Tunisia, dates to the early first century AD and carried wine amphorae from Campania, Egypt, and Crete, and oil from Tripolitania. That the used cooking ware on board was central Italian suggests that the crew was too, perhaps working out of Puteoli.13 Wreck F on the same banks may also demonstrate a trade connection between Egypt and other ports. It contained amphorae from all over the Mediterranean – Naxos, Baetica, Tarraconensis, and North Africa – along with a small amount of stone “roughed out as monolithic columns and large polygonal blocks.” The stone type was difficult to identify, but the excavators noted, “If the stone is red granite, the ship was probably loaded in Alexandria with Aswan granite and grain or lentils;” if it is grey granite, it may come from Spain.14 The Antirhodos shipwreck in the Alexandrian harbor, dated to the turn of the millennium, attests another special connection between Egyptian and Italian traders. The ship’s construction is common to Roman trade ships at this time, but uses a type of wood common to Egypt.15 The same is seen in the remains of boats at the Red Sea ports of Roman Egypt, which use a rigging like that known in the Mediterranean, but made out of materials from Egypt and the Indian Ocean.16 This is certainly more efficient than importing foreign materials for local production, particularly when needed in large supply. In 26 BC, 80 warships and 130 transport ships were built at Cleopatris (modern Suez) for Augustus’ invasion of Arabia, and the geographer and longtime Alexandria resident Strabo says that Roman merchant ships were a common sight in the Red Sea thereafter.17 The Mediterranean, Nile, and Red Sea were part of a deeply intertwined network. These wrecks point to another way the Roman state supported trade, namely the massive investment put into Alexandria’s harbor infrastructure (Fig. 64). Just as the Ptolemies had, the Romans too wanted to exploit Alexandria’s prime location for transporting goods to and from the Mediterranean, up the Nile, through the Eastern Desert of Egypt to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.18 Alexandria was a pivot point between the seas, as Strabo proudly notes: among the happy advantages of the city, the greatest is the fact that this is the only place in all Egypt which is by nature well situated with reference to both things – both to commerce by sea, on account of the good harbors, and to commerce by land, because the river easily conveys and brings together everything into a place so situated – the greatest emporium in the inhabited world.19

Thus the Alexandrian harbor’s infrastructure underwent major modifications under the Romans. The Ptolemaic western harbor and the narrow, winding canal connecting it to Lake Mareotis were abandoned. The Romans focused their efforts on the Great Harbor to the east and dug a massive, straight canal connecting it to Lake Mareotis. The Ptolemaic western port and canal are dwarfed by the Roman port and canal at the Great Harbor. Until the harbor excavations are fully published, the extent

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Fig. 64: Map of navigable routes at Alexandria in the Roman period. Around the city of Alexandria (marked with dashed circle), the ­Ptolemaic canal led from inland waterways to the smaller “Eunostos” harbor, while the Roman canal led to the larger Great Harbor. The area was protected by the military station at Nikopolis. Both canals connected to the canal network (marked with banded lines) leading to Kanopos (Latin Canopus) and joining the Nile at the city of Schedia.

of the Roman modifications is difficult to assess; but the redevelopment clearly shows the Roman drive to maximize the efficiency of this trade hub.20 The scale of shipping from Alexandria to Rome was in part determined by the annona, the lifeline of grain shipments, but other items too would have profited from the expansion. Private ships were contracted for service by the Roman government, and traders in luxury goods may have been incentivized to work for the grain trade as well.21 It is even possible that the Roman redevelopment was planned to be not only practical but symbolic: if the administrative buildings and granaries were put up on the site of the Ptolemaic palace, as has been conjectured,22 this replacement of the defunct Hellenistic monarchy with a bustling harbor for the annona would have been a highly symbolic gesture. The renovated port at Alexandria also became the Romans’ most important customs station. With the Mediterranean on one side and passage to the Red Sea, Arabia, and India on the other, Alexandria was ideally positioned at the bottleneck of commercial routes between these regions. Controlling and, above all, taxing the goods that flowed in all directions through Alexandria resulted in huge monetary gain for the Roman Empire and a wealth of documentation for archaeologists. In the Muziris Papyrus, which details the financing of a boat from Alexandria to Muziris, India and back in the second century AD, the conversion between Roman and Alexandrian pounds is done sloppily, resulting in a surplus of tax due – perhaps an illegal “skimming” on the part of the customs agents.23 The customs collected by the Roman state on the Red Sea trade alone have been estimated at more than those collected from multiple entire prov-

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inces, an estimate due in part to the system of double taxation. Strabo says that in Egypt, “double duties are collected, on both imports and exports; and on goods that cost heavily the duty is also heavy.” He also speculates that the Romans’ tax revenue on precious goods from India must be even greater than the already enormous sums, less assiduously collected, by Ptolemy Auletes, Cleopatra’s father.24 This double taxation was so fantastically beneficial to the government, one wonders that the merchants could also profit. That they did so is evidenced by the vast numbers of ships and goods now preserved as shipwrecks.

2.  Ready Money

This trade was only possible because of a new distribution of wealth following Octavian’s conquest of Egypt. This may be reflected in the tomb paintings of Vestorius Priscus, where the silver service announces not only refined taste but sheer capital. The conquest of Egypt precipitated both an increase in available wealth through Octavian’s Egyptian spoils, on the one hand, and the spread of a stable currency, on the other. While these factors are well-studied in the field of economic history, they have never been considered in a sustained way for their impact on the Egyptian goods circulating in the Mediterranean after the conquest. Yet this is not to be underestimated. Octavian’s conquest of Egypt resulted in such an influx of wealth in the form of spolia as to affect the entire Roman economy.1 Roman authors record seeing not only the heaps of riches themselves (detailed in the previous chapter), but the economic repercussions. Suetonius writes in his biography of Augustus: …by bringing the royal treasures to Rome in his Alexandrian triumph he made ready money so abundant, that the rate of interest fell, and the value of real estate rose greatly; and after that, whenever there was an excess of funds from the property of those who had been condemned, he loaned it without interest for fixed periods to any who could give security for double the amount.2

The cheap loans are also mentioned by Dio Cassius, who reports that at Octavian’s triumph in Rome, “so vast an amount of money circulated through all parts of the city alike, that the price of goods rose and loans for which the borrower had been glad to pay twelve per cent could now be had for one third that rate.” Indeed, prices reached record highs in 30–27 BC.3 Although high prices are not a consumer’s dream, they encourage merchants to deal in sought-after wares; and a lower interest rate facilitates borrowing, a prerequisite for long-distance trade. Thus these trends in prices and loans translated into increased trade, especially over long distances.4 Roman merchants had to take out loans in order to pay the security on the cargo they planned to retrieve;5 so an interest rate that was one-third the previous rate would allow many more merchants to ship

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more frequent and more costly cargoes than before the conquest of Egypt had made this new wealth available. It is no coincidence that banks and lenders in Alexandria demonstrably increase during the Roman period as well. At the key port between Rome, Egypt, and India, the banking sector was booming.6 The princeps himself was partially responsible for distributing the wealth of his victory. Suetonius says that he “often gave largesse to the people,” even to boys so young that they had previously been exempt.7 He also handed out tesserae nummulariae, a system of tokens similar to modern food stamps. Romans receiving largesse enjoyed increased buying power, since with more income than before, they could start to acquire more “unnecessary” items – that is, luxury goods.8 One of the most wide-reaching of Augustus’ actions to convert Egyptian spolia into distributed wealth was his payment of troops. Coins reached the hands of Roman soldiers who captured them as spoils, or who received newly-minted coin in the form of donatives from their generals.9 These latter could reach fantastic proportions in the tens of millions of denarii. Augustus even outdid Republican tradition, expending at least 750 million denarii on public outlays after conquering Egypt. He gave 120 aurei apiece to the 120,000 soldiers in his triumph, which, given the weight of aurei at this time, means that each soldier received three Roman pounds of gold on just this one occasion. After being paid out to soldiers, Roman coinage circulated as widely as the movement of these soldiers and even beyond, through the Roman imposition of taxes paid in coin in the provinces.10 The new wealth of coinage beginning under Augustus is crucial for understanding the developing trade network because standardized coinage is crucial to efficient commerce. Although the process of turning booty into coinage was ubiquitous already in the Republic, the empire saw an explosion in coinage. Augustus coined his tons of spoils from Spain, Illyricum, and Egypt to pay off the wars and dedicate public works and largesse. His introduction of four new small-denomination bronze coins greatly facilitated daily transactions, and their stable relationship to silver and gold coins laid a solid groundwork for the success of Roman coinage over the following 275 years. Augustus’ capture of Ptolemaic gold helped him to start minting the aureus again, and his conquest of mines in Spain, Dalmatia, and Moesia ensured a steady supply of gold and silver to be turned into coinage for Roman soldiers across the empire. Augustus’ aurei had such a high purity that they were valued even more than gold bullion, creating public faith in the coinage such that many provinces gave up local currency and adopted Roman or Roman-inspired coinages.11 The increasing monetization of the Roman Empire touched Egypt too, despite its system of closed currency. Under the Romans, as under the Ptolemies, Egypt used a unique currency all its own, and recognized none

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other. A visitor to Egypt would have to exchange money into Alexandrian tetradrachms at the border, and upon leaving Egypt was forced to change it back. Augustus thus continued the use of Ptolemaic silver tetradrachms and modeled his own bronze coins on the Ptolemaic weights and sizes in order to convince the public to accept it as currency. Augustus’ successors continually improved the silver and bronze coinage of daily use in Roman Egypt, which remained remarkably stable over the centuries. So although Augustus himself was not responsible for dramatically increasing the supply of coinage in Egypt, he certainly did so in the rest of the Mediterranean; and around AD 19–20, Egypt started to catch up.12 Currency was therefore flowing smoothly in the Roman Empire leading up to the time of the greatest trade to and through Egypt, in the later first century AD.

3.  Textiles in Italian Homes

The Vestorius Priscus frescoes hold still another clue for understanding the trade in fine things at this time (Fig. 51). Behind the silver service arrayed upon the table is a red cloth hanging in the background which has generally escaped attention. Yet it is an important feature of this assemblage of rich materials in the household. Its illusionistic folds and two simple but elegant border patterns make a perfect backdrop for the silver, emphasizing not only the rich colors of both materials but their common role as luxury goods on display. It is an elegant allusion to Roman consumption of fine textiles in the first century AD. Textiles constitute one of the most significant yet unexpected categories of prized Roman goods. Although today we might not think of textiles as a precious material, comments in the ancient literature about who was wearing fringe, long sleeves, or fabric brushed to a luminous shine confirms how closely attentive the Romans were to this medium.1 The production and processing of fabric in the pre-modern world was a labor-intensive – that is, expensive – business, even more so when elaborate techniques or precious materials were involved. Cloth was so sought-after that it was a common feature in triumphs alongside the vessels and furniture seen in the previous chapter. Livy says that Marcellus’ 211 BC triumph was the first to bring not only fancy couches and sideboards but “valuable robes for coverlets, tapestries, and other products of the loom (vestem stragulam pretiosam, plagulas, et alia textilia)” into Rome.2 The most famous luxury textiles were named after the locales that produced them; and significantly, these locales are all in the east. There is a hint of this in the Hellenistic period in the description of Ptolemy II’s pavilion, brimming with Phoenician curtains, Persian carpets, and purple Egyptian rugs.3 This trend continued energetically in the Roman period. The coverlets that Cato so admirably rejected in order to uphold his exemplary abstemious lifestyle are specified as “Babylonian,” which according to Pliny denotes an especially colorful cloth. Pliny comments on the exorbitant prices of these as well as “Phrygian” and “Egyptian” cloth.

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Fig. 65: Purple cloth woven with gold threads from Tomb II at ­Vergina, Greece. 4th c. BC. ­Thessaloniki, ­Thessaloniki ­Archaeological Museum.

The “Attalic” textiles referred to by Roman authors take their name from King Attalus of Pergamon, whom Pliny credits with the very invention of fabric embellished with gold. Perhaps we should imagine something like the golden-threaded textiles recovered from the Hellenistic royal tombs in Vergina (Fig. 65). This attribution, however, is less a historical reality – the earliest gold textiles in Italy predate King Attalus, belonging to the ca. 400 BC François Tomb in Etruria4 – than a statement about the extent of Attalus’ wealth and his perceived role in spreading their fame. His effects auctioned at Rome were so decadent that Pliny blames them for a precipitous drop in Roman morality.5 In these cases, specifying an actual geographic provenance was less important than acknowledging the textiles as imports and adding to their perceived value. Much as “Corinthian bronze” was used by Roman authors to describe objects not necessarily from Corinth but made with a certain inlay and patina technique, so the ancient use of terms like “Babylonian” for a coverlet should probably be understood to refer to technique, pattern, or color, in addition to some allusion to a storied place

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of origin.6 Even if the names are not consistent with modern standards of geographic accuracy, they are highly informative because they indicate a colloquial familiarity with the goods that linked them unequivocally with the east. The import of eastern textiles to Roman Italy in the first century AD was astronomical. Miko Flohr has shown through the positioning of cloth treatment facilities along major trade routes that textiles were imported to Rome in large quantities – even the standard wool for everyday garments – and several homeowners in Pompeii seem to have worked closely with textile importers, as they built cloth treatment facilities in their own houses.7 Imported cloth came, unsurprisingly, largely from the east. The Periplus Maris Erythraei, a marine merchant’s handbook written ca. AD 40–70, lists so many types of cloth goods endemic to the African coast south of Berenike (centering on modern-day Eritrea) that they become a monotonous catalog (Fig. 61). Undyed cloth and tunics are listed only several times by name before reappearing as “the same things mentioned before.” In Arabia one can buy purple and gold cloth as well as blankets, sashes, and other cloth goods; in India, cotton cloth.8 Such textiles would have reached Roman consumers by one of the two major trade routes of the time, either over the Persian Gulf and through Palmyra to the Mediterranean, or over the Red Sea and down the Nile.9 That they did so is suggested by the archaeological evidence, particularly from Roman houses in Italy. Even by the first century BC, lavish textiles were considered essential to a Roman home – and not only an elite one. Curtains were standard in even fairly modest homes. In Pompeii the remains of curtains used to separate the dining room from the peristyle garden have been found in the House of the Menander, and in other houses the remains of iron curtain rods have been found stuck into the plaster capitals of columns and pilasters.10 Numerous wall paintings also attest the regular use of large curtains to partition the reception areas of the house: in one oecus of the Pompeian House of the Labyrinth, a rope is depicted between the columns with a very voluminous, dark purple curtain hanging from it.11 On the same wall from the House of Livia seen previously (Fig. 31), a deep red cloth hangs languidly in the righthand corner of the architecture. Three light-colored borders are visible: at the edge, a row of rosettes flanked by double lines; next, a row of waves backed by a single line; and finally, a series of lancet leaves backed again by a line. Curtains’ centrality to a home environment is attested by a convention in sculpture of indicating interiors by the presence of a curtain. Among Roman sarcophagi of the late imperial period, the deceased can be depicted in an interior space indicated by a hanging cloth called a parapetasma or velum. The cloth may be draped behind the deceased, as in the case of a

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Fig. 66: Fresco depicting “Vorhang” panels with curving edges (left and right panels) in House of Meleager, ­Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79.

Roman woman accompanied by her child seen on a sarcophagus in the Vatican museums, or even behind reclining lovers.12 In both cases, the cloth serves to locate the scene indoors – and, given the subjects of these scenes, the interior is very likely that of a Roman house. Textile patterns translated easily into wall paintings because cloth itself was traditionally such a common “wall” in the form of curtains. And in the later first century AD, wall paintings from Campania began to include new forms derived from textiles with a character and quantity never before seen. In my view, these paintings reflect the expansion of Rome’s trading network in precisely this period. Three new elements appear in the Fourth-Style compositions (ca. AD 55–79) whose origins are reflected in the modern terminology used for them, even if the connection between the media has not been thoroughly investigated until now.13 One is a type of color-block panel in the main zone of the wall, called by the German word for curtain, Vorhang, because the arched top and bottom imitate the sagging edges of a cloth panel hung by the corners (Fig. 66). The allusion is made explicit in the case of a Roman villa in present-day Switzerland, where the corners of the sagging panel bear the paws of the animal whose pelt it is. The animal’s head appears in the center of the upper edge.14 This is an illusionistic reference to the most opulent of interiors, as in the Pavilion of Ptolemy II, where “the spaces between columns were hung with the pelts of animals.”15 Ornamental bands lining a piece of woven cloth along its edges are also imitated in paint (Fig. 67). Whether the frescoed patterns imitate an

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embroidered border or woven one is debatable; the lack of evidence for embroidered textiles in Italy may argue for the latter.16 Indisputable is that this conceit is ubiquitous; ornamental borders are found in the vast majority of the abundant Fourth-Style paintings preserved today. Finally, the Tapetenmuster schemes that appear in the Fourth Style derive not from “wallpaper,” as the term is commonly translated into English, but again from textiles – which were in fact the first form of wallpaper, when imitations of lush tapestries were made in cloth before paper was able to be printed in sufficiently large pieces.17 Perhaps most obviously derived from textile patterning is the fresco in the eponymous room of the House of the Gilded Cupids in Pompeii (Fig. 68). Interlocking hexagons are joined by squares filled with eight-pointed stars or flowers, alternating with clusters of four tiny triangles pointing to a central dot. Perhaps strident for modern tastes, this particular cloth may have been popular in

Fig. 67: Fresco depicting tapestry borders (left and right panels) in House of the Great Altar, Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79.

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Fig. 68: Textile pattern imitated by Fourth-Style wall painting in House of the Gilded Cupids, Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79.

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antiquity – for the same pattern, in the same red and gold, is used for the fabulously rich cloak of Saint Theodorus in the apse mosaic of the Church of Cosmas and Damian in Rome, ca. AD 530 (Fig. 69). There is a remarkable correspondence between these painted designs and the scarce cloth fragments that are preserved. A Fourth-Style wall painting recently conserved at Positano, on the Amalfi Coast, features ornamental borders in a pattern of interlocking triangles (Fig. 70). The spades that make up the border are filled with lines radiating outward, as if from the kernel at the base of each triangle. Precisely this pattern can be found along the trade network to the east, in the textiles preserved in Palmyrene tombs of the late first to early third century AD (Fig. 71). Because Palmyra was a major trade hub for textiles and other goods on their way between the Mediterranean and Asia – at Coptos there was even a resident association of “Palmyrene Red Sea ship owners” – 18 the similar forms of

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137 Fig. 69: Saint Theodorus in a richly patterned cloak, depicted in the apse mosaic of the Church of Cosmas and Damian, Rome. Ca. AD 530.

ornament are surely not coincidence. In fact, as in Roman fresco, textile patterns in Palmyra also came to serve as architectural ornament.19 Textile fragments found in the Vesuvian region include some one hundred fifty pieces, but they are not well published, and so poorly preserved that patterns are hard to decipher. Wool counts among these, as does an asbestos material cited by Pliny for its preservative qualities.20 Remarkably, the highest-end textiles are also preserved  – those woven with gold thread, as well as a spool of silk (certainly imported from China; see end of chapter). Bands of gold cloth are known from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplontis, as is a very large segment of cloth of which only the gold threading survives.21 While Vergil mentions lavish golden-threaded cloth as a typical feature of a rich house, the fact that it appears in these relatively modest Campanian sites suggests that even highly precious textiles were surprisingly widely available.22

138 Fig. 70: Triangle “tapestry border” in Fourth-Style wall painting in Positano, Italy. Ca. 50–79 AD.

Fig. 71: Triangle “tapestry border” on textile fragment from Palmyrene tomb. End of 1st c. BC–mid-3rd c. AD.

Trading in Luxury

4.  A Cloth over One’s Head

The abundant textiles in Roman homes inspired not only wall painting but ceiling decoration as well. The Upper Cubiculum in the “House of Augustus” addressed in Part II offers a good example (Fig. 72). Various geometric shapes, each defined by its own painted border and raised stucco edges, fit around each other to make a sort of patchwork. The border patterns range from simple stepped triangles to multiple strings of waves, lines, and darts. Filling the rest of the panel in each case is a vegetal or floral ornament, sometimes combined with a figural motif. In some examples, such as the four oblong panels radiating from the central tondo (Fig. 73), the result recalls the floral candelabra on the walls (Fig. 47), or the vegetal-figural candelabra in the Farnesina frescoes (Fig. 45). The tondo in the center depicts a mythological couple, a woman holding a fan riding on the back of a winged figure. Although not yet noted in the scholarship, this ceiling decoration is inspired by textiles. The first hint lies in the strange semi-triangular shape of four panels that surround the central tondo. Two of the corners are truncated and the hypotenuse is concave, as if the piece were part of a sewing pattern or a swag of cloth stylized into geometry. The clothlike effect is heightened by its border pattern: the triangles around its edge have a stepped profile that refers to the pixelated appearance of woven cloth. Just such a border (also called “stepped chevrons” or “Christmas trees”) adorns a fragment of cloth found at Berenike, on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, and dated to after AD 70 (Fig. 74).1 The spreading floral design in the center of the panel, marked by simple, sleek curlicues, may refer to similar designs in woven or embroidered textiles such as that found in Tomb 2 at Vergina – which also has a triangle border along two sides (Fig. 65). A rare fragment of cloth embroidered with gold thread, found in a first-century tomb in the Crimea which also contained evidence of embroidery with silver thread, displays a similar arrangement of palmettes and spirals (as well as waves, noted in the publication but not visible in the published photograph).2

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Fig. 72: Overall view of ceiling with patchwork composition, facing east. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

Fig. 73: Detail of ceiling panel depicting hybrid candelabrum figure with triangle border. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

A Cloth over One’s Head

141 Fig. 74: “Stepped chevron” border on textile fragment from Berenike, Egypt. Wool.

The series of waves bordering the Vergina cloth also has a parallel in the “House of Augustus” ceiling, where it is again accompanied by a triangle border (this time in perpendicular strips) framing the oblong panels at the bottom of the barrel vault. Roman wall painters seem to have been quite familiar with textiles decorated in this way, for they painted this same combination of triangles with waves as a border design on the illusionistic curtains in a Republican temple at Brescia (Fig. 75).3 Again the fresco evidence is corroborated by actual cloth fragments: one piece from Palmyra figures waves along a strip of vegetal ornament,

Fig. 75: Fresco of textile strung on loops, with long fringe and decorative bands: wave, triangle, garland, floral, “city wall,” and pin. Depicted in lower zone of frescoed temple wall, below imitation stone and architecture. Brescia. 1st c. BC.

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Fig. 76: Fresco depicting curtain with acanthus frieze border in House of the Large Gate, Herculaneum. Ca. AD 62–79.

while another shows a layering of triangle and vegetal patterns – as well as color combinations – like that in the Brescia paintings (Fig. 71). These decorative formulae were well-known and long-lived.4 Finally, even the large frieze at the bottom of both sides of the barrel vault in the House of Augustus cubiculum fits into the known textile repertoire: an illusionistic curtain in a fresco in Herculaneum has a very similar design indeed, its acanthus frieze interspersed with striding half-vegetal figures holding onto the scrolls (Fig. 76). Since Second-Style wall painting takes fine objects as the starting point of its compositions, as we saw in Part II, this use of textiles to inspire the ceiling design fits right in. Yet ceiling decoration imitating textiles is an even longer-lived tradition than that, extending not only through other Roman examples, but to Etruscan tombs as well. It derives from the practice of stretching out a piece of cloth as a tent covering for an outdoor banquet. Painting a ceiling with a textile design in this context refers to a marvelous leisure activity that combines several of the Romans’ favorite things: manicured nature, banqueting, and fine furnishings.5 Etruscan tombs use the idea to similar ends, but here perhaps referring to a funerary banquet.6 The best Roman example, although fragmentarily preserved, comes from the Garden Triclinium from the Villa of Livia at Primaporta (Fig. 77). Here the barrel-vaulted ceiling is partitioned into rectangles by finely molded stucco borders, as if it were a quilt. The effect is very similar

A Cloth over One’s Head

143 Fig. 77: Garden fresco and stucco ceiling imitating textile with scalloped edges. Garden Triclinium of Villa of Livia, Primaporta. Mid-1st century BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.

indeed to that in the Upper Cubiculum of the “House of Augustus.” In the Villa of Livia, however, the textile referent is made even clearer by the scalloped edge of the cloth depicted on the walls below as a long series of pendulous ruffled tongues.7

5.  Triangle Borders on Egyptian Textiles

In the “House of Augustus” ceiling, many panels are edged by a row of triangles that turns out to have a connection to Egypt. The four oblong panels radiating from the central tondo each are lined with smoothedged triangles, while the neighboring panels bear the triangular “stepped chevron” border. The former can probably be understood as a miniaturized variation of the latter. As we just saw, a triangle border adorns textiles from a variety of places, such as Vergina and Berenike; it was a widespread textile pattern. Yet the Romans considered it quintessentially Egyptian. Two impressive works of opus sectile make this connection clear. On the large obsidian skyphos from Stabia, just such a triangular border appears on the clothing of the Egyptian figures (Fig. 1). Here the toothed edge is joined by a confusing wealth of other geometric designs, but it reappears quite distinctly in the famous opus sectile fragments from the Basilica of Junius Bassus (Fig. 78). Here the famous myth of Hylas being accosted by nymphs is framed by an illusionistic swag of cloth below, whose edges are toothy with triangles. A row of pharaonic Egyptian figures parades across the cloth in brilliant colors, interspersed with altars and incense burners, while beneath them further swags of rich green stone emphasize the effect. The figures may be inspired by embroidered or woven friezes, as we shall see in the next examples. Numerous visual sources confirm that the Romans held the triangle border to be typical of Egyptian textiles. It reappears on the cloth that peeks into the landscape space in the Temple of Isis portico (Fig. 79). In the Villa Farnesina triclinium, it surrounds a panel of stylized Egyptian crowns (Fig. 80); here again the triangles have the subtly crenellated edges that reference woven cloth. In mosaics too – a medium closely linked to textiles used on the floor, which were abundant in Greece and Rome1 – the triangle border is repeatedly associated with Egypt. Roman artists usually depict it alongside other Egyptian motifs, as in a similar toothed frame surrounding a large second-century mosaic of Pygmy scenes in Rome’s Palazzo Massimo, and a first-century mosaic framing two small Egyptian

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Fig. 78: Opus sectile depicting Hylas (above) and Egyptian textile (below). Stone and glass. From Basilica of Junius Bassus, Rome. First half of 4th c. AD. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. H: 130 cm. W: 111 cm.

landscapes, one of which depicts boats by a lighthouse (in Alexandria?) and the other a palm tree and walled city. In the Third-Style painting in a villa at Isera, stylized Egyptian crown motifs and sphinxes adjoin borders of triangles.2 So although the pattern can also be used free of Egyptian connotations, such as in the Brescia frescoes (Fig. 75), the predominant usage shows a clear connection to Egypt.

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Fig. 79: Drapery with triangle border in frescoes of Temple of Isis. Pompeii. Ca. 50–79 AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico ­Nazionale.

What inspired the Romans to link this triangle border with Egypt? Looking at the archaeology reveals that this was in fact a pattern typical of Egyptian textiles. Painted mummy portraits of the Roman period, whose detailed jewelry and clothing represent the contemporary three-dimensional objects surprisingly accurately, reveal that the triangle border pattern was common for clothing.3 The purple triangle border is common in Antinoopolis, preserved in numerous mummy portraits such as the “Two Brothers” tondo in Cairo and the “Woman Wearing a Fringed Tunic” in The Metropolitan Museum (Fig. 81).4 The Berenike textile fragment, as well as others from Coptic Egypt, are the three-dimensional remnants to corroborate these painted depictions. So although the pattern was also used in Vergina and surely other places – the paucity of surviving material outside of Egypt makes this hard to determine – there is good evidence that it was fairly popular in Egypt. And more importantly, the Romans were convinced that it was characteristic of Egyptian textiles. Indeed, the Romans associated Egypt in general with superlative cloth production. Pliny’s assertion that the Egyptians invented the very art of weaving should be understood to attest not the historical origins of the craft, but the extraordinary skill with which it was practiced in

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Egypt. He even measures this in thread count, a jarringly modern yardstick for anyone who has bought bedsheets. He notes that the Egyptian King Amasis’ breastplate, apparently made of Egyptian linen, resides in the Temple of Minerva on Rhodes – a reminder that temples served as display areas for wonders brought from afar.5 Pliny also relates that Egypt produced a distinctive cloth made by a unique “multi-thread” (polymita) weaving technique, as well as a resist-dyed cloth. Fragments of this latter type have even been discovered in recent excavations in Egypt at Mons Claudianus and Didymoi.6 Interestingly, any technique using dyed cloth, however characteristically Egyptian Pliny holds them to be, must date to the Hellenistic period or later. This is because in pharaonic Egypt almost all textiles, for both funerary and daily use, were made of linen. Linen was only rarely dyed due to the difficulty of getting a linen fabric to take dye. With the Greek take­ over, a new weaving method arrived in Egypt (using looms with weights) as did the use of wool – which is easier to dye, so allowed for more colorful textiles.7 Again it is the Hellenistic rather than the pharaonic Egyptian material that seems to have made the biggest impression on the Romans.

Fig. 80: Detail of fresco depicting Egyptian crowns with triangle border. Triclinium C, Villa Farnesina,Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.

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Fig. 81: Painted mummy shroud of woman wearing cloth with triangle border and jewelry of gold, gems, and pearls. Tempera on linen. From Egypt, ­possibly Antinoopolis. Ca. AD 170– 200. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. H: 230.2 cm. W: 110.8 cm.

The richness and importance of cloth in Egypt can also be seen on Roman-period mummy cases, such as a piece in the British Museum that figures a woman in a spectacular striped dress and mantle (Fig. 82). The alternating wide and narrow bands of pink, green, white, and gold were obviously a source of great pride for the deceased – so much so that the cartonnage over her legs is gently ridged to imitate the folds of cloth. A light-colored band that runs down her front in a U-shape features scenes

Fig. 82: Mummy case of Taminis, with depiction of elaborate textiles. Cartonnage. From Akhmim, Egypt. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. London, British Museum. H: 48 cm. W: 54 cm. L: 151 cm.

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of men hunting animals and preparing food in large pots – representing a figural frieze embroidered or woven into the cloth, similar to the pharaonic figural frieze in the Junius Bassus mosaic (Fig. 78). The mummy’s garment strongly recalls the cloth in Ptolemy II’s pavilion described by Callixeinus, which included “tunics of cloth of gold and most beautiful military cloaks, some having portraits of the kings woven in them, others depicting subjects taken from mythology.”8 Gold and highly decorated cloth were thus also central to the displays of Hellenistic Egyptian royalty.

6.  Safe Passage to India

While the Romans seem to have connected certain textiles with Egypt specifically, other goods arrived in Italy through Egypt from even farther horizons that may have obscured their origins. The most important of these came from India via shipping routes to the Red Sea, then desert roads to the Nile, and finally shipping again from Alexandria to Italy. This trade is worth examining here for two reasons. First, because it shows other dimensions of the Roman state’s interventions to support the trade in luxury goods. These are benefits that accrue only over time, and thus lead up to a trade boom in the later first century AD rather than directly after the conquest. Second, it raises the question of how much Roman viewers in Italy might have known about the Egyptian or non-Egyptian origin of the goods coming to them, and to what extent this was important to their valuation of the objects. The Roman state made legal provisions supporting mercantile activity, and sometimes even supervised and traded luxury goods. The provisioning of military camps is perhaps the best known case of the state itself making large commissions, but indeed the state also invested in non-military endeavors.1 Direct governmental intervention is evident in the administration of mining precious materials in Egypt’s eastern desert. An inscription of AD 14 from the town at the Wadi Hammamat stone quarries (Fig. 61) names a certain P. Iuventius Agathopous, prefect of Berenike and “archaeometallarch of the deposits of emerald, topaz, pearls and all the mines/ quarries of Egypt.”2 Later emperors were keen on exploiting the quarries in this desert for porphyry and other lavishly colored stones.3 The state controlled even glass perfume flasks full of aromatic or pharmaceutical substances, to judge from the abundant stamps on the vessels, a surprising case of the state’s direct hand in costly goods that were shipped all over the empire.4 In addition, Roman law included certain commerce-friendly provisions such as contracts for investment partnerships (societates) which made business ventures possible for people who could not afford it alone. The Roman state itself also offered expensive contracts in shipping, pro-

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visioning, and other large-scale endeavors. In this way, the state acted as a supersized patron in the trade of precious commodities. Another impact of the state is seen in the road system. The roads through the deserts of Egypt connecting the Nile to the Red Sea, and hence the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, were part of a road initiative on a scale never before seen.5 Certainly this began in the Republican period with the Via Appia and other roads gradually extending Rome’s reach.6 Augustus followed the precedent in that he “personally undertook to rebuild the Flaminian Road all the way to Ariminum, and assigned the rest of the highways to others who had been honored with triumphs, asking them to use their prize money in paving them.”7 Roads in Egypt between the Nile and the Red Sea were heavily built up in the Augustan period. The road from Coptos to Berenike opened in AD 4 and reached a peak of activity under Vespasian.8 Graffiti along the routes to Berenike and Myos Hormos increase during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, indicating an increase in commercial traffic at this time.9 The overland routes from the Nile to the Red Sea were apparently good enough that the canal linking Alexandria directly with the Red Sea (at Cleopatris, modern Suez) was left in disrepair until the reign of Trajan; clearly it was not considered a worthwhile enhancement to the system of roads and ports already in place, a remarkable fact in light of the usually great benefits of water over land transport. Waystations, watering stations, and overnight accomodations were set up along these routes with a consistency greatly aided by state oversight. Goods leaving Alexandria for the Red Sea and India – whether goods for sale or provisions for the traders and especially sailors – proceeded up the Nile to Coptos and then were loaded onto camel trains heading east to Berenike or Myos Hormos. This route was a six- or seven-day journey, so waystations and watering stations (hydreumata) were set up along the road at regular intervals. Overnight accommodations were positioned at the usual distance traveled in a day, the water sources more frequently. By Trajan’s reign, the road had water stations and roadhouses roughly every 25 kilometers.10 Increased security measures are also traceable. The soldier’s barracks (praesidia) along the road to Myos Hormos are identifiable by architectural remains and receipts for resident prostitutes. Under Trajan there is a rise in policing the road, with ostraca documenting orders for parapompe and propempein, body guards for travelers. Safety ensured by barracks full of soldiers all loyal to the same regime was something even the administratively excellent Persian Empire had not managed on this scale.11 Valuable cargo such as bullion was provided a military escort.12 Strabo comments that under Roman rule it was finally safe enough for fleets of ships to go to India and Ethiopia, bringing expensive wares back to Egypt for further distribution.13 To be sure, the pax augusta which Vergil, the Ara Pacis, and

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other Augustan mouthpieces romanticized as a peace of bucolic tranquility was in reality a matter of iron-fisted control. The generally peaceful state of the empire (although the Germanic population certainly kept the Roman army busy) allowed for freer movement of both people and goods over a wider area than ever before. And this was hardly a selfless act on the part of the Roman state. Aside from securing the emperors’ own use of the precious items protected by these means, safety for the merchants translated into income for the treasury. Levying customs on goods traded via these secure channels was too good to pass up. This was especially true for Egypt, whose harbors, particularly that at Alexandria, saw a staggering turnover of goods. While the Ptolemies had used the Red Sea harbors at Myos Hormos and Berenike primarily to import war elephants from elsewhere in Africa, the Romans had other plans for their imports.14 The Rome-India trade passing through Egypt carried some of the most costly materials in the ancient world.15 Indian products excavated in Berenike and Myos Hormos include black pepper by the kilogram, as well as rice and coconut, dated as early as the early first century AD.16 The Muziris Papyrus mentioned earlier reveals that a merchant ship running between Alexandria and India carried nearly four metric tons of elephant ivory  – and still this prodigious cargo amounted to only 7.4 % of the total load’s worth. The fragmentary list of other items on board notes relatively light weights in proportion to the hefty prices, suggesting that most of the cargo’s value must have come from spices, emeralds, and silks, as named in the Periplus section on the Muziris port.17 An Indian ivory furnishing in the form of a goddess (usually called a statuette but actually used as a handle or leg for a furnishing, as Kenneth Lapatin posits from the hole in the head) was found in a Pompeian house, illustrating the reach of Indo-Mediterranean trade into even a modest Campanian city.18 Also in Pompeii, incense (thus), a product brought from Arabia via the Red Sea ports, appears on the mundane shopping list scratched into the wall of an inn – indicating that the precious stuff was commonplace even in humble Italian locales.19 Tortoiseshell was another product of India shipped through Egypt to Roman Italy. A better quality tortoiseshell came from the Horn of Africa, but Pliny notes sources in the Indian Ocean – just as Lucan mentioned Cleopatra’s Indian tortoiseshell  – and records the use of it in sheets to decorate extravagant furniture.20 Perhaps Julius Caesar’s triumph over Alexandria used emblems (apparatus) of tortoiseshell that had been seized from Cleopatra’s palace.21 Apuleius describes tortoiseshell on a wedding bed, and Martial tells of the great collector Mamurra browsing the shops: “having four times measured a dinner-couch for six, wrought with tortoiseshell, he sorrowfully regretted that it was not large enough for his citron table.”22

Safe Passage to India

153 Fig. 83: Frescoes depicting doors inlaid with tortoiseshell, framed by columns with Alexandrian capitals. Cubiculum M, Villa of P. Fannius Synistor, ­Boscoreale. 50–40 BC. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Archaeological evidence of tortoiseshell is scarce, but remains have been found at Berenike.23 Other hints are found in material predating the Roman conquest of Egypt, indicating that the trade existed already at that time and only later reached the fever pitch described in the texts. SecondStyle wall paintings of ca. 50–40 BC provide evidence of tortoiseshell being inlaid into elegant wooden doors. In the same cubiculum of the Boscoreale villa whose frescoes we saw above for their gold-wrapped columns, doors are depicted with tortoiseshell inlay and silver lionheaded knockers and bosses (Fig. 83). Room G of the same villa depicts yet another type of doors inlaid with tortoiseshell, now in the Naples Museum. It is possible that these mottled tan and brown panels are meant to represent a sort of expensive wood rather than tortoiseshell, but the pattern is so characteristic of this latter that it seems the likely referent. A fabulous Hellenistic pyxis found in a grave in southern Italy, made of tortoiseshell, illustrates how the material was used in breathtaking luxury items. This box is inlaid with a sacro-idyllic scene on the lid in gold and electrum.24 Pearls are also noted among Cleopatra’s riches, and like tortoiseshell are a product of both the Red Sea and India. Mummy portraits from Egypt show such an abundance of pearl jewelry that it must have been readily available, at least to these relatively well-to-do individuals (Fig. 81). The

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import of pearls to Roman Italy is attested most spectacularly for Pompey. In his triumph over Mithridates, Armenia, Pompey processed a number of monuments made of pearls: thirty-three pearl crowns, a grotto made of pearls, and a pearl portrait of himself.25 This seems to contradict Fenestella’s claim that Augustus’ conquest of Alexandria led to the importation of pearls to Rome, since Pompey’s triumph took place in 61 BC.26 But Fenestella’s statement should not be taken to mean that there had previously been no pearls whatsoever imported to Rome. Rather, it typifies the Roman view of Egypt as the home of luxury, and of the impact of Augustus’ conquest in the eyes of contemporary authors. It also suggests that the importation of pearls increased dramatically after the conquest. Certainly this is seen in the first century BC and AD in the fairly modest city of Pompeii, where forty-eight pairs of pearl earrings have been discovered. At the same period, eight different funerary inscriptions from Rome’s Via Sacra name individuals and families as margaritarii, pearl traders.27 Silk almost certainly came not from India but through it, from China. Before the imperial period, silk was produced on the island of Cos by Asia Minor; the fabric was apparently so well-known that Augustan poets refer to it by the name coae vestes. But China surpassed Cos as the primary producer during the imperial period. Chinese silks reached Rome through the Indian harbors named in the Periplus; perhaps India even made its own silk, but in any case seems to have been a minor player compared to China.28 Silk threads were used as the base for silver- and gold-wrapped threads that were then woven into spectacular textiles.29 For the games that Julius Caesar held in conjunction with his quadruple triumph, he apparently had awnings made out of silk.30 It is worth noting that the Romans in Italy eagerly acquired costly goods from India, but mostly do not seem to have sought out Indian art. The ivory furnishing just mentioned in the shape of an Indian goddess found in Pompeii is a great rarity as a piece of identifiably Indian art imported to Roman Italy.31 This is a stark contrast to the Roman acquisition of Egyptian art. Clearly the trade routes would have allowed the Romans to have acquired Indian goods beyond simply pepper and pearls, but there seems to have been little desire to. Roman authors may rail against the abundant import of Indian spices and pearls, but Indian cloth, art, and jewelry do not feature in Roman markets the way Egyptian ones do.32 It is testament to how fixated Romans were on acquiring Egyptian art specifically, and not simply foreign art in general. We shall see in the next chapter that this may have to do with a sense of well-being that the Romans associated with Egyptian art, and the lack of such associations with Indian art.33

7.  Where is East?

The web of trade between Italy, Egypt, and India could easily have led to confusion between the land of origin and the clearing house of the precious items that ended up in Roman collections. While some Roman authors record pearls coming from the Red Sea or from India – Arrian notes that rich Greeks and Romans are “eager to buy the sea margarita [τὸν μαργαρίτην], as it is called in the Indian tongue,”1 – others, like Lucan, record an origin in Egypt. During Octavian’s triumph over Cleopatra, Roman viewers can hardly have thought to question whether any pearls on display came from Egypt, or had been painstakingly imported there from even remoter places before finally being brought to Rome.2 Just so, Pompey’s spectacular masses of pearls in his triumph over Mithridates, the king of Armenia, could be misleading in that pearls do not come from Armenia.3 But did Roman viewers in Italy know this, or care? Specifically where these pearls originated may not have been particularly clear or even interesting to a viewer in Roman Italy. They may have associated the material with Armenia, Egypt, India, or all or none of the above. Whether the Romans differentiated Egyptian textiles from those made in other eastern regions is also difficult to say. We saw above that names referring to a geographical place may not have done so according to a modern metric of geographic accuracy. What is more, many techniques of textile production are shared among these regions and thus not distinguishable to the consumer’s eye. According to Callixeinus’ account, gold weaving or embroidery as well as intricately woven figurative scenes are common to cloth of Persian as well as Egyptian manufacture; and we have seen above that it was used in Babylonian cloth as well.4 This would make locating the point of origin of various textiles based on sight and touch very difficult indeed. Fringed cloth, like that depicted in the Brescia temple (Fig. 75), may constitute a similar case. It was viewed in Rome as typically eastern, and fringed cloaks were popular in the Greek East following Hellenistic tradition. The Periplus notes the trade of fringed tunics from the east through Egypt.5 Was there a specific geographic

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origin associated with fringe, or did it simply bear a vague “eastern” connotation? Further, expensive cloth could be shipped among various eastern lands before heading to Italy, obfuscating its point of origin. For a consumer in Roman Italy, whether the cloth originated in Egypt or merely passed through it was likely unclear. If Cleopatra’s palace followed the model of Ptolemy II’s pavilion, it will have been full to bursting with rugs, curtains, and coverlets – the spoils captured by Octavian and brought back to Rome. Romans watching the triumph probably will not have differentiated the various origins of the textiles brought from the Egyptian palace. Displayed together, they all appeared to be of a piece  – as in Caesar’s quadruple triumph, with its awnings of silk.6 The silk likely originated in China, yet was used in the triumph over Egypt, Gaul, Pontus, and Numidia (perhaps indeed acquired by Caesar in one of these lands, if it had been brought there previously from China). Confronted with the overwhelming ostentation of a triumph, a Roman spectator would likely not have asked after the specific provenance of the textiles. The intricately intertwined network of the luxury good trade has immense explanatory power for various phenomena observable in Roman visual culture. From the widespread hunger for fine textiles down to the minute details of mosaic and fresco decoration, Roman tastes were indebted to Augustus’ largesse as much as desert trade routes. Ultimately these are tied up with even the very highest-level economic policies of the Roman state, namely the currency system, infrastructure, and legal codes imposed by Rome on its provinces. As more luxury goods than ever reached Romans in Italy, Egyptian goods became a gold standard for a pleasurable life. This is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in Roman gardens, the place par excellence of well-being, as we shall now see.

V.  Sculptures for Cult and Collecting

The trade in Egyptian goods encompassed countless object genres and materials. Unlike those now categorized as luxury goods, sculpture has historically held a central place in art-historical scholarship. In the post-antique view, sculpture as an art form has been esteemed more highly than luxury goods – some of which, such as textiles, have only recently entered the art-historical canon.1 The centrality of sculpture, especially stone sculpture, has in part to do with the simple fact that it is preserved far more often than artworks in other materials.2 Beyond its relatively good preservation, stone sculpture can sometimes be associated with find spots (due to statue bases or simply being too heavy to have wandered far from its original context) in a way that most luxury goods cannot. In the realm of Egyptian sculpture in Rome, this leads to both problems and opportunities. The obvious benefit lies in the information about usage that can be gleaned from the find spot. Yet the concomitant problem is the tendency to use the sculpture to assign a function to the space in which it was found, rather than vice-versa. Because of the tendency to read Egyptian objects as religious, the spaces associated with Egyptian sculptural finds are often interpreted as cultic. Indeed, a single piece of Egyptian sculpture is sometimes considered in the scholarship not only to be religious itself, but to provide evidence for the existence of a sanctuary.3 Once the sanctuary has been posited, other sculptures are attributed to it. Thus a variety of sculptures from a variety of find spots come to be grouped together on the basis of little evidence.4 Assigning Egyptian sculptures in this way to (even yet unknown) Egyptian sanctuaries is circular, especially since it tends to omit statues of non-Egyptian subjects.5 Egyptian sanctuaries thus come to be conceived as emphatically “Egyptian” when in fact they held a variety of non-Egyptian statues as well, as seen below. This method has affected the readings of the most important sanctuaries to Egyptian gods in Italy, particularly the Iseum in Beneventum.6 But objects alone – especially iconography alone – can only rarely indicate function. A loaf of bread on a kitchen table is profane, while the same loaf of bread, acting in the Catholic rite of Transubstantiation, becomes holy. Context is the ultimate and most reliable indicator of the function of Egyptian objects in the Roman Empire.7 Of course, this is not news to archaeologists; but it is worth reminding ourselves that it holds true for this group of objects too long considered exceptional. As we shall see, Egyptian sculpture was used not only in cult sites but in residences of the utmost luxury, as well as civic spaces. At the same time, it makes sense to consider Egyptian sculpture within the frame of religion – just in a different way than has traditionally been

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done. In the previous chapters we saw how Roman home furnishings were in fact inspired by temple furnishings, with the result that their forms are extremely similar, sometimes the same. Roman homeowners used certain objects to evoke a religious atmosphere in their living spaces without necessarily using those spaces for cult ritual, for instance the candelabra seen in Part II. In this chapter we will see that the religious overtone of Egyptian objects particularly suited the Roman context of the garden. Rather than the formal cultic activity usually suggested for Egyptian objects in Roman contexts, or the simple Nilotic associations assumed for many Egyptian pieces in gardens, such pieces displayed in gardens evoked a divine realm, in addition to being beautiful artworks. They conjured up the religiosity of an old and esteemed culture through its artistic tradition, for the purpose of gilding the Roman experience. This is why not only Nilotic subjects were chosen for gardens, and why we must not interpret all Egyptian artworks in gardens simply as Nilotic references. Egyptian sculpture suited the Roman garden for greater reasons. Only by laying aside the assumption of a cultic context for Egyptian sculpture, and closely examining the object and its context, can we appreciate how passionate, deliberate, widespread, and multifaceted the Roman use of Egyptian art was.

1.  Corinthian Statuettes

One of the most impressive yet unknown pieces of Egyptian sculpture in a Roman context is a bronze statuette from Terrace House 2, Property 2 at Ephesus (Fig. 84).1 It is exceptionally well crafted with incised details and precious metal inlays. The standing figure of a man wears a pleated kilt around his waist and an animal pelt over his left shoulder. Stylized spots on the pelt enhance the richness of the piece, as do the pleats in the kilt and the hanging strands of beads down its front. The large eyes, emphasized by the bald head, were inlaid with silver, now mostly lost. An inscription running along the edge of the animal pelt identifies the figure as Ihat, priest of Amun, whose good service is commemorated by this statuette. The inscription allows a precise dating of 610–589 BC, unusually early among Egyptian exports in the Roman Empire. The profile base is not Egyptian and was added to the statue only later – likely by its proud Roman owner. The fabrication of a Roman base for the statuette, as well as the outstanding workmanship of the piece relative to other finds in the house, suggest that it was a prized showpiece. In its material, composition, and artistry, it resembles in fact other bronzes in the category of so-called Corinthian bronzes, the apple of any Roman collector’s eye. We saw Corinthian banquet furnishings with Egyptian motifs in the Egyed Hydria (Fig. 3) and the Mensa Isiaca (Fig. 59). As for Corinthian statuettes, Pliny the Elder observed that “Many people are so charmed with the statuettes which they call ‘Corinthian’ that they carry them around with them!”2 This points up not only the collecting frenzy but that the statuettes were of a portable size, allowing an intimate handling and viewing experience. The Ihat figure’s height of 35 cm places it in the range of the Corinthian statuettes, usually between 20 and 50 cm tall. A bronze statuette of Minerva in Archaic style, now in the Getty Museum, surely belonged to this class of collectible and offers a useful comparison (Fig. 85). Silver was applied to the eyes, helmet, and aegis to heighten their impact; silver snakes projecting from the edges of the aegis are now lost.

162 Fig. 84: Statuette of Ihat, priest of Amun. Bronze with silver inlay. From Room SR 12, Property 2, Terrace House 2, Ephesus. Ca. 610–589 BC. Selçuk, Efes Müzesi. H: 35 cm.

Sculptures for Cult and Collecting

Corinthian Statuettes

163 Fig. 85: Statuette of Minerva in Archaic style. Bronze with silver details. Provenance unknown. Ca 50 BC–AD 25. Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum. H: 20.6 cm. W: 5 cm. D: 4.5 cm.

The archaistic style of the piece further enhanced its aura of antiquity and preciousness for its early imperial Roman owner. That divine subjects like Minerva appear alongside philosophers and athletes as such finely-worked bronzes of this period underscores that the genre was defined by medium and artistry rather than subject. Specialized types of ornate base were invented for these treasures, including ones that rotated at the turn of a tiny crank.3 A mechanical confection for turning the statue to be inspected from all sides – this was a connoisseurial culture that appraised the artistic merit of every inlaid eyelash. Unfortunately, the Roman context of the Ihat statuette is far from clear. The statuette was found separated from its base in a room (SR 12) used to store materials for the renovation of the house in ca. AD 220–270. Why this precious piece was in such a workspace may be explained by its discovery 50 cm above the fill level of this room, suggesting that it fell from an upper story.4 In addition to having been a display piece, could it have served a religious function? Several miniature terracotta Serapis altars

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found elsewhere in the house hint at a homeowner who practiced the cult of Serapis, but was the statuette related to this? Since it comes from a secondary deposit, we cannot know for sure. But importantly, the two functions are not mutually exclusive. That a Corinthian bronze statuette could serve both a collector and a supplicant is shown by Pliny the Younger’s decision to dedicate a Corinthian bronze in a local sanctuary. The statue depicts an old man, and Pliny plans to offer it in a temple of Jupiter. The subject of the statue is not obviously related to the god for whom it is being dedicated; Pliny has chosen it because “the statue seems to me to be worthy of the temple, and the gift to be worthy of the god.”5 Were an archaeologist to recover this statue in the temple of Jupiter for which it was intended, its use as a votive would be apparent; but if it were recovered in Pliny’s house before he managed to acquire its marble base and erect it in the temple, the intended votive function would not be obvious. It would appear to be a collector’s item. Either way, as for the Ihat statuette, it was a treasure in the eyes of its owner, whether or not it was also a ritual instrument. Another fine bronze statuette, this time from Italy and in a nonpharaonic style, may also be considered in the genre of Corinthian collectibles. Now in the Museo Civico Archeologico of Bologna, it has the unusual iconography of a nude man wearing a nemes headdress and double crown (Fig. 6).6 Its fine craftsmanship extends to the finely detailed eyes and adornments on the head and neck, including a diadem made of silver sheet. Its size (H: 20 cm) aligns with the norm for Corinthian bronzes. It does not depict a recognizable figure, although its combination of Egyptian attributes and Roman-style body have prompted suggestions of Antinous or a Roman emperor.7 Perhaps these identifications are symptomatic of the tendency to interpret high-quality bronze statuettes as objects of cult, here presumed to be the cult of Antinous or the imperial cult.8 Alexander the Great as conqueror of Egypt is another possible identification. In any event, the function of such a piece is even more obscure than for the statuettes of Egyptian gods, because the figure is not securely identifiable as a recipient of cult. Nonetheless, its materials and craftsmanship mark it out as a costly piece that was prized for its aesthetic effect. To identify a statuette as having been used in cult, the best evidence is the context. Several houses on the Bay of Naples have yielded up statuettes of Egyptian gods in bronze or stone, still in situ either in shrines or in atria associated with shrines. In Pompeii, the House of the Gilded Cupids contained a luminous alabaster statuette of Horus in pharaonic style (Fig. 86). The material enhances the piece’s “Egyptianness,” alabaster being a quintessentially Egyptian stone. Its find spot in a lararium is unusually precisely and reliably documented in the excavation report. The wall paintings mark this corner of the peristyle as a place of worship, with the

Corinthian Statuettes

165 Fig. 86: Statuette of Horus discovered in House of the Gilded Cupids, Pompeii. Alabaster. 1st c. AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. H: 42 m. W: 12 cm. D: 9.8 cm.

inclusion of the Italic snakes typical for household shrines as well as the carefully shaded rendering of the Egyptian gods in Roman dress. On the walls of the shrine, the excavator recorded traces of a wooden aedicula and noted that the flooring in the shrine was different from that in the rest of the peristyle portico. In this way, together with the wall paintings, the space was clearly visually marked off as special. Standing possibly in the aedicula, the large alabaster Horus (H: 42 cm) would have made a strong visual impact. Found along with him, presumably once displayed together in the shrine, were a tiny statue of Fortuna and a sculptural fragment depicting a foot crushing a toad  – a magical-symbolic reference. The assemblage also included an array of minuscule bronze foil plaques likely thought to have had magical properties.9 As part of this ensemble, the alabaster Horus statue certainly had a cultic function. At the same time, even this use of Egyptian statuettes in Roman household religion was by no means divorced from show. Objects were an excel-

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lent means for a Roman to present himself as properly respectful toward the gods. Displaying one’s pietas was a high priority for homeowners, as the location of showy and rudimentary lararia in the respectively more and less visible parts of the house attests.10 Within this trend, Egyptian objects hold a special place: Thomas Fröhlich has observed that shrines to Egyptian gods in Pompeii are almost always located in the sightline of a main entrance, and in service areas only rarely.11 Apparently the Pompeians wanted people to know that their shrines contained Egyptian god statuettes. In this light, even objects in shrines are not simple instruments of cult ritual to gratify personal needs, but also highly charged elements of display.

2.  Collecting Diverse Styles

Egyptian sculpture in Rome can also take the shape of large-scale stone pieces. These are usually understood to have functioned religiously, perhaps because their superlative size and quality is taken as a sign of their earnestness, meant for cult ritual rather than aesthetic pleasure.1 Yet these too have features that align them with collectibles, not just cult objects. One is that some of the most impressive exponents come from top-notch pleasure gardens in Rome – a context for art collections that we shall explore in depth. Another key factor is the display of these pieces alongside Greek sculptures from various historical periods, creating an ensemble of diverse artistic styles. The effect is like that seen in the Villa Farnesina cubiculum of Part II, where illusionistic “Archaic” pinakes rest atop figural stands in the tradition of Hellenistic furnishings (Fig. 26). Several superlative examples come from the so-called Gardens of Sallust, a huge estate northeast of Rome’s ancient city center (between what is now the Villa Borghese and Termini Station). The gardens were named for their first owner, a powerful Roman politician of the mid-first century BC who held office under Julius Caesar. These grounds were so famous for their beauty even in the ancient period that emperors are recorded fawning over them, and the emperor Nerva may even have been buried there.2 It is hardly surprising that such an elite retreat contained a world-class sculpture collection. An array of Greek sculptures of very high quality in various styles, from Archaic to Hellenistic, were discovered in the complex. These include a late Classical group of Leda and the Swan, and two Severe Style peplophoroi. Perhaps also the impressive Dying Gaul and Suicidal Gaul statues, although the documentation of their Renaissance rediscovery omits a precise find spot. A High Classical sculptural group of Niobe and her children that came from the Gardens is a rare Greek original, taken from a Greek temple pediment to be set up here as freestanding statues.3 The sculptural ensemble here also included Egyptian pieces. These were, namely, a statue of Touya, Queen of Seti I; Ptolemy II; Arsinoe; another Arsinoe; Hapy; a hippopotamus in rosso antico; and one or two basalt

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Fig. 87: Ptolemaic statue of ­Arsinoe II. From Gardens of Sallust, Rome. 316–270 BC. Vatican City, Musei Vaticani. H: 240 cm.

canopic jars.4 One of the Arsinoes was brought from Egypt (Fig. 87), while the other is a finely-worked Roman copy with an unusual hieroglyphic inscription (Fig. 3).5 All five standing statues are over life-size and carved from granite, meaning a tremendous cost in both material and artistic skill. The display context of the statues is sadly obscure. They were probably rediscovered near architectural remains identified in the nineteenth century as a “Temple of Venus” but now stripped of this identification – although even this provenance is far from certain.6

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169

So while the exact original context of the Egyptian statues cannot be determined within the garden complex, the associated finds can help us to interpret them. The rediscovered Greek statues exhibit a taste for diverse artistic styles – and especially for deliberately archaizing styles – that is typical of Roman collectors.7 A similar collection of masterpieces in deliberately varied archaistic styles was seen above in the Villa Farnesina. Even more, the care and expense that went into making a new, precise copy of the Ptolemaic Arsinoe statue shows an intense dedication to the artistry of these pieces. Joined by the Greek sculptures, they were prized for their place in a colorful assemblage of masterpieces spanning time and place. In the Gardens of Sallust, the Egyptian pieces seem to have been part of a connoisseurial collection. A similar assemblage was found at the so-called Villa of Cassius in Tivoli. Scattered remains over three massive reinforced terraces, including several porticos, hint at a huge domestic complex. In the late second to early first century BC, a dual garden area with a pool was added, as well as four (!) new nymphaea. Abundant fountains and ponds are attested primarily through lead pipes.8 In contrast to the poor preservation of the architecture, the sculpture found at the villa is remarkably abundant. All 61 pieces on record at the Vatican were found on the middle terrace, except for two that had rolled downhill. The subjects include many of the usual suspects for the sculptural decoration of a rich Roman home: muses, Athena, and a great number of Greek philosophers. Several represent Roman copies of fourth-century Greek sculptures. The famous symplegma of a satyr and nymph bought by Charles Townley also came from this villa.9 The excavator recorded statues in three groupings. In one group was a herm of Pericles, the head of a philosopher, and a relief of animals and plants (now lost). In another was a herm base labeled Phidias, two further herm bases, an oscillum depicting a satyr making an offering, and a satyr head. In the last were the Egyptian pieces, the head of a philosopher, and an altar to the Agathos Daimon.10 All of the Egyptian pieces represent standing male figures. Two of them, now in the Vatican, portray Osiris; four more whose location is unknown are simply described as resembling each other; and three further, very fragmentary statues depicted standing men wearing the nemes headdress. A large crocodile in black stone could have belonged to this grouping as well.11 This mixed assemblage shows that Egyptian sculpture was displayed as part and parcel of a connoisseurial sculptural ensemble, not only with statues of satyrs but also portraits of philosophers and Greek statesmen. Such careful variety is typical of the decoration of fabulously wealthy Roman villas, as we know from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum.12 The Villa of Cassius attests that Egyptian pieces too belonged to this decorative concept. If they were displayed near the altar of Agathos

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Daimon, they amplified the sacral air of this part of the collection. The mixture of Greek and Egyptian can further be seen in the large Nilotic mosaic, now lost, which paved one of the villa’s rooms. The room was lined with statue niches housing marble sculptures of Greek philosophers. The Nile formed an appropriate verdant backdrop for the portraits of cultural greats, just as the villa’s large garden with its splendid waterworks provided the backdrop for both further philosophers and Egyptian sculpture. That the Roman garden was a site of mixed sculptural assemblages including Egyptian material also has relevance for obelisks. An obelisk was found in the Gardens of Sallust, brought from Egypt but carved with hieroglyphs in Rome. The inscription replicates (at a smaller scale appropriate to the smaller obelisk) that of Augustus’ obelisk once in the Circus Maximus. Its erection in the Gardens of Sallust, however, dates to long after Sallust and even Augustus, to the reign of Hadrian or thereafter, since it displaced a Hadrianic house.13 Who erected the obelisk and on what occasion remains obscure. One the one hand, it could represent the usual narrative of an emperor erecting an obelisk to proclaim his dominion.14 An alternative possibility, however, is that the obelisk was considered an Egyptian artwork appropriate to the garden. Beyond the usual set of associations offered by any of the Egyptian sculptures seen so far, the obelisk’s towering form – perhabs visible from far outside the hortus – was perhaps seen as an added benefit, broadcasting its owner’s command over impressive objects from a great distance. Indeed, Roman bucolic depictions of Egypt feature obelisks in gardens. Conveying the arid nature of Egypt is not a priority in these depictions; they instead conjure up a lush landscape rather suspiciously like a Roman garden, and punctuate it with an obelisk. A glass cameo perfume flask from the Augustan period, probably from the Italian peninsula (Fig. 88), depicts an obelisk between a sacred tree and a standing Egyptian deity.15 The deity faces an altar with the curved top typical of Alexandrian altars. A cupid holds a bundle of plants towards the burning offerings. Behind him is an altar topped with the crowned baboon god Thoth, and a cupid approaching it with a garland. In this scene of religious ritual, the obelisk is just one of the multiple elements creating a sacral atmosphere in the outdoor space. This obelisk probably does not refer to any imperial message intended with the erection of some obelisks in the city of Rome, such as that in the Circus Maximus. Rather, obelisks had multiple possible uses.16 The rural setting of this one places it squarely within the tradition of sacro-idyllic landscapes, in which religious activity takes place outdoors, at rustic altars, framed by hallowed trees, in the idyll of rustic piety so pleasing to Roman patrons. In the same way, a basalt crater from Hadrian’s Villa depicts an obelisk, this time in an emphatic edge-on view (Fig. 89). Two deities sit with their

Collecting Diverse Styles

171 Fig. 88: Cameo flask depicting obelisk, cupids, and Egyptian figures. Provenance unknown. 1st c. AD. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum. H: 7.62 cm. Diam.: 4.2 cm.

Fig. 89: Basalt crater adorned with lion heads and scenes of obelisks and Egyptian figures among trees. From Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli. Rome, Musei ­Capitolini. H: 80 cm.

172

Fig. 90: Waterway (“Canopus”) lined with Caryatids and other sculptures. 2nd c. AD. Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli.

Sculptures for Cult and Collecting

backs to the obelisk, each facing a large, bushy tree. Between the rough clouds of leaves and the obelisk, a hovering half-circle and circle symbolize a cosmic cycle. The outdoor setting is continued with a similar scene on the reverse side, which repeats the obelisk, seated figures, and two trees, as well as a large water bird on the far right. Just as on the cameo flask, these scenes represent the Roman idea of hallowed space being marked by trees. An obelisk helps to set the tone here just as it would in a real garden. Nature and art are unified in this scene exactly as they probably were in the reality of this crater: for this type of stone vessel was usually used to decorate a garden. The crater would have been the artwork in a garden setting just like that it depicts. A final example shows how powerful mixed ensembles of Greek and Egyptian sculpture were found to be. At Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, a sculpture collection stands along the large, oblong waterway just south of the Large and Small Baths (Fig. 90). Lining such a waterway with sculpture is typical of Roman gardens, such as that in the House of Octavius Quartio at Pompeii, which likewise terminates in a cement couch for dining parties.17 Particularly important at Hadrian’s Villa are the copies of caryatids from Classical Athens. The choice to exhibit these pieces says volumes not only about the the emperor as a philhellene, but as a lover of art and culture who wanted to display an excerpt of art history.18 Whether Egyptian sculp-

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ture stood along this waterway too is difficult to reconstruct, due to a lack of documentation; possibly only a single marble statue of a crocodile stood here, but some of the Egyptian sculptures now attributed to the Antinoeion could have as well. Indeed, the rest of the villa property shows that the same connoisseurial eye that selected the Caryatids also wanted Egyptian sculpture.19 In the so-called Palaestra, an excavation team in 2013–2014 uncovered a Doryphoros head. This Canon of Greek art was joined by a remarkable partner, a rather less ambitious marble statue of a Horus falcon. The interweaving of Egyptian and Greek carried through the Palaestra’s stucco ceiling, which was decorated with atef crowns alternating with Gorgons and Giants.20 These finds make clear that Egyptian objects cannot be recontextualized in the Villa purely on the basis of their Egyptianness, as has been done for the Antinoeion – they were in fact displayed all over the property, thoroughly mixed with non-Egyptian pieces.21

3.  Art and Divinity in Gardens

Artistic assemblages in gardens have long been recognized as a quintessential expression of the Roman ideal of a leisured lifestyle. That the artworks can have a religious subject matter has less to do with ritual activity or religious belief than with their effect in these surrounds, for the Romans associated gardens with divinity in various ways.1 This has not yet been noted in the scholarship on Egyptian material in Rome but obtained here too. The Romans understood natural realms like gardens to house divine presence. The animistic figures of river gods and dryads is only the beginning. Pliny relates a similar feeling of religio when describing the silent deserts at Mount Atlas. Seneca stirringly describes the feeling of divinity or religious awe (religionis suspicione) upon seeing a deep cave, or a grove, or the source of a river. The “sacred grove” was a very important trope in Roman culture and was regularly built into temple complexes, such as the Temple of Venus in Pompeii.2 The place of gods in nature was translated into Roman house and villa gardens too. Some grand villas incorporated sanctuaries in their gardens: a temple of Ceres stands in the Villa of the Papyri, and one of Hercules in the Villa of Pollius Felix in Sorrento.3 More than a display of piety, Jasper Griffin has shown that a divine connotation heightened the Roman sense of well-being – in his words, representing an “apotheosis of pleasure.” Depictions of gods were thus eminently appropriate to spaces of leisure, even without being the focus of worship. They ennobled the Romans’ everyday life by evoking a higher realm.4 A statue from the Palaestra at Hadrian’s Villa represents an ingenious fusion of numinous aura and garden space. The statue depicts a standing Egyptian priest, voluminously robed, holding a bulging vessel with shrouded hands. It is rendered in a Roman sculptural idiom, in marble (thus not an import from Egypt).5 The figural type is known from scenes of Egyptian cult.6 What is remarkable about the statue is its adaptation to a garden setting – for it is a fountain. The body has been drilled through to hold a water pipe; water would have burbled out of the clasped sacred

Art and Divinity in Gardens

175 Fig. 91: Fragmentary alabaster statuette of Isis. From nymphaeum in Villa dei Cecina (Livorno). San Vincenzino a Cecina, ­Antiquarium del Parco Archeologico. H: 15 cm. B: 9 cm.

vessel. Water had special importance for Egyptian cults in Rome, and fountains were also absolutely central to Roman gardens.7 Thus, in both the priest iconography and the use of water, this statue unites sacrality with otium. Banqueting in a garden space was perhaps the non plus ultra of otium, and this too could be enriched by Egyptian sculpture. An alabaster Isis statuette from the Villa dei Cecina in Tuscany provides an example. West of the villa’s central peristyle is a triclinium complex with a lavish mosaic nymphaeum. While the phases of this room are difficult to discern, the excavators believe that the statuette discovered there once stood on a column in the center of the nymphaeum, perhaps in the second century AD (Fig. 91).8 In a frame of gleaming glass intarsia plating the nymphaeum niche, and of water flowing from the walls down to a pool between the two couches, the statue would have been a stunning centerpiece. And while the niche resembles a shrine in form, its location behind two cement couches aligns this dining-room arrangement with that so popular in Pompeii, for instance in the House of Octavius Quartio, where the two cement couches flank a water basin and a rock-encrusted niche in the same manner. There the niche may have held a small marble telamon statue, as numerous other such niche fountains in Pompeian houses contained statuettes of Greek

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subjects like the Boy Strangling Goose.9 At Cecina, the Isis statuette in its niche lends a sacred air to the banquet space. Both the luminous statuette and its glittering surrounds are on display to enhance the atmosphere of well-being.10 The garden triclinium in the House of the Golden Bracelet, Pompeii, can deepen our understanding of Egyptian art as both luxury good and conjurer of a sacral atmosphere. The dining room is part of a two-room suite occupying an entire floor of the house. The smooth, creamy white marble of the grandiose clinae signals a luxurious space. Its splendor is enhanced by two water features: a stepped fountain leads from a niche in the back wall to a pool at the center of the dining couches, then proceeds into a large omega-shaped pool in the garden directly in front of the triclinium. Brick columns once encrusted with mosaic stand on either side of the pool as supports for a pergola. The wall paintings (dated to ca. 20–1 BC) feature garden scenes of a type known throughout Pompeii, thronging with a variety of plants, birds, and sculptures framed by blue sky and yellow lattice fencing (Fig. 92). Such wall paintings were beloved in spaces bordering on actual gardens, a familiar play of two- and three-dimensional forms.11 Here the panels lining the wall are framed by a stone dado and yellow reed fences, creating a neatly curated scene. Each panel features a different sculptural accent tucked within this illusionistic greenery. In the two tall, narrow panels beside the fountain are pendant sphinxes perched on pink and vaguely prow-shaped pedestals.12 More sphinxes on pink bases appear on the side wall to the south, forming a sort of gateway through which one glimpses the vegetation beyond. The Apis bull relief acts as an anchor at the center of its panel, on axis with the oscillum above. On the same wall, another panel depicts a marble birdbath in the center joined by a pharaonic figure wearing the so-called “blue crown” and a yellow garment with a geometric design (including a triangle border like that discussed in the previous chapter) (Fig. 5). Another such figure originally stood on the other side of the birdbath, filling out the symmetrical composition like the facing sphinxes on the opposite wall; but damage to the right-hand side of the panel has rendered it invisible except for its base. The equivalence of these Egyptian figures with garden ornament of non-Egyptian types is made obvious by the repeated compositions – everywhere the same blue sky, green plants, yellow fence, and marble sculpture in the center. It is significant that the Egyptian elements shown are not fantastical creatures lying in the undergrowth, but are explicitly depicted as statues. This is obvious from the sphinxes’ pink cavetto bases, and underscored in the case of one sphinx by a bird that perches on its back. The same goes for the pharaonic figure beside the birdbath, who is placed on a base made of a thin gray slab balanced atop a short gray pillar (more easily visible on

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Fig. 92: Fresco of garden with sphinx statues flanking Apis bull plaque. Room 31, House of the Golden Bracelet, Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79. Now in museum holdings of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei.

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the righthand side of the panel, where the figure itself is missing). Indeed, the trope of sphinx statues adorning gardens appears in many Pompeian paintings with very similar compositions. In the “studiolo” in the House of Julius Polybius, two sphinxes on cavetto bases flank a marble birth bath. In the Stabian Baths’ garden scenes, white sphinxes appear along with white satyrs, both clearly meant as statues.13 A three-dimensional version is the sphinx statue beside the garden canal in the House of Octavius Quartio, similarly surrounded by a mix of Egyptian and non-Egyptian sculpture.14 Egyptian statues feature in Roman wall painting outside of garden contexts too, such as the sphinx, baboon, and kneeling female figure floating isolated in the center of the white Third-Style panels in the Pompeian House of the Centenary. Again these are not depictions simply of deities, but of statues, each set upon an illusionistic three-dimensional base.15 That the painters decided to depict them with their bases as indicators of their objectness is both testament to the wall painters’ practice of drawing inspiration from the materials around them (seen in Part II) and to the allure that these objects had as objects. Indeed, Eric Moormann has argued that many depictions of figures in Roman wall painting depict statues, some even of famous types.16 If the garden is a space linked with divinity, why show statues instead of living beings or numinous apparitions? Precisely because the point is not divine worship. The point is to show art residing in nature – a beautiful harmony that the Romans pointedly cultivated. Far from the Romantic notion of untamed nature, the Romans most appreciated nature when it was presented within a manmade frame – when it was made to imitate art.17 Pliny the Younger describes this ideal in his villa with shapely topiaries and garden paintings filled with birds.18 Egyptian objects enhance the gardenscape by virtue of being, first and foremost, objets d’art that complement their natural setting, bringing with them an appropriate sacral air. Depictions of statues can achieve this as depictions of animate Egyptian gods never could.

4.  The Pleasures of Herculaneum’s Palaestra

The Palaestra in Herculaneum shows that the confluence of Egyptian statuary and gardens with elaborate water features was prized in civic spaces as well. The Palaestra is located on the east side of the excavated part of the city, much of it still lying under the overburden that early excavations tunneled into instead of clearing away. The complex consists of a large courtyard edged by marble-paved porticoes, with a grandiose apse on the west side (Fig. 93). At the center of the courtyard is an immense cruciform pool. How to interpret this complex in the cityscape has been debated. It has long been read as a sanctuary, albeit to a rotation of gods each largely represented in only a single key find – from Venus to Hercules to Isis. Its use as an exercise ground has also been proposed. These divergent identifications reflect the fact that the architecture of the complex does not point to a certain function.1 Most recently, the interpretation has been driven by the most substantial Egyptian object from the complex, a large seated statue of the god Atum (Fig. 94). The statue was discovered on the east side of the Palaestra in the 1960  s. At 90 cm high, this basalt piece is visually imposing. Its inscription dates it to the Eighteenth Dynasty, making it far older than most imported Egyptian statues.2 When Giuseppe Botti first published the statue, he took special note that it was found broken into three pieces, lying two meters above ground level, seemingly carried by the volcanic flow from somewhere else. He suggested that it was swept from the loggia structure above the Palaestra, perhaps the house of a rich Roman.3 Nonetheless, the statue’s impressive appearance has led others more recently to see it as a sign of a sanctuary.4 Yet this reading rests on a selection of finds from both the complex and the surrounding city blocks which pose real problems. Some were found embedded in pyroclastic material meters above street level, suggesting that they were swept along by the volcanic flows that covered the city. The “Mater deum” inscription used to identify the building as a sanctuary to this goddess was found as detached

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Fig. 93: Map of Herculaneum with find spots of Egyptian objects listed in Tran Tam Tinh 1971. Numbers in circles correspond to Tran Tam Tinh’s catalog numbers. Multiple numbers in oval shape refer to amulets. Overlapping circles indicate same find spot. Pools in Palaestra are shaded gray.

The Pleasures of Herculaneum’s Palaestra

181 Fig. 94: Basalt statue of Atum, seated. Found in Palaestra of Herculaneum. 18th Dynasty. Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei. H: 90 cm.

fragments in the street, again perhaps swept along with volcanic debris.5 A small bronze statuette of Isis and one of Harpocrates, used for an identification of the complex as an Iseum, were found in the entry hallway of the Palaestra – clearly in transit. Lying so close to Cardo V, they may even have been deposited by the same pyroclastic flow that carried the Mater deum inscription here.6 Following the direction of the flows, the objects would have been swept westward from the eastern part of the city, perhaps originating on the uphill part of the Decumanus Maximus – or beyond.7 In this case, their find spots would have little to do with their original use contexts. In addition, much confusion has been introduced by including objects found around but not actually in the Palaestra (Fig. 93). Three Harpocrates amulets and a sistrum amulet found in House 10, Ins. Or. II have been used to support the identification of the Palaestra’s function as a sanctuary but are not contextually relevant. The building where they were found merely shares a wall with the sanctuary, just as it does with the shops and houses

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next door. With no communicating door or window, sharing a back wall with the building is no evidence for a shared function. Even if the finds were taken to indicate that some of Herculaneum’s inhabitants practiced Egyptian cult, they say nothing about what went on in the Palaestra. Still less can the two paintings of Egyptian cult found in Herculaneum affirm the use of the Palaestra for such rituals.8 Neither has a documented find spot, and in any case frescoes in temples generally do not reflect the deity worshiped there.9 The paintings conform to the corpus of FourthStyle mythological panels that would be at home in any type of building, from house to temple to civic space.10 Taking into account the Egyptian objects from all over the city reveals a scattered distribution of Egyptian objects, not in any way clustered around the Palaestra. Indeed, the distribution might become even more uniform if the many objects with unknown provenance could be located on the map. Tran Tam Tinh lists 71 Egyptian objects from Herculaneum, most with no documented provenance beyond simply the city at large. The Atum statue must be interpreted together with the objects found in the same complex. There is the Venus statuette that first gave the complex its name as a temple of Venus, as well as an over life-size marble statue of Venus of the Fréjus type and a Hermes of the Richelieu type. A marble hand and a marble candelabrum, whose twin without a provenance may have stood nearby, also come from the complex not far from the Atum statue.11 That the Atum, Hermes, and Aphrodite stood together as an ensemble must be considered, given the find spots and the apparently strong desire to exhibit a range of Greco-Roman and Egyptian forms seen in the previous examples. Isolating the Atum statue from the two others found nearby has misleadingly skewed its interpretation toward a cultic centerpiece, when it was quite possibly part of an ensemble. A miniature bronze furnishing support in the form of Bes was found in the western portico (Fig. 58). But rather than seeing this as a cult marker, we know that Egyptian supports and tables were widespread (see Part III). That a nearly identical piece, perhaps even from the same mold, was found in a house in Pompeii reminds us of the widespread use of such pieces.12 The Palaestra’s large cruciform pool is another clue in a holistic reading of this complex and its sculpture.13 I believe that the pool marks out the Palaestra as a place where Egyptian art contributed to a pleasurable garden atmosphere, possibly with a sacral overtone, rather than a specifically religious function. For elaborate pools are a common feature of garden spaces, especially in villas. We saw the oblong pool at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli above; another stretched across the “Piazza d’Oro” complex at the same villa. Another on this scale was in the garden of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. Spewing jets of water enlivened the Palaestra pool, one jet from each mouth of a towering bronze statue of a hydra in its center. More

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jets were arrayed in the pool below. These recall the plethora of jets in the House of the Golden Bracelet triclinium, although on a grander scale. Whether or not the jets might have hindered the possibility of swimming or wading in the Palaestra pool, these activities are perhaps suggested by the four semicircular steps leading into it from the northwest corner of the northern leg.14 The remarkable four-armed shape of the Palaestra pool finds a parallel in the “Porticus with Piscina” complex on the Oppian Hill (in Rome’s Regio III), which also has three roofed porticoes and rooms paved in opus sectile. There is nothing here to indicate an Iseum, as recent research proposed based only on the stunning Torello Brancaccio, a large Apis bull in Granodiorite from Aswan, of which not a single piece was found in this complex.15 The lavish architecture and pool would be just as fitting for a civic space like the Herculaneum Palaestra, or a villa. Indeed, there are no sharp dividing lines between the architectural forms of villas, sanctuaries, and public complexes. To the contrary, these building types deliberately copied each other. Sanctuaries too, including Isea, sought to be spaces of pleasure with greenery and water features.16 Rome’s grandest porticoes regularly enclosed sanctuaries in their centers, surrounded by greenery. The famous Portico of Philippus housed a temple to Hercules and the Muses as well as its collection of fabulous artworks inside.17 Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser has pointed out that water features in Isea copy nymphaeum and garden architecture from houses. The directionality in her phrasing is worth emphasizing: such water features appear first in houses and only later in sanctuaries, under Domitian.18 Not only did Roman villa and house architecture draw inspiration from Hellenistic palaces, then, but it in turn inspired the conception of sanctuaries.19 The architectural features of all these categories blend together because gardens, divinity, and art simply went together in the Roman conception of the good life. However, what aligns the Palaestra even more closely with the villa examples is the presence of a second pool, this one designed to raise fish. Roman villa gardens could contain pools to raise expensive fish varieties for show – a sort of exotic aquarium, quite the rage among wealthy Romans.20 In the Palaestra, the fishpond takes the shape of a 30 × 3 m rectangular pool 2.35 m deep. Aside from being unusually deep, the pool was also lined with a row of amphorae embedded halfway up the walls, their openings facing the pool’s interior. This offered cool, dark recesses as ideal houses for fish, and was a common construction technique to this end. That a hobby of wealthy villa owners should find expression in the Palaestra is best explained by the complex serving as a similar space of leisure, in which water, greenery, and sculpture combined into a unified pleasurable atmosphere.

5.  Invisible Isea

Because Egyptian sculpture was displayed in the gardens of villas and civic spaces alike, potentially with a religious connotation, and because the architecture of these spaces used common features and even influenced one another, the archaeological remains can be harder to identify with a secure function than so far assumed. This goes for sanctuaries as well. We saw this in the case of the Palaestra, but it goes for many more buildings traditionally accepted as Isea. Thus it is worth looking again at what objects are and are not interpretable as indicators of a cult space like an Iseum. The Pompeii Iseum offers an ideal case study because it is securely identified as an Iseum by an inscription discovered in situ over the door naming the aedem Isidis.1 It therefore allows us to analyze a building of known function together with its architectural and decorative features. Situated in the “entertainment quarter” of Pompeii, abutting the north wall of the Large Theater, the temple occupies a busy part of the city. It consists in the main of a temple surrounded by a portico, generally conforming to the Roman temple model. At the rear of the temple, a reception room now called the ekklesiasterion extends off the portico. To the south of this is the shrine identified as a space of cult ritual, the sacrarium. South of the portico at its eastern extent are a kitchen and two small rooms. Architecturally, the Iseum uses no Egyptian features, as is consistent with Isea elsewhere in Italy.2 If not the architecture, what about the wall paintings and sculpture – are these clear markers of an Iseum? They are preserved in good condition and with fairly good documentation of the find spots, a boon for the interpretation of this complex.3 Thus it is possible to determine that the use of Egyptian imagery in both sculpture and wall painting is generally no different than that in other buildings, particularly houses. The sacro-idyllic landscapes in the portico resemble those in Roman houses both in composition and in the range of Egyptian and religious subjects, such as the garden painting in the nearby House of the Ceii. Very likely the similarity is due in part to temples being painted by the same artists who

Invisible Isea

185 Fig. 95: Frescoes of Egyptian priest in boat, busts of Egyptian divinities, and Italic snakes. From inner shrine of Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

painted private houses.4 The Iseum’s paintings even show explicit signs of coming from a pattern book. The portico paintings are arranged on the walls following a paste-on approach, taking no heed of the surrounding architecture, such that the door cuts into the composition arbitrarily.5 In fact, one of the two mythological panel paintings of Isis in the ekklesiasterion is reduplicated in the House of the Duke of Aumale. This points directly to the use of transferrable stock images; the paintings were not invented specially for the sanctuary, but were used in different contexts to different effects. In the domestic context, the myth panel is less a tribute to the goddess than a meditation on female beauty and women’s social role.6 Only in the Iseum’s sacrarium, the sacred innermost part of the precinct, are the paintings strikingly different (Fig. 95). Against a white background are multiple pairs of snakes (two with cobra hoods and head ornaments like uraeus snakes); a sphinx; two large seated deities, frontally depicted; two large busts of bearded figures with lotus-like head ornaments; two boats, one containing a small figure and one a box with a bird painted on its side; and finally an array of animals: a lion, cobra, ibis, baboon, vulture, sheep, rat, ichneumon, and dog.7 In every respect these paintings resemble the painting in Roman household shines. One pair of snakes represents exactly the beneficent, bearded, native Italic snake typical of lararium paintings – even the usual cista below them is repeated here. The white background and frontal depiction of the figures is also typical. Only the selection of animals has been updated to reflect the Egyptian nature of the cult. Represented in the traditional household shrine format, these paint-

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ings are clearly the backdrop for cult practice. The secluded inner sanctum is thus visually marked as the place of worship not simply through the inclusion of Egyptian subjects, which occur in the other paintings too, but through their manner of representation.8 In the same way, the Iseum’s sculpture is for the most part not distinctly cultic or unusually Egyptian. The statue of Isis in Archaic style displayed in the portico recalls the elegant Diana in Archaic style from the garden of the House of the Diana (Fig. 7). Only its inscribed base naming the dedicator is not a feature accorded most garden sculpture.9 The Iseum’s statues of Dionysus and Aphrodite would likewise be at home in any Roman garden. Aphrodite statuettes in marble of the same Anadyomene type have been found in the Pompeian houses 6.14.27, 5.4.3, and 7.12.23, and the gardens of two houses in Regio 7.10 The type also decorates a public fountain in Herculaneum, the bathing motif appropriate to this watery context. The Dionysus statue similarly finds comparanda in two small marble statues of Dionysus from the Villa di Augusta at Somma Vesuviana.11 In addition, the Iseum housed a herm of a bearded deity wearing a nemes, a portrait herm in bronze of the benefactor Norbanus Sorices, and three female and one male head in marble (perhaps portraits).12 Three modest objects of Egyptian manufacture were found: the inscription from a statue reused as a wall plaque; a faience statuette of a kneeling god; and a faience ushabti.13 The variety of Egyptian and non-Egyptian imagery used in Isea, in this case and in others, intensifies the difficulty in distinguishing Isea on the basis of sculptural finds. Yet among the sculpture is a piece which, like the sacrarium painting, suggests through its manner of representation that it was used in cult. A marble head found in the ekklesiasterion strongly resembles the female portrait heads found in the complex, but its artistic technique points to an acrolith. Not only was it made for insertion, but a hand, an arm holding a sistrum, and the front part of two feet were found nearby (Fig. 96).14 The iconography alone is not definitively cultic, since a hand holding a sistrum could identify a worshipper of Isis or the goddess herself, and both are known in sculpture outside of ritual contexts (such as the Isis statuette in the Villa dei Cecina, and potentially the multiple Isis statues from Hadrian’s Villa).15 But a cultic use in this case might be indicated by the technique, since the acrolith technique is usually not found in villa sculpture. This technique is one of the exceptional indicators inherent to a piece of sculpture that may point to a cultic use.16 As a subject of inquiry, the Iseum in Beneventum is the opposite of that in Pompeii. For the Iseum in Beneventum does not demonstrably survive in any architectural remains. Its existence is secured, however, by two obelisks discovered in the city naming Rutilius Lupus as the dedicator of “a splendid palace for Isis the Great, Lady of Beneventum.”17 Egyptian sculp-

Invisible Isea

187 Fig. 96: Marble head of an ­acrolith, identified as Isis by way of associated hand holding sistrum. From entrance to ­ekklesiasterion of Temple of Isis in ­Pompeii. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. H: 30 cm.

tures found around the city have thus traditionally been attributed to the sanctuary.18 Yet this reifies the notion that only Isea contained Egyptian sculpture, and that they contained no non-Egyptian sculpture – which we have seen was, quite regularly, not the case. It has thus led to “a much too exclusively ‘Egyptian’ image” of the complex, as Kristine Bülow Clausen has demonstrated, and simultaneously obscured the idea that these sculptures were used in other contexts, appreciated for other reasons.19 Among the Egyptian sculptures are around forty fragmentary pieces, both imported and locally made. They range from sphinxes and theriomorphic gods to lions and priests, which have been thoroughly treated in other studies.20 They were found together with “numerous statues, Corinthian capitals, column drums and bases, fragments of Doric trabeation, epigraphic material, Egyptian and egyptianizing statues, statues in Hellenistic style, and some busts of emperors.”21 A copy of the Doryphoros in greywacke may have stood alongside sculptures of Egyptian subjects, as did the marble copy in Hadrian’s Villa.22 The substantial non-Egyptian pieces in this list are not usually assigned to the sanctuary, remaining artificially separated from the Egyptian pieces. Unfortunately, the Beneventum sculptures’ original display context is unknown. They were all found in a post-antique context, victim to the promise of Constantius in AD 663 to rid the city of pagan cult objects. They were built into a wall, Egyptian and non-Egyptian alike.23 Thus neither the find spot nor the content and style of the sculptures indicates their original use.24 Breathtaking Egyptian statues from a destruction deposit in Cuma have led an Iseum to be proposed here too, without any epigraphic sign

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Fig. 97: “Inaros Naophoros,” basalt sculpture of male figure holding shrine. From Cuma. Baia, Museo ­Archeologico di Campi Flegrei.

of a sanctuary as in Beneventum. The few distinct structures at the site, dated to the second half of the first century BC, comprise a low podium supported by four barrel vaults, with a ramp on the north side and part of an apsidal room on the south. A mosaic-paved room lies to the east, while to the north are porticoes surrounding a basin on three sides, and an opus sectile floor.25 Nestled inside the basin were the remains of several stunning statues. They had been willfully damaged and deposited in the basin, mixed with debris from the roof and walls, perhaps in the 4th or 5th century AD. Among them were three Egyptian hardstone statues in pharaonic style. The basalt “Inaros naophoros” models the common Egyptian statue type of a figure carrying a small shrine or naos, here containing a figure of Osiris (Fig. 97). The figure is labeled in the inscription on the back pillar as the priest Inaros. A statue of Isis in basalt features no inscription on the back pillar but can be identified by the characteristic “Isis knot” in the garment between her breasts. Both statues seem to have been deliberately decapitated. A granite (or schist, according to the earlier report) sphinx found with them is also missing its head, which had been attached via a

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tenon. Fragments of other statues included a red marble head wearing a nemes, two pieces of a statue of a putto or Harpocrates holding a cornucopia, and six fragments of white marble sculpture not further detailed in the report. Mosaic and painting fragments were also found, as was part of a glass snake.26 Without a detailed report on the marble sculpture discovered, which may hint at a diverse ensemble like those in Sallust’s and Hadrian’s properties, we can only focus on the Egyptian pieces. Naophoroi are known from other parts of Campania, including the Naophoros of Ahmose from the Via Celle necropolis near Baia and the Naophoros Casanova from Posillipo, but these too are only known from likely Late Antique disposal deposits and have not been well published.27 While the Cuma statues’ display context too was destroyed in Late Antiquity, a hint of it survives that was not published in excavator Paolo Caputo’s first report on the site as an Iseum. On the north side of the basin was a fountain adorned with seashells, pumice stones, and mosaic with blue glass tesserae, as known in many Pompeian models of the later first century AD, and from the Villa dei Cecina above. Perhaps this ornamental fountain is what led Caputo to later acknowledge that the complex may have been a maritime villa. In fact, at least three further villas were discovered around the area of the basin, recalling Strabo’s description of a staggering number of villas crowding this part of the Italian coastline precisely during the lifetime of the Cuma complex (mid-first century BC to second century AD).28 Were the Egyptian sculptures set up in this garden as part of an artistic ensemble, or did they belong to a shrine on the garden grounds? This is not possible to say, but both are more likely than the original suggestion of an Iseum. The idea that interpreting Egyptian sculpture in Roman contexts requires carefully considering the contexts is not revolutionary. It is a reaffirmation of the archaeological methods practiced today in which groupings of architecture and finds are considered together for a holistic reading of their function and significance. And while these methods have been less consistently practiced for Egyptian material in Rome than for non-Egyptian material, it is precisely these methods that can lead to a better understanding of how Romans used Egyptian sculpture.

VI.  Conclusion: Why Egypt?

In this book, I hope to have demonstrated that the Roman use of Egyptian art was both more integrated and more complex than previously thought, in which the robust collecting culture of ancient Rome played a large part. This means that Roman viewers may not have seen Egyptian art as so foreign as we have assumed (with arguments about it being “exotic” and “other”). At the same time, Romans could clearly differentiate Egyptian from other visual cultures, and preferentially sought out the Egyptian; their contact with India did not result in Indian art being incorporated into Roman visual culture. Romans were intent on acquiring Egyptian goods specifically, and not simply foreign ones in general. But this need not lead us into the trap of a two-pronged paradigm that asks, Was Egyptian art fully incorporated within Roman art, or was it used because it was exotic or “other?” We have seen that, in a sense, both are true. It was thoroughly incorporated, and yet able to be differentiated. Perhaps unsurprisingly, since this same flexibility characterized Roman adaptations of Greek art – from the archaizing to the neoclassical sculpture. Some Roman viewers might have discerned a Greek tradition behind these pieces, others not. There was a remarkable flexibility not only in the Roman adaptations of artistic traditions, but in the ways they were perceived.1 Of all the artistic traditions that the Romans encountered through conquest, why did they so eagerly adopt that of Egypt over the others? Certainly there was the connotation of abundance and archaism that fit into the Roman collector’s milieu, especially the banquet (see Chapters 2 and 3). But reducing the Roman use of Egyptian material to associations with gold and antiquity is hardly fair. Just because an object is Egyptian in the Roman Empire outside of Egypt does not reduce its complexity to a single expression. To the contrary, it has as many textures as any other piece of Roman material culture. No art collector today would want to distill their reasons for an acquisition down to two simple factors, whatever they may be. Art means different things to every single person who encounters it. For the Romans too, the draw of an artwork will have been multifaceted and personal. Some will have thought of the political aspect long repeated in the scholarship; others the sacral; others the sheer visual impact. While this conclusion might feel unsatisfactory for anyone seeking a single definitive answer to the question “Why Egypt?,” recognizing that the Romans approached Egyptian art as art is a huge step to better understanding both the people and the material on an appropriately complex level. It should make us think harder about what constitutes cultic, political, or “decorative” uses of material in antiquity – realizing that the material itself cannot be accurately described with these use-dependent terms. Ancient people

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used their objects in a great variety of ways, driven by complex and interwoven motivations. I have drawn attention to Egyptian art in perhaps unexpected genres, such as jewelry, furnishings, and textiles, to show that Egyptian material in Rome was even more ubiquitous than has been recognized. This is one way in which it is useful to push beyond our modern preconceptions that the sculpture and painting genres we define as “fine art” were also the most highly valued by Romans. Fine vessels and even tables seduced Roman collectors at least as much, and thus have a great deal to tell us. This book thus aspires to further the paradigm shift already in motion toward valuing these overlooked genres.2 We have seen that Roman wall painting can help tremendously in this endeavor, preserving evidence of material that has otherwise been lost. By examining wall paintings in concert with the archaeological finds and the textual sources, we can get a very good idea of what kinds of objects elite Roman collectors were passionate about.3 The use of Egyptian elements in the architecture of Roman Italy was not touched on here, although I believe it fits nicely into the same argument. This material would benefit from being comprehensively examined in light of new material and methods, particularly the trend away from simplistic religious readings. Stunning stone and terracotta architectural pieces have emerged from prestigious contexts, from the Palatine in Rome to lavish complexes elsewhere in the empire, and require further study.4 Expanding the artistic genres we investigate might give us the impression of working outside our comfort zones, for who can be an expert in so many different materials? And yet it is precisely this expanded view that can afford new perspectives on familiar stuff. While we hear endlessly about interdisciplinarity in the humanities, there are endless combinations of scholars and specializations yet to be activated. Textile research is a wonderful example because the field is still fairly young; what corners of art history and archaeology might be energized by contact with textile studies? While preparing this book I encountered textile specialists who were quite bored by my exposé of textile trade routes: this is standard knowledge in their field, but it was very new to me as a historian of Roman art. That specializations remain subdivided is of course only natural in a world in which there is so much to know. Through this investigation, I hope simply to have pointed up some of the ways that the methods and materials from traditionally distinct disciplines can be brought together into a fresh combination – perhaps even in the service of a convincing argument. Not least among the ways our methods must continue opening, becoming more interdisciplinary and more productive than ever, is through gender studies. The canonical political readings have implicitly privileged men in our exploration of how the Romans acquired and used art, because

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politics was the prerogative of the adult male citizen. Such readings impede thinking about women in the context of art, including Egyptian art.5 Indeed, for most of the objects in the present book, information about the owner – let alone the many other viewers and producers – ranges from scarce to absent, and grows even feebler in the case of actors who were not elite, adult men. In the cases where some historical person can be sketched from the remains, the sketch usually depicts a man of at least moderate economic standing and civic engagement – for these are common criteria for entering into the ancient textual sources, and even the more obvious archaeological ones. Thus we know details about the houses and art collections of great male statesmen and the works of great male artists thanks to the writings of Pliny and Cicero, while female owners and artists remain largely absent from the textual sources. Even in the archaeology, traces of female agency are elusive: when a name on a seal ring or portrait bust is discovered, as have been used to attribute ownership and social context to a Pompeian house, the name is usually male.6 The Villa A “of Poppaea” in Oplontis and the Property of Julia Felix in Pompeii are notable exceptions. How female ownership could make a difference in interpreting the material remains must still be investigated, as Sarah Levin-Richardson has done for the Pompeian brothel.7 Textiles, particularly textile production, are an exciting way forward because women were the primary cloth producers in antiquity.8 But the role of gender in our research must go beyond what is studied to how it is studied, recognizing our entrenched ways of looking at antiquity. In the end, the ways that Egyptian art contributed to cultural life in the Roman Empire were as polymita, many-threaded, as the Egyptian cloth in Pliny’s account. It was by virtue of being in fact art, among other things, that it earned its place in this history.

Summary

Egyptian imagery in the Roman Empire during the first centuries BC and AD was omnipresent, from obelisks that still tower over Italian plazas to countless Egyptian statues and sculptural fragments discovered in cities across the Mediterranean. Certainly the sheer quantity of Egyptian material indicates how important it was to Roman viewers of this period; it was practically unavoidable in the capital city, and featured prominently in other Roman cities too. Its significance has been acknowledged thus far in studies which, traditionally, have linked these objects to Egypt’s annexation into the Roman Empire, and to the Egyptian cults that blossomed in the empire around this time. Recent work has expanded considerably upon these readings, offering more nuanced ways to understand Egyptian imagery in Rome as a medium for constructing individual and group identities, mediating social dynamics, and much more. The present book seeks to expand on these valuable studies by attending to several overlooked features of the corpus. The first is the sometimes breathtaking quality of Egyptian objects in Rome. Not only in quantity, that is, but in quality too, these objects are often superlative – a fact rarely commented upon in scholarship. These pieces are worked with care  – sometimes even virtuoso artistry – and made from an impressive array of materials, including gold, silver, gems, costly stones, fresco, and textile. Their quality is further underscored by the display contexts carefully constructed for the objects by their owners. These contexts are in part recorded in Roman wall paintings of object collections, a well-studied genre that has been shown to reflect real art collections. The Egyptian objects depicted here, like the very few excavated in their original use context, are clearly enshrined as something extraordinary. Finally, the ways that Romans acquired Egyptian objects, particularly in Italy, followed the same routes and mechanisms by which they acquired Greek objects, which were then displayed in similar – and sometimes the very same – contexts. Taken together, these features of Egyptian material in Rome suggest that the objects functioned in a way that has not yet been recognized in scholar-

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ship: as highly valued, aesthetically pleasing works of art. As such, they were able to operate on the political and religious levels suggested so far, as well as the more recently proposed social levels; yet one of their primary, hitherto unrecognized values for Roman viewers was their sheer aesthetic power laden with cultural significance. This thesis is illustrated in Parts II-V of this book, each part focusing on one or two object genres, to offer both in-depth examination and a sense of the material’s impressive scope. The notion that Romans considered Egyptian objects to be art is radical, and will certainly meet with resistance from some corners. Indeed, Part I of this book investigates the reasons that the artistic value of this material has not yet been seriously considered in scholarship, and why it might still be viewed with skepticism. One reason can be found in the historical foundations of art history, in which certain schemata were established that cannot sufficiently account for Egyptian art in Rome. Defining artworks by cultural sphere – Roman, as distinct from Egyptian – is a rubric quickly stymied by this corpus, to name only one. These beginnings led to several trends in twentieth-century scholarship whose lasting effect will be difficult to overcome, not least a condescending view of Egyptian material in Rome as “imitative” or even defective. From this position, it is only natural that the search to understand this material’s significance turned to its potential function in cult, politics, and, to a lesser extent, decoration, rather than a function premised on its beauty and value. Part II explores the lavish materials and display contexts of Egyptian items in Rome, revealing that these perfectly align them with Roman collecting culture. Among the best evidence for precious Egyptian objects, which due to their fine materials have rarely survived intact, is Roman wall painting. Fresco compositions of the first century BC depict luxurious objects that have already been demonstrated to reflect three-dimensional pieces in Roman art collections, sometimes even kept in the same house as the paintings themselves. This correlation between painted and three-dimensional objects means that the paintings can be used, carefully, as a source of evidence for some material which itself no longer survives in the archaeological record. So it is notable that, along with the Greek objects depicted in these compositions, Egyptian pieces of the same caliber appear. The manner of their depiction and their placement on the walls are precisely parallel to that of the Greek objects. Sometimes these depictions are embellished by the wall painters to be even more ostentatious than any material subject to gravity would sustain, with impossible elongations and miniaturizations. This technique too is practiced consistently on both Egyptian and non-Egyptian elements in the painting, another parallel suggesting a similar perception of Egyptian and non-Egyptian in this context. These principles are investigated here with an important case study, the frescoed Upper Cubiculum of the so-called House of Augustus in Rome,

198Summary

whose Egyptian elements have traditionally been read as abstract symbols of political conquest. To the contrary, this study shows that the paintings quite carefully depict pieces of gold jewelry worked with Egyptian motifs. Bronze candelabra with Egyptian subjects form a second focal point, with examples drawn from both this house and the pinacotheca frescoes of the Villa Farnesina in Rome. Enshrining Egyptian treasures on the wall this way did not occur in Rome before the first century BC. From the Archaic period on, Egyptian objects in Italy were neither as abundant nor as finely worked as those of the Imperial era. Scattered scarabs, beads, and ushabtis in Archaic graves make up most of the very small corpus from this time, followed by several centuries of even more meager material. In the first century BC the picture changes: suddenly Egyptian imagery in Rome appears on precious carved stone drinking cups, silver vessels inlaid with gold, gleaming hardstone statues, and dozens of wall paintings of precious items. In fact, the first arrival of such pieces can be narrowed down to circa 35–25 BC. Therefore, Part III suggests that the shift is due to Octavian’s conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, although not in the way assumed in previous scholarship. Rather than the symbolic propagandistic connection proposed so far, this chapter argues that the catalyst for Egyptian art bursting onto the scene in Rome was Octavian’s triumphal procession of Egyptian spoils from the conquest. Triumphs are a well-known path for Greek art to arrive at Rome; the same is suggested here for Egyptian art. The grandiosity of these triumphs can hardly be overstated, dazzling onlookers with cartloads of treasures processed through the city over multiple days. Further, it must be stressed that the Egypt conquered by Octavian and presented to the Roman public in the triumph was the quintessential source of luxury. Cleopatra’s wealth was legendary, following her Ptolemaic forebears with their endless golden sculptures and lavish banquets. That the Ptolemies were famous for ostentatious feasts fits perfectly with one of the Romans’ own greatest pleasures; banqueting wares translated easily from the defeated Ptolemaic palace to the Roman spectators of Octavian’s triumph. Fine vessels in precious metals and stones, and elaborate inlaid tables are the object case studies to illustrate this mechanism. Part IV, similar to Part III, reveals another indicator that the Romans regarded Egyptian objects as art. Namely, the Romans acquired Egyptian pieces in the very same ways as they acquired Greek art. While Part III examines triumphal processions as the first of these mechanisms, Part IV turns to the trade routes and infrastructure that enabled the initial introduction of Egyptian art into Rome to expand over the following generations. For the Romans’ esteem for Egyptian material was not short-lived, but continued robustly through the first century AD (and perhaps unabated into the second, although the material record between

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AD 79 and Hadrian’s reign is relatively sparse). The stable demand in the Mediterranean for goods from Egypt relied on the Roman government’s massive infrastructural investments in Egypt. It also motivated further investments, because of the huge returns in tax revenue. New roads, security outposts, ships, loans, and laws encouraged trade between the Mediterranean, particularly Puteoli, and Egypt – as well as through its Eastern Desert into the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. These changes required years to execute, and further years for their effects to develop; they are thus, in a sense, the long-term pendant to the short-term catalyst represented by Octavian’s triumph. These mechanisms can better explain the vivacious presence of Egyptian art well into late-first-century Rome, one hundred years after the conquest, than past proposals that consider it political propaganda. And while economic history and trade have already been intensively researched for the Roman Empire, their responsibility for bringing these precious Egyptian objects to Rome has never been considered in a sustained way. Considering these objects within the bigger picture of circulating wares, infrastructure, and economic factors is novel. Textiles form the case study here, imported to Roman Italy in quantity from both Egypt itself and through Egypt from India, China, and the Near East. The various object genres and acquisition mechanisms are thus argued in Parts II–IV to indicate that Egyptian objects were understood in Rome as valuable works of art. Building upon this, Part V turns to Egyptian statues in Roman contexts to argue that these, too, could be considered valuable collectibles rather than having a primarily religious or political function. This is not to say that religious or political connotations were absent, but that they were just one part of the objects’ value as beautiful and valuable artworks. This is necessary to stress for the category of statues for several reasons. Traditionally, Egyptian statues in Rome have been overwhelmingly read as cult objects, thought either to have been used in ritual practice or at least to indicate their owner’s religious belief. But this book shows that Romans went to extraordinary lengths to acquire and display Egyptian objects for other reasons than just religion. At the same time, religion is relevant to these pieces – for a certain sacral aura seems to have been desirable in the objects prized by Roman collectors. In the case of Egyptian statues, this is obviously present in the depictions of divinities; but more than this, their frequent display context in gardens also emphasizes the numinous, as Roman gardens were strongly associated with divinity. Gardens were also the ultimate spaces of leisure, and carefully arranged with artworks to enhance this atmosphere. Egyptian statues stood alongside Greek sculptures as well as fountains and birdbaths found to achieve this end. So, although Egyptian statues in these contexts were probably not used for religious rituals, they certainly could have a sacral connotation. The distinction is a useful one when considering any object

200Summary

genre, and is especially important for understanding Egyptian statues in Rome. Finally, the Conclusion reflects on possible directions for future research raised by this study. Certain object genres, such as textiles and furniture, deserve further investigation and publication. Integrating these genres into studies of other material (such as fresco) has productive potential as well. This will allow new perspectives to be opened, even onto old material, and certainly onto other actors than the figures prominent in studies of canonical genres like portraiture. Particularly women’s roles in the production, trade, acquisition, and perception of fine objects is worth investigating with the modern methods of archaeology and gender studies.

Notes

I.  Introduction: Egyptian Art in Rome as Art 1 2 3 4

Swetnam-Burland 2015; Barrett 2019; Mazurek 2018. Francocci 2011. See further below in section “Believing in Religion.” Athen. 5.202–203b; Plut. Ant. 26.1; Plin. HN 19.22. Discussed in Part III. Egyptian art as part of Roman art: Davies 2011. Egyptomania: notably in the titles of foundational works such as De Caro 2006 and de Vos and de Vos 1980.

1.  Why “Egyptianizing”? 1 Roullet delivers the harshest criticism (Roullet 1972, 20–22, 50), but she is not alone (Griffiths 1975, 294; Wallace-Hadrill 2008, 358). 2 E.  g., Roullet 1972, 18; Mania 2011, 356. The bibliography on the search for ingenuity in Roman art is vast; one of the best summaries of the various arguments remains Hallett 2005a. 3 E.  g., Leach 2004, 140; Galinsky 1996, 189; Carettoni 1983, 417. See the discussion of fashion below. 4 Hölscher 2015, 13. 5 Clauss 2004; Wyke 2009. 6 In the earliest use to my knowledge, the term describes “Jewish sepulchral architecture” in the Hellenistic period (Frothingham 1888, 184) as well as Phoenician and Mycenaean objects. Winckelmann and Lafaye were among the first to define and employ the term in its now-standard realm of Roman sculpture (Winckelmann 1880, 190; Lafaye 1883, 243–244). 7 Swetnam-Burland 2007; Versluys 2002; Versluys 2004; noted by Swetnam-Burland 2004, 483. 8 On perceived hybridity in ancient art, see Feldman 2006, 5–11, 62. 9 E.  g., Iacopi 2008, 76; Galinsky 1996, 190; Simon 1986, 183; Carettoni 1983, 417. Contra: Swetnam-Burland 2015, 58. 10 Feldman 2006, 3–4; Feldman 2011. 11 Brendel 1979, 137. More expansively, for the appropriation of Greek styles, Hölscher 2004. 12 Swetnam-Burland 2007, 119. 13 “Egyptian-looking” is used in place of “Egyptianizing” in Swetnam-Burland 2015. On the ways that Egypt was seen as distinct from the rest of the empire, see Maderna 2005. 14 Muscettola 1992, 3.2; De Caro 1992, 3.7, 3.8.

202Notes 15 Lichtheim 2006, 41–44. 16 De Caro 1992, 77. 17 An important volume of conference proceedings on the topic still provides the best overview of the dilemmas: Hamma 1996. 18 Although many of these paintings bear no particular reference to the Nile (Barrett 2019, 226). The context of such paintings can either boost or diminish their potential Egyptian connotation: several watery scenes painted in the Praedia of Julia Felix include ducks with a few lotus pads, but paired with marine thiasoi, the reference to Egypt is weak if not nonexistent (contra PPM 3, 285). Similar scenes in the Villa of the Mysteries tablinum (see Versluys 2002, 155–158, cat. no. 167) are more likely meant to evoke Egypt because of their direct juxtaposition with pharaonic imagery. 19 Elsner 2006, 290; Söldner 2000, 387. Pygmy painting, for its part, arises only in the mid-first century AD, far later than the Nilotic or pharaonic elements. On the relation of Pygmy paintings to Nilotic imagery: Barrett 2019, Ch. 2. 20 The earliest Nilotic mosaics in Roman contexts are the famous Nile Mosaic at Palestrina (Meyboom 2016; a second-century date is upheld by de Vos and de Vos 1980, 70 and Zevi and Bove 2008) and the friezelike mosaics in the House of the Faun, Pompeii (now Naples, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 9990, n.n., and n.n.; see Barrett 2019, Ch. 5). Nilotic scenes are first attested in painting in the Villa of the Mysteries atrium (Söldner 2004, 202; Versluys dates them to “before 60 BC:” Versluys 2002, 157), and thrive throughout the first century AD and even the second century AD in Ostia (Bocherens 2012).

2.  The Limits of Iconography 1 Compelling recent critiques can be found in Lorenz 2016 and Lepinski and McFadden 2015. Context and ensembles receive pride of place in Barrett 2019, a concerted reaction against the traditional iconographic focus. 2 Kristine Bülow Clausen has made a similar argument for the Temple of Isis at Beneventum (Bülow Clausen 2012). 3 E.  g., Söldner 2004, 204. 4 Pliny (Plin. HN 37.10) notes that the ring (one of a matching set, in fact) is an inheritance from Augustus’ mother, and thus not created by the emperor himself to reflect his conquest (although again the meaning may have shifted with its new owner and events). 5 Lembke 1994, 35; Roullet 1972, 19; Müskens 2017. On technique as communicative medium: Allen 2015. 6 Hölscher 2004. 7 E.  g., relief of Trajan smiting enemies, temple at Esna (Hölbl 2004, 528 fig. 526). Duck hunt: a tempera painted floor from Amarna, South Palace (Ägyptisches Museum Berlin, ÄM 15335). Dancing women: Tomb of Nebamun, now in London, British Museum, inv. EA37981. 8 Ling 1991, 3; Thompson 1961, 58. 9 Kleibl 2009; Hoffmann 1993, esp. 195–196. Only modern reconstructions show pylons in Rome; see Mol 2018. 10 Quack 2003 points out that the Romans were quite capable of preserving certain Egyptian uses of the cultic material they adopted.

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3.  Hellenism and Other Inherited Mistakes 1 2 3 4 5

Roullet 1972, 20–22; Wallace-Hadrill 2008, 358. Wallace-Hadrill 2008, 358. See Hallett 2012; Hallett 2015; Hallett 2005b. Versluys 2010, 8–9. On archaism in Egyptian art and the modern tendency to denigrate it, see Morkot 2003. 6 Stanwick 2002, esp. Ch. 4. See for example the gold ring with the portrait of a Ptolemaic ruler wearing both Greek diadem and pharaonic Egyptian double crown (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. Bj 1092). 7 On the “interpretatio romana” in religion, see, e.  g., Bommas 2013. That the Romans drew on Hellenistic Egyptian sources is rightly stressed by van Aerde 2019 and Mol 2018. 8 Athen. 5.196e–197a.

4.  Egypt Three Ways 1 Exemplary new studies that navigate among multiple interpretive frames include Mazurek forthcoming; Barrett 2019; and Swetnam-Burland 2015. 2 See the excellent critical discussion by Müskens 2014, 104. 3 Roullet 1972, 1–5. 4 Della Corte 1931–1932; Merkelbach 1995, 512–564. Against this reading: Tronchin 2006; Lorenz 2005. 5 Schefold 1962, 47, 30, 32, 61; Grimm 1997, 125. 6 While De Vos and de Vos were among the earliest to recognize that “even if [the paintings] figure Egyptian divinities, they are not strictly linked to Isiac cult” (de Vos and de Vos 1980, 75), their opinion found little purchase in the wider scholarship. The most concerted movement against a monolithic religious reading was made in these years by Miguel John Versluys and Molly Swetnam-Burland (e.  g., Versluys 2002 and Swetnam-Burland 2007), with similar views expressed by other scholars (Borg 2004, Lorenz 2005). 7 De Caro 2006, 15. The same view has been expressed by other great specialists, including Pappalardo 2004, 48 and Roullet 1972, 46–47. 8 Francocci 2011. 9 Skuse 2018; Hölbl 2010. 10 Hallett 2019, esp. 78–83. 11 A telling example is the silver situla found in Pompeii. This situla probably indeed played a part in cult ritual – but only because the context, and not just the vessel shape or iconography, indicates as much (Pearson 2019). 12 Warrior 2006, e.  g., 7. One example is the imbrication of cultural and cultic dining practices (Raja 2020). 13 Clarke 2005, 265; also Wallace-Hadrill 2008, esp. 357–358; de Vos and de Vos 1980; Vittozzi 1990, 22; Lembke 1994, 49, 87, 131; and Iacopi 2008, 76. Against the “fashion” reading: Söldner 1999; Lorenz 2005, 446. 14 Purely decorative: Moormann 2010, 231; Wallace-Hadrill 2008, 357. A notable counterexample, in which fashion is expertly integrated into a historical argument, is Borg 2004. Zanker proposed an extremely influential model that integrated politics with fashion (Zanker 1988, 266–267; Zanker 1998, esp. 136–202). 15 E.  g., Moormann 2011, 82; Smith 2010, 219; Leach 2004, 140; Balch 2003, 41; Versluys 2002, 440; Mielsch 2001, 73; Galinsky 1996, 189; Carettoni 1983, 417; Schefold 1962, 29; Rostowzew 1911, 71. On redeeming chinoiserie: Porter 2002.

204Notes 16 E.  g., Archer 1990, 123; Elsner 2006, 290; Hackworth Petersen 2006, 47. 17 While the people themselves are not a focus of this book, the many ways that individuals of various identities interacted with Egyptian objects is a focus of Molly Swetnam-Burland’s work (e.  g., Swetnam-Burland 2015, esp. Ch. 3). For wall painting, the conscious choices made by patrons and painters were examined by Leach 1982 and are a leitmotif of Clarke 1991, Clarke 1998, Clarke 2003, and Clarke 2007. For an assessment of this use of wall painting, with many references, see Tybout 2001. 18 Rawson 2006, 387. 19 Aesthetic values and cultural values are so intimately intertwined that “aesthetic processes… are actually indices of cultural value, and vice versa” (Porter 2012, 338). 20 Porter 2002, 402. 21 Wilde 1887. 22 On the changing hair fashions in female private portraiture, see Fejfer 2008, 352–353. In an example in the J. Paul Getty Museum, the sitter seems to have had her portrait reworked in order to update the hairdo (Frel 1981, cat. no. 75). 23 “Ideology of the Principate” (Gury 2010, 181); Augustan “propaganda” (Mastroroberto 2006); see also Simon 1986, 183. Söldner refutes this reading, but substitutes an Isiac reading which to my mind is equally untenable (Söldner 1999, 105). Alexandria symbolism: Baldassarre 2009, 85. Also Interdonato 2008; Mastroroberto 2006, 188–189 and cat. no. III.159; Cima 2006, cat. no. III.136; Galinsky 1996, 190; Mielsch 2001; and Ling 1991, 39. Actium symbolism: Mastroroberto 2006, 188–189 and cat. no. III.159; Cima 2006, cat. no. III.136; Söldner 2004, 204; Swetnam-Burland 2002, 74 n. 52; Zanker 1988, 270; Söldner 1999, 97; Ling 1991, 39; Iacopi 1997, 5. 24 Pliny the Younger on one of his villas: “I enjoy here a greater, quieter, and more undisturbed retirement [otium] than anywhere else: there is no need for a toga, and no one nearby to summon me. All is peaceful and quiet” (Plin. Ep. 5.6.45; similarly 3.1.12). Statius portrays the villa as a literal haven, a safe harbor, from the earlier, strenuous period of Pollius Felix’s career (Stat. Silv. 2.2.138–42). 25 On the development of Roman art history: Brendel 1979, 10–98. 26 E.  g., Kleiner 2007. 27 Roullet 1972, 1–5. 28 Moormann 2013, 233. 29 Davies 2011, 359. 30 Before this, Alexandrian architectural elements were incorporated into Second-Style schemes (McKenzie 2007, esp. 103–112).

5.  New Direction 1 See, e.  g., Alexandridis and Heilmeyer 2004. 2 Yerkes 2005. Wall paintings were used as evidence for bronze statues by Moormann 1988, for Roman architecture by Kuttner 1998, and now for gems by Allen 2019. 3 Pliny the Elder voiced his discontent that “in conquering we have been conquered. We are subject to foreigners, and in one of the arts they have mastered the masters” (Plin. HN 24.25; translation and discussion by Carey 2003, 77). 4 Very thoughtfully formulated by van Aerde 2019, although still starting from the premise of Augustan “propaganda.” Contra Söldner 2000, 383. 5 Moormann 2013. 6 On approaches to studying movement in the ancient Mediterranean, see Mazurek and Concannon 2016.

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7 Object biography: Swetnam-Burland 2015, 11, 68. 8 Seen in the preponderance of sculpture in studies such as Roullet 1972. 9 The connection between Egypt and gardens is therefore not that of abundance and fertility thanks to the Augustan aurea aetas (Söldner 2000). See Part V.

II.  The Lure of Egyptian Treasures 1.  The Upper Cubiculum Shows off its Riches 1 See the full investigation by Jones 2019. 2 The most thorough publication of the house is Carettoni 1983, although this is essentially limited to the paintings. In lieu of a comprehensive publication of the excavations, see now Tomei 2014. The archaeological remains and larger context are summarized in LTUR 2, 46–8 and LTUR 4, 22–8. The head excavator, Gianfilippo Carettoni, is solely responsible for suggesting a connection to Augustus  – about which he grew increasingly assertive but never justified beyond first-century BC construction techniques (Carettoni 1960, 201–202; Carettoni 1967; Carettoni 1983, 373 n. 372, 388 n. 346). Wiseman 2013 is vehementely against the attribution. Tomei notes that this “‘attributionism’ at any cost seems to have become an ineliminable point of the current discussion of the residences on the Palatine” (Tomei 2013, 531). 3 Mau 1882; Beyen 1938–1960. 4 Carettoni 1983, 402; Iacopi 2008. 5 Like all pharaonic crowns, the constitutive elements of the shuty can be variously recombined into an array of sub-types: other attributes can be added to the feathers and horns, such as a solar disc or diminutive pair of feathers at the front, and both sets of horns are not always present. On this crown type, see Abubakr 1937, 38–46; Grumach-Shirun 1980; and Strauss 1980, 814–815. 6 Abubakr distinguishes the ostrich-feather crowns from the falcon-feather ones, although he notes that until the Ptolemaic period the Egyptians had only one word to describe both types (Abubakr 1937, 43). 7 Carettoni 1983, 405; Carettoni 1988, 288; Iacopi 2008, 33. Carettoni’s diagram of this frieze squares the top edges of the feathers, making them look more like obelisks (Carettoni 1983, fig. 10). 8 Abubakr 1937, 7. The atef crown and its components are discussed by Abubakr 1937, 7–24; Grumach-Shirun 1980; and Strauss 1980, 814. 9 The smoothness of the crown may reflect a material shift from the original reed bundle to a leather sheath (Abubakr 1937, 13). 10 The black triclinium in the Villa Farnesina features a similar chain of pharaonic crown motifs linked with looping stems, this time surrounded by a toothed border that resembles that around the black panels in the Upper Cubiculum. This commonality may support the claim that the rooms were painted by the same workshop (e.  g., Bragantini and de Vos 1982, 30). 11 Yerkes 2005, 156. It is possible that crown motifs sprout from flowers in the dark purple frieze atop the red podia in the upper register, but this is not ascertainable from the published photographs. 12 On the anedtj crown: Abubakr 1937, 38–40; Grumach-Shirun 1980; and Strauss 1980, 814. 13 Iacopi has even suggested that both sets of painting were executed by command of the princeps (Iacopi 1997, 6). 14 A fragment of an architrave depicting an atef crown and a rosette is assumed to have come from Augustus’ mausoleum, based on the iconography, but the unknown find

206Notes

15 16

17

18 19 20 21

spot makes this impossible to verify (Söldner 1999, 107; Söldner 2000, 388; Schneider 2004, 167). Wallace-Hadrill 1993, 1–9; Lange 2009, 70 n. 30 (with an unconvincing argument to the contrary, 73–93). Söldner notices this as well, but uses the lack of overlap to argue for an Isiac reading of the frescoes (Söldner 2004, 384). A new argument posits that Augustus did in fact use Egyptian architectural models for his victory monument, the Ara Pacis – to my mind unconvincing (Trimble 2018). Contra Söldner, “logical” (Söldner 1999, 107). On Augustus’ use of obelisks, see Swetnam-Burland 2015, 65–104. Horologium Augusti: LTUR 3, 35–7. Heslin provides an excellent critical review of the scholarship on its obelisk (Heslin 2007). On the obelisk in the Circus Maximus: LTUR 3, 355–6. Schneider offers a penetrating analysis of obelisk symbolism in Rome (Schneider 2004; also Parker 2007). Two more obelisks were erected at some point in front of Augustus’ mausoleum, but whether Augustus or a successor did this is not known (see Platner and Ashby 1929, 370). Simon 1986, 105; Söldner 1999, esp. 106; Söldner 2000, 387. Esposito offers a political reading (Esposito 2008, 73) but I follow Moormann (Moormann 2013) and see rather a reference to Greek precedents such as the spolia frieze on the Propylaeum of Pergamon. See Östenberg 2009, 23–25. Iacopi 2008, 33; Söldner 2000, esp. 384, 387; Söldner 1999, esp. 97, 101, 108; Carettoni 1988, 288.

2.  How Art Collections Become Frescoes 1 Yerkes 2005; Yerkes 2000. 2 Jashemski 1979–1993. The place of Egyptian objects in these garden scenes is discussed below (Part V) and in Barrett 2017 and Barrett 2019. 3 Moormann 2011, e.  g., 92, 94, 97, 99, 100, 102, 104, 107, 110, 204. 4 E.  g., Ensoli 2009; Moormann 1983; Mazzoleni 2004, 34; Schefold 1952, 171. 5 While no surviving house can be identified as having belonged to a specific Roman general, the type of wall decoration they would have contained is well preserved: numerous examples from this period, in Pompeii most of all, can be taken as representative of the style used in elite houses in Rome in the early first century BC, as is the case for all subsequent styles. Wall decoration in Pompeii consistently follows that in Rome (Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 15; Bragantini and de Vos 1982, 50–60). 6 Mazzoleni 2004, 53. 7 Plin. HN 36.48–49; Mielsch 1985, 54–55, Lazzarini 2010, 141 (mistakenly naming M. L. Lucullus instead of L. L. Lucullus). This type of stone is now usually identified with that known as africano. 8 Plin. HN 36.45. 9 Plin. HN 34.7. 10 Hallett 2015; Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2011. See discussion of Corinthian bronze in Parts III and V. 11 Russell 2013, 14, with further references; Kuttner 1998. 12 Moormann 1988; Bartman 1994. 13 The base and water pipes indicate where the crater stood before it was removed for repairs (De Caro 1987, cat. 11). 14 Paintings of large marble craters and canthari, often used as birdbaths or fountains, decorate the west wall of Garden H in the House of the Ephebe, and the peristyle in the House of Tyrannus Secundus (7.6.10), to name just a few. See Yerkes 2005, 159; Hellenkemper Salies et al. 1994, Pl. 8.

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15 Rome, Palazzo Massimo, basin inv. no. 113189, paintings inv. nos. 1090L, 1091L. 16 For the high prices of great Greek artworks considered “old masters,” see Stewart 2014, Appendix A. 17 E.  g., in Pompeii in the House of the Cryptoporticus, the Villa Imperiale, and the stucco work in the Stabian Baths of Pompeii. 18 Jones 2014; Jones 2019; Bergmann 1995, 106. 19 Kleiner 2007, 75. 20 On Roman archaism as part of collecting culture, see Hallett 2012, Hallett 2015, and Hallett 2016.

3.  Fantastic Transformations 1 Cain and Dräger 1994, 239. 2 Vitr. 7.5.3. 3 Yerkes 2000. Vegetal elements as Augustan symbols: Kellum 1994, 217, Platt 2009, Sauron 2000. 4 The recent formulation of art as a process of “making special” (Dissanayake 1999; also Gell 1998) harkens back to Kant’s idea that art is essentially “non-instrumental.” 5 Similar to Baudrillard’s “hyperreality” in that it can be more appealing than reality, but dissimilar in that these motifs have a basis in reality (Baudrillard 1994). For the Roman discourse on luxuria, see Lapatin 2015 and Aßkamp 2007. 6 The vegetalization of the ornaments thus in no way refers to the land of the Nile (contra Söldner 2000, 384–385).

4.  Pharaoh’s Crown as Women’s Jewelry 1 Kalashnik 2014, 244. I am indebted to Laure Marest-Caffey for this observation. 2 All viewable in respective museum’s online collection, except where publication is cited: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. no. 98.802; British Museum, inv. nos. 1856,0826.716 (excavated on Kalymnos in the Aegean) and 1917,0501.771; The Metropolitan Museum, inv. no. 1995.539.11a, b; Musée du Louvre, inv. no. BJ2237 (Gentili 2014, cat. no. 116); Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 126436; St. Petersberg, Hermitage, inv. no. Αρτ 40 (excavated on Black Sea; Kalashnik 2014, 244). 3 Statues of women put up in public do not tend to include jewelry, hewing to the ideal of modesty (Fejfer 2008, 347–348). 4 Plin. HN 37.34. 5 Plin. HN 37.81–2. Pliny wonders not only at Antony’s greed but Nonius’ folly in trying to secret his ring away with him into exile. 6 Plin. HN 37.11. 7 Cool would thus correct the notion that these glass pieces were counters for games (Cool 2016, esp. 171–172). The practice of embedding costly stone in the walls can be seen in Pompeii, where real stone slabs and glass were put to the same use. In the reception room of the House of the Gilded Cupids, Hellenistic marble reliefs were set into the east wall to join the eponymous gilded glass tondi depicting cupids. The house further contains a slab of obsidian inset into a wall facing the peristyle. The House of the Ephebe also includes a slab of obsidian inset into a wall, here facing the atrium (see Powers 2011). 8 A notable exception is now Allen 2019. 9 von Blanckenhagen et al. 1962, 20; also Brendel 1979, 172. 10 Platz-Horster 2001, cat. no. 52. 11 Söldner 2000, 384–385.

208Notes 12 Schreiber 1894, pls. 1a-b, 2a-e, pp. 470–471. 13 It is in this light that we can also understand the peltas depicted alongside the jewelry on the Upper Cubiculum walls. Although they have been read as a reference to Amazons and thereby to the barbarian queen Cleopatra, this far-fetched series of associations can be dismissed once we realize that the paintings usually refer to actual metal fittings. Small peltas are a common decorative device on fine Roman furnishings, for instance a bronze stool and lamp found in Pompeii and another stool from Herculaneum (Stefanelli and DiPuolo 1990, figs. 85, 88, 155, cat. 111, 112, 159; Allison 2006, cat. 624, 671). 14 Exemplified in the third century AD in Philostratus the Elder’s literary meditations on paintings. One painted representation of “a border of precious stones” is so masterfully rendered, Philostratus marvels, that it seems the painter “has used not colors but light to depict them” (Imag. 2.1.2). Here the stress lies not simply on the painting’s naturalism, but on the artistic prowess in convincingly representing one medium through another (also seen in Posidippus’ Lithika; Elsner 2014.) See further Allen 2019.

5.  Egyptian Gods as Lamp Stands 1 See Bragantini and de Vos 1982. The identity of its owner is debated (e.  g., Moormann 2010, 233–234). Its date is likewise problematic: while the consensus currently favors a date of 20/19 BC (e.  g., Bergmann 1995, 102; Kleiner 2007, fig. 5–23), Moormann has argued for 28 BC (Moormann 2010). 2 Alexandrian lunate pediments: McKenzie 2007, 90–91. 3 E.  g., Bragantini and de Vos 1982, 32, 64; de Vos and de Vos 1980, 77; Wyler 2006, 227. 4 Bergmann 1995, 104–105. Moormann takes the opposite view, that the figures have no direct connection to Egypt or reality but are “purely decorative” (Moormann 2010, 231). 5 See numerous examples in Stefanelli and DiPuolo 1990, fig. 188. 6 See Naumann-Steckner 1994, fig. 3 with further comparanda. 7 Hemingway 2016. 8 Franken 2010b, 250–252, figs. 257–259. 9 Yerkes 2005. 10 Yerkes 2000. Wallace-Hadrill also observes that the paintings draw inspiration from real candelabra (Wallace-Hadrill 2008, 376). 11 Cain and Dräger 1994, 239. 12 Roman frescoes of sacro-idyllic landscapes often contain the motif of a gnarled old tree or ruined architecture. Depictions of ruins are tellingly limited to sanctuary settings. Wall paintings include: peristyle, House of the Small Fountain, Pompeii; fragment from the Villa Arianna, Stabia, MANN inv. no. 9405; see Bergmann 1994, 54, 67 n. 13. Votive plaques: Musei Capitolini, M.C. 1426; Munich Glyptothek inv. no. 455; see Rostowzew 1911, 100–118. 13 Collecting: Hallett 2012; Hallett 2015. Classicisms: Elsner 2006, 271–272. 14 The paintings’ precise date within this ten-year period is debated (La Rocca 2008). 15 Gruen 1992. Davies 2011, 371–376 makes the same claim en route to her larger point that Egyptian art could be considered as integrated into Roman art as Greek art was. 16 Strootman 2018. 17 Stabian vessels: Lapatin 2015, 106, 123–124; Mastroroberto 2006; Leospo 1999 (assumes a cultic use). Egyed Hydria: Giumlia-Mair 2015; Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2014; Śliwa 2010; Hubai 2005. 18 Östenberg 2003, 95–102. 19 Strootman 2014, esp. 332–333 with further references.

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20 Octavian looted sanctuaries (Pape 1975, 26), and individual sacking by soldiers must also be considered, whether the booty acquired in this way was transferred to the general or kept privately.

III.  Triumphal Splendor 1.  Drinking the Sweet Poison 1 Inspired by Weeber’s translation of Valerius Maximus, describing luxuria as a “sweet poison” (blandum etiam malum luxuria, Val. Max. 9.1; Weeber 2003). 2 Leospo 1999, 337–338. 3 MANN inv. no. 13591; see Gentili 2014, cat. 190. 4 Kuttner 1995; Simon 1986, fig. 187, 194. 5 Plin. HN 36.37. 6 Plin. HN 36.196. 7 See Powers 2011, 12. 8 Inv. no. 74.51.5871, photograph in online collection. 9 See picture in Zevi 2008, vol. 1, 328. 10 Antonaras 2008, 298. 11 Describing Cleopatra’s palace, Lucan is sure to mention that ebony is used not in the usual veneer form but as solid posts (Luc. 10.117). On Roman knowledge and use of ebony, see Ulrich 2007, 251–2.

2.  Egypt in Egyed 1 Hubai 2005, 81. It has been dated variously to the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Late Roman periods (Wessetzky 1961, 42–4). 2 Śliwa 2010, fig. 2. 3 E.  g., Arslan 1997, VI.23; Wessetzky 1961. 4 Pearson 2019. 5 Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2014, 5. 6 The discovery of the items is unclear, so the association of the two items is debated (Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2014, 7; Nuber 1972, 41 n. 221, 242). 7 A beautiful first-century BC example is the depiction of pitchers and bowls on the Caffarelli Sarcophagus (Berlin, Antikensammlung, inv. no. Sk 843a). 8 Nuber 1972, pl. 30,31. 9 A similar hydria from Weklicze is thought to belong to a tomb from c. 50–300 AD (Śliwa 2010, 131). On the sets from Pannonia: Nuber 1972, cat. nos. 107–135, pp. 150– 151. 10 Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2014. 11 On Corinthian bronze, see Murphy-O’Connor 2002, 200–18 and Hallett 2015. The convention of naming costly items after places was widespread, as in Delphic tables (this chapter) and many textiles (end of Part IV). 12 Plin. Ep. 3.1.9. Pliny the Elder claims that the only true Corinthian bronzes are vessels (Plin. HN 34.37); see Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2011. 13 Giumlia-Mair 2015; Franken 2010a, 167–168. 14 Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2014, 10–11; Plin. HN. 33.131. 15 Guzzo 2006, p. 89, cat. 40. A black color was achieved with a painting technique on the silver Athena cup of the Hildesheim Treasure, used on Athena’s helmet, garment, and shield (Niemeyer 2018, 32–33, fig. 26); but here the black has since discolored to silver. The patination of the bronze vessels referred to by Giumlia-Mair does not

210Notes discolor over time, growing instead more intense with more exposure and handling (2014, 11). On the techniques used in silver vessels from Roman Egypt (no mention of surface coloration or patination): Mielsch and Niemeyer 2001, 59–67. 16 Giumlia-Mair 2015.

3.  Vessels in Frescoes 1 Yerkes 2005. 2 Söldner 2000, 386–7; Iacopi 2008, 33. To my knowledge, parallels for the vessels in the Upper Cubiculum have not been cited; but a similar pitcher appears in a painting from the House of Livia, held by a priestess (Naples, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 9303) and in the dado of Criptoporticus A of the Villa Farnesina (Rome, Palazzo Massimo). On the pitcher shape, see Mielsch and Niemeyer 2001, cat. no. 34; Knauer 1995. 3 The Portici painting fragment is MANN inv. no. 8593. 4 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 24.876. On two other matching silver cups from the villa: Kuttner 1995. A multitude of silver pieces from ancient houses on the Bay of Naples is collected in Guzzo 2006. 5 Yerkes 2005. 6 Tassinari 1993, pl. 97 and de Vos and de Vos 1980, pl. 40,42. 7 Moormann 2011, e.  g., 92, 94, 97, 99, 100, 102, 104, 107, 110, 204. On the religious aura in home furnishings: Hallett 2019, esp. 78–83. 8 Religious readings include PPM 2, 60, 116, 122, 127; Wild 1981, 104–105; and the signage at the site as of 2015. 9 See PPM 2, p. 117 fig. 143. 10 PPM 2, 124 figs. 152–153. 11 See also Barrett 2019. 12 Just so, the snake winding around the fig tree in the upper scene of this room finds parallels in the decorative arts – e.  g., a pair of refined cipollino pilasters now in the Metropolitan Museum (inv. no. 19.192.34a, b). 13 PPM 2, figs. 70a–b. 14 PPM 2, p. 44–45, figs. 63–66. See discussion of obsidian vessels from Stabiae in this chapter. 15 Suites in Pompeian houses: Clarke 1998, 155–158, 162–163.

4.  Vessels in Triumph 1 2 3 4

Lapatin 2015, esp. 5–15. Plin. HN 33.147–148. Guzzo 2006; Painter 2001; Sarnataro 2010/11; also bronze, Tassinari 1993. MANN inv. no. 145544 (bowl) and 145545 (stand); see Guzzo 2006, cat. nos. 367, 368. 5 See also Franken 2010b, fig. 8. A very similar piece is Berlin Antikensammlung Fr. 1518; photograph in online collection. A similar uraeus furnishing attachment in Leiden may have belonged to such a table, but according to Klatt may be modern (Beck et al. 2005, cat. no. 282); see Klatt 1995, D50, D62. 6 Plut. Aem. 33.3–4. 7 Plin. HN. 37.18., trans. Rackham. While the meaning of the Latin murra has been debated, most likely the term corresponds to fluorite (Lapatin 2015, 123). Del Bufalo 2016 argues that murrina vasa must have been agate, but his reasoning is problematic.

Notes 8 9 10 11 12 13

211

Appian Mith. 115. Liv. 37.46; Pape 1975, 10. Strootman 2018, 274. Suet. Aug. 71.1, trans. Rolfe. Pape 1975, 26. Lapatin 2015, 122–123.

5.  Turn for Home Cic. Verr. 2.4.121, 123; but Pape 1975, 7 notes that Cic. Rep. 1.21 contradicts this. Suet. Aug. 71.1, trans. after Rolfe (who gives “agate” for murrinum). Liv. 37.57; Pape 1975, 11. Cic. Scaur.; Plin. HN 36.115. Livy 39.36.37, trans. Sage 1935; analyzed by Gruen 1992, esp. 84, 86, 93. Liv. 39.6.7; 25.40.1–3, 34.4.4. The literature on Roman views of luxus and luxuria is vast, and need not be rehearsed here. Weeber 2003 is an extraordinary contribution for its treatment of both the concepts and the archaeological evidence. 7 Plin. HN 37.12, 147–149, trans. Rackham. The triumphs took place in 70, 189, and 146 BC, respectively; see a list in Rich 2014, Tab. 6. 8 Marzano 2014, 207–210; Plin. HN 15.102; Ath. 2.51a–b. 9 Plin. HN 36.24, trans. Bostock.

1 2 3 4 5 6

6.  Enter Octavian 1 Rich 2014. 2 Dio Cass. 51.21.57–9, trans. Carey 1925. 3 Prop. 2.1.30–34, trans. modified from Gold. On the symbolic parading of rivers in triumphs, see Östenberg 2003, 230–244. Since there was no siege of a town involved at the naval victory, no spoils were won aside from ship’s prows (Celani 1998, 293). 4 Dio Cass. 51.21.57–9, trans. Carey. 5 Suet. Aug. 41.41. 6 Plut. Aem. 32.4, trans. Perrin. Plin. HN 33.55, trans. Bostock. 7 Lucan, 10.111–126, trans. Kline. 8 Lucan 10.146–154, trans. Kline. 9 Plut. Ant. 86.85. 10 Verg. Aen. 8.714–21, trans. Kline. 11 Cadario 2014 treats this subject but contains errors. The accessibility and visibility of these sanctuaries remains a question (e.  g., Arnhold 2020), but the historians’ and poets’ evident familiarity suggests that they too, and not only priests or the top echelon of collectors, could perhaps catch a glimpse. 12 Myers 2018, 219; Dio Cass. 51.22.51–3, trans. Carey 1925. 13 Strab. 7.7.6., 17.1.10; Zachos 2009. 14 Dio Cass. 51.21.8. 15 Dio Cass. 51.17.6, trans. Carey. 16 Gruen 2003, 259. 17 Plin. HN 36.28. 18 Plin. HN 34.48. Alexander’s cloak had apparently been in the possession of Cleopatra before it was captured and brought back to Rome by Pompey (Appian Mith. 12.17). 19 Holliday 1997. 20 Plut. Ant. 86.3; Plin. HN 35.131. 21 Schollmeyer 2017.

212Notes 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34

Reconstruction of the Capitoline list of triumphs: Rich 2014, Tab. 6. NicDam 127.17–18; Suet. Aug. 8.1. Suet. Iul. 37; Quint. Inst. 6.3.61; Vell. 2.56.1–2. Called by Dio a “camelopard” (Dio Cass. 43.23.1). Flor. 2.13.88, trans. Forster. Dio Cass. 43.19.3, trans. Cary. App. BC 102; Plut. Pomp. 14.4. Further on Pompey’s triumph: Liv. 37.59.33–5; Plin. HN 37.13–16; also Beard 2007, 7–41. A bronze crater bearing Mithridates’ name in the Capitoline Museums may have been a piece of Pompey’s booty (Beard 2007, 10–12). Dio Cass. 43.24.2. Plin. HN 37.14, trans. Bostock. On the procession: Köhler 1996, 35–45 and tables 31–34 (does not subscribe to the idea that Callixeinus was an eye witness, 35 and n. 96). Athen. 5.202–203b, trans. Gulick. Plut. Ant. 28.5–7. A silver plate from Aquileia decorated in typical Hellenistic figural relief is debated as a commission by Cleopatra and Marc Antony (Mielsch and Niemeyer 2001, 27; uncertain, says Wölfel 1997, 151). Plut. Ant. 26.1.

7.  Tables for Kings and Collectors 1 Banquet setting: Östenberg 2003, 95–102. Deliberately jumbled heaps of arms: Östenberg 2009, 23–25. 2 Livy 39.6–7, trans. Sage (see Gruen 1992, esp. 84, 86, 93); Plin. HN 34.14. 3 Östenberg 2003, 95–102. 4 Plut. Caes. 55.4. 5 Josephus, AJ 2.9; Stefanelli and DiPuolo 1990, 15–17 and fig. 11. 6 Strootman 2014, 333. On the programmatic nature of the concept for the Lagids: Calandra 2011, 33. 7 Plut. Ant. 28.2. On Ptolemy’s banqueting pavilion: Athen. 5.196–197c and Calandra 2011. 8 E.  g., “statuette of a comic actor” (Istanbul Archaeological Museum, inv. 8 T); Gentili 2014, cat. no. 33; De Caro 2006, III.46. A refreshing counterexample is III.116. 9 Spano 1905, 220–221. 10 De Caro 2006, cat. nos. III.116, III.117. A drawing from Herculaneum shows just such a figure with the tabletop and square base still attached (Pagano and Prisciandaro 2006, vol. 2, fig. 34). 11 Hemingway 2016. 12 One such is in the Manisa Archaeological Museum, Turkey (n.n.) and shows Marsyas being flayed with the knifegrinder looking on. 13 Martial, Ep. 9.22. 14 Plin. HN 36.48; Martial, Ep. 9.59. 15 Cic. Verr. II.4.37, 131, trans. Young. Bronze feet from such tables or tripods were found in the Mahdia shipwreck: Franken 1996. See Lazzeretti 2015 and discussion of Corinthian bronze at end of this chapter and in Part V. 16 Lewis and Short 1879, s.  v. abacus. Long argues that Delphic may be synonymous with “abacus” in some cases (Long 1862, 520). On table types in the Bay of Naples: De Carolis 2007, esp. 93–112. 17 Plin. HN 34.14. See Long 1862, 520; Stefanelli and DiPuolo 1990, cat. 21, p. 260. 18 Hallett 2019. 19 See Part II.

Notes 20 21 22 23 24 25

213

Inv. no. 13.115.1, photograph in online collection. Plin. HN 13.91–94. Plin. HN 33.52, Martial, Ep. 12.66. Dio Cass. 61.10.3–4. Weeber 2003. Richter 1926, 155–156.

8.  Another Egyptian mensa 1 Spanedda 2008, 110; Bianchi 1988, 248. 2 De Vos notes that floral friezes with Bes “masks” inserted into them are seen in Roman wall painting and relief from the mid-first century AD into the Claudian period (de Vos and de Vos 1980, 63). 3 E.  g., Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2014, 16, Spanedda 2008, 111, Leospo 1997, 29. 4 Plin. HN 13.94. 5 Paris, Cabinet des Medailles, inv. no. 368. 6 Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2014, 16, Giumlia-Mair 2015. The function of the shears which Giumlia-Mair sees as made by the same workshop must still be investigated. 7 Plin. HN 34.14; Long 1862, 520. 8 Apollinaris, Carmina 17.15.

IV.  Trading in Luxury 1 Suet. Aug. 98, trans. Rolfe. 2 One excellent analysis is Weaverdyck 2018. 3 Undecorated linen imported from Egypt is difficult to trace in the visual record. Linen was imported to Roman Italy from far more places than only Egypt (Sebesta and Bonfante 2001, 72–73). 4 E.  g., Merrills 2017, 124; Mastroroberto 2006; Versluys 2002, 437–440. This reading assumes a colonialist model; see Mol 2018, 367–368; Versluys 2014, esp. 13; Moyer 2011, 23–31.

1.  Shipping between Campania and Alexandria 1 Castrén 1975, 238–239. 2 Vit. 7.11.1; Plin. HN 33.162. These origin stories do contain errors (see Brøns et al. 2016, esp. 372) but remain useful in their basic outlines. 3 De Romanis 1996, 735–737. 4 A colony of Phoenician traders from Tyre and many individual Nabataean traders are documented at Puteoli (Terpstra 2017, 53–54; Terpstra 2015). Puteoli’s connectivity, especially with Alexandria, was surely the reason that the city hosts some of the earliest evidence for the cult of Egyptian deities in Italy, in addition to the luxury imports (De Caro 2006, cat. II.1; De Caro 2002; Bricault 2004, 550–552, who stresses that not all Egyptian material dispersed by these channels should be interpreted as cultic). 5 Suet. Aug. 98; Suet. Ner. 20.3; Sen. Ep. 77.1. 6 Schörle 2015, 49–52; Rossi 2016; Sidebotham 1986, 54 and n. 21. 7 Lucan, 10.120–163; Tracy 2014, 54. 8 Cuvigny 2003, 190–193; Peacock and Blue 2011, 350.

214Notes 9 McCann and Oleson 2004a, 132; De Angelis 2000–2001, 166; Wendrich et al. 2003, 73 Table 73, 77; Peacock and Blue 2011, 351. 10 Tomber 2008, 24, 81, 157. 11 Carlson and Aylward 2010, 145. 12 London, British Museum, inv. no. 1868,0501.153. 13 McCann and Oleson 2004a, 132. 14 McCann and Oleson 2004b, 99–102. 15 Belov et al. 2013, 56. 16 Whitewright 2007, 287–290. 17 Strab. 16.4.23; McLaughlin 2010, 28. 18 Clauss 2005. 19 Strab. 17.1.13., trans. Jones. 20 Clauss 2005, 303; Fabre and Goddio 2010; Goddio and Fabre forthcoming. McKenzie noted that the extant breakwaters do not appear to be Roman (McKenzie 2003, 39). 21 Adams 2018; Wallace-Hadrill 2008, 331–332. 22 Clauss 2005, 303. 23 Rathbone 2000, 46. 24 Wilson 2015, 30–31; Strab. 17.1.13.

2.  Ready Money 1 See for the whole empire ca. 200 BC–AD 200: Hopkins 1980. Garnsey and Saller argue for slower growth (Garnsey and Saller 2014, 79–82). 2 Suet. Aug. 41, trans. Rolfe. 3 Dio Cass. 51.21.5; Harl 1996, 75. 4 McLaughlin 2010, 28. 5 Rathbone 2000, 39. 6 Bowman 2010, 105–106. 7 Suet. Aug. 41, trans. Rolfe. 8 What counts as dispensable is of course relative. One of the best definitions of “luxury” is “the use, consumption and display of material goods in a way that exceeds a ‘normal’ measure of what is considered necessary, functional and appropriate for a specific action or situation” (Miller and Hölscher 2013, 367). See also Morley’s useful discussion of “Luxuries and Staples” (Morley 2007, 39–43). 9 On his coinage, Augustus did not use Egyptian motifs except the crocodile. The famous “Aegypto capta” legend and crocodile on the coins minted at Nîmes (Colonia Nemausus) may acknowledge Egypt as the source of the wealth now available as coinage. In any case it cannot refer to Egyptian colonists settled in the region, as there were none (Botermann 2005, 235–236; Draycott 2012). Republican coinage uses Egyptian motifs not as religious symbols, and surely not because they are “just the motifs familiar to Alexandrian engravers” (Bricault 2004, 552), but as valuable symbols for self-representation. See Malaise 1972, 238–246. 10 Harl 1996, 44, 71–78; Smith 1875, s.  v. aurum; Hopkins 1980. 11 Harl 1996, 72–88. 12 Christiansen 2004, 43, 49, 54; Johnson and West 1967, 18. On Egypt’s closed currency system, see Harl 1996, 117–124 and Bowman 2010, 103, 106, with further references.

Notes

215

3.  Textiles in Italian Homes 1 Long sleeves: e.  g., Verg. Aen. 9.616. See the in-depth readings of Roman responses to such “Hellenized” dress in Hallett forthcoming and Hallett 2005b, 132–142 (on fringed cloaks). On shiny cloth: Flohr 2013, 64–68. 2 Livy 39.36.37, trans. Sage 1935; analyzed by Gruen 1992, esp. 84, 86, 93. Similarly Liv. 37.46; see Pape 1975, 10. 3 Athen. 5, 196–197c. 4 Gleba 2008, 64. 5 Plin. HN 8.196, 33.149. 6 Corinthian bronze: Giumlia-Mair and Mráv 2014, 1–3. Similarly, the “marmor” of Latin texts does not correspond to our mineralogically defined “marble” but to a much greater range of costly stones, essentially any stone that can take a polish (Russell 2013, 10; Brandt, in Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, s.  v. marmor, 8.0.407.473– 475). 7 Flohr 2013, 57, 84–85, 90. 8 PME 6–10, 12–14, 24, 28, 39, 41, 49. 9 Ruffing 2014, 73. 10 Allison 2006, 342; Ruggiero 1885, 545, 549. 11 See picture in Mazzoleni 2004. 12 Rome, Musei Vaticani (Pio-Clementino), inv. no. 17PO. 13 An overview of these elements can be found in Ling 1991, Ch. 5. 14 See Dubois 1999, fig. 3. 15 Athen. 196C. 16 Droß-Krüpe and Paetz gen. Schieck 2014, 221. 17 Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, s.  v. Tapete. 18 Tomber 2008, 79–80 with further references; Tomber 2018, 538. Similarly, there was a community of Nabataeans in Puteoli in the first centuries BC and AD that seems to have dealt primarily in trade between Roman Italy and their homeland. Nabataeans lived in both major Red Sea ports in Egypt, Berenike and Myos Hormos (Terpstra 2015, 87–88). 19 Palmyrene textile patterns were apparently depicted first in portrait sculpture before inspiring architectural decoration (Schmidt-Colinet and Stauffer 2000, 46–47). On the trade routes through Palmyra: Ruffing 2014, 73. 20 Plin. HN 19.19. While these finds were not yet published at the time of writing, their planned landmark exhibition should change this (press release, “La Collezione dei Tessili del MANN per la prima volta in mostra,” https://www.museoarcheologiconapoli.it/it/2018/05/comunicato-stampa-la-collezione-dei-tessili-del-mann-per-laprima-volta-in-mostra-nel-2019/). 21 Pompeii: unpublished (research in progress by Luigia Melillo). Herculaneum: d’Ambrosio and De Carolis 1997, cat. 354–356. Oplontis: d’Ambrosio 1987, cat. 63. Many thanks to Mary Hart for the reference to Melillo’s work. 22 Set in antithesis to a simple, natural lifestyle (Verg. G. 2.461–464).

4.  A Cloth over One’s Head 1 Wild and Wild 2000, 256–257. 2 Gleba 2008, 67. See also Droß-Krüpe and Paetz gen. Schieck 2014. 3 A similar layering of ornamental borders can be seen in illusionistic niches “hung” with pink cloth: Mielsch 2001, Fig. 154. 4 For the fragment with wave pattern, see Schmidt-Colinet and Stauffer 2000, cat. 300.

216Notes 5 On the Roman preference for framed views of nature over raw encounters, see Bergmann 1994. 6 Holloway 1965. The same phenomenon is known from pharaonic Egyptian tradition: a twelfth-Dynasty Egyptian tomb ceiling uses motifs brought to Egypt “probably by means of exported Minoan textiles” (Shaw 1970, 30). 7 Not stalactites indicating a cave setting, as has been suggested (Reeder 2001, Ch. 5).

5.  Triangle Borders on Egyptian Textiles 1 Wace 1972. Wace notes the ancient mention of “Alexandrian pile rugs with animal patterns,” another class of textile that would have been specially imported from Egypt. 2 The second-century mosaic in Palazzo Massimo, from near Cellae Vinariae Nova et Arruntiana sul Lungotevere alla Lungara, depicts men in reed boats and Nilotic animals, surrounded by triangle border. The mosaic with the lighthouse is from House of the Centenary, Pompeii, now MANN inv. no. 112284. A small triangle border also appears by itself in a fragment from the Lago Argentina that de Vos classifies as Egyptianizing (de Vos and de Vos 1980, pl. I, 1 and p. 3). Isera: de Vos and Maurina 2011, figs. 107–109, 156–108, 167. 3 E.  g., Borg 1996, esp. 161–172; Walker 2000, 149–156; Dearden 2002. 4 Two Brothers: Cairo, Egyptian Museum, inv. no. CG 33267. Further examples include Walker 2000, cat. nos. 100, 102. Rows of triangles are preserved on mummy cases as well, but not always in a way that seems consistent with representations of cloth. They can line the edge of the lid (British Museum, inv. no. EA29589) or appear to either side of the face, alternating with rows of figures and other patterns (Berkeley, Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology, inv. no. 6-20109) – perhaps imitating a headcloth descending from the head down to the chest, elaborated further with a frieze of pharaonic figures. 5 Plin. HN 19.12–13. On temple displays of luxury items, see Part III. 6 Plin. HN 8.74, 77.56. Resist-dyed fabrics: Plin. HN 35.42; Peter and Wild 2014, 94. 7 Lintz and Coudert 2013, 109–110. 8 Athen. 5.196e, trans. Gulick.

6.  Safe Passage to India 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Sirks 2018, esp. 71–74. Cuvigny 2003, 95–97. Tomber 2018; Wilson 2015; Bowman 2010, 105. Foy 2018, 289–291. The effect of this road network can be seen on urbanization patterns (Noreña 2015). On connectivity in the Roman Empire, see Mazurek and Concannon 2016; Horden and Purcell 2000, esp. 123–172; Schörle et al. 2012. Laurence 1999, esp. 11–26; Wiseman 1970. Suet. Aug. 30, trans. Rolfe. Wendrich et al. 2003, 46; Cuvigny 2003, 201–202. It remained in use until the early sixth century, enabling Christianity to spread into India (Andrade 2018, Ch. 3). McLaughlin 2010, 31–32; Sidebotham 1986, 54 and n. 21. Cuvigny 2003, 95–137, 198. Tomber notes that Myos Hormos was more active in the second century than Berenike (Tomber 2018, 538). Cuvigny 2003; McLaughlin 2010, 27–28, 32. The “watchtowers” (skopeloi), however, long believed to be another measure of Roman security, have been shown to preserve

Notes

12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33

very little archaeological material around them, and still less that is datable. Rather than Roman, the excavators suggest a date in Late Antiquity or perhaps even “long after.” Harl 1996, 80. Strab. 17.1.13, trans. Jones; also 2.5.12. See Jones 1917, xxiii for the timeline, and Rathbone 2000, 49. McLaughlin 2010, 24; I.Ko.Ko. 39, i.Pan 51. About the impact of the Roman state on the pearl trade specifically, see Schörle 2015. McLaughlin 2010, De Romanis 2006, and Parker 2002. Peacock and Blue 2011, 228–229. Wendrich et al. 2003, 70; Rathbone 2000, 46; PME 56. A shipwreck at Pozzino, Italy held 136 cylindrical wooden containers filled with spices (“not yet identified, but smelling of cinnamon, vanilla and cumin”) tucked among Campanian amphorae. It has been tentatively dated to 120–80 BC (see De Romanis 2006; Parker 1992, cat. no. 898). McLaughlin 2010, 154, Lapatin 2015, 265 and pl. 159. CIL IV 5380. PME 3, 10; Plin. HN 9.35–39; Lucan, 120–121. Emblems in the Gallic triumph were of citrus wood; in the African, ivory; in the Spanish, silver (Vell. 2.56.1–2). The acanthus in the Pontic triumph bucks the luxury trend and was probably symbolic. Apul. Met. 10.34; Martial, Ep. 59.8–10. De Romanis 2006, 39, 130, 140, 164; Wendrich et al. 2003, 52. Galli 1937. Plin. HN 37.12–16. On pearls in the Roman Empire: Schörle 2015; Donkin 1998, 87–89. Fenestella, F25. Schörle 2015,43 n. 41, 49–52; Donkin 1998, 90; Kolb and Fugmann 2008; Sidebotham 1986, 54 and n. 21. India was rather the main producer of cotton, its fabric and weaving technique distinguishing it from other types (PME 48; Peacock and Blue 2011, 328; Whitewright 2007, 289). This overview of silk in India and China is based on Parker 2002, 47–48; see also Ruffing 2014. On coan silk: Griffin 1986b, 10 n. 91. Gleba 2008; Peter and Wild 2014, 98. Dio Cass. 43.24.2. Lapatin 2015, 265 and pl. 159. McLaughlin 2010, 150–152; Wendrich et al. 2003. On Roman views of India, see Parker 2008, esp. Ch. 2.

7.  Where is East? 1 2 3 4 5 6

217

Arrian Ind. 8.8. Lucan 10.139–40. Plin. HN 37.12–16. Athen. 5.197b, 196c. PME 6; Hallett 2005b, 132–142. Dio Cass. 43.24.2.

218Notes

V.  Sculptures for Cult and Collecting 1 Lapatin 2015, 11–12. On the ongoing struggle for “fiber art” to be recognized as art: Auther 2008. 2 The fact that Greek marble sculpture survives more often than bronze has skewed its modern assessment; see Daehner and Lapatin 2015, esp. 21–26. 3 E.  g., Zevi 2008, 76; Gentili 2013, 288, cat. 121. 4 Such as the many sculptures attributed to the Iseum Campense, some of which have no recorded find spot (e.  g., Palazzo Altemps. Le collezioni 2014, 326–327, Gentili 2013, 289, cat. no. 122). A basalt Horus statue in the Capitoline Museums is housed in a gallery devoted to Egyptian religion in Rome, together with material thought to be from the Iseum Campense, even though it was found on the Caelian Hill over two kilometers away (Rome, Musei Capitolini, inv. no. MC 29). See similar piece in Gentili 2014, cat. no. 47, also with unknown provenance. 5 Beard et al. 1998, 282; developed by Bülow Clausen 2012. 6 On the Palatine: Müskens 2014, 105. Capitoline: Versluys 2004. The argument is very worthwhile, and convincing except for the two inscriptions naming sac(erdotis) isid(is) capitoli(nae) (CIL VI 2246) which seem strongly to indicate a priesthood on the Capitoline despite the evidence that Versluys summons to the contrary. Beneventum: Bülow Clausen 2012. 7 Lorenz 2005, 447; and recently Pearson 2019.

1.  Corinthian Statuettes 1 Winter 1971. My thanks go to Norbert Franken for discussing this piece with me. 2 As an example Pliny cites the bronze sphinx that Hortensius carried around with him, but we should note that this sphinx was seen as Greek rather than Egyptian – hinted by the concluding quip that it should make Hortensius good at solving riddles (Plin. HN 34.48). On Corinthian bronze, see Murphy-O’Connor 2002, 200–18 and Hallett 2015. 3 Hallett 2015. 4 Krinzinger 2010, 670–672. 5 Plin. Ep. 3.6, trans. Firth; see Hallett 2015. 6 My heartfelt thanks go to these museum colleagues for helping me acquire images even during the coronavirus crisis. They showed me the meaning of dedication and generosity. 7 Antinous: Arslan 1997, cat. no. V.130. Roman emperor: Malaise 1972, 26. 8 Smith 2018. 9 Sogliano 1907, 557–558. Isis: Tran Tam Tinh 1964, cat. no. 77. A similar assemblage was found in the atrium of House 6.14.27 in Pompeii, in which two finely-detailed bronze statuettes of Egyptian gods were in a wooden box along with two statues of Lares (Arslan 1997, cat. nos.  v.57–58). 10 Fröhlich 1991, 29–41. 11 Fröhlich 1991, 41.

Notes

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2.  Collecting Diverse Styles 1 E.  g., Vittozzi 1990; Calandra 2014. 2 Hartswick 2004, 11. 3 Gauls: Hartswick 2004, 104–108. Others: Newby 2016, 129, and see 120–132 for an overview of the sculpture (now dispersed across multiple museums) with further references. 4 Mus. Vat. inv. nos. 22678, 22682, 22681, 22683, 22809. The hippopotamus is in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. See Hartswick 2004, 130–136. 5 “Garbled,” according to Roullet 1972, 109; more charitably, Swetnam-Burland 2007, Figs. 1.16–11.17. 6 Häuber 2009, Fig. 1. On the “temple,” see Hartswick 2004, 93–95. 7 See also Hallett 2015; Hallett 2019, esp. 72, 74–75. 8 Neudecker 1988, 229–230; Tombrägel 2012, 140, 155. 9 BM 1805,0703.2. 10 Neudecker 1988, 233. 11 Malaise 1972, 100, nos. 104–106. On the statues: Neudecker 1988, 232–233; Pietrangeli 1951; Calandra 2018. 12 Hallett 2019. 13 Hartswick 2004, 54; Häuber 2009, 313, fig. 311. 14 Schneider 2004. 15 Wight and Swetnam-Burland 2010. 16 In addition to serving as a sign of imperial power, the obelisk also had a funerary connotation in both Egypt and Rome (Schneider 2004). Since villa estates began to include tombs as sacred ancestral monuments in the early imperial period, the erection of the Sallust obelisk too may have been motivated by a funerary usage (Hartswick 2004, 19; Griesbach 2007). 17 For maps and an excellent collection of sources, see Frischer 2013. Hadrian’s Villa in Pompeian garden tradition: Barrett 2019, 334. Modern tradition has named the waterway a Canopus and the banqueting area a Serapeum, now repudiated (Grenier 1989, 927–929). The “Canopus” in SHA Hadr. 26.5 is perhaps meant in jest, since the list of famous places recreated by Hadrian in his villa concludes with Hades; but such names for waterways are also attested by Cicero (Q. Fr. 3.1.5) and the “Euripus” west of Agrippa’s baths (Gasparini 2018). 18 The Roman collector’s readiness to recast these artworks within the context of an art collection would be supported by Vout’s view that caryatids juxtaposed with silenoi turn into maenads (Vout 2018, 33–36; for the silenoi, see Raeder 1983, 85). 19 Raeder 1983, 82, 87–88, 92, 94. The Hellenistic Canopus itself likely would have featured a mix of Egyptian and non-Egyptian pieces. 20 de Vos 2004. 21 E.  g., Mari and Sgalambro 2007.

3.  Art and Divinity in Gardens 1 2 3 4

Among others: Tronchin 2011; Bergmann 2008; Hallett 2019. Plin. HN 5.7; Sen. Ep. 41.3–4. See Warrior 2006, 5. Sacred groves: Carroll 2018. Hallett 2019, 81–82; Hartswick 2004, 93–95. Griffin 1986a. For this same reason, representations of Dionysus and Aphrodite pervade the Roman house even outside cult areas (Zanker 2010, 143; Moormann 2007, 120). 5 Raeder 1983, cat. no. I.49; Kapossy 1969, 21.

220Notes 6 Such as the Herculaneum paintings of Egyptian cult scenes (Moormann 2018) and the relief-decorated granite columns now in the Capitoline Museums (Lembke 1994, 43–45). 7 Water in ritual: Wild 1981. Water in Roman gardens: Borghi 1997; Robinson and Jones 2005. 8 Donati 2012, 285–295, 462–464. On the statue, see also Arslan 1997, cat V.143. 9 Jashemski 1979–1993, vol. 2, 78–80; Aßkamp 2007, fig. 6; Jashemski 1979–1993, vol. 2, 135. 10 Similar to other decoration, such as wall paintings (Moormann 2007, 120; Zanker 2010, 143). 11 See the very rich Kuttner 1999. Similar paintings appear in the garden of House 1.7.19 (the House of P. Cornelius Tages, annexed to the House of the Ephebe; see PPM 1, 765 fig. 26) and House 7.6.28 (the House of Tyrannus Secundus; see PPM 7, 186 fig. 5) (Ciardiello 2012, 181). 12 These bases are an unusual shape. Alexandra van Lieven suggests that they reproduce the Egyptian cavetto cornice (van Lieven, 11 November 2013). 13 PPM 10, 310 fig. 201, 311 fig. 202; Moormann 1988, cat. 231/232. 14 Gentili 2013, cat. 126. 15 PPM 10, 917–921 figs. 25–36. 16 Moormann 1988. 17 Bergmann 1994, esp. 55–9. 18 Plin. Ep. 5.6.16–23. Bergmann argues that the objects in a Roman garden combine into a “multimedia collection” (Bergmann 2008).

4.  The Pleasures of Herculaneum’s Palaestra 1 A bronze statuette of Venus found in 1756–57 was taken to indicate a sanctuary to this goddess (MANN inv. no. 5133; see Pagano and Prisciandaro 2006, 214). With the discovery of the “Mater Deum” plaque, it was renamed as a temple to this goddess and remained so for two centuries. In the mid-twentieth century it was reinterpreted on the basis of a female statuette holding a snake and a statuette base with hieroglyphic inscriptions (Tran Tam Tinh 1971, 2 n. 1) as a sanctuary to a syncretic form of the Mater Deum and Isis (Gasparini 2010, followed by Häuber 2014, 59 and Moormann 2018, 372 n. 325). Yegül suggested that it may have honored the patron god of the town, Hercules, especially if the Palaestra was used for athletic training (Yegül 1993, 373). 2 The majority date to the Late and Ptolemaic Periods, in part due to easier availability (Lembke 1994, 35–36). 3 Botti 1963, 4. That the man had connections to Egypt is in my opinion not necessary. 4 Gasparini 2010, 235; Capriotti Vittozzi 2008, 102; or at least “public” in nature: Guzzo 1997, 346. 5 Wallace-Hadrill 2011, 196; Kraus and von Matt 1975, 119; Tran Tam Tinh 1971, 2. 6 Posited by Guzzo 1997. 7 Guzzo 1997, 346; Tran Tam Tinh 1971, 3; Botti 1963, 4. Contra: Gasparini 2010, 242. 8 Gasparini 2006; Gasparini 2010. For other cultic interpretations, see references in Moormann 2018. Contra: Pearson 2018, cat. 158. 9 Moormann 2007, esp. 147; Moormann 2011, 40, 48–49, 66, 70, 71, 82, 83–84, 87, 106, 107. On the Temple of Apollo, see Heslin 2015, 119–122. 10 Very similar are the Trojan War myth panels in a reception room of the House of the Menander in Pompeii (Pearson 2016). Most similar in both composition and content  – a dramatic action centering on a cult officiant  – is the Cassandra painting.

Notes

221

11 MANN inv. nos. 5997 and 6073; SAP76901, SAP78341, SAP77960. See list with further references in Gasparini 2010, 238 and Bülow Clausen 2015, 250. 12 A basalt statuette of Isis (H: 53.9 cm) that probably served as a table leg was found in Herculaneum, although only known from the 1755 catalog text with no recorded find spot (Tran Tam Tinh 1971, cat. no. 22bis). 13 Häuber 2014, 58–59. 14 Higginbotham 1997, 196; Yegül 1993, 379. Such finely formed steps hardly seem necessary just for maintenance. 15 Häuber 1990, 48; reidentified as Iseum in Häuber 2014, 55–71. On the bull: Müskens 2017, 217–218. The nearby Gardens of Maecenas and Horti Lamiani offer alternative sites for the bull statue. Porticus with Piscina as private garden versus sanctuary: Müskens 2017, 217. The lack of well-documented provenance for Egyptian sculpture discovered in Rome is particularly vexing for ancient villa grounds because the property borders are hard to reconstruct, and might overlap with those of (potentially later) Egyptian sanctuaries such as in Regio III. Hartswick’s study of the Gardens of Sallust demonstrates the challenges: Hartswick 2004. 16 Lembke 1994, 35–36, 131–132; Lembke 2018, 39; Zanker 1998, 137–139, 143–145. 17 Heslin 2015, Ch. 5. 18 Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2000, 354; Lembke 1994, 60–63, 130–131. 19 Zanker 1998, 136–140. 20 Higginbotham 1997.

5.  Invisible Isea 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

Muscettola 1992, cat. no. 2.1. Hoffmann 1993, 195–196. On the temple, see De Caro 1992 and Swetnam-Burland 2015, Ch. 3. See photo in Mazzoleni 2004, 187. What is more, wall painting in houses and temples is indistinguishable over centuries throughout the entire Mediterranean. When the Temple of Apollo in Pompeii was excavated, the Nilotic paintings in the portico were first interpreted as belonging to a house – their subject gave no hint whatsoever to Apollo (Heslin 2015, 29; Moormann 2011, 48, 81, 82, 106, 107). Same painters in houses and sanctuaries: Moormann 2011, 81, also 66, 70, 71, 83. Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2000, 191; also Hoffmann 1993, 214. Lorenz 2005, 448. Sampaolo 1992, cat. 1.73. See also Moormann 2007, 147. Muscettola 1992, 3.2. For the Iseum statues: De Caro 1992, 3.7, 3.8; Carrella 2088, cat. B 14, B 27, C 23; Jashemski 1979–1993, figs. 197, 198. De Simone 2011, figs. 8, 11. Muscettola 1992. D’Errico 1992, 77. Tran Tam Tinh also lists a lost terracotta pharaonic statue of “Isis,” which the PAH describes merely as a woman of “carattere egizio” with her hand on her thigh and wearing a ring with a head hanging from it (Tran Tam Tinh 1964, cat. 86; Fiorelli 1860, I, I, 192). This puzzling description does not allow further analysis of the piece. Muscettola 1992, cat. 3.3; Tran Tam Tinh 1964, cat. no. 82 and Fiorelli 1860, I, I, 186. Malaise 1972, 105–106. The textual sources indicate that chryselephantine statues were only used in temples: Lapatin 2001, 121–128.

222Notes 17 Spier et al. 2018, cat. 164. A new edition and analysis of this and other Roman obelisk inscriptions is being prepared by Luigi Prada. Whether the inscription CIL IX 1685 also refers to the sanctuary is questionable; the named “Canopus” need not have been in a sanctuary but could have been a waterway in a large garden of any kind, such as the water course called by the same name in Hadrian’s Villa (SHA Hadr. 26.5). 18 Esp. Arslan 1997; recently Bragantini 2018. 19 Bülow Clausen 2012, borrowing the formulation of Beard et al. 1998, 282. 20 Bülow Clausen 2015, 96–117; Pirelli 1997. 21 Pirelli 1997, 376. 22 Bülow Clausen 2012, 99–100. 23 Pirelli 1997, 376. 24 That the sculptures are made out of only two types of imported Egyptian stone (Müskens 2017, 337 n. 433) may, however, suggest a single commission. 25 Caputo 1991, 169. Sadly the published illustrations of the site are not very legible. 26 Caputo 2003, 213–214. 27 Zevi 2008, 76; Borriello and Giove 2000, 25–26. 28 Strabo 5.4.8; Lafon 2001. Possible villa: Caputo 2003, 218. Gigante was rightly skeptical of the Iseum attribution, preferring a villa (Gigante 1995).

VI.  Conclusion: Why Egypt? 1 The best formulation of this idea is by van Aerde 2019, esp. 169. 2 E.  g., Lapatin 2015. 3 As was recognized for the reconstruction of Greek panel painting (on the relationship between the media, see Ling 1991, 128–134), although this connection was easy to exaggerate. 4 An excellent start was made by Müskens 2014. See terracotta plaque in Petrilli et al. 2013 and marble Hathor head as architectural element in the amphitheater of Pula, Croatia (Selem 2015, 18–19, no. 19). 5 Many thanks to Jitske Jasperse for this point. See the inspiring Dempsey et al. 2019 on archaeological methods of recovering the non-male perspective in castles. 6 So the House of Octavius Quartio (reattributed from Loreius Tiburtinus; PPM 2, 42) and House of Caecilius Jucundus (PPM 3, 575). 7 Levin-Richardson 2019. 8 E.  g., Gällnö 2013.

List of Figure Sources

All photos are by the author unless otherwise noted. Fig. 1: Obsidian skyphos with Egyptian figures inlaid with stone, glass, coral, and gold. From Villa San Marco, Stabia. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 294473. Source: archeologiavocidalpassato.wordpress.com. H: 12.5 cm. D: 18.3 cm. Fig. 2: Obsidian skyphos with vegetal design inlaid with stone, glass, coral, and gold. From Villa San Marco, Stabia. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 294472. Source: archeologiavocidalpassato.wordpress.com. H: 8.8  cm. D: 13 cm. Fig. 3: Egyptian gods inlaid as frieze on “Egyed Hydria.” Bronze inlaid with silver and gold. Found in Egyed, Hungary. 1st c. AD. Budapest, National ­Hungarian Museum, inv. MNM RR 10/1951.104. Photo: Hungarian National Museum (© MNM). H: 24.3 cm. Fig. 4: Roman statue of Arsinoe II, modeled after Ptolemaic statue. From Rome, Gardens of Sallust. Vatican City, Musei Vaticani, inv. no. 22683. Photo by Daderot on Wikimedia Commons. H: 240 cm. Fig. 5: Fresco of garden containing statues of pharaonic figures beside birdbath. Pompeii, House of the Golden Bracelet, Room 31. Ca. AD 50–79. Pompeii, Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei, inv. no. 59467 a. Fig. 6: Bronze statuette of male figure wearing nemes headdress. Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, inv. no. MCABo Rom 1087. Photo courtesy of Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna. H: 40 cm. Fig. 7: Marble statue of Isis in Archaic style. From portico of Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 976. H: 98 cm. D: 36 cm. W base: 35 cm. Source: De Caro 2006, 3.2. Fig. 8: Relief depicting Cleopatra and Caesarion wearing pharaonic crowns. Temple of Hathor, south outer wall. 47–30 BC. Dendera. Photo by Ulf Laube on Wikimedia Commons. Fig. 9: Bronze bowl decorated with lotus leaves, laurel wreath, and pharaonic crowns. Provenance unknown (bought in Kene). Late Hellenistic. Cairo, Egyptian Museum, inv. J. E. 36460. Photo: Johannes 1975, pl. 99. H: 10.4  cm. D: 16 cm. Fig. 10: Overall view of frescoed walls in Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” facing east. Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 11: Detail of south wall: black frieze with crowns and bells, silver pitcher with vegetal decoration and uraeus handle. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

224

List of Figure Sources

Fig. 12: Bronze statuette of Isis wearing shuty crown. Likely from Rome. 1st c. AD. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antikensammlung, inv. no. Fr. 1979. Source: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, photo: Johannes Kramer. H: 14.5 cm. Fig. 13: Detail of black frieze with crowns and griffins on south wall. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 14: Temple of Horus, pylon, western extent: relief depicting Ptolemy XII smiting enemies. 57 BC. Edfu. Source: agefotostock GPT-EGAL0031. Fig. 15: Shuty crown as acroterium on north wall. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Source: Iacopi 2008, 39. Fig. 16: Detail of black panel and black frieze with crowns on east wall. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 17: Fresco of shuty crowns and uraeus snakes on east wall. Aula Isiaca, Rome. Ca. 40–20 BC. Fig. 18: Juxtaposition of three-dimensional columns with fresco of columns. Corinthian oecus, House of the Labyrinth, Pompeii. Ca. 50 BC. Fig. 19: Imitation of costly stone in Second-Style fresco. House of the Griffins, Rome. Ca. 75 BC. Fig. 20: Second-Style fresco depicting columns with gilded bronze capitals, gilded bronze vegetal ornament, and gemstones. From Villa of P. Fannius Synistor, Boscoreale. Ca. 50–40 BC. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1903, inv. no. 03.14.03 a-g. Fig. 21: Second-Style fresco depicting architecture and luxury goods. Room 15, Villa A, Oplontis. Ca. 50 BC. Fig. 22: Painting of marble crater as fountain in viridarium of Villa A, Oplontis. 1st c. AD. Fig. 23: Marble crater fountain displayed in east garden of Villa A, Oplontis. Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei, inv. no. OP 1406. 1st c. AD. H: 109.5 cm. Diam.: 94 cm. Base: 48 × 48 × 6.2 cm. Fig. 24: Detail of illusionistic pinax with wooden shutters in Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Now in Palazzo Massimo, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 25: Pinacotheca fresco in Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 26: Fresco depicting archaistic pinax in Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Now in Palazzo Massimo, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 27: Fresco depicting porticus hung with row of pinakes, Cryptoporticus A, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Now in Palazzo Massimo, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 28: Detail of fresco depicting archaistic pinax, Cryptoporticus A, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 29: Fresco fragment depicting vegetalized incense burner. Provenance unknown. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 9762. Fig. 30: Detail of Third-Style fresco with miniaturized column, birds, vessel, and Egyptian pinax. Villa of Agrippa Postumus, Boscotrecase. Ca. AD 10. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1920, 20.192.1-10. Fig. 31: Second-Style fresco depicting hybrid architectural form with head and wings. Tablinum, House of Livia, Rome. Ca. 30 BC. Fig. 32: Bronze table with sphinx legs from Temple of Isis in Pompeii. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 72995. Source: Stefanelli 1990, fig. 110. Fig. 33: Pair of earrings decorated with shuty crowns with garnet sun discs, linked by a long golden chain. Ca. 330–30  BC. London, British Museum, inv. no. 1906,0411.1. Source: British Museum Image Service. H earring: 7 cm. L chain: 43.23 cm.

List of Figure Sources

225

Fig. 34: Gold sheet and vegetal gilded bronze ornament with gemstones. From the Horti Lamiani, Rome. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. Rome, Museo Palatino. Source: Stefanelli 1990, figs. 11–12. Fig. 35: Detail of fresco depicting vegetal metal ornament and gemstones. Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Fig. 36: Fresco depicting strings of pearls held by swans. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 40–25 BC. Fig. 37: Pair of gold earrings with miniature amphorae made of emeralds. From tomb in el-Ashmunein, Egypt. 2nd c. BC. London, British Museum, inv. no. 1904,0706.1. Source: British Museum Image Service. H: 6.7 cm. Fig. 38: Drawings of stone molds for metalware. Reportedly from Alexandria. Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum, inv. no. 8185. Source: after Schreiber 1894. H: 2.5 cm. W: 4.5 cm. L: 8 cm. Fig. 39: Detail of fresco depicting bronze statuette holding torch beside candelabrum figure. Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Fig. 40: Detail of fresco depicting a candelabrum in the form of a figure resembling Zeus Ammon. Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Fig. 41: Piece of furnishing support in the shape of Dionysus in Archaic style. Bronze with gilding and silver inlay. Ca. 50 BC–AD 50. Cleveland Museum of Art, inv. no. 1995.9. Source: Cleveland Museum of Art. H: 39.7  cm. W: 16.1  cm. D: 17.8 cm. Fig. 42: Bronze candelabrum with floriform base, extendable shaft, and Dionysus herm topped with rings and kalathos. From Pompeii. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. Fig. 43: Detail of fresco depicting a candelabrum in the form of a figure resembling Isis. Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Fig. 44: Detail of fresco depicting a candelabrum in the form of a figure resembling Cybele. Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Fig. 45: Detail of fresco depicting a candelabrum in the form of a female figure. Cubiculum B, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Fig. 46: Furnishing support in the shape of the Egyptian god Tutu-Tithoes (sphinx with snake tail). Bronze. Provenance unknown. Late 1st c. BC–early 1st c. AD. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 2006.514.2. H: 14.5. cm. Fig. 47: Fresco of floriform candelabrum topped with pharaonic crown. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 48: Fresco depicting bronze candelabrum with female figure. House of the Cryptoporticus, Pompeii. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. Fig. 49: Marble candelabrum found in shipwreck near Mahdia, Tunisia. 1st c. BC. Tunis, Bardo Museum, inv. no. C 1208. Source: Picón 2016, cat. no. 234. H: 143.2 cm. Fig. 50: Fragment of fresco with vegetal design on black background, perhaps imitating intarsia. From portico of Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 8554. Fig. 51: Fresco depicting silver service on table before red curtain. Tomb of Vestorius Priscus, Pompeii. 1st c. AD. Fig. 52: Fresco depicting garden and bejeweled pitcher. House of the Orchard, Room 12, Pompeii. Ca. 10 BC–AD 40. Source: PPM 2, p. 121 fig. 148a–b. Fig. 53: Fresco depicting garden with golden situla and water basin. House of the Orchard, Room 12, Pompeii. Ca. 10 BC–AD 40. Source: PPM 2, p. 124 fig. 152–p. 125 fig. 153.

226

List of Figure Sources

Fig. 54: Detail of fresco depicting marble fountain with leg in shape of winged sphinx. Villa A at Oplontis, viridarium. 1st c. AD. Fig. 55: Fresco depicting garden and marble relief plaques with Greek and Egyptian subjects. House of the Orchard, Room 8, Pompeii. Ca. 10 BC–AD 40. Source: Mazzoleni 2004, 311. Fig. 56: Miniature silver stand with uraeus snakes atop bearded heads, vegetal legs, and lion feet. 1st c. AD. From Hildesheim, Germany. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. no. Misc. 3779,54.© Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, photo: Johannes Laurentius. H: 15 cm. Diam.: 8.8 cm. Fig. 57: Bronze table with reclining sphinx on base and bust of Athena at top. From House of the Great Altar, Pompeii. 1st c. AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 130860. Source: Stefanelli 1990, cat. no. 113. H: 77 cm. W: 53 cm. Fig. 58: Furnishing support in the shape of Bes. From Herculaneum. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. coll. Egiziana 184. Source: De Caro 2006, III.46. H: 24 cm. Fig. 59: “Mensa Isiaca.” Bronze table top inlaid with silver, copper alloy, and niello. Turin, Museo Egizio, inv. no. 7155. Source: Museo Egizio. L: 74 cm. W: 126 cm. H: 7 cm. Fig. 60: Marble table leg in the form of sphinxes flanking an acanthus scroll, from the so-called Villa of Pompey in Rome. Late 1st c. BC–early 1st c. AD. Rome, Palazzo Doria Pamphili. Source: DAI Rome. W: 169 cm. H: 88 cm. D: 22 cm. Fig. 61: Map of main trading sites discussed in the text, including detail of Egypt’s Eastern Desert with main roads and sites between Nile and Red Sea (sites mentioned by name are shown as black dots, others as white dots). *Exact location of Muziris is unknown. After Bülow-Jacobsen 1998, fig. 1. Fig. 62: Bar chart of number of known Mediterranean shipwrecks over time. After Parker 1992, fig. 3. Fig. 63: Pie chart of proportion of known Mediterranean shipwrecks by period. After Parker 1992, fig. 4. Fig. 64: Map of navigable routes at Alexandria in the Roman period. Around the city of Alexandria (marked with dashed circle), the Ptolemaic canal led from inland waterways to the smaller “Eunostos” harbor, while the Roman canal led to the larger Great Harbor. The area was protected by the military station at Nikopolis. Both canals connected to the canal network (marked with banded lines) leading to Kanopos (Latin Canopus) and joining the Nile at the city of Schedia. After Clauss 2005, fig. 1. Fig. 65: Purple cloth woven with gold threads from Tomb II at Vergina, Greece. 4th c. BC. Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum. Source: Andronikos 1984, cat. no. 156. Fig. 66: Fresco depicting “Vorhang” panels with curving edges (left and right panels) in House of Meleager, Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79. Photograph by Dane Lutes-Koths. Fig. 67: Fresco depicting tapestry borders (left and right panels) in House of the Great Altar, Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79. Fig. 68: Textile pattern imitated by Fourth-Style wall painting in House of the Gilded Cupids, Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79. Fig. 69: Saint Theodorus in a richly patterned cloak, depicted in the apse mosaic of the Church of Cosmas and Damian, Rome. Ca. AD 530. Fig. 70: Triangle “tapestry border” in Fourth-Style wall painting in Positano, Italy. Ca. 50–79 AD. Photograph by Claire Weiss. Fig. 71: Triangle “tapestry border” on textile fragment from Palmyrene tomb. End of 1st c. BC–mid-3rd c. AD. Source: Schmidt-Colinet 2000, color pl. II b. Fig. 72: Overall view of ceiling with patchwork composition, facing east. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC.

List of Figure Sources

227

Fig. 73: Detail of ceiling panel depicting hybrid candelabrum figure with triangle border. Upper Cubiculum of “House of Augustus,” Rome. Ca. 35–25 BC. Fig. 74: “Stepped chevron” border on textile fragment from Berenike, Egypt. Wool. Accession no. BE97 0118. Source: Peter and Wild 2014, fig. 6. Fig. 75: Fresco of textile strung on loops, with long fringe and decorative bands: wave, triangle, garland, floral, “city wall,” and pin. Depicted in lower zone of frescoed temple wall, below imitation stone and architecture. Brescia. 1st c. BC. Source: Museo di Brescia. Fig. 76: Fresco depicting curtain with acanthus frieze border in House of the Large Gate, Herculaneum. Ca. AD 62–79. Fig. 77: Garden fresco and stucco ceiling imitating textile with scalloped edges. Garden Triclinium of Villa of Livia, Primaporta. Mid-1st century BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Fig. 78: Opus sectile depicting Hylas (above) and Egyptian textile (below). Stone and glass. From Basilica of Junius Bassus, Rome. First half of 4th c. AD. Rome, Palazzo Massimo, inv. no. 375830. H: 130 cm. W: 111 cm. Fig. 79: Drapery with triangle border in frescoes of Temple of Isis. Pompeii. Ca. 50–79 AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. SG 1265 (cat. 1.66). Fig. 80: Detail of fresco depicting Egyptian crowns with triangle border. Villa Farnesina, Triclinium C, Ca. 35–25 BC. Rome, Palazzo Massimo. Fig. 81: Painted mummy shroud of woman wearing cloth with triangle border and jewelry of gold, gems, and pearls. Tempera on linen. From Egypt, possibly Antinoopolis. Ca. AD 170–200. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 09.181.8. H: 230.2 cm. W: 110.8 cm. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fig. 82: Mummy case of Taminis, with depiction of elaborate textiles. Cartonnage. From Akhmim, Egypt. 1st c. BC–1st c. AD. London, British Museum, inv. no. EA21631. Source: British Museum Image Service. H: 48 cm. W: 54 cm. L: 151 cm. Fig. 83: Frescoes depicting doors inlaid with tortoiseshell, framed by columns with Alexandrian capitals. Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, cubiculum M. Ca. 50–40 BC. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1903, inv. no. 03.14.03 a-g. Fig. 84: Statuette of Ihat, priest of Amun. Bronze with silver inlay. From Ephesus, Terrace Houses. Ca. 610–589 BC. Selçuk, Efes Müzesi, inv. no. 1965. Source: Krinzinger 2010, p. 494. H: 35 cm. Fig. 85: Statuette of Minerva in Archaic style. Bronze with silver details. Provenance unknown. Ca 50 BC–AD 25. Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California, Gift of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman, inv. no. 96.AB.176. H: 20.6 cm. W: 5 cm. D: 4.5 cm. Source: The J. Paul Getty Museum. Fig. 86: Statuette of Horus discovered in House of the Gilded Cupids, Pompeii. Alabaster. 1st c. AD. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 133230. Source: Gentili 2013, cat. no. 144. H: 42 m. W: 12 cm. D: 9.8 cm. Fig. 87: Ptolemaic statue of Arsinoe II. From Rome, Gardens of Sallust. 316–270 BC. Vatican City, Musei Vaticani, inv. no. 22681. Photo by Sailko on Wikimedia Commons. H: 240 cm. Fig. 88: Cameo flask depicting obelisk, cupids, and Egyptian figures. Provenance unknown. 1st c. AD. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. no. 85.AF.84. Source: J. Paul Getty Museum. H: 7.62 cm. Diam.: 4.2 cm. Fig. 89: Basalt crater adorned with lion heads and scenes of obelisks and Egyptian figures among trees. From Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli. Rome, Musei Capitolini, inv. no. MC 29. H: 80 cm. Fig. 90: Waterway (“Canopus”) lined with Caryatids and other sculptures. 2nd c. AD. Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli. Photo by Carole Raddato on Wikimedia Commons.

228

List of Figure Sources

Fig. 91: Fragmentary alabaster statuette of Isis. From nymphaeum in Villa dei Cecina (Livorno). San Vincenzino a Cecina, Antiquarium del Parco Archeologico, inv. no. 222012. Source: Arslan 1997, cat. no. V.143. H: 15 cm. B: 9 cm. Fig. 92: House of the Golden Bracelet, Room 31: detail of garden fresco depicting Egyptian figures beside birdbath. Ca. AD 50–79. Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei, inv. no. 59467 d. Fig. 93: Map of Herculaneum with find spots of Egyptian objects listed in Tran Tan Tinh 1971. Numbers in circles correspond to Tran Tan Tinh’s catalog numbers. Multiple numbers in oval shape refer to amulets. Overlapping circles indicate same find spot. Pools in Palaestra are shaded gray. Base map modified from Dobbins and Foss 2007, suppl. DVD. Fig. 94: Basalt statue of Atum, seated. 18th Dynasty. Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, inv. no. 77449. Source: De Caro 2006, cat. no. II.82. H: 90 cm. Fig. 95: Frescoes of Egyptian priest in boat, busts of Egyptian divinities, and Italic snakes. From inner shrine of Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Ca. AD 50–79. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 8927. Fig. 96: Marble head of an acrolith, identified as Isis by way of associated hand holding sistrum. From entrance to ekklesiasterion of Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 6290. Photo by Carole Raddato on Wikimedia Commons. H: 30 cm. Fig. 97: “Inaros Naophoros,” basalt sculpture of male figure holding shrine. From Cuma. Baia, Museo Archeologico  di  Campi Flegrei, inv. no. 241834. Source: Caputo, 1991, figs. 68–69.

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Index

acrolith 186–187 Actium  23, 24, 40, 102, 104 adaptation and imitation  8, 9, 16, 17, 53–58  see also hybridization, hyperluxury, miniaturization, vegetalization Adulis 122 Aemilius Paulus, L.  95–97, 103 alabaster  44, 103, 164–165, 175–176 Albano, Villa of Pompey  114–115 Alexandria  10, 23, 40, 64, 99, 104, 105, 119, 121–127, 129, 145, 150–152, 154 harbor 125–126, 152 Alexandrian style  13 animal pelt  134 annona  122, 125–126 Antinoopolis  146, 148 Marc Antony  40, 60, 98, 102, 106, 108 Anubis 87–88 Aphrodite  see Venus Apis bull  83, 176–177, 183 apotheosis of pleasure  174 Appian  97, 105 Apuleius 152 archaism  12, 17, 49–52, 65, 68, 75, 161–163, 167, 169, 186, 193 architecture shared across building types  183–184, 188–189 Arrian 155 Arsinoe  9, 105–106, 167–169 art, definition of  4–5 art reading  3, 4–5, 25–28, 178, 193 artist  10, 42, 46–47, 53, 58, 184–185, 195 Athena  see Minerva Athenaeus  19, 106, 108, 149, 155 Atum 179–182

Augustus  15, 23–24, 33, 40, 66, 84, 104–105, 119–120, 122, 125, 128–130, 151, 156, 170  see also Octavian Baia, Villa Celle necropolis  189 banquet  4, 26, 81–82, 84, 86–87, 90, 97, 107–108, 112, 115, 121, 142, 161, 175–177, 193 basalt  167–168, 170–172, 179–182, 188–189 benefactions, imperial  119, 129 Beneventum  159, 186–188 Berenike  122, 133, 139, 141, 144, 146, 150–153 Bes  110–111, 113, 182 Black Sea  59, 139 Brescia, Republican Temple  141–142, 145, 155 Beneventum, Iseum  159, 186–188 biculturalism  13, 17–19 boat  see watercraft Boscoreale  Villa of P. Fannius Synistor  45–46, 61, 84, 89, 90, 153 Villa Pisanella 89 Boscotrecase, Villa of Agrippa Postumus  21, 55, 61 bronze  4, 6–7, 11, 18, 35–36, 45–46, 47, 49, 57, 61, 65–75, 81, 86–88, 90, 98, 99–100, 105, 107–114, 123, 129–130, 132, 161–165, 181, 182, 186, 198 Corinthian  45, 87, 98, 100, 108, 110, 114, 132, 161–164 Caesar, Julius  45, 60, 105–107, 152, 154, 156, 167 Caesarion  13–14, 35 Callixeinus  see Athenaeus cameo  59, 61, 170–172

260Index Canopus 126 pool 172–173 candelabrum  25, 31, 42, 53, 65–76, 82, 89–90, 110, 112, 115, 123, 139–140, 160, 182, 198 Cato the Elder  99, 131 Cecina, Villa dei Cecina  175–176, 186, 189 ceiling  33, 40, 61, 72, 73, 103, 139–144, 173 China  137, 154, 156 chinoiserie  8, 22 Cicero, M. Tullius  99, 112, 195 Cleopatra  4, 8, 13–14, 35, 81, 97–98, 102–106, 108, 122, 127, 152–156, 198 coinage  128–130, 156 column  16, 42–46, 50, 53–55, 61, 66, 89, 99, 110, 125, 133–134, 153, 175–176, 187 connoisseurial collecting culture  50, 75, 98, 108, 112, 163, 169, 173 conquest of Egypt by Rome  4, 10, 15, 19, 23, 24, 26–27, 40, 66, 77, 81–82, 84, 105, 115, 119–120, 128–129, 150, 153, 154, 193 Coptos  136, 151 Corinthian bronze  see bronze Crassus, L. Licinius  44, 95 crown  4, 5–6, 13–14, 18, 34, 35, 37–39, 59–64, 69, 74–75, 86, 106, 113, 144–145, 147, 154, 164, 173, 176 Cuma 187–189 Cybele 69–71 damage and destruction  4, 24, 25, 51, 97–98, 187–189 decorative  8, 22, 23, 26, 193 Dendera, Temple of Hathor  13–14, 35 Dio Cassius  102–104, 112, 128 Dionysus  68–70, 186 display practices at home  3–5, 25, 27–28, 58, 60, 81, 87, 95, 100, 110, 113–114, 121, 130, 163–167, 170, 189  see also banquet, garden, Greek objects parallel to Egyptian objects, lararium, pinacotheca, privatization of luxury goods door, decorative  103, 153 Doryphoros  173, 186 Duchamp, Marcel  5 Eastern Desert  121, 123, 125, 150 Eastern connotation of luxury goods  see luxury goods

ebony  see wood economic influence of the state  102–103, 119–120, 150–151  see also coinage, infrastructure, security, taxes Edfu, Temple of Horus  37–38 coral  4–5, 83 Egyed Hydria  4, 6–7, 75, 81, 86–89, 114, 161 Egypt  archaistic art of  17–19 versus Roman understanding of 12–13 in Roman texts  8, 40 trade through  121–127, 150–156 see also Alexandria, Antinoopolis, Berenike, Canopus, Coptos, Dendera, Eastern Desert, Edfu, Myos Hormos, Nile, Ptolemies, Red Sea, Wadi Hammamat Egyptian blue  121 Egyptianizing and Egyptomania  5, 8–14, 24, 66 Enlightenment  see western intellectual tradition Ephesus  69, 161–164 Etruscan precedents  132, 142 fashion  reading  3, 20, 22–23 Fenestella 154 flexible meaning  see pluralistic reading fountain  see water feature Four Pompeian Styles  42–48, 53–54, 58, 90, 134, 142 fresco  3, 8–10, 12–13, 16, 21, 24–25, 27, 31–77, 81, 85–93, 100, 110, 120–121, 128, 131, 133–147, 153, 156, 164–165, 176–178, 182, 184–186, 189, 194 funerary context  3, 21, 59, 87, 122, 142, 147, 153, 154 furnishings, furniture  3, 8, 26, 27, 31, 42, 56, 64, 66, 68–73, 81, 84, 89, 95, 97–100, 103, 107, 108, 110–111, 123, 130, 142, 152, 154, 160–161, 167, 182, 194; see also candelabrum, Mensa Isiaca, statuette, table Gallus Papyrus  104 garden  9, 10, 16, 21, 27, 40, 42, 48, 90–93, 99, 100, 121, 133, 142–143, 156, 160, 167–184, 186–189  see also plants as luxury goods, vessel, water feature gem  4, 31, 35, 46, 59–62, 90–91, 96–98, 100, 103, 105–107, 110, 112, 115, 148, 150, 152 see also cameo

261

Index gendered dynamic  23, 59–60, 194–195 Glabrio, M’. Acilius  97, 99 glass  4–5, 31, 47, 61, 83, 84, 98, 123, 145, 150, 170–171, 175, 189 gold  4–7, 19, 31, 34–35, 38–39, 42–43, 45, 59–63, 66–69, 81, 83, 86–87, 90–92, 95–99, 102–108, 115, 119, 129, 133, 148–149, 153–155, 193 thread 132, 137, 139, 149, 154 graffiti  121–122, 151 griffin  36–37, 69 granite  9, 125, 168, 188–189 Greek objects parallel to Egyptian objects  31, 42, 58, 61, 64, 160–163, 167–173, 176–177, 182, 186–187 Hadrian’s Villa  see Tivoli Hellenistic tradition  4, 13, 18–19, 42, 46, 59, 62, 75, 97, 105, 110, 114, 122, 126, 131–132, 147, 149, 153, 155, 167, 183, 187 Herculaneum  108–111, 137, 186 House of the Large Gate  142 House of the Samnite  43 Palaestra  110–111, 179–183 Villa of the Papyri  40, 169, 174, 182 herm  69–70, 169, 186 hieroglyph  11–12, 113–114, 161–162, 168, 170, 186, 188 Hildesheim 95 Horus  83, 164–165, 173 hybridization of animal-vegetal-object forms  18, 33–41, 49–51, 53–58, 62–63, 65–74, 80, 92, 96, 108–112, 115, 140, 147, 192 hyperluxury  58, 64 ibis  39, 185 iconology  15–19, 25, 31, 59, 64, 86, 94, 113–115, 159 imported object  3, 10–12, 21, 44–45, 48, 58–59, 73, 81, 87, 100, 119–127, 132–133, 137, 152, 154–155, 174, 179, 187 incense burner  see candelabrum India  103, 120, 122–123, 125–127, 129, 133, 150–155, 193 infrastructure  119–120, 125, 150–152, 156 interpretatio romana 18 Isera 145 Iseum 183–184 Beneventum  159, 186–188 Cuma 187–189 Herculaneum 181

Pompeii  11–12, 21 (House of Octavius Quartio), 57, 85, 144, 146, 184–187 Rome, Iseum Campense  20 Regio III 183 Savaria 86 Scarbantia 86 Isis  12, 35–36, 69, 71, 175–176, 179, 181, 185–189 temple of, see Iseum ivory  103, 105, 106, 110, 112, 152, 154 Jerusalem 107 jewelry  3, 14,15, 21, 25, 27, 31, 34–36, 38–39, 57, 59–64, 75, 84, 123, 146, 148, 153–154, 194 Kalymnos 59 Kephalari 84 lararium  42, 164–166, 185 life, concept of the good  27, 42, 46, 58, 98, 121, 131, 156, 174–176, 183  see also apotheosis of pleasure Livy  100, 107, 131 Lucan  103–104, 122, 152, 155 Lucullus, L. Licinius  45, 100 luxury goods  associated with Eastern places  96–97, 131–133, 150, 154–156 Roman attitudes toward  3–5, 45, 87, 95–101, 112, 129, 132, 150  Mamurra  45, 110, 152 marble  12, 44–45, 47–49, 51, 72–73, 76, 90–93, 100, 103, 108, 110, 112–115, 121, 123, 164, 170, 173–179, 182, 186, 187, 189 Marcellus, M. Claudius (conqueror of Syracuse)  100, 107, 131 Mauretania 112 Mensa Isiaca  113–115, 161 Meroe  89, 103, 122 miniaturization  53–58, 62–63, 89, 92, 123, 142, 147 Minerva  108–109, 161–163, 169 mistakes 17–18 Mithridates of Pontus  60, 96–97, 100, 103, 154–155 modern versus ancient concepts of art  8, 11–13, 15–19, 22, 26, 42, 64, 95, 108, 133, 135, 155, 194 hierarchy of genres  8, 27, 81, 95, 159, 194 mold for metalwork  64, 182

262Index mosaic  13, 136–137, 144–145, 149, 156, 170, 175–176, 188–189 Mummius, L.  100 mummy  146–149, 153 murrhine cup  96–99 Muziris Papyrus  126, 152 Myos Hormos  122–123, 151–152 Nile  63–64, 106, 123, 125–126, 133, 150–151, 170 Nilotic imagery  13–14, 16, 58, 64, 83, 87, 160, 170 obelisk  3, 35, 40, 170–172, 186 obsidian  4–5, 13, 81, 83–85, 92, 144 Octavian  40, 82, 102–106 conquest 23, 26, 81, 84, 97–99, 103, 115, 128 triumph 10, 19, 26–27, 81–82, 102–106, 119–120, 128–129, 155–156 see also Augustus Oplontis, Villa A  47–48, 51, 61, 91–92, 137, 195 Orientalism 22 ornamental  see decorative oscillum  169, 176 Ostia 122 otium  see life, concept of the good Palmyra  123, 133, 136–138, 141 panel painting  see pinax papyrus  55, 83, 86, 104  see also Muziris Papyrus pearl  34–35, 55, 61–63, 100, 106, 115, 148, 150, 153–155 Periplus Maris Erythraei  133, 152, 154, 155 pharaonic style  3–7, 9, 13–14, 16, 18–19, 38, 55, 83, 108–109, 113–114, 144–145, 148, 161–162, 164–173, 181, 186–189, 193 pinax  31, 33, 48–52, 55–56, 65–66, 71, 75, 92, 167, 182, 185 pinacotheca  48–49, 65–71 plants as luxury goods  100 Pliny the Elder  15, 45, 60, 84, 87–88, 95, 96, 100–101, 105–107, 110, 112–113, 121, 131–132, 137, 146–147, 152, 161, 174, 195 Pliny the Younger  87, 164, 178 pluralistic reading  3, 15, 17, 19–20, 27, 114–115, 155–156, 160, 193–194 Plutarch  103, 105–106 political reading  3, 20, 23–24, 26, 40, 56, 82, 120, 193

Pompeii  3, 23, 42, 48, 61, 68–70, 73, 83, 110, 123, 133, 137, 152, 154, 176, 182, 186, 189, 195 House of the Ceii  184 House of the Centenary  178 House of the Cryptoporticus  73, 75 House of the Diana  186 House of the Duke of Aumale  185 House of the Faun  43 House of the Gilded Cupids  135–136, 164–166 House of the Golden Bracelet  9–10, 176–178 House of the Great Altar  90, 108–109, 134–135 House of Julius Polybius  178 House of the Labyrinth  42–43, 90, 133 House of Meleager  134 House of the Menander  95, 133 House of Octavius Quartio  21, 172, 175, 178 House of the Orchard  90–93 Property of Julia Felix  195 Stabian Baths  178 Temple of Isis  11–12, 57, 85, 144, 146, 184–187 Temple of Venus  174 Tomb of Vestorius Priscus  87–88, 110, 113, 121, 128, 131 Villa of the Mysteries  40 Pompey the Great  44, 60, 96–97, 100, 103, 106–107, 154–155 Portici 88 portrait  17, 23, 24, 59–60, 106, 146, 148, 149, 153, 154, 167–170, 186, 195 Posillipo 189 Positano  136, 138 priest  12, 21, 69, 89–90, 161–162, 174–175, 185, 187, 188–189 Primaporta, Villa of Livia  142–143 privatization of luxury goods  44–45, 48, 50, 99–101, 104–105, 183 Propertius 102 Ptolemies  4, 18–19, 37–38, 82, 106–108, 125, 127, 129, 152, 167–168 palace  19, 97, 99, 103–104, 106, 126, 152, 156 pavilion 19, 131, 134, 149, 156 Puteoli  119, 121–122, 125, 199 Pygmy imagery  21, 144 Red Sea  121–126, 133, 136, 138, 150–153, 155

Index relief  13–14, 16, 24, 35, 37–38, 92–93, 169, 176–177 religious reading  3, 8, 20–22, 24, 27, 69–71, 86–90, 92, 159–160, 163–167, 174, 179, 193  see also sacral aura repair and reuse  25, 84–85, 122, 186 Rome Aula Isiaca  39–40 Basilica of Junius Bassus  144–145, 149 Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian 136–137 Domus Transitoria  61 Forum of Augustus  105 Gardens of Sallust  9, 167–170, 189 Horti Lamiani  61, 107 “House of Augustus”  25, 31–41, 59, 62–63, 71–72, 74, 89, 139–144 House on the Esquiline with Odyssey Frieze 45 House of the Griffins  44 House of Livia  54, 56, 133 Iseum Campense  20 Pantheon 45 Portico of of Cn. Octavius  45 Portico of Philippus  183 Regio III 183 Temple of Apollo Palatinus  60, 104 Temple of Concordia  60, 84 Temple of Janus  105 Temple of Venus Genetrix  60, 104–106 Via Sacra  154 Villa Farnesina  48–52, 54, 61–62, 65–75, 139, 144, 147, 167, 169 sacral aura  21–22, 27, 82, 90–91, 115, 120, 160, 170, 174–176, 178, 182, 193  see also apotheosis of pleasure sarcophagus 133–134 security on trade routes  119, 151–152  see also waystation scarab  3, 21 Scaurus, M. Aemilius  44–45, 60, 99 Scipio Asiaticus, L. Cornelius  95, 100 sculpture  3, 8–9, 16, 27, 31, 47, 81, 123, 133, 157–189, 193–194 as table legs and stands  108–111  see also modern versus ancient concepts of art, obelisk, relief, statue, statuette Serapis 163–164 shell  112, 189

263 shipwreck  73, 76, 122–125, 127  see also watercraft silver  4, 6–7, 25, 34, 68, 80–81, 84, 86–89, 95–100, 103, 105–106, 108–110, 112–114, 121, 128–131, 153, 161–164 thread 139, 154 Siren  49, 66 skyphos  see vessel slate 84 snake  161, 165, 185, 189 uraeus 36, 39–40, 71, 73, 80, 89, 95–96, 110, 185 Somma Vesuviana, Villa di Augusta  186 Sorrento, Villa of Pollius Felix  174 sphinx  57, 83, 91–92, 108–109, 114–115, 145, 176–178, 185, 187–189 Greek versus Egyptian  15  see also Tutu-Tithoes spices  106, 152, 154 spolia  10, 19, 26, 40–42, 81–82, 84–85, 95, 97–100, 102–107, 119, 128–129, 156 animal and human  104–106 plant 100 Stabia, Villa San Marco  4–5, 81, 83–86, 90, 144 state intervention in trade  102–103, 119–120, 150–151  see also coinage, infrastructure, security, taxes stationes  see waystation statue  4, 8–9, 12, 25, 47, 84, 87, 91, 98–99, 103, 105–106, 122, 159–160, 167–182, 186–189  see also modern versus ancient concepts of art statuette  10–11, 21, 35–36, 65–66, 68, 71, 73, 152, 161–166, 175–176, 182, 186 in furnishings  108–112, 152, 182 Corinthian 45, 87, 161–164 stone  11, 16, 21, 64, 84, 99, 106, 108, 123, 125, 144–145, 150, 164, 169, 188–189, 194 as precious material 43–47, 98 vessels 96–99, 110, 170–172  see also alabaster, basalt, column, gem, granite, marble, murrhine cup, obsidian, slate Strabo  125, 127, 151, 189 Suetonius  97–99, 102, 119, 122, 128–129 symbolic imagery  15, 23, 26, 31, 33, 41, 90, 92, 97–98, 103, 122 taxes  122, 126–127, 129, 152 technique  16, 64, 83, 87–88, 114, 131–132, 146–147, 185–186  see also acrolith

264Index temple  16, 42, 60, 82, 84, 90, 103–105, 107, 110, 115, 147, 160, 164, 167–168, 174, 182–183 decoration similar to houses  42, 90, 115, 160, 164, 182–186, 188–189  see also Brescia, Dendera, Edfu, Iseum, Pompeii, Rome, sacral aura textile  3, 14, 21, 25, 27, 31, 57, 107, 110, 115, 120–121, 131–149, 150, 154–156, 159, 194–195 cotton 133 Egyptian weaving  103, 146–147, 155, 195 in Fourth-Style fresco  134–136 linen 147–148 production in Italy  133 purple  4, 103, 106, 115, 131–133  silk  137, 154 wool  133, 137, 141, 147 see also gold, silver Tivoli  Hadrian’s Villa  170–175, 182, 186–187, 189 Villa of Cassius  169–170 tortoiseshell  103, 105, 110, 115, 152–153 trade  27, 115, 119–133, 136, 150–156, 159, 194 triumph  Octavian’s triple  10, 19, 26–27, 81–82, 102–106, 119–120, 128–129, 155–156 Republican  26–27, 77, 81–82, 95–107, 110, 115, 120, 131, 151–156 private collectors inspired by  26–27, 77, 81–82, 95, 99–102, 110, 115, 120, 130, 156 tryphe  4, 82, 108 Tutu-Tithoes  71, 73, 110 two- and three-dimensional material relationship  25, 31–32, 42–43, 47–48, 50–51, 56–59, 64, 72–73, 81, 131, 141–142, 176–178 vegetalization  5, 33–34, 37–39, 46, 53–58, 61–62, 64, 69–73, 84–85, 88–89, 96, 108–109, 139–143 Venus  62, 104–105, 182, 186 temple of  60, 168, 174, 179 Vergina, Tomb II  132, 139, 141, 144, 146 Vergil  103–104, 137, 151 Verres, G.  110 vessel  3, 8, 21, 25–26, 31, 47–48, 54–55, 57, 62–63, 75, 81–84, 86–92, 95–100, 106–107, 110, 113–115, 121, 125, 131, 150, 174–175, 194

amphora  43, 62–64, 90, 122, 125, 183 bowl  18, 47, 75, 83–84, 86–88, 95–97, 121 crater  56, 68, 70, 90 drinking cup  61, 83–84, 86, 88–89, 95–99, 106, 110, 121, 114 flask  150, 170–172 garden decoration  47–48, 51, 90–92, 170–172 handwashing  87–88, 121 pitcher  4–7, 34, 37, 75, 81, 86–92, 106, 114, 161 situla 89–92 see also bronze, Egyed Hydria, murrhine cup, stone Vestorius gens  121 villa  45, 71, 89–90, 95, 99, 134, 178, 183–184  see also Albano, Boscoreale, Boscotrecase, Cecina, Cuma, Herculaneum, Isera, Oplontis, Pompeii, Portici, Primaporta, Rome, Somma Vesuviana, Sorrento, Stabia, Tivoli Vitruvius  54, 121 votive  22, 60, 84, 104–107, 115, 122, 164, 186 western intellectual tradition  8, 22  see also modern versus ancient concepts of art Wadi Hammamat  123, 150 wall painting  see fresco watercraft  4, 106, 119, 122–127, 136, 151–152  depictions of  83, 145, 185  see also shipwreck water feature birdbath  10, 90–92, 121, 123, 176–178 fountain  47–48, 91–92, 169, 176, 182–183, 186, 189 in priest statue 174–175 nymphaeum  169–170, 175, 183, 189 pool  169, 172–173, 175–176, 179–180, 182–183, 188–189 see also Canopus, garden, vessel waystation 51 wine 122–125 wood  81, 112, 106, 108, 125, 153, 165  citrus wood  105, 110, 112–113  ebony  85, 103 Zeus Ammon  66–69