Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World 9781472540805, 9781441116796

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Series Preface Culture as a set of shared attitudes, values and practices that characterizes a group or society – modern as well as ancient – is to a large extent based on the construction and transmission of memories. Differing from collective and individual approaches to the past, cultural memory describes a process that emerges from distant and collateral events and only appears in standardized forms once a group or society has agreed upon them. Memory is a phenomenon that – by definition – is directly related to the present. When dealing with ancient societies, cultural memory as a tool can be used to disclose and identify this contemporary presence of the past within ancient societies. When investigating cultural memory of past societies, key questions are how and what ancient societies remembered about events that shaped the formation of their identity, and how they built on agreed memories to create a collective present. The term ‘cultural memory’ was first introduced in 1992 by the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann in his book Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (translated in English as Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance and Political Imagination), in which he further developed the theory of collective memory, first established in 1950 by the French philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs in La mémoire collective (translated in English as On Collective Memory). Although Assmann’s approach was soon adopted by linguists, sociologists and anthropologists, ancient historians and classicists only slowly incorporated this term into the vocabulary of their disciplines. Today, 19 years later, Historical Studies and contiguous disciplines are increasingly reconsidering the question of history versus memory, rethinking history’s border zone. The use of competing terms such as ‘collective memory’, ‘social memory’ and ‘cultural memory’ – all discussing the ways in which individuals remember the past and at the same time define their social experience and involvement – has led to confusion about how social connections work and

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where priorities lie when human beings construct their relationship with the past. As historians, we are unable to access the mental process of culturally defined memory of the past but only how memory is embodied in texts and objects. This new series is designed to investigate the role of physical remains or rather material memories such as written and archaeological sources that were regarded to have had symbolic significance by ancient societies. By identifying the ways in which the collective past was remembered by ancient societies as cultural memory encoded in archaeological and written data, this series will address and respond to the challenges that come with this term when used uncritically. Social memory, if pushed too far, inevitably represents a theoretical and idealizing picture of the past in the past, if the influences of conflict and the use and abuse of power of groups over others are not taken into account. Diverse recollections of the past can deconstruct cultural memory and hamper its integration into a collective past. In order to allow cultural memory to construct a collective past, groups of power can encourage and promote remembering, marginalize individual memories, initiate reinterpretation or even actively instruct forgetting. Cultural Memory and History in Antiquity aims to reveal the mechanics of social connections in order to understand better the sources of collective pasts and to identify its continuative drifts rather than the connections established between generations. The motor of cultural memory is actively practised memory based on an agreed set of data, rather than tradition. In tracing shifts of meaning within ancient society, both cultural memory and cultural forgetting offer purposeful tools to identify the courses of history through both elite and non-elite perspectives. Martin Bommas Series Editor

Notes on Contributors Martin Bommas received his PhD from the University of Heidelberg and worked as Assistant Professor at the University of Basel before he became Senior Lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Birmingham in 2006. He taught Egyptology at the universities of Heidelberg, Basel and Zurich, and held visiting appointments at the universities of Rome (Roma3), Venice and Sheffield. His recent publications include Cultural Memory and Identity in Ancient Societies (ed., 2011) and Das Alte Ägypten (2012). Ken Dowden studied at Worcester College, Oxford, before he became Lecturer at University College Cardiff in 1974. Since 1988 he has worked at the University of Birmingham where he became Professor of Classics. Since 2005 he has been Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity. Among his recent publications are Zeus (2006) and A Companion to Greek Mythology (2011, co-edited with Niall Livingstone). Juliette Harrisson is a Visiting Lecturer at the universities of Birmingham and Liverpool, Newman University College and the Open University. Specializing in myth, religion and memory in the Roman world, her research has also led her to explore the reception of the ancient world in modern popular culture. She has published on cultural memory and identity and on the reception of Greek mythology, and her monograph Dreams and Dreaming in the Roman Empire: Cultural Memory and Imagination will be published by Continuum in 2013. Gabrielle Heffernan is a PhD candidate at the University of Birmingham. Having graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2006 with a degree in Egyptology, she completed her MPhil in Egyptology at the University of Birmingham in 2010. Her current research focuses on cultural memory and kingship in the Egyptian Eighteenth Dynasty. Further research interests

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include funerary belief, architecture and personal religion in the Pharaonic period. Ailsa Hunt is a doctoral candidate at Queens’ College, Cambridge. Her main research interests are in Roman religion; her doctoral thesis examines the religious significance of trees in Roman culture. Peter Kuhlmann holds a PhD and Habilitation from the University of Giessen. He held a position as Akademischer Rat in Classical Philology at the University of Düsseldorf before being appointed Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Göttingen in 2004. In addition to a number of articles on Roman religion, he has also presented his studies on religion and memory in Religion und Erinnerung. Die Religionspolitik Kaiser Hadrians und ihre Rezeption in der antiken Literatur (2002). David H. J. Larmour is Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Classics at the Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, and the editor of The American Journal of Philology. He is co-founder and associate editor of Intertexts. The author of several books on topics ranging from Lucian, ancient sport and Juvenal to Foucault’s History of Sexuality and Russian literature and the classics, he studies Greek and Latin language and literature as well as classical mythology, ancient sports and ancient Greek culture. Daniele Miano graduated in the History of Religions at Sapienza University of Rome. He is doing his doctoral studies in Ancient History at the University of Manchester and at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. His recently published monograph examines the relationship between monuments and Roman culture in mid-Republican Rome. John P. Nielsen received his PhD from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in 2008. He is the author of Sons and Descendants: A Social History of Kin Groups and Family Names in the Early Neo-Babylonian Period, 747–626 BC (2010), articles on Neo-Babylonian society and post-Kassite political history, and text editions of Neo-Babylonian and Ur III tablets. He is Assistant Professor of History at Loyola University of New Orleans.



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Phoebe Roy is a doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham. She is a specialist in the history of the Roman Republic, currently completing her doctoral thesis on Cultural Memory and Roman Law. Christopher Smith received his DPhil at the University of Oxford before moving to the University of St Andrews in 1992. In 2006 he was appointed as Vice-Principal before becoming Director of the British School at Rome in 2009. Professor Smith’s most recent publication is Imperialism, Cultural Politics and Polybius (2012, co-edited with L. M. Yarrow) Jennifer Westerfeld is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, having received her PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of Egypt during Late Antiquity, and she is currently preparing a monograph on early Christian activity in the region of Abydos.

Acknowledgements The collection of articles presented here have been selected from papers given at the ‘Cultural Memory and Religion in the Ancient City’ conference held at the University of Birmingham in July 2010 and organized by Juliette Harrisson and Phoebe Roy. This conference was attended by scholars and students from five continents who by engaging in vivid discussion contributed largely to the success of the event. Our deeply felt thanks go to all participants who attended the conference and enriched the atmosphere with their papers, statements and questions. This conference was generously supported by both the Roberts Fund of the University of Birmingham and the Institute of Classical Studies, and its Director, Mike Edwards. Without their support the conference would not have been made possible. Our thanks also go to the Head of School, Ken Dowden. Elena Theodorakopoulos has been a constant help and support throughout this process. She helped to organize the conference and was instrumental in arranging the publication of the proceedings. We are extremely grateful for her assistance and her input. Finally, our thanks go to Michael Greenwood at Continuum for his enthusiasm, never-failing support and patience, which, sadly too often, we challenged. The editors Birmingham, February 2012

Illustrations 2.1 Deceased before statue of Amenhotep I in palanquin carried by priests (Černý 1927: fig. 14). 2.2 Festival of Thutmose III, with royal bark in procession before temple (Davies and Gardiner 1948: pl. xv). Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society. 2.3 Deceased and priests before two rows of seated kings and queens (Foucart 1935: pl. xii). 8.1 Obelisk of the Piazza della Rotonda (photograph: author). 8.2 Monumental votive offering of a marble foot, from the Iseum Campense (photograph: author). 8.3 Recumbent lion dating to the early Ptolemaic Period (photograph: author). 8.4 Reconstruction of the Iseum Campense (after Lollio Barberi/ Parola/ Totti 1995: 60, pl. 26).

Foreword: Memory, History, Forgetting Christopher Smith

The study of memory in antiquity has a long history, depending on whether one is interested in memory as a source for history, memory feats, in the way Frances Yates describes, or, more recently, memory as a collective action which through various levels of distortion or invention presents the past to the present as a locus of legitimation, contestation or comparison.1 This collection of essays explores the recent view, that the past is constructed, to a greater or lesser degree, and that memory is in a sense a discursive argument around this constructed past, and it focuses on memory as an act in the ‘now’ reflecting upon a ‘then’ which may be distant, imaginary, or somewhere between the two. This remains a valid and useful approach, and it cannot be disputed that in antiquity there was a strong desire and capacity to re-evaluate and remember the past. We see this at every stage from Herodotus to Augustine; in monuments, public spaces, and even personal behaviour – such as the selfconscious reference to the past in a work such as Macrobius’ Saturnalia, which presumably had some correlate in practice.2 This series of essays takes a strongly interdisciplinary line, and by adding cultures such as ancient Mesopotamia, and especially Egypt, with several essays considering the role of Isis, encourages broader reflection. The reference to a culture which was known precisely for its antiquity, whilst also being an innovative intruder into Roman culture, adds an element of complexity, but placing into question precisely what past is being remembered. Was the Mediterranean past ever an uninterrupted continuum of experience which could be drawn upon by all? To what extent at any point in time was the past a local or a global phenomenon?3 As with many of the questions which are raised and encouraged by the study of cultural memory, the answers are difficult to find and are complicated. The Romans were clearly able to adapt aspects of the Egyptian past



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to their own circumstances, even while differentiating between the moral values of Rome and those of an eastern empire, a moral evaluation which itself changed over time. As a symbol of this, the obelisks of Rome represent a fascinating repository of real and invented history.4 This observation, itself banal, leads us to other kinds of arguments. For the rest of this brief reflection, I want to use Paul Ricoeur’s powerful work Memory, History and Forgetting to explore some of the challenges which are raised by the current focus on cultural memory. I want to raise questions concerning what the memory to which we are referring is actually about; who does the remembering, who are the conscious agents; and where history is left as a discourse, a discipline and a political act within a broader argument about the construction of the past?5 Ricoeur worked largely with reference to contemporary societies, and has a range of evidence and practice which is broader than we can have for ancient culture, but his questions remain pertinent in the context of understanding the practices of memory. To give a context for these reflections, it is perhaps enough to think about what is at stake when we think about the construction of the past or the development of collective memory. What the past actually is, how we have defined it, is itself not straightforward, and has been the subject of much philosophical debate. Similarly, the nature of the historical enterprise has varied over time, and as Geoffrey Lloyd recently noted, the discipline is deeply ambivalent, and even at its allegedly most objective risks ‘descent into subjectivity, if not pure fiction or naked ideology’.6 To introduce memory into this resolves little, in a way. Neither at a cognitive neuroscience level, nor at a philosophical level has memory been fully understood. It is clear that memory can be both an actual physical process, observable at the level of the neurone, and also that it can be invented; it is also clear that there is an interaction between memory and narrative, which is critical for any process of transfer. But it is precisely because memory is labile, constructed, but evidently critical to our mental functions; that it can be both individual and social; that attempts can and are made to direct and erase memory, whilst we often see simultaneously resistance and recollection, that we cannot resolve the ambivalence of history as a discipline through reference to the reliability or otherwise of memory; they to a degree share the same ambivalence. Recently there has been a good deal of debate about the value of memory in relation to history, and it is not

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at all a straightforward move from one concept to the other.7 It is within this complex world that Ricoeur located his massive late masterpiece. Ricoeur’s work is important because he navigates between the belief that there is no single objective historical knowledge – no grand Marxian history – and the conviction that history is not therefore simply narrative contingent on contemporary concerns. We shall return to whether this applies to ancient historiography at the end, but let us begin with a brief and far too cursory summary of Ricoeur’s own rich argument. The frontispiece of the volume is the statue in Wiblingen Monastery in Ulm in Germany which represents the dual figure of history. Kronos, the god of time, grips a large book with his left hand and endeavours to tear out a page with his right. Behind him, History, displaying a book, inkpot and stylus, checks time’s ravages. Within this tense relationship between recovery and loss, memory plays a significant role – but memory of what? Since Plato, the question of what is the nature and object of remembering has been a significant concern. Quite apart from the cognitive neuroscience of memory, we face deep problems over what a memory recalls.8 Is it my response to an event? How discursive is the memory, and how far is it an image, and how far is it a repetition or re-enactment? Critically, as is clearly emphasized by those who work on cultural memory, the sharing of memory is fundamental. The question over what we have memories of is necessarily related to the question of who remembers. Since Halbwachs, we have become familiar with the notion of collective memory.9 Ricoeur is surely right to worry about the ease with which we slide from individual to collective memory, and he posits a threefold attribution of memory, to oneself, one’s close relations, and to others. In a way this is purely practical, but in another sense, especially taking a broad view of Ricoeur’s definition of ‘those who count for us and for whom we count’, it is an absolutely necessary part of the critique of Halbwachs’ work. Halbwachs’ brilliant assertion of the capacity of a group to be an agent which remembers has been immensely valuable – it is in a sense a critical part of the whole movement which identifies the manufacture of identity and community, even though his work has only recently been re-established as a common part of our intellectual heritage – but the premise as he puts it is questionable: ‘A person only remembers by situating himself within the viewpoint of one or several groups and one or several currents of collective thought.’10 Is this really



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the case? Halbwachs is pointing out that we do not hold within ourselves a connected and complete memory; through internal discourse and external discussion we construct memories. But the idea that no one ever remembers alone seems extreme, and the move towards the notion of the collective is sharp and potentially troubling. As Tvetan Todorov noted, collectives – or rather groups – exist in relation to others – and thereby some level of defence is found against the totalitarian control of memory; that is, we need not posit a single collective memory within any culture, although totalitarian regimes tend to demand precisely that level of conformity.11 Ricoeur’s intermediate group allows not only for the transmission of memory, but also for the contest and interplay of memories, as the past is narrated, related and reflected upon at diverse levels. For Ricoeur and for cultural memory studies more generally, history begins in the archive; it is written; it works from original testimony to historical text and whilst the work of history may be careful and sound, ultimately there is an insurmountable problem of reliability and verification which cannot be dissociated from the fact of history as a literary genre. If testimony is the first and original ground of history, then we may need to think again about the sorts of memory games that are played in collective history, of the kind discussed throughout this volume. If there is no testimony available, but rather a description or an act which refers to the existence of knowledge rather than necessarily being part of that knowledge – that is, refers to the existence of an immeasurably old and strange Egypt12 for instance – then we are perhaps in a place where history would not be a legitimate title for what is happening, nor, perhaps, memory. One valuable corrective which this volume and the general trend of thinking through the construction of a history of the past in the past, and separate from a focus on the limiting nature of ‘testimony’, is that it challenges some of Ricoeur’s potentially reductionist focus, and lends greater weight to the generation of memory. Ricoeur’s final section on forgetting relates to his reflections on the use of history and memory, and it is the most politically charged part of the work. It is here that Ricoeur engages with the work of Pierre Nora, whose concept of the place of memory is repeatedly invoked in the current collection.13 The concept of the lieux de mémoire has become fashionable for ancient historians lately, and it has considerable attraction. Not only does it seem to hint at the

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memory games in which Cicero and others used spatial dynamics to assist in phenomenal feats of memory, but it also encourages the contemplation of the ways in which memory and history inhered in spaces; the Roman fora are an especially good example and explored again through the ficus Ruminalis in this collection.14 Ricoeur, however, is much more ambivalent about Nora’s enterprise. His very interesting account traces the development of Nora’s thought and the scope of the exercise, which gradually expanded from essays to the enormous collections. From a concern about identity, somehow the places of memory became an act of commemoration, a representation of national identity. Even Nora himself seems to have become concerned with this slide from investigation to commemoration, and Ricoeur cites a telling phrase from towards the end of lieux de mémoire where Nora imagines a new way of coexistence in which we will no longer need to return to these markers of the past: ‘the era of commemoration will be over for good. The tyranny of memory will have endured for only a moment – but it was our moment.’15 Yet this leads to some uncomfortable thoughts about forgetting.16 Do we have a duty to forget? How is forgetting compatible with forgiving? Ricoeur’s complex arguments about the value of memory and the dangers of forgetting, which, inevitably, return to the uneasy contemplation of the sites of the greatest horrors of our own age, are well summarized by Todorov. The danger of the appeal against forgetting is that it is often made by those who have a vested interest in the outcome; ‘What we are being invited to undertake is the defense of a particular selection of facts that allows its protagonists to maintain their status as heroes, victims or teachers of moral lessons, against any other selection that might give them less gratifying roles.’ Todorov then quotes Ricoeur for his appeal to avoid falling into the trap of the duty of memory and to ‘devote ourselves rather to the work of memory’.17 The work of memory refers back to Ricoeur’s claim that, without overstating our capacity to attain some objective value-free access to the past, the archive as a selection of what is or was known remains the locus for our investigation. We are not incapable of tracing the development of memory from the individual through those who count for us and for whom we count to the concept of a collective memory; but the slide from investigation to commemoration is dangerously close to the trap of the duty of memory.



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Where then do we place ancient historiography and ancient cultural memory within this sort of discourse? Where do we place our own investigation of this distant past? The success of the concept of memory within anthropological and historical studies is striking, but what Ricoeur reminds us of is the necessity to be precise in what we mean when we deploy this term. Memory of what and remembering by whom are critical issues. Before we leap to assume a collective memory, in Halbwachs’ sense, we need to ask questions about agency, which are difficult to answer with the evidence we have. It is inevitable that ancient historians return to their texts, and we then have fascinating arguments to deploy about the extent to which texts become communal possessions; the letters, speeches, sermons, commentaries which survive spread ideas, and perhaps their readers and listeners could function as the close relations which Ricoeur posited. It is important to decide where we feel this memory behaviour should be situated in terms of the ongoing debate over the nature of ancient historiography. For Rome, this is particularly acute because of the gap between event and the narrative record in the early Republic.18 Yet this is simply one rather troublesome aspect of a more complex debate over the nature of the historical process. Only in the imperial period perhaps was there anything like the kind of archive which Ricoeur refers to, and even then, the nature of the scholarly activity was surely far different. (One imagines libraries as noisy places for recitation and competitive display, not hushed well-ordered repositories.)19 The challenges for us over the interplay between the elaborately rhetorical structures of Latin prose imagination, and the factual content, the sort of sequence of events which Bernard Williams identified, are profound, and we need to add to this some understanding of the commemorative and contaminating aspects of Roman imperial culture too.20 How far should we see Roman culture as participating in the same duty of memory rather than the work of memory which Todorov and Ricoeur warn us against? This volume’s broad geographical spread encourages further contemplation of the extent to which Rome shares characteristics in the sphere of historical memory and commemoration with other empires such those of Persia or Egypt. Is the recollection and worship of an emperor at Rome to be compared usefully with imperial ideology in Egypt or Babylonia centuries earlier? What

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are the grounds of that comparison? The prospect is opened up of a project which takes questions such as memory of what and remembering by whom as the grounds of a comparison between empires and cultures.21 Finally, I want to turn to the other term in the title of the collection, that of religion. Ricoeur’s description of the difference between testimony and archive is interesting here: ‘The moment of the archive is the moment of the entry into writing of the historiographical operation. Testimony is by origin oral. It is listened to, heard. The archive is written. It is read, consulted. In archives, the professional historian is a reader.’22 This is challenging, but not wholly persuasive. Were ancient religions testimonies, or archives, or both? How does religion in antiquity contribute to the constitution of memory? Christianity claims the eyewitness authority of the gospels and rehearses that testimony; that seems to have been a critical part of the evolving liturgy. The narrative of the return of the statue of Marduk described in this volume,23 for instance, is differently deployed; it is less the memory of an act so much as the commemoration of the restoration of an imperial state. The religion discussed within this volume falls in some instances into the category of a commemoration of power structures or constructed identities. That is not to say, however, that religion, even in these instances, neither recalls nor constructs cultural memory, or that it does not constitute in some sense a testimony. One might construe this testimony as history reinterpreted as myth; or as history reinterpreted as ritual. In some instances at least, priests are custodians of memory as much as they are of religious knowledge – and the connection between religion and memory is well illustrated in the cult of Juno Moneta.24 It is of particular interest for Rome, where the pontifices maintain a record which looks like our best candidate for an annalistic account, of the kind which Hayden White once (rather innocently) saw as the raw and unvarnished data of history.25 Ricoeur’s characterization of the professional historian in the archive is, of course, a fully modern one. The political seriousness of history, which is often derived from the totalitarian abuses of the past in the service of a dangerous present, also to some extent limits the extent to which one can apply this philosophical critique to previous times, but we should not perhaps overplay that hand. Herodotus’ account of the Persian Wars contains within the



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foreshadowing of the terrible conflict between Athenians, Spartans and their respective allies and it is hard not to see the Punic Wars as having an influence upon the Roman desire to start to write history in a particular kind of way.26 Moreover, if we do wish to conceive of history in the past as a reflection, a reworking of memory, and we also wish to use memory as a critical concept in our approach to the construction of community and identity in antiquity, we need to combine the case studies collected here with the development of some methodological approaches to understanding the passage from memory to history. We may also want to think about how an understanding of the huge demands which ancient imperial regimes placed upon the past as a repository of specific lessons – that particular selection of facts which Todorov alludes to – authorized the move to commemoration, especially through religion, the development of convenient amnesia, the occlusion of uncomfortable history, and the invention of duty to forget. Ancient empires had already arrived at many of the more uncomfortable manifestations of the use, or abuse, of history, and indeed of collective memory. This volume, and the broader project with which it is engaged, begin to sketch a mental landscape which is at once deeply unfamiliar to us, but at the same time shares many features with our own, not all of them attractive. As David Mattingly has shown, the work of comparison, which will sometimes not be in favour of the Romans, is a valid and important heuristic exercise, but also one which has consequences for our understanding of imperialism more generally.27 The essays in this volume open up various approaches to the relationship between cultural memory, religion and history, a relationship which is fraught with methodological challenges. The bringing together of these case studies encourages us to explore, and be more confident with, the sorts of ambivalences and difficulties which are uncovered. If we do accept, as Geoffrey Lloyd claimed, that history is ambivalent as a discipline, then one response will surely come from examining with care the relationship to cultural memory. The recent trend to lay more emphasis on memory brings with it substantial advantages and new ideas, but it also demands a close attention to the difficult challenges of memory studies. The wider project within which this volume sits therefore should help us understand how memory worked within ancient societies, individually and collectively, and in turn, how history emerged and how it related to ancient testimony.

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Notes 1 The bibliography of ancient memory studies may be gleaned from this volume; a key contribution is Small 1997, and much goes back to Yates 1966. Cultural and exemplary memory, and the use and reuse of the past, are discussed in the stimulating collection of essays, Lianeri 2011. 2 Two recent works which survey the whole field for Greece and Rome are E. Stein-Hölkeskamp and Hölkeskamp 2006; Stein-Hölkeskamp and Hölkeskamp 2010. 3 The best study of the ancient Mediterranean, which tends to lay emphasis on highly connected but fundamentally local experiences, is Hordern and Purcell 2000. For a good example of the use of local past, see Lafond 2006 and more broadly Clark 1999. 4 Curran, Grafton, Long and Weiss 2009; Sorek 2010. 5 Ricoeur 2004. For a recent and somewhat critical approach to Ricoeur, see O’Gorman 2010: 117–30. 6 Lloyd 2009: 58–75. The debates go back to Collingwood 1946, a posthumous publication; see now the edition edited by J. van der Dussen 1994, and beyond. 7 R. Poole 2008; see also Bommas 2011. 8 For some comments on combining the advances of neuroscience with concepts of history more generally, see Smail 2008; more work is needed here. It would be interesting to understand more clearly for instance whether there is any potential scientific basis for generalized claims about folk or inherited memory. 9 Halbwachs 1992; the original was published in 1925. One of the most influential subsequent volumes was Connerton 1989; see also Assmann 1995: 125–33. Klein 2000: 127–50 is a valuably critical introduction to the field, and see also the appeal for precision in Berliner 2005: 197–211. 10 Cited ar Ricoeur 2004: 121. 11 Todorov 2003: 168–76. More recent works include Tony Judt’s moving The Memory Chalet (Judt 2010). See also Stone 2011: 17–36. 12 See the articles of Bommas and Harrisson in this volume. 13 Nora 1984–92. 14 See the article of Hunt in this volume. On exemplary history in the Roman context, see Roller 2004: 1–56; Roller 2009: 214–30; Roller 2011: 182–210. 15 Ricoeur 2004: 411. 16 For a study of forgetting and damnatio memoriae in antiquity, see Flower 2006. It is significant that forgetting could be demanded within the political culture



17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

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of the Roman empire, even if it could never be assured. See the articles of Hunt, Westerfeld and Bommas in this volume. Todorov 200: 175–6 For a succinct sceptical introduction, see Lendon 2009: 41–61; cf. Wiseman 2007: 67–75. Nicholls, forthcoming Williams 2004 argues that the objective ground of history lies at the least in the fact that one event preceded chronologically another, or was simultaneous with it. The work of comparing ancient empires is well explored in Alcock 2001. Ricoeur 2004: 166. See the article of Nielsen in this volume. See the article of Miano in this volume. White 1987: 1–25. (Partner 1998: 162–72 argues, I think unconvincingly, that this is White’s ‘best joke’) On the pontifical annals, see Frier 1999. Harrison 2000: 84–96; Momigliano 1990: 80–108. Mattingly 2010.

Bibliography Alcock, S. E. (ed.), 2001. Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History. Cambridge. Assmann, J., 1995. ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity’, New German Critique 65, 125–33. Berliner, D., 2005. ‘The Abuses of Memory: Reflections on the Memory Boom in Anthropology’, Anthropological Quarterly 78, 197–211. Bommas, M. (ed.), 2011. Cultural Memory and Identity in Ancient Societies. Cultural Memory and History in Antiquity 1. London . Clark, K., 1999. Between Geography and History: Hellenistic Constructions of the Roman World. Oxford. Collingwood, R. G., 1946. The Idea of History. Oxford (re-edited by J van der Dussen, Oxford 1994). Connerton, P., 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge. Curran, B. A., A. Grafton, P. O. Long and B. Weiss, 2009. Obelisk: A History. Cambridge, MA. Flower, H., 2006. The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture. Chapel Hill, NC.

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Frier, B., 1999. Libri Annales Pontificum Maximorum: The Origins of Annalistic Tradition, Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome 27, Ann Arbor, MI. Halbwachs, M., 1992. On Collective Memory. Chicago. Harrison, T., 2000. ‘Sicily in the Athenian Imagination: Thucydides and the Persian Wars’, in C. Smith and J. Serrati (eds), Sicily from Aeneas to Augustus: New Approaches in Archaeology and History. Edinburgh . Hordern, P. and N. Purcell, 2000. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford. Judt, T., 2010. The Memory Chalet. London. Klein, K. L., 2000. ‘On the emergence of memory in cultural discourse’, in Representations 69, 127–50. Lafond, Y., 2006. La mémoire des cites dans le Péloponnèse d’époque romaine (IIe siècle avant J.-C. – IIIe siècle après J.-C. Rennes. Lendon, J. E. (ed.), 2009. ‘Historians without history: Against Roman historiography’, in A. Feldherr (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge. Lianeri, A. (ed.), 2011. The Western Time of Ancient History: Historiographical Encounters with Greek and Roman Pasts. Cambridge. Lloyd, G. E. R., 2009. Disciplines in the Making: Cross-Cultural perspectives on Elites, Learning, and Innovation. Oxford. Mattingly, D., 2010. Imperialism, Power, and Identity: Experiencing the Roman Empire. Princeton, NJ. Momigliano, A., 1990. ‘Fabius Pictor and the Origins of National History’, in A. Momigliano, The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography. California. Nicholls, M., (forthcoming) ‘Libraries and literature in Rome’, in C. Holleran and A. Claridge (eds), Blackwell Companion to the City of Rome. Oxford. Nora, P. (ed.), 1984–92. Les lieux de mémoire. Paris. O’Gorman, E., 2010. ‘History As Group Fantasy’, in Cultural Critique 74, 117–30. Partner, N., 1998. ‘Hayden White: The Form of the Content’, History and Theory 37, 162–72. Poole, R., 2008. ‘Memory, history and the claims of the past’, Memory Studies 1, 149–66. Ricoeur, P., 2004. Memory, History and Forgetting (trans. by K. Blamey and D. Pellauer). Chicago. Roller, M., 2004. ‘Exemplarity in Roman culture: The cases of Horatius Cocles and Cloelia’, in Classical Philology 99, 1–56.



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—2009. ‘The exemplary past in Roman historiography and culture’, in A. Feldherr (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Roman Historiography. Cambridge. —2011. ‘The consul(ar) as exemplum: Fabius Cunctator’s paradoxical glory’, in H. Beck, A. Duplá, M. Jehne and F. Pina Polo (eds), Consuls and res publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic. Cambridge. Smail, D. L., 2008. On Deep History and the Brain. Harvard. Small, J. P., 1997. Wax Tablets of the Mind: Cognitive Studies of Memory and Literacy in Classical Antiquity. London. Sorek, S., 2010. The Emperor’s Needles: Egyptian Obelisks and Rome. Exeter. Stein-Hölkeskamp, E. and K.-J. Hölkeskamp (eds), 2006. Erinnerungsorte der Antike: Die römische Welt. Munich. —(eds), 2010. Die griechische Welt: Erinnerungsorte der Antike. Munich. Stone, D., 2011. ‘Beyond the Mnemosyne Institute: The future of memory after the age of commemoration’, in R. Crownshaw, J. Kilby and A. Rowland (eds), The Future of Memory. London, 17–36. Todorov, T., 2003. Hope and Memory: Reflection on the Twentieth Century. London. White, H., 1987. ‘The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality’, in H. White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore/London. Williams, B., 2004. Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton, NJ. Wiseman, T. P., 2007. ‘The prehistory of Roman historiography’, in J. Marincola (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. Oxford.

Introduction: Sites of Memory and the Emergence of Urban Religion Martin Bommas

The religious systems of the ancient world were based on ritual and not on dogma, and thus differed from many modern religions. Before the arrival of book religions, the search for god, whether state organized and official or individual and private, took place in rituals deeply rooted in myth. Invisible to the uninitiated, foreigners or those unsuited for other reasons, the outer appearance would always be the cult in which authorities interpreted the relations between the gods and human beings. Indigenous cults therefore were links through which the identity of a community was shaped rather than platforms to convert disbelievers. A multiplicity of approaches to the divine stood in clear opposition to dogma, although, indeed, personal beliefs often contradicted religious practice. The separation into religion (Latin religio) and irrational submission to the gods (superstitio) never created an insurmountable barrier when addressing the divine (Scheid 2003: 22–3). In fact, both approaches were complementary in a way that shaped civic theology, offering a macroscopic answer to the overwhelming pantheons of the ancient world (Scheid 2003: 174–5). The ancient Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 bc) in distinguishing between three different religious discourses described the poets’ approaches to gods as ‘rubbish’ and the philosophers’ explanations as unsuitable to city states because they included superfluous doctrines, harmful to people to know (Varro, Divine Antiquities, fr. 7). His third category, however, which he defines as mythological, is the only defendable one because it firmly rests on the traditions and religious institutions of civic communities.



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Ethnic and Universal Religions The mythological approach to the discourse on religion and ritual was by no means favoured by the Romans alone. The discussion of religion by authors of literary works was unthinkable in ancient Egypt, too. Where religious practice was to make part of the plots of novels, ancient Egyptian authors had to restrict themselves to mere descriptions. Lector priests – the most likely equivalent to philosophers in ancient Greece or Rome – were to recite religious texts from ritual handbooks but never allowed to change the wording of the texts they performed, let alone to interpret these texts. Sacred texts were thought to be speeches from ethnic gods; the term most often used in this context translates into ‘divine words’ as well as ‘divine matters’. Human beings were indeed allowed to copy these words or occasionally update them by using a more recent lexicography, but sacred texts in ancient Egypt, written in the hieratic script, remained essentially unchanged over long periods of time, in some cases even for several thousands of years. Thus, in creating what can be described as an ethnic religion, restricted priestly knowledge about myth and rituals and their correct use in the divine cult never qualified as an export product (Bommas 2011). The abidance of ethnic religious in their lands of origin is first and foremost caused by language barriers. Outside Egypt, next to no speakers of Egyptian were available who also had enjoyed a clerical training of some sort. The process of inculturation, necessary to reach new followers of a religion within their own cultural setting through the use of their native tongues (Bommas 2012: 423), was therefore never aimed at. It would likewise be wrong to label Roman religion as ethnic religion due the influences of Greek religion that were formative in shaping what later became a universal religion within the then known world, for large parts identical with the Imperium Romanum. What helped to spread Roman religious thinking was certainly the lack of language barriers in an environment where Greek was regarded as the lingua franca. Cult religions base themselves on memorization (and recitation texts of various kinds certainly aided the memory in most cases), while book religions regard one book only as authoritative.

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Cult Religion and Authority Both in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, where one binding theological script was never aimed at, cult religion was governed by authorities who not only developed rules that applied to the various cults but introduced divine justice in cases of deliberate or involuntary justice. The rules set up by those authorities were on the other hand never as impenetrable as they seemed and largely supported individual approaches to religion: in Egypt, a place for private prayers was set against the back wall of the temple of Amun at Karnak in ancient Thebes. Here, the pious were able to practise individual religion outside the opening hours of the main temple. The name given to this place also reveals its function and the important role it played: ‘(Amun,) the hearing ear’. In ancient Rome, the Senate although never turning a blind eye to the introduction of mystery cults such as the cult of Isis and having been prepared to close temples in times of scandalous events or misconducts of rituals, developed a very fine sense of the difference between religion and cult practices to safeguard pax deorum. But the closing of temples as a result of governmental intervention was certainly an exception and especially in Imperial Rome, authorities stayed away from imposing an official religion (apart perhaps from the Emperor cult in the provinces). By preferring a policy of tolerance and not interfering with the religious beliefs of their subjects, the authorities in Rome accepted the fact that cives sought a more immediate relationship with deities through rituals. Without the need to renounce the established civic deities, the inhabitants of Rome were able to openly support even the creation of new religions including the necessary cult spaces within their city. As far as personal religious practice is concerned, the term ‘experimental religions’, as introduced into the study of ancient religions by Walter Burkert (1996), can be adopted to describe an individual approach to religion that nestled within an official framework provided by the state. It is this individual approach within the framework of early urban religions that paved the way for the introduction of memory into religious thinking.



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The Liquidation of Religious Traditions As in all ancient societies, the code for religious practice was based on its antiquity from which it took its legitimization. However, these traditions, as is the oral tradition, were never as set as it may seem from studying isolated evidence. Whether change is due to experimental approaches diluting earlier orthodox approaches or to modified political systems, cult religions are flexible enough to streamline cult practices according to actual needs. While both orthodoxy and civic traditions existed side by side, their genesis could often differ considerably from approaches taken by other ethnic religions. In Egypt, orthodoxy certainly came first and was accompanied by magical practice. When later the arrival of personal religious practice triggered the development of a ‘sacra publica’, the official interpretation of faith through theology was at no point endangered due to the fact that religious knowledge was of a restricted access (Burkert 1987). Priestly control was never as dominant as in ancient Egypt and the early liquidation of traditions led to a politically driven textualization through minutes and the documentation of member lists on one hand. More importantly, the lack of standardized rules released the systematization of Roman myths in the third century bc and written regulations of religious functions in the second century bc. It comes as no surprise that the need to back up the adherence to ancient traditions was instigated by the Senate and its members such as the aforementioned Marcus Terentius Varro. Actively remembering ancient religious traditions in Rome is therefore a later development, probably amplified by a subtle decay of abiding the laws of cult practice. Both in Egypt and in Rome, the process of creating standardized religious practice was based not on social memory but, as far as authorities were involved, on cultural memory. Lacking the presence of individual memory after a period of three generations is what made cultural memory important as a tool to shape the religious future of the cultures. Crucial in making this tool work were archives which authorities were able to base themselves on. Remembering, however, is not only about consulting libraries and books – images play an equally important role as they are as accessible to the lower classes as to the intellectual elite.

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Images of Religion The various ways in which religion was made visible in ancient Egypt and Rome were entirely different but both approaches achieved surprisingly similar results. While in ancient Rome the display of statues of gods and mythical figures took place in the open and small shrines like luci and sacelli took firm stands in living quarters, Egyptian cities lacked such an open display of the divine. Excavations in settlements such as the one on Elephantine Island at the southern border of ancient Egypt, unearthing an archaeology that spans from the late fourth millennium to the Arab Conquest in ad 641, revealed almost no allusion to religious life in public spaces, nor in the homes of their inhabitants. Although cities like Tell el-Amarna seem to paint a somewhat different picture (Stevens 2006), religious practice was usually confined to state-run temples, processions and festivals and a small number of privaterun sanctuaries. Due to this restriction and the need to keep the sacred in a safe and controllable environment, religious monuments such as statues were never erected in squares or crossroads in business centres or living quarters. This approach did not change until Ptolemaic times when suddenly façades of family homes began to contain niches in which busts of Serapis were installed. Before the arrival of the Ptolemies, the only images that rose within Egyptian cities and were visible from far away were the ones depicting pharaoh on or before the pylons of the main temples as heroically smiting his enemies while in company with protecting gods (Luiselli 2011). By way of contrast, the presence of images of deities in ancient Rome was generally regarded as an ideal way to influence citizens’ thoughts in a particular direction, and therefore they were considered as quintessential requisites of civic life. They contained ‘visual messages’ (Giuliani 1986) which the ancient observer knew how to interpret and understand. Until a few years ago, ancient monuments were largely regarded as historical monuments that were to be named, classified and dated. More recently, their function(s) and meaning became a focal point of research, often without, sadly, addressing the methodologies that can be applied to reveal their meaning – apparently known to the ancient observer but lost over the years since. Research before the 1990s concentrated mostly on political monuments while religious



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monuments in ancient Rome have been less intensively discussed and reconstructed according to their original meaning. In his ground-breaking study Augustus und die Macht der Bilder, Paul Zanker has convincingly proven that during the era of Augustus, images played an increasingly important role in the creation of a new state myth (Zanker 2004). Here, originally separate political myths were intrinsically tied to each other: the myth of Troy melted into the myth of Romulus, thus linking Mars (the father of Romulus and Remus) with Venus, mother of Aeneas and founder of the Julian line as protector gods of new Rome, both culminating in the centre of the pediment of the temple of Mars Ultor.

Memory Sees For modern observers it is often challenging, if not impossible, to reconstruct the original meaning and significance of ancient public images which once played their roles in creating identity among members of social groups (Giuliani 1986: 15). Did contemporary viewers face a similar challenge when coming across the images of Mars and Venus coupled at the temple of Mars Ultor? A text from an entirely different cultural context describing the blessing of altarpieces in Western Christianity before they became the objects of worship might hold an answer. As part of the standard element in the Roman ceremony, immediately after the opening invocation, the following passage reveals ‘that whenever we see them with our bodily eyes we may mediate upon them with the eyes of our memory, and imitate their deeds and their holiness’ (ritual romanum, tit. 8, cap. 25, after Freedberg 1989: 89–90). This view leaves no doubt that, first, memory can see. According to the German writer and polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ‘we only see what we know’. According to him, the word to know implies the meaning of to remember. Once we have seen something, we are able to remember what it is and we are able to recall these memories at some later point even if we do not see it regularly. The United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart coined the well-known catchphrase ‘I know it when I see it’ when applying his ‘threshold test’ for pornography in 1964. Although such an approach can hardly be described as concrete, it does point to the fact that our memory

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serves well enough to be challenged even in stressful situations, reliable and undeviating. Second, images seem to have been regarded as memory aids and to encourage the beholder to act in similar ways. Also in ancient Rome, memory was able to see although with the intention to arrive at different results: here, the beholder was not asked to develop the virtus of Mars-the-Avenger but reflect on the mythical past which paved the way for Roman splendour during the age of Augustus. This conception is taken one step further by Thomas Aquinas who in his Commentarium super libros sententiarum: Commentum inlibrum III (dist. 9, art. 2, qu. 2–3) – possibly basing himself on Horace (Ars Poetica 180–2) – defined a threefold institution of images in churches: first, images are to instruct the unlettered; second, they help to allow the mystery of Incarnation to remain in ‘our memory by daily represented to our eyes; and third, images trigger emotions that are more effectively excited by things that one sees rather than only hears about. If indeed pictures are rousing emotions and reinforcing memory more efficiently than words, it becomes evident why images of pharaoh smiting his enemies at the entrances into Egyptian temples became so iconic. Whether or not purely political images equally amplified emotions as did religious images is difficult to say; history books are full of potentates which used massive amounts of images only to trigger emotional reactions that led to a Führerkult, in some cases even including semi-religious elements. On a more balanced level, both in ancient Egypt and Rome, where rulers were treated as sacred kings, political and true religious meaning became intertwined and religious empathic emotions carried the beholder away to marvel at the political meaning behind those images. The sites on which these images were publicly displayed were meeting points for groups that expressed ‘a collective shared knowledge … in which a group’s sense of unity and individuality is based’ (Assmann 1988: 15), which turned these places into sites of memory (Winter 2010).

Political-Religious Images In ancient Egypt, the direct link between religious meaning and the display of political power and authority was evident not only from pylon decorations



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visible to any passer-by, but also from the obelisks and monumental statutes flanking the main entrances of temples. The so-called Memnon colossi, two seated statues that are the only remaining parts in upright position of the once largest of all Theban mortuary temples, that of Amenhotep III at the west bank of Luxor, were 18 metres high. If on a clear day a person two metres tall stood on top of one of the statues he could see a distance of 16 kilometres, the equivalent of the full width of the Nile valley at ancient Thebes. Although it is probably fair to assume that no one ever climbed on pharaoh’s head, it is roughly this visibility that the living king, personified by his statues, had when overlooking the entirety of his capital city. Drawing a circle with a radius of 16 kilometres creates an area of 804 km2, the equivalent of a city roughly the size of Berlin. There can be no doubt that religious monuments in ancient Egypt communicated political manifestos, the places for which were marked by the temple pylons acting as membranes between the profane and sacred worlds. One of the largest buildings in ancient Rome which included columns 21.7 metres tall was also a monument closely linked with Egypt: the Serapeum at the Quirinal Hill which stood atop a marble stairway that once mounted from the bottom to the top of the Quirinal must have been an even more impressive sight. Given the fact that the Quirinal Hill alone is 61 metres tall, the sanctuary as a whole must have reached a height of c. 93 metres, roughly the height of the pharaoh Snofru’s pyramid at Meidum (91.9 metres). Highlighting Caracalla’s view of Egypt, the Serapeum at Quirinal Hill was the hollowed hall of hyperbole and more than anything else perceived as monumental beyond any known standard. However, the very selective recollection of the Egyptian past led to a fragmented memory of Egypt and focusing exclusively on what was serviceable or interesting for Rome. According to the Romans, size in ancient Egypt mattered, while in fact it did not: a model offering vessel was as important for a dead individual’s life in the beyond as a real one filled with food. In Egypt, oversize created memory and oversize temples in Egyptian urban areas shaped the memory of Egypt’s past and present.

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The Application of Modern Theories of the Use and Function of Memory It is both tempting and sometimes even dangerous to apply modern theories on memory as cultural achievement where social groups who once formed this memory are not consultable anymore. The major problem can be seen in the fact that memory is fading with every generation and has to be reconstructed once three generations have passed. While historians interested in memory of the nineteenth century ad and later can refer to archives where access usually is generously granted, ancient historians face a more challenging situation. As a rule, ancient archives have rarely survived, written and archaeological evidence is in most cases fragmentary and while the past can be reconstructed from the surviving primary sources, the way the past was remembered in the past is often opaque and only reveals itself in non- or semi-official records. None of these sources can be taken at face-value as they often stem from ancient writers or foreign visitors who themselves had no access to archives but relied on living memory which often was individual memory with a strong bias. Although major aspects of cultural memory are addressed by the Egyptologist Jan Assmann in his ground-breaking study Das kulturelle Gedächtnis (1994), memory studies still play an underrated role within ancient history. The reason why memory still is a contentious issue is difficult to explain, especially given that memory and with it also reception is a widely recognized area, or as Le Goff put it: ‘memory has become a best-seller in a consumer society’ (1992: 95). During the 1990s, memory became a key word within interdisciplinary research, although not clearly defined and still open to debate. Even the definition of the various terms is still in flux as pointed out by Fentress and Wickham (1992) and Cubitt (2007: 13–14). As things stand, there is no common ground among historians, the majority of whom seem to operate with the term ‘social memory’. Being interested in how individual memories of the past and existing narratives meet each other is one focal point, and indeed early modern societies from the nineteenth century onwards provide a wealth of evidence for fruitful research in the fields of modern history and social science. For the ancient historian, this approach often proves limiting



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as the past can less clearly be reconstructed from the sources available due to the complex and constantly ongoing challenges to make these sources available for research. When explaining past memories within past settings, modern philosophical approaches often concede a mediating role to history. In his epochal study Memory, History and Forgetting, Paul Ricoeur argues that ‘history distances itself from memory’ because ‘writing … is the threshold of language that historical knowing has already crossed’ (Ricoeur 2004: 138). To him, the ‘question of confidence’ is the question of what ‘becomes the relation between history and memory’. It is all too obvious that within the field of ancient history this question is often impossible to answer, due to the lack of sources. This does not mean, on the other hand, that memory studies of ancient societies represent a battle that cannot be won. Cultural memory – different from social memory – is focused on strategies of recollection (often archivebased) where literary and visual sources mediate between the individual and the collective in past and present. Due to the notorious lack of appropriate sources that can be taken at face value and issues of genre, the methods students of cultural memory use are often unsuitable for students of modern history, or to speak metaphorically in the language of grammar: while social history is interested in the perfect, cultural memory is focused on the past perfect.

Ancient Languages and Memory Used to denote a point in time which is located before a basing point in the past, the past perfect is the tense that locates a situation in the deep past. In ancient Egyptian language, an equivalent to the past perfect was unknown; any situation that was located before the recent past (often expressed by the perfect participle) was only open to those who were permitted access to archives or able to read king-lists and the like. In ancient Egypt, primordial times made part of the divine sphere. In ancient Greek language, the pluperfect was understood as the past tense of the (time-unspecific) perfect, using an addition before the stem of the perfect. Finally Latin, the youngest of these three languages, owns a separate verbal form for the past perfect,

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ideally suited to reflect the deep past. If we take language as a mirror to reflect a change of consciousness with regard to the past, it clearly emerges that in antiquity attitudes towards a memorable past changed considerably. On the other hand, modern languages own the tools to express a past that is situated before the past generation. Modern languages provide the tools to remember points in the past that are obviously situated beyond the borders of individual memory, and to structure these memories.

Memoryscapes Beside words and the facility of expression, the sense of sight is another practical mental tool if combined with mnemotechnics (Assmann 2010: 111). Although it might look like a modern archaeologist’s point of view to use sites to aid memory, this approach is actually an ancient one. Just as memory can see, the sense of sight also helps memory to come into action. A passage from Cicero narrating a terrible accident witnessed by the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos was already widely discussed in ancient times. Simonides was the only survivor when the roof of a banquet hall came down and buried the diners. Being able to identify the dead bodies by remembering who had been sitting where, inspired Cicero to argue that what can be seen can be remembered best. In De Oratore (2.86.353–4), Cicero famously linked places (loci) with good memory: [P]ersons desiring to train this faculty [i.e., the orderly arrangement of memories] select localities and form mental images of the facts they wish to remember and store those images in the localities, with the result that the arrangement of the localities will preserve the order of the facts, and the images of the facts will designate the facts themselves.

In this passage, Cicero suggests the use of ‘localities and images respectively as a wax writing tablet’ (Den Boer 2010: 19). Nowadays we would refer to someone with these skills as a person owning a ‘photographic memory’, which probably comes closest to the wonders of digital photography (Van Dijk 2007: 107). Cicero, however, is not referring to snapshot impressions or random mental images which help to construct personal memory. The point he makes



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is actually not about seeing to create short-term memory but about making these memories last by organizing them. Buildings and other points of interest can indeed be instrumental in mapping out an individual’s memory while cities at the same time can become memoryscapes. Memoryscapes, in ancient as well as in modern times, both help to bring to mind the past and remind readers of the present that never became the past. To excavate and bring to the fore the mechanics that allowed the interactions between memory and urban religion to take place and flourish is the aim of this book.

Contributions All the papers presented in this volume take an in-depth look at these hidden memoryscapes as evident in archaeological remains and written sources. Whether based on accurate, distorted or lost memories, the subjects explored are: Imperial propaganda (Nielsen); the presence of dead kings within privately commissioned monuments (Heffernan); sacred memory and gods that cannot be written off simply because they are not fashionable any more (Westerfeld, Miano, Hunt); how storytelling amplified an agreed stock of cultural material (Dowden); how archives are created when new religious developments need to be defended (Bommas); religious identity (Harrisson); and the creation of a new genre of religious texts with the aid of well-remembered key words (Kuhlmann). Cumulatively, the contributions presented here draw a picture of the various processes that were involved to allow memory to flourish in urban societies of the ancient world, to maintain the importance of memory and to put it on the map where religious beliefs were shaped.

Bibliography Assmann, J., 1988. ‘Kollektives Gedächtnis und kulturelle Identität’, in J. Assmann and T. Hölscher (eds), Kultur und Gedächtnis. Frankfurt a. Main, 9–19. —1994. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. Munich.

xxxviii Introduction: Sites of Memory and the Emergence of Urban Religion —2010. ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory’, in A. Erll and A. Nünning (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies. Berlin/New York, 109–18. Bommas, M., 2011. ‘La trasformazione della religion egizia da etnica a universale’, in S. Francocci and R. Murgano (eds), La culura egizia ed I suoi rapport con I popoli del Mediterraneo durante il I millenio A.C.. Vetralla, 55–60. —2012. ‘Isis, Osiris, and Serapis’, in C. Riggs (ed.), The Oxford Handbook to Roman Egypt. Oxford, 419–35. Burkert, W., 1987. Ancient Mystery Cults, Cambridge, MA/London. —1996. Creation of the Sacred. Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Harvard. Cubitt, G., 2007. History and Memory. Manchester. Den Boer, P., 2010. ‘Loci memoriae – Lieux de mémoire’, in A. Erll and A. Nünning (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, Berlin/New York, 19–25. Fentress, J. and C. Wickham, 1992. Social Memory. Oxford. Freedberg, D., 1989. The Power of Images. Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago/London. Giuliani, L., 1986. Bildnis und Botschaft. Untersuchungen zur Bildniskunst der römischen Republik. Frankfurt a. Main. Le Goff, J., 1992. History and Memory. New York. Luiselli, M. M., 2011. ‘The Ancient Egyptian scene of “pharaoh smiting his enemies”: an attempt to visualize cultural memory’, in M. Bommas (ed.), Cultural Memory and Identity in Ancient Societies, Cultural Memory and History in Antiquity 1, London, 10–25. Ricoeur, P., 2004. Memory, History and Forgetting. Chicago, 138. Scheid, J., 2003. An introduction to Roman Religion (trans. J. Lloyd). Edinburgh. Stevens, A., 2006. Private Religion at Amarna. The material evidence. Oxford. Van Dijk, J., 2007. Mediated Memories in the Digital Age, Stanford, CT. Winter, J., 2010. ‘Sites of Memory and the Shadow of War’, in A. Erll and A. Nünning (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies. Berlin/New York, 61–74. Zanker, P., 2004. Augustus und die Macht der Bilder, Munich.

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Marduk’s Return: Assyrian Imperial Propaganda, Babylonian Cultural Memory, and the akгtu Festival of 667 bc* John P. Nielsen

Introduction The landscape of ancient Mesopotamia did not favour permanence. The meandering courses of the Tigris and Euphrates constantly reshaped the plain, carving out new channels over time and leaving old ones dry.1 Without access to water, cities along the old channels suffered losses of population or even abandonment; temples, palaces, and city walls, built as they were of mud brick, quickly deteriorated into earthen mounds if not properly maintained and repaired.2 The lack of natural borders facilitated movements between populations on the margins of the alluvium and those residing in the heartland, periodically bringing new ethnic groups to prominence. Yet in spite of these destabilizing forces, Babylonian civilization displayed a remarkable degree of continuity over the centuries due in large part to the ideological importance attached to the cities that dotted the Mesopotamian plain. Even after Hammurabi removed royal power to Babylon in the second quarter of the second millennium bc,3 many cities retained economic and administrative importance and their temples continued to be centres of veneration where priests and scribes served the local gods and perpetuated scholarly traditions. The ideal Babylonian monarch organized the digging of canals to supply cities no longer served by the rivers and saw to it that temples were rebuilt following the outlines of their original foundations.4 Kings took great pride in the palaces they inhabited, and the city walls that they maintained not only

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served a defensive purpose, but were also a testament to the king’s legacy, as Gilgamesh’s remarks to the boatman, Ur-Šanabi, as they approached Uruk at the conclusion of The Epic of Gilgamesh demonstrate:5 Go up, Ur-šanabi, on to the wall of Uruk and walk around, survey the foundation platform, inspect the brickwork! [See] if its brickwork is not kiln-fired brick, and if the Seven Sages did not lay its foundations! One šār is city, one šār date-grove, one šār clay-pit, half a šār the temple of Ištar: three šār and a half (is) Uruk, (its) measurement. (George, Gilg. XI 323–8)

The major topographical features of the city defined it in the Babylonian mind, but it has been through the textual output of the institutions housed in these structures – memorial inscriptions, scholarly works, as well as more mundane legal and administrative documents – that modern scholars have encountered ancient Mesopotamia. Certainly, the copious amounts of textual material from some periods is a testament to the sophisticated manner in which the Babylonians used writing to access the past, whether to commemorate the exploits of a king or specify the conditions of a short-term loan. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that for the Babylonians, their past was also present in the major edifices of their cities, and that they encountered and recalled that past both in their daily activities within the city and through the performance of rituals and celebrations that defined the city’s calendar. Hence cities sustained both the material and intellectual culture that were necessary to the textual and performative continuation of collective memory in Babylonia.6

Collective Memory and Use of the Past in Babylonia The role of collective memory in Babylonian culture has been treated most extensively by Gerdien Jonker, who, drawing upon the work of Maurice Halbwachs, understands remembering as a dynamic phenomenon carried out collectively and repeatedly within society in order to address the demands of the present.7 Following Halbwachs, Jonker applies the term cadre matériel to



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the material culture that was critical to the creation of collective memory and asserts that it was through the setting of the cult with its stone statues and monuments, inscriptions and architecture, that initiates ‘began to condense the vestiges of the past into a consistent pattern of memory’.8 Jonker differentiates between ‘collective memory’ and ‘history’ by asserting that in the collective memory the past is actively present in society while history constitutes an active effort to reacquire the past.9 But if memory was constructed collectively, it was not constructed equitably in Babylonia. In her own work, Jonker concentrates on the role of scribes and priests in preserving memory. Such a focus is understandable given the access to material and intellectual culture that priests and scribes enjoyed. But only those individuals who possessed the necessary training and pedigree to become part of the temple hierarchy would have encountered the monuments and inscriptions that were ensconced within,10 and it has been the textual compositions of this scribal elite that have provided modern scholars with many of the insights into how the people of ancient Mesopotamia understood their past.11 That understanding was not without bias. Beginning with the work of Mario Liverani, Assyriologists have advanced the argument that Babylonian and Assyrian scribes employed legendary figures from the past to comment on contemporary events and influence those in power,12 questioning the historicity of the events described in literary-historical texts and arguing that these texts should be viewed first and foremost as sources for the period in which they were composed or copied, reflecting the current concerns of the author or copyist, and not as sources about the past that they claim to describe.13 The Sumerian King List and the legends surrounding the Akkadian emperors Sargon the Great and Naram-Sîn have been held up as prime examples of compositions that contain such biases. Once understood as a dispassionate assemblage of Early Dynastic king-list traditions, considerable historical value had been attached to the Sumerian King List.14 Subsequent reassessments of the Sumerian King List have drawn attention to the remarkable propagandistic value the text possessed in antiquity. As early as the end of the third millennium, scribes utilized and perhaps compiled the Sumerian King List in order to cast the kings of the Ur III dynasty as the imperial successors of the Akkadian emperors Sargon and Naram-Sîn.15 Scribes at Isin would later

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utilize the ideal of a single city exercising hegemony expressed in this composition to justify their city’s claim to dominance over southern Mesopotamia.16 Similarly, it has been argued that the literary traditions surrounding Sargon the Great and Naram-Sîn may not have had any basis in the exploits of the historical figures, but rather were scribal inventions composed to influence current holders of the throne.17 By comparison, the thoughts and attitudes of commoners toward the past are far more elusive.18 This segment of the population would not have been initiated into the religious secrets that gave priests the right to enter the sanctuaries and therefore would not have been privy to the same cultural artifacts, nor in possession of the same literary training. However, they did have access to those public manifestations of the cadre matériel that inspired collective memory. In their daily life they would have encountered many public projections of the past: the temples that loomed over the rooftops of the surrounding houses; the major processional ways that led from the gates to the temples; and the city itself.19 It is not unreasonable to believe that their understanding of these monuments would have been informed by their own memories and by the collective memory of the past kept alive within their community through oral traditions. Although their status did not place them among the circles of the powerful, they could not simply be ignored and any attempts to sway them through appeals to earlier precedents must have taken into account the likelihood that they were not entirely ignorant of the past. The written word may have facilitated a dialogue between the scribal elite and the imperial household but it was insufficient for shaping the opinions of the broader citizenry. To influence popular perceptions of contemporary events, those in power could not utilize texts that purported to describe the past but instead had to turn to the city itself as a locus of memory. By tending to the monumental structures in the traditional manner and performing the associated public ceremonies, rulers interacted with the populace in ways that appealed to shared elements of the collective memory and potentially used the past to shape understandings of the present. A series of events that may exemplify this process can be found in Esarhaddon’s rebuilding of Babylon after his father, Sennacherib, had destroyed the city in 689 bc and the return of the Marduk statue to Babylon in 668 by his



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son, šamaš-šuma-ukīn, whom Esarhaddon had designated for the Babylonian throne. Within the written record it is possible to follow a discourse that sought to minimize the Assyrian role in the destruction of Babylon and to reconcile the city to its new Assyrian king by emphasizing Marduk’s agency in those events. Simultaneously, there was a discernable interest in literaryhistorical traditions that took as their subject Babylonian rulers from the distant past who were responsible for the loss or return of Marduk, the most notable being Nebuchadnezzar I, who reigned in Babylon more than four centuries earlier from 1125 to 1104 bc.20 It will be argued here that these older traditions constituted a metadiscourse that supported the dominant discourse surrounding the return of Marduk, even if they were not mentioned explicitly within contemporary communications. Those engaged in the textual discourse, both on the Babylonian and Assyrian sides, were familiar with those traditions and shared an interest in the rebuilding of Babylon that was motivated out of mutually beneficial self-interests: Esarhaddon hoped to win Babylonian support and the Babylonian elites sought the revival of the institutions from which they derived both economic benefits and social prestige. The project in which Esarhaddon was engaged was intended to win over broad Babylonian support for Assyrian rule, and not just the allegiance of the educated elite. Expanding the discourse beyond literate circles was a task requiring actions in addition to words. In the process of rebuilding Babylon, Esarhaddon appropriated Babylonian customs to legitimize his actions. This performative discourse extended by necessity beyond the medium of the tablet and was communicated to the Babylonian populace through public acts and observances including the rebuilding project itself, marked by the revival of the basket-carrying ritual by Esarhaddon, and eventually the resumption of the akītu festival in 667, the celebration of the New Year at Babylon, by Esarhaddon’s son, šamaš-šuma-ukīn, following his instillation on the Babylonian throne. It is difficult to say if and how the Nebuchadnezzar tradition fitted within this popular discourse, but if elements of it were retained within the collective Babylonian memory, then aspects of the performative discourse may have been intended to appeal to those memories. Consequently the Babylonian literati could not simply tailor literary-historical narratives to satisfy the desires of the emperor; they also had to remain responsible to

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knowledge that existed within the collective memory if their narratives were to be credible.

Babylon, 689–668 bc Between 689 bc and 668 bc, the people of Babylon went from suffering the destruction of their city at the hands of the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib to celebrating simultaneously the return of the statue of their patron god Marduk and the installation of Sennacherib’s grandson, šamaš-šuma-ukīn, as their new king. Sennacherib had destroyed the city of Babylon in 689 bc after five years of Babylonian revolt against Assyrian rule. During that rebellion, the Babylonians had handed over Sennacherib’s own son, Aššur-nādin-šumi, whom Sennacherib had placed on the Babylonian throne, to the Elamites, Babylonia’s frequent allies in their resistance to Assyrian rule. Sennacherib’s anger toward Babylon was understandable, but the Assyrians had traditionally held Babylon and its gods in high esteem. The Assyrian respect for Babylon made the sacking of the city all the more dramatic; it was certainly the most severe punitive measure taken by the Assyrians in their efforts to control their Babylonian subjects. Based on his own inscription, it is clear that Sennacherib wanted to make an impression. He claims to have slaughtered the inhabitants of Babylon, destroyed its gods, razed it to the ground, and flooded the ruins, causing so much debris to float downstream on the Euphrates that it was still visible when it reached the Persian Gulf.21 Among the gods destroyed was Marduk, the chief of the Babylonian pantheon. The destruction of the cult statue of Marduk did not mean that the god had been destroyed, but represented a removal of the divine presence and signified Marduk’s displeasure with his city,22 themes that were already centuries old in Mesopotamia by the first millennium.23 Marduk’s absence meant that the rites of his cult, most notably observances of the akītu festival, ceased, a tragedy that would be commemorated by later Babylonian chroniclers looking back on the event.24 Yet after only eight years, circumstances had changed. Sennacherib had been assassinated by his second-eldest son in 681, and in the resulting power struggle his younger, favoured son, Esarhaddon, prevailed.25 Soon after succeeding his father to the throne, Esarhaddon began the complicated task



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of reversing Assyrian policy toward Babylon. Unlike his father, he adopted Babylonian titulary and inaugurated the rebuilding of Babylon. Esarhaddon’s programme was clearly a conciliatory gesture meant to regain and strengthen Babylonia’s loyalty to Assyria by communicating to them Assyria’s renewed respect for the city and its institutions.26 In spite of his good intentions, Esarhaddon’s rule seems to have been accepted by the Babylonians with a degree of wariness; he encountered some armed resistance in Babylonia,27 and dating practices on economic tablets suggest some reluctance on the part of Babylonian scribes to give to Esarhaddon the title ‘king of Babylon’.28 Likewise, there may have been factions within the Assyrian court and in other Babylonian cities that did not embrace Esarhaddon’s attitude toward Babylon,29 contributing to Esarhaddon’s belief that his position was tenuous and threatened by conspiracies.30 For imperial policy to change toward Babylon and for the Babylonian people to embrace an Assyrian monarch, the narratives surrounding the previous events would have to be altered. An explanation that cleared Sennacherib of any guilt in Babylon’s destruction would have to be created, suitable substitute narratives would have to be found that placed both the city’s destruction and Marduk’s return in a more favourable light, and there would be a need to transmit the new narratives to the broadest population possible. Under Esarhaddon, Assyrian scribes engaged in an effort to minimize Sennacherib’s agency in the destruction of Babylon. Whereas Sennacherib boasted in his inscriptions that he had destroyed the gods of Babylon and diverted the Euphrates to flood Babylon,31 Esarhaddon claimed that Babylon was destroyed by a flood (with no mention of his father’s agency) and that the flight of its gods was divine punishment for the sins of the Babylonians, specifically their unwillingness to heed admonitory omens and their decision to use the wealth of Marduk’s temple to purchase Elamite aid in their rebellion against Assyria.32 The scribes attached to Esarhaddon’s court drew upon the emperor’s interest in omens and divination to compose royal inscriptions that presented Esarhaddon’s rebuilding of Babylon and Esagil as consistent with the wishes of the gods.33 Esarhaddon’s correspondences with officials at Babylon alluded to the remaking of the Marduk statue and preparations for its returns.34 These efforts found expression in Esarhaddon’s own inscriptions, which describe Marduk as having been reborn in Assyria.35 Court scribes also

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expanded on this theme by promoting the literary fiction that Sennacherib had intended to remake the image of Marduk.36 Esarhaddon’s ultimate goal was to return the Marduk statue to Babylon, but he died while on campaign against Egypt in 669 before his plans could come to fruition.37 He had, however, been careful to establish the royal succession: Ashurbanipal was crowned king of Assyria and šamaš-šuma-ukīn was placed on the Babylonian throne.38 Even though šamaš-šuma-ukīn brought the statue of Marduk with him to Babylon in the second month of 668 bc,39 both brothers continued their father’s work in Babylonia and both took credit for rebuilding Esagil and returning Marduk in their Babylonian inscriptions.40 References to the refashioning of the Marduk statue, which implied that it had been destroyed, disappear from Ashurbanipal’s inscriptions and instead Ashurbanipal claims that Marduk resided in Assur during his exile ‘in the presence of the father who created him’.41 This change further alleviated Sennacherib’s sin by promoting the fiction that Sennacherib had not destroyed Marduk, but instead brought the statue back to Assur.

Esarhaddon, šamaš-šuma-ukīn and Nebuchadnezzar I The efforts of Esarhaddon and his sons can be viewed as a single, protracted undertaking, inaugurated by Esarhaddon, to reverse the actions of Sennacherib and create a narrative that mitigated royal involvement in any sacrilege. This reinterpretation of the past may have been accepted within the Assyrian court, but would it have ameliorated Babylonian resentment toward Assyria? When Esarhaddon designated šamaš-šuma-ukīn as the future king of Babylon, he could not have forgotten that the Babylonians had betrayed his own halfbrother to the Elamites after he had been on the Babylonian throne for seven years. As crown prince at Babylon, šamaš-šuma-ukīn even sent word back to Esarhaddon in 670 regarding Babylonians still at large who had participated in his uncle’s capture.42 Clearly there were still dangers in Babylon for the Assyrians and their supporters. Esarhaddon was careful to consult omens in order to determine the best time to return Marduk to Babylon and even recalled one expedition back to Assur in 669 when an inauspicious event occurred during the journey south.43 For the rebuilding of Babylon



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to have its desired effect on the Babylonian people and to ensure that they accepted šamaš-šuma-ukīn as their king, the ideology put forth in Assyrian royal inscriptions would be insufficient. An understanding of past events predicated on Marduk’s wrathful departure from Babylon would have to be balanced with reminders of his eagerness to return and the joyfulness of those occasions. Marduk’s return to Babylon from Assur in the second month of 668 was met with great pageantry throughout the land,44 and šamaš-šuma-ukīn’s inaugural akītu festival, in which he grasped the hand of Marduk, almost a year later in 667 would have been equally momentous. On both occasions all in the assembled throngs would have been aware of the magnitude of events – after a 20-year exile, Marduk was returning to his city and after 21 years, the akītu festival was being celebrated – and many would have been mindful of the tumult of the preceding decades. How that past endured in their memory was not a simple matter. Two decades was well within the average person’s lifespan and it is reasonable to think that there were individuals among the crowds who had witnessed the last akītu festival to be celebrated at Babylon, or the city’s destruction. Presumably the recollections of these individuals would have been much in demand among their peers and would have circulated in the streets alongside narratives that had originated in the palace and temples. šamaš-šuma-ukīn began his first full regnal year as king of Babylon with Assyrian backing. However, the success of his reign also rested on his being accepted by his Babylonian subjects. Scribes in Assyria and Babylonia had attempted to explain the contemporary situation by turning both to previous destructions of Babylon and abductions of Marduk as well as to revivals of Babylon and restorations of Marduk for precedence.45 The discourse that resulted survives in an interrelated matrix of letters, royal inscriptions, literary-historical compositions and scholarly texts which provide insights into how the Assyrian royal family and networks of Babylonian and Assyrian scholars made sense of the past and created an ideological justification for both the destruction and rebuilding of Babylon and the departure and return of Marduk. In this light, Marduk’s return and šamaš-šuma-ukīn’s accession can be understood as the culmination of an attempt to create an ideological understanding of the recent past and the more distant past that was responsible

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to earlier events and achieved a sufficiently broad agreement among the many strands of memory that comprised Babylonian cultural memory. A figure from Babylonia’s distant past who would have been relevant to this ideology was Nebuchadnezzar I. There is not abundant evidence of Nebuchadnezzar I’s immediate presence within the Assyrian and Babylonian discourse, the one exception being a court astrologer’s report to Esarhaddon from late in his reign that references the omen series, ‘When Nebuchadnezzer Broke Elam’.46 No copies of this series survive,47 but its title is a clear indication that the series took an interest in Nebuchadnezzar I and his war with Elam.48 During Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Babylonia experienced a revival of fortunes after Elamite invasions had toppled the last kings of the Kassite dynasty in the mid-twelfth century. While few of Nebuchadnezzar’s own inscriptions survive, there are two contemporary inscriptions that describe his campaigns against the Elamites.49 Marduk does not figure prominently in either tablet, but a passing reference is made in one to Nebuchadnezzar grasping the hand of Bel (an epithet of Marduk) and bringing him into Babylon after a successful campaign against Elam.50 The monuments bearing these inscriptions were kept in the temples and they, or perhaps ones like them, perpetuated the memory of Nebuchadnezzar within the circles of Marduk’s cult and possibly inspired the later literary-historical traditions surrounding Nebuchadnezzar I.51 The return of Marduk by Nebuchadnezzar may have been a pivotal event in the elevation of Marduk within the Babylonian pantheon,52 and if so, it would stand to reason that Nebuchadnezzar I’s reign was especially celebrated within Marduk’s priesthood, if not among the greater population, and eventually became the inspiration for literary-historical traditions that celebrated his exploits. It is unknown when these traditions began, but the earliest exemplars date from the seventh century. The appeal of Nebuchadnezzar I in the seventh century may have been based on the belief that he, like šamaš-šuma-ukīn, was responsible for the return of Marduk to Babylon after a period of divine abandonment. Significant to this argument are the many literary-historical compositions celebrating Nebucahdezzar I’s return of Marduk known from Assyrian contexts. And while the Nebuchadnezzar tradition does not figure explicitly in Assyrian royal inscriptions – a positive portrayal of a non-Assyrian king would be out of place in the genre – Assyrian interest in Nebuchadnezzar



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I found expression in a composition known as ‘The Marduk Prophecy’, the sentiments of which appear as subtext in Esarhaddon’s inscriptions and those of his successors. In comparison to the primary sources that describe Nebuchadnezzar I’s campaign against Elam, the literary-historical compositions inspired by those events place Marduk firmly at the centre. Two of these compositions describe the original removal of Marduk to Elam: one states that the Elamite king defeated the Babylonians, destroyed their cult centres, and removed Marduk to Elam; a second emphasizes Marduk’s agency in his removal, stating that he became displeased with Babylon and called upon the Elamites to take him to Elam.53 Marduk’s anger only ceased when the pious king Nebuchadnezzar I took the throne in 1125. But even Nebuchadnezzar met with failures. According to one composition, an initial campaign into Elam was halted when disease overtook the army and Nebuchadnezzar was forced to retreat in the face of an advancing Elamite army. The text ends with Nebuchadnezzar lying on ‘a bed of depression and sighs’ praying for an end to his suffering.54 Marduk finally relented and called the prayerful Nebuchadnezzar to invade Elam and bring him back to his shrine in Babylon.55 Significantly, none of the tablets on which these compositions survive date from the late twelfth century, and the archaeological provenances of these tablets also reveal that many of them were not found in Babylonian contexts. Instead, many of the tablets date from the seventh century and were excavated at the mound of Kuyunjik, making them part of Ashurbanipal’s palace library at Nineveh.56 Colophons on a few of the tablets identify them as part of Ashurbanipal’s library and their presence in the collection introduces chronological problems stemming from the fact that a significant portion of the library was assembled after Ashurbanipal had put down his brother’s rebellion in 648 bc.57 These tablets would have been in Assyrian hands two decades after šamaš-šuma-ukīn’s installation, far too late to influence Assyrian scribes if this was the first introduction of the Nebuchadnezzar tradition in an Assyrian context. However, the existence of these tablets suggests that there was active interest in the tradition in the previous decades. It is instructive to recall that Babylonian scribes were in the employ of the Assyrians after the reign of Merodach-baladan II (721–720 bc) and that Esarhaddon received reports – including the aforementioned astrological report referencing Nebuchadnezzar

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I – from scholars in Assyria and Babylonia who maintained their own archives of scholarly texts.58 Even if some of the tablets featuring Nebuchadnezzar I entered Ashurbanipal’s library after 648, the aforementioned reference to the omen series ‘When Nebuchadnezzar Smashed Elam’ by Nabû-mušēs.i, himself an Assyrian astrologer at the court of Nineveh, indicates that there were scholars familiar with the Babylonian king present at the court well before the library reached its final state.59 But despite the preponderance of literary works concerning Nebuchadnezzar I from Assyria, the tradition had Babylonian origins: one of the tablets contains a colophon identifying it as a copy made from an original in Babylon and one composition has been found on multiple exemplars from both Assyrian and Babylonian contexts. The fact that tablets closer in date to Nebuchadnezzar I’s reign do not exist today does not mean that they did not exist in antiquity; the date of a tablet cannot be equated with the date of textual composition. However, it is apparent that scribes in Babylonia and Assyria with access to Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal were looking at tablets and other texts that mentioned Nebuchadnezzar I, they were copying and perhaps even creating compositions that were based on that tradition, and, most importantly, their interest was drawn to Nebuchadnezzar I. The literary-historical traditions surrounding Nebuchadnezzar I as they pertained to the theological explanation for the Assyrian removal of Marduk from Babylon are summed up in the ‘Marduk Prophecy’, a short composition in which Marduk describes his many sojourns away from Babylon.60 His first desire had been to go to Hatti, an allusion to the sack of Babylon by Murshili I that brought Hammurabi’s dynasty to a close.61 Marduk eventually returned from this visit and spent some time in Babylon before becoming pleased with the king of Assyria, a reference to Tukulti-Ninurta I, and going to Assur to deliver the lands into the king’s hands.62 Finally, Marduk states that he left Babylon for Elam, a decision that brought great suffering to the Babylonians. Marduk ends by prophesying that a new king will arise in Babylon, smash Elam, and return him to his restored temple. This final prophecy is clearly in reference to Nebuchadnezzar I and for this reason it has been proposed that the prophecy was originally composed during his reign.63 However, the two surviving exemplars of the prophecy come from firstmillennium tablets excavated in Assyrian contexts: Ashurbanipal’s library



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and a private house belonging to a family of exorcists at Assur.64 If it was composed during Nebuchadnezzar I’s reign, it was modified to meet Assyrian tastes in the seventh century;65 one would not expect a text composed for Nebuchadnezzar I to contain a positive portrayal of Marduk’s time in Assyria given that Nebuchadnezzar conducted a series of border skirmishes against the Assyrians.66 The pro-Assyrian tone of the ‘Marduk Prophecy’ and the archaeological provenance of the copies suggest that the ‘Marduk Prophecy’, as it survived, spoke to Assyrian interests in Babylon prior to Marduk’s return in 668.67 Significantly, elements in the text even parallel phrases and themes in Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal’s own inscription pertaining to Dēr and Babylon.68 The ‘Marduk Prophecy’ reassured an Assyrian audience that, throughout the past, Marduk had never departed from Babylon involuntarily and that his previous visit to Assyria was not an Assyrian sacrilege, but rather a gesture of divine favour that granted the Assyrians imperial domination. Such precedence cleared Sennacherib of any sin and justified Assyrian rule over Babylonia. However, the survival of similar and identical textual traditions about Nebuchadnezzar I in both Assyrian and Babylonian contexts indicates that the past upon which the ‘Marduk Prophecy’ drew originated from traditions that had been preserved in Babylonia, most likely by the Babylonian priests in the cult of Marduk who had an undeniable interest in seeing Babylon and the Esagil temple rebuilt and Marduk returned,69 but also possibly by some of the broader populace. If, as seems likely, these traditions originated in Babylonia, then the Assyrian programme in Babylon represented a repackaging of those traditions for broader public consumption as Esarhaddon and then his sons extended the discourse to the general citizenry of Babylon.

Assyrian Propaganda and the People of Babylon It is one thing to trace a discourse impressed on clay tablets, physical objects that have survived to the present day; it is far more difficult to determine how that same discourse was impressed upon the minds of the population. Assyrian propaganda could only achieve extensive penetration among the

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Babylonian people through non-textual means, specifically, the rebuilding of Babylon and the public events surrounding the installation and legitimization of šamaš-šuma-ukīn as king of Babylon, culminating in his first akītu festival. These undertakings communicated the Assyrian emperor’s goodwill toward Babylon as the benefactor of the city and the patron of its gods, while simultaneously invoking past events that communicated the city’s antiquity and the primacy of Marduk. Through these actions, the Assyrian emperor and his supporters engaged with the collective memory, appealing to themes that permitted them to reshape popular understanding of the past. Tablets from Babylon dated early in Esarhaddon’s reign indicate that the city was at least partially resettled by 679,70 but the full restoration of the city, particularly its temples, began with ritual acts, some of which included a public component. Esarhaddon famously revived the basket-carrying ceremony performed by second-millennium kings in which the monarch, as dutiful caretaker of the god’s house, carried a labourer’s basket to the building site.71 Both šamaš-šuma-ukīn and Ashurbanipal later repeated this act, and reliefs depicting them with baskets above their heads were created in deliberate imitation of much older statuettes that were part of royal building deposits interred by earlier kings.72 The purpose of these rituals was to demonstrate the emperor’s commitment to Babylon by making him the central figure in a ritual that evoked Babylon’s past, thereby legitimating him in the eyes of the Babylonian public by presenting him in the role of earlier Babylonian kings. The basket-carrying ceremony inaugurated a 12-year project to rebuild the city that must have entailed remarkable effort. The full restoration of the city was essential for the proper observance of the akītu festival. As a result, the project to rebuild Babylon was not an opportunity for Esarhaddon to remake the city anew, but rather was an attempt to recover the city as it had been prior to the destruction. Sennacherib had attempted to prevent precisely such a restoration of the city by removing even the foundations of its structures.73 Sennacherib may have been guilty of some hyperbole, but evidence from the Merkes quarter at Babylon may corroborate his claims. Remains from the residential quarter assigned to the Middle Babylonian-Assyrian stratum included a layer of debris and sand with a layer of poorly built houses above. The excavators interpreted these layers as evidence of the abandonment that



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followed Sennacherib’s sack of the city and the tentative resettlement that later ensued, though no evidence of flooding was found.74 Regardless of the severity of the devastation, conditions at Babylon compelled Esarhaddon to initiate rebuilding. In his own inscriptions, he emphasized that he had Esagil rebuilt on its foundations without any deviation from the original plan.75 To this aim, the builders tried to determine the proper location and alignment of the temples and also sought to resituate correctly the network of major streets and processional avenues.76 Texts detailing the topography of the city may have been consulted in this process,77 and the information from their contents would have been combined with the evidence on the ground. Workers trying to retrace the foundations of the temples would have known to look out for building inscriptions interred by previous rulers,78 and those overseeing the project may even have sought the aid of those residents who remembered the city before its destruction. Such assiduous attention to restoration was consistent with Mesopotamian ideology regarding the temple. Kings predating Esarhaddon by more than a millennium expressed similar sentiments in their own building inscriptions,79 and the evidence of the practice has been found at prehistoric sites.80 Mesopotamian kings knew to look for their predecessors’ foundation deposits when engaged in restoration projects, and the temple foundations which Esarhaddon’s work crews sought for had essentially the same layout as they had had during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I and earlier.81 The cumulative effect of the building rituals and the care taken to identify the original topography of the city compelled those Babylonians engaged in the city’s rebuilding to reflect on the antiquity of their city while filled with the awareness that all of their efforts were in anticipation of Marduk’s return. Under these conditions, it is hard to think that the parallels with Nebuchadnezzar I were not apparent to residents of the city, if knowledge of Nebuchadnezzar I still survived in the collective memory. That anticipation would have been fulfilled when šamaš-šuma-ukīn entered into Babylon with Marduk. This act marked the completion of rebuilding and promised the resumption of cultic activities in the city by evoking the central act of the akītu festival, the entry of Marduk into the city.82 The annual spectacle of the akītu festival would have made an indelible impression on all who participated, both the major players and the throngs who assembled

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as spectators. During the 12 days of the festival, the temples, the gates, the processional ways and all of the other features that made up the topography of the city and anchored the popular cultural memory came alive. Gods hidden from view were on display before the masses. Priests who typically practised their rituals behind temple doors found themselves functioning in their religious capacity before the public eye. The king was stripped of his regalia, struck by the priest of Marduk, and forced to bow before Marduk and profess that he had committed no offence against Marduk, his temple, or his city. Marduk subsequently departed Babylon with a procession of gods from other Babylonian cities on the eighth day and remained outside the city walls in the akītu house for three days until the king ‘took the hand of Marduk’ and paraded back into the city to Esagil amidst public celebration.83 A collective mood of occasion undoubtedly gripped the people of Babylon throughout the 12 days of the festival and the days of public processions and pronouncements must have been high-points. These moments were ideally suited for shaping popular sentiment and can be viewed as part of a public discourse that consisted of oral traditions, public recitations of prayers and other ritualized utterances and actions, speeches and proclamations by the king and priests, and the acclamations of the assembled masses in response. While it is difficult to discern the presence of oral historical traditions, they were certainly present in Babylonian society and on occasion their existence is mentioned in the written record. Petitioners before the king could give testimony referencing oral traditions that stretched back over generations.84 Likewise, the Babylonian chronicles, while heavily reliant on written sources, also included references to information that came from oral sources.85 Such traditions could have been present in the minds of those who attended the public recitation of enūma eliš, the epic poem that described Marduk’s rise to the head of the Babylonian pantheon and his creation of Babylon, during the first akītu festival after Marduk’s return, and would have informed how the negative oath that šamaš-šuma-ukīn swore stating that he had not done harm to Babylon, its people and its temples was understood.86 Public recitations were also opportunities for the king and, perhaps, temple officials to make pronouncements before the assembled masses. One fragmentary letter sent to Ashurbanipal includes a report that šamaš-šuma-ukīn spoke to the Babylonians on the occasion of Marduk’s setting out in procession,87 and



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šamaš-šuma-ukīn also spoke words of encouragement to the assembled Babylonians present at the rituals locking the gates against Assyria at the outbreak of the revolt.88 Such examples make it reasonable to postulate that pronouncements made by the king and priests before the population appealed to themes from Babylon’s past and that the acclamations of the crowd reflected their familiarity with those themes. The regular celebration of festivals within a society plays an important role in the perpetuation of cultural memory.89 To the Babylonians, the akītu festival was ideally a regular and unchanging social performance that stretched back into the past and reified their world-view. At the same time, each celebration was distinctive and played out against the backdrop of the events and concerns of the previous years.90 The contemporary interest in Nebuchadnezzar I as exemplified by the literary-historical traditions circulating simultaneously in Babylonia and Assyria that emphasized the king’s taking of the hand of Bel, the central act of the akītu festival, spoke to these concerns by offering an historical mirror to more recent events.

Conclusions Ultimately, the Nebuchadnezzar tradition was of greater value to the Assyrians and their supporters in Babylonia as they tried to convince the Babylonians of their legitimacy. By placing šamaš-šuma-ukīn on the Babylonian throne, Esarhaddon was following the same strategy employed by Sennacherib when he installed Aššur-nādin-šumi as king of Babylon. As mentioned already, Esarhaddon could not have forgotten that his brother had been handed over to the Elamites by the Babylonians and would not have wanted his son to suffer the same fate. Likewise, the priests and scribes who made up the personnel of Marduk’s temple and were the chief beneficiaries of Esarhaddon’s decision to rebuild Babylon would have wanted to avoid the impression that they were collaborating with the people who had once committed the sacrilege of destroying the city. However, disseminating and circulating an ideologically credible explanation for the destruction of Babylon and loss of Marduk to the largely illiterate population could not have been accomplished through a textual discourse similar to that which linked the emperor with

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scholars. Instead, these concepts reached the Babylonian people through a series of interrelated public actions – the rebuilding of Babylon, the celebrations surrounding the return of Marduk, and, most importantly, the first observation of the akītu festival in 21 years – that were all intended to evoke the past and thus shape popular perceptions of the present. An appeal to the Nebuchadnezzar tradition in this context would have had the benefit of pushing the narrative beyond the recent past to events that occurred centuries earlier. By tying current events to events of the recent past and distant past, to the rebuilding of Babylon, the akītu festival introduced an element of the eternal. Sennacherib’s destruction of Babylon was not removed from memory but minimized in the face of much older traditions. The recognition that scribes composed and manipulated texts, particularly historical-literary compositions, to engage in a discourse that served their interests and the interests of the ruling elite has strongly influenced textual criticism within the field of Assyriology and cannot be denied. This development was a necessary corrective to an earlier tendency by Assyriologists to attach a high degree of credibility to texts and to assume that a ‘historical kernel’ of the past was preserved in their contents. Texts purporting to describe events that took place centuries earlier must be approached with critical care and are first and foremost sources about themselves and the age in which they were composed or copied. By placing the literary traditions surrounding Nebuchadnezzar I in their proper seventh-century context, we gain another facet in our understanding of the discourse that surrounded and shaped Esarhaddon’s programme to rebuild Babylon and Assyrian efforts to bring Babylonia firmly within the empire. But the potential power of this discourse was not limitless and scribes did not have unfettered license to invent the past.91 Anything may be possible in the poetics of politics,92 but not all possibilities inspired effective discourse. A primary factor that constrained scribal discourse was the presence of cultural memory within society. An appreciation of how cultural memory could be preserved within ancient societies should inform intertextual interpretations by modern scholars and prevent such approaches from devolving into free association. The concept of cultural memory reminds us that, even though the objective reality of the past can never be recovered, the subjective interpretation of past events by scribes in antiquity was not accomplished in



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the face of popular ignorance. Scribes attempting to propagate an ideology had to be responsible to the broader textual and non-textual traditions in which they operated. These traditions limited scribal invention but allowed room for manipulation. With regard to Nebuchadnezzar I, the later literary traditions can be corroborated with sources dating to his reign on the two most important points: Nebucahdnazzar I did defeat the Elamites and, depending how the statement in BBSt 24 is interpreted, there is a reasonable likelihood that he also restored Marduk to Babylon. However, the literaryhistorical tradition places far greater emphasis on Marduk by asserting that it was Marduk who elected to leave Babylon and that it was Marduk who commanded Nebuchadnezzar to bring him out of Elam. By recasting the past in this way, scribes created a discourse that communicated that it was Marduk who saw fit to punish Babylon with destruction in 689 and it was Marduk who decided to return in 668. The success of this discourse becomes apparent when we consider šamaššuma-ukīn’s tenure on the Babylonian throne. Esarhaddon’s death while on campaign in Egypt was an opportune time for a Babylonian revolt against Assyrian rule, yet none occurred. This was due in large part to the pre-emptive measures Esarhaddon took in anticipation of any succession crisis that might follow his own death, but šamaš-šuma-ukīn’s legitimacy as the designated heir to the Babylonian throne would have rested partially on the degree to which Esarhaddon reconciled Babylonia to Assyria and solved the enduring problem of how to incorporate Babylonia into the empire. There was never an attempt to equate šamaš-šuma-ukīn with Nebuchadnezzar I, but the return of Marduk may have evoked Nebuchadnezzar I’s legacy and confirmed that Marduk bestowed legitimacy upon the king. šamaš-šuma-ukīn benefited from this ideology during his reign. When the Babylonians did once again revolt against the Assyrians in 652, it was in support of šamaš-šuma-ukīn as their king.

Notes * All abbreviations herein are in accordance with the list of abbreviations found in the U–W volume of The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), viii–xxix, which can be accessed online at http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/cad/

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1 Adams (1981) contains a comprehensive analysis of survey data reflecting shifts in human settlement in response to the changing course of the Euphrates. For additional treatment of the topic see the essays collected in Gasche and Tanret (1998). 2 The most notable example of large-scale urban abandonment in Mesopotamia occurred in southern and central Babylonia in the seventeenth century bc, in conjunction with the decline and collapse of Hammurabi’s dynasty (Gasche 1989: 109–43). 3 Hammurabi, the sixth king of the first dynasty of Babylon, was responsible for the reunification of southern Mesopotamia. The years 1792 to 1750 have been assigned to his reign following the middle chronology (Brinkman 1977: 337). However, there is growing evidence that these dates need to be lowered and a reign from 1696 to 1654 has been proposed by Gasche, Armstrong, Cole and Gurzadyan (1998: 91). For comprehensive treatments of Hammurabi’s reign, see Charpin (2003) and Van De Mieroop (2005). 4 Postgate 1995: 395–411. Nabonidus’ efforts to correct the mistakes of previous kings while restoring the Ebabbar at Sippar exemplify the assiduous attention that Babylonian monarchs gave to the rebuilding of temples (Beaulieu 1989: 135–6). 5 George 2003: Tablet XI: 322–8. 6 Holloway 2002: 259–61. Black (1981: 39–40) offers an evocative description of the Mesopotamian concept of place and their perception of the antiquity of localities in the introduction to his discussion of the akītu festival at Babylon. 7 Jonker 1995: 16–17. 8 Ibid., 68. 9 Ibid., 29. 10 Glassner (2004: 11–13) and Waerzeggers (2008: 1–38). 11 Van de Mieroop 1999: 9–38. 12 There are even rare examples of ancient forgeries. The Cruciform Monument of Maništušu represents a scribal forgery in which priests in the mid-first millennium forged a donation to the temple of Ebabbar in Sippar by the late third-millennium king, Maništušu (Sollberger 1968: 50–70; and al-Rawi and George 1994: 135–48). It is important to recognize that although the priests invented the donation, they did not invent the kings who had reigned almost two millennia earlier. 13 Mario Liverani (1973: 178–94) argued that cuneiform documents should be interpreted as sources for themselves that tell us more about the contemporary concerns of the author or copyist than they do about the past



14 15 16

17 18

19 20

21

22 23

24

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events described in the text. He continued this argument in Liverani (1993: 41–67). Jacobsen 1939. Steinkeller 2003: 267–92. Michalowski (1983: 237–48) argued that scribes at Isin composed the Sumerian King List in order to assert the ideal of a single city exercising hegemony. This was done in order to justify Isin’s claim to dominance over southern Mesopotamia after the collapse of the Ur III Empire. While Michalowski’s assertion that the Sumerian King List was composed during the Isin–Larsa period was disproved by the discovery of an Ur III copy of the Sumerian King List published by Steinkeller (2003: 267–92), his observations about the ideological significance of the text to the Isin kings have been made no less insightful. Liverani 1993: 41–67. The question of literacy in Babylonian society remains open. According to Parpola (1997: 315–24), it may be that a greater proportion of the population was literate in the first millennium than might be assumed. But even if literacy was relatively common, it is doubtful that many Babylonians would have had access to specialized tablets that were the source of scholarly information about the past. Jonker 1995: 35–7. J. A. Brinkman (1977: 338) assigned the years 1125–1104 to Nebuchadnezzar I. Y. Bloch (2011) recently recalculated the reigns of the Babylonian kings from the thirteenth to the early eleventh centuries bc based on his re-evaluation of Middle Assyrian chronology and lowered the years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign to 1121–1100. Bloch’s proposals deserve close examination, but absent such considerations, Brinkman’s traditional dates are retained here. Luckenbill 1924: 83: 45–84: 54 and 137: 36–40. In one account (83: 48), responsibility for the destruction of the Babylonian gods was deliberately transferred to Sennacherib’s men (Brinkman 1973: 94–5), while in another it was Sennacherib who smashed the statues of the gods (OIP 2 137: 37). For a brief discussion of how Mesopotamians understood the relationship between a god or goddess and its cult statue, see Walker and Dick (2001: 6–8). The topos was well developed by the early second millennium, as the tradition of Sumerian lamentations attests (Cooper 1983; Michalowski 1989; Tinney 1996). Grayson 1975: 127: 31–3 and 131: 1–4 = Glassner 2004: 208–9: 34–6 and 212–13: 1–4.

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25 Parpola 1980: 175. 26 Holloway 2002: 273. The strategy was not an entirely novel one. Tiglath-pileser III and Esarhaddon’s grandfather, Sargon II, had both had themselves crowned king of Babylon and had also presided over the akītu festival at Babylon. Tiglathpileser III had himself crowned king of Babylonia and ruled the country for 18 years, residing in Babylon for two of those years according to Grayson 1975: 72 i 23–6 = Glassner 2004: 194–5. The Assyrian eponym lists note his participation in the akītu festival (Millard 1994: 45 and 59). The Babylonian Chronicle records that Sargon II did the same after driving Merodach-baladan II out of Babylonia (Grayson 1975: 75 ii 1’ = Glassner 2004: 196–7). 27 Brinkman 1983: 81. 28 Frame 1992: 65. 29 Frame 1992: 70–2 and prior scholarship referenced in n. 32. 30 Radner 2003. 31 Luckenbill 1924: 137 l. 37. 32 Borger 1967: 12–15 §11 episodes 2–9. 33 Brinkman 1983. 34 Reynolds 2003: Nos 25–30. 35 Borger 1967: 83–4 §53 r. 35–8 and 88–9 §57 r. 11–24. Building inscriptions from Babylon commemorate Esarhaddon’s work in Babylon for Marduk (Frame 1995: 6.31.1–9). Inscriptions from Nippur and Uruk include the claim that Marduk had become reconciled with Babylon and had taken up residence in Esagil during Esarhaddon’s reign (Frame 1995: 6.31.11: 9; 6.31.12: 17; and 6.31.15: 18–20). 36 Livingstone 1989: 33. 37 Grayson 1975: 86 iii 30–2 = Glassner 2004: 198–9 iii 30–2. 38 Frame 1992: 93–7, 102. 39 Grayson 1975: 131: 5–8 = Glassner 2004: 212–14: 5–8. 40 For šamaš-šuma-ukīn, see Frame (1995: 6.33.1, 3–4 and 6). For Ashurbanipal, see Frame (1995: 6.32.1–14 and 19). 41 Frame 1995: 6.32.2: 36–40, 6: 7–10, and 14: 23–7. All indications that the Marduk statue had been destroyed and therefore was not the original disappear from Ashurbanipal’s inscriptions. Ashurbanipal was advancing a concept formulated by his predecessors that Marduk was the son of Aššur according to Frame (1992: 56–7 and 2008: 29). 42 Luuko and Van Buylaere (2002: No. 21). For discussion of this letter, see Parpola (1972). 43 Starr (1990: Nos 262–5) and Parpola (1993: No. 24). Parpola (1983: 32–5)



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dates the letter to 669, reasoning that the temple precinct at Babylon was still undergoing construction in 670. 44 Frame 1995: 104 and n. 8. 45 The scribal elite in the first millennium could look back on a long past to find precedents, inspired by an antiquarian interests and a nascent sense of chronological eras (Beaulieu 1994: 37–42). The utilization of antiquities was not limited to inscriptions. Woods (2004: 23–103) has demonstrated that the creators of BBSt 36, itself a composition in which the scribe appeals to past precedents in order to make a case for royal support, adopted archaic iconography found on cylinder seals for the relief featured at the top of the tablet. 46 Hunger 1992: No. 158. 47 The omen apodosis in LBAT 1526 r. 1–3 also appears to reference the abduction of the gods of Babylon and Marduk’s subsequent return by Nebuchadnezzar (Brinkman 1968: 108n. 585). 48 For a summary of Nebuchadnezzar I’s reign, see Brinkman (1968: 104–16) and RLA 9 192–4. 49 King 1912: No. 6 and No. 24. 50 King 1912: No. 24: 11–12. 51 The šitti-Marduk kudurru, commissioned by Nebuchadnezzar I, records that the battle with the Elamites was fought on the banks of the Ulāia River (King 1912: No. 6 i 28). A later literary-historical text purporting to be a letter from the victorious Nebuchadnezzar to the Babylonians also places the engagement at the Ulāia River (Frame 1995: 2.4.7). 52 Lambert 1964. 53 Frame (1995: 2.4.8) and Foster (2005: 376–80). 54 Frame (1995: 2.4.6) and Foster (2005: 381–3). 55 Frame (1995: 2.4.5) and Foster (2005: 385). 56 For a discussion of Babylonian tablets in the library, see Fincke (2003–4: 111–49). 57 Fincke 2003–4: 122. 58 Fincke 2003–4: 115–18. 59 Nabû-mušēs.i is assigned to the court at Nineveh in Hunger (1992: xxi) and Baker (2001: 847 No. 6) based on his appended statement in a report in Hunger (1992: No. 157 r. 1–9) that he would be coming to Nineveh to serve the king. Where he was arriving from is not known. 60 A complete edition of the text appears in Borger (1971) and a more recent translation can be found in Foster (2005: 388–91) as well as commentary in Foster (2007: 29).

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61 According to the middle chronology, the sack of Babylon occurred in 1595 bc. It is becoming increasingly apparent that this date needs to be lowered, but even if we accept the ultra-low date of 1499 proposed in Gasche H., S. Cole, J. Armstrong and V. G. Gurzadyan (1998), a span of over eight centuries still separates the sack of Babylon from the events of 668. The only textual evidence for a Hittite removal of Marduk from Babylon and a Babylonian return comes from first-millennium tablets: ‘The Marduk Prophecy’ and ‘The Agum-Kakrime Inscription’ (Brinkman 1976: 97). Like ‘The Marduk Prophecy’, examples of ‘The Agum-Kakrime Inscription’ are only to be found on tablets excavated at Kuyunjik (K 4149 + 4203 + 4348 + Sm 27) or likely excavated there (Rm. 505). 62 Grayson 1975: 175–6 iv 3–6 = Glassner 2004: 280–1 iv 3–6. Chronicle P, which describes Tukulti-Ninurta I’s abduction of Marduk, was authored by a Babylonian, and the fragment on which the text is preserved comes from a Late Babylonian tablet. Grayson (1975: 56) suggests with extreme reservation that Chronicle P was composed between the mid-twelfth and the early eighth centuries. Amélie Kuhrt (1995: 356) points out that there is no contemporary evidence that Tukulti-Ninurta I took the Marduk statue and points out the chronological inconsistencies between the purported date of the statue’s return from Assyria and the Elamite theft, suggesting that the theft by Tukulti-Ninurta was a later Babylonian invention from the seventh century. 63 Foster (2005: 388) and de Jong (2007: 423). 64 Pedersén (1986: 76) points out that Ass. 13348ek is an impossible combination of excavation number and index and assigns the tablet to the house of the exorcists based on the presence of a companion text in the same archive and the likelihood that the index is correct. 65 de Jong 2007: 424. 66 Grayson 1975: 162–4 ii 1–13 = Glassner 2004: 178–81 ii 1–13. All three examples of the ‘Synchronistice History’, which were written from an Assyrian perspective and depict Nebucahdnezzar I as an adversary of the Assyrians, also come from Ashurbanipal’s library. 67 Frymer-Kensky (1983: 131–2 and 140–1) made a similar argument with regard to the ‘The Marduk Ordeal’, disagreeing with von Soden’s assertion that the composition stemmed from anti-Babylonian sentiments that sought to justify the destruction of Babylon in 689, arguing that Marduk is ultimately vindicated and therefore the text should be associated with plans to return Marduk to Babylon. Copies of the ‘The Marduk Ordeal’ come from Kuyunjik and from Aššur. According to Pedersén (1986: 26 No. 121), examples from Assur come from a library excavated in the Aššur temple and, significantly, from the same



68 69

70 71 72 73 74 75 76

77

78

79

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house from which a copy of ‘The Marduk Prophecy’ probably came (70 No. 453). de Jong 2007: 423–4. Brinkman (1983), in his analysis of the Esarhaddon inscriptions, was correct to assert that the altered presentation of events by Esarhaddon’s scribes did not prove or disprove the proposition that Babylonian priests had appealed to the emperor to rebuild Babylon. However, they certainly played a role in swaying the emperor if they formulated the concepts articulated in the ‘Marduk Prophecy’. Frame 1992: 68. Porter 2004: 265. Porter 2004: 271. Luckenbill 1924: 84: 52–4. Frame 1992: 55–6. Frame does point out that Sennacherib may have focused his wrath on the temple and administrative areas which were not excavated. Borger 1967: 21 §11 Episode 26a: 42b–46. H. D. Baker (2010: 95–6) points out that the diversion of these avenues was considered taboo in Babylonian society and that the Merkes excavations revealed that the antiquity of these street networks stretched back to the Old Babylonian period. For treatment of the cultic topography of Babylon and the relationship between temples and the major avenues, see B. Pongratz-Leisten (1994) and George (1996). Ten of the 57 exemplars of the text Tintir, which describes the topography of the city, come from Kuyunjik according to George (1992: 29–33), suggesting that there was significant interest in the composition at the time of Babylon’s rebuilding. How likely it was that workers encountered Nebuchadnezzar I’s inscriptions is difficult to determine. Only one text (Frame 1995: 2.4.1), an inscription commemorating the restoration of the Ekitušhegaltila shrine in the Enamhe   temple of Adad, located in the western part of the city (George 1992: 329–30), attests to Nebuchadnezzar’s building activity at Babylon. In spite of the dearth of building inscriptions that survive from his reign, Nebuchadnezzar I’s work at Babylon may have been much more extensive. Wolfram von Soden (1971: 253–64) has proposed that Nebuchadnezzar I founded the city’s ziggurat, Etemenanki. If von Soden is correct, the scope of Nebuchadnezzar I’s efforts would have generated more building inscriptions for workers to discover than what survives today. H. Schaudig 2010: 145–50.

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80 Oates (1960) and Safar (1981). 81 George 1992: 13–18. 82 The Akītu Chronicle states that the god Nabû came from Borsippa to Babylon for Marduk’s re-entry into the city with šamš-šuma-ukīn (Grayson 1975: 131: 4–8 = Glassner 2004: 212–15). The arrival of Nabû was also a crucial event during the regular celebration of the akītu festival. 83 Summaries of the akītu festival can be found in Cohen (1993: 438–40) and Bidmead (2002: 45–106). There is some disagreement among scholars with regards to the meanings of all the rituals observed during the akītu festival, but in general the range of interpretations all suit the understanding of the akītu festival as an event that had ideological relevance to Esarhaddon’s programme in Babylonia. Certainly there was an element of crisis in the rites. Van der Toorn (1991: 339) rejects the argument that a ritualized destruction of the Esagil occurred at the beginning of the festival, preferring to view the festival in less dramatic terms while still recognizing a strong element of renewal and confirmation in the proceedings. While the akītu was not a Saturnalia in which social norms were relaxed and class distinctions erased (Sommer 2000: 92 and Pongratz-Leisten 1994: 75–7), it was a civic event that included public celebrations that reduced the gulf between and the priestly class and the common citizenry. 84 King 1912: No. 6 and No. 36. 85 Glassner 2004: 45. 86 Michalowski (1990: 393) points out that šamaš-šuma-ukīn was distinguishing himself from his grandfather by speaking this oath. 87 Reynolds 2003: No. 174. 88 Reynolds 2003: No. 164: 6–13. 89 For a summary of scholarship on cultural memory as it relates to festivals in the Greco-Roman world, see H. Beck and H.-U. Wiemer (2009: 9–54). As Porter (2004: 259n. 5) points out, Assyriologists have traditionally focused on the production of good editions of ritual texts and have not typically considered how rituals and their associated festivities impacted the populace. 90 Sommer 2000: 95. 91 This point follows Roger Chartier’s (1998: 271–2) critique of Gareth Stedman Jones’ belief that power is constituted by discourse and must therefore be understood as text. 92 Michalowski 2003.



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Pedersén, O., 1986. Archives and Libraries in the City of Assur: A Survey of the Material from the German Excavations, Part 2. Uppsala. Pongratz-Leisten, B., 1994. Ina šulmi īrub. Die kult-topographie und ideologische Programmatik der akītu-Prozession in Babylonien und Assyrien im I. Jahrtausend v. Chr. Mainz. Porter, B., 2004. ‘Ritual and Politics in Assyria: Neo-Assyrian Kanephoric Stelai for Babylonia’, Hesperia Supplements 33, 259–74. Postgate, J. N., 1995. ‘Royal Ideology and State Administration in Sumer and Akkad’, in J. Sasson et al. (eds) Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. New York, 395–411. Radner, K., 2003. ‘The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC’, ISIMU 6, 165–83. Reynolds, F., 2003. The Babylonian Correspondence of Esarhaddon. Helsinki. Safar, F. et al. 1981. Eridu. Baghdad. Schaudig, H., 2010. ‘The Restoration of Temples in the Neo- and Late Babylonian Periods’, in M. J. Boda and J. Novotny (eds), From the Foundations to the Crenellations: Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible. Münster, 141–64. Sollberger, E., 1968. ‘The Cruciform Monument’, JEOL 20, 50–70. Sommer, B., 2000. ‘The Babylonian Akitu Festival: Rectifying the King or Renewing the Cosmos?’, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies 27, 81–95. Starr, I., 1990. Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria. Helsinki. Steinkeller, P., 2003. ‘An Ur III Manuscript of the Sumerian King List’, in W. Sallaberger et al. (eds), Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien: Festschrift für Claus Wilcke. Wiesbaden, 267–92. Tinney, S., 1996. The Nippur Lament. Philadelphia. Van de Mieroop, M., 1999. Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History, London and New York. —2005. King Hammurabi of Babylonia: A Biography. Oxford. Van der Toorn, K., 1991. ‘The Babylonian New Year Festival: New Insights from the Cuneiform Texts and their Bearing on Old Testament Study’, in J. A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume Leuven 1989. Leiden, 331–44. von Soden, W., 1971. ‘Etemenanki von Asarhaddon: Nach der Erzählung vom Turmbau zu Babel und dem Erra-Mythos’, UF 3, 253–64. Waerzeggers, C., 2008. ‘On the Initiation of Babylonian Priests’, Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte 14, 1–38. Walker, C. and M. Dick, 2001. The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian Mīs Pî Ritual. Helsinki. Woods, C., 2004. ‘The Sun-God Tablet of Nabû-apla-iddina Revisited’, JCS 56, 23–103.

2

The Cult of the Pharaoh in New Kingdom Egypt – Cultural Memory or State Ideology? Gabrielle Heffernan

The temples of Egypt are peppered with images of the pharaoh as a victorious leader, a great man, chosen of the gods. These static images are all that are left to the modern world. Surely, however, he was more than this to the early Egyptians, more than just an inscribed scene on a temple wall, or a colossal statue guarding a palace gateway. Ostracon Cairo 25560 records a visit of Seti II1 to the city of Thebes for the Opet festival (Janssen 1997: 152). It includes mention of the king crossing the river to the West Bank although unfortunately the text stops before it reveals the reason for his visit (Janssen 1997: 152). In doing so, he left the palaces, the state temples and the administrative centre of the city – he became visible to, and perhaps even interacted with, ordinary Egyptians. Of course, one is left to ponder the reason for the visit, but one thing that is reasonably certain is that such events were not common. Why, then, do private tombs on the West Bank at Thebes in the early Ramesside Period so commonly contain images of kings? Moreover, images in private tombs did not usually depict the living king who may have played a role, however small, in the lives of the villagers at the time the tomb was created but kings who had died before the tomb owner was born. The memory of these kings must have been kept alive; more than that, they must have played an active role in the lives of the people, so that these royal figures were deemed important enough to play a role in the funerary depictions of the people. Boureau (2001: 184) has emphasized the importance of the king as a lieu de mémoire in modern and early modern history, and perhaps these depictions in Egyptian tombs should be seen as evidence of a similar ideology

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in Ancient Egyptian history. Arguably, therefore, images of the king in private tombs are evidence of the place of the pharaoh in the memory of the people which was supported by festivals, mortuary estates, popular culture, an interest in ancestry, and by state desire for self-legitimization. When discussing whether features of Egyptian society constitute a form of cultural memory, two features of Assmann’s theory are particularly important. First, there is the assertion that memory has not only a social but also a cultural basis founded largely in tradition (Assmann 2006: 1, 8); this contrasts with Halbwachs’ work, which treats memory and tradition as separate entities (Assmann 2006: 8). This study focuses largely on the role of traditions such as festivals, and the importance of active remembrance, the emphasis here being on the word ‘active’, implying forms of remembrance based around events in which members of the community took part as opposed to primarily written, or even oral, remembrances – cultural memory is something that one does, it is a process; it is not something that one simply possesses (Olick 2008: 159). Second, it is important to note the difference between cultural and communicative memory – communicative memory may be seen as spanning up to approximately three generations before it dies out, while other forms of memory, such as cultural memory, do not have a finite lifespan (Assmann 2006: 7; Luiselli 2011: 11). The images included in this study span several generations and in some cases over 700 years. This, again, is key when analyzing the place of cultural memory in Ramesside Egypt. Sociologists such as Mannheim (1956: 184) have drawn clear distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, implying that the culture of ordinary people is both separate from, and inferior to, that of the elite. However, it is important not to ignore the culture and traditions of ordinary people2 in favour of the more commonly displayed culture of the elite in the early Nineteenth Dynasty.3 By examining the culture of the non-elite, it is possible to understand Egyptian society in its entirety, rather than simply that of the small minority who were responsible for the vast majority of surviving monuments. It is possible to find links between the cultures of the two groups, to assess the ways in which the elite may have deliberately affected the culture of the lower levels of society, as well as examining the ways in which ordinary Egyptians may have adapted that culture to their own ends. In order for a memory to become successfully integrated into the lives of the ordinary people it must



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have had meaning for them – the non-elite must have been convinced both of its importance and of its relevance in their lives, rather than seeing it as a separate culture. The evidence used in this study, therefore, is primarily that of depictions in private tombs at Thebes. These tombs belonged to non-royal members of society (ranging from ‘divine fathers’ of temples (TT277), to scribes (TT7) to workmen (TT357).4 These tombs, therefore, allow an understanding of the belief and culture of ordinary people and its relation to the culture of the elite. There are approximately 160 tombs at Thebes dating to the early Ramesside Period (c. 1295–1203 bce),5 of which 50 contain images of royal figures. Within these tombs are a total of 89 such images. Of these, 43 images include only Amenhotep I or Ahmose-Nefertari,6 while 28 also show other kings or queens. The identities of the figures in 18 depictions are uncertain. These kings include those from the Middle Kingdom (the most common being Nebhepetre-Mentuhotep), although most are from the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth dynasties.7 The images can be divided into three key categories; those showing the kings as a divine figure,8 those with the king as an historical figure,9 and those representing the king as a part of everyday life.10 As previously mentioned, there was an increase in depictions of deceased kings in private tombs in the Ramesside Period. Of approximately 104 images of royal figures in the pre-Amarna Period,11 only seven can be said to have been that of deceased kings, while 54 of 71 early Ramesside images of royal figures whose identity is certain include a depiction of a deceased king. This suggests that images of royalty in the pre-Amarna Period were primarily ‘autobiographical’,12 such as can be seen in a scene in TT57 from the reign of Amenhotep III, which shows the king rewarding the officials of Upper and Lower Egypt (Lepsius 1849–58: 76[b]). While autobiographical scenes may be seen as an important part of the culture of ordinary people, they cannot be seen as a representation of the cultural memory of the group. This is in contrast to scenes from early Ramesside tombs, whose images of long deceased kings are more than simply autobiographical but are part of the collective memory of the group spanning several generations.13

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Figure 1. TT2: Deceased before statue of Amenhotep I in palanquin carried by priests, and statue of Amun, both protected by Maat (Černý 1927: fig. 14).

Festivals of the King Images of festivals of deceased kings14 are an important aspect of this discussion, as they directly depict an event connected with the cultural memory of the group. Nora (1984: 1) emphasized the importance of national days of remembrance in the developments of cultural memory and these events can be seen as such. The scenes of festivals show large crowds watching the event and a variety of people involved in the process. One example can be seen in a depiction in TT31 (Fig. 2) which shows a festival of Thutmose III before a temple of Monthu. The scene includes nine priests and three priestesses (holding sistra), as well as several laymen, of whom some are rowing the boats used in the festival, and laywomen. Such a variety of people is not uncommon in scenes of royal festivals found in private Ramesside tombs and so, if one is to assume that these images depict an actual event in the lives of the people, then one must conclude that many members of society were involved in, or witnessed royal festivals. Herodotus wrote of a festival at Bubastis at which ‘the numbers … are … as many as seven hundred thousand men and women’ (II. 60–1), and although this is a slightly later festival, and almost certainly a great exaggeration, it does imply that large crowds attended



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Figure 2. TT31: Festival of Thutmose III, with royal bark in procession before temple, received by priests and priestesses (songstresses of Montu). Herdsmen with dogs bringing cows and goats before deceased, Ruia, and family, with standard of estate of Thutmose IV in front (Davies and Gardiner 1948: pl. xv). Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society.

state festivals. Of course, one cannot assume that the numbers of people shown in festival scenes in tombs are an exact representation of the numbers of people involved as it is likely that they were restricted by space, time and aesthetic preference. However, the scenes create an impression of many people and, therefore, one must assume that events such as this involved an audience. Being involved in these events created a sense of connection between the people and the king and the repetition of these events ensured that the memory of the king remained potent. The public festivals of kings had a double purpose – the first was to ‘appease the gods and provide for the deceased king in the afterlife which could also be achieved through private cults within the temples’; the second was ‘both to demonstrate the power of the state to the people and to bring them together under a common aim, thus creating a unity within the community’ (Heffernan 2010: 11). The success of the second aim depended upon the willingness of the people to support the festivals, and depictions in private tombs of crowds of people witnessing these

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events suggest success in this second aim. Furthermore, these ceremonies could help to give people knowledge of royal genealogy, as seen in festivals such as the Beautiful Feast of the Valley, which involved carrying statues of the gods to the mortuary temples of royal ancestors. Another festival, a depiction of which can be seen in the Ramesseum,15 was the Min Festival, which involved carrying the statues of 14 royal ancestors (Lepsius 1849–58: 162–3). The inclusion of royal genealogy in public festivals made the knowledge of royal ancestors an active part of the lives of the people. Royal festivals may also have helped to retain the memory of key events in a king’s reign. Some ‘appearance’ festivals of the king (McDowell 1992: 101) correlated to events such as the death or succession of a pharaoh,16 thus introducing key dates into the annual calendar of the group. However, this was not always the case. In the case of Amenhotep I’s festivals at Deir el-Medina, for example, there seem to have been too many ‘appearances’ for this to be accurate.17 This suggests that there was another origin for festivals of Amenhotep I at Deir el-Medina, possibly beliefs and traditions that had grown up independently of the state. Perhaps then, one must see some festivals as being state-led and based on political events while others were founded in local traditions, and yet more may have developed from a combination of state and local ideology. This would demonstrate an amalgamation of state and local ideology in the cultural memory of the group. The appropriation of royal iconography into local festivals and traditions suggests that ordinary groups of Egyptians saw royal figures as an important part of their culture – they were an integral part of the cultural memory of the group. Furthermore, it was not always the chronological order of feasts that was important but simply the mention of ‘key festivals’ (Spalinger 1996: 71) which is a reminder that these festivals were not intended to be a by-rote calendar of events, but could act as a ‘cultural memory resource’. Oracular processions imbued the king with more than simply a place in the traditions of the people; they gave him an active role in their lives, letting him affect decisions that were made within communities. The best recorded oracle in the period was that of Amenhotep I at Deir el-Medina, with a probable depiction found in TT2: this depiction shows a statue of Amenhotep I being carried in a palanquin by priests, with a statue of Amun behind him (Fig. 1). However, other oracles, such as that of Ahmose at Abydos have also been



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recorded as being approached to solve disputes, such as is recorded on Stela Cairo J. E. 43469, which describes a land dispute during the reign of Ramesses II (Legrain 1916: 162 and plate; Harvey 1998: 121). Disputes put before the oracle of Amenhotep I at Deir el-Medina include those over property, and over stolen clothes (Černý 1927: 178–9). By giving deceased kings the status of oracles, temples encouraged a view of the king as all knowing and benevolent as well as retaining his relevance in the lives of the people by giving his image the power to make decisions. This all helped to sustain his position in the memory of the group. Halbwachs (1992: 73) argues that ancestors only survive in the memory if they remain ‘at least fictitiously in contact’ with the living, and oracles served this purpose for royal ancestors such as Amenhotep I and Ahmose.

The King and the Gods The semi-divine status of the king which is alluded to in private tomb depictions of the king with the gods was further encouraged by festivals which linked the king to the gods. These included the festival of Thutmose III outside of the temple of Monthu which is depicted in the Theban tomb TT31 (Fig. 2). This created a link, in the minds of the people who witnessed the festivals, between the king and the gods, in a way that written ideas could not. The temple of Monthu depicted in TT131 shows the cartouches of Thutmose III who built the temple, which again furthered the perceived link between the king and the god. A similar idea can be seen in the mortuary temples on the West Bank at Thebes, which were dedicated to Amun, amongst other gods, as well as to the deceased king. Festivals connected with these temples, such as the Beautiful Feast of the Valley,18 emphasized the links between the gods and kings, as divine statues were carried in procession to the mortuary temples of deceased kings (Bell 1998: 137). The effects of state attempts to link the king with the gods may be seen in the amalgamation of divine and royal cults in depictions in private tombs at Thebes, such as images of the king with Amun, as seen in TT2 where a statue of Amenhotep I is carried by priests alongside a statue of Amun (Fig. 1). Several images also show the figure of a king being protected by the Hathor cow, a good example being found in TT4 (Černý 1927:

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pl. iv (2)) in which she is shown protecting Amenhotep I. The goddess Hathor was closely linked with the king in royal ideology (Bleeker 1973: 51) and this could be seen as the reason for her inclusion in these scenes. However, the lack of similar scenes of Isis with the pharaoh,19 another goddess with a close connection to the king in ideology (Lesko 1999: 156), suggests another reason for the inclusion of Hathor. It is likely that the popular cult of Hathor that existed at Deir el-Bahri, as demonstrated by the existence of many Ramesside votives at the site at the time (Pinch 1993: 13–25), was responsible for the inclusion of scenes of Hathor protecting the king (there was no equivalent cult of Isis in the area). The connection between the king and the goddess may have been strengthened by attempts by the state to emphasize a link between Ramesses II and Hathor at Deir el-Medina during his reign (Blumenthal 2001: 48), but surely if this was the sole reason then images of the Hathor cow in private tombs would have been paired with images of Ramesses II rather than more than 50 per cent showing her protecting Amenhotep I. This suggests that the cult of a king, in this case Amenhotep I, was amalgamated with an existing cult, that of Hathor at Deir el-Bahri, to create new traditions among the people. Martin (2006: 404) notes that combining cultural memory with religion makes it more accessible to many people, and so the combination of royal festivals with state and local religions could be seen as evidence of this. Assmann’s discussion of the Late Period20 Canopic Processions of the Osiris Mysteries (Assmann 2006: 14–16)21 emphasizes this point. This festival combined ritual relating to the end of the inundation with that of the finding and embalming of the scattered limbs of Osiris ending with his resurrection. The ceremonies have a ‘political, historical and cultural meaning’ which related to ‘a past that stands midway between myth and history’ (Assmann 2006: 15). It is this combination of history and myth in Egyptian festivals, made more potent when these festivals were further combined with religious figures such as Hathor, that made them such effective lieux de mémoire; lieux de memoire. Deceased kings played a further part in the lives of the people through their mortuary institutions. Festivals, as discussed above, were an important source of knowledge and supported the role of the king in the cultural memory of the group, but the importance of the mortuary estates went beyond that. These estates required large numbers of people, both lay and priests, to run



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them. An image of the running of the mortuary cult of Thutmose IV can be seen in the tomb of Khonsu (TT3122), in which there is a depiction of animals being herded before the deceased, who holds the title ‘Overseer of the cattle of Thutmose IV’ (Fig. 2). By the time of Ramesses III, Papyrus Harris records over 80,000 people in the employ of the estate of Amun at Thebes, although over 60,000 are recorded to have been given to Medinet Habu and worked throughout Egypt (Grandet 1994: 235–6), which shows the large numbers of people that may have had connections to temple estates. Haring (1997: 240–1) states that roles for laity within temple complexes included stewards of the house and overseers of cattle, as well as scribes, stonemasons, templesmiths and carpenters. And this was in addition to the religious staff. In all, it can be said that the temples played a huge role in the lives of the people outside of the festivals, and that many people relied on the mortuary temples of deceased kings for their livelihood.23 Looking at private tombs, one can see titles relating to kings in many, for example ‘wab-priest of Amenhotep, the favourite of Amun’ (TT14), ‘First Prophet of the Royal ka of Thutmose I’ (TT51), and ‘Divine Father of the Mansion of Amenhotep III’ (TT277).24 These titles were clearly deemed to be of enough importance to record them in tombs (and even depict scenes relating to them as discussed above with relation to the scenes in TT31), and ‘above all, the king was the builder of the temple, and it was he who endowed it with personnel, land, cattle and material wealth’ (Haring 1997: 204). This helped to encourage the idea of a beneficent pharaoh, as well as simply ensuring that his name remained in the minds of the people through titles relating to his cult. By playing an active role in the economic life of the community, the king retained a functioning position in village life and in some ways remained ‘alive’, thus helping to ensure his place in the cultural memory of the group. Festivals and mortuary cults of the king, therefore, both encouraged his place in the cultural memory of the group, and manipulated that memory. They emphasized his divine features especially when his image was paired with divine images taken from local cultic activity, his benevolence and role as provider (though temple estates), and his key role in the functioning of the group (oracles).

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The King as a Historical Figure Another explanation for at least some of the images may be found in an increased interest in the past in the New Kingdom (Redford 1986: 171). This can be seen at state level in the Eighteenth Dynasty at monuments such as that of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri, which was inspired by the nearby temple of Nebepetre-Mentuhotep. Depictions in personal tombs showed a desire by the owners to emulate the past as well as to visit commemorative sites; the tomb of Rekhmire from Thebes (TT100 dating from the reigns of Thutmose III–Amenhotep II) includes scenes of hunting in the desert and of the transportation of a sarcophagus that may have been taken from the older tomb of Antefoker25 (Einaudi 2008: 59), a tomb that is known to have been visited by Egyptian people in the New Kingdom, possibly because of a depiction of Senwosret I within it (Fischer-Elfert 2003: 132). Private sculpture from the early New Kingdom, such as the statues of Amenhotep, son of Hapu (whose career dates to the reign of Amenhotep III26), at Karnak, also show an emulation of Middle Kingdom statuary (Baines 1989: 142). The emphasis, therefore, in the early part of the Eighteenth Dynasty was on emulating the art of the past and not simply in the history of specific individuals. The halting of archaism during the Amarna Period may, however, have led to a slightly different emphasis on the past in the period which followed it – the Ramesside interest in the past was more cultural and conceptual, elevating it to ‘the status of an ideal to be lived up to’ (Assmann 2003: 273), unlike in the earlier part of the New Kingdom where the interest was focused more strongly on the emulation of artistic styles. This can be seen in the popular copying of ‘instruction’ texts in the Ramesside Period, such as the Teaching of Amenemhat I for his son Senwosret. Another example of this is the restoration of ancient monuments by Ramesside kings, which included the pyramids of Sahure, Userkaf and Djoser under Khaemwase in the reign of Ramesses II (Snape 2011: 470). Many of these became objects of pilgrimage in the New Kingdom, such as the burial site of the pharaoh Djoser at Saqqara, and those at Giza. Graffiti from the sites testify to this; one example from the North Chapel at Saqqara reads ‘there came the scribe … to see the temple of Djoser’ (Navrátilová 2007: 76).This shows that the scribe deliberately came to



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the area to visit the mortuary buildings of specific past kings. Morrissey (2001: 159) emphasizes the importance of the tomb in remembrance, not just as a site for private pilgrimage, but also in state and official ideology.27 This can be seen in the orientation of Ramesses II’s West Hall at Memphis which looked towards the Old Kingdom monuments found at the Memphite necropolis, possibly to emphasize his association with the kings of the past (Snape 2011: 466–7). By emphasizing royal mortuary sites, the state was ensuring that they retained a place in the cultural landscape of the country and was making them a part of the present. Private visits to these sites suggest that this was successful, and that these sites became lieux de mémoire for groups of people in the Ramesside Period. Wildung (1969: 69–72) has suggested that visitors to ancient sites were going not out of historical interest, but to profit from the mortuary cults of the deceased, who they saw as mediums between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Yet even if this was the reason for the visits, they still helped to expound the people’s knowledge of past individuals both royal and non-royal, which could then form a basis for the cultural memory of the people. But interest in the past was not just based in the emulation of art and culture and the visiting of ancient monuments; there was a focus by the Ramesside kings on genealogy. This is emphasized by Boureau (2001: 187) as a key part in the creation of a national cultural memory. The interest in genealogy can be seen at a state level in monuments such as the temple of Seti I at Abydos which includes a king list naming 76 kings from the First Dynasty onwards (David 1973: 196–8). Depictions in the Ramesseum of the Min Festival show 14 royal ancestors (Lepsius 1849–58: 162–3) and the 400-year stela of Ramesses II claims to trace back the line of kings for 400 years (Kitchen 1996: 117). It is highly likely that the state used its links with the past to create a sense of legitimacy, especially in times when it felt threatened, or to stabilize a new dynasty, a situation that can be postulated for the early Ramesside kings who came to the throne after a period of uncertainty and without a blood link to the former rulers (Redford 1986: 191). In unifying the country at the beginning of the New Kingdom, Ahmose repeated, in many ways, the actions of Nebhepetre-Mentuhotep several centuries before. Therefore it was natural for the early Eighteenth Dynasty to create links with, and emulate, the kings of the Middle Kingdom, to create a sense of legitimacy and erase

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the memory of the Intermediate Period. Morrissey (2001: 151) emphasizes the importance of specific kings in cultural memory as representatives of a break with the past and the beginning of a new era. After the upheavals of the Amarna Period and its immediate aftermath there was a desire by the state to link itself with a period of calm and security, and it chose the early Eighteenth Dynasty, with kings such as Amenhotep I (as arguably the first king of a new, unified kingdom) becoming of great importance, especially at Thebes. King lists created genealogies reaching back to the First Dynasty (David 1973: 196) but public cultic activity tended to focus on the more recent past, that of the Eighteenth Dynasty; festivals such as the Beautiful Feast of the Valley primarily visited sites linked with New Kingdom pharaohs, a notable exception perhaps being that of Nebhepetre-Mentuhotep, the ‘ancestor’ of the early Eighteenth Dynasty kings. This focus can be seen in private tomb depictions, of which a vast majority include kings of the New Kingdom.28 There is evidence for an interest in genealogy and ancestry among the elite, but can this same interest be assumed for the lower levels of society? Evidence from Deir el-Medina definitely suggests at least an awareness of personal ancestors in the period, with ancestor busts and akh iqr n Re playing a role in the spiritual lives of the inhabitants (Friedman 1985: 83–5; Fitzenreiter 2008: 94ff), and images of the deceased offering to his or her parents in tomb depictions being found (e.g. Pillet 1930: figs 99, 103). A scene from the tomb of Neferhotep29 shows a line of ancestors (Hari 1985: pl. l), and a scene from TT51, of Userhat dating from the reign of Seti I, shows another scene in which ancestors of the deceased worship Monthu (Davies 1927: pl. xv). Both of these scenes show an interest in personal ancestors in the period. Possibly, therefore, scenes of royal ancestors could be seen as an extension of this interest in the past – royal figures played a role in the lives of the people and so were treated in a similar way to private ancestors. However, this does not explain how people gained their knowledge of past kings. Images of kings in private tombs in this period include the accurate cartouches of kings, suggesting that the people had reliable sources of knowledge of royal ancestry. One is, therefore, left with the sense that these images of kings were the result of more than simply a general interest in the past, which manifested itself in an interest in both private and royal ancestors. Again, it is arguable that knowledge of royal ancestors, which led to the



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creation of private king lists,30 was gleaned from a variety of sources in the lives of the people. One example is found at Saqqara from the tomb of Tjuneroy which contains a list of kings from the First Dynasty to Ramesses II (Martin 1991: 123). Two key points arise from this king list. The first is its very existence, which may be attributed to Tjuneroy’s position as the chief lector priest of deified rulers.31 In contrast, no such list has been found connected with the tomb of his brother, Paser, who was the Overseer of Builders of the Lord of the Two Lands (Sharpe 1837: 2). It is possible that the inclusion of the king list in the tomb of Tjuneroy was due to court demands linked with his position, but it does show that the active role of rulers in life could translate into a place for these rulers in the tomb – Tjuneroy had a close connection with the deceased rulers through his position as lector priest of deified rulers and chose to commemorate this in his tomb. It is also interesting that certain kings are not included in the list. This was probably due to limited space, but the choice of which rulers to ignore is telling. Parts of the Sixth and Eighth dynasties were excluded, a fact that Redford (1986: 23) has attributed to the lack of functioning mortuary cults relating to these kings in the area in the time of Tjuneroy. Therefore, only kings whose cult played a part in Tjuneroy’s life, and the lives of those he interacted with, were deemed worthy of a place in his tomb – those who had no place in the cultural memory of the group32 were ignored. Possibly the choice of kings depicted could also be attributed to a lack of knowledge of kings whose mortuary cults he had no involvement in. The kings who played an active role in his life were well known to him and so he was able to commemorate them in his tomb. Those who had a less active role or no cult in the area were not known to him, and so he was unable to record them in his tomb. At Thebes, 10 out of 13 kings included in private king lists in tombs in the period had functioning mortuary cults in the area. Again, this correlation may suggest that active cults both encouraged an interest in, and knowledge of, royal ancestors. The temples, and the cultic activity related to them ensured that the king remained a part of the lives of the people. Graffiti found at Thebes demonstrates, again, an awareness of past kings. Royal names included in graffiti in the area include Nebhepetre-Mentuhotep, Amenhotep III, Horemheb and the early Ramesside kings.33 Each individual example did not usually include more than two or three names, but they show both knowledge of past kings, and that they were considered important

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enough by the people to be written down. Perhaps graffiti can be seen as a more spontaneous representation of the ideas that were important to the community at the time, as they were less likely to be the result of careful planning or court instruction than tomb depictions were. Another interesting list at Saqqara is a fragment from a Nineteenth Dynasty tomb.34 The depiction on it consists of three registers; the top register shows a row of seated kings; the second includes five viziers and eight Memphite high priests of Re such as the Old Kingdom viziers Imhotep and Kaires; the bottom register shows five minor priests and eight chief embalmers, which again includes names from the past such as the lector priest Kha-kheper-Re-seneb (Simpson 2003: pl. 6). This shows an interest not only in kings of the past but in private individuals. Of course, it has been suggested that this tomb may have belonged to the son of Ramesses II, Khaemwase, but this is unconfirmed (Fischer-Elfert 2003: 130–1). Regardless, it remains an interesting insight into an interest in the old sages and it implies that Ramesside interest in past kings may have been linked to a more general interest in the past that included other, non-royal individuals. The increase in royal images in private tombs in the Ramesside Period could also be attributed to an increased interest recording popular culture. The spread of popular culture can be examined by looking at the literature of the period. While texts in the pre-Amarna Period tended to be written in the language of Middle Kingdom Egypt, many of those written in the post-Amarna Period, the Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties (c. 1295–1069 bce), were recorded in a form of Late Egyptian that was closely related to the language that would have been spoken at the time (Fischer-Elfert 2003: 119; Assmann 2003: 273). This suggests a wider, more popular appeal. The New Kingdom copying of older texts also served a purpose in the development of cultural memory. The Teaching of Amenemhat I for his son Senwosret, and the Instruction of Ptahhotep, for example, helped to encourage a knowledge of figures of the past within popular culture – people became familiar with past kings, and private individuals as well, not through an interest in the history of the country, but through reading popular texts, and through scholarly study of the ‘instructions’ and ‘tales’ that were reproduced. This gave students more access to popular written history than previously.35 It also suggests a greater desire for access to this form of culture, as without a greater demand there would have



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been little need for an increased supply. Love songs may be seen as another example of this; the only written evidence of this form of popular culture comes from the Ramesside Period (Foster 1974: xvi), which supports the idea that Ramesside Egyptians had a previously unseen desire to record their popular culture, perhaps as a way of creating their own individual identity after a period of unrest. Or perhaps, the decrease in archaism during the Amarna Period, and the subsequent ‘cultural gap’ led to an increased desire to record current popular culture which might fill the gap. Of course, this perceived increase in literary activity may be, at least in part, due to the better preservation of records from sites such as Deir el-Medina in this period, but it is to be assumed that this is not the only explanation for the high numbers of evidence for literary activity in the period. Perhaps then, the increase in images of deceased kings in private tombs in the Ramesside Period can be attributed simply to a stronger desire by the people to record popular culture. This included creating depictions of festivals and images that played a part in their lives. They witnessed statues of the kings at processions as well as within shrines and temples – many of the members of the community acted as priests for some of the time and so would have had access to parts of the temple complexes even if common people did not.36 Therefore, the depictions of these statues were no more than a representation of the popular culture of the people of Ramesside Egypt; they were autobiographical, in the way that images of living kings in the earlier part of the New Kingdom were – this may have turned them into a part of the communicative memory of the group, but does not support the suggestion that they were a part of the cultural memory. However, even if the images themselves were autobiographical, the statues of kings that played a part in the lives of the people, and the festivals connected with them, were more than that. These images of kings spanning generations had evidently become a part of the cultural memory of the group, a lieu de mémoire.

Statues of the King The majority, if not all, of the images of kings in private tombs in Thebes in the Ramesside Period were, in fact, depictions of statues of the king. This can be seen in the similarities between images of statues of the king in festivals

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Fig. 3. TT19: Deceased and priests before two rows of seated kings and queens (Foucart 1935: pl. xii).

and images of kings in other contexts within tomb depictions. If one looks at the depiction of the oracle of Amenhotep I from TT2 (Fig. 1) and compares it with the image of Amenhotep I from the king list in TT1937 (Fig. 3), one can see that Amenhotep I is wearing the same wig with band, while all but one of the other kings are wearing different headdresses – perhaps the use of this headdress for Amenhotep can be linked to a commonly seen statue of him, as depicted in TT2 (Fig. 1). Here one can see that it was through these statues, which played an active part in the lives of the communities, that the people felt a connection with pharaoh rather than through the person of the king himself. It appears that these images replaced the actual person of the king in the minds of the people, so that when they came to depict pharaoh in their tombs they were unable to produce an accurate likeness of the king, but could, instead, replicate his statue. It is possible that depictions of kings in tombs were less depictions of specific individuals than representations of the idea of the king as the head of the state. It has been suggested that the use of the same dress for certain groups of kings in tomb depictions is evidence that they were seen not as individuals but as a part of an ideological group (Redford 1986: 54). For example, in the scene in TT19 (Fig. 3), the Thutmoside kings all wear the khepresh,38 which identifies them as part of a genealogical grouping rather than as individuals (of course, the fact that Horemheb and Amenhotep III are also depicted wearing the khepresh in this scene may negate this theory). Redford (1986: 53) agrees that the use of certain headdresses shows



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an attempt to copy specific cult statues – he uses the example of a depiction of the deceased adoring two rows of royal figures in TT284 and suggests that the crowns worn in this scene were used to display the ‘plurality of crowns a cult image might wear’ (Redford 1986: 54). Perhaps a distinction should be drawn between the king as an individual person, and the king as the representative of the state. While the individual king is born, ages and dies, the king as the representative of the state and, indeed, of the gods, is an immortal concept. Images of royal figures in private tombs may be seen as showing the king as the representative of the state, an unchanging and eternal being, rather than focusing on the individual characteristics of each individual king, although this contradicts to some degree the suggestion that images in tombs represented specific cultic statues. This idea is discussed with relation to medieval kingship by Kantorowicz (1997: 364–72), and implies that the various crowns worn, for example, in the image in TT284, may be representing the different faculties of ‘kingship’ as an institution rather than crowns worn by specific kings or statues. There is some evidence of possible visits by the king to localities, but they are not common. Ostracon Cairo 25560, with which this contribution was begun, mentions a possible visit by Seti II to the West Bank at Thebes, but such visits are not commonly recorded, leaving one to suppose that they were rare. It is likely that the majority of state visits to villages were carried out by representatives of the king rather than by the king himself. This meant that many people had no access to the king as a person, and may, in fact, never have set eyes on him at all. Gasnier (2006: 277) stresses that state visits to the localities are a key factor in the forming of cultural memory and state legitimization as they help to ‘affirm the strength of the government and glorify pride in the locality’. But in the absence of such visits, perhaps this void was filled by appearances of statues of the king, which became an unchanging part of the tradition of the people. While he was alive, the king was visible to the people mainly through statues and monuments, a fact that did not change after his death, so it is not surprising that, in many ways, royal involvement in local life continued after the death of the pharaoh in much the same way as it had done during his life. The Ramesside emphasis on royal genealogy, especially within festivals, further encouraged a knowledge of royal ancestors which was then translated into private tombs. Images of deceased kings in private tombs at Thebes do

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not differ from those of the living king, suggesting little acknowledgement by the artists of the difference. One must ask whether pharaoh that was never truly ‘alive’ for the people could ever truly be ‘dead’.

Cultural Memory or State Ideology? Assmann (2006: 91) has suggested that ‘memory is a system that is imposed from outside and can only be sustained by state power’, and much of the evidence from Egypt relating to this topic could be seen as supporting this view. Festivals such as the Beautiful Feast of the Valley and the Min Festival were initiated by the state, and it is likely that many of the temples, local festivals and oracular processions were at least supported by the state. Mortuary temples of the kings were built and maintained by the state, who provided positions within the institutions for local people, and evidence from Deir el-Medina suggests that Ramesses II may have visited the site to inaugurate the Hathor temple (Exell 2006: 59), which suggests that divine temples were also supported by the state. Perhaps, therefore, cultural memory of the group with relation to the king was merely a copy of state policy, evidence of the state’s success in imposing its own ideology on the group, and gaining its legitimization through it. However, to focus only on this would grossly undermine the importance of the king in the cultural memory of the people, reducing it to merely a copy of the political aims of the elite. It was so much more than this. It held a central role in the lives of the people, and in the memory of the group. The placing of images of the king in tombs shows the importance these images had in life. It is important to remember that any collective remembrance39 is not simply a memory but must serve a function for the group (Manier and Hirst 2008: 253), and so, in order for it to become a functioning part of the cultural memory of the group, it must have been seen by the people to be important, rather than simply a copy of state ideology. It is also important to remember that the preservation of memories can only occur in a society that is stable and homogenous, and that respects its own culture (Martin 2006: 395), and the early Ramesside Period as a relatively stable period of Egyptian history, especially during the long reign of Ramesses II, provided a suitable environment for the practice and development of cultural memory.



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Whether tradition is founded in state ideology handed down to the people, or in a fascination with the past, or a desire to record popular culture, the fact remains that it has become a part of the identity of a group. Cultural memory does not have one recognized source but is an amalgamation of culture, traditions and history of a group, one that is affected both by internal and external factors. The fact remains that the Ramesside inhabitants of Egyptian communities, particularly those of Thebes, chose to depict royal figures in their tombs. These royal figures played a part in their lives through festivals and through oracles, the people were exposed to royal genealogy, royal monuments and royal stories, and they adopted them into their own cultural memory. Through this, a link between the centre and the peripheries was created and the state became relevant in the lives of its subjects.

Notes 1 Circa 1200–1194 bce. All dating is based on that given in Shaw (2000). 2 ‘Ordinary people’ refers to the section of society below that of the royal and elite but who were still able to afford tombs on the West Bank at Thebes, and who were likely to have been literate or had access to texts (for example, Baines and Eyre (1983: 90) suggest that there were around 20 literate persons at any one time at Deir el-Medina, although Janssen (1992: 82) argues that the numbers of literate and ‘semi-literate’ persons was somewhat higher). While this may not represent the full spectrum of Egyptian society, it is important to remember that evidence relevant to this study is almost completely lacking in the lower strata of society, and so this does represent the whole of society for which supportable conclusions may be drawn. 3 Circa 1295–1203 bce. 4 Titles can be found in Porter and Moss (1960: 15, 353, 420). 5 This number is an estimate as several tombs can only be dated approximately to a period such as ‘Ramesside’ or ‘Nineteenth Dynasty’. 6 This includes images in TT2 and TT4 of Amenhotep I and Ahmose-Nefertari with their daughter, Merytamun. There was a cult of Amenhotep I and AhmoseNefertari at Thebes in the New Kingdom (Hollender 2009) which may explain the high percentage of images of this pair. 7 Circa 1550–1203 bce. 8 That is, with the gods, or in the place of a god, such as in TT219 (Bruyère

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9 10

11 12 13

14

Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World 1928: fig. 57) where the deceased offers to Osiris, Amenhotep I, Hathor and Ahmose-Nefertari. Usually these images showed a line of kings in order to emphasize their genealogy, such as in TT2 (Lepsius 1849–58: 2(a)). These range from images showing statues of the king in festivals, as in TT19 (Foucart 1935: pls xi–xvi), to the recording of personal titles linked to the mortuary cult of the king. The period from the reign of Ahmose to that of Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV, c. 1550–1352 bce). That is, showing a scene from the life of the deceased that included the living pharaoh, or an image of him, such as the bestowing of gifts or a title. Wang and Brockmeier (2002: 46) suggest that ‘a culture’s practices of autobiographical remembering as well as its prevailing ideas about selfhood play a central role not only in defining the mnemonic registers of the entire sociocultural system, but also in transmitting them from one generation to the next’. This implies that autobiographical memory plays an important role in the development of cultural memory. However, this study will focus on the place of deceased kings in the cultural memory of Egypt, as it is discussed by Assmann (2006: 7) and Luiselli (2011: 11). Festivals which included statues of deceased kings in all likelihood varied from place to place. Scenes from Theban tombs help one to understand how they may have looked to those who saw them, such as the images found in TT19 which show a statue of Ahmose-Nefertari being dragged from a temple, Amenhotep I’s image being carried in front of a bark of Mut, AhmoseNefertari’s statue being towed on a lake close to two statues of Amenhotep I in palanquins, and a bark of Thutmose III before his temple alongside a scene of stick wrestling (Foucart 1935: pls iv(A), vi, xi(A), xiii). The scenes in this tomb include priests dragging or carrying the statues, mourners (Foucart 1935: pl. xvi(A)), and offerings. Festival calendars, such as that of Ramesses II at Abydos include lists of provisions needed for festivals; the festival of Osiris for example included a wide range of animals such as a bulls, an oryx, a crane, gazelles and geese (el-Sabban 2000: 55). Although this was arguably a particularly large feast it does demonstrate both the size of some festivals, and the types of activities that were involved, such as animal sacrifice and consumption. Wikgren (2005: 182–3) includes a list of festivals at Deir el-Medina and suggests approximately 41 days of feasts per year of which 12 were related to deceased royal figures and a thirteenth was the Beautiful Feast of the Valley, which also revived the memory of royal ancestors. This suggests



15 16 17 18

19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30

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that festivals of deceased royalty were not uncommon in the lives of the Egyptian people, at least at Deir el-Medina. The Ramesseum was the mortuary complex of Ramesses II at Thebes (Haeny 1998: 87, 115). See Barta (1980: 51–2) for discussion of this theory. See McDowell (1992: 101–2) for details of festivals of Amenhotep I at Deir el-Medina. From the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Beautiful Festival of the Valley involved taking a statue of Amun to mortuary temples on the West Bank, thus becoming a state commemoration of royal ancestors (Bell 1998: 137). The festival may have existed as early as the Middle Kingdom on a local level – Graefe (1986: 187) suggests that it descended from the Valley Festival of Nebhepetre-Mentuhotep. However, it grew in importance in the Eighteenth Dynasty, with the temple of Hatshepsut as a key location in the festival route (see map in Wilkinson 2000: 95). Porter and Moss (1960: 259) do, however, mention a scene in TT148 in which a statue of Ramesses III is protected by winged Isis. Assmann (2006: 15) suggests that is was celebrated from the Late Period into the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, c. 664 bce–395 ce. This ritual and the mythology behind it, which stems from the belief that Seth killed Osiris and scattered the parts of his body throughout Egypt which were then reassembled by Isis, is discussed in more detail in Assmann (2008: 42–3). This tomb has been published by Davies and Gardiner (1948: 11–30). Of course, at Deir el-Medina this is true also because many were employed in the Valley of the Kings, but this is an exceptional example. These titles are based on those given in Porter and Moss (1960). TT60 dating from the time of Senwosret I. This tomb is published by Davies (1920). Circa 1390–1352 bce. He notes that Napoleon was known to have visited the tomb of Charlemagne, as a way both of commemorating the revered king, and of linking himself to him (Morrissey 2001: 159). Studies such as Bommas (2008) have looked at the importance of the worship of deceased kings. TT50 dating from the reign of Horemheb. This tomb has been published by Hari (1985). This study uses the term ‘king list’ in its loosest sense. Redford (1986: 1) defined this term as a list that ‘set out; a) to arrange the names in correct historical

54

31

32 33 34 35

36

37

38 39

Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World sequence, b) to give for each name the length of the reign, and c) to note conscientiously any gaps in (a) or (b)’. Clearly, the examples noted here are not true ‘king lists’ in this sense (in fact Redford (1986: 2) states only one such list in the Ramesside Period, the Turin Canon, although he suggests that there were originally many more such documents that have not survived), but they are, to all intents and purposes, lists of kings (albeit in illustrated form) and for this reason will be referred to as ‘king lists’. Redford (1986: 21–2) notes that the text identifies the ceremony as the ‘[performance of the htp-di-nsw for the ki]ngs of Upper and Lower Egypt and for Osiris, through the agency of King Usermare Setepenre, son of Re, Ramesses Maiamun’. This implies that the ceremony was connected with his position within the royal cult and may have been a representation of his role within it. This ‘group’ must be seen as other priests and lay people who attended the mortuary cults of the pharaohs in the area. As discussed by Spiegelberg (1921: 156–8) Porter and Moss (1981: 571) date this tomb to the Nineteenth Dynasty, although the owner is unknown. Janssen (1992: 81) points out that literature played a vital part in New Kingdom Egypt despite low levels of ‘literacy’. He also notes that ‘semi-literacy’ (the ability to read basic texts but not reproduce them) may substantially raise the numbers of people able to access texts. There is continuing discussion on whether common people had access to certain areas of temple complexes, with Bommas’ discussion of the wesekhet hebit concluding that there was some access to such areas (Bommas 2000: 211). Griffin (2007: 81), however, argues that ‘rekhyt (common) people were present within the temple metaphysically and not physically’. This scene shows the deceased offering to two lines of kings and queens. They are recognizable (from left to right) as Ahmose-Nefertari, NebhepetreMentuhotep, Ahmose, Amenhotep I, Thutmose I, Thutmose II and Thutmose III in the upper register, and Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV, Amenhotep III, Horemheb, Ramesses I and Seti I in the lower register. Collier (1996: 110) describes this crown as a ‘tall cap, bulbous at the front with an angle at the back that rises from a ridge along the side of the crown’. This includes, but is not restricted to, cultural memory.



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Saints in the Caesareum: Remembering Temple-Conversion in Late Antique Hermopolis Jennifer Westerfeld

Introduction During the first several centuries ad, Egypt, like much of the Mediterranean world, witnessed the large-scale conversion of its population to Christianity. That conversion process took place in a landscape that was still physically dominated by pagan religious monuments – the massive temples, tombs and cemeteries of the Pharaonic and Greco-Roman periods.1 These monuments, together with their associated inscriptions and reliefs, were conceived by their creators as lieux de mémoire in the most fundamental sense, as Jan Assmann has noted, and many served in that capacity for centuries, if not millennia.2 Although archaeological excavations have begun to show the range of physical transformations these monuments underwent during Egypt’s conversion to Christianity, less attention has been paid to how that conversion process transformed the country’s mental landscapes and altered the role of the ancient temples and tombs as loci of cultural memory.3 The following discussion addresses this question by examining the use of pagan monuments as landmarks in the city of Hermopolis Magna during Late Antiquity. Toponyms preserved in the documentary papyri from Hermopolis make reference to several of the city’s temples and civic monuments, and the ongoing use of these structures as geographic points of reference long after they had ceased to serve their original function may be usefully brought to bear on our understanding of how memory interacts with urban topography and toponymy.4

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At the most basic level, toponyms give cognitive shape to the physical landscape, differentiating this street from that street, the hill here from the hill over there, and they provide the people who experience a landscape with a mutually-comprehensible means of describing their experience.5 However, toponyms also have the potential to serve as loci of cultural memory, to fix in the landscape events of the past and people or places long since vanished, and examples like Alexander the Great’s eponymous metropoleis and Hadrian’s foundation of Antinoopolis in the name of his drowned favourite, Antinous, demonstrate that the ancients were well aware of this possibility.6 Because of their commemorative function, toponyms may become contested in times of social change, being abandoned, altered, or otherwise manipulated according to shifts in the dominant social order; shifting patterns of toponymy may thus serve as an index of broader social change.7 In Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, the names of streets, districts, and other public spaces often made reference to traditional religious monuments, from the great temples of the Pharaonic and Ptolemaic periods to the later shrines of Greek, Roman and Egyptian deities.8 By Late Antiquity, the same pagan monuments in many cases still dominated village and city skylines, and some of them were still being used as points of reference. However, they had been joined – or, in some cases, physically supplanted – by a host of new monuments, including Christian churches and monasteries. This diachronic change in the physical landscape is mirrored by a gradual shift in the toponyms applied to that landscape, but this shift is neither automatic nor wholesale, and, as the example of Hermopolis Magna will demonstrate, the toponymy of the late antique city reveals both the persistence of memory at certain pagan sites and the possibility for the landscape to be, quite literally, rewritten in a Christian idiom.

Nature of the Documentation The documentary papyri from Greco-Roman and late antique Egypt form a rich repository of topographical information, revealing the sorts of personal landmarks that individuals used in their daily navigation of local landscapes and providing us with a basis from which we can begin to assess the physical and symbolic presence the ancient monuments may have had in those



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landscapes.9 Toponyms occur in the papyri in a wide range of contexts, from the dockets of personal letters to the records of municipal council meetings. However, certain documentary genres are particularly rich in toponyms and therefore especially relevant to the present inquiry: that is, texts pertaining to the conveyance of real estate, including wills, deeds of sale, rental agreements, and loans in which houses were used as surety.10 Following a precedent that dates at least as far back as the Ptolemaic period, deeds and leases in Demotic, Greek and Coptic all typically include a clause that specifies the location of the property in question with reference to neighbouring properties, streets or other landmarks. In Demotic land-transfer documents, this clause has a well-established format, with the property’s location clearly defined and its boundaries listed in a standard order: South, North, East and West.11 Later deeds in Greek and Coptic often deviate from this standard format, but they still typically include a clause specifying the location of the property being sold or rented.12 Excellent early examples of this usage, in both Demotic and Greek, are to be found among the texts discussed by P. W. Pestman in his analysis of the second-century bc archive of a group of Theban choachytes, or mortuary priests. Several of these documents pertain to a house in the city that was jointly owned by the choachytes, and the location of the building is described in some detail in 16 of the texts.13 The position of the house in the southern quarter of Thebes is typically noted first, followed by a more precise localization made by reference to the major streets in the area, including the dromoi, or processional ways, of the temples of Khons-Herakles, Mut-Hera and Opet-Demeter. For example, in P.Choach.Survey 39, the house is described as ‘the house … which lies in the southern quarter of Thebes, to the west of the processional way of Khons-in-Thebes Neferhotep’ ‘pꜣ ꜥ.wj … ntj n tꜣ i҆͗wj.t rsj.t n Nw.t r pꜣ mꜣꜥ imnṱ n ḫfṱḥ Ḫnsw-m-Wꜣs.t nfr-ḥtp’. The Greek subscription to the same document (UPZ II 168) describes the location of the house in parallel terms: ‘in the southern quarter of Thebes, to the west of the dromos of Herakles’ (‘ἐν τῶι ἀπὸ νότου μέρι Διὸς πόλ(εως) τῆς Μεγ(άλης) ἀπὸ λιβὸς τοῦ Ἡρακλείους δρόμου’). The texts that describe the location of the choachytes’ house often include references to the property’s physical boundaries in addition to its more general placement within the city; these boundaries include private houses to the north and south and, to the east, a street referred to in Demotic

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as ‘the street of pharaoh, l.p.h.’ ‘pꜣ ẖjr n Pr-ꜣꜥ ʿ.w.s.ʾ and in Greek as the ‘royal street’ (‘ῥύμη βασιλική’).14 The continuity of this usage in Greek legal texts from the Roman period is attested in numerous documents from cities such as Oxyrhynchus and Hermopolis, which follow the practice of locating property by reference to the dromoi of major temples, to the temple precincts themselves, and to other important local monuments. For example, the house that is the object of the inheritance settlement addressed in SB VIII 9824.5 (ad 31) is described as ‘near the Serapeum in the same city [of Oxyrhynchus] in the Quarter of the Hermaion’ (‘ἐπὶ τοῦ [π]ρὸς τῇ αὐτῇ π̣όλει Σαραπιήου ἐν λαύρͅα Ἑρμαίου’), and numerous Oxyrhynchite texts from the first four centuries ad bear witness to, inter alia, the Quarter of the Dromos of Serapis (e.g. P.Oxy. III 481.6–7, ad 99), the Quarter of the Dromos of Thoëris (e.g. P.Oxy. XLVII 3336.14, ad 133), and the Quarter of the Temple of Nemesis (e.g. P.Oxy. XLVIII 3386.14–15, ad 338).15 Similarly, P.Ryl. II 68.7–8 (89 bc) refers to the Dromos of Hermes at Hermopolis, and P.Brem. 23.46–47 (ad 116) attests to the Dromos of Apollo and Aphrodite, the Great Gods, in the same city. These explicitly theophoric toponyms join the likes of the Quarter of the Dromos of the Gymnasium (e.g. P.Oxy. XII 1550.27–29, second century ad), the Quarter of the Hippodrome (e.g. SB VIII 9878.14–15, ad 259), and the Quarter of the Warm Baths (e.g. P.Genova I 22.9–10, ad 345) in exemplifying the landmarks by which people navigated the cities of Roman Egypt. In the late antique documents that are the main concern of the present discussion, we see a clear continuation of earlier formulaic legal usage, if not necessarily of the specific topographical reference points named in the earlier texts. Thus, for example, in P.Lond. V 1733, a deed of sale from Syene dating to ad 594, Aurelia Tapia sells two shares of a house described (lines 24–5) as being situated ‘in the same Syene in the southern part of the fortress and in the Quarter of Saint Apa Victor, the triumphant martyr’ (‘ἐπὶ τῆς αὐτῆς Συήνης περὶ τὸ νότινον μέρος τοῦ φρουρίου καὶ περὶ λαύραν τοῦ ἁγίου ἀθλόφορου Ἄπα Βίκτορος μάρτυρος’). Later in the document, after the seller’s legal ownership of the house shares has been established, the location of the house is further specified by reference to its physical boundaries (lines 35–40). As mentioned above, the Coptic leases and deeds of sale from late antiquity typically bear a close formal relationship to their Greek counterparts, and this



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similarity extends to the description of property in the documents. P.KRU 10, a Theban document from ad 722 recording the sale of a plot of land in the village of Jeme, clearly exemplifies this relationship.16 In the text, the property being sold is initially described (lines 12–13) as ‘this one which is to the East of the topos of Saint Apa Patermoute in Kastron Jeme’ (‘ⲡⲁⲓ ⲉⲧⲙⲡⲉⲓⲉⲃⲧ ⲙⲡⲧⲟⲡ[ⲟⲥ ⲉⲧⲟ]ⲩⲁⲁⲃ ⲙⲡϩⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ ⲁⲡⲁ ⲡⲁⲧⲉⲣⲙⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲙⲡⲉⲕⲁⲥⲧⲣⲟⲛ ⲛϫⲏⲙⲉ’). A fuller description, including a more precise description of the property’s boundaries, is then provided in lines 33–9. The long-term continuity of this sort of legal description clause, which, as demonstrated by the examples cited above, extended from the Demotic contracts of the Ptolemaic period through to the latest of the Coptic legal documents, makes these texts a particularly valuable resource for tracking diachronic changes in local toponymy.

Hermopolis Magna The city of Hermopolis Magna (ancient Ḫmnw, Coptic ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛ, modern el-Ashmunein) was an administrative and religious centre of great antiquity and regional importance which saw extensive urban development under Ptolemaic and Roman rule. Hermopolis has been the subject of systematic archaeological excavations since the early twentieth century, and this work has brought to light architectural remains from many different building phases in the city’s long history.17 This architectural material is paralleled by a substantial corpus of texts dating primarily to the Roman and late antique periods. Some of these documents were found in the course of scientific excavation, but many more were brought to light in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the activities of sebbâkhîn, diggers who despoiled numerous archaeological sites in order to extract the mineral-rich earth (sebâkh) which results from the decomposition of organic material and crumbled mud brick.18 Although the documentary record for Hermopolis does not equal that of, for example, Oxyrhynchus, it is quite extensive and has the advantage of including a significant amount of material in Coptic, which allows for a more linguistically-balanced exploration of the city’s toponymy than is currently possible for most other sites.19 This confluence of late antique

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archaeological and documentary material from Hermopolis makes the city an excellent case study for evaluating the changing role(s) of temples and civic monuments within the mental and physical landscapes of late antique Egypt. Situated between the Nile and the Bahr Yusuf approximately 250 kilometres south of modern Cairo, Hermopolis is attested both as the principal cult site of the god Thoth and as the capital of the fifteenth Upper Egyptian nome as early as the Old Kingdom.20 The city retained its cultic and political significance for more than two millennia, and major renovations to the city centre were carried out several times during the course of that long period, including the wholesale reconstruction of the Thoth temple beginning in the Thirtieth Dynasty and the construction of a large, centrally-located cult complex during the early Ptolemaic period.21 The cult of Thoth, assimilated to the Greek god Hermes and worshipped in Hellenized circles as ‘Hermes Trismegistos’, continued to dominate the Hermopolite religious scene into the Roman period, and the Late-Period Thoth temple remained in use at least until the late fourth century ad, perhaps into the early fifth.22 Under Roman imperial rule, Hermopolis remained politically significant, serving as the metropolis of the Hermopolite nome until the reforms of Diocletian and his successors transformed Egypt’s traditional administrative structure.23 During the first two centuries ad, the city centre was once again the site of major building activity, including the erection of a Tychaeion and a festival hall (komasterion) in the south-east quadrant of the city and a monumental tetrastylon at the intersection of the city’s main thoroughfares.24 The result of this ongoing process of refurbishment was a cityscape which has been called one of the finest examples of the interaction of classical urban planning and architectural forms with the architecture and layout of a traditional Egyptian city. 25 Perhaps as early as the mid-third century ad, Hermopolis was the seat of a Christian bishop, and late antique alterations to the landscape include the construction of numerous churches, among them one of the largest basilicas known from any city in Egypt, built on the site of a major Ptolemaic cult complex.26 Excavations in and around the city centre have revealed the complexity of the city’s changing topography in the late antique period and the strong stamp left by Christian institutions there; the discussion which follows will explore the ways in which this nearly-constant reinvention of the urban landscape made its mark on the city’s toponymy as



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well. A brief overview of Hermopolite toponyms will be followed by a consideration of the various reinterpretations of a major feature of the city’s built environment, the Late Period enclosure wall of the Thoth temple, and the discussion will close with an examination of an intriguing group of toponyms which appear to commemorate the transformation of pagan temples into Christian places of worship.

Toponymy at Hermopolis: Districts and Streets A brief overview of the toponyms attested in the Hermopolite documents reveals a corpus significantly smaller and less varied than that known from sites like Oxyrhynchus and Arsinoë.27 Throughout the Roman and late antique periods, the city was divided into four amphoda or districts: East City (ἀμφόδον Πόλεως Ἀπηλιώτου (e.g. CPR V 8.8–9, ad 320)), West City (ἀμφόδον Πόλεως Λιβός (e.g. P. Lips. I 3.2, ad 256)), East Citadel (ἀμφόδον Φρουρίου Ἀπηλιώτου (e.g. CPR XXIV 10.12, ad 475)), and West Citadel (ἀμφόδον Φρουρίου Λιβός (e.g. BGU XII 2162.12, ad 491)).28 Unlike the district names known from Oxyrhynchus and Arsinoë, which suggest the organic development of neighbourhoods centred on temples, marketplaces and ethnic enclaves, but which typically indicate little or nothing about the physical location of those quarters within the city, the Hermopolite district names reflect the physical division of the city into two major areas, Citadel to the north and City to the south, each of which was further split into an eastern and a western sector. The very tidiness of this fourfold division suggests that it represents a bureaucratic imposition, perhaps introduced in the early Roman period (the earliest known examples of this usage date to the mid-late first century ad) and certainly in common use by the second century ad.29 As other commentators have noted, with the city divided into only four districts, the resulting urban quarters must have been quite large; this suggests that an additional system of organization existed which allowed residents (and the municipal administration) to negotiate the city’s complex topography.30 Various proposals have been made concerning possible subdivisions of the four principal amphoda; these include a Jewish Quarter (Ἰουδ(αικῆς) λαύρα (P.Amh. II 98.9, after ad 211))31 and districts named for the Blue and

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Green circus factions.32 On the other hand, the text of P.Oxy. XXXIV 2719 (third century ad), directions for the delivery of a letter, probably within the city of Hermopolis, suggests that even if such urban subdivisions did exist, individuals still relied heavily on physical landmarks for navigational purposes.33 Although the evidence for subdivisions of the Hermopolite town-quarters remains limited, the documents do preserve a number of street names, which presumably aided in the effort of urban navigation. The city’s main East–West artery, which ran along the southern edge of the Thoth temple’s temenos wall and served as the physical boundary between the Citadel and City sectors, is known from the second century ad onward as Antinoë Street (Ἀντινοιτικὴ πλατεῖα (e.g. SPP V 119 R I, Fr. 4, lines 12–13, ad 266/7)), probably in reference to the Hadrianic foundation of Antinoopolis across the river, towards which it was oriented.34 The original name of this colonnaded avenue – retained in later periods for its western sector only – may have been Serapis Street (Σαραπιακὴ πλατεῖα (P.Amh. II 98.3, second/third century ad)), perhaps so-called in reference to the temple of Serapis which lay to the west in the cemetery area of Tuna el-Gebel.35 Antinoë Street was bisected by the city’s main North–South route, the processional way of the great Thoth temple complex, which separated the eastern and western halves of the Citadel and City districts. This thoroughfare was constructed during the Ptolemaic period, and the British excavators of the city centre postulate that the street originated in the southern part of the city and ran through the centre of the Late Period Thoth temple complex to the north gate of the temenos wall.36 At least by the late Ptolemaic period, the street was referred to as the Dromos of Hermes (δρόμος τοῦ Ἑρμοῦ (e.g. P.Ryl. II 68.7–8, 89 bc)). In some documents, this toponym might be further elaborated, as in the case of P.Amh. II 98.2 (late second/early third century ad), which deals with property ‘near the stone-paved Dromos of Hermes the thrice-great god’ (‘πρὸς [τῷ λιθ]οστρώτῳ δρ[όμῳ Ἑρμ]οῦ θεοῦ τρισμ[εγιστοῦ]’), and this description corresponds well with the archaeological evidence for the dromos, which includes limestone paving slabs.37 Unfortunately, it is difficult to know the later fate of this striking theophoric toponym. The latest attestation of the dromos of Hermes Trismegistos in the Greek papyri from Hermopolis dates to ad 269 (P.Flor. I 50.97), and the term



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does not, to my knowledge, appear at all in the Coptic sources. Spencer notes that, although a path following the general line of the dromos seems to have been maintained even after the closure of the Thoth temple, ‘the fine limestone pavement soon became hidden by dirt and fill once the sacred nature of the street had lapsed … the original street was fast becoming a dirt-track, and its route began to diverge from that of the former processional way to suit the changes in topography caused by the erection of new buildings’.38 Just as the limestone of the ‘stone-paved dromos’ came to be obscured by generations of accumulated dirt and trash, the toponym itself disappears from the documentary record, and it is not clear how the late antique inhabitants of Hermopolis referred to the ‘dirt-track’ that had taken the place of their oncegrand thoroughfare, or whether they still recognized it as the successor of the ancient processional route. Other Hermopolite street-names preserved in the documents seem to reflect the same consciousness of the city’s sacred landscapes and social/ professional groups as may be observed in the district-names known from Oxyrhynchus and Arsinoë. Thus, in the attestations of the Dromos of Isis (δρόμος ῎Iσιδος (SB VIII 9870, col. II.12, second century ad)), Serapis Street (Σαραπιακὴ πλατεῖα (P.Amh. II 98.3, late second/early third century ad)), and the ‘so-called public street of Asklepios’ (‘[ῥύμη δημοσία κα]λ̣ο̣υμένη τοῦ Ἀσκληπιοῦ’ (P.Vind.Sal. 12.3, ad 334)), we can see likely references to temples of Isis, Serapis and Asklepios. The ‘street of the women’s baths’ (‘ῥύμη βαλανείου γυναικῶν’ (P.Brem. 23.4 = P.Flor. III 333.4, ad 116)) presumably led to (or passed by) that establishment, and the ‘so-called street of the basketweavers’ (‘ῥύμη καλουμένη καλαθοπλόκων’ (P.Flor. I 47.7, ad 217)) suggests a craftsmen’s enclave, as does the ‘street of the weavers of Tarsian fabrics’ (‘ῥύμη τῶν Τα̣ρ̣σ̣ι̣κα̣ρίων’ (P.Flor. I 13.9, sixth/seventh century ad)). Τhe Street of the Archangel Gabriel (ϩⲣⲩⲙⲏ ⲡⲁⲣⲭ(ⲁⲅⲅⲉⲗⲟⲥ) ⲅⲁⲃⲣⲓⲏⲗ (CPR IV 115.8, seventh century ad)) probably refers to a Christian church dedicated to that figure; similarly, P.Lond. III 1028 (seventh century ad) mentions streets (ῥύμη) ‘of the great Saint Euphemia’ (‘τῆ(ς) ἁγί(ας) μεγά(λης) Εὐφη[μίας]’, line 19) and ‘of Saint Menas’ (‘τοῦ ἁγί(ου) Μ̣ην̣ᾶ’, line 24), again likely in reference to religious establishments located on those streets.39 The fact that most of the references to Hermopolite street names in the papyri are unique attestations makes it very difficult to trace diachronic

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changes in the local toponymy and to associate those changes with alterations in the city’s urban fabric. However, given the overall similarities between Hermopolite and Oxyrhynchite toponyms, it seems likely that, in the late antique and early Islamic periods, Hermopolite toponymy followed a similar trajectory to that documented for the city of Oxyrhynchus. In the material from Oxyrhynchus dating from the fifth to the eighth centuries, there seems to be a shift away from naming streets and districts after major religious or civic monuments and an increase in newly-coined place names based upon domestic ‘monuments’ such as private homes. This pattern of naming is exemplified by, for example, the ‘Quarter of the House of John Ar – ’ (‘ἀμφόδον τῆς οἰκίας Ἰωά̣ν̣ν̣ου Ἀρ[ . ] . ο̣υ̣’ (P.Oxy. XVI 1889.15–16, ad 496)) and the ‘Quarter of the Alley-way of Aollus’s Guesthouse’ (‘ἀμφόδον ῥυμίου τοῦ ξενοδοχείου Ἀόλλου’ (P.Oxy. L 3600.12–13, ad 502)), and it may reflect a reorientation of the city’s topography and toponymy away from the structures of the classical metropolis and towards a more personal experience of the urban landscape.40 At Hermopolis, the corpus of late antique toponyms is not extensive enough to trace such a transition in much detail, but a similar pattern seems to be reflected in the place names attested in Arabic papyri from the early Islamic period. Although these do show some streets and districts named for mosques and churches, we also find streets taking their names from anonymous ‘monuments’, bath-houses and even private individuals.41

Reinscribing the Urban Landscape: The ‘Citadel’ of Hermes Although the corpus of toponyms referring to pagan cult places at Hermopolis is rather limited in comparison with the wider range of theophoric place names known from other sites, one of the toponyms encountered most frequently in the Hermopolite documentation from all periods refers directly to the centrepiece of the city’s pagan monumental landscape – the Late Period temple complex of Thoth-Hermes. The toponym in question is τὸ Φρούριον, the phrourion, or ‘Citadel’ of Hermopolis. Although the name suggests a purpose-built military installation, the Hermopolite Citadel is to be identified with the massive Late Period temenos wall of the Thoth temple, an architectural feature that dominated the northern half of the city and gave its name



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to the amphoda of East Citadel and West Citadel.42 This usage is paralleled by the application of the same term to the enclosure wall of the Ramesside temple of Medinet Habu (Jeme) during the Ptolemaic period; so, for example, the property being ceded in P.Berl.Dem. II 3104 (103 bc) is said to be located ‘[in] the interior of the wall [of Jeme]’ (‘(n) pꜣ ẖn pꜣ sbt [Ḏmꜣ]’), whereas in the Greek subscription to that document (UPZ II 182.3) the same property is described as ‘inside the citadel’ (‘ἐντ[ὸ]ς τοῦ φρουρίου’).43 At Hermopolis, the word ‘citadel’ was being used to refer to the Thoth temple’s enclosure wall by at least the late Ptolemaic period; BGU III 1002.6–7 (55 bc) concerns the sale of property described as ‘inside the Citadel of the Great Hermaion’ (‘ἐντὸς φρουρίου μεγάλου Ἑρμαίου’), and P.Lond. III 1168 RII.5 (first century ad) deals with real estate located ‘inside the Citadel in Hermopolis’ (‘ἐ[ντ]ὸς̣ τοῦ ἐν Ἑρμουπόλει φρουρ[ί]ου’). As noted above, the designation of the eastern and western halves of the Citadel as amphoda is first attested in the documentation from the middle of the first century ad, and this usage persisted through the late antique period.44 Interestingly, BGU III 1002 is the only known text from the Greco-Roman period that explicitly associates the Citadel with the god Thoth-Hermes, whose temple the wall was originally built to enclose. In that document, ‘the Citadel of the Great Hermaion’ is qualified by the additional description, ‘now the Citadel of the King’ (‘νυνὶ φρουρίου βασιλέως’). It is not clear what this apparent act of renaming reveals about the Ptolemaic interpretation of the temenos wall and the area that it enclosed. Alston’s suggestion that the epithet ‘of the king’ may signify ‘some restoration work or a dedication within the complex’ carried out by the ruler at the time (Ptolemy XII) is possible but difficult to substantiate.45 The Thoth temple seems to have been in use at least until the late fourth century ad, so the phrase ‘now the Citadel of the King’ cannot necessarily be taken as an indication that the sacred precinct was being desacralized already in the mid-first century bc.46 On the other hand, the fact that the text concerns the sale of property within the temple temenos does suggest that at least part of the area had by that point been turned over to secular use. Certainly by the middle of the first century ad, the Citadel was recognized not only as the site of the Thoth temple, but also as a residential quarter, and by the mid-second century ad, property in – and individuals from – the amphoda of East Citadel and West Citadel appear in everything

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from inheritance settlements to epikrisis-reports. These later attestations of the Citadel are shorn of references to its former titular deity, and by the time it appears in the late antique papyri, there seems to be little memory preserved of the Citadel’s connection to the temple it was originally built to enclose. As in the case of the dromos of Hermes, discussed above, as the function of the Citadel shifted over time from sacred precinct to residential quarter, the toponymy applied to the area changed as well, from ‘Citadel of the Great Hermaion’ to ‘Citadel of the King’ to simply ‘Citadel’. Ultimately, the precinct was wholly desacralized; Bailey notes that part of the enclosure wall was cut down already in the second century ad to allow for new construction on the north side of Antinoë Street, and rubbish deposits began to collect in the eastern part of temple enclosure by the end of the fourth century, with rapid infilling of the sacred precinct taking place during the fifth and sixth centuries.47

Saints in the Caesareum: Commemorative Toponymy at Hermopolis Most of the evidence discussed up to this point has spoken only indirectly to the central question of how the Christian inhabitants of late antique Hermopolis thought about the pagan monuments that still marked the topography of their city. However, a handful of Hermopolite sources suggest that, in some cases, the transformation of sacred landscapes might be commemorated in the very toponyms applied to those landscapes. The most important of these documents, P.Lond.Copt. 1100, is an account (ⲗⲟⲅⲟⲥ) which appears to record payments of, or liability for, the diagraphon tax on the part of a group of Hermopolite churches.48 The document, acquired in el-Ashmunein by the Rev. Chauncey Murch and now in the collection of the British Library, is written on paper and consists of five lines of Coptic on the recto and one line on the verso; according to the editor, Walter Crum, the verso bears an Arabic text that pre-dates the Coptic. Crum did not assign a date to the Coptic text, but Stefan Timm has suggested placing the document’s composition in the ninth century; such a late date would be in accordance with the use of paper, first attested in Egypt at the very end of the eighth



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century, and the presence of an Arabic text on the verso.49 The document is of interest to the present discussion because several of the churches named in the account are further qualified by toponyms giving their specific location; in five cases, these can be identified as pagan temples or civic monuments that had evidently been adapted for Christian use. Thus, we find the churches of Saint Theodore at the Agora (ⲡϩⲁⲅ(ⲓⲟⲥ) ⲑⲉⲟⲇ(ⲱⲣⲉ) ⲉⲧⲁⲅⲟⲣ/, line 4), Michael at the Agora (ⲙⲓⲭ(ⲁⲏⲗ) ⲉⲧⲁⲅⲟⲣ/, line 4), Saint Theodore at the Caesareum (ⲡϩⲁⲅ(ⲓⲟⲥ) ⲑⲉⲟⲇ(ⲱⲣⲉ) ⲉⲧⲕⲉⲥⲁⲣ/, line 5), Michael at the Temple (ⲙⲓⲭ(ⲁⲏⲗ) ⲉⲡⲉⲣⲡⲉ, line 7), and the Virgin at the Praetorium (ⲧⲡⲁⲣⲑ(ⲉⲛⲟⲥ) ⲉⲡⲉⲡⲣⲉⲧⲱⲣ, line 8).50 P.Lond.Copt. 1100 raises several significant questions, not least of which is the provenance of the document, which lacks a secure archaeological context. Crum noted that the churches were ‘presumably in Hermopolis or its neighbourhood’, and a number of internal criteria suggest that the churches listed in the text did indeed stand within the city limits.51 Hermopolis is not explicitly named in the document, which refers only to ‘the city’ (ⲧⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ), but the sheer quantity of religious institutions ascribed to ‘the city’ points to a fairly dense urban settlement. Similarly, references to the agora, the Caesareum and the Praetorium also suggest an urban and heavily Hellenized (or Romanized) context for the document. The identification of the churches as Hermopolite is also substantiated by external witnesses; a church of ‘Saint Theodore in the Caesareum’ (ⲫⲁⲅⲓⲟ(ⲥ) ⲑⲉⲟⲇⲱⲣⲉ ⲙⲡⲕⲁⲓⲥⲁⲣⲓⲛ, lines 1–2) is attested in the Hermopolite P.Ryl.Copt. 238, an inventory of that institution’s movable property,52 and the church of Saint Theodore at the Agora may also be referred to in P.Sorb. II 69, a seventh-century Hermopolite fiscal record.53 Several of the churches listed in P.Lond.Copt. 1100 can be correlated with Hermopolite churches described by Abu Salih in the early thirteenth century, and, as Crum noted, the reference to the church of ‘the Virgin at the Sycamore-Tree’ (‘ⲧⲡⲁⲣⲑ(ⲉⲛⲟⲥ) ⲉⲡⲉϣⲟⲩⲉ’) draws on a long-standing Hermopolite legend concerning the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt.54 If it can be assumed that the churches named in P.Lond.Copt. 1100 were indeed located in the city of Hermopolis itself, the question then arises of whether is it possible to identify these establishments in the archaeological record. Unfortunately, despite the extensive archaeological exploration of Greco-Roman remains in the city centre, it is not possible to make any

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secure identifications at the present time. A reference to the agora in the Repair Papyrus (SB X 10299) suggests that the city’s marketplace was located near a temple to Hadrian, itself on or near Antinoë Street, and the German excavators of the city centre originally believed they had uncovered the agora on the south-east corner of the intersection of Antinoë Street and the Dromos of Hermes.55 However, this site was subsequently identified as a Ptolemaic temple complex, largely demolished and rebuilt as a Christian basilica in the mid-fifth century ad.56 More recently, Bailey has proposed a location ‘in the West City Quarter, within the south-west quadrant formed by the crossing of Antinoe Street and the main north-south road, the Dromos of Hermes’, but this remains speculative.57 The existence of a Caesareum in Hermopolis is attested from at least the early second century ad on the basis of P.Brem. 38, a petition concerning liturgical obligations, including sacrifices in that establishment (line 18). Schmitz placed the Caesareum in the district of East Citadel on the basis of P.Bad. IV 89.27–28 (ad 222–35), but the precise location of the temple within that sector of the city has yet to be identified.58 Nor can the Praetorium be located with respect to the known archaeological evidence. Perhaps the most elusive of the toponyms that appears in P.Lond. Copt. 1100 is the reference to the church ‘of Michael at the Temple’. The Coptic word ‘temple’ (‘ⲣⲡⲉ’) is generic and could be used equally to designate temples to Egyptian or Greco-Roman deities, so the phrase ‘at the temple’ offers no a priori indication of the deity to which that establishment was dedicated.59 Günter Lanczkowski has argued that in Egyptian Christianity, the figure of the archangel Michael took on several attributes proper to the god Thoth; however, he stops short of identifying the church of St Michael at the Temple with the ruins of either the Ramesside or the Late Period temple of Thoth at Hermopolis, and the identity of the temple rededicated in the name of the archangel remains unknown.60 Failing any positive identification of the churches mentioned in P.Lond. Copt. 1100 with the known archaeological remains of late antique Hermopolis, we are left with only the place names themselves, and it remains to be seen why the scribe of our document was so explicit in his identification of the Hermopolite monuments that had been appropriated to the cults of Michael, Theodore and the Virgin. The practice of commemorative or ideologicallymotivated toponymy was certainly not unknown in Greco-Roman and late



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antique Egypt, as shown, for example, by the shifting nomenclature of the city variously known as Crocodilopolis/Ptolemais Euergetis/Arsinoë. However, it is somewhat unusual to find such explicit references to the Christian reuse of temples and other public buildings contained in the very toponyms applied to those monuments. The names of churches built in or around Pharaonic temples do not normally make reference to the underlying pagan landscape; so, for example, the church constructed in the second court of the Ramesside temple of Medinet Habu is referred to in the Theban documents as the ‘Holy Church of Jeme’ (‘ⲧⲉⲕⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲉⲧⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ ⲛϫⲏⲙⲉ’),61 and the Christian chapel constructed within the Isis temple at Philae is the ‘House’ (‘οἶκος’) or ‘Topos’ (‘τόπος’) of Saint Stephen.62 With this in mind, the unusual specificity of the references in P.Lond.Copt. 1100 begs a further explanation. It is possible that these toponymic references were simply intended to differentiate the churches in question from others in the city which shared the same titular saint; the list mentions three churches dedicated to St Theodore, three honouring the Archangel Michael, and five churches of the Virgin Mary, and if all of these churches were indeed located within the city limits, a means of distinguishing them from one another would have been necessary. However, the reference to ‘Saint Theodore in the Caesareum’ in P.Ryl.Copt. 138 – an internal administrative document, in which such a geographic reference would seem to be unnecessary – suggests that the phrase ‘at/in the Caesareum’ is, in fact, an integral part of the church’s name. In fact, I would argue that what we see in the case of these Hermopolite churches ‘at the Caesareum’, ‘at the temple’ and ‘at the Praetorium’ is a deliberate evocation of the underlying (pagan) monumental landscape, intended to serve as a reminder of the physical act of temple-conversion. Recent research in the history of early Christianity has rightly problematized the concept of ‘temple-conversion’, challenging the notion of a rapid and linear progression from pagan temple to Christian church.63 Indeed, in many cases where temple sites were reused by Christian communities, it appears that the phase of Christian activity did not follow hard upon the end of pagan cult practice, but came after decades or even centuries of desuetude or secular reuse.64 The pattern at Hermopolis, however, was somewhat different. Two clear examples of temple-conversion are attested in the archaeological record at Hermopolis: the great basilica, constructed in the city centre on the site of

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an early Ptolemaic temple complex,65 and the so-called ‘South Church’, built in the forecourt of a temple of Ramesses II that had been restored under Nero.66 Both churches date to the mid-fourth century ad, and, in both cases, the construction of the church appears to have closely followed the abandonment and/or demolition of the original temple site. At the South Church, the presence of early fifth-century fill at the level of the temple pavement suggests that the Ramesside temple whose forecourt the church occupied had remained in use until shortly before the church’s construction.67 In the case of the basilica, the excellent state of preservation of the Hellenistic spolia employed in the construction of the foundations indicates that not only had the Ptolemaic complex remained in good repair up to the fifth century, but also that elements of the complex were deliberately demolished to make way for the church’s construction.68 Moreover, in the construction of the basilica, the fifth-century architects seem to have deliberately reused elements of the earlier Ptolemaic complex in such a way as to provide a clear visual statement of the newfound Christian domination of that space.69 László Török has recently suggested that … the closing of the pagan sanctuaries, the donation of the building site, and the erection of the episcopal complex seem to have represented a concerted action of the imperial government, the town council, and the bishop to transform the civic and symbolic centre of the city by replacing the ancient pagan cult institution(s) of great prestige by an episcopal cathedral.70

Although the churches named in P.Lond.Copt. 1100 cannot be securely associated with this fifth-century Christian initiative,71 I would argue that they participated in the same overall effort to Christianize the Hermopolite landscape through the conversion of major public monuments, and that toponyms like ‘Saint Theodore at the Caesareum’ and ‘Michael at the Temple’ served as a deliberate commemoration of this historical act of templeconversion, functioning at the linguistic, rather than the architectural, level.



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Conclusions: Landscape and Memory in Late Antique Hermopolis Toponyms are a notoriously conservative cultural product; as such, they allow memory to become fixed at particular points in a given landscape.72 At Hermopolis, this persistence of memory is exemplified by the use of the term ‘Citadel’ to describe the sacred precinct of the Thoth temple over a period of nearly a thousand years; similarly, at Oxyrhynchus, the ‘Quarter of the Dromos of Serapis’ preserved the memory of that city’s Serapeum for several centuries after the cessation of cult practices there.73 However, the shifting toponymic landscape at Hermopolis reflects the loss of memory as well, seen most clearly in the transition from ‘the Citadel of Hermes Trismegistos’ to ‘the Citadel’ tout court. Perhaps most significantly, the documents from late antique Hermopolis also demonstrate the transformation of memory in the ability of late antique Christian leaders to rewrite both the city’s physical and mental landscapes. The construction of the great basilica and the South Church show that Christian leaders of the fifth century were actively engaging with the city’s pagan monumental landscape and reshaping it in creative ways; I would argue that toponyms like ‘Michael at the Temple’ and ‘the Virgin at the Praetorium’ are no less representative of this engagement with the urban landscape and the effort to redraw the map in a Christian idiom. As the Hermopolite Repair Papyrus attests, the Antonine transformation of the city centre was profound; it seems from both the archaeological and the documentary evidence that the fifth-century Christian alterations to the urban fabric were no less significant, affecting not only the physical fabric of the metropolis but also the mental framework through which its inhabitants perceived it. The conversion of prominent civic monuments could leave a long memory, as the example of the Alexandrian Caesareum attests.74 The pagan origins of that structure, converted in the mid-fourth century to serve as the seat of the Alexandrian bishop, were still remembered as late as the seventhcentury Chronicle of John of Nikiu, which has the philosopher Hypatia dragged off to her death at ‘the great church, named Caesarion’.75 The identity of the Hermopolite Caesareum seems to have remained in local memory even longer, if the proposed dating of P.Lond.Copt. 1100 and P.Ryl.Copt. 138 is

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accepted; significantly, however, this identity is preserved within the context of the monument’s new Christian incarnation. In his discussion of the politics of toponymy, Mark Monmonier notes that ‘labeling privileges are most powerful when a mapmaker replaces the toponyms of the vanquished with those of the victor’.76 In late antique Hermopolis, the victorious (Christian) mapmakers not only replaced the toponyms of their vanquished pagan forebears, but did so in such a way as to preserve the very memory of their victory – and their labelling privileges proved powerful indeed.

Notes 1 The terms ‘pagan’ and ‘paganism’ are used here for the sake of convenience, but they are not unproblematic, suggesting as they do the existence of a unified or monolithic belief system encompassing all religious practices outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Although Christian sources from Late Antiquity sometimes sought to convey this impression, it is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the historical situation. Further on this terminology and its limitations, see Cameron 1991: 121–2. More recently, see Dijkstra 2008: 16–18. 2 Assmann 2006: 85–6. 3 This balance may be shifting, however; cf. O’Connell 2007, which deals with the reuse of funerary architecture by Egyptian ascetics on both physical and symbolic grounds; the essays collected in Hahn, Emmel and Gotter 2008 are similarly sensitive to the distinction between physical landscapes, revealed by archaeology, and mental landscapes, accessible mainly through textual sources. 4 The precise chronological parameters of the period commonly referred to as ‘Late Antiquity’ are a matter of ongoing discussion. I follow Wilfong (2002: xx– xxi) in extending the upper limit of this period past the Arab conquest of Egypt and into what might be considered ‘early Islamic’ on political grounds. 5 See Tilley 1994 on the functions of toponyms. 6 The power of place names to preserve cultural memory is eloquently described in Basso 1996. 7 The contestation of toponyms in modern North American society is described in Monmonier 1995 and 2006; Monmonier 2006 in particular provides an excellent demonstration of how changing social mores (in this case, greater sensitivity to issues of race and gender) can result in widespread toponymic change.



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8 Cf. Worp 2004: 233 and 242. A detailed, if not always cogent, discussion of streets, districts and neighbourhoods in late antique Egyptian cities is given in Alston 2002: chapter 3; serious caveats are noted in Bagnall 2003. 9 Papyri are cited throughout according to Oates et al. 2011. 10 Generally on terminology for real estate in the papyri, see Luckhard 1914; Husson 1983. 11 For the typical format of a Ptolemaic Demotic sale document, see Manning 2003: 212–17. 12 The format of this location-clause has been discussed in the major studies of Coptic sale documents and rental agreements; see Boulard 1912: 26; Richter 2002b: 146. Both Boulard and Richter note that the location-clause also appears in the Greek counterparts to the Coptic documents they discuss, and the formal link between the Greek and Coptic sale documents is further stressed in Varenbergh 1949: 163–86. Further on Greek rental contracts, see Müller 1985. Generally on the question of continuity between Demotic and Coptic legal documents, see Richter 2002b: chapter 5, ‘Innere Kontinuität?’. 13 Pestman 1993: 385–9. 14 Pestman 1993: 390–400. 15 Generally on the naming of streets and districts in Roman Oxyrhynchus, see Rink 1924; Krüger 1990: 73–100; Whitehorne 1995: 3053; Daris 2000. 16 On the dating of this document, see Till 1964: 102. 17 For the archaeology of the Greco-Roman period, cf. in particular Roeder 1959; Wace, Megaw and Skeat 1959; Spencer 1989; Bailey 1991. 18 See Roeder 1959: IV §3–4. 19 For an introduction to the Coptic documents from Hermopolis, see Vycichl in Roeder 1959: IV §47–55. 20 A brief overview of the site’s long history is provided in Kessler 1977 and 2001; Alston 2002: 238–42 deals with the renovations of the second century ad; van Minnen 2004: 162–7 focuses on the visible Greco-Roman remains. 21 Thoth temple: Spencer 1989: 71–3; Ptolemaic complex: Wace, Megaw and Skeat 1959. 22 Spencer 1989: 76–7. 23 On the administrative reshuffling of the fourth and fifth centuries, cf. Keenan 2001: 612–15. 24 Bailey 1991; van Minnen 2004: 163–4. 25 On the intersection of classical and Egyptian architecture and forms of urban organization in Hermopolis, see Bowman 1992: 495–503; McKenzie 2007: 158–60.

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26 Hermopolis as a bishopric: Timm 1984: 198, with reference to Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. VI.46.2. 27 Arsinoë: see Daris 2001; Oxyrhynchus: see Krüger 1990; Daris 2000; Westerfeld (forthcoming). 28 Schmitz 1921: 6–10; Alston 2002: 131–2. 29 Roeder (1959: 105) notes that the bipartite division of the city between the walled Citadel area to the north and the open City area to the south dates to back the Pharaonic period. Although Schmitz (1921: 6) could not be certain whether the Citadel was in the northern or the southern part of the city, this toponym has since been identified with the area enclosed by the temenos wall of the Late Period Thoth temple complex; see Roeder 1959: 105–7; Bailey 1991: 57; Alston 2002: 131; van Minnen 2004: 163. Schmitz (1921: 9) notes on the basis of BGU III 1002.5–6 (55 bc) that the division of the Citadel into eastern and western sectors seems to date to the late Ptolemaic period; the designation of these sectors as amphoda, however, appears to be a Roman innovation, first attested in the second half of the first century ad (e.g. P.Heid. IV 338.7-8, ad 62). 30 See Schmitz 1921: 7–9. Alston (2002: 132) notes that ‘the size of the amphoda limited their usefulness as topographical indicators and street names were frequently used to increase the precision of descriptions of location, though these street names were not legally required’. 31 Schmitz 1921: 7. The use of the term λαύρα in Greek documents changed over time and might at different times designate either a street or a larger district, so it is difficult to know whether the Ἰουδαικῆς λαύρα properly represents a ‘Jewish Quarter’ or a ‘Jewish Street’ within the city of Hermopolis. If one follows the chronology for the development of the term λαύρα given in Worp 2004, a ‘Jewish Street’ is perhaps more likely; this is the interpretation of Calderini and Daris (1975: 171). Alston (2002: 132) offers P.Ryl. II 102 as evidence for the possible existence of numbered subdivisions of amphoda at Hermopolis, but this case is ultimately unconvincing. 32 Gascou 1983b: 226–8. 33 Daniel 1984: 85–6. Alston (2002: 262) suggests that this text shows ‘a contrast between the grandiose “front” of the city with its Classical order and the rather freer “back” with more alleys and passageways than avenues’. 34 The bulk of our information about Antinoë Street comes from the so-called ‘Repair Papyrus’ of ad 264 (P.Vindob.Gr. 12565 = SB X 10299), which details the cost of repairs to be made to a number of public buildings along the street; further on this document and its relevance for the reconstruction of the Roman



35

36 37 38 39

40

41 42

43

44

45 46

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city, see Schmitz 1933; Drew-Bear 1984 and 2007; van Minnen 2002. Although Ἀντινοιτικὴ πλατεῖα is typically rendered in English as ‘Antinoë Street’, the translation ‘Antinoë Avenue’ or ‘Boulevard’ might more accurately reflect the distinction between πλατεῖα and, e.g. δρόμος or ῥύμη. On the possible equivalence of Serapis Street and Antinoë Street, see Schmitz in Roeder 1959: IV §28d; Bailey 1991: 59. Lewis (1983: 38) suggests that the commemorative renaming of the street in honour of Antinous/Antinoopolis may have been carried out on the initiative of Hadrian himself. Spencer 1989: 74–5. See also Pensabene 1995: 213–14. Spencer 1989: 74. Spencer 1989: 77. Churches dedicated to the Archangel Gabriel and to Saint Menas are attested in P.Lond.Copt. 1100, a list of Hermopolite churches discussed in greater detail below. On diachronic change in the theophoric toponyms from late antique Oxyrhynchus, see Westerfeld (forthcoming). A shift in focus from public to private monuments would be consistent with the late antique trend towards the privatization of urban spaces outlined in Saradi 1998; see also Alston 2002: 316–19 on the transition from the ‘classical’ to the ‘Islamic’ city and the relevant literature on that subject. On the toponymy of Hermopolis in the Islamic period, see Grohmann 1939: 211–14. Roeder 1959: 105–7; Bailey 1991: 57; Alston 2002: 131; van Minnen 2004: 162–3. The construction of the temenos wall is described in a biographical inscription from the tomb of Petosiris, the High Priest of Thoth responsible for its construction: ‘I made an enclosure around the park, lest it be trampled by the rabble, for it is the birthplace of every god, who came into being in the beginning … I made a solid work of the wall of Khmun’s temple, to gladden the heart of my lady Nehmetaway, when she sees this work everyday.’ Trans. Lichtheim 1980: 47. Interestingly, whereas at Jeme the Greek term phrourion was supplanted in Late Antiquity by the essentially synonymous Latin loan-word kastron, the latter was never adopted in reference to the Hermopolite temenos wall. Grohmann (1939: 212) notes that the Arabic papyri from the early Islamic period also preserve the fourfold division of the city known from the Roman and late antique papyri. Alston 2002: 131. Spencer 1989: 76. Spencer suggests that the abandonment of the Thoth temple

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47 48 49 50

51 52

53

54

55

Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World and its sacred precinct proceeded more or less directly from proscription of pagan sacrifice by Theodosius I in ad 391 and the order for the destruction of pagan temples by Theodosius II and Valentinian III in ad 435 (Cod.Theod. 16.10.11 and 16.10.25). Although recent scholarship indicates that the process of temple abandonment was not always so linear (see Hahn, Emmel, and Gotter 2008), the rapid infilling of the Thoth temple and its enclosure, together with the presence of fifth-century remains deposited directly atop the pavement of the Late Period temple, does point to the rapid desacralization of the temple and its environs fairly early in the fifth century. Spencer 1989: 76; Alston 2002: 131–2. On the assessment of the diagraphon in early Islamic Egypt, see Morimoto 1981: 64–5; Hussein 1982: 59–68; Gascou 1983a: 101–3. Timm 1984: 206. On the introduction of paper and the use of Arabic in early Islamic Egypt, see Sijpesteijn 2009: 453 and 459–60 respectively. On the practice of identifying Christian cult-places solely by the names of their titular saints, see Papaconstantinou 2001: 268; she cites the example of ⲙⲓⲭ(ⲁⲏⲗ) ⲉⲡⲉⲣⲡⲉ. Crum 1905: 460. Further on the provenance of the text, see Vycichl in Roeder 1959: IV § 53; Timm 1984: 206. Timm (1984: 217, no. 43) suggests an eighth-century date for P.Ryl.Copt. 138. Although Hermopolis is not explicitly identified as the location of the church in this text, the author of the inventory identifies himself as a resident of that city (lines 64–5). Further on P.Ryl.Copt. 138, see Leclerq 1926: 1396–418. P.Sorb. II 69 refers several times (lines 36.A.5, 47.B.1.11, 68.A.2.8, 79.2.28) to a church ‘of Saint Theodore ἀγορέων’, and ‘the holy church τῶν ἀγορέων’ is attested in SB VI 9284.4 (ad 553). In reference to the latter text, Wipszycka (1972: 47) takes ἀγορέων as a writing of ἀγοραίων and translates ‘of the market-folk (des gens du marché)’. Gascou (1983b: 58) suggests that this should perhaps be taken in a geographic sense as a reference to the agora itself, but he also notes that a street of the ἀγοραῖοι is also attested for late antique Hermopolis, and he concludes that this creates ‘une difficulté pour le moment insoluble’. Abu Salih refers to Hermopolite churches dedicated to Saints George, Menas, Michael and Gabriel, as well as to the Virgin Mary. See Evetts 1895: fol. 77a, 90b and 104a. The existence of an agora in Hermopolis down to the Fatimid period is attested papyrologically in an eleventh-century Coptic document that refers to the flooding of the agora; cf. CPR II 1.11 (ad 1017/8–1019/20); Vycichl in Roeder



56 57 58

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

69 70 71

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1959: IV §53B. On the purported location of the agora, see Schmitz 1921: 18–19; and 1931: 409–12; Roeder 1959: IV §30a–d and IV §72d. See Wace, Megaw and Skeat 1959. Bailey 1991: 58. Roeder 1959: IV §29d. It should be noted that the Caesareum of Hermopolis was not the only structure of its kind to have been adapted for Christian reuse in late antique Egypt; P.Mert. I 41, an early fifth-century document from Oxyrhynchus, mentions a presbyter ‘of the holy church of the Caesareum’ (‘τῆς ἁγίας ἐκκλησίας τοῦ Καισαρ(είου)’, line 12) in that city, and P.Oxy. LXVII 4620 (fifth/sixth century ad), a list of offerings to Christian institutions in Oxyrhynchus, includes the entry ‘for the Upper Caesareum, 30 artabas’ (‘εἰς τὸ Ἄνω Καισάρειον (ἀρτάβαι) λ’, lines 16–17), probably in reference to the same establishment. Crum 1939: 298b. Lanczkowski in Roeder 1959: IV §56–63. For example, P.KRU. 3.73. Cf. Wilfong 2002: 12. I.Philae II 200 and 203; cf. Dijkstra 2008: 221. Cf. Bagnall 2008: 32–3. Cf. Ward-Perkins 2003. Wace, Megaw and Skeat 1959; Baranski 1996; Török 2006. Bailey 1991: 46–53; Grossmann and Bailey 1994. Grossmann and Bailey 1994: 68–9. Baranski 1996: 102. Török (2006: 249) notes that ‘architectural elements [from the Ptolemaic complex] were reused in the substructure of the basilica in a remarkably fine condition, suggesting that the Ptolemaic edifices in the temenos remained intact until the very moment when they were pulled down in order to make room for the Christian basilica which was to be built from their stones and in their place’. Török 2006: 249–50. Török 2006: 254. This possibility cannot be excluded, however. There is, to date, no concrete evidence identifying the dedicatee of either the great basilica or the South Church. On the basis of an inscription in the baptismal font of the South Church, Grossmann and Bailey (1994: 64) have tentatively suggested that the church may have been dedicated to a Saint John, and the basilica has been put forth as the likely location of the episcopal seat (see Török 2006: 247, no. 2), but both of these remain speculative. Cf. Monmonier 2006: 147. See Westerfeld (forthcoming).

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74 On the conversion of that monument, cf. Haas 1997: 283–4; McKenzie 2007: 242–4. 75 John of Nikiu, Chronicle, LXXXIV.101; the construction and later conversion of the Caesareum is recounted in LXVI 8–10. Trans. Charles 1916. 76 Monmonier 2006: 148.

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Daris, S., 2000. ‘I Quartieri di Ossirinco: Materiali e Note’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 132, 211–21. —2001. ‘I Quartieri di Arsinoe: materiali e note’, Papirologica Lupiensia 10, 171–96. Dijkstra, J., 2008. Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion: A Regional Study of Religious Transformation (298–642 CE). Leiden. Drew-Bear, M., 1984. ‘Les archives du conseil municipal d’Hermoupolis Magna’, in Atti del XVII Congresso internazionale di Papirologia. Naples, 807–13. —2007. ‘De la Porte du Soleil à la Porte de la Lune à Hermoupolis Magna’, in B. Palme (ed.), Akten des 23. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses : Wien, 22.–28. Juli 2001. Vienna, 199–202. Evetts, B. T. A. (ed. and trans.), 1895. The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighbouring Countries, Attributed to Abu Salih, the Armenian. Oxford. Gascou, J., 1983a. ‘De Byzance à l’Islam: Les impôts en Égypte après la conquète arabe’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 26:1, 97–109. —1983b. ‘Notes de papyrologie byzantine’, Chronique d’Égypte 58, 226–34. Grohmann, A., 1939. ‘Contribution to the Topography of Al-Ashmunein from the Arabic Papyri’, Bulletin de l’Institut d’Égypte 21, 211–14. Grossmann, P. and D. Bailey, 1994. ‘The South Church at Hermopolis Magna (Ashmunein): A Preliminary Report’, in K. Painter (ed.), Churches Built in Ancient Times: Recent Studies in Early Christian Archaeology. London, 49–71. Haas, C., 1997. Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict. Baltimore, MD. Hahn, J., S. Emmel and U. Gotter (eds), 2008. From Temple to Church: Destruction and Renewal of Local Cultic Topography in Late Antiquity. Leiden. Hussein, F., 1982. Das Steuersystem in Ägypten von der arabischen Eroberung bis zur Machtergreifung der Tuluniden 19–254/639–868 mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Papyrusurkunden. Frankfurt a. Main. Husson, G., 1983. OIKIA: Le vocabulaire de la maison privée en Égypte d’après les papyrus grecs. Paris. Keenan, J., 2001. ‘Egypt’, in A. Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins and M. Whitby (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume XIV: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, AD 425–600. Cambridge, 612–37. Kessler, D., 1977. ‘Hermupolis Magna’, Lexikon der Ägyptologie II, 1137–47. —2001. ‘Hermopolis’, in D. Redford (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Volume 2: G–O, New York, 94–7. Krüger, J., 1990. Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit: Studien zur Topographie und Literaturrezeption. Frankfurt a. Main.

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Leclerq, H., 1926. ‘Inventaires liturgiques’, Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie 7:1, cols 1396–418. Lewis, N., 1983. Life in Egypt under Roman Rule. Oxford. Lichtheim, M., 1980. Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume III: The Late Period, Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA. Luckhard, F., 1914. Das privathaus im ptolemäischen und römischen Ägypten. Giessen. Manning, J. G., 2003. Land and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Structure of Land Tenure. Cambridge. McKenzie, J., 2007. The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, c. 300 BC to AD 700, New Haven, CT/London. Monmonier, M., 1995. Drawing the Line: Tales of Maps and Cartocontroversy. New York. —2006. From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame, Chicago, IL. Morimoto, K., 1981. The Fiscal Administration of Egypt in the Early Islamic Period. Kyoto. Müller, H., 1985. Untersuchungen zur ΜΙΣΘΩΣΙΣ von Gebäuden im Recht der gräkoägyptischen Papyri. Cologne. Oates, J. F. et al. (eds), 2011. Checklist of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html (accessed July 2011). O’Connell, Elisabeth R., 2007. ‘Tombs for the Living: Monastic Reuse of Monumental Funerary Architecture in Late Antique Egypt’. Ph.D Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Papaconstantinou, A., 2001. Le culte des saints en Égypte des Byzantins aux Abbassides: L’apport des inscriptions et des papyrus grecs et coptes. Paris. Pensabene, P., 1995. ‘Il tempio di tradizione faraonica e il dromos nell’urbanistica dell’Egitto greco-romano’, in Alessandria e il mondo ellenisticoromano. Rome. Pestman, P. W., 1993. The Archive of the Theban Choachytes (Second Century B.C.): A Survey of the Demotic and Greek Papyri Contained in the Archive. Leuven. Richter, T. S., 2002a. ‘Koptische Mietverträge über Gebäude und Teile von Gebäuden’, Journal of Juristic Papyrology 32, 113–68. —2002b. Rechtssemantik und forensiche Rhetorik: Untersuchungen zu Wortschatz, Stil und Grammatik der Sprache koptischer Rechtsurkunden. Leipzig. Rink, H., 1924. Straßen- und Viertelnamen von Oxyrhynchus. Gießen. Roeder, G., 1959. Hermopolis 1929–1939. Hildesheim.



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Saradi, H., 1998. ‘Privatization and Subdivision of Urban Properties in the Early Byzantine Centuries: Social and Cultural Implications’, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 35, 17–43. Schmitz, H., 1921. Die hellenistisch-römischen Stadtanlagen in Aegypten: Topographie von Hermopolis Magna. Freiburg. —1933. ‘Die Bauurkunde P. Vindob. gr. 12565 im Lichte der Ergebnisse der Deutschen Hermopolis Expedition’, Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte 19, 406–28. Sijpesteijn, P. M., 2009. ‘Arabic Papyri and Islamic Egypt’, in R. S. Bagnall (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Papyrology. Oxford, 452–72. Spencer, A. J., 1989. Excavations at El-Ashmunein II: The Temple Area. London. Till, W., 1964. Die Koptische Rechtsurkunden aus Theben. Vienna. Tilley, C., 1994. A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments. Oxford/Providence. Timm, S., 1984. Das christlich-koptische Ägypten in arabischer Zeit. Teil 1 (A–C). Wiesbaden. Török, L., 2006. ‘The Conversion of City Centres in Fifth-Century Egypt: The Case of the Episcopal Complex at Hermopolis Magna’, Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 57, 247–57. van Minnen, P., 2002. ‘Hermopolis in the Crisis of the Roman Empire’, in W. Jongman and M. Kleijwegt (eds), After the Past: Essays in Ancient History in Honour of H. W. Plekt. Leiden, 284–304. —2004. ‘Hermopolis, Antinoopolis and Cemeteries’, in R. Bagnall and D. Rathbone (eds), Egypt from Alexander to the Early Christians, Los Angeles, CA, 162–72. Varenbergh, J., 1949. ‘Ventes de parts divises ou indivises d’immeubles et d’appartements dans les actes coptes’, Archives d’histoire du droit oriental 4, 163–86. Wace, A. J. B., A. H. S. Megaw and T. C. Skeat, 1959. Hermopolis Magna, Ashmunein the Ptolemaic sanctuary and the basilica. Alexandria. Ward-Perkins, B., 2003. ‘Reconfiguring Sacred Space: from Pagan Shrines to Christian Churches’, in G. Brands and H.-G. Severin (eds), Die Spätantike Stadt und ihre Christianisierung. Wiesbaden, 285–90. Westerfeld, J., ‘Toponymy and Social Memory in Late Antique Oxyrhynchus’. Forthcoming. Whitehorne, J., 1995. ‘The Pagan Cults of Roman Oxyrhynchus’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.18.5, cols 3050–91. Wilfong, T., 2002. Women of Jeme: Lives in a Coptic Town in Late Antique Egypt. Ann Arbor, MI.

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Wipszycka, E., 1972. Les ressources et les activités économiques des églises en égypte du lVe au Vllle siècle. Papyrologica Bruxellensia 10. Brussels. Worp, K., 2004. ‘Town Quarters in Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Early Arab Egypt’, in P. Sijpesteijn and L. Sundelin (eds), Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt. Leiden, 227–48.

4

Moneta: Sacred Memory in Mid-Republican Rome* Daniele Miano

Roman history has proved to be a fertile ground for memory studies. As several scholars have shown, memorial practices were particularly important in the social and political system of the Roman Republic. However, although it has long been observed that religious practices play a particularly important role in the construction of memories, the question of any possible divine protection of memory in Roman religion has rarely been considered at length. It seems to me that discussing whether there was a god/goddess of memory in Rome and how his/her functions were conceived through the history of the Roman Republic may help us to understand the history of memory in Rome and to historicize better the process of memory construction. Three goddesses are occasionally described in ancient sources as goddesses of memory. One is Venus, who is known by the epiclesis Mimnernia or Meminia in Servius Auctus (ad Aen. 1, 720). However, this information is late and isolated, and is probably of no help for the Republican period. A better connection with memory is attested for Minerva. The evidence is the following: first, in his epitome of Festus, Paulus Diaconus explains the name Minerva ‘in view of the fact that she reminds carefully’ (109 L.: quod bene moneat). Moreover, Festus glosses the expression promenervat, from the Carmen Saliare, as (pro)moneat (222 L.). Arnobius derives Minerva from Meminerva (3, 31), and near the Trebbia river, in the locality of Travo, several dedications to a Minerva Memor, or Medica, were found, dated from the first to the third century ad (CIL XI 1292–1309). Finally, Augustine associates Minerva with ‘the memory of boys’ (Civ. Dei 7, 3: puerorum memoria). It

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seems absolutely clear that Minerva had been associated with memory, at least in late Republican antiquarian scholarship. For the earlier period, however, it is difficult to have any certainty. The denominal verb promenervare in the Carmen Saliare is clearly of considerable antiquity. However, if Verrius Flaccus (the ultimate source of Festus) explained the name Minerva quod bene moneat, it is unsurprising that he glossed promenervat as moneat.1 A connection between Minerva and memory might be also found in the ritual of the clavus annalis, which consisted in driving a nail on the right hand side wall of the temple of Iuppiter on the Capitol, adjacent to the cella of Minerva.2 Although an apotropaic meaning is also possible, one of the purposes of the ritual might have been counting years by ‘fixing time’ with nails (Liv. 7, 3, 3–4; Fest. p. 49 L.), which seems adequate for a goddess of memory. It seems to me that Minerva might have been associated with memory in the early Republic, but the evidence is quite uncertain. The third goddess is Iuno Moneta. In this case, the association with memory seems to be stronger and better attested. In this paper, my aim is to analyze the functions of this goddess during the Republic, with particular attention to the early stage of their historical development. I suspect, indeed, that Moneta had a strong connection with memory, and that the historical context in which this connection developed is that of the second half of the fourth century bc. This period has seen an impressive increase in the monumentality of the city of Rome. It is possible that this change came with a development of the idea of memory and monumentality itself, which could in turn have been reflected by religious institutions. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part is dedicated to the goddess Moneta: I shall discuss the ancient evidence for her cult and functions, and the etymology of the name. Hopefully, this will show that the connection between Moneta and memory is solid, and will help us to understand what kind of memory is associated with the goddess. In the second part of the paper, I shall briefly discuss the concept of monumentum, and illustrate the development of monumentality in Rome during the fourth century bc.



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Moneta Let us start with Moneta. I should apologize if, for a number of reasons, I focus here on Moneta, leaving Iuno out of the picture. I have good reasons for doing so. First of all, the ancient sources themselves refer to the goddess either as Iuno Moneta or simply as Moneta, as this name could stand on its own.3 Second, Iuno is a very complex goddess, with a strong multifunctional character. Even without considering the interpretation of iunones as female versions of individual male genii,4 which may well be a late development, Iuno has a large number of epithets, and an extremely broad range of different functions.5 This means that a general discussion of the goddess Iuno would take us far away from the subject of this paper; moreover, it would probably not be of much help in explaining the functions of Moneta. Rather disingenuously, the title of this paper alludes to Moneta as a goddess of memory. This is far from being obvious, and it is a point that needs to be demonstrated. In the past decade, modern scholarship has given much attention to the cult of Moneta; this was the object of a groundbreaking article by Meadows and Williams.6 According to Meadows and Williams, Moneta is essentially a goddess with multiple functions: she was a protector of correct measures; she was connected with money because of the vicinity of her temple to the Roman Republican mint, but she was also connected with memory. She was ‘the goddess who acts as guarantor both of historical memory and of standards of measurement and coinage, and who also guards against falsifications of either’7. For Meadows and Williams, this connection led to a change of coin-types at the end of the second century bc.8 Whereas earlier coinage included a few standardized and recurring types, from this period the types on coins increased in number and variability. Moreover, they often show a connection with the family background of the monetalis, be it historical or mythical. On the other hand, Moneta had a separate function as a goddess who warned against disasters. The hypothesis of Moneta as a goddess of memory is not really new; already Mommsen and, more recently, Marbach and Radke have argued that Moneta must have been a goddess of memory.9 What is really new about this hypothesis is the stress on the connection between Moneta as a goddess of memory and the idea of monumentality and historical accuracy.

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The linguist and comparativist Jean Haudry published a book on Moneta in 2002.10 He does not cite the article by Meadows and Williams, but he rejects the possibility of identifying Moneta as a goddess of memory. The reason is that, as is proved by a fragment of Afranius, in the late second century bc there was a goddess called Memoria, who was identified with Mnemosyne.11 A similar observation on the nature of Moneta was recently made by Alex Hardie, who comments on a fragment of Livius Andronicus calling Moneta the mother of the Muses.12 He thinks that if Moneta is connected with the verb monere, the name cannot be used as a translation of Mnemosyne: monere implies an active reminding, advising or warning, which does not seem to render well the functions of recollection of Mnemosyne. A much better translation would have been Memoria. Therefore, he thinks that Livius Andronicus did not refer to Moneta as an existing goddess of memory, but that he created a literary goddess, mixing Greek and Roman characteristics.13 For Hardie, Moneta was an adviser and a deity who brought warnings. Her connection with collective memory is somehow secondary, and originated because in her temple were kept the libri lintei, records containing lists of magistrates, and because of her connection with monumental coinage. What then is the ancient evidence for the cult of Moneta? Livy writes that the temple of the goddess was vowed during the war with the Aurunci in 345 bc by the dictator L. Furius Camillus (7, 28, 4–6), and was built on the Arx the following year, on the site of the house of M. Manlius Capitolinus, which had been demolished when he was executed for adfectatio regni in c. 385 bc (Liv. 6, 20; Plut., Cam. 36; Ovid., Fast. 6, 183–6).14 There is, however, an alternative option: Valerius Maximus says that the cult of Iuno Moneta was brought from Veii, where she had an important cult, by M. Furius Camillus, after the siege of the city in 396 bc (Val. Max. 1, 8, 3). A temple dedicated to the goddess was built on the Aventine. One can argue that this is probably a mistake: as we know from other sources, the Iuno brought from Veii by Camillus was known by the title Regina. Valerius Maximus also tells a story about this episode: when the statue of the goddess was about to be carried to Rome, somebody asked her, as a joke, if she wanted to go. The statue replied ‘yes’, which was interpreted as an exceptional prodigy. The problem about this story is that Livy (5, 22, 3–7) and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (13, 3) report similar stories, but they refer to Iuno Regina. How to explain this contradiction? The



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most likely explanation is that Valerius Maximus has mistaken the name of the goddess. However, he may have had good reason for that: we know of an inscription from Rome containing a dedication to Iuno Moneta Regina.15 Now, a long-standing problem about Iuno Moneta is that this goddess, alone in the Roman calendar, has two festivals in the year, on 1 June and 10 October, but we only know of a single temple dedicated to her.16 As Adam Ziolkowski has suggested, a possible explanation of this problem is to imagine that there was a second temple of Iuno Moneta in Rome, perhaps built in the second century bc, a period in which many Roman temples were duplicated.17 The inscription mentioning Iuno Moneta Regina may offer the basis for a further hypothesis: perhaps, at some point during the Republic, a small temple of Iuno Moneta was attached to that of Iuno Regina on the Aventine. This could provide an explanation for Valerius Maximus’ confusion of the two goddesses. However that may be, it is quite certain that the first temple of Iuno Moneta was built on the Arx by L. Furius Camillus, and was probably first located in the Aracoeli gardens, as confirmed by recent archaeological and topographical investigations of the area by Pier Luigi Tucci.18 Regarding the functions of the goddess, we can discuss the ancient evidence under four headings, broadly following the exposition of Meadows and Williams. The first thing they argue is that Moneta was a goddess of correct measures. The evidence for this is the following: 1) Isidore (Etym. 16, 8, 8) explains the name Moneta by the fact that she warns against frauds in metal or in weight;19 2) Hyginus Gromaticus refers to the pes monetalis as a measure of length20 and some imperial inscriptions refer to standard measures kept on the Capitol.21 Meadows and Williams combine these two items and suggest that standard measures were kept in the temple of Moneta.22 However, as they also emphasize, much prudence is needed: we have a late literary reference to a cube with the standard capacity of an amphora, but in this case it is explicitly stated that this object is dedicated to Iuppiter.23 Moreover, these inscriptions say in Capitolio, which, if it actually refers to a temple, can only signify that of Iuppiter. It is also argued that Moneta is a goddess of warnings. The evidence concerning this function of the goddess is, one must admit, much richer. First, in Cicero’s De divinatione, Quintus explains the name Moneta by the story that she advised the Romans to sacrifice a pregnant sow as a procuratio

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after an earthquake. Marcus derides Quintus’ opinion: what else did Moneta warn us (moniti) against, after the sow?24 Second, the Suda entry on Moneta reports that, during the war against Pyrrhus, the Romans were short of money and requested the help of Hera. After the oracle, they dedicated the temple of Moneta, which is glossed as σύμβουλος, ‘advisor’, and decided to mint coinage in the temple.25 Third, two different commentators on Lucan gloss the word Moneta by noting that she warned the Romans against the Gauls when they were besieged on the Capitol (monuisse; quod monuit, Ad. Luc. 1, 380).26 Finally, The text of Isidore I have already mentioned (supra n. 19), says that Moneta warns against frauds: again, the verb being used is monere. The tradition about Moneta as a goddess who warns seems decisively strong. A point I should like to underline is that all the Latin texts above, and perhaps also the source of the Suda, used the verb monere to explain the name Moneta. Moneta may have been interpreted as a goddess who warns because of her name. For the evidence of Moneta as a goddess of money, I have already mentioned the relevant sources, the above-mentioned passage of Isidore and the Suda entry both clearly associating Moneta with money. However, the tradition referred to by the Suda is late and isolated, and Isidore can be interpreted in at least three different ways. Livy, on the other hand, refers to ‘the temple and the mint of Moneta’ as a single architectural complex (6, 20, 13: aedes atque officina Monetae), but he never says that she is a goddess of money. It would seem to me that Moneta as a goddess of money must have been a late development. Further evidence suggesting this comes from the iconography of the goddess. As was shown by Dennert, the coin-types of the goddess seem to change after Domitian: whereas the late Republican iconography of Moneta consisted of a bust with earrings and a necklace, after Domitian it was changed into a standing woman holding a cornucopia and a balance.27 This is the same type as Aequitas, another imperial ‘financial’ goddess. According to Dennert, this was the point at which Moneta was turned into a goddess of money, and this could be associated with the transfer of the mint from the Capitol, an area where Domitian made substantial urban changes, or with a monetary reform.28 Let us finally analyze the connection between Moneta and memory. First of all, Moneta is used to translate Mnemosyne in two texts: a fragment of Livius



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Andronicus’ Latin translation of the Odyssey, which is indeed our oldest literary reference to Moneta,29 and the Praefatio of Hyginus’ fabulae, which says that the Muses were born from Iuppiter and Moneta.30 Moreover, we have a passage of Cicero’s philosophical work De natura deorum (3, 47) in which Cotta, arguing against the existence of gods, mentions Moneta alongside ‘Honour/Rank/Public Office’, ‘Trust/Loyalty/Good Faith’, ‘Moral Balance/ Reason/Will’, ‘Concord’, and ‘Hope’ (Honos, Fides, Mens, Concordia, Spes), who are defined as the gods ‘we can make up by ourselves with our intellectual activity’ (quae cogitatione nobismet ipsis possumus fingere). This passage is an obvious reference to the so-called ‘personified abstractions’ that, in the light of recent scholarship, ought rather to be called divine virtues, or qualities.31 In this context, Moneta is obviously a goddess of memory: other interpretations, such as ‘warning’ and ‘advice’, would not fit well with the rest of the list, because they are actions rather than virtues or qualities. I cannot discuss this in detail. It is enough to remember, here, that Cicero and Varro deal with these kinds of divinities in their works, and they define virtues as gods granting a benefit and taking the name of the benefit itself.32 Moreover, another relevant point is that these authors only mention gods who had a public cult in Rome: in this sense an important distinction to draw is between divine virtues, which had public cults and temples, and rhetorical personifications, which could be freely created by the author of a literary text using the technique of prosopopoeia. Finally, it must be kept in mind that the critical argument against divine virtues that we find in De natura deorum was extremely influential, and was followed by Pliny the Elder and some early Christian authors.33 At this point it is necessary to face the objections of Haudry and Hardie to the interpretation of Moneta as a goddess of memory: why did Livius Andronicus use Moneta and not Memoria to translate Mnemosyne? A possible, simple answer is that there was no cult of Memoria at Rome, and Livius Andronicus wanted to choose a ‘true’ Roman goddess as an equivalent of Mnemosyne, in order to give more power to his verses. However, as I have already mentioned, there may be indeed an early text translating Mnemosyne as Memoria: a fragment of Afranius (late second century bc).34 Reading the fragment, it is absolutely clear that the author was making a broad use of prosopopoeia. Usus, Memoria and Sapientia were never gods at Rome; the author is just personifying them for a rhetorical effect. Moreover, in spite of

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Haudry’s opinion, it is questionable that Afranius was referring to Mnemosyne: in this case we would certainly have Iuppiter instead of Usus. This is not true of the other text translating Mnemosyne as Memoria, which is Arnobius’ work against the pagans. Arnobius mentions Memoria twice: 1) in Book 3, he says that the Muses are daughters of Iuppiter and Memoria (3, 37); 2) in Book 4, he presents an argument against the cult of virtues which closely resembles the one used by Cotta in Cicero’s work; divine virtues are not gods, but reflections of human behaviour (4, 1–2). Arnobius wanted to prove a point: pagan gods do not exist. For this purpose, it was important to use the names of actual pagan divinities, rather than to personify random concepts. He mentions Virtus, Salus, Honos, Victoria, Concordia, Pietas, Memoria, Pax, Aequitas and Felicitas. Other than Memoria, and perhaps Aequitas, all of them had public cults at Rome.35 There is, I think, a possible explanation. Arnobius may refer to a real cult of Memoria. This hypothesis is very attractive, and seems to be supported by a text of the fifth-century ad Christian writer Hydatius. In his Chronicon, he informs us that Heraclianus, who fled to Africa after being defeated by Honorius, was killed near Carthage, ‘in the house/temple/tomb of memory’ (Chron. 19: in aede memoriae). One may interpret this as an allusion to a cult of Memoria in fifth-century ad Africa, if one translates aedes as ‘temple’. Arnobius was also African. He came from Sicca Veneria, a city in the western part of modern Tunisia: if there was a temple of Memoria near Carthage, he was likely to know it. However, much prudence is needed. On a famous inscription, the so-called Testament of Basel (CIL XIII 5708), the expression cella memoriae is used three times. In the inscription, it clearly signifies a tomb or a part of one. Another funerary inscription mentions a cubiculum memoriae, which is, again, a tomb (CIL VI 10276). It is not impossible that, writing in aede memoriae, Hydatius was alluding to some kind of tomb, or a funerary monument. However, it has been observed that, especially in funerary inscriptions and practices, Memoria is occasionally used as a substitution of Di Manes and it might have had a religious meaning.36 This might have influenced Arnobius. Moreover, it is possible that Arnobius, was modelling his Memoria on Moneta. In fact, it is likely that the main source of Arnobius, for the section containing the criticism of pagan religion, is Book 3 of De natura deorum, in which Cicero mentions Moneta as a goddess of memory.37 It is possible that



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Arnobius’ Memoria is based on Cicero’s Moneta. As we have seen, at the time of Arnobius, Moneta had probably become a goddess of money. Therefore, to render what Cicero was saying, the best thing for Arnobius was to change Moneta into Memoria.38 To sum up, we may observe that for Moneta as a goddess of measures we have extremely weak evidence, and it is questionable that she ever was so. Moneta, at some point, had become a goddess of money, but this was probably a late development, which may have occurred under Domitian. The two directions to which the evidence points are those of Moneta as a goddess who warns and a goddess of memory. I think that this twofold function of the goddess is more easily explained through the connection between Moneta and the verb monere. To start with the verb moneō, this is a causative in -eyo- from the Indo-European root *men, ‘thought’ (cfr. mens). Therefore, etymologically, moneō means ‘to bring to mind, to warn, to remind’. The strong and consistent connection between monere and Moneta which appears in ancient sources is extremely significant from a historical point of view. It shows how this relationship, at least from the time of Cicero, and perhaps already for Livius Andronicus, was regarded as essential for a proper understanding of the goddess. Cicero, who considers the goddess both a goddess who warns and a reminder, provides a key clue. First of all, he shows how these two functions are strongly associated, and not necessarily alternative to each other. Second, he helps to clarify what kind of memory must be associated with Moneta: not a reflective act of recollection but an active reminding. Moneta seems to be associated with what we may call an hortatory memory, whose main purpose is to remind rather than to remember. It is worth considering whether or not Moneta really comes from moneō. The main reason it is important to do so is that this may provide evidence of the meaning of the divine name at the time of the origin of the cult. The relationship between the divine name and the verb has puzzled scholars of linguistics because the long ē in Monēta is quite odd: as a regular derivative from moneō, we would normally expect *Monita or *Moněta. Early reference works about Latin etymology either completely ruled out the possibility of such a derivation,39 or mentioned it as a remote possibility.40 In the 1990s, Prosdocimi and Marinetti argued that the ancient etymology might have

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been reliable, and that Monēta derives from an archaic participle in -ēto-.41 However, this question has been definitely resolved in a recent study by Ivy Livingston, who essentially agrees with the Prosdocimi and Marinetti thesis.42 The key to the riddle was a red frog, rubēta, deriving from rubeō, ‘to become red’, and acētum, ‘vinegar’, from aceō, ‘to be sour’, both explicable as archaic participial derivations in -ēto-. Although rubeō and aceō are stative verbs, and not causative verbs like moneō, these parallels strongly suggest that Monēta comes from moneō: she is ‘the one who reminds, i.e. the memory’.43 This shows how the connection with moneo lies at the origin of the divine name, and might have been in the mind of L. Furius Camillus at the time the temple of the goddess was founded in 345 bc.

Monumentum As noticed by Meadows and Williams (41–2), in the Latin language there is at least one other concept showing the same semantic connections with monere and memoria that Moneta seems to have: monumentum. There is no problem about its etymology; monumentum comes from moneō, as documentum comes from doceō.44 Literally, it is ‘something which reminds’. The ancient sources describe the meaning of this word in a quite coherent manner. For Varro, meminisse, monumentum and moneo all come from memoria: the primary meaning of monumentum is a tomb, but anything constructed to preserve memory (memoriae causa) can be called a monumentum.45 Cicero,46 Festus (in Paulus),47 the Digest,48 Servius,49 Isidore50 and Porphyrion51 confirm what Varro says: they all connect monumentum with memoria and/or monere, thus making of monumentum a sign of memory. Monumentum, in the general sense, is a key concept for understanding how the Romans represented their past, together with exemplum, uirtutes and mos maiorum. It is closely connected with historiography, and helps us to understand the connections between historiography, documents, ceremonies and other memorial practices.52 The memory represented by monumenta is also an hortatory memory, whose purpose is to present certain exempla uirtutis from the past as models to imitate and surpass in the present and the future. Meadows and Williams argue that these parallel semantic connections



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shared by Moneta and monuments were probably the reason for the proliferation of coin-types in the late second century bc53. I think that from the above discussion it is evident that their argument cannot be upheld. First, Moneta probably became a goddess of money much later. Second, the connection between Moneta and moneo is older than late second century bc and does not explain a sudden change in coin-types. As Wiseman suggested some time ago, the lex Gabinia of 139 bc, introducing secret ballots at the elections, offers a pragmatically convincing explanation of the popularity of moneyership (i.e. the public office of those in charge of minting coins) and, arguably, also of the proliferation of coin-types54. Consequently, there must be another connection between Moneta and monumenta. Here I should like to argue that both the theonym and the concept of monumentum were developed in the same historical period. A terminus ante quem for monumentum is Plautus’ Curculio, where the word already has the same meaning we are accustomed to: the joking reference is to an honorary statue made of wine, to remember the drinking ability of the old Leaena.55 Although we do not know much about the earlier history of the word monumentum, we are better informed about that of the goddess Moneta. It is known that the temple of Moneta on the Capitol was founded by L. Furius Camillus in 345 bc. The circumstances of the vow were quite exceptional: it was one of the first temples ever to be vowed by a general on the battlefield.56 It inaugurated what eventually became a standard mid-Republican practice of vowing new temples during battles. As victory monuments they increased the glory of the victor, and ensured the remembrance of his deeds. Now, it is a well known fact that the city of Rome experienced a dramatic increase in monumentality during the second half of the fourth century bc.57 To give some numbers, in the 142 years from the beginning of the Republic to the Licinio-Sextian Laws (509–367 bc), we know of 15 new temples, statues and public buildings.58 In the 77 years from the Licinio-Sextian Laws to the end of the Samnite Wars (367–290 bc), we know of 30 such public works, which means that the pace had more than doubled, with a significant increase towards the end of the period.59 The monuments are concentrated in three areas: the Forum-Comitium, the Capitol-Arx and the Quirinal.60 This probably suggests an attempt by groups and individuals to occupy significant

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public spaces with memorials, at the same time charging them with additional symbolic value, proposing and discussing new cultural and political concepts. It is certainly significant that in 367–290 we know of six temples dedicated to Virtues, and two to related cults, out of a total of 11: it is the highest percentage in Republican history.61 It is likely that, when the cult of Moneta was introduced at Rome, a new conception of memory and monumentality was elaborated by contemporary Romans. It is hard not to associate this idea of monumental memory with the aristocratic competition which increased after the Licinio-Sextian Laws and, even more, after the Genucian Laws, with a larger number of people competing every year for a single patrician place and a single plebeian place in the consulship.62 I think this sudden development of monumentality makes it plausible that the concept of monumentum might have been developed in the second half of fourth century bc. In a political regime of increased aristocratic competition, it is evident that hortatory memory was a very useful tool. L. Furius Camillus, the founder of the temple of Moneta, was also consul in 338 bc, with C. Maenius. After a series of battles, the two consuls put an end to the Latin war. Livy and Eutropius inform us that they were awarded a triumph and a special honour: two honorary equestrian statues of them were set up in the Forum.63 Livy states that, at that time, this was extremely rare. One could even say, with a great degree of probability, that these were indeed the first honorary statues ever erected in Rome.64 From the above discussion it follows that L. Furius Camillus was greatly interested in memory. He inaugurated the mid-Republican practice of dedicating temples as victory monuments, and subsequently, with his colleague, he had probably the first honorary statue to a living statesman erected in Rome. It comes as no surprise, then, that his temple was dedicated to Moneta, a goddess whose primary functions were memory and warning. However, this does not allow us to recognize in Moneta a goddess of memory tout court. Moneta was essentially believed to be the goddess quae monet (who warns), and as such she possessed a variety of functions: hortatory memory was one of them. The parallel semantic connections that she has with monumentum, if considered in the light of the development of monumentality in the fourth century bc, can lead to a possible conclusion.



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Moneta is probably not the goddess of monuments, but her primary functions might have been historically developed at the same time as the idea of monumentum, and as a cognate concept. This could have happened during the second half of the fourth century bc, when a complex system of honorary statues, victory monuments, and public and private celebrations, started to shape the Roman monumental landscape. If this is right, I think that the hortatory character of Moneta and monumenta suggests that, in the MiddleRepublic, active reminding started to have a recognized cultural, political and social importance.

Notes * I am grateful to Prof. Tim Cornell, Prof. Enrico Montanari and Prof. John Thornton for reading this paper and giving many comments and corrections, and to Prof. David Langslow, who provided helpful advice with linguistics. I should also like to thank the Thomas Wiedemann Memorial Fund for funding my travel to Birmingham. This paper is largely based on my monograph (Miano 2011), which can be consulted for a broader discussion. Regretfully, I was unable to consult in time Viglietti 2011. 1 Minerva and moneo come from the root *men- (de Vaan 2008: 380–1). However, this is not enough to be certain that promenervare originally meant monere. Ancient etymologies are extremely important from a historical point of view, in order to understand how a certain goddess was interpreted in a certain text and period. However, they cannot be used to project these interpretations in the past. For other ancient etymologies of Minerva, see Maltby 1991: 385. 2 Montanari 1990: 85–93; Oakley 1997–2005, II: 73–6; Pina Polo 2011: 35–40, with sources and bibliography. 3 Livy uses both forms: Moneta in 6, 20, 13: adiectae mortuo notae sunt: publica una, quod, cum domus eius fuisset, ubi nunc aedes atque officina Monetae est, latum ad populum est, ne quis patricius in arce aut Capitolio habitaret; ‘After his death two stigmas were affixed to his memory. One by the State. His house stood where now the temple and mint of Juno Moneta stand, a measure was consequently brought before the people that no patrician should occupy a dwelling within the Citadel or on the Capitoline’ (Livy translations, here and in subsequent notes, by C. Roberts). He uses Iuno Moneta in 7, 28, 4: dictator tamen, quia et ultro bellum intulerant et sine detractatione se certamini offerebant,

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deorum quoque opes adhibendas ratus inter ipsam dimicationem aedem Iunoni Monetae vovit; cuius damnatus voti cum victor Romam revertisset, dictatura se abdicavit; ‘But as they had begun the war without any provocation and had shown no reluctance to accept battle, the Dictator thought it his duty to secure the help of the gods, and during the actual fighting he vowed a temple to Juno Moneta. On his victorious return to Rome, he resigned his Dictatorship to discharge his vow.’ But, immediately after that, Moneta again, 7, 28, 6: Anno post, quam vota erat, aedes Monetae dedicatur C. Marcio Rutilo tertium, T. Manlio Torquato iterum consulibus; ‘The temple of Moneta was dedicated in the following year, when C. Marcius Rutilus was consul for the third time and T. Manlius Torquatus for the second.’ 4 Plin., N.H. 2, 16: quam ob rem maior caelitum populus etiam quam hominum intellegi potest, cum singuli quoque ex semet ipsis totidem deos faciant Iunones Genios que adoptando sibi, gentes vero quaedam animalia et aliqua etiam obscena pro dis habeant ac multa dictu magis pudenda, per fetidos cibos, alia et similia, iurantes; Tibull. 3, 12, 1, speaking about a Iuno Natalis. 5 Sospita, Mater, Regina, Lucina, Curritis, Gabina, Martialis, Caelestis, Pronuba. For an overview of the cults of Iuno, see La Rocca 1990; Graf 1999. 6 Meadows and Williams 2001. 7 Meadows and Williams 2001: 48. 8 Meadows and Williams 2001: 49. This is the most controversial aspect of their article, and was criticized by Wiseman 2009: 66. 9 Mommsen 1901: 281, for the association with the libri lintei. Marbach 1933: 119; Radke 1965: 221–3. 10 Haudry 2002. 11 Haudry 2002: 3–4, cfr. Afran. 34–5 Ernout: Usus me genuit, mater peperit Memoria: / Sophiam vocant me Grai, vos Sapientiam. However, Haudry’s general conclusions are unconvincing: he thinks that Moneta comes from the Indo-European *monī, ‘neck’, and she would be a prehistoric Indo-European goddess of necklaces. In spite of the general argument, in Haudry‘s book there are useful discussions of etymology (3–16) and of the temples of the goddess (91-6). 12 Hardie 2007: esp. 556–60. 13 Hardie 2007: 558–9. 14 It has been argued that the cult of Moneta on the Arx might be older than the temple of L. Furius Camillus, but Adam Ziolkowski (1993) has convincingly demonstrated the contrary. Contra Roller (2010: 152–3), who argues that the temple might have been founded by M. Furius Camillus. This is because



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Plutarch (Cam. 36, 7) and Ovid (Fast. 6, 183–6) speak about the temple of Moneta in connection with the demolished house of M. Manlius Capitolinus. However, I am not convinced by this argument. The only sources clearly providing dates for the foundation of the temple are Livy and Valerius Maximus, but the account of the latter is confused and Livy must be preferred. 15 ILS 3108 = CIL VI 362: Iunoni monetae regin. | sacrum | [L.] Antonius L. 1. Euthetus et Antonia Dionysia | vot. sol. 16 1 June: Ovid., Fast. 6, 183–6; Macr., Sat. 1, 12, 30; Fasti Antiates Maiores (Degrassi 1963: 12); Fasti Venusini (Degrassi 1963: 58). 10 October: Fasti Antiates Maiores (Degrassi 1963: 20); Fasti Sabini (Degrassi 1963: 53). 17 Ziolkowski 1992: 73–6; Ziolkowski 1993: 212–13. Duplicated temples (all dates bc): Iuppiter Stator (296, 187), Iuno Regina (396, 187), Venus Erycina (217, 184), Veiovis (200, 196), Hercules Victor (147, 146), Honos et Virtus (222, 101) 18 Tucci 2005. For Tucci, the temple was later relocated by Catulus on the monumental Tabularium. 19 Moneta appellata est quia monet ne qua fraus in metallo vel in pondere fiat. 20 Campbell 2000: 90: Praeterea pes eorum, qui Ptolemeicus appellatur, habet monetalem pedem et semunciam; ‘Moreover, their measurement of one foot, which is called the Ptolemaic foot, is equivalent to one monetal foot plus 1/24’ (trans. Campbell). 21 Two on copper vases (I century ad, III century ad): ILS 8627: mensurae ad exemplum | earum quae in Capitolio sunt; ILS 8628: mensurae exactae in Capitolio. Copper steelyard: ILS 8632 = CIL XI 6727, 1: i. Capitolio esaminata. 22 Meadows and Williams 2001: 29. 23 Ps. Priscian, Carmen de ponderibus, 62–3: amphora fit cubus hic, quam ne violare liceret,/ sacravere lovi Tarpeio in monte Quirites. 24 Cic., diu. 1, 101 (Quintus character): atque etiam scriptum a multis est, cum terrae motus factus esset, ut sue plena procuratio fieret, vocem ab aede Iunonis ex arce exstitisse; quocirca Iunonem illam appellatam Monetam; ‘The other illustration has been reported by many writers. At the time of the earthquake a voice came from Juno’s temple on the citadel commanding that an expiatory sacrifice be made of a pregnant sow. From this fact the goddess was called Iuno Moneta.’ Id. 2, 69 (Marcus character): quod idem dici de Moneta potest; a qua praeterquam de sue plena quid umquam moniti sumus?; ‘Your Moneta may likewise be dismissed with a question: What did she ever admonish us about except the pregnant sow?’(trans. W. A. Falconer). 25 Suda μ 1220,1–6 (Adler): Μονήτα ἡ ῞Ηρα παρὰ Ρωμαίοις ἐξ αἰτίας τοιᾶσδε.

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Ρωμαῖοι δεηθέντες χρημάτων ἐν τῷ πρὸς Πύρρον καὶ Ταραντίνους πολέμῳ ηὔξαντο τῇ ῞Ηρᾳ· τὴν δὲ χρῆσαι αὐτοῖς͵ εἰ τῶν ὅπλων ἀνθέξονται μετὰ δικαιοσύνης͵ χρήματα αὐτοῖς μὴ ἐπιλείψειν. τύχοντες οὖν οἱ Ρωμαῖοι τῆς αἰτήσεως ἐτίμησαν ῞Ηραν Μονήταν͵ τουτέστι σύμβουλον͵ τὸ νόμισμα ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ αὐτῆς ὁρίσαντες χαράττεσθαι; ‘Hera amongst the Romans [sc. acquired this name] for the following reason. The Romans, in need of money during the war against Pyrrhus and the men of Taras, prayed to Hera; and [the story goes that] she replied to them that if they hold out against the arms [of the enemy] with justice they would not go short of money. Successful, then, in their request, the Romans honoured Hera Moneta, that is advisor, having determined to stamp the coinage in her temple’ (trans. D. Whitehead, www.stoa.org) access date 10/4/2011. 26 Schol. ad Lucan 1, 380: Moneta Iuno dicta est. cum enim Senones a Capitolio removisset, Moneta dicta est, quod monuisset ut Capitolium tuerentur; ad Lucan 1, 380: Moneta autem est dicta Iuno eo quod monuit nocte per anserem Romanos de adventu Gallorum, ne Capitolium introirent. For the retrojection of the presence of Moneta on the Capitol to the times of the Gallic sack, see Ziolkowski 1993. Wiseman (2004: 129–30; 2009: 64–5) thinks that the whole story might have been created at the time of the foundation of the temple of Moneta because when L. Furius Camillus was dictator, his magister equitum was Cn. Manlius Capitolinus. I should like to thank Prof. Wiseman for pointing this out to me during the discussion of my paper. 27 Dennert 1997: 852–4. For the republican type, see RRC 396/1; 464/2. The earliest imperial type is RIC 2, 1, 303. The earliest type of Aequitas is RIC 2, 1, 399. See Dennert for the complete list. 28 Dennert 1997: 853. 29 Liv. And., Odyssey fr. 23 Morel = fr. 21 Blänsdorf: Nam diuina Monetas filia docuit. ‘There taught the divine daughter of Moneta.’ 30 Hyg. Fab. Praef. 27: Ex Ioue et Moneta, Musae. 31 Axtell 1907; Fears 1981; Clark 2007. 32 Cic., de leg. 2, 19; 2, 28; Nat. deo. 2, 23, 60–2; 3, 24, 61; Varr., Ant. re. div. fr. 189 Cardauns. 33 Plin., NH 2, 14–22; Lact. Ep. 21; Arnob. 4, 1–2. 34 Afran. 34–5 Ernout: Usus me genuit, mater peperit Memoria: / Sophiam vocant me Grai, vos Sapientiam. 35 Axtell 1907: 32–3. 36 Axtell 1907: 54: ‘Numerous inscriptions have Memoriae sacrum ([CIL] VI. 23057, 17398), Bonae Memoriae ([CIL] III. 7436; XI. 81), in place of Dis Manibus (and some with it, e. g., [CIL] XL 1097), followed by the genitive and



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often by the dative. It may be conjectured that, like the Di Manes, the memory of the departed may have been thought of as a spirit guarding his existence in the minds and hearts of his friends.’ 37 Champeaux 1994: 327–52. 38 The only other evidence for a cult of Memoria is a passage of Servius, Ad Aen. 3, 607: physici dicunt esse consecratas numinibus singulas corporis partes, ut aurem memoriae; ‘Scholars of nature say that specific parts of the body are sacred to divinities, so ears are sacred to memory.’ This theory might be connected with magical or thaumaturgic practices, and it would be extremely difficult to date. 39 Ernout and Meillet 1951: 732. 40 Walde and Hofmann 1954: 107–8. 41 Prosdocimi and Marinetti 1993: 173–6. 42 Livingston 2004: 23–30. 43 Livingston 2004: 29. Accepted in de Vaan 2008: 387. 44 Ernout and Meillet 1951: 732; Walde and Hofmann 1954: 107; de Vaan 2008: 387. 45 Varr., l.l. 6, 6, 49: Meminisse a memoria, quom in id quod remansit in mente rursus movetur; quae a manendo ut manimoria potest esse dicta. Itaque Salii quod cantant: Mamuri Veturi, significant memoriam veterem. Ab eodem monere, quod is qui monet, proinde sit ac memoria; sic monimenta quae in sepulcris, et ideo secundum viam, quo praetereuntis admoneant et se fuisse et illos esse mortalis. Ab eo cetera quae scripta ac facta memoriae causa monimenta dicta; ‘Meminisse comes from memoria as, in that act, what lies in the mind is brought back; that (memoria) may come from manere, as manimoria. Therefore, when the Salii sing “Oh, Mamurius Veturius”, they mean “Old Memory”. From the same word comes monere, because what reminds (monet) is exactly like the memory. So the monuments, consisting in tombs and therefore located along the road, remind the passer-by what has been in the past, and that they are mortals. For that reason, other items written or done to preserve memory are called monimenta.’ 46 Ad Caes. fr. 7 Shackleton Bailey: sed ego quae monumenti ratio sit nomine ipso admoneor; ad memoriam magis spectare debet posteritatis quam ad praesentis temporis gratiam; ‘But what a monument is about, I am admonished by the word itself. It should pay regard to the memory of posterity rather than the approval of present day.’ 47 Fest. 123 L.: Monimentum est, quod et mortui causa aedificatum est et quicquid ob memoriam alicuius factum est, ut fana, porticus, scripta et carmina. 48 11, 7, 42 monumentum generaliter res est memoriae causa in posterum prodita: in qua si corpus vel reliquiae inferantur, fiet sepulchrum, si vero nihil eorum inferatur, erit monumentum memoriae causa factum.

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49 Ad Aen. 3, 486: monumenta memoria. monumenta autem a mentis admonitione sunt dicta; cfr. 12, 945. 50 Or. 15, 11, 1: Monumentum ideo nuncupatur eo quod mentem moneat ad defuncti memoriam; cfr 1, 41, 2; Id., Diff. 1, 522. 51 Ad Carm. 1, 2, 15: monumentum non sepulcrum tantum dicitur, sed omnia quidquid memoria testantur; ‘It is called monumentum not just a tomb, but everything which testifies memory.’ 52 Wiseman 1986; Hölkeskamp 1996; Jaeger 1997: 15–29; Hölkeskamp 2001; Hölscher 2001; Walter 2004: 131–7; Roller 2004; Hölkeskamp 2006; Roller 2009. 53 Meadows and Williams 2001: 49. 54 Wiseman 1971: 4. 55 Plaut., Cur. 139–40: Tibi ne ego, si fidem seruas me cum, uineam pro aurea statua statuam, / Quae tuo gutturi sit monumentum; ‘Assuredly, if you keep faith with me, in place of a golden statue, I’ll erect for you one of wine, which shall be a memorial of your gullet’ (trans. H. T. Riley). 56 Oakley 1997–2005: II, 267–8. The other known temples are that of Iuppiter Stator, vowed by Romulus, possibly the clearest instance of projection of a republican temple (vowed by M. Atilius Regulus in 294 bc) into the regal period (Ziolkowski 1992: 87–91) and that of Castores probably vowed by L. Postumius Albus during the war against the Latins and dedicated by his son in 484 bc, which is a very isolated case in the fifth century bc (Liv. 2, 42, 5). 57 Cornell 2000. 58 Richardson 1992: 445–6. 59 Richardson 1992: 446–7; Miano 2011: 23–44, 201–4. 60 Hölkeskamp 2001; Hölkeskamp 2006; Miano 2011: 23–44. Hölkeskamp suggests an influence of the triumphal route in the distribution of monuments, although the development of the Quirinal as a sacred area (temples of Salus, Pudicitia Plebeia, Iuppiter Victor and Quirinus, built 302–293 bc) suggests that other factors were also at play. 61 Virtues: two temples of Concordia (367, 304), Salus (302), Victoria (294), Fors Fortuna (293) and Pudicitia Plebeia (296). Related cults: Moneta and Iuppiter Victor (295). Remaining temples: Iuppiter Stator, Quirinus (293) and Venus Obsequens (295). All dates are bc. For discussions of individual temples, see the entries in the Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae and Ziolkowski 1992. Ziolkowski believes that the temple of Concordia of 367 bc is legendary, but I think this is mostly based on argumenta ex silentio, and ought to be reconsidered, Miano 2011: 181–7. 62 Hölkeskamp 1993. I am taking for granted the convincing reconstruction of



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the relationship between Genucian and Licinio-Sextian Laws in Cornell 1995: 337–40. For the expression monumental memory, see Morstein and Marx 2004: 92–107. 63 Liv. 8, 13, 9: additus triumpho honos ut statuae equestres eis, rara illa aetate res, in foro ponerentur; ‘An additional honour was paid to the two consuls in the erection of their equestrian statues in the Forum, a rare incident in that age.’ Eutr. 2, 7, 3: statuae consulibus ob meritum victoriae in rostris positae sunt; ‘Statues of the consuls were erected on the rostra, because of the merits of their victory.’ 64 Hölscher 1978: 34–5 (Italian translation); Sehlmeyer 1999: 48–52; Papini 2004: 186–7.

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Papini, M., 2004. Antichi volti della repubblica. Rome. Pina Polo, F., 2011. The Consul at Rome: The Civil Functions of the Consuls in the Roman Republic. Cambridge. Prosdocimi, A. L. and A. Marinetti, 1993. ‘Appunti sul verbo latino (e) italico II’, Studi Etruschi 59, 168–201. Radke, G., 1965. Die Götter Altitaliens. Munster. Richardson, L., 1992. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore, MD. Roller, M. B., 2004. ‘Exemplarity in Roman Culture: The Cases of Horatius Cocles and Cloelia’, Classical Philology 99, 1–56. —2009. ‘The Exemplary Past in Roman Historiography and Culture’, in A. Feldherr (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge, 214–30. —2010. ‘Demolished Houses, Monumentality, and Memory in Roman Culture’, Classical Antiquity 29/1, 117–80. Sehlmeyer, M., 1999. Stadtrömische Ehrenstatuen der republikanischen Zeit. Stuttgart. Tucci, P. L., 2005. ‘Where high Moneta leads her steps sublime. The “Tabularium” and the Temple of Juno Moneta’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 18, 6–33. Viglietti, C., 2011. ‘Moneta, la moneta e la memoria’, Scienze dell’antichità 16, 201–18. Walde, A. and J. B. Hofmann, 1954. Lateinisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, II. Heidelberg. Walter, U., 2004. Memoria und res publica. Zur Geschichtskultur im republikanischen Rom. Frankfurt a. Main. Wiseman, T. P., 1971. New men in the Roman senate, 139 B.C.–A.D. 14. Oxford. —1986. ‘Monuments and the Roman annalists’, in I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart and A. J. Woodman (eds), Past Perspectives. Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing, Cambridge, 87–100. —2004. The Myths of Rome. Exeter. —2009. Remembering the Roman People. Oxford. Ziolkowski, A., 1992. The Temples of Mid-Republican Rome and Their Historical and Topographical Context. Rome. —1993. ‘Between Geese and the Auguraculum: The Origin of the Cult of Juno on the Arx’, Classical Philology 88, 3, 206–19.

5

Keeping the Memory Alive: The Physical Continuity of the Ficus Ruminalis Ailsa Hunt

Pliny the Elder had a personal weakness for impressively old trees.1 Indulging himself at the end of four books devoted to arboreal varieties, produce and cultivation, he gives us a breathless account of some of the Roman Empire’s most ancient trees (Natural History 16.234–40). Somewhat surprisingly, the natural historian only once evokes the age of one such tree by emphasizing its extraordinary size (a myrtle of conspicuae magnitudinis is put on show at 16.234) and only once by describing its mammoth root system (a lotus tree spreads its roots from the Volcanol to Caesar’s forum at 16.236). Rather, Pliny tends to depict the age of his chosen trees by recording their individual links to mytho-historical figures or events. Heraclea in Pontus, for example, boasts two oak trees planted by Hercules (16.239), whilst both Delphi and Caphya claim plane trees planted by Agamemnon (16.238).2 Argos likewise shows off an olive tree to which Argus once tethered Io in her bovine form (16.240). Occasionally Pliny highlights the age of these trees in a different way, siting them in temporal relation to the founding of Rome, in an arboreal version of the ab urbe condita dating system. Thus we are told, on Masurius’ authority, that the lotus tree growing in the Volcanol was the same age as the city (16.236), whilst on the Vatican stood a holm oak even older than Rome, as evidenced by its accompanying Etruscan tablet (16.237). Pliny normally prides himself on his comprehensivity, but there is a glaring omission from this roll call of ancient trees: the ficus Ruminalis, a fig tree famed for sheltering the infants Romulus and Remus as they were suckled by a she wolf. After all, according to Pliny’s close contemporary Tacitus, this tree

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played a key role in an event which took place 830 years earlier (Annals 13.58). The ficus Ruminalis also boasted a link to one of the most famous of Roman mytho-historical events, and would surely have constituted a definitive marker amongst those trees jostling for the glory of being as old as the city. So why does Pliny exclude the ficus Ruminalis from his survey of ancient trees, characterized as it is by a focus on mytho-historical connections and ab urbe condita tree dating? In omitting the tree I understand Pliny to signal his recognition that, whilst exceptional trees might live to see their eight hundredth or nine hundredth birthday or even beyond, such a veteran fig tree was improbable in the extreme.3 For, as Pliny knew full well, fig trees are rarely long lived: rather they are known for their brevissima vita (‘extremely short life’, Natural History 16.241), senectus ocissima (‘fast approaching old age’, 16.130) and senescendi celeritas (‘swiftness of ageing’, 17.155). The ficus Ruminalis’ conspicuous absence from Pliny’s catalogue of ancient trees suggests his awareness that the tree which he would have known as the ficus Ruminalis was, in all likelihood, not the original tree which sheltered Romulus and Remus.4 By no means, however, does this indicate a lack of interest in the ficus Ruminalis on Pliny’s part: in a section of the Natural History devoted to fig trees he turns an insightful and lingering gaze on the tree and the nature of its memorial status (15.77). In light of Pliny’s omission of the ficus Ruminalis from his catalogue of particularly ancient trees, I take his detailed depiction of the tree elsewhere as a focal lens with which to tackle an issue raised by the conflict between the tree’s boast of sheltering the suckling Romulus and Remus and the slight chances of this being true.5 How important was the physical continuity of this tree for Roman conceptions of its memorial authority? The meaning of Pliny’s ‘oscurissimo’ (‘very obscure’) depiction of the ficus Ruminalis is hotly debated.6 I print the Teubner text below, followed by my own translation of the passage.7 colitur ficus arbor in foro ipso ac comitio Romae nata sacra fulguribus ibi conditis magisque ob memoriam eius quae, nutrix Romuli ac Remi, conditores imperii in Lupercali prima protexit, ruminalis appellata quoniam sub ea inventa est lupa infantibus praebens rumin (ita vocabant mammam), miraculo ex aere iuxta dicato, tamquam in comitium sponte transisset Atto Navio augurante. nec sine praesagio aliquo arescit rursusque cura sacerdotum seritur. (Natural History 15.77)



Keeping the Memory Alive: The Physical Continuity of the Ficus Ruminalis 113 A fig tree born in the very forum and comitium of Rome is cultivated, sacred because of the lightning-struck objects buried there, and more so because of the memorial tradition of that tree which, nurse of Romulus and Remus, first sheltered the founders of the empire at the Lupercal, called Ruminalis since under it the she wolf was found offering her rumis (thus they used to call breast) to the infants, with the miracle portrayed in bronze nearby, as if the tree had of its own accord crossed into the comitium with Attus Navius as augur. Nor without some omen does it wither and get replanted by the care of the priests.8

As we start to unravel the lengthy first sentence we learn that a fig tree in the comitium was considered sacred, partly because of lightning-struck objects buried there, but more so because of the ‘memorial tradition’ of that one which (eius quae) first sheltered Romulus and Remus at the Lupercal. (I argue for my understanding of the noun memoria as ‘memorial tradition’ at the very end of the article.) This latter must be the fig tree, known as the ficus Ruminalis, which Quintus Fabius Pictor, Varro, Livy, Ovid, Plutarch and Servius all locate on the north side of the Palatine.9 Whilst Ovid specifically positions the tree at the Lupercal, the other authorities locate it either at the Palatine’s foot, on the Germalus (the Palatine’s north slope) or at the point where the river Tiber overflowed (in other words the Velabrum).10 Considering the geographical proximity of these depictions, they can all be understood as expressions of the same tradition. Tacitus, however, ruins the uniformity of this picture.11 For him the ficus Ruminalis stands in the comitium, the assembly place within the Roman forum. Conon, an Augustan grammarian, also locates a fig tree in the part of Rome which he calls the ἀγορά (or in Roman terms, the forum), and which he describes as being enclosed by the bronze gates of the βουλευτήριον (the curia).12 This fig tree is not specifically named Ruminalis, but it is singled out as witness to events from Romulus and Remus’ lifetime, a strong indication that it was the ficus Ruminalis which Conon meant. These two testimonies thus add another ficus Ruminalis to the map, standing in the comitium in front of the curia.13 In the opening words of the passage above, Pliny refers both to a fig tree in the comitium and a fig tree at the Lupercal, but we must temporarily suspend judgement as to which he is naming the ficus Ruminalis. Having elucidated a standard etymology for the adjective Ruminalis, Pliny next informs us that nearby a miracle was depicted in bronze. At this point the sentence starts to raise some niggling questions: what miracle

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was depicted, and where exactly does iuxta locate the bronze statue depicting it?14 Entering into the realms of the puzzling, the sentence then ends with a seemingly unanchored statement: as if something (the subject of the clause is left unspecified) had crossed into the comitium of its own accord, with Attus Navius as augur. In order to make progress in understanding this sentence, let us start at its end, and establish the reason for the unexpected introduction of Attus Navius, a legendary augur from the reign of Tarquinius Priscus. Verrius Flaccus informs us of a fig tree in the comitium called the ficus Navia, associated with the story of how the augur Attus Navius dissuaded the Roman king Tarquinius Priscus from changing Romulus’ system of tribes.15 Tarquinius had tried to shake the augur’s authority with a trick, asking him to predict whether he, the king, would be able to perform a secret task which he had in mind: this was to cut through a whetstone with a razor. Navius predicted that the king would be able to perform the task, and Tarquinius, much to his amazement, found that indeed he could slice through a whetstone with a razor. Dionysius of Halicarnassus adds to Flaccus’ picture: won over by the augur’s prowess, Tarquinius set up a bronze statue of Navius in the forum in front of the βουλευτήριον (in other words, the curia), near a sacred fig tree and the buried whetstone and razor. ἵνα μνήμης αἰωνίου τυγχάνῃ παρὰ τῶν ἐπιγινομένων εἰκόνα κατασκευάσας αὐτοῦ χαλκῆν ἀνέστησεν ἐν ἀγορᾷ, ἣ καὶ εἰς ἐμὲ ἦν ἔτι πρὸ τοῦ βουλευτηρίου κειμένη πλησίον τῆς ἱερᾶς συκῆς ἐλάττων ἀνδρὸς μετρίου τὴν περιβολὴν ἔχουσα κατὰ τῆς κεφαλῆς. ὀλίγον δὲ ἄπωθεν αὐτῆς ἥ τε ἀκόνη κεκρύφθαι λέγεται κατὰ γῆς καὶ τὸ ξυρὸν ὑπὸ βωμῷ τινι· καλεῖται δὲ Φρέαρ ὁ τόπος ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων. (Roman Antiquities 3.71.5) In order that he might have eternal renown among posterity, he had cast and set up a bronze statue of him in the agora which still survived in my time, standing in front of the bouleuterion near the sacred fig tree, smaller than a man of average height and with a mantle on his head. A little way off the razor and whetstone are said to have been buried in the earth under a certain altar. The place is called an ‘artificial well’ by the Romans.

The buried container which held the whetstone and razor is labelled a φρέαρ by Dionysius. In Latin it is called a puteal, as in Cicero’s confirmation of Dionysius’ picture:



Keeping the Memory Alive: The Physical Continuity of the Ficus Ruminalis 115 cotem autem illam et novaculam defossam in comitio supraque impositum puteal accepimus. (De Divinatione 1.33) However, we have heard that that whetstone and razor were buried in the comitium and a puteal placed on top.

The puteal is a very sparsely documented structure: here let it suffice to say that it may sometimes have functioned as a receptacle for lightning-struck objects, as suggested by the phrase fulgur conditum (‘buried lightning-struck object’) in a fragmentary reference of Festus to the puteal Scribonianum (Festus L 450–2). To return to Attus Navius, Livy provides further support of the position of the cluster of objects which commemorate his augury, locating a statue of Navius and the whetstone by the steps to the left of the curia: statua Atti capite velato, quo in loco res acta est, in comitio in gradibus ipsis ad laevam curiae fuit; cotem quoque eodem loco sitam fuisse memorant … (Ab Urbe Condita 1.36.5) A statue of Attus with veiled head stood in the place where his deed was performed, in the comitium on the very steps to the left of the curia; they say the whetstone also was deposited in the same place …

Finally, in a passing reference, Pliny also locates a statue of Navius in front of the curia (Natural History 34.21). In short, the ficus Navia, along with its associated statue of Navius and the buried whetstone and razor, are located very close to the curia, in a spot which is disconcertingly close to that of the ficus Ruminalis depicted by Tacitus and Conon. Are we to imagine two fig trees crowding in on each other by the curia? Pliny makes it clear that we are not: there were never two separate fig trees at that spot, but rather one fig tree which underwent an identity shift. Pliny’s comitium fig tree and the ficus Navia can be identified as one and the same tree through the combined force of four pieces of evidence.16 First, there is the coincidence of location. Second, there is the comitium fig tree’s association with buried lightning-struck objects. Pliny’s fulguribus ibi conditis (‘lightning-struck objects buried there’) sounds very much like a muffled reference to the whetstone and razor buried at the ficus Navia, the identity of these objects by now less securely known, and the puteal which most accounts place over them encouraging later generations to presume that they were the

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victims of lightning. The third piece of evidence is provided by a survey of fig trees around the forum into which Pliny’s depiction of the comitium fig tree develops: besides the comitium fig there is also one at the lacus Curtius and one before the temple of Saturn, but Pliny makes no mention of a ficus Navia (Natural History 15.77–8). This is despite the fact that Pliny is aware of the existence and location of the statue of Navius (Natural History 34.21). Admittedly, Pliny’s reference to this statue is both extremely brief and made within a section focused on statues, not trees: the absence of the ficus Navia here is not in itself overwhelming proof that Pliny did not know a ficus Navia standing in the comitium. Nevertheless, Pliny’s overall picture does suggest that in his mental landscape of Rome the statue of Attus Navius was still standing, but the previously associated ficus Navia was no longer on the map. The fourth and crucial proof of Pliny’s understanding of the comitium fig tree’s history lies in the phrase tamquam in comitium sponte transisset Atto Navio augurante (‘as if X had of its own accord crossed into the comitium with Attus Navius as augur’), but this phrase demands much elucidation before the proof can be extracted. The challenge is to understand how Pliny saw this phrase as a fitting conclusion to his monumental sentence. Its baffling nature stems chiefly from its lack of an obvious subject, for which it might seem reasonable to look to the closest preceding noun. This is the bronze statue of the miracle, regarding which I follow majority opinion in believing the miracle to be that of the suckling of Romulus and Remus, as just described in the preceding phrase.17 If this bronze statue group were the subject of the tamquam clause, Pliny would then be left making the claim that a fig tree was called Ruminalis, with a bronze statue of the suckling twins nearby, as if this statue had of its own accord crossed into the comitium. Given no information with which to begin to understand how the proximity of a bronze statue to a tree created the impression that the statue had spontaneously migrated, we must reject this interpretation as nonsensical and delve further back into the sentence for the tamquam clause’s subject. The next available noun is lupa. With the she wolf as the subject of the tamquam clause, Pliny would be claiming that a fig tree was called Ruminalis, with a bronze statue of the suckling twins nearby, as if the wolf had of her own accord crossed into the comitium. It is by no means obvious what the pertinence of such a claim would be. Moreover, it would be very surprising that a wolf moving of her



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own accord would have occasioned enough surprise from Pliny to warrant the sceptical tone of tamquam (‘as if ’).18 Taking another step backwards in the sentence, the next available noun is rather elusive: a noun is implied within the phrase Ruminalis appellata (‘called Ruminalis’), either the fig tree at the Lupercal or the fig tree in the comitium. If we understand the Lupercal fig tree to be qualified by Ruminalis appellata, and by extension to be the subject of the tamquam clause, then Pliny would be claiming that the fig tree at the Lupercal was called Ruminalis, with a bronze statue of the suckling twins nearby, as if the Lupercal fig tree had of its own accord crossed into the comitium. Precious little sense can be extracted from this: what could make the fig tree at the Lupercal look like it was in the comitium? If, however, the noun described by Ruminalis appellata were the comitium fig tree, then Pliny would be saying that the comitium fig tree was called Ruminalis, with a bronze statue of the suckling twins nearby, as if the comitium fig tree had of its own accord crossed into the comitium. Here, finally, is a coherent reading. We already knew that the fig tree in the comitium was considered sacred because of the ‘memorial tradition’ of the Lupercal fig tree; now we learn that the comitium fig tree also poses under the name of Ruminalis, thereby giving the impression that it was in fact the Lupercal fig tree and had spontaneously migrated into the comitium. Pliny, however, has not been duped as to the comitium fig tree’s identity. The ablative absolute which concludes the tamquam clause, Atto Navio augurante, constitutes the fourth and final confirmation of Pliny’s awareness that the comitium fig tree had a former life as the ficus Navia. Some understand this ablative absolute temporally, meaning ‘while Attus Navius was augur’, but in the context of my interpretation of the sentence, a temporal meaning would entail that Pliny was dating the identity change of the ficus Navia to the exact point when it first became the ficus Navia; this would render the sentence meaningless.19 Rather, the ablative absolute is a dry comment by which Pliny undermines the impression of arboreal migration; in one concise phrase he suggests that such an event would have needed a supporter as miraculous as Navius and slyly drops in his awareness that, far from having migrated, the comitium fig tree was the one time ficus Navia. For when the supposed miracle covers up the metamorphosis of the ficus Navia into the ficus Ruminalis, then what more obvious miraculous overseer to evoke in exposing this miracle than

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Attus Navius himself?20 Nor should this parting note of scepticism surprise us, for from the very beginning Pliny had emphasized that the comitium fig tree was born in the comitium, leaving migration out of the question. De Sanctis understands this emphasis on the fig tree’s birthplace as a rationalizing rejection of ‘la leggenda del meraviglioso trasferimento’ (‘the legend of the miraculous transfer’), but I see no reason to suppose the existence of such a ‘legend’, for which we have no other evidence: Pliny’s tamquam phrase is a tongue in cheek witticism.21 Indeed the weighting of the whole sentence and the ‘throw away’ nature of the tamquam clause indicate that Pliny’s focus is on the deceptive nature of the comitium fig tree’s identity shift and that the tamquam clause functions as a coda to that, rather than as an exposé of an urban myth. Pliny explains how the deceptive impression of arboreal migration was created in the two phrases which precede his tamquam clause. First, there was the simple fact that the tree was called Ruminalis. To this statement is added the explanation of the tree’s epithet, that underneath it the she wolf offered Romulus and Remus her rumis (‘breast’). To those whom Pliny has just reminded of the existence of the Lupercal fig tree, the statement that the twins were suckled under a fig tree in the comitium is rather jarring: after all, the Lupercal was a far more probable site, in a one-time flood plain, for the suckling of infants washed ashore by the River Tiber. I will return to this problem shortly. The second factor which contributed to the impression of arboreal migration was the proximity of a statue group of the suckling twins to the fig tree in the comitium.22 This must have created a visually evocative whole, a tableau, as it were, of the original suckling scene, which thus gave the impression that the ficus Ruminalis in the Lupercal had upped sticks and gone to the comitium.23 Besides evoking the suckling scene, the statue group by the comitium tree would have mirrored the Lupercal fig tree which was also accompanied, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, by a bronze statue group of the suckling.24 There is no knowing whether all this was intended by whoever placed this statue near the comitium fig tree: the comitium was after all a common home for commemorative monuments. However, we do know that by Ovid’s day the fig tree at the Lupercal was in a state of decline, so much so that no more than a vestigium (‘remnant’) was left of it (Fasti 2.405–6), and this likely contributed to the comitium fig tree’s rise to prominence.25 By



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no means am I about to suggest that as the Lupercal fig tree deteriorated an executive decision was made to transfer the memories of the Lupercal ficus Ruminalis to a convenient tree in the comitium: it would surely have been conceptually simpler to plant a new fig tree at the Lupercal.26 However, I do propose that the fig tree and statue group in the comitium were, whilst the Lupercal fig tree was in decline, providing an alternative focus of attention as a visual instantiation of the suckling. As the fortunes of the Lupercal fig tree waned, so the story of Romulus and Remus’ suckling was increasingly related to the visually convincing comitium fig tree.27 From here it was an easy step, if no doubt a fairly slow one, for the tree to become known as Ruminalis. I now wish to tackle the troublesome statement that the comitium fig tree was called Ruminalis because under it (sub ea) the wolf offered the twins her rumis. Since Pliny demonstrates his awareness that the comitium tree was not the one and only nor indeed the first ficus Ruminalis, how could he make such a claim? As the verb of the causal clause is indicative, we cannot simply dismiss the phrase as a conjectured reason ascribed to those who call the tree Ruminalis. It may be tempting to understand sub ea as referring back to the tree already described by that demonstrative pronoun, namely the Lupercal fig tree (eius quae): thus we would have Pliny saying that the comitium fig tree is called Ruminalis, because of the tradition, as it were, that under the Lupercal tree the wolf offered the twins her rumis. This rather forced interpretation seems to prioritize making concessions to our own conceptual difficulties over following the logic of Pliny’s Latin. The disorientating nature of the sub ea phrase is in fact Pliny’s way of making us experience the arboreal identity shift which he is describing. Whilst the first instance of the demonstrative pronoun, ob memoriam eius quae, must refer to the Lupercal fig tree, the second instance, sub ea, may refer to the Lupercal tree and may refer to the comitium fig tree. That we can only recognize this in retrospect, once we have absorbed the full implications of the tamquam clause, brings home the unexpected identity shift all the more strongly. From this vantage point we can see that the phrase sub ea has a double referent, indicating the Lupercal fig tree and the comitium fig tree at the same time: since both trees are now blurred in their shared identity as the ficus Ruminalis, attempts at distinguishing them grammatically would have no conceptual force. Whilst highlighting and explaining the visual and verbal deception which takes place

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in the shift of memorial associations from the fig tree at the Lupercal to the fig tree at the comitium, Pliny still presents a conception of the new comitium ficus Ruminalis as the genuine ficus Ruminalis. Recognizing this conceptual flexibility on Pliny’s part is hindered by the fact that modern scholars invariably privilege the idea of ‘the original tree’ when engaging with the ficus Ruminalis. Critics have argued over whether the Lupercal or the comitium fig tree is ‘le seul et vrai figuier’ (‘the one and only fig tree’) or ‘la vera Ruminale’ (‘the genuine Ruminal tree’), and those who think about the identity of the ficus Ruminalis in a more fluid way may well find themselves reprimanded, Evans scorning those who ‘call the tree in the Comitium the ficus Ruminalis even while admitting the tree was not the original’.28 Hadzsits adds to the vocabulary of originality with labels for first and second tree: ‘the second – almost equally famous – Ruminal fig tree in the Comitium was closely associated in the Roman mind with the first fig tree on the Palatine … the second tree was in some way thought to be derived from the first tree’.29 We should not presume that any Roman ever approached the ficus Ruminalis in the same mental framework. Pliny’s dual function sub ea reveals a Roman capacity to engage with the comitium fig tree as, to all intents and purposes, the genuine article, and not in any way ‘secondary’ to some ‘original’ tree. Even a hardened sceptic such as Tacitus can likewise ascribe to the comitium fig tree the role of the ‘original’ tree, and without any of the dry reserve of Pliny’s tamquam clause: eodem anno Ruminalem arborem in comitio, quae octingentos et triginta ante annos Remi Romulique infantiam texerat, mortuis ramalibus et arescente trunco deminutam prodigii loco habitum est, donec in novos fetus revivesceret (Annals 13.58). In the same year it was considered a portent that the Ruminal tree in the comitium, which eight hundred and thirty years ago had protected Romulus and Remus in their infancy, had deteriorated with dead branches and a withering trunk, until it revived in new foliage.

Rounding off his depiction of the comitium ficus Ruminalis, Pliny reconfirms the lack of distinction Romans posited between what we are tempted to call the original tree and derivative trees:



Keeping the Memory Alive: The Physical Continuity of the Ficus Ruminalis 121 nec sine praesagio aliquo arescit rursusque cura sacerdotum seritur. (Natural History 15.77) Nor without some omen does it wither and get replanted by the care of the priests.

The verb arescere depicts a state of arboreal crisis which at its least serious indicates withering, and at its most drastic death; none of the physical states on this spectrum hold out much hope for the successful replanting of the tree. Yet Pliny’s seemingly bizarre statement that when the ficus Ruminalis withers, or perhaps even dies, it is then replanted does not provide evidence that the ficus Ruminalis was blessed with very arboriculturally talented priests. Rather, it is an insight into the way that Pliny understood each replacement tree as the genuine ficus Ruminalis itself. The ficus Ruminalis can be replanted even when it has died because there is no difference between the previous fig tree and the current one as long as they are both known as the ficus Ruminalis. Indeed, when it is simply a case of planting a new tree in the same spot, rather than changing its location, Pliny registers no conceptual difficulties at all in perceiving the new tree as the same tree, despite a hiatus in its physical continuity. This is not to say that the hiatus was not taken seriously: such a gap in physical continuity cannot be less serious than a praesagium (‘portent’), a crisis situation confirmed by Tacitus’ testimony that the decline of the Ruminal tree was felt to be a prodigium (‘portent’). Likewise, whilst lack of physical continuity may not have affected Roman responses to the memorial authority of the replacement trees, this does not mean that they were blasé about preserving whichever ficus Ruminalis they happened to have at the time: Pliny describes Roman responses to the fig using the verb colere which means both ‘to cultivate / care for’ and ‘to worship’, thereby combining practical arboricultural care and a sense of religious duty.30 Pliny’s depiction of the comitium ficus Ruminalis also provides a counter-example to location-centric ways of thinking about Roman public memorializing. The concept of lieux de mémoire has proved insightful for the latter, with quotations such as Cicero’s tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis (‘so great is the memorial power inherent in places’) placed on a pedestal.31 It therefore goes against all our expectations to come across an object which boasts the memories of an event which took place beneath it, but which can also change location without apparent damage

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to its memorial authority. Evidently, ensuring the continuity of a series of ficus Ruminales was vitally important, but each new fig tree’s inevitable lack of physical continuity, and for the later ones locational continuity, with the tree actually present at the suckling was not perceived as problematic. As a flipside to this picture of a series of trees sharing one identity over time, Pliny’s potted history of the comitium fig tree also showcases an individual tree which can support more than one identity at a given time. The shifting of a tree’s identity (in our case from ficus Navia to ficus Ruminalis) was no doubt a gradual process, and one entirely dependent on stories told by members of the community in relation to their public trees. It is informative here that Conon describes how the fig tree in the ἀγορά which was witness to events from Romulus and Remus’ lifetime is pointed out (δείκνυται) by the Romans; it is just the kind of memorial you show to your children or visitors, repeating its associated story. The slow nature of the transfer process could have allowed not only for a point when both the Lupercal and the comitium fig trees were known as the ficus Ruminalis, but also a point when the comitium fig tree was known both as the ficus Navia and as the ficus Ruminalis.32 Pliny gives us a glimpse of just such a dual identity for the comitium fig tree in his assigning of two levels of sanctity to the tree: sacred because of the lightning-struck objects buried there, but more sacred because of the memorial tradition of the Lupercal fig tree.33 Here Pliny seems to show us a tree in a state of flux. Its identity as the ficus Ruminalis is starting to override its renown as the ficus Navia, the whetstone and razor just anonymous objects now that the tree no longer has overt Navian associations. The tree’s previous identity as the ficus Navia may be slyly evoked by the pedantic Pliny, but how many others remember its former days? The appropriation of the ficus Navia by the memorial associations of the ficus Ruminalis reminds us of the vulnerability of memories kept alive through a monument as organic as a tree. It is hardly surprising then that keeping a specific ficus Ruminalis alive was subordinated to the priority of keeping alive a fig tree which could, in its turn, keep alive the memoria of Romulus and Remus’ suckling. Its memorial associations, not the history of the physical tree, made the ficus Ruminalis what it was; in Pliny’s words, it was sacra … ob memoriam (‘sacred because of the memorial tradition’). Now it may be objected that I have misrepresented Pliny in citing only three words of his



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sentence. The objector might then put forward that Pliny ascribes sacred status to the comitium fig tree not because of the memory of the suckling of Romulus and Remus, but because of the ‘memory of ’ the Lupercal fig tree: it was sacra … ob memoriam eius quae, nutrix Romuli ac Remi … (‘sacred because it reminded people of that tree which, the nurse of Romulus and Remus …’). Such an interpretation would undermine my earlier claims that Roman engagement with the ficus Ruminalis did not privilege the idea of an original tree, and quickly leads to the comitium fig tree being understood as a ‘memorial’ to the Lupercal fig tree.34 I hold that such an interpretation is to misunderstand Pliny’s Latin. The phrase ob memoriam eius quae features a subjective genitive, not an objective genitive; it refers to the memoria which once belonged to the Lupercal fig tree (which must be the tradition of the suckling of Romulus and Remus), and not to the remembrance of that tree.35 So when Pliny states that the comitium ficus Ruminalis is sacra … ob memoriam eius quae … he attributes the tree’s sanctity to its role not as a memorial to the Lupercal tree, but as a new catalyst for the community’s memories of the suckling of Romulus and Remus. Indeed, only reading the phrase ob memoriam eius quae as a subjective genitive, as I have outlined, could complement the full force of Pliny’s claim that the comitium fig is called Ruminalis as if it were the Lupercal fig migrated to the comitium. Identifying the comitium tree as the Ruminal fig requires too strong an appropriation of the Lupercal fig’s identity for it simply to stand as a reminder of the Lupercal tree. The physical continuity of the ficus Ruminalis may have been constantly threatened, but of what great concern was this for a tree whose identity and sanctity was dependent on its memorial power but independent of its matter?

Notes 1 For brevity’s sake, from now on I will refer to Pliny the Elder simply as Pliny. This article is an extended version of a paper given at the colloquium: I thank Professor Peter Wiseman and Professor Ken Dowden for their comments on the paper, and also Professor John Henderson for later invaluable discussion of Pliny Natural History 15.77. 2 This penchant for trees with mytho-historical connections was by no means

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Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World restricted to Pliny. For example, Pausanias also notes a plane tree planted by Menelaus as worthy of attention (8.23.4). Here Pliny’s arboreal knowledge seems to have overridden the tendency he shows elsewhere to romanticize about the age of trees: witness his statement that in remote regions some trees may have an immeasurable span of life (Natural History 16.234). Indeed, believing the ficus Ruminalis of his day to be the original tree would have taken a degree of willing suspension of disbelief which Cicero, for one, would have classed as sheer gullibility. Illustrating an argument that objects are remembered far longer than nature can keep them alive, Cicero points out that it is for fools to think that Athens has preserved an everlasting olive tree on its citadel or that the palm tree which Homer’s Odysseus said he saw at Delos is the same as the one shown there today (De Legibus 1.1–2). Pliny is currently enjoying something of an academic renaissance, with several recent books developing appreciation of his insights as a cultural historian, e.g. Beagon (1992) and Carey (2003). Published since the colloquium, Gibson and Morello (2011) also works to redeem Pliny’s Natural History from ‘a long career in the footnotes’ (vii). Such work is welcome indeed, for the Natural History constitutes a little-plumbed treasure trove of insights into the cultural and intellectual imagination of imperial Rome: my focused study of Pliny’s conceptions of the ficus Ruminalis makes one foray into this trove. De Sanctis (1910: 79). Torelli (1982: 99) is alone in thinking that ‘the passage is clear enough’. Rackham (1945) prints qua in place of quae, which would force us to understand the nutrix as the she wolf rather than the fig tree. The verb protexit, however, is more suited to the sheltering role of the tree than the actions of the fabled wolf. Moreover, the wolf ’s overt introduction a few words later (quoniam sub ea inventa est lupa) would have been superfluous if she had already been introduced by means of nutrix. Whilst some may find it difficult to view a tree as a ‘nurse’, Latin usage does not restrict the title of nutrix to human or animal agents, and indeed only a few chapters later Pliny refers to acorn-bearing trees as the first nutrices of humankind (Natural History 16.1). Rackham also omits in before comitium, but for a clause describing the putative actions of a tree which is standing in the comitium, crossing into rather than crossing over the comitium is far more pointed. I am grateful to Professor Peter Wiseman for his comments championing this reading. My understanding of the subject of the tamquam clause will soon be argued in detail.



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8 To cultivate is the closest English can get to rendering the double meaning of the verb colere, which encompasses both practical care and actions of worship. 9 Quintus Fabius Pictor as paraphrased in Origo Gentis Romanae 20.3, Varro Lingua Latina 5.54, Ovid Fasti 2.405–6 and 421–2, Livy Ab Urbe Condita 1.4.4–6, Plutarch De Fortuna Romanorum 320 C, Plutarch Romulus 3.5–4.2, Servius ad Aeneidum 8.90. 10 Roman narratives of their city’s history held that the River Tiber frequently used to flood the area later known as the Velabrum, before its draining by the Cloaca Maxima (e.g. Propertius 4.9.3–6). 11 Tacitus Annals 13.58. 12 Conon Narrationes 48, as paraphrased in Photius Bibliotheca 186.48. 13 Such differing traditions are not unusual when it comes to myths about Romulus and Remus, which were particularly susceptible to variation. See Wiseman (1995: 14) for a diagram of variant features of the foundation myth. 14 See Dulière (1979: 60) on the convoluted nature of Pliny’s prose at this point. 15 The details of this story we extract from the accounts of Verrius Flaccus as preserved in Festus L 168–70, Livy Ab Urbe Condita 1.36, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 3.71.5. 16 Over a century ago Baddeley (1905: 107) recognized that the comitium fig tree ‘was at one time called “Navia” but later “Ruminalis” ’: remarkably little fuss has been made about such a striking observation. 17 Evans (1992: 79) sees the miracle depicted as that of the transfer of the tree, with the ablative absolute retrospectively dependent on the tamquam clause for the identification of its miraculum. She does not suggest how she imagines this would have been achieved artistically. 18 Rackham (1945: 341) does take the wolf as the subject, perhaps facilitated by his earlier emendation of quae to qua which elevates the role of the wolf within the sentence, as explained in n.7. 19 For example, Torelli (1982: 99), who dates the ‘ominous appearance’ of the fig tree in the comitium to the reign of Tarquinius Superbus. 20 The ablative absolute also reconfirms that the subject of the tamquam clause must be the comitium fig tree, for the introduction of Attus Navius at this point would be of no relevance to any of the other potential subjects discussed. 21 De Sanctis (1910: 80). Professor Dowden helpfully noted during the colloquium that tamquam followed by a subjunctive can serve as an equivalent to the Greek usage of ὡς plus optative to express an alleged reason. If we were to understand Pliny’s tamquam clause as allotting reasoning to the anonymous group who

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Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World call the tree Ruminalis, then the patently absurd nature of the explanation (spontaneous arboreal migration) can only enhance his snide tone. My understanding of Pliny’s sentence incidentally avoids uncertainty (as felt by Dulière 1979: 60) as to whether iuxta locates the bronze statue group near the comitium fig tree or the Lupercal fig tree. Sandwiched between two phrases now recognized as describing the comitium fig tree, iuxta must locate the statue near the comitium tree. The nearby statue group would have endowed the ficus Navia with a new identity by association, just as once before its proximity to a statue of Navius must have encouraged its reputation as the ficus Navia. Roman Antiquities 1.79. Controversies rage as to the appearance, location and number of Rome’s statue groups of the suckling Romulus and Remus, for an overview of which see Evans (1992: 78–83). It is unclear how much or what part of a tree is indicated by vestigium, but the fig tree is certainly not thriving nor all intact (‘remnant’ is a common meaning of vestigium, Oxford Latin Dictionary §7). When Tacitus describes a cypress which collapsed and then revived the next day eodem vestigio he may be using the phrase idiomatically to mean ‘in exactly the same place’ (Oxford Latin Dictionary §2b), but he may also offer us a glimpse of evidence that an arboreal vestigium is no more than the hole left by an uprooted tree (Histories 2.78.6). Could this be an arboreal parallel to another meaning of vestigium, that of a human footprint (Oxford Latin Dictionary §1)? Who is to know how many replantings of the Lupercal tree have simply escaped record? After all, this tree had always had a pro-Romulan stance, ever since its association with Navius opposing Tarquinius’ proposed changes to Romulus’ tribe divisions. Dulière (1979: 59). De Sanctis (1910: 80). Evans (1992: 76). Hadzsits (1936: 308). Plutarch describes a similar Roman response to another Romulean memorial tree, a cornel into which Romulus’ spear is said to have metamorphosed (Life of Romulus 20.5–6): ὡς ἕν τι τῶν ἀγιωτάτων ἱερῶν φυλάττοντες καὶ σεβόμενοι περιετείχισαν (‘they walled it in, protecting and honouring it as one of their most holy sacred objects’). The conjunction of verbs indicating protection and worship in a response which marks out a tree as sacred reads almost like a gloss on colitur ficus arbor (‘a fig tree is tended / honoured’), a long-hand spelling out of the Latin verb’s resonances. This cornel tree is also the recipient of rather melodramatic public attention, in that whenever someone notices it to be under



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the weather he cries for water and people come running with buckets from all sides, as if saving a burning building. This sense of crisis mirrors Pliny and Tacitus’ presentation of the ficus Ruminalis’ demise as portentous. 31 Cicero, De Finibus 5.2. 32 De Sanctis (1910: 82) recognizes the former possibility. 33 References in Ovid (Fasti 2.405–6) and Livy (Ab Urbe Condita 1.4.4–6) to the Lupercal ficus Ruminalis once being called Romularis or Romula also hint at a similar story of conflation of associations within a single tree. A possible explanation of these references runs as follows. At one time there was a fig tree at the shrine of Rumina, the goddess of breastfeeding, as depicted by Varro (De Re Rustica 2.11.5). There was also a fig tree at the Lupercal, called Romularis or Romula and associated with the suckling of Romulus and Remus. The natural affinity of these trees entailed that over time their identities were conflated, whether the trigger of this was their close proximity (the location of the shrine of Rumina is unknown) or the decline of one of the trees. This hypothesis would explain the tradition of the tree’s change of name from Romularis or Romula to Ruminalis, which has puzzled many, as stemming from the point of conflation. 34 Evans (1992: 78). 35 See the Oxford Latin Dictionary §7 for examples of memoria used to mean collective memory or tradition.

Bibliography Baddeley, St C., 1905. ‘The Sacred Trees of Rome’, The Nineteenth Century 58, 100–15. Beagon, M., 1992. Roman Nature: the Thought of Pliny the Elder. Oxford. Carey, S., 2003. Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History. Oxford. De Sanctis, G., 1910. ‘La Leggenda della Lupa e dei Gemelli’, RFIC 38, 71–85. Dulière, C., 1979. Lupa Romana: recherches d’iconographie et essai d’interprétation. Brussels. Evans, J., 1992. The Art of Persuasion: political propaganda from Aeneas to Brutus. Michigan. Gibson, R. K. and Morello, R. (eds.), 2011. Pliny the Elder: Themes and Contexts. Leiden. Hadzsits, G. D., 1936. ‘The Vera Historia of the Palatine Ficus Ruminalis’, CPh 31.4, 305–19.

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Petersen, E. 1908. ‘Lupa Capitolina’, Klio 8, 440–56. Pliny the Elder, 1945. Natural History XII–XVI, trans. H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA. —1909. Naturalis Historia Vol. II, Mayhoff, C. (ed.). Teubner. Torelli, M., 1982. Typology and Structure of Roman Historical Reliefs. Michigan. Wiseman, P., 1995. Remus: a Roman Myth. Cambridge.

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Memory Shift: Reinventing the Mythology, 100 bc–ad 100 Ken Dowden

τὸν δὲ περὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα τόπον μυρίαι μὲν φθοραὶ κατέσχον ἐξαλείφουσαι τὴν μνήμην τῶν γεγονότων (‘But a myriad destructions have fallen upon the region of Greece, wiping out the memory of events.’) Josephus, against Apion 1.10 Die Griechen dagegen hätten unzählige Bücher, die sich alle widersprächen. (‘The Greeks had countless books on this that all contradicted each other.’) Assmann 1992: 270, summarizing Josephus, against Apion 1.151

In this piece I view mythology as a variety of cultural memory and look at a period in which that memory is challenged. The nature of the challenge is ludic and through virtuoso attempts to rewrite the mythology in more ‘realistic’ mode, one’s credentials as a participant in the shared culture are affirmed, because to address the mythology is to advertise the power of that shared memory and one’s place in maintaining it. Yet there always remained the danger that the nature of the game was not wholly understood and that those who for various reasons adjusted the content of mythology in fact ended up contributing to it. In a first section, we look at Homer and the mythology, in particular at the deaths of Hektor and Achilles. In the second, we turn to the period 100 bc–ad 100, and find that the Trojan mythology of Homer is wilfully adapted, in the work of Diktys of Crete, in a showcase epideixis of Dio Chrysostom, and in the work of several others which in a way may be viewed as stemming from the Alexandra of Lykophron and the tradition of commentary on it. A

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brief third section considers Vergil as a writer in this tradition – as a follower of Lykophron and as a neo-mythologist himself, not wholly different from Diktys. We conclude with some remarks on the place of mythological writers relative to rulers and on appropriations of mythological systems.

Homer, Myth, Memory Homer’s relationship to mythology, as Françoise Létoublon has recently shown, is far from straightforward.2 So, for instance, from our perspective there is a myth, part of the larger organism that we call ‘Greek Mythology’, whose subject is the death of Hektor and which we find ‘told’ in Iliad 22. Another myth is that of Achilles’ death, which is strikingly foretold or, rather, briefly referred to (‘forementioned’, maybe) by Hektor himself within Homer’s text (Iliad 22.359–60). And we know that if we turn to any modern handbook, a distillation of ancient sources such as Apollodorus’ Bibliotheke, we can find ‘the’ story. It is unfortunate, therefore, that Homer shows no awareness of the story of the mortal ankle or foot of Achilles (on which see further below). Time and again Homer ‘does not know’ some story or fact according to the ancient commentators (it seems to be a formula of Aristarchos’), but there always remains the possibility that he chooses not to know, as I think happens in relation to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia.3 Increasingly we realize that Homer made his choices and that Homer’s apparent ignorance should not always be taken to indicate the non-existence of a famous myth in his time. Rather, he establishes the special character of his Muse-guided ‘memory’ in relation to the mythology: he does not merely recite the mythology. Thus from the beginning we are dealing with a mythology that, as I have stressed elsewhere,4 is an ‘intertext’ – which I now define as a meeting of all tellings of myths in a shared recall, a collective memory. And it is not just the Homeric epics (though they captured something special), but the whole mythological system that constitutes an ‘Organisationsform kulturellen Gedächtnisses’ (a format in which cultural memory is organized).5 Subscription to this systematic recall does not, however, freeze this material: the intertext can be amplified and moved by new tellings – which will not be



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ruled out a priori as illegitimate. Thus, the systematic mythology is neither modern academic history nor sacred text, but an evolving organism.6 The concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘accuracy’ must be modified before they can be successfully applied to mythical tradition.7 Likewise, the notion of ‘believing in’ myth as though it was somehow credal or an article of ‘faith’ is too crude to reveal the subtleties that surround the subscription to myth. As collective memory, Greek mythology therefore occupies the same imaginary space that history does;8 and it turns out that it shares many characteristics of what we regard as history, just as history turns out to present the character of a mythology – through selective recall and privileging of its elements, for instance as exempla. When history becomes deep enough it is probably indistinguishable from myth. It is of no consequence whether the Trojan War actually happened, or maybe even whether the kings of Israel actually existed as tradition presents: to insist on historicity is comparable to apologies for the evils of past imperialism – it illegitimately crosses some ‘floating gap’.9 But equally any myth happens at a time, or at a point in a sequence, relative to those other myths. It concerns particular places and landscapes, and it has an impact on, or a meaning for, our present. Sometimes this will be dressed up as aetiological, though the real logic may be other than aetiological. And as the logic changes, the myth morphs in the collective memory, if maybe not uncontrollably. Returning to Achilles’ heel/ankle/foot, Timothy Gantz has examined the evidence for this myth and finds that Achilles is shot in the ankle rather than the heel, and indeed more generally in the foot; but equally it is not clear why such a wound should be fatal unless perhaps once his armour had been impenetrable, or his life-force had, somehow in an earlier version of the story, been concentrated (perhaps hidden) in the ankle or foot.10 Evidently, observes Gantz, it was in some way necessary for a god to direct the arrow of Paris. But what we conclude from this is that this is an instance where the story has continually shifted and left its logic behind. It is one small sign that there is no definitive realization of the collective mythology. How far, then, does this licence extend? Some story of Achilles’ death must have existed as an entity before Homer and his Iliad. We know further that the author of the Aithiopis, perhaps ‘Arktinos’, took care to ‘tell’ it. In this tradition, to ‘tell’ is to find a point relative

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to the intertext, the shared memory of teller and audience, that will establish the authority and individual quality of the teller according to the values cherished by that audience and audiences like it. In itself that implies that the story must be realized in a way that tends towards innovation.11 What, then, of Hektor’s death? In our present context we do well to recall a startling conclusion of neoanalytic scholarship: Hektor’s death and Patroklos’ death are both innovations.12 The figures themselves are either entirely invented by Homer, or extended far beyond any traditional compass they might have had. Indeed, if Homer had not invented, or largely invented, them, he would not have a licence to kill them in his 51 days of history, or if we look at books 3–22, his four days of history. To refer to these stories is to refer to the Iliad. Thus storytelling works by adjusting and amplifying an agreed stock of cultural material. And this was not just an ephemeral and exploitative event. By engaging with cultural memory, the intertext grew in a non-temporary way, and the cultural memory itself therefore expanded to include the assent of those who carried that memory to the material now proposed – so for instance, Helen never went to Troy but was in Egypt: Stesichoros’ Palinode declared that new truth and Euripides could later site his Helen in Egypt.13 Thus the works of poets become part of the mythological intertext themselves, that is, constituent parts of the system of mythology. And Homer, for his part, within a certain definition becomes a source for ‘history’, in the sense in which mythology cannot be separated from history, because both represent the stock of stories relating to the past.

Radical Realistic Variation (hypolepsis) Neuheit und Rückblick gehören zusammen. (‘Modernity and retrospect belong together.’) Assmann 1992: 278

With these preliminaries, we can now turn to the period that is the subject of this chapter – namely, that which extends roughly from 100 bc to 100 ad. In this period there was a penchant for contradicting the by now canonized tradition, which may be seen to come under Assmann’s category of ‘hypoleptic’ text, new text that serves to bring about controlled change to the system.14



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Some of the texts I am concerned with are little known, certainly within the field of mythological study, and interestingly from the point of view of the preceding section, come from Jacoby’s collection of fragments of Greek ‘historians’, which is currently being brought up to date with translations and commentary in Brill’s New Jacoby.15 The first text is the nearest we can get to the Greek original of the account by ‘Diktys of Crete’, dating probably from the late first century ad.16 The arrival of the Amazon Penthesileia traditionally comes immediately after the end of our Iliad, as the text segues into the Aithiopis of Arktinos.17 In Diktys, this is re-sorted somewhat to create a more plausible pattern of events. Penthesileia represents a much-needed reinforcement that Hektor, not yet dead, is going to meet – but Achilles finds out: 3… Learning that Hektor wanted to meet Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, by night, … Achilles made the first move in secret together with his own army and concealed himself with them, then killed Hektor and all his followers as he crossed the river, leaving only one alive, whose hands he cut off and whom he sent to Priam to report Hektor’s death. And as none of the Greeks knew what had happened, he took Hektor’s corpse onto the plain before dawn. And he fastened Hektor’s body to his chariot and, with Automedon driving the horses, [he] did not cease whipping his body. 4 When Priam heard Hektor’s fate he wailed and so did everyone with him … And the gates of Ilion were shut. [Achilles] held festival games for the kings and everyone, in the most lavish form.

BNJ 49 F 7b, tr. K. Dowden18 So Hektor was ambushed at night and that is how it was possible to kill him. There was a reason Hektor had gone out – to see Penthesileia; the distinctly unheroic ambush, at least for this purpose, sees to his assassination. The dragging of the body is more than mere brutality – it serves a clear and logical purpose. But because it happened at night, no one knew about it in the Greek camp. So Achilles must advertise his death, and does this by dragging his body around in public. Games (those of Iliad 23) celebrate this triumph. The account has taken on a more recognizably realistic character and elements in Homer’s story have gained in motivation, once they are reordered. As we move into the material of Iliad 24, Priam no longer goes alone to the Greek camp but takes family with him, amongst whom we should keep a very careful eye on Polyxena:

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5 On the following day, Priam, wearing mourning garb, took with him his maiden daughter Polyxena and Hektor’s wife Andromache and his infant sons Astyanax and Laodamas and arrived at the Greek camp, bringing with him a great quantity of luxury goods, gold, silver and clothing … 6 Priam entered and fell at his feet begging …, and likewise Andromache with the children. Polyxena embraced [Achilles’] feet and pleaded, weeping, for her brother Hektor, promising to be his slave and stay with him, if he would give back the body. The kings, pitying his old age, appealed on behalf of Priam … [Achilles speaks indignantly] … 7 But they persuaded him to take the ransom and give up the body. And he, giving thought to life’s pleasures, turned round and stood Priam up and Polyxena and Andromache too, and told Priam to bathe and to have food and wine with him, because otherwise he would not give up the body to him … After much conversation, they stood up, and, as the ransom was laid on the ground, Achilles saw the quantity of gifts and accepted the gold and silver and some of the clothing. The remainder he gave to Polyxena and returned the body. Priam invited Achilles to keep Polyxena with him. But he said to take her to Ilion, postponing the decision about her for a later occasion.

Meanwhile, the loose end, the near-dead body of Penthesileia, gives rise to some conflict of views: 12 As Penthesileia was still breathing, we debated whether she should be thrown alive into the river or handed to the dogs to eat. Achilles asked us to let her be buried when she died, and when the troops found out they shouted for her to be thrown into the river, and straightaway Diomedes took hold of her by the feet and threw her into the River Skamandros – and she died immediately.

Achilles’ psychology has evolved – and so has that of the army: the army favours brutality to the fallen Penthesilea, whereas Achilles wants the decent thing. This casts a whole new light on the version of Arktinos, no more immune from rewriting than Homer, that Thersites had accused Achilles of falling in love with her at the moment of death – and was killed by Achilles for making that accusation. Mere days after these events, we move towards the climactic event, the death of Achilles. There is a festival at the temple of Apollo Thymbraios, not far from Ilion, and a truce to allow both parties to make their observances (note that this is a rewritten version of Diktys, in which Teukros tells the story to Achilles’ son Neoptolemos):



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19 … And as Polyxena came out with Hekabe to go to the shrine, Achilles was stunned at the sight of her. And Priam, seeing Achilles in the grove, sent a person called Idaios to bring proposals to him concerning Polyxena while Achilles was walking alone in the grove of Apollo. Hearing the proposal about her excited Achilles. 20 But when we Greeks saw Idaios spending time with Achilles we were in uproar, on the basis that your father Achilles was betraying us, and we sent him a response through … Aias and Diomedes and Odysseus so that they could pass the message to him not to be confident in the barbarians on his own. They went off and awaited him outside the grove so that they could deliver him the message, but your father Achilles arranged with Idaios to get Polyxena in marriage. 21 After a while Paris and his brother Deiphobos came to Achilles secretly to invite him to marry Polyxena. And Achilles received them privately incognito not suspecting any foul play because they were in the grove of Apollo. Paris then stood by the altar apparently to confirm by oath what had been said between him and Achilles. As Deiphobos embraced him and kissed him as a friend, Paris took the sword he was carrying and put it through his ribs. Paris struck a second blow at Achilles and finally he collapsed and fell. 22 Paris and Deiphobos left the grove by a different exit without arousing suspicion … when [Odysseus, Aias and Diomedes] got into the grove they saw your father Achilles lying by the altar on the ground, bloodied and still breathing. [… Aias speaks …] And Achilles replied, ‘Paris and Deiphobos have finished me off because of Polyxena,’ and died. Diktys of Crete BNJ 49 F 7b, tr. K. Dowden

The new Thersitic reading of the soldiery extends to the suspicion of treachery by Achilles. Of course no god intervenes to kill him in this rationalistic world, but he was in the grove of Apollo Thymbraios when Paris and Deiphobos (who will marry Helen after Paris)19 murder him. And the temple has a reason for being in the foreground as it is actually the time of the festival. The role of Polyxena is even more striking. Achilles has evolved as a romantic figure for post-Hellenistic audiences at the time when the novel of Chariton had probably recently appeared (ad 60/90), whose hero Chaireas blends military success with romantic passion. In the traditional story Polyxena is sacrificed at Achilles’ tomb. Now we understand why: Achilles had been cheated in his desire for her and the contract is set right by her sacrifice. Everything makes sense and the impression is given that this is the true story that lies behind Homer’s more poetic account. ‘Diktys’ adopts an intelligible stance towards the collective memory. He

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visibly acknowledges the Trojan War mythology, in particular Aithiopis, Little Iliad, Odyssey and above all the mighty Iliad. The dragging of Hektor from Books 22 and 24, the games of 23, and the visit of Priam in 24 (now opened out, more plausibly, to the whole Greek camp) are treated as public facts. We should not imagine that this is a ‘historical novel’, a genre which is itself far from unproblematic. In Chariton’s novel, the Kallirhoe, it is clear enough that the historiographic agenda is part of an apparatus of plausibility for a clearly fictional plot and Chariton’s fictionality is that of mime or elegy. No one will believe that Chariton was actually rewriting history – that Thucydides forgot to mention Hermogenes’ daughter in his account of the Sicilian expedition in Books 6–7. Diktys, on the other hand, is not novel, as can be seen from his dull and patchy characterization.20 The entire interest of his work lies in its dialogue with the mythic tradition and the epic instantiations of that tradition. The hermeneutic task of the reader is to compare the modified account with the shared account and to determine whether it rises to standards of realism and historiographical plausibility and whether it does so with sufficient ingenuity. It is an exercise in generic transvestism. But there is more than this. Coming from modern times, we may assume it is what we call ‘a party piece’, that it is ephemeral and has no impact on the intertext, on the collective memory. This way we concede that it is a tour de force, but not that anyone took it seriously. Diktys is not going to change mythology, as Homer had. Is he? As a point of reference, we may turn to Dio Chrysostom’s Trojan Logos.21 Dio addresses the Greeks who in his day were the inhabitants of Ilion and treats them as though they might be offended by Homer’s account of their city and their ancestors. The unscrupulous inaccuracy and implausibility of Homer is much stressed: how can he report conversations between gods? Why does he so confuse the sequence of events? Why does he fail to describe any significant death (an actual problem, as we have seen above)? Dio now conjures up ‘better’ evidence, that of Egyptian inscriptions (§§37–8). It was Paris that was the husband of Helen, not Menelaos. It was Hektor who killed Achilles – how else did he gain the latter’s armour (§§96–7)? And the only reason he ends the Iliad where he does, before the fall of Troy, is that the stress of maintaining consistency is too great for this volume of lies. Priam and Hektor in fact lived happily ever after (§124). Nothing could be clearer



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than this work of Dio’s. It is an exhibition of the sophist’s art by arguing what is apparently impossible: Homer was completely wrong about the Trojan War. The audience will admire the skill and bravado with which this exceptionally gifted epideictic rhetor constructs plausible argument. But no one will think that the intertext has been moved by this contribution. If anything, it has been confirmed. Is this the effect sought by Diktys? The test is whether other mythographers incorporate this material. This brings me to Apollodorus’ Bibliotheke, more precisely its Epitome (3.16). I have drawn attention elsewhere22 to the curious detail we find there that, while Agamemnon commanded the land army, Achilles at the age of 15 led the fleet. This motif can only be occasioned by the story played out in Dictys Latinus (1.16), the Latin version of the lost Greek Diktys: here the Greeks make arrangements to elect leaders of the land army including Agamemnon, and leaders of the fleet including Achilles. A little earlier (1.14) is the statement that Achilles was in primis adulescentiae annis (‘in the early years of adolescence’). Multiple leaders are needed because later they will have to stand Agamemnon down temporarily as a result of his refusal to sacrifice Iphigeneia. But the key point remains: a detail of this fiction has got into a general mythography, one which I have argued is a conservative product of the second half of the first century ad, the same period to which Dio himself belongs. Thus, modification of the Troy story was very much in the air at the time. Though Dio may treat it only as an opportunity for a virtuoso display, it is not without significance that this was the time at which that virtuoso display emerged. In fact some of the revised story seems to go back to a reading of Lykophron’s Alexandra, a work which (in the second century bc, if the lines on Rome are not an intrusion)23 enshrined a mass of shared culture and candidate-culture from mythology that had not been widely adopted. His opaque brilliance compelled commentators to write about his work and this is one instance – Alexandra 323–4 and scholiast: Lykophron: ‘And thee [Polyxena] to cruel bridal and marriage sacrifice the sullen lion [Neoptolemos], child of Iphis [Iphigeneia], shall lead.’ (tr. A. W. Mair) Scholiast: Achilles had fallen in love with Polyxena and because of her had been killed in the shrine of Apollo Thymbraios. So after the sack of Troy he appeared

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in dreams and asked the best of the Greeks to slaughter Polyxena for him as he loved her even after death.24 (trans. K. Dowden)

Lykophron himself speaks of a ‘cruel bridal and marriage sacrifice’ undergone by Polyxena: it may be no more than a colourful way of describing her sacrifice at the grave, but it could be taken to indicate the fulfilment in death of the marriage to Achilles that had been vainly negotiated in life, as explained by the scholiast. In the same breath he goes on to imply that Iphigeneia was the mother of Neoptolemos. This is very much revisionist writing, deriving from Duris of Samos in the fourth or third century bc (BNJ 76 F 88), according to whom Achilles spirited Iphigeneia away from Aulis to Skyros. The ground was already prepared, then, for Diktys’ account, and this revision of the story cannot count as ephemeral epideictic display. The scholiast seems specifically to have Diktys’ version in mind, and the consequence for us is that Diktys ceases to be isolated and has added to the remembered, and cited, mythology. Similar arguments also apply to the stray detail in Apollodorus about Achilles’ youthful command of the fleet. In all this it is economical to quarantine such innovation to particular sources, in this case Diktys. But that is to overlook the climate of writing and the sustained, shared, interest in renovation of the Troy story from, say, the beginnings of Alexandrian commentary on Homer and Lykophron down to around ad 100. Here we meet with another sample of quarantine: the case of Ptolemy Chennos. In his New History, which must itself date from the closing decades of the first century ad, Ptolemy presented a whole series of travesties of mythic and historiographical tradition. He purported to collect these from a wide variety of sources, which Hercher denounced (1856) as largely bogus, invented by Ptolemy. Many of these sources end up being entries in Jacoby’s Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrH), where their authors are equally denounced as non-existent by Jacoby. However, I have had the opportunity to reconsider this issue in the process of revising some of these entries for Brill’s New Jacoby (BNJ).25 Though there may be invention, and indeed careless citation, many of these preposterous and ingenious stories may indeed be fact manufactured but by genuine authors whose works do not survive. This then transfers responsibility from a wayward individual (such as Ptolemy or Ps.-Plutarch) to multiple authors in a particular



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era. It becomes an important fact about that era (roughly 100 bc–ad 100) that such startling alterations were proposed to the shared mythology and, more broadly, shared culture. As with Ptolemy’s contemporary, as I think, Diktys, it is hard to estimate the degree to which such epideictic contributions are ludic or earnest. They seem to create a parallel culture, an alternative-universe memory, which then seeps through porous boundaries or scholarly wormholes into the real world of commentary. Commentary was not then, as it is now, something which will have no effect on the prevailing culture. Rather, it is like Heissenberg’s view of quantum mechanics: the observer himself affects the environment he is observing. Once uttered, these things have become part of the intertext and are sucked into the pool of memory.26 A particularly delightful example of this is provided by the institution of the mnemon. This non-existent institution is first called into existence by a reading, once again, of Lykophron: … but together with them [Tennes and Hemithea and their father Kyknos] the wretched man [Mnemon], not mindful [mnemon] of [Achilles’] mother’s instructions, but tripped by forgetfulness, will die face down, wounded in the chest by a sword [i.e., by Achilles]. Lykophron, Alexandra 240–2, trans. K. Dowden in BNJ 56 F 1a, commentary

A man who should have warned Achilles not to kill Tennes, for otherwise he would be slain by Apollo, fails to do so. His name is Mnemon (‘Mindful’) because he isn’t. But in the reading of Lykophron, the name becomes a statement of his function and the Bronze Age Greeks are observed in the pages of Cyclic epic and Homer regularly to have appointed ‘rememberers’, whose function it is in life to stand around waiting to ‘remind’ a hero of something they must not do and notably to fail to do so. This is then reflected in our summary of Ptolemy Chennos: How Odysseus was given by his father a man called Myiskos, from Kephallenia, as his mnemon. And a mnemon by the name of Noemon, a man originally from Carthage, followed Achilles, and Eudoros followed Patroklos. Antipater of Akanthos says that Dares, who wrote the Iliad before Homer, was the mnemon of Hektor to stop him killing the companion of Achilles. And Protesilaos’, he says, was Dardanos, originally from Thessaly, and Antilochos had Chalkon by him as his hypaspist and mnemon at the instigation of his father Nestor. BNJ 56 F 1b, trans. K. Dowden

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But this set of stories about mnemones involves quite an industry of scholars, if they are genuine: 1. That this was the Memnon who also killed the fine Antilochos son of Nestor, history tells. An account of it is presented by Asklepiades of Myrlea: an oracle had been given to Nestor to beware of the Ethiopian in the case of his son Antilochos and so the father gave him as his mnemon (minder) and shield-bearer Chalkon from Kyparissos, who fell in love with Penthesilea and who in the attempt to assist her was killed by Achilles – and his body was put on a stake by the Greeks. 2. Other heroes too were given mnemones, for example, Achilles by his mother, as Lykophron too tells. And Patroklos was given Eudoros by Achilles after his wrath, during the battle at the ships, so that he should not go too far. But he was killed immediately in the clash by Pyraichmes. Timolaos (FGrH 798) the Macedonian says this is why he was the first to be slain by Patroklos. 3. Antipater of Akanthos says that Hektor too was given Dares the Phrygian (51T5) as a mnemon, to stop him killing a friend of Achilles (i.e. Patroklos) after Apollo of Thymbra had given an oracle to that effect. But he deserted and was killed by Odysseus … BNJ 56 F 1a, trans. K. Dowden

It can now be seen that, with a second-century bc preamble, a number of players seem to drop into place in the period 100 bc–ad 100, some of whom we have already discussed and others whom we shall soon mention: Lykophron, Alexandra Asklepiades of Myrlea Scholia to (commentators on) Lykophron ‘Timolaos’ M. Terentius Varro, Divine and Human Antiquities P. Vergilius Maro ‘Antipater of Akanthos’ the education of Statius Herakleitos, Homeric Problems Apollodorus, Bibliotheke Diktys Ptolemy Chennos

2 c bc? (prophecy of Rome’s power, see above) 2/1 c bc 2/1 c bc > (Isaac?) Tzetzes 12 c ad 1 c bc ? c. 50 bc died 19 bc 1 c ad? (see BNJ 56) c. 50–60 ad late 1 c ?, allegorist ad c. 60–80 ? ad c. 90? ad c. 90?

Lykophron heads this procession. Asklepiades of Myrlea, a man who discussed



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the concept of truth in history somewhere in the 2/1 c bc, seems in some ways pivotal to the Lykophron scholia (see BNJ 56 F1a) and the concept of the mnemon (in the case of Chalkon) is attributed to him. He must have said more and indeed must have drawn on Lykophron. This recreation of the myth is then elaborated in other hands – those of one Timolaos if we can believe in him, presumably the same one whose existence is doubted in BNJ 798; given his interest in Pessinous at 798 F1, he must presumably be 2/1 c bc – with an absolute terminus ante quem provided by Ps. Plutarch de fluviius (around ad 100) and Ptolemy Chennos (around ad 90), and a terminus post quem of Asklepiades’ invention of the topic of discussion. Thus, though it has to be patched together, the period of the first century bc–first century ad is a frenetic one for Greek memory and for the consolidation of identity through the post-Alexandrian analysis of culture. The subject of analysis is, above all, mythic culture, where Homer and the Trojan story play so large a part, in a second-level analysis – an analysis of a distant, now canonized and pseudo-scriptural, literary heritage that was itself an analysis of the past.27 Though the intertextuality is conspicuously ‘agonistic’28 and sophistic, it is worth standing back and seeing the common ground. Together with a huge impetus to encyclopedism (and concomitantly paradoxography), writers strove to establish a rational body of cultural detail and history, one that could stand up to scientific inspection29 and so give expression to a newly civilized world in a new context, what Assmann (1992: 284) calls ein neuer situativer Rahmen. This was the world to which Rome was gradually bringing peace, stability and a new self-awareness or Selbstbewusstsein.

Roman Variation Having established the secure foundations of identity in this newly defined and extended cultural memory, the question then arose of how Romans could incorporate themselves in this powerful alien tradition. By the 50s bc the triumph of predominantly Greek ideas of mythic memory was complete. The matching, native Roman, cultural memory was one that had to be represented as historiographic and ancestral, with a reality-register distinct from

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Greek myth. This question never arose for Greeks, who remained content to maintain myth as their history. It is worth considering the place of Vergil in this discussion. The programme for the Aeneid is in some ways set by Lykophron, Alexandra 1226–80.30 It is beyond my present scope to chart it here, but eating tables, prophecies about pigs, the Penates, Aeneas, Anchises, minor characters, Monte Circeo, the Sibyl, all figure somehow here. It is an attractive theory, therefore, though not necessary to what I argue here, that the Alexandra itself belongs to the Pergamene court, that unique conduit between the Greek and Roman worlds.31 Be that as it may, Vergil seems to have read Lykophron, and Stephanie West for one has suggested that Aeneas’ recall of the prophecy of the eating of the tables is expressed in uncharacteristically turgid language and is meant to send us back to Lykophron.32 Indeed, Nicholas Horsfall has gone as far as to say that ‘It has long been clear that Lycophron was read attentively by Vergil.’33 Thus Vergil subscribes to a tradition of mythic scholarship and variation in the form characteristic of this period. The world of the commentary on Lykophron and the revisionist writers about the Troy story is his world. And the material we find in the Homeric scholia can be shown to have made its mark on Vergil.34 We need to envisage Vergil working through this material – as Statius later did with his father:35 … tu pandere doctus Carmina Battiadae latebrasque Lycophronis atri. … you were learned in unfolding the poems of Callimachus and the lairs of black Lykophron. Statius, Silvae 5.3.156–7

This is how memory was manufactured in ancient education with its reliance on memorization of detail and explication of points of difficulty in that detail. To know mythic detail is to be educated and to have grasped the culture. Thus his account of the fall of Troy and his intermittently realist account of heroic times is a particular type of reconstruction that bears meaningful comparison with Diktys. And though it is familiar to study Vergil from the perspective of Augustus’ reconstruction of cultural memory, something Livy found rather difficult, Vergil can in fact be just as interestingly situated in the competition for mythic memory in which Greek writers were simultaneously



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engaged. Varro too belongs here, given that his project in the Divine and Human Antiquities was evidently to define Roman cultural memory using the latest Greek conceptual tools. It is a tragedy that this major, and influential, work is lost, and that we must turn instead to Livy – or to a Greek, Dionysius of Halicarnassus for his Roman Antiquities. From Dionysius we may learn that Rome only became noteworthy relatively recently: until then it was οὐκ ἄξια ἱστορικῆς ἀναγραφῆς (‘not worthy of historical writing’, 1.4.1). But now that it is worthy, Dionysius can write about its early history and show that the founders of Rome were Greeks (1.5.1), incorporating them within the mythic system of memory.

Some Conclusions So we find in the last century bc and first century ad a key moment for the game of what people will remember and who they will be as a result of remembering it. Greeks will acquire that paideia that is synonymous with membership of Greek culture; and opinion-formers – in this case grammatikoi making strange statements about what really happened in Greek mythology – will aspire to cultural leadership, not infrequently thereby gaining access to those who exercised political leadership. Lykophron could have been at the court of the Attalids (Kosmetatou 2000). Varro needed no one’s court, but his cultural leadership was recognized by Cicero and Caesar. Vergil had access to Augustus, and Statius in a way to Domitian. John Sullivan (1985) once explored how power lay in the (particularly epic and mythographic) pen in the case of Nero’s court; and, earlier, one of Tiberius’ special perversions was to discuss on Capri which song the Sirens sang, and such questions, with an entourage of academics.36 It is perhaps better not to ask the question whether anyone believed the new mythography, or whether it had any absolute worth. It is enough that it worked in the dimension of epideixis and the parade of paideia. Revising the history of Troy in Vergil’s hands was a significant way of establishing an Augustan ideology; and even in the case of Diktys, it served to establish cultural identity and scholarly aspiration through its revisionism. And eventually Diktys would be taken by Byzantine chroniclers to present an authoritative mythology.37

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On the larger scale, movements in the content of mythology and appropriation of mythology by new constituencies are often defining points in the development of culture. This is what happened when the Romans felt the need to appropriate Greek memories of the past, when Christians worldwide came to adopt the history of Israel, and indeed when, at the formation of Greek mythology as we know it, Greeks who had not been part of the Mycenaean cultural ambit none the less signed up to a version of its mythology.38 The final example is of course our own acceptance of classical philology as an expression of European culture.39

Abbreviations BNJ

I. Worthington (ed.), Brill’s New Jacoby. www.brillonline.nl, 2007-date.

FGrH F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin, 1923–30; Leiden, 1940–58.

Notes 1 ἢ τίς οὐ παρ’ αὐτῶν ἂν τῶν συγγραφέων μάθοι ῥᾳδίως, ὅτι μηδὲν βεβαίως εἰδότες συνέγραφον, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἕκαστοι περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων εἴκαζον; τὸ πλεῖον γοῦν διὰ τῶν βιβλίων ἀλλήλους ἐλέγχουσι καὶ τἀναντιώτατα περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν λέγειν οὐκ ὀκνοῦσι. (‘Indeed, who could not learn easily from the writers themselves that they wrote without any secure knowledge, but guessed about these matters on an individual basis? Certainly, for the most part they use their books to criticise each other and they show no hesitation in saying exactly the opposite about the same matters.’) 2 Létoublon 2011: see 27 on Homer’s non-mythographic character, and 35 on Achilles’ death. 3 On Homer’s ‘ignorance’, see, e.g. scholiast to Iliad 9.145a (does not know the sacrifice of Iphigeneia); 1.396b (Aristarchos); Dowden 1989: 11–12. 4 Dowden 1992, 7–9; Dowden and Livingstone 2011: 4, 497. 5 Adjusting Assmann 1992: 275.



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6 On the issue of freedom to contradict in Greek written culture, see Assmann 1992, 270–1. 7 The issue of truth, like much else, is illuminated by Paul Veyne (1988: see index s.v.). 8 It is a ‘Rekonstruktion von Vergangenheit’, Assmann 1992: 275. 9 On the ‘floating gap’, see Assmann 1992: 48–9. 10 Gantz 1993: 625–8. 11 Telemachos comes close to stating this in Odyssey 1.351. 12 Dowden 1996: 53 and n. 36. 13 Cf. Gantz 1993: 663–4. 14 Assmann 1992: 280–9. 15 See BNJ and FGrH in the Abbreviations . 16 See K. Dowden, BNJ 49. 17 Arktinos is most easily accessed in West 2003: plot at 110–13, F 1 (link of Iliad and Aithiopis) at 114–15 18 I present an abridged version of this fragment here and in the following paragraphs; the reader should consult BNJ 49 for the full version. 19 Gantz 1993: 639, seeing the marriage as implicit in the Odyssey. Explicit in the Little Iliad, West 2003: 122–3. 20 See Dowden 2009 and 2012. 21 See also Dowden 2012. 22 Dowden 2012. 23 1226–82. 24 Ἀχιλεὺς ἐρασθεὶς Πολυξένης καὶ δι’ αὐτὴν ἐν τῷ τοῦ Θυμβραίου Ἀπόλλωνος ἱερῷ ἀναιρεθεὶς μετὰ τὸ πορθηθῆναι τὴν Ἴλιον ᾐτήσατο καθ’ ὕπνους τοὺς ἀρίστους τῶν Ἑλλήνων τὴν Πολυξένην ὡς καὶ μετὰ θάνατον ἐρῶν αὐτῆς σφαγιασθῆναι αὐτῷ τὴν Πολυξένην. 25 See my commentaries on BNJ 46, 49, 52–4, 56–62 and especially on BNJ 56 F 1b. 26 Cf. Assmann 1992: 281–2 on the intertextual impact of written texts and on ‘hypolepsis’. These instances complicate Assmann’s model: there is not only variation, but also variation that is playfully offered by the epideictic rhetor, only to be adopted outright from their different generic perspective by chroniclers, scholiasts and their antecedents – learned writers such as Asklepiades of Myrlea. 27 Cf. Assmann 1992: 278. 28 The term is due to H. von Staden – see Assmann 1992: 286. 29 I’m not sure whether this is what Assmann 1992: 287 is referring to through his criterion of Wahrheit (‘Wahrheitsanspruch des Textes’) and Sache in ‘hypoleptic text’. Certainly these writers competed to assert what was actually true and real

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as opposed to what Homer, or the tradition, said or appeared to say. Certainly this type of writing is problem-centred (see Dowden on BNJ 56 F 1b), as specified by Assmann 1992: 288. 30 Quite apart from the issue of the capture of Troy itself, for instance the ‘childdevouring’ snakes (347) – called Porkeus and (scholia) Chariboia. 31 Kosmetatou 2000. 32 Aeneid 7.107ff. S. West 1983: 134, and cf. her comments on Cassandra’s upturned eyes at 2.405, on p. 135. Cf. also an etymology which Vergil seems to get from Alexandra 15: David Sansone, ‘Vergil, Aeneid 5.835-6’, CQ ns 46 (1996), 429–33, esp. 429–30. 33 Horsfall 1991: 206. 34 Schlunk 1974, with the review by Nicholas Horsfall (1976). 35 Horsfall 1976: 277. 36 Suetonius, Tiberius 70.3. 37 See BNJ 49. 38 The thesis of Margalit Finkelberg (2005, esp. ch. 8). 39 Assmann 1992: 280.

Bibliography Assmann, J., 1992. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. Munich. Dowden, K., 1989. Death and the Maiden: girls’ initiation rites in Greek mythology. London/New York. —1992. The Uses of Greek Mythology. London and New York. —1996. ‘Homer’s Sense of Text’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 116, 47–61. —2009. ‘Reading Diktys: the discrete charm of bogosity’, in M. Paschalis, S. Panayotakis and G. Schmeling (eds), Readers and Writers in the Ancient Novel. Groningen, 155–68. —2012. ‘Fact and fiction in the New Mythology: 100 BC–AD 100’, in J. R. Morgan and I. D. Repath (eds), Lies and Metafiction. Groningen. Dowden, K. and N. Livingstone (eds), 2011. A Companion to Greek Mythology. Malden, MA/Oxford. Finkelberg, Margalit, 2005. Greeks and Pre-Greeks: Aegean prehistory and Greek heroic tradition. Cambridge Gantz, T., 1993. Early Greek Myth: a guide to literary and artistic sources. Baltimore, MD/London.



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Hercher, R., 1856. ‘Über die Glaubwürdigkeit der Neuen Geschichte des Ptolemaeus Chennus’, Jahrbücher für klassische Philologie, Suppl. n.s. 1 (1855/6), 267–93. Horsfall, N., 1976. Review of Schlunk 1974, in JRS 66, 277. —1991. ‘Vergil and the Poetry of Explanations’, Greece and Rome 38, 203–11. Kosmetatou, Elisabeth, 2000. ‘Lycophron’s “Alexandra” Reconsidered: The Attalid Connection’, Hermes 128, 32–53. Létoublon, Françoise, 2011. ‘Homer’s Use of Myth’, in K. Dowden and N. Livingstone (eds), A Companion to Greek Mythology. Malden, MA/Oxford, ch.2. Schlunk, R. R., 1974. The Homeric Scholia and the Aeneid: A Study of the Influence of Ancient Homeric Literary Criticism on Vergil. Ann Arbor, MI. Sullivan, J. P., 1985 Literature and Politics in the Age of Nero. Ithaca and London. Veyne, P., 1988 Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths? An essay on the constitutive imagination, Eng. tr. Chicago, IL/London. West, M. L., 2003. Greek Epic Fragments. Cambridge, MA. West, Stephanie, 1983. ‘Notes on the Text of Lycophron’, Classical Quarterly, No. 33, 114–35.

7

Nights of Egeria: Juvenal’s De Memoria Deorum David H. J. Larmour

It is a conundrum that while Juvenal’s verse satire appropriates the metre and discourse of epic poetry to a much greater extent than is the case with his predecessors in the genre – Persius, Horace and Lucilius – it dispenses almost entirely with the divine apparatus surrounding the epic hero and his quest; indeed, the gods are noticeably absent from a genre whose concern with morals and justice, or at least with vice and punishment, might lead us to expect their presence. The collection does open with a tirade against writers of inferior epic poetry (‘Am I always to be only a member of the audience? Am I never to retaliate for being tortured so often by hoarse Cordus’ Theseid?’, 1.1–2) and ridicules overused epic topoi (‘No-one knows his own house better than I know the Grove of Mars and the cave of Vulcan near the Aeolian cliffs …’, 7–9), so we know that the satirist’s attitude to the genre is less than wholly positive.1 But he does style himself, at least initially (1.19–20), as an epic hero who has decided ‘to charge across the plain’ (decurrere campo) on which Lucilius, the founder of Latin hexameter satire, ‘steered his horses’ (equos … flexit).2 In such a setting, even allowing for Juvenal’s all-encompassing irony, the almost total absence of the ‘righteous anger’ of the gods with its implied threats of vengeance against all manner of miscreants and (less frequently) rewards for the virtuous few – of the kind we see, for example, in Ovid’s tales of Lycaon (1.163–252) or Philemon and Baucis (8.611–724) in the Metamorphoses – provokes some surprise. One probable reason for this is that the satirist needs to portray a corrupted world in order to motivate his own corrective stance, and the absence of gods

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symbolizes this. The ‘godless’ landscape also alludes to the fundamentally ‘deconstructive’ nature of Juvenalian satire, which leaves little or no space for improvement.3 As a prototype of the restless flâneur of later metropoleis, the satirist-narrator, like the heroes of epic, is on a quest: he strays across the physical space of Rome, wandering through an ideological landscape laden with chronotopic significance which promises to solidify his identity as a subject, but always fails to do so.4 The monuments and sites of Rome, laden as they are with the tropes of Roman memorializing and the physical manifestations of moral and ideological imperatives, should offer fixed points of Romanitas to which the speaker can anchor his floating subjectivity; but in their Juvenalian projection, if they are not inherently repellent locations like the Subura or the Circus Maximus, they are important public spaces which have become repulsive through their contamination by outside elements or the outrageous behaviour of people who frequent them. This is particularly true for sites of religious significance, such as the Temple of Mars Ultor or the Grove of Egeria, as we shall see. As the topographical, historical and cultural landmarks of Rome appear and reappear across the satires, so numerous gods and temples are mentioned or alluded to throughout the collection. The majority of such references are at least laced with irony and often veer into mockery, as we might expect within the discursive parameters of Juvenalian satire. Thus, for example, the speaker comments in Satire 6.47–51 that ‘if you find a woman who is pure, you should sacrifice a gilded heifer to Juno’ and that ‘there are so few women worthy of touching the fillets of Ceres and whose father wouldn’t fear their kisses’. Similarly, at the conclusion of Satire 2, even boys, we are told, no longer believe in the silly paraphernalia of the Underworld – ghosts, Cocytus, black frogs in the Styx and Charon’s one little boat carrying thousands of souls across the water – unless, that is, they are too young to pay for admission to the baths (149–52). This illustrates one of Juvenal’s favourite tactics (about which we shall have more to say later), namely bringing the divine realm into bathetic association with the trivial practice of everyday life. Although there are some fleeting suggestions in the Satires of appropriate piety in religious observance – such as Umbricius’ request that Juvenal invite him from Cumae to visit Helvinam Cererem vestramque Dianam (‘Helvius’ Ceres and your Diana’, 3.320)5 or the narrator’s observation in 15.140–2 that



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‘no-one who is good and worthy of the mystic torch, who behaves as the priest of Ceres wishes, considers the sufferings of others irrelevant to themselves’ – the majority of the participants in religious activities are ridiculed as hypocritical and self-serving, if not downright impious.6 So, for example, even though the fat and dissolute Lateranus duly makes sacrifices in accordance with Numa’s rite (more Numae), when standing before Jupiter’s altar he swears only by Epona – goddess of mule-drivers – and ‘the pictures painted on the smelly stables’ (8.155–7).7 It is clear from numerous such examples that the topic of interaction with religious signifiers is in fact central to Juvenal’s vision: when the speaker lists the ingredients that go into his satirical stew, he puts ‘prayers’ first – quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, / gaudia, discursus, nostri farrago libelli est (‘all human activity, prayers, fear, anger, pleasure, joy, rushing about, this is the mash of my little book’, 1.85–6) – and the whole of Satire 10 is devoted to the theme of foolish and misplaced objects of prayer to the gods, the reasons why it is right and proper ( fas) ‘to cover the gods’ knees with wax [tablets containing prayers]’ (10.55). This article discusses three revealing moments of engagement with the lieux de mémoire of Roman religion in the Satires before moving to some conclusions about what we may term Juvenal’s De Memoria Deorum. First, we shall look at a trio of sacred sites, namely the temples of Concord and of Mars Ultor and the Altar of Pudicitia, whose divinities no longer receive the reverence they enjoyed in earlier times. In Juvenal’s Rome, gods are marked more by their absence than their presence; indeed, they appear to have ‘fled’ from the city, leaving it and their empty temples to its corrupt inhabitants. In conjunction with this theme, we have the unedifying spectacle of new arrivals, aliens from the east, such as the cults of the Great Mother (Bona Dea) or Cybele or Isis;8 these intruders usurp the space of venerable Roman deities, as occurs when the Grove of Egeria is rented out to Jewish refugees (3.10–20), a vignette worth examining in some detail. Finally, we shall consider the ways in which the Roman gods have been ‘belittled’ and ‘banalized’ so that they are reduced to little more than part of the household ‘furniture’ and merely one constituent of the sordid practice of everyday life.

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O Templa, O Mores In Satire 1, some of the most venerated abstractions of Roman religion appear in a group as the speaker feigns surprise that there is no temple of Pecunia where ‘deadly cash’ could be worshipped, along with – or instead of – Pax, Fides, Victoria, Virtus and Concordia (1.112–16): quandoquidem inter nos sanctissima divitiarum maiestas, etsi funesta Pecunia templo nondum habitat, nullas nummorum ereximus aras, ut colitur Pax atque Fides, Victoria, Virtus quaeque salutato crepitat Concordia nido. Since it is the majesty of wealth which is most revered among us, even if deadly Money hasn’t yet got a temple to dwell in and we haven’t yet set up altars to cash, as Peace and Loyalty, Victory, Virtue are worshipped, and Concord who clatters when her nest is greeted.

The joke that the Temple of Concord, presumably the one located at the entrance to the Capitol,9 now functions as a bird’s nest undermines some of the most powerful watchwords of Roman ideology embodied here in architectural form, including fides and virtus. The worship of Fides, for example, was said to have been initiated by Numa, the founder of Roman religion, and there was a Temple of Fides on the Capitol.10 The site of the Temple of Concord is redolent with powerful memories ripe for Juvenal to exploit for his own satirical purposes; for us, a sense of the weight of memory associated with this temple can be gleaned from Ovid’s description in Fasti 1.637–50:11 Candida, te niveo posuit lux proxima templo, qua fert sublimes alta Moneta gradus, nunc bene prospiciens Latiam Concordia turbam, nunc te sacratae constituere manus.  Furius antiquam, populi superator Etrusci, voverat et voti solverat ille fidem. causa, quod a patribus sumptis secesserat armis volgus, et ipsa suas Roma timebat opes. causa recens melior: passos Germania crines porrigit auspiciis, dux venerande, tuis. Inde triumphatae libasti munera gentis

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Nights of Egeria: Juvenal’s De Memoria Deorum templaque fecisti, quam colis ipse, deae. Hanc tua constituit genetrix et rebus et ara, sola toro magni digna reperta Iovis.

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Gleaming Concordia, the next light enshrined you pure white Where high Moneta lifts its soaring steps. Now you have a fine view over the Latin mob; Now consecrated hands have confirmed you. Furius, conqueror of the Etruscan people, Vowed the old temple and kept his vow. The cause: the mob’s armed secession from the Fathers And Rome itself fearful of its power. The new cause is better: Germany spreads hair in homage Under your auspices, revered leader. Hence you offered this nation’s triumphal tribute And enshrined the goddess whom you worship. Your mother confirmed this with deeds and an altar, She alone found worthy of great Jove’s bed.12

‘Furius’ refers to Camillus who made a vow to build a Temple of Concord in the Forum during the strife between plebs and Senate in 367 bc and of course duly kept his fides; a Temple of Concord was rebuilt by Tiberius with the spoils from victories in Germany.13 It was also the location where the Senate met to condemn Catiline’s accomplices to death and Cicero delivered his Philippics. The site thus possessed layers of historical and religious significance that would have been readily apparent to Juvenal’s readers, not least some of the most celebrated triumphs by heroic figures of the past over threats to the res publica from both internal and external enemies; if Concordia in her Augustan reformulation came to represent harmony within the imperial household and hence within the state, then the implications of her loss of auctoritas or her complete absence – suggested by the nesting storks – become all too obvious.14 Ovid connects the Temple of Concordia with that of Juno Moneta, which was close by;15 the name Moneta seems to have been connected with both Mnemosyne and monere (to warn) and linked with the patriotic exploits of Camillus and with the geese who alerted the city to the invading Gauls in 390 bc. Juno Moneta was also the guardian of coinage and the city’s silver mint was attached to her temple.16 In Juvenal’s grouping of temples we are alerted to a threatening new presence on the block, namely Pecunia: its elevation to

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the status of a virtue in contemporary Rome – effectively detailed throughout Satire 1, especially in the central scene of the ‘daily dole’ (sportula) – ought to have resulted in an architectural incursion into sacred space which a temple to Pecunia would represent. The unholy association between temples and money reappears in 10.23–5: Prima fere vota et cunctis notissima templis divitiae, crescant ut opes, ut maxima toto nostra sit arco foro. Just about the most popular prayer, yet so familiar in the temples, is for riches: May my wealth grow! May my treasure chest be the biggest in the whole Forum!

This is usually thought to refer to the Temple of Castor, where deposits were kept under guard (a detail echoed in 14.260, ad vigilem ponendi Castora nummi).17 The corrupting influence of money and the desire for wealth has, however, spread from the human to the divine realm, according to 3.137–46: da testem Romae tam sanctum quam fuit hospes numinis Idaei, procedat vel Numa vel qui servavit trepidam flagranti ex aede Minervam: protinus ad censum, de moribus ultima fiet quaestio: ‘quot pascit servos? quot possidet agri iugera? quam multa magnaque paropside cenat? quantum quisque sua nummorum servat in arca, tantum habet et fidei. iures licet et Samothracum et nostrorum aras, contemnere fulmina pauper creditur atque deos dis ignoscentibus ipsis.

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Rome, produce a witness as saintly as the man who welcomed the Idaean goddess [Scipio Nasica], let Numa step forward, or the man who rescued a trembling Minerva from the blazing temple [Caecilius Metellus] – its straight to his wealth; his character will be the last enquiry. ‘How many slaves does he keep? How many acres of farmland does he own? How many and how lavish are his courses at dinner?’ Everyone’s credit matches the amount of coins he keeps in his treasure-chest. Though you swear an oath on the altars of the Samothracian and Roman gods, a poor man is thought to disregard the divine lightning-bolts, with the acquiescence of the gods themselves.18



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The degree to which a Scipio, Metellus or Numa would be considered sanctus in Rome today is directly dependent upon his ‘net worth’ (censum) while fides is measured by the amount of coins a man has in his treasure chest. The phrase dis ignoscentibus (‘with the gods themselves forgiving’) is nicely ambiguous: the gods forgive the poor man his perjury either because he is completely insignificant and lies out of necessity or because they have become as corrupt as mortals. As noted above, one implication of the clattering storks on the roof of the Temple of Concord is that the goddess herself has simply upped and left Rome. Only the facade remains, akin to the manner in which the great signifiers of Roman morality and identity (like libertas, fides, religio) have become detached from their ‘original’ meanings: ‘magna inter molles concordia’ (‘there’s enormous concordia among effeminates’), observes Laronia, in the course of her attack on dissolute males in Satire 2.36–64. This notion of departing divinity is echoed at various points throughout the Satires; for example, in 2.124–34, upon witnessing the marriage of Gracchus to another man, the speaker asks why Mars is not displaying his anger (2.124–34): Segmenta et longos habitus et flammea sumit arcano qui sacra ferens nutantia loro sudavit clipeis ancilibus. O Pater Urbis, unde nefas tantum Latiis pastoribus? Unde haec tetigit, Gradive, tuos urtica nepotes? traditur ecce viro clarus genere atque opibus vir, nec galeam quassas nec terram cuspide pulsas nec quereris patri? Vade ergo et cede severi iugeribus campi, quem neglegis. ‘officium cras primo sole mihi peragendum in valle Quirini.’ ‘quae causa officii?’ ‘quid quaeris? nubit amicus …

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He wears the bridal trimmings, long gown and veil, the very same man who carried the sacred objects swinging from the mystic strap sweating under the sacred shields. O Father of the City, whence comes such a great impiety to the shepherds of Latium? Whence this itch that taints your descendants, Gradivus? Behold – a man illustrious in his lineage and fortune is betrothed to another man and you neither shake your helmet nor strike the ground with your spear nor complain to your father? Be off, then – abandon the acres of the stern Campus [Martius] which you don’t care about. ‘Tomorrow at sunrise there’s a

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ceremony I must attend in the Valley of Quirinus.’ ‘What’s the occasion?’ ‘Why, a friend of mine is getting married [to a man] …’

The setting of the marriage in the valley of Quirinus creates a startling juxtaposition of the deified Romulus with an exemplum of disgraceful behaviour by a descendant of a noble family.19 Gracchus is one of the Salii, the priests of Mars (who were also closely associated with Quirinus), established according to tradition by Numa.20 Romulus is addressed in a solemn formulation as pater Urbis and Mars as Gradivus, with which we may compare antiquissime divom / … Iane pater in 6.393–4. In spite of all that goes on, however, he is not shaking his helmet or striking the ground with his spear. Indeed, the speaker tells him to ‘be off ’ from the Campus which bears his name, ironically qualified by the epithet severus here.21 Although Juvenal deploys language pointing to the rituals of Roman religion (arcane … sacra … nefas), the message of the passage is that the gods who ought to be guardians of morality and the virtues which constitute Romanitas have become impotent or abandoned the city altogether. The corruption runs deep: in 602–6, the speaker describes how the Salian and other priesthoods have been contaminated by ‘spurious’ children, abandoned by their parents and adopted by noble families, like the Aemilii Scauri, which provided members of the august colleges: Transeo suppositos et gaudia votaque saepe ad spurcos decepta lacus, saepe inde petitos pontifices, Salios Scaurorum nomina falso corpore laturos. Stat Fortuna improba noctu adridens nudis infantibus. I pass over the spurious children and the pleasures and prayers so often cheated at the filthy pools [latrines?], the high priests so often sought from there, the Salian priests who will bear the name of Scaurus in their false body. Shameless Fortune stands there at night, smiling on the naked babies.

We note the presence in this sordid nocturnal scene of ‘shameless’ Fortuna who has stepped into a leading role among the gods, rather like Pecunia amid the older temples.22 She becomes the satirist’s accomplice, ‘smiling ironically’ (adridens)23 and furnishing exempla for his attacks. The point of divine abandonment is made very effectively by focusing our attention on Mars Ultor, whose temple was the centrepiece of the Forum



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Augusti – a building the speaker has already alluded to very early on in 1.129–31, commenting on the impertinent insertion by ‘some Egyptian Arabarch’ of his own statue into the ranks of the triumphales, the heroes of Roman history, which graced the sides of the complex:24 atque triumphales inter quas ausus habere nescioquis titulos Aegyptius atque Arabarches, cuius ad effigiem non tantum meiere fas est. and the triumphal statues among whom some Egyptian Arabarch has dared to put up his statue, on which it’s right and proper not only to piss.

Once again, Juvenal’s picture of Mars is a far cry from the scene in the Fasti (5.549–54), where the god (addressed as Gradivus, 556) descends clatteringly to his new temple in the centre of the city: fallor, an arma sonant? non fallimur, arma sonabant: Mars venit et veniens bellica signa dedit. Ultor ad ipse suos caelo descendit honores templaque in Augusto conspicienda foro. et deus est ingens et opus: debebat in urbe non aliter nati Mars habitare sui. Am I deceived? Do arms clank ? No deceit. Arms did clank. He comes and has displayed the signs of war. Mars Ultor drops from heaven to view his honours And temple in the Augustan Forum. Both the god and the work are massive. Mars deserved No other dwelling in his son’s city.

The only detailed description of a particular site in the Fasti, this passage presented Ovid with a chance to expatiate upon Augustus’ appropriation of Mars as protector of the city of Rome.25 The language of presence (venit et veniens … descendit … habitare) emphasizes the god’s propinquity. Mars is also the protector of Roman pudor (shame) from foreign – in this case, eastern – enemies, as Ovid recalls the triumph over the Parthians (5.594–8): pignora iam nostri nulla pudoris habes. rite deo templumque datum nomenque bis ulto,  et meritus voti debita solvit honor.

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sollemnes ludos Circo celebrate, Quirites: non visa est fortem scaena decere deum. Now you possess no proofs of our shame. The twice vengeful god received a shrine and a title; The merited honours discharge the vow. Hold the festival Games in the Circus, Quirites: The stage seems not to suit the manly god.26

Mars presents Juvenal with the opportunity to comment upon the absence of fitting punishment for vice (cf. his opening words in 1.1–4: numquamne reponam …? inpune …? inpune …?). In the satirical cityscape, this powerful divine ‘presence’ is unobservable, because the occupant of the temple has ceased to fulfil his role as Avenger. In Satire 14.258–62, as the satirist returns to the profanation of religious sites by money, he again refers to this temple: Si spectes quanto capitis discrimine constent incrementa domus, aerata multus in arca fiscus et ad vigilem ponendi Castora nummi, ex quo Mars Ultor galeam quoque perdidit et res non potuit servare suas. Just look at how much people risk their lives for increased household worth, for the big deposit in the bronze-bound treasure chest and the cash which has to be deposited under Castor’s guard, since even Mars the Avenger lost his helmet and wasn’t able to keep hold of his own property.

The joke here appears to be that the Temple of Mars Ultor has recently been robbed, but the picture of Mars without his emblematic helmet is also suggestive of the god having lost his power. Indeed, robbing temples is an everyday activity in Rome, according to 13.147–52: confer et hos, veteris qui tollunt grandia templi pocula adorandae robiginis et populorum dona vel antiquo positas a rege coronas; haec ibi si non sunt, minor exstat sacrilegus qui radat inaurati femur Herculis et faciem ipsam Neptuni, qui bratteolam de Castore ducat. Compare too those who take from an old temple large goblets of venerable rust and the gifts of nations or crowns dedicated by some ancient king. If these



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things are not there, a minor defiler comes forth who scrapes the thigh of a gilded Hercules or the very face of a Neptune, who strips the gold-leaf from a Castor.

The image of Mars departing from the ‘stern’ Campus Martius is picked up by the departure of Pudicitia (Chastity) and then of her sister Astraea (Justice) in Satire 6. Here the speaker conjures up the Saturnian Golden Age, when shaggy and big-breasted women nourished their offspring in country caves and Pudicitia was still dwelling on the earth (1–20): Credo Pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam in terris visamque diu, cum frigida parvas praeberet spelunca domos ignemque laremque et pecus et dominos communi clauderet umbra, silvestrem montana torum cum sterneret uxor  frondibus et culmo vicinarumque ferarum pellibus, haut similis tibi, Cynthia, nec tibi, cuius turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos, sed potanda ferens infantibus ubera magnis et saepe horridior glandem ructante marito.  quippe aliter tunc orbe novo caeloque recenti vivebant homines, qui rupto robore nati compositive luto nullos habuere parentes. multa Pudicitiae veteris vestigia forsan aut aliqua exstiterint et sub Iove, sed Iove nondum barbato, nondum Graecis iurare paratis per caput alterius, cum furem nemo timeret caulibus ac pomis et aperto viveret horto. paulatim deinde ad superos Astraea recessit hac comite, atque duae pariter fugere sorores. 

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I can believe that Chastity lingered on earth during Saturn’s reign and that she was visible for a long time during the era when a chilly cave provided a tiny home, enclosing fire and hearth god and herd and its owners in communal gloom, when a mountain wife made her woodland bed with leaves and straw and the skins of her neighbours, the beasts. She was nothing like you, Cynthia, or you [Lesbia] with your bright eyes marred by the death of your sparrow. Instead she offered her paps for her hefty babies to drain, and she was often more unkempt than her acorn-belching husband. You see, people lived differently then, when the world was new and the sky was young – people who had

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no parents but were born from split oak or shaped from mud. It’s possible that many or at least some traces of ancient Chastity survived under Jupiter too – but that was before Jupiter got his beard, before the Greeks had taken to swearing by someone else’s name, at a time when no one feared that his cabbages or apples would be stolen but people lived with their gardens unwalled. It was afterwards that, little by little, Astraea withdrew to the gods above with Chastity as her companion. The two sisters ran away together.27

Cynthia and Lesbia (through the love poetry of Propertius and Catullus respectively) mark the link with Rome, as does the adjective montanus, suggesting the seven hills of the city.28 The flight of Pudicitia gets a reprise in 11.55–6, where the speaker is describing fugitive bankrupts: sanguinis in facie non haeret gutta, morantur / pauci ridiculum et fugientem ex Urbe Pudorem (‘not a drop of blood remains in their faces, few detain derided Chastity as she rushes out of the City’). The only other use of the word pudicitia in the extant poems comes in 10.297–8, rara est adeo concordia formae / atque pudicitiae (‘so rarely is beauty in concord with chastity’) of a son whose ‘excellent body’ only makes his parents anxious because, no matter how pure and simple his upbringing, he is not permitted ‘to take the male role’ (non licet esse viro, 10.304). In the twisted logic exposed by the satirist, good looks ( forma) expose the youth to moral danger via sexual degradation, because pudicitia is such a rarity. This is one of his recurring themes: in Satire 2, the speaker targets Roman males who have lost their sense of what is appropriate behaviour for their gender; in Satire 6, he launches a related, much lengthier, attack on females and the corrupted condition of Roman marriage. There is a graphic scene in the middle of the poem when two women, Maura and her sister, cavort under cover of darkness at the Altar of Pudicitia (306–13):29 I nunc et dubita qua sorbeat aera sanna Maura, Pudicitiae veterem cum praeterit aram, Tullia quid dicat, notae collactea Maurae. noctibus hic ponunt lecticas, micturiunt hic effigiemque deae longis siphonibus implent inque vices equitant ac Luna teste moventur. Inde domos abeunt: tu calcas luce reversa coniugis urinam magnos visurus amicos.



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Go now and ask yourself with what grimace Maura sniffs the air, when she passes the ancient Altar of Chastity; what Tullia says to her, sister nursed on the same breast as infamous Maura. Here at night they stop their litters, here they piss and fill the image of the goddess with their long sprays and ride one another in turn and prance about with the Moon as witness. Then they go off home: and you tread, when the daylight returns, in your wife’s urine on your way to see your important friends.

By placing Maura next to Pudicitiae veterem and having aram followed immediately by Tullia in 307–8, Juvenal emphasizes the profanation of formerly sacred space by these incontinent intruders. While the urinating or defecating on the Egyptian Arabarch’s statue in the portico of the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum Augusti in Satire 1 was imagined in a day-time setting, performed by a Roman male treating the impudent outsider with justified contempt, the pissing all over the image of Pudicitia takes place at night, unwitnessed by all but the Moon (although the evidence is there in the morning for those who care to look, including their husbands). The temples of Concord and Mars in Rome have been abandoned by their divinities, just as Pudicitia and Astraea have long since taken flight. Various other temples and sites of veneration do receive mention in the Satires, but in almost all instances when they are more than mere background,30 they are no longer sacred locations: in 9.22–4, for example, Naevolus the rent-male hangs out hoping for custom at the temples of Isis, Pax, Cybele or Ceres (‘for is there any temple where a woman doesn’t prostitute herself?’, 24) – a grouping which parallels the set of temples threatened by Pecunia in Satire 1.115 (Pax, Fides, Victoria, Virtus). As Courtney notes, ‘Ceres was a particularly chaste goddess … and therefore adultery in her temple was the more reprehensible.’31

Nights of Egeria The Temple of Concord is now occupied by nesting storks, but not all occupations of sacred space are so benign. This can be observed particularly in the jaundiced description of Egeria’s Grove, where Umbricius takes his leave of the speaker in Satire 3.10–20 and the only sustained piece of topographical

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description of a specific location in the entire collection. It was a site endowed with a considerable weight of memory, quite apart from the obvious association with Numa: before the Temple of Mars Ultor was built, for example, the most important shrine to the god was a temple near the Porta Capena, dedicated during the wars with the Gauls in 388 bc.32 In Ovid’s account in Fasti 3.259–80, in fact, Mars and the origins of the weapons of the Salii are interwoven with the encounter between Numa and Egeria. The scene in the grove is a pivotal moment in the Juvenalian corpus, for it is where the satirist’s voice is explicitly divided – into that of the narrator and that of Umbricius, who delivers his farewell speech before leaving Rome for good and going to Cumae (1.10–20):33 Sed dum tota domus raeda componitur una, substitit ad veteres arcus madidamque Capenam. in vallem Egeriae descendimus et speluncas dissimiles veris. Quanto praesentius esset numen aquis, viridi si margine cluderet undas herba nec ingenuum violarent marmora tofum. hic, ubi nocturnae Numa constituebat amicae, nunc sacri fontis nemus et delubra locantur Iudaeis, quorum cophinus fenumque supellex; omnis enim populo mercedem pendere iussa est arbor et eiectis mendicat silva Camenis.

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But while his whole house is being loaded onto one cart, he stops near the old arches and the dripping Capena Gate. We go down into the valley of Egeria and its fake-looking caves. How much more present the spirit of the waters would be, if grass enclosed the pool with a green border and marble did not profane the native tufa. Here, where Numa used to meet his night-time lady friend, now the grove with its sacred spring and its shrine are given over to Jews, whose paraphernalia is a hay-filled hamper. For every tree has been ordered to pay rent to the people and, with the Camenae expelled, the grove has become a beggar.

The reduction of large to small in the picture of Umbricius’ ‘whole house’ loaded onto ‘one cart’ narrows the gaze of the viewer from the macrocosm of the city as a whole to the microcosm of this one archway and the single



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grove nearby, so that these reduced spaces synecdochically represent Rome, the Urbs with ‘no place for honourable skills’ (artibus … honestis … nullus in Urbe locus, 3.21) or indeed ‘for any Roman’ (non est Romano cuiquam locus hic, 3.119). Umbricius’ departure from the city offers a parallel on the human level to its abandonment by the gods. Thus, through his alter ego Umbricius, the satirist associates himself with the perspective and actions of the displaced and disgusted divinities of Roman religion, to be picked up in Satire 6 with the flight from the earth of Pudicitia and Astraea Although he will leave through the Porta Capena, Umbricius chooses to unburden himself of his reasons for abandoning Rome in the Valley of Egeria, with descendimus recalling the imagined descent into the Underworld which comes at the end of Satire 2. This valley also offers (at least momentarily) a contrast with the activities which went on in the Valley of Quirinus in the previous poem. Umbricius’ reframing of Rome is analogous to the long speech delivered to Aeneas by Anchises in the Underworld in the sixth book of Vergil’s Aeneid (6.725–892), prophesying the future greatness of Rome through a parade of heroes yet to be born. The fact that Umbricius’ journey will take him from Rome to Cumae is also suggestive: it makes his trip into a return from the Underworld, the City of the Dead that Rome has become, to a land where living as a ‘true Roman’ is, if we take his narrative seriously, still possible. It is also a journey back to a chronotope before the city of Rome existed, with the encounter between the satirist and Umbricius paralleling that between Numa and Egeria.34 Thus, the Grove of Egeria allows for a satirical ‘time warp’ as we are invited to contemplate the current condition of the location where the foundations of Roman religion were established and hence the deterioration that has occurred since the promulgation of Numa’s original vision. In Juvenal’s description, the spring and the caves are associated with the dripping arches at the Porta Capena, and the scene appears to point towards proper religious observance, but the designation of the caves as dissimiles ueris (artificial-looking) immediately introduces a note of suspicion and alerts us to that lack of correspondence between appearance and reality which is a commonplace in satiric discourse: as we saw in Satire 2, for example, the outward ‘manly’ appearance of Roman males, especially those who pretend to be devoted to philosophy, belies a shameless descent into all sorts of immoral

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activities. 35 The Camenae (the Roman Muses) are associated with Egeria in Ovid’s Fasti 3.275 (Egeria est, quae praebet aquas, dea grata Camenis; ‘it’s Egeria, who provides the waters, a goddess dear to the Camenae’) but Juvenal’s description from this point onward focuses upon the invasion of the grotto by foreign elements, culminating in the expulsion of the specifically Roman Muses. Thus the grove for the narrator is a locus of unnatural defilement and profanation of the ‘authentically Roman’ by representatives of the Outside; and, as the Camenae were ejected from it, so Umbricius will eject himself from the city through the nearby Porta Capena, following the trend set by his divine predecessors. The unflattering description of the grove’s new inhabitants, with their foreign religious practices, is blended with comments on the ‘unnatural’ character of the grove’s superficially natural features – the spring, grass, caves and trees – leading to the observation that the numen (the divine spirit) of the spring would be ‘much more present’ if its waters were enclosed by grass and if marble did not violate the native tufa (quanto praesentius esset / numen aquis, uiridi si margine clauderet undas / herba, nec ingenuum uiolarent marmora tofum (‘How much more present the spirit of the waters would be, if grass enclosed the pool with a green border and marble did not profane the native tufa’, 3.18–20). The gap between Past and Present, the speaker seems to suggest, could be closed in this space freighted with memory, if only the ‘native tufa’ had not been ‘violated’ by marble, and if the ‘edge of the water’ was ‘enclosed’ (only) by grass. The imagery and the vocabulary are significant: presence as opposed to absence, green grass as opposed to white marble, and native or natural (ingenuus) as opposed to imported or constructed. The encircling of the pool by grass or tufa would be, in the eyes of the speaker and his implied viewer, entirely appropriate: an analogous ‘natural enclosing’ appears in the Golden Age of the cave-dwellers (Satire 6.4): et pecus et dominos communi clauderet umbra (‘[when a cave] enclosed both herd and owners in communal shade’). We may note, too, that when the two sisters, Pudicitia and Astraea, abandoned the world, people no longer lived with their gardens unwalled (6.18). In this passage, the word order reinforces the point: viridi and herba enclose undas within the clause, while herba and tofum similarly enclose marmora within the line, but the collocation of marmora and tofum brings out the harsh encounter – one might say the lack of harmony or concordia – between the



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quintessential building material of the imperial city, probably imported, and the naturally occurring porous tufa which was popular in pre-Augustan times. A similar notion appears later in Satire 14 with the builder Caetronius ‘outdoing’ (vincens) the temples of Fortuna and Hercules ‘with marble brought from Greece and far away’ (Graecis longeque petitis / marmoribus, 14.89–90). The sentence continues with: ut spado vincebat Capitolia nostra Posides (‘as the eunuch Posides was trying to outdo our Capitol’, 14.91), referring to a large house built by a freedman of Claudius near the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.36 The rather striking comparative praesentius (‘more present’ or ‘nearer [to help]’) suggests a craving, not only for the kind of divine nearness in Ovid’s account of Mars, but also for authenticity and for a secure correspondence between what appears to be and what actually is. The waters and the shrine, in other words, while retaining the superficial trappings of the site of a numen, have, in fact, lost all memory of it – just as the shrine of Pudicitia in Satire 6 is bereft of chastity (as we see all too clearly from Maura and Tullia’s antics) since the goddess has long since gone. There is a notable echo in 11.111, where the speaker describes how modestly people behaved in the old days templorum quoque maiestas praesentior (when ‘the grandeur of temples was more present’). He is referring to the mysterious warning heard near the Temple of Vesta in 391 bc, in the silence of the night.37 In 6.342–5, in a similarly nostalgic vein, the speaker asks: et quis tunc hominum contemptor numinis, aut quis simpuvium ridere Numae nigrumque catinum et Vaticano fragiles de monte patellas ausus erat? sed nunc ad quas non Clodius aras? and what man then was a despiser of deities, or dared to laugh at Numa’s ladle or his black bowl or fragile dishes from the Vatican hill? But what altars now haven’t got their Clodius?

Thus the state of affairs in Egeria’s Grove, where marble ‘violates’ the tufa, parallels the situation with most of the temples and altars mentioned in the Satires. Indeed, the verb violare recurs frequently in connection with temples and divinities, for example, fictilis nullo violatus Iuppiter auro, 11.116: the reference is to Jupiter’s protecting the Latins ‘when he was made

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of earthenware and not corrupted by gold’, that is, was still an old terracotta statue.38 The Grove of Egeria is therefore replete with chronotopic resonances and shifts: it is associated with the very beginnings of Rome, and, in particular, with the man who established its religious institutions and its legal boundaries. In Livy’s narrative (1.17–21), Numa pretends to have nocturnal meetings with Egeria for advice, because he believes he needs to put fear of the gods (deorum metum) into the Roman people, ‘lest relief from foreign dangers should lead to luxury and idleness’ (positis externorum periculorum curis ne luxuriarent otio animi, 1.19.4–5). This combination of ideas finds an echo in Satire 6.292–3: nunc patimur longae pacis mala. saeuior armis / luxuria incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem (‘now we suffer the misfortunes of a long peace. Luxury, crueller than war, has settled upon us and avenges the world we have conquered’). By Juvenal’s day, the descent into extravagance and idleness that Numa feared has taken place and is narrated to us in the very grove where he used to meet Egeria. Livy tells us that Numa’s religious organization was effected so that the people could get advice ‘should there be any confusion arising from neglect of ancestral rites and the adoption of foreign ones’ (ne quid divini iuris neglegendo patrios ritus peregrinosque adsciscendo turbaretur, 1.20.6). He later offers a picture of Rome as a civitatem totam in cultum versum deorum (‘a state completely concerned with the worship of the gods’) – not a description likely to be applied to Juvenal’s Rome – and he follows this immediately with a description of the grove (1.21.3): Lucus erat, quem medium ex opaco specu fons perenni rigabat aqua. Quo quia saepe Numa sine arbitris velut ad congressum deae inferebat, Camenis eum lucum sacravit, quod earum ibi concilia cum coniuge sua Egeria essent, et Fidei sollemne instituit. There was a grove, which a spring from a dark cave watered with a perennial flow through its midst. There Numa often used to withdraw without witnesses as if to meet the goddess, and so he dedicated the grove to the Camenae, claiming that they met there with his wife Egeria, and he established a solemn worship of Fides.

This is the ‘primal scene’ of Roman religio, its fons memoriae, into which the Camenae and Fides are fully incorporated. It is very likely that Juvenal’s



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tableau of the Grove of Egeria is modelled on Livy’s Numa-narrative, with some discernible influence from Ovid’s Fasti (3.259–80). In the lens of satire, we find a porous Rome into which foreigners, especially from the east, pour their own population dregs and religious practices, swamping original Romans and their rites. As Umbricius remarks (3.62–4), ‘for a long time now the Syrian Orontes has been polluting the Tiber, hauling in its language and customs, its slanted strings along with a piper …’. In Juvenal’s vision, the religious confusion which Numa anticipated and wished to forestall has occurred even in his own grove, signalled by the arrival of its latest Judaean inhabitants, with their bizarre accoutrements.39 This shady spot now typifies the Rome of the satirist’s day, occupied by foreigners and enslaved to moneymaking, with the personification of the ‘paying tree’ and the ‘begging wood’ emphasizing the point. When he engages with temples and divinities, then, Juvenal combines the notion that the old gods have abandoned Rome with the arrival of new – or rather new-fangled – entities from elsewhere. In addition to the recentlyarrived followers from Jerusalem, Egyptian cults of Isis, Osiris and Anubis come in for criticism (6.512–41; 15.1–11), but the most extended attacks are reserved for the rites of the Bona Dea and Cybele, which the speaker associates especially with the ruination of Roman masculinity (2.82–96; 6.314–45). We noted above that the ranks of the Salian priests of Mars and others have been infiltrated by abandoned children of uncertain parentage, masquerading as the sons of nobles – Salios Scaurorum nomina falso / corpore laturos (‘Salii to bear the name of Scaurus in their false persons’, 6.604); it is under similarly false pretences that suspect cults of foreign origin have established themselves as accepted forms of religious activity in the city. To restate the theme of Satire 2, frontis nulla fides (‘there’s no trusting appearances’).

Household Furnishing There is one further way in which Juvenalian satire denies the gods their traditional role. We can speak of a sustained reduction in their status, a downgrading of their role to the point where they become part of the ‘furniture’ in the house of satire, just one more element making up the banality of daily existence. This

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is analogous to how ideologically-freighted terms like fides and concordia have become detached from their original signifieds. The ‘daily round’ with the gods as part of the backdrop is captured by the following lines in Satire (1.127–29), alluded to earlier in connection with the Egyptian Arabarch: Ipse dies pulchro distinguitur ordine rerum: sportula, deinde forum iurisque peritus Apollo atque triumphales … The day itself is distinguished by a splendid sequence of activities: the dole, then the forum and Apollo skilled in the law, and the triumphal statues …

One of the central ‘truths’ of Juvenalian satire is the predictable nature of vice. Our gaze is continually drawn by the speaker to eye-catching and lurid examples of individual Romans, but these are merely passing representatives of the populus in its totality. In this setting, gods are addressed directly in a manner no different from the satirist’s mortal addressees – Gradive (2.128), Quirine (3.67), Bellona (4.124) – and often with just as little respect (6.393–7): Dic mihi nunc, quaeso, dic, antiquissime divom, respondes his, Iane pater? Magna otia caeli; non est, quod video, non est, quod agatur apud vos. haec de comoedis te consulit, illa tragoedum commendare volet: varicosus fiet haruspex. Tell me now, please, tell me, most ancient of the gods, do you answer people like this, Father Janus? There’s a lot of free time in heaven. There is nothing, that I see, nothing, which gets done up there among you. This woman consults you about comic actors, that one wants to commend a tragic actor: the soothsayer will have varicose veins.

The majesty of the mode of address in antiquissime divom contrasts not only with the trivial nature of the prayers offered by the music-lovers, but also with the frech and chatty discourse of the speaker. In Satire 10, the ridiculing of prayers made to divinities by humans seeking to fulfil their pathetic desires inevitably carries over to the gods themselves (10.289–92): Formam optat modico pueris, maiore puellis murmure, cum Veneris fanum videt, anxia mater



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usque ad delicias votorum. ‘cur tamen,’ inquit ‘corripias? pulchra gaudet Latona Diana.’ Beauty is what the anxious mother requests – in a quiet voice for her sons, more loudly for her daughters – when she sees the shrine of Venus, making the most extravagant prayers. ‘But why,’ she says, ‘do you criticize me? Latona rejoices in her beautiful Diana.’

Likewise in 13.78–83, someone who has stolen money from a temple swears his innocence by all the divine weapons he can think of: Per Solis radios Tarpeiaque fulmina iurat et Martis frameam et Cirrhaei spicula vatis, per calamos venatricis pharetramque puellae perque tuum, pater Aegaei Neptune, tridentem, addit et Herculeos arcus hastamque Minervae, quidquid habent telorum armamentaria caeli. He swears by the rays of the Sun and the Tarpeian thunderbolts and the spear of Mars and the darts of the Cirrhaean prophet [Apollo], by the shafts and quiver of the virgin huntress [Artemis] and by your trident, Neptune, father of the Aegean; he adds as well the bow of Hercules and the spear of Minerva, whatever weapons the armouries of heaven contain.

As often in Juvenal, the piling up of items in a list offers the chance to blend rhetoric with ridicule. This comes in Satire 13, which offers the victim of a fairly trivial crime (Calvinus has been defrauded of a small sum of money) an equally trivial consolation, demonstrating that perjury is accepted practice nowadays when people either attribute everything to Fortuna or reason that a god’s anger is slow ‘and may even be biddable’ (sed et exorabile numen / fortasse experiar, 13.102–3). The perjurer presents a convincing case while the victim roars (112–13) ‘like Stentor, or, rather, as loud as Gradivus [Mars] in Homer (Gradivus Homericus)’ his complaint to Jupiter (13.113–19): ‘audis, Iuppiter, haec nec labra moves, cum mittere vocem debueris vel marmoreus vel aeneus? Aut cur in carbone tuo charta pia tura soluta ponimus et sectum vituli iecur albaque porci omenta? Ut video, nullum discrimen habendum est effigies inter vestras statuamque Vagelli.’ 40

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‘You hear this, Jupiter, but don’t move your lips, when you ought to have made an utterance, whether you are made of marble or bronze? Or why do we unwrap pious incense and place it on your coals, or the sliced liver of a calf and the white fat of a pig? As I see, there’s no difference to be made between your images and the statue of Vagellius.’

The poem ends with Calvinus mockingly being urged to trust in the vengeance of the gods and ‘happily admit that none of the gods is a Drusus [i.e. Emperor Claudius] or a Tiresias’ (13.249). Another means of downgrading involves the presentation of gods as ‘part of the family’ and as enjoying amongst themselves the same trivial interactions that we see among humans: so, for example, in the visions of the Golden Age, we see a world under a Jupiter ‘not yet bearded’ (sed Iove nondum barbato, 6.15–16), ‘when nobody feared that his cabbages or apples would be stolen’ (17–18), or Juno as a ‘little girl’ (virguncula, 13.41), Jupiter as an ordinary fellow (privatus, 41), and the gods lunching modestly on their own (prandebat sibi quisque deus, 46). In 2.98, Juno domini refers to a slave’s mistress while fire is described in 7.27 as ‘Venus’ husband’ – in the context of a writer’s garret – or as ‘filthy Vulcan’ in 10.132 – with reference to the sword factory owned by Demosthenes’ father. Pluto is Ceres’ ‘son-in-law’ (10.112) with a ‘Sicilian wife’ (13.50). In 16.5–6, letters of recommendation for a military recruit are likened to one to Mars from Venus or from his mother, Juno. In 3.219 a ‘Minerva centrepiece’ stands in a rich man’s library and in 14.270 wine jars (lagonae) are described as ‘compatriots of Jupiter’ (municipes Iovis, because they come from Crete). The gods are thus blended into the scenery and language of satire; what is belittling is not so much the periphrasis – although that is also self-reflexive – as the contexts into which these divine figures are stuck. Juvenal expands the traditional notion of the domus as a microcosm of the state and shrinks the cosmic realm to the level of the ordinary household. Destabilizing the boundaries between large and small, and between grand and banal, is a staple of the satirist’s repertoire (Gulliver’s Travels offers a familiar example) and Juvenal uses it to great effect not only in the scene with Umbricius in Egeria’s Grove but also in his treatment of the signifiers of Roman religio, so that, as the corpus unfolds, it becomes almost impossible to hear of gods without an accompaniment of irony and ridicule. What, then, of our opening conundrum, the surprising absence of a divine



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apparatus from the satirical project? I should like to return, in this regard, one last time to the scene in Egeria’s Grove and the satirist-narrator’s encounter with his alter ego: the vacating of this location by the Camenae, the Roman Muses, opens up a sacred space into which the satirist may now move. In Juvenal’s universe, it is the satirist who fills the gap created by the departure of the gods. He is the new Mars Ultor, who will provide some satisfaction to the implied reader, but with his writing. These satires are about the ‘crush of space’ in Rome – the crush of vices and inhabitants, the crush of narrow streets and the (re-)occupation of public and private spaces. When the satirist demands in his opening outburst to be heard above the cacophony of poetasters, he says he will explain himself si vacat (‘if there is space’). He becomes the agent of punishment and vengeance, first putting on display and then flaying with his verbal weaponry the objects of his contempt and hostility. It is significant that while Mars loses his helmet and ceases to shake his spear, the satirist strikes a pose – initially at least – as an epic warrior, riding into battle (or the Campus Martius) in the mode of Lucilius, ‘with sword drawn’ (ense stricto, 1.165) and with his helmet on (galeatum, 169). At the end of the poem, he changes his mind because attacking contemporaries can prove dangerous – galeatum sero duelli / paenitet (‘it’s too late to regret going into battle once you’ve put your helmet on’) – and says that he will deal only with those whose ashes are buried along the Appian and Flaminian roads (1.169–71). Thus Juvenalian satire is already in hock to Memory, as it locates itself among the tombs of the dead, in order to achieve its own preservation. The Camenae were expelled from Egeria’s Grove, but the satirist – who refuses to abandon Rome with Umbricius – sets out to ‘recover’ them, as he reminds us of the origins of Romanitas – embodied in the now absent Mars, Pudicitia and Numa.41 Satire becomes the guardian of memories as it creates its own monuments in the cityscape, a new set of memories for the Romans.

Notes 1 One could reasonably say that after Vergil’s Aeneid, epic declined in the hands of later practitioners, such as Valerius Flaccus, who wrote an entertaining but inferior Argonautica, and other poets much less talented than him. Recitations

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of epic and other poetic genres were a regular – if not always enjoyable – feature of social life in literary circles by Juvenal’s day. Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 2 This is somewhat, although not completely, undermined by his decision at the end of the programmatic Satire 1 to speak only of the dead, having realized that wielding the Lucilian sword can prove dangerous in today’s Rome (1.165–71). 3 See Zimbardo 1998; Larmour forthcoming 2013. 4 Cf. Barta 1996, 5–12, on the flâneur and the badaud. See also Larmour 2007, 168–77, on which the following remarks draw. 5 Referring, it seems, to a temple built by a member of the Helvius family and to the worship of Diana in the region around Aquinum from which Juvenal’s family hailed. 6 See also Bommas’ article in this volume on Satires 6.526–8. 7 As Courtney (1980: 407) notes, ‘to swear by her in this solemn ceremony is an insult to Jupiter’. 8 On the worship of Isis in Rome, see the articles of Harrison and Bommas in this volume. 9 See Platner and Ashby 1929; Courtney 1980: 108–9; Braund 1996: 101–2. 10 See Ogilvie 1965 on Livy 1.21; Plutarch, Numa 16.1. 11 Ovid himself, of course, is already playing off a tradition about Concordia whose outlines can be detected in Livy and other less playful (although no less manipulative) sources: Livy, 9.46, 23.21, 26.23; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 34.73, 80, 89; Plutarch, Camillus, 42.3–4. 12 Translation by Woodard 2000: 22–3. 13 Cf. Plut. Cam. 42.3–4; Dio 66.8.2; see Woodard 2000: 181–2; Newlands 1995: 44–7, 76–8. 14 Newlands 1995: 44–7, 77–8; Flory 1984. 15 In Fasti 6.89–96, Concordia intervenes to settle an argument between Juno and Iuventas over the naming of the month of June. 16 Littlewood 2002: 57–63; Cicero, De Div. 1.45; Livy, 6.20.13. 17 On the Temple of Castor (and Pollux), see Platner and Ashby 1929: 102–3. 18 Transl. Braund 2004: 179. 19 Courtney 1980: 145 notes the degeneracy that has taken place since the appearance of Quirinus and compares 8.13–18 on a descendant of the Fabii who is intellectually and morally so weak as to disgrace his illustrious name. Ovid may mention this site (Fast. 4.375), although the manuscripts tend to favour colle (hill) rather than valle (valley); Braund 1996: 157. Gracchus makes such an impression that he gets a lengthy reprise in 8.199–210.



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20 Later on in 2.142, there is an allusion to the Lupercalia, when young nobles ran along the Via Sacra striking those they met with strips of goat-leather in order to induce fertility. 21 In 10.82–9, during the reminiscence of the fall of Sejanus, Bruttidius Niger, one of his adjutants, is described as ‘looking a little pale’ by the Altar of Mars (which was on the Campus Martius); in this case, the avenging aspect of Mars is grimly appropriate. 22 Cf. 14.315–16: Fortuna would have no power without Romans’ lack of prudentia (nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia: nos te, / nos facimus, Fortuna, deam). 23 Cf. 2.13, 38 of the doctor and Laronia, both stand-ins for the satirist. 24 On the Forum of Augustus and the Temple of Mars the Avenger, see Newlands 1995: 87–123; Barchiesi 2002. 25 Transl. Woodard 2000: 130. Cf. Newlands 1995: esp. 87, 92–4; Barchiesi 2002. 26 Transl. Woodard 2000: 131. 27 Transl. Braund 2004: 235–7. 28 Courtney 1980: 134; cf. 8.239; Braund 1996: 143. Cf. Cic. Dom. 74; Tac. Hist. 2.12. Rome originally was a place called Septimontium according to Varro LL 5.41. 29 For the location, either the Vicus Longus or Forum Boarium, see Courtney 1980: 297; Platner and Ashby 1929: 433–4; cf. Livy 10.23.6–10 on the history of Pudicitia Patricia (patrician) and Plebeia (plebeian). 30 Whether that is ever entirely the case is, of course, open to question: in 4.40, the temple of Venus at Ancona, or 4.61, the temple of Vesta at Alba are incorporated into the narrative of the giant fish and its dissection of the court of Domitian; the latter reference picks up on the allusion to the seduction of the Vestal Virgin Cornelia earlier in the poem at 9–10. 31 Courtney 1980: 430. 32 Livy 6.5.8; Ovid, Fasti 6.191–2: lux eadem Marti festa est, quem prospicit extra / appositum Tectae porta Capena Viae, this same day is a festival of Mars, whose temple by the Covered Way the Porta Capena looks out towards. 33 For more discussion, see Larmour 2007: 191–201, upon which this account draws. 34 On the sexual overtones of descendimus, see King 2006: 233, n. 26, citing Varro RR 2.7.9 and Juv. 11.164. 35 One of the main themes of Satire 2 is frontis nulla fides (‘there’s no trusting appearances’), lamenting how sham philosophers, supposedly the guardians and teachers of Virtue, ‘imitate the Curii, but live like Bacchanals’ (2–3). 36 That he’s a spado only makes it worse; this is one of Juvenal’s top targets, cf. 1.22 ‘a eunuch taking a wife’ is the first item in his list of reasons to write satire.

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37 Livy 5.32.6. 38 Cf. fidei violatae (‘of trust betrayed’, 13.6); templum et violati numinis aras (‘the temple and altars of the insulted god [Jupiter]’, 13.219); porrum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu (‘it is a sin [among the Pythagoreans] to violate or crunch with your bite a leek or an onion’, 15.9); hic gaudere libet quod non violauerit ignem (‘here we can celebrate the fact that [the cannibalistic Egyptian crowd] didn’t desecrate fire’, 15.84). 39 Cf. the gate is called Porta Idumaea (‘Jewish Gate’) at 8.160, with its Syrophoenix (Syrian Jew), where Lateranus meets a prostitute; 6.542–52, a long description of the ‘high priestess of the tree’ who expounds ‘the laws of Jerusalem’ and ‘sells whatever dreams you like for the smallest copper coin’; 14.96–106, disparaging such practices as observing the sabbath, abstaining from pork, and circumcision and worshipping ‘nothing except clouds and the spirit of the sky’. 40 The exact point is unclear; Vagellius is a declaimer in 16.23. 41 We may note here Horace’s association with the Camenae (Carmen Saec. 62) and Quintilian’s designation of the genre of satire as tota nostra, ‘completely Roman’.

Bibliography Barchiesi, A., 2002. ‘Martial Arts: Mars Ultor in the Forum Augustum, a verbal monument’, in G. Herbert-Brown (ed.), Ovid’s Fasti: Historical Readings at its Biennium. Oxford, 1–22. Barta, P. I., 1996. Bely, Joyce and Doblin: Peripatetics in the City Novel. Gainesville, FL. Braund, S. M, 2004. Juvenal and Persius. Cambridge, MA. —(ed.), 1996. Juvenal, Satires 1. Cambridge. Courtney, E., 1980. A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal. London. Flory, M., 1984. ‘Sic exempla parantur: Livia’s Shrine to Concordia and the Porticus Liviae’, Historia 33, 309–30. King, R. J., 2006. Desiring Rome: Male Subjectivity and Reading Ovid’s Fasti. Columbus, OH. Larmour, D. H. J., 2007. ‘Holes in the Body: Sites of Abjection in Juvenal’s Rome’, in D. H. J. Larmour and Diana Spencer (eds), The Sites of Rome: Time, Space, Memory. Oxford, 168–210. —2013. The Arena of Satire: Juvenal’s Search for Rome. Norman, OK. Forthcoming. Littlewood, R. J., 2002. ‘Imperii pignora certa: The Role of Numa in Ovid’s Fasti’, in



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G. Herbert-Brown (ed.), Ovid’s Fasti: Historical Readings at its Biennium. Oxford, 175–97. Newlands, C. E., 1995. Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti. Ithaca. Ogilvie, R. M., 1965. A Commentary on Livy Books 1–5. Oxford. Platner, S. B. and T. Ashby, 1929. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. 2 vols. Oxford. Woodard, R., 2000. Ovid: Fasti. London. Zimbardo, R., 1998. At Zero Point: Discourse, Culture, and Satire in Restoration England. Lexington, KY.

8

The Iseum Campense as a Memory Site Martin Bommas

Isis owns a cultural biography. Deeply rooted in Egyptian myth, she became the most successfully syncretized goddess of the eastern and western Mediterranean after her transformation in Hellenistic times, long before she was patronized by the Flavian dynasty. Over a period of 686 years from the founding of the first temple for Egyptian gods in Piraeus until the persecution of pagan cults in ad 354, the cult of Isis was the most widespread religious cult practised in the then known world: cult centres reached from the modern Republic of Sudan to Germany and from the Indian subcontinent to Great Britain. Isis was never a local deity but already during her time as an Egyptian goddess, through her role in the myth of Osiris, she became a prominent part of civic religion. Outside Egypt, she was incorporated in the religious agenda of numerous cities in the Greek and Roman world. As such, Isis and with her Serapis, Harpokrates and Anubis were celebrated in communal festivals held in spring and autumn in all provinces of the Roman Empire. First, this article aims at identifying various strategies through which Isis was introduced to the religious map of ancient Rome after the Battle of Actium. Second, it will address the patterns that helped to transform Isis into a communal goddess. Third, this contribution tries to answer the question of how fictitious memories of Egypt were set in place to back up Isis’ cultic role and more importantly help her transform from a bogey to a placatory image. This development by no means represents an isolated case: at the beginning of Augustus’s reign, imagery of a new religious programme emerged that soon caught the imagination of the well-off whose behaviour inspired imitation.1 Unable to approach ancient Egyptian theology through

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primary sources written in hieroglyphs and the hieratic script unknown to them, the Romans struck a new course. By allowing images to gain importance over written sources, Egypt’s physical past became key for furnishing recollection of a distant land which most of them only knew from hearsay. Objects linked with the worship of Isis witnessed in processions or inside temples for Egyptian gods stimulated remembering in a way that Marcel Proust (1871–1922) described as ‘involuntary’.2 And last, record objects which stored information beyond individual experience were analogues to living memory. As such they played a crucial role in what can be described as cultural memory.

Interpretatio Romana By the time of Augustus, the exotic touch of Egypt had caught the imagination of Roman citizens on a large scale. In order to fulfil the demand of Romans wanting to experience real Egypt, initially genuine aegyptiaca were transported from Egypt to Rome to underline Rome’s newly gained splendour.3 To fuel this growing market and in order to satisfy the increasing interest in all things Egyptian,4 neoaegyptiaca were soon produced by Italian workshops. This materialistic approach, however, should not detract from the genuine and productive altercation with the few leftovers from ancient Egyptian religion. It would be wrong to label the Greek and Roman interpretationes of Egyptian religion as misleading or thin substrates of original thinking and downplay the Greek and Roman effort to translate ancient Egyptian religious practice into concepts digestible for Roman citizens. In fact, a highly intellectual discourse took place within higher levels of society where limited knowledge or even the complete lack of Egyptian was compensated for by contemporary thoughts on Greek philosophy and religion. Obviously, the upper class preferred a happygo-lucky approach to theological debates and were more interested in joy (Dionysos) and an everlasting easy life rather than grief and sorrow (Osiris). Customized religious beliefs are clearly apparent in a birthday poem that Tibullus dedicated to his patron M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus, celebrating his several military and administrative successes.5 Probably because Messalla had visited Egypt himself,6 the poem contains a kletic hymn to Osiris which



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describes him as a benefactor to mankind, the inventor of wine and someone who is able to disperse solicitudes: Not sorrow or dull care, but song and dance, Osiris, and fickle love suit you, and flowers of every colour, brows with ivy-berries bound, robes of saffron flowing down to tender feet, Tyrian fabrics, dulcet melodies upon the pipe, And the wicker casket for your holy mysteries. (Tibullus 1.7.21–8)7

The Spread of Isis in the Mediterranean Ancient Egyptian religion is an ethnic religion which by definition cannot be exported and does not follow the aim of proselytization. The Egyptian cults as reinvented by the ancient Greeks, on the other hand, follow the model of universal religions which can be transferred regardless of the issues of time and space,8 such as Christianity or Islam. After Augustus, Egyptian cults as performed in Rome were – from the ritualistic point of view – a far cry from their Egyptian origin. This transformation did not come suddenly, but was rather the result of a constant and smooth development over two preceding centuries. Isis, Serapis, Harpokrates and Anubis had enjoyed independent cults on the island of Delos since the last quarter of the third century bc, when Egyptian cults conquered Italy via the harbour cities of Puteoli and later Misene and Ostia.9 This development started after the Third Macedonian War (171–168 bc) after Rhodes lost its importance as a Roman free port in the Aegean in favour of Delos. Until the Battle of Actium, traditional Egyptian cults, when transferred to the Aegean, were transformed by what is known as interpretatio graeca. However, this model was not found suitable when these cults were introduced to Italy by merchants and sailors based at Delos.10 As fully laid out in the sanctuary for Egyptian gods at Pompeii – re-established after an earthquake had destroyed a previous temple of Isis 31 years before the Battle of Actium –a new and additional interpretation had to be introduced, exclusively defined by Roman taste and the wish to indulge in the exotic.

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Egyptian cults in Italy Only a few contemporary and oriental cultures have influenced Roman public and even private life as inclusively as did the Egyptian way of life after the Battle of Actium, so central to Augustus’s self-presentation. Augustus’s personal rejection of the display of Egyptian art and culture must not detract from the fact that the emperor was not only surrounded by Egyptianizing art in his private home11 but also indirectly promoted Egyptian cults. Encouraging the worship of the Egyptian gods outside the pomerium in 28 bc, Augustus not only set them apart from Roman cults but also marked Egyptian cults as non-Roman. As the example of Pompeii shows, the intrusion of Isis was hardly a by-product of Roman–Egyptian ties resulting from the events after 31 bc. A most probably official sanctuary for Isis is attested already in c. 100 bc on the Capitol Hill,12 and in c. 80 bc Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius erected a private sanctuary for Isis within Regio tertia in order to celebrate his father’s victory over Jughurtha.13 The founding of a new Iseum at the Campus Martius between 20 and 10 bc14 especially gave way to a largely accessible new sanctuary for Isis which – while being officially discredited between 28 and 21 bc15 and perhaps even later – had to close down under Tiberius after a series of misconducts in relation to priestly duties came to light in ad 19. Before this event, Egyptian cults were publicly recognized, although at the same time they faced senatorial restrictions.16 This does not mean, though, that they were openly accepted, especially not by traditionalists, such as Cicero. In De natura Deorum 3.47 he sarcastically says: Then, if the traditional gods whom we worship are really divine, what reason can you give why we should not include Isis and Osiris in the same category? And if we do so, why should we repudiate the gods of the barbarians? We shall therefore have to admit to the list oxen and horses, ibises, hawks, asps, crocodiles, fishes, dogs, wolves, cats and many beasts beside.17

Nothing is known about a re-erection or rededication of this sanctuary during the following 50 years.18 However, according to Josephus, Titus and Vespasian are said to have spent the night there in ad 71, before the triumph over Judaea (Josephus, Bell. Iud. 7.123–4). Once severely controlled and even reduced during the Republican era,19 Egyptian gods were now



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integrated into a new system which, nevertheless, was not completely free from restrictions.20

Why Isis? Less is known about the Roman cult of Serapis at this early stage and before the reign of Hadrian.21 It is Isis, the long-serving Egyptian goddess, who was first absorbed into the pattern of municipal religious life.22 Two main reasons can be made out which supported the thriving new cult and helped to transform Isis into a public deity: fascination and social integration. While the first of these two aspects – often leading to what is nowadays referred to as Egyptomania23 – was frequently addressed,24 social integration is a less observable component of the cult of Isis within the surviving sources. Like anywhere else, the secrecy and initiation which are focal ingredients of mystery religions as a whole25 soon led to a sworn-in community of followers of Isis in Rome. As persons initiated into the same mystic rituals, these symmystai were bonded by shared knowledge rather than co-dependence. Plato in his letters describes the merits of social ties among initiates as resulting ultimately in friendship, … not acquired through philosophy but by the sort of chance acquaintance which forms the basis of most friendships, and which is exercised in mutual hospitality and participation in the rites and ceremonies of the mysteries. (Plato, Letters, 7.333e).26

Ancient community life depended on those social bonds which can be seen as an instrument to create identity and to amplify personal influence and power. Obviously, none of these two main aspects of Isis’s biography have anything to do with religion. In Egypt, Isis was surrounded by absolute secrecy adhered to by her priesthood which is why outsiders were successfully restricted from accessing theological knowledge. In Greece and Rome, however, the secrets of the mysteries of Isis were generally more accessible as outsiders knew about the existence of secrets but lacked any detailed knowledge. The most obvious focus for this relative secrecy27 was on Isea where Isis was not only worshipped by her followers but also played an important role in community life during festivals and other events of ceremonial character.

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The Iseum Campense From the Gulf of Naples, the Egyptian gods reached Rome by way of Campania. Apuleius in his second-century ad novel Metamorphoses (11.30) refers to a collegium of pastophori having been in existence from as early as the time of Sulla;28 however, no epigraphic evidence supports this view.29 Once the cult of Isis was extradited from the pomerium, altars dedicated to the goddess below the Capitoline Hill formed the hotbed for the introduction of initially minor cult centres such as the Iseum at the forum boarium which grew fast and still existed and was even renewed under Claudius.30 Excavations led to the discovery of a number of Egyptian res sacrae,31 including a marble head of Serapis,32 which support the view of a publicly accessible Egyptian cult at this highly frequented place for trading cattle.33 Together with the Iseum in Regio tertia, this is the only sanctuary for Egyptian gods known to have existed before the building of the Iseum at Campus Martius, the building history34 of which can be summarized as a three-step development: 1. After the expulsion of Egyptian cults from inside the pomerium, the first sanctuary established in Regio IX in the name of Egyptian gods represented an island of self-indulgent religious extravaganza rather than showing any similarity to the sacella and luci scattered around the city. Since the second century bc, public buildings and temples – first built of local stone, later of marble – had been squeezed together at this once open field which appeared to bear the hallmarks more of the nobles’ search for fame than of religious devotion,35 although the Pantheon from the time of Augustus and founded in the Iseum’s vicinity calls upon religious traditions and the idea of pietas.36 Nothing is known about this sanctuary’s design or structure and a certain amount of ink has been spilt over its date. Scholars generally agree on a date after 20 bc but before 10 bc,37 more or less coinciding with the building of the Cestius Pyramid38 and Tibullus 1.7. As noted already, this sanctuary was closed down under Tiberius in ad 19. 2. The second Iseum Campense must have been operational in ad 71, when Titus and Vespasian spent the night there (see above). According to a coin dating to the reign of Vespasian,39 this Iseum was designed as a podium



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temple showing the Hellenized Isis holding a patera and situla. This second Iseum fell victim to the fire of ad 80.40 3. The third temple for Isis at the Campus Martius was in use by ad 85/86, after it was restored by Domitian. It became the main Iseum for Rome and the empire until the post-Severan era, when the temple started to fall into decay. It was dismantled by local builders during the fourth century ad. According to the forma urbis Romae (FUR), the Severan marble plan, the ‘Serapaeum’,41 was located in the centre of the northern main part of the Campus Martius, strictly oriented to the north and alongside the street porticus meleagri (today Via del Gesú).42 The area between the later Iseum and the Pantheon was once occupied by the saepta Iulia, the Roman polling station that was changed into a mere monumental square in Augustan times. According to Martial, this place was used as a market for books and crafts, among other goods.43 Today, this area is occupied by the church of St Maria Sopra Minerva north of the crossroad of Via Piè di Marmo and Via del Gesú. In ancient times, from here, a gate erected under Hadrian led to the entrance to the sanctuary for the Egyptian gods. Where this entrance once was, the forma urbis locates a row of dots, which – according to Coarelli – can hardly be taken as columns,44 as their spans were much too irregular. It was recently argued that obelisks were placed there, most probably those that have a height of six metres, some of which were later reused by Pope Sixtus V to create his new vision of Rome. Six of these obelisks have survived, one of which was decorated by Ramesses II and now marks the centre of Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon (Fig 1). 45 Another object that is nearly in situ today is a colossal marble foot (Fig. 2) – probably a monumental votive offering and intentionally made as a body part46 – from which the Via Piè di Marmo took its name.

Visitors and the Exterior View The Iseum Campense was the second largest sanctuary for Egyptian gods in Rome, outclassed in size and splendour only by the Serapeum on the Quirinal.47 However, in cultic terms the Iseum Campense served as the main

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Fig. 1. Obelisk of the Piazza della Rotonda. Originally dedicated to the temple of Ra at Heliopolis by Ramesses II, this obelisk together with a second obelisk from the same location (today at the Villa Celimontana) once stood in the Iseum Campense probably after its renovation after AD 85/86 (photograph: author).



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Fig. 2. Monumental votive offering of a marble foot, from the Iseum Campense, after its restoration in 2011 (photograph: author).

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point of reference in the entire Imperium Romanum. In his Metamorphoses, Apuleius describes his travel to Rome as follows (Met. 11.26): However, after a few days, at the prompting of the mighty goddess, I hurriedly packed and took ship to Rome … I arrived safely at Ostia; from there I took a fast carriage and reached the holy city on the evening of the twelfth of December. My urgent desire was then to offer my prayers daily to the supreme power of Queen Isis, to her who from the site of her temple is called Isis of the Fields and is the subject of special veneration and adoration. I was from then on a constant worshipper, a newcomer it is true to this shrine but no stranger to the faith.48

Also, native Roman authors have repeatedly commented on this temple. In his Satires (6.526–8), Juvenal gives a description of bigots he observed visiting the temple, such as a Roman lady: If the white Io commands it, she’ll go to the ends of Egypt and fetch from the Nile at tropic Meroë the sought-for water with which to sprinkle Isis’s temple …49

Not only pious followers but also lovers seeking out a romantic place and sad dogs with nowhere to go were visitors to the Iseum Campense. Ovid recommends: Avoid not the Memphian shrine of the linen-clothed heifer:50 many a maid does she make what she was herself to Jove. (Ovid, Ars Amatoria, 1.77–80)51

Martial, referring to the initial phase of the third Iseum Campense in c. ad 85/86, describes the temple as being part of the lively part of the Campus Martius. Here, the saepta Iulia was located as a fashionable shopping district, ‘the enclosure’, where Selius heads for a would-be diner, perhaps expecting to snatch some bites when the temple closes:52 Selius leaves nothing untried, nothing unventured, whenever he sees that he has to dine at home … If Europa does nothing, he heads for the Enclosure (saepta) to see whether the son of Phillyra and the son of Aeson will furnish anything. Disappointed here too, he goes and hangs around the goddess of Memphis’ temple and seats himself beside your chairs, sorrowful heifer.53

Surrounded by a high temenos wall which probably showed little decoration (if any), the Iseum Campense must have made an impressive sight due to



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Fig. 3. Recumbent lion made of black granite dating to the early Ptolemaic Period, today at the foot of the cordonata, Capitol Hill (photograph: author).

its monolithic outer appearance. Whether passers-by were able to catch a glimpse of the dromos, most probably flanked by obelisks and recumbent lions (Fig. 3), both leading to the main sanctuary,54 is difficult to say.

Inside the Iseum Campense Less is known of the interior of the Iseum Campense. To achieve a clearer picture of the layout of this sanctuary, the above mentioned depiction of the FUR55 is of little help due to its fragmented state. Nevertheless, the marble plan was used to produce a reconstruction of the ground plan in 1893 by Rodolfo Lanciani56 which has kicked-off a number of alternative reconstructions in recent years (Fig. 4). In addition, intensive excavations in the area have revealed a high number of objects that can be linked with the temple and its cult. According to these objects, it becomes evident that the Iseum was a multi-purpose building that fulfilled

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Fig. 4. Reconstruction of the Iseum Campense (after Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995: 60, Pl. 26).

many functions rather than being limited exclusively to being a place for worship. One of the Iseum’s additional functions was to accommodate worshippers of Isis and initiates57 from all over the known world. Incubation rooms but also let accommodation are features of nearly all decent sized temples for Egyptian gods from the beginning of Isis’s arrival in Greece and during the Roman Empire.58 Given the size of the Iseum Campense and more importantly based on the remarks of Apuleius mentioned above, there can be no doubt that initiatesto-be and possibly also devotees awaiting initiation lived within the temple precinct. As will be shown below, not only the architecture but also the contents of the temple largely contributed to the successful recreation and display of an Egyptian aura, obviously in order to support the visitors’ desire to submerge themselves in a recreated Egypt, experiencing travel in time and space.



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How ancient collections were used as crowd pullers in ancient times The place for this attraction was well chosen within a marketplace where people came to congregate. According to Vitruvius, temples for Isis were preferably established in business centres: ‘… To Mercury, however, in the forum, or also, as to Isis and Serapis in the business quarter’(Vitruvius 1.7.1).59 It is difficult to think of a more delightful way to attract businessmen, city slickers and future worshippers of Isis than to promise them a time-out in a peaceful environment. Literary evidence suggests that even modest places were frequently visited, such as the incipit of Apuleius’s Florida: It is the custom of religious travellers, whenever they come across a sacred grove or holy place along their way, to make a vow, offer fruit, and sit for a while. (Apuleius, Florida, 1.1).60

Apuleius’s remarks on what religious people do in holy places can probably be equalled with praying, making offerings, but most importantly relaxation. Juvenal’s remarks about the water offering lady mentioned above support this view. Whether the Roman citizens and followers of Isis from all over the world really wanted to ‘sit for a while’ inside the Iseum Campense and contemplate is a question impossible to answer with accuracy, although authors like Juvenal, Ovid and Martial all seem point into this direction. What one can be sure of, however, is that what they saw and experienced was certainly worth the visit.

The nymphaeum The southern part of the Iseum Campense from which the temple was best entered was occupied by a hemispherical exedra as shown on the FUR,61 surrounded by a roofed porticus. It included an open space that can be identified as a water basin,62 supported by five water figures excavated at the site. Waves depicted on their bases support the view that these figures supposedly stood in the water.63 Cult chambers as identified in the ground plan of the apsis are most likely to be connected with Isis, Serapis and Harpokrates or/and Anubis, the worship of whom is well attested in this temple. Altars found in this area underneath the church of St Stefano del Cacco further confirm that this exedra was a sacred building.

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North of the exedra an open court of 68 by 27 metres was laid out, the southern part of which is also recorded on the FUR. This court was accessible through the porticus Meleagri opposite the saepta Iulia in the west, including the Giano accanto alla Minerva. The Arco di Camilliano in the east, celebrating the triumph over Judaea in ad 70, served as the main entrance into the sanctuary.

The main building The northern part of the temple was the main building, accessible via the open court where the main entrance was located. At the southern end of this entrance, the fragment of the FUR shows several dots which have been interpreted by scholars as obelisks64 and papyrus columns.65 No other details about the layout of the main temple can be deduced from the Severan marble plan. Any further reconstruction of the remaining main part of the temple therefore has to exclusively rest on the finds made in the surrounding area and comparison with other Isea. Ancient passers-by traversing the open court would have been able to see the monumental exedra including the nymphaeum on the south side, with the main temple opposite. Both sacred buildings were easily identifiable by statuary within the nymphaeum and possibly a number of inscriptions identifying the northern part as the main sanctuary. In referring to the restoration in Severan times, one of these inscriptions seems either to allude to the nymphaeum or more plausibly to the main temple.66 By favouring such an open layout, the Iseum Campense was not intended to be a secluded temple but served as a short cut for businessmen, local inhabitants and shoppers who used the open court as a street that connected the saepta Iulia with the area east of the modern street Via di S. Ignazio.67 What lay north of this street must have consisted of at least four separate sections: an ancient visitor would have observed an open court, let accommodation possibly flanking this court, a dromos and the main sanctuary – possibly on a podium (Fig. 4).68

The garden inside the Iseum Campense Even with its main gates closed, the Iseum Campense must have made an impressive sight just because it was so massive.69 It can be argued that this



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nymphaeum as well as other immobile structures opposite the main building, such as altars and the like, marked this area unmistakably as a place of worship of Egyptian gods. It must be stated, however, that Egyptian cults were already widely accepted in the Roman Empire and a familiar sight when the third Iseum Campense was established. Since the temple’s architecture followed the Hellenized Roman design and not Egyptian temples,70 the sanctuary’s undecorated outer walls would not have set the identification of the temple at risk, even if the gates of the main temple were closed. According to Martial, these gates remained open during the day until 8.00 p.m.,71 which leads to the question of what passers-by and visitors were actually able to see. The drilled dots visible on the Roman marble plan are not located in front of the temple but on the inside of its surrounding wall. Given their height of only six metres, it seems very unlikely that any passer-by would have seen the obelisks mentioned above in their full glory, had they indeed been hidden away behind the temple façade. Also, no parallel exists for this unusual practice. On a second thought, however, these irregular drilled dots might not refer to architectural elements at all, but to potted plants. These would not only have helped to transform an open court into a voluptuous garden, but also helped to partly cover the outer brick walls that otherwise would have distracted from experiencing nature, an essential aspect of the mysteries of Isis. Plant pots, usually halved amphorae, are well attested to in Roman sacred gardens and helped the landscaping of gardens featuring large monuments,72 such as the temple of Elagabalus in Rome. Excavations have revealed its foundation walls and a pavement that was interrupted by rectangular planting beds made of halved amphorae.73 Drilled dots are also attested for the temple of Adonis as displayed on the FUR, also interpreted as perhaps trees or shrubs.74 Although, like the Iseum Campense, the temple of Adonis has not been excavated, the similar treatment on both ground plans makes the interpretation of planting inside the open court of the temple of Isis very likely. Gardens within Isea, their role and functions, have never been discussed in detail75 and this article does not aim to do so for lack of space. The resulting picture, impressionistic as it is now, should demonstrate that gardens were major components of religious landscapes in temples for Isis in Rome, as supported by frescoes of

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the fourth style found in Herculaneum.76 I do suggest that the gardens of the Iseum Campense were well-known attractions in Rome, and the temple – or at least parts of it – were accessible even to those who were not devotees of Isis, as outlined in the above mentioned passage of Apuleius, but who for a short while came to take a rest. If the evidence from Herculaneum can be transferred, it seems at least likely that gardens within temples for Isis were equipped with exotic plants such as palm trees and shrubs from Africa that probably were imported to Rome on a large scale.77 In addition, the sacred landscape was inhabited by statues of recumbent lions or sphinxes, adding to the Egyptian ‘feel’ of the gardens in the eyes of those who were not initiated into the mysteries of Isis

Live Animals in Roman Isea Those who decorated the interiors of temples for Isis in Rome did not limit themselves to statues of recumbent lions and other animals. There is ample evidence that living animals also had a role to play in the cult for Egyptian gods.

Crocodiles One of the outstanding objects that support this view is a column found in situ on which various priestly activities are depicted. Since those columns were found in the area where the exedra was located, their place of discovery should be identical with their original location. While those columns that depict largely stereotypical scenes of priestly processions are made of granite, one sandstone column stands out for its rather unusual decoration:78 a priest, wearing an Egyptian kilt, bends down in order to feed two hungry crocodiles,79 who are ready to jump out of the water. But how likely is it that live crocodiles were kept in Roman temples and what function – if any – did they have? At first glance, it seems difficult to maintain a basin for live crocodiles inside a sacred building. On the other hand, it certainly makes sense not to hide such a pond from casual visitors stiff-legged with curiosity and to create an exclusive attraction within the ancient city of Rome. In fact, crocodiles are



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cold-blooded animals which are dependent on high temperature and sunlight in order to function properly. Since the latter was not available throughout the day due to its location in the north of the exedra,80 these crocodiles were probably slow-moving beasts whose limited actions were quite foreseeable. The Red Hall in Pergamum, built during the reign of Hadrian, also contains two deep outside basins and a large pond in front of the altar which were either used for miniature naval battles81 or keeping crocodiles, or both. The so-called Canopus at the Villa Adriana, today mostly deprived of its luxurious inter-columnar decoration, still has a statue of a crocodile in place. It is probably fair to say that tamed crocodiles, of which Herodotus speaks in his Histories (2.69), made up part of the equipment of temples for Egyptian gods of a certain size. Together with hippopotami, crocodiles were widely regarded as animals emblematic of Egypt, as the Nile mosaic from Preneste, created by Italian workshops under Alexandrian influence, shows.82 The numerous so-called Campana reliefs that were produced in Rome and used as decorative art in architecture depict crocodiles within romantic Egyptian landscapes.83

Ibises and mammals Among the other animals that were more usually kept within sanctuaries for Egyptian gods as part of their furnishing were free moving ibises, exotic birds which added to the flavour of recreated African wildlife.84 Even smaller sanctuaries could easily care and provide necessary maintenance for these rather undemanding birds.85 Probably often regarded as gems,86 these birds also represented the Egyptian god Thoth (Hermes) and stood for priestly knowledge and wisdom. The baboon, another beastly equivalent of Thoth, is also commonly found within temples of Egyptian gods, such as in the depiction of a funerary rite on the panel of a stone coffin from Ariccia nearby Rome.87 In the upper register, an architectural prospectus is laid out which contains seven spans, two of which are inhabited by baboons sitting on pedestals. Whether or not living baboons were kept within the holy precincts is difficult to assess. Two statues of baboons made of black granite were found in the area of the former Iseum Campense.88 Returning to the passage from Cicero, De natura deorum, in which he compared the cult of Isis and Osiris to the worship of various beasts, it now

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becomes evident that Cicero probably based this on his own experience which led him to observe oxen and horses, ibises, hawks, asps, crocodiles, fishes, dogs, wolves (jackals?) and cats in Egyptian contexts. Apart from horses, all these animals are attested as inhabitants of the Iseum Campense, whether as live animals or in the form of statues. If Cicero indeed referred to his own personal experience where else had he been able to observe crocodiles or crocodile-gods, if not in temples for Egyptian gods? If this is true, and also given the fact that Cicero wrote De natura deorum two years before his death in 43 bc,89 he was unable to witness personally the new Iseum Campense established between 20 and 10 bc. Although Egyptian motifs made their way to the imperial villas where they were included in paintings of the second and third Pompeiian style immediately after the Battle of Actium, it is equally unlikely that Cicero referred to animals he observed on paintings. Most probably, he witnessed live animals in one of the Isea in Rome, for instance at the forum boarium or in the private sanctuary for Isis within Regio tertia. If this assumption is correct, the presence of live animals within Roman Isea was more widespread than one would guess from the evidence from Herculaneum and the Iseum Campense.

Collections of Egyptian Art in Ancient Rome Apart from zoological gardens functioning as ‘living museums’, what other spectacular exhibitions would have attracted the inhabitants of Rome? Starting with the two statues of baboons already mentioned, it should be noted that their authentic inscriptions mention the temple of Thoth erected by Nectanebos I at Hermopolis Parva as their place of origin. As a consequence, this means that they derive from Egypt, and were actually antiquities by the time they arrived in Rome.90 A block from a wall of the temple of Behbet el-Hagar, obelisks, several sphinxes from the New Kingdom and later, a statue of a striking Horus, statues of naophoroi, so-called Horus-cippi and several fragments of monumental statues were all unearthed in the area of the Iseum Campense.91 Obviously shipped to Rome on a large scale, original ancient Egyptian artefacts displayed in the centres of cities of the Imperium Romanum must have been a common sight. Earlier scholars have satisfied



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themselves by producing more or less complete catalogues of the finds but showed little to no interest in contextualizing this highly remarkable feature. Karl Parlasca dismissed them as ‘having certainly no particular function in the cult’,92 and he is probably right to some extent: revisiting the original meaning of aegyptiaca was not necessarily a priority, due to their obvious decontextualization. On the other hand, the high number of authentic objects can hardly be rationalized away. Because the Romans spared no costs to import these bulky and heavy objects,93 they must have had a function – and if not cultic, what else? Unfortunately, this question was never really addressed94 and this contribution, limited as it is, can only dig some trenches rather than offering clear-cut solutions.

Traces of a physical past A total of 30 objects found in the area of the Iseum Campense are known to have been imported to Rome.95 This number of objects is high enough to exclude a fortunate coincidence. It seems obvious that these objects were exported from Egypt on purpose, in order to play a new and significant role in a new context. Quite obviously, their new role is not linked with ancient Egyptian religious belief or cult practice. Other aegyptiaca, for instance those that were excavated in the former horti Sallustiana, did not serve the same purpose and were instead displayed by their rich new owners as garden accessories. What is important to stress is that none of these genuine Egyptian objects seem to have served an identifiable purpose at first sight, but on a second look it becomes evident that a number of them were willingly chosen from the same location: two baboons96 and two recumbent lions97 derive from the temple of Thoth at Hermopolis Parva, while a pair of obelisks from the temple of Ra at Heliopolis98 was also transported to the Iseum Campense unseparated. The fact that several Egyptian sites were deliberately exploited to furnish the Iseum at Rome with pairs of objects makes clear that the views of recent scholars who dismissed the Roman interest in aegyptiaca as ‘illogical’99 are unjustified. Due to the limitation of space, this contribution does not aim at fully investigating the function of aegyptiaca other than the role they played in the

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eyes of those who occasionally passed by or visited sanctuaries for Egyptian gods. In addition, those who were initiated into the mysteries of Isis certainly had well-defined expectations of the interaction between ancient Egyptian artefacts and religious landscape. Everyone else marvelled at the splendour that was Egypt and indulged in the exotic feel of Egypt. Faint memories of Egypt certainly played an important role even for those who knew about the mysterious land only from hearsay.

The remaking of Egypt’s past in ancient Rome In order to define the vital role memory played when Rome encountered Egypt in its very own streets, one has first to address the question of how temple collections were brought together and how they were maintained. Unfortunately, the number of similar institutions the collection of the Iseum Campense can be compared with is limited. As things currently stand, only the ancient Greek site of Delphi, where 20 treasuries where built during sixth century bc and occasionally displayed their objects, can possibly been seen as a forerunner.100 The most important museion of the ancient world was certainly the one in Alexandria but this is also the most unlikely candidate to match the Iseum Campense.101 In accordance with modern museum concepts, four key functions102 have to be identified and taken into consideration, if the collection of aegyptiaca in the Iseum Campense is to be labelled as a museum: 1. Collecting and defining criteria for a collection; that is, how ancient Egyptian objects were chosen in Egypt and transported to Rome. 2. Maintaining and displaying the objects; that is, how ancient Egyptian artefacts were made accessible within their new context. 3. Researching and communicating to a public; that is, how the temple personnel tried to choose appropriate objects to – perhaps – reinvoke the ambiance of a genuine Egyptian temple and explained this concept to an audience. 4. Reconstructing culture: how Roman priests of Isis tried to evoke an Egyptian aura. All these tasks of modern museums can also be identified for the collection of aegyptiaca of the Iseum Campense. This, however, does not allow us to



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unreservedly suggest that the Roman collections of ancient Egyptian art kept in temples for Egyptian gods can be described as a museum in the modern sense. Whether museums of Egyptian art in ancient Rome can be regarded as the first museums ever built is difficult to ascertain due to the lack of evidence from similar places. As has been stated before, in addition to these four bullet points, the collections of aegyptiaca in Rome were often embedded in identifying contexts where they served a religious purpose. Only those parts of the Iseum Campense that were open to the public qualify as museums. What seems to be important, though, is to understand whether cult officials in the temple designed this museum purposefully rather than serving the sensation-seeking public with a place of entertainment103 as seems to be the case with regard to the testimonies of the ancient authors cited above.

The Iseum Campense as a Museum Besides the building’s prime function as a sanctuary for the Egyptian gods, the Iseum Campense was presented as a place where memorabilia, statues and reliefs taken from Egypt were displayed alongside exotic and non-indigenous animals. Like no other place in Rome, the Iseum Campense epitomized Egyptian décor, exotic customs and the abundance of the Nile valley.104 Frescoes from Herculaneum105 point to the fact that Egyptian cults in Italy were indeed set up within an exotic environment consisting of palm trees, ibises and Nubian celebrants. If the recreations of Egypt in Rome, Italy and the Imperium Romanum as a whole were not randomly chosen as a medium to create an exotic feel but can be seen as a common feature of every sanctuary for Isis, the question is who orchestrated the strategy to create impact by using pharaonica as crowd pullers? Unfortunately, evidence for the early years of Imperial Rome is lacking, but during the second century ad, when the cult of Isis became increasingly popular, a larger number of people actively practised it. In Apuleius’s description of an Isis procession, a hierogrammateus (keeper of the holy books), an unspecified priestess of Isis (sacerdos), a horoscopus (astronomer), paianistes (singers), stolistai who dressed the divine image and pausarii,

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presumably responsible for ritual stops during the processions of Isis, are mentioned.106 Most probably, followers of Isis with similar functions were involved in preceding periods, too. Both the earliest Isea in Rome, the Iseum on the Capitol Hill and the one at the forum boarium, were very lavishly furnished with genuine aegyptiaca.107 It seems at least likely that all nine temples for Egyptian gods in Rome and others throughout Italy – such as the one in Benevento108 – were enriched by original artefacts from Egypt to match with common standards. Being prerequisites for temples of Egyptian gods, original artefacts from Egypt, as well as Egyptianizing art, made up an essential part of the experience of visitors. Employees of Isea also included these objects – obviously regarded as res sacrae – in their daily work routine which followed ancient daily temple rituals to some extent.109

Museum and Memory One of the reasons why – different from other oriental cults in ancient Rome – temples for Isis were preferably equipped with original artefacts from their place of origin has to do with the fact that Isis was perceived as the embodiment of nature,110 which she would only reveal to those who took on the complex and expensive111 process of initiation into her mysteries. Obviously, the recreation of an Egyptian religious landscape played a vital role in modelling an inspiring ambience. To the non-initiated on the other hand, ancient Egyptian reliefs and sculpture on display added to the impression of willingly designed zoological gardens or museum collections, linking the victorious ancient Roman presence with the Egyptian past. In such a context, pharaonica would not only serve as cult objects but as media which allowed for storing knowledge and memories of the past. Cultural memory is especially dependent on storage facilities of oral, written or visual knowledge.112 To the ancient Romans, Egyptian wisdom was already lost in the ‘very deep well of the past’, to use a phrase coined by the German writer Thomas Mann at the beginning of his novel Joseph And His Brothers. The Romans were unable to create archives of written documents in Hieratic, Demotic or Hieroglyphs, simply because they were not able to read the ancient Egyptian scripts. With religious texts inaccessible to both Greeks and Romans,



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the promoters of Hellenized Isis had to take an archaeological approach, using material memories instead.113 Roman collections of aegyptiaca – although they were decontextualized at first view – allowed curators to precisely create a memory of Egypt that was based on visual impressions. Especially during the reign of Augustus, images started to play a crucial role in the reformation of Roman society by creating monuments as media114 that linked presence and past.115 The spread of the cult of Isis benefited largely from this development, which helps to explain the successful development of Isis in Greece and Rome during a time of transition and reformation in the first century ad.116 In doing so, cult communities not only successfully recontextualized their own beliefs within the existing framework of Rome’s civic religions but also prevented the cult of Isis from descending into popular culture. Escaping their emotions through a focus on intellectual concepts and rational explanations devoid of personal significance, the followers of Isis were able to renovate the cult of Isis originating from Greece and filled with content what had been deprived of meaning.117 Those responsible for this shift not only continued to celebrate the exotic status of Egyptian cults in Rome externally, but aimed at creating a memory that pointed at inclusion rather than exclusion of those who were not initiated into the mysteries of Isis. Festivals like the Navigium Isidis (ploiapharia) – a spring festival to celebrate the annual reopening of seafaring after the hibernal storms – helped to further couple the memory of Egypt’s past with ancient Rome’s present. Shortly after the Battle of Actium, Rome officially and consciously remodelled the Egyptian past not only by adopting its legacy but also by amplifying its own splendour. It is in the light of this newly created and politically motivated memory that strategic thinkers sniffed a change to re-establish the cult of Isis on the religious map of Rome, at the same time amplifying the eternity of Roman power, or in Vergil’s words (Aeneid 1.279), imperium sine fine. Different from obelisks that often remained decontextualized, zoological gardens and museums like the one accessible in the Iseum Campense became the new epitome of Egyptian culture, politically in line with the ruling class and more attractive than ever before. The way its collections started to function as archives, temples for Egyptian gods became not only ambassadors for the new Egypt under Roman rule but also places of memory. Vital for the image

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of Egypt as Rome saw it, these memory places kept Egypt at a controllable distance and at the same time painted a picture of Rome’s successful rise to power, with the political elite spearheading this development.118 With the relevant media archived in Isea, the interpretatio Romana of Egyptian religion slowly embraced all levels of Roman society, or in other words, by realizing memory, the Iseum Campense as a place of memory transformed history.119

The Iseum Campense as a Site of Memory Apart from functioning as a place of cultic worship, the Iseum Campense, Rome’s most important temple for Isis, played the role of embodied memory:120 all things Egyptian worth remembering were stored in the Iseum, just like in a museion. In doing so, the Iseum at the Field of Mars became the place where Egypt was remembered, ready to recall Egypt’s rich religious past through cult practice. However, how reliable is this kind of memory? Susan Sontag described this phenomenon in a similar context as follows: Photographs that everyone recognizes are now a constituent part of what society chooses to think about, or declares that it has chosen to think about. It calls these ideas ‘memories’, and that is, over the long run, a fiction … Ideologies create substantiating archives of images, representative images, which encapsulate common ideas of significance and trigger predictable thoughts, feelings.121

The Egyptian past created by those who designed the Iseum Campense is such a fiction. Romans hardly ever shared individual memories of Egypt, apart – perhaps – from Cleopatra’s visits to Rome in 46 bc and 44 bc,122 which the Romans remembered as a group. Other than that, the Romans did not remember Egypt because as individuals they had next to nothing to remember: before the Battle of Actium, cults of Egyptian gods were local affairs and hardly any encounter with the distant land on the Nile took place. It was only after 31 bc that Egypt became a political and religious issue that mattered to all Roman citizens in equal measure because it hallmarked a victory that drastically changed the lives of the Romans for the better. Against the background of this ambivalent picture shaped by the dichotomy between religious and political interests, the Iseum Campense was



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re-established as a place of memory of national achievements. To this extent, the Iseum Campense indeed qualifies as a lieu de mémoire a term suggested by Pierre Nora in his ground-breaking seven-volume series of the same title: there, places of memory are (among others) the Marseillaise, the Eiffel Tower and the Tour de France,123 all pointing to national achievements of international relevance, imprinted on the world’s memory. There can be little doubt that Rome reinvented herself as a city of past grandeur at a very early stage, due to her rich heritage amplified by a highly visible wealth of monuments and ancient art. Usually this process is thought to have started during the early Middle Ages, making Rome a place of memory of the ancient world as suggested by Luca Giuliani who described Rome as a ‘Museumsstadt’, museum city.124 With a look at temples for Egyptian gods, it is fair to say that Rome was already a museum city in ancient times. As such, not only she did celebrate her victorious presence but also the past of the others. Thus, inscribing the Egyptian gods in the long-term memory of Roman society,125 Rome continued writing the cultural biography of Isis.

Notes 1 Zanker 1987: 267. 2 Kwint 1999: 2. 3 A comprehensive collection of objects can be found in Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995. 4 Palma Venetucci 2008 offers a general introduction into the function and understanding of cult objects and decoration in oriental cults in Italy. 5 Lee 1982: 125; Merkelbach 2001; Bommas 2012a. 6 For more details about Messalla’s life, see Tränkle 1990: 12. Lyne 2001: 188–9 compares Horace’s Epode 9 – a celebration of Actium – and Epode 1 – addressed to Maecenas – with Tibullus’ poem for Messalla. 7 Transl. Lee 1982: 57. 8 Bommas 2011a. 9 Tomorad 2005: 241–53. 10 Bommas 2005a: 77–8. 11 In a mural in the house of Livia at the Palatine Hill at Rome, Isis Tyche was depicted. See Moormann 1988: 232–3; Sirano 2007: 153. Clarke 1991:

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15 16 17 18

19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World 52 describes this ambience as follows: ‘a whole panoply of Egyptianizing ornament, already present in the House of Livia and found in more developed form in some rooms of the House of Augustus, seems to take precedence over the architecture. Carefully painted lotus-bud capitals and friezes, palmettes, rosettes, and symbols of the cult of Isis appear everywhere.’ For a similarly Egyptianizing room decoration in the Aula Isiaca, see Iacopio 1997. Coarelli 1982: 53–65; Coarelli 1984, 461–75. Ensoli 1997: 309; Coarelli 1982: 53–7. Cassius Dio, 47.15.4. Sist 1997: 298 rightly pointed out that this early sanctuary can hardly have been as elaborate as its successor at the same location but might be seen as a response to the destruction of the Iseum at the Capitol Hill and Caesar’s order not to allow collegia isiaca within Rome. Lembke 1994: 66. Takács 1995: 56–8; Dyck 2004: 293. Rackham 1979: 331–3; see also Bodel 2008: 250. Despite inconclusive evidence (Lembke 1994: 67; Donalson 2003: 146), some scholars believe the re-erection of the Iseum Campense took place during the reign of Caligula (ad 37–41). See Sist 1997: 298; Salzman 1990: 171 and n. 203; Turcan 1996: 123; Roullet 1972: 23–35; Witt 1971: 223 and 254; Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995, 43; Manera and Mazza 2001: 34–5. Barrett 1998, 117–18 and 220, questions Caligula’s involvement. For the actions against Egyptian cults during the years 59, 58, 53, 50 and 48 bc, see K. Lembke 1994: 85. Lembke 1994: 88. Hornbostel 1973: 210–14. The nickname Serapiones adopted by the two Cornelii Scipiones Nasicae, consuls in 138 and 111 bc respectively, gives a hint to the acceptance of Serapis among the well-off of the time. Gordon 1990: 246. See the excellent and ground-breaking catalogue of De Caro 2006. See, e.g. Merkelbach 2001: 134–7. See Bowden 2010: 137–47. Dowden 2011: 285 coined the term ‘secret promise’ as a crucial aspect of soteriological myths. Letters transl. Hamilton 1973: 125–6. I have borrowed these terms from Johnston 2007: 108. Kenney 2004: 214; Turcan 2000: 121. Lipka 2009: 54. On Apuleius’ visit to the Iseum Campense, see also Juliette Harrisson’s article in this volume.



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30 Ensoli 1997: 313–14. For the private nature of the Iseum on the Capitol, see Lipka 2009, 19. 31 Coarelli 1982: 64, no. 10; Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995, 78–9. 32 Coarelli 1982, 53–67, esp. 61; Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2000, 183. 33 It is probably this sanctuary Catullus referred to when he cited a girl: ‘I beg you, my dear Catullus, do lend me those slaves you speak of for a moment; I want just now to be taken to the temple of Serapis’, Cat., 10.25–7, trans. Cornish 1976: 15. 34 The building history of the Iseum Campense has been unclear for a quite long time. See, e.g. Malaise 1972: 242 who was mainly guessing what the Iseum Campense once looked like: ‘On peut aussi songer aux chapiteaux hathorique …’ Although intensive studies led Gatti 1943–4: 117–63 to a reliable gound plan of the temple some 65 years earlier, his work was ignored by Malaise 1972. For a more recent building history, see Lembke 1994: esp. 66–8; Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995: 60–1; Coarelli 2002: 286. 35 Rüpke 2001: 174. 36 Grüner 2004: 511. 37 Lembke 1994: 67; Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2000: 175; Versluys 2004: 421–48, esp. 446–8. Coarelli 2002: 258–64 more recently suggested 43 bc. 38 Bommas 2012a. 39 Lembke 1994: 179–80 and Pl. 4, 1–2. 40 Cas. Dio 66, 24, 1. See Lembke 1994: 68. 41 Almeida 2003: 46. 42 Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995: 58–60. Most useful is the exact plan published by Lembke 1994: 255, giving detailed information about the find spots within the former temple. Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995: 58–60. 43 Coarelli 2002: 286; Almeida 2003: 53–5. 44 Coarelli 2002: 286. This is communis opinion. See, e.g. Almeida 2003: fig. 7. 45 Ciampini 2004: 121–7. 46 See a similar object in the Brooklyn Museum 19.170. Body parts, even large-size feet like the ones discussed here, were offered as votives in gratitude for Serapis’ healing power. I am grateful to Dr Yekaterina Barbash, Brooklyn, for her useful comments. 47 Negro 1993: 14, 40–6; Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995: 79–89. Although only a few structures have survived between Piazza delle Pilotta and Palazzo Colonna that once made part of this temple dedicated to Sarapis, it was already identified as a temple of Sol in the sixteenth century. Malaise 1972 limits himself to stating that the temple was erected under Caracalla. Also see my introduction to this volume, p. xxxiii.

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48 Transl. Kenney 2004: 211. See also Juliette Harrisson’s contribution to this volume. 49 Creekmore 1963: 112. 50 A reference to Isis as a cow, Isis-Io. 51 Ed. Goold 1985: 18–19. 52 Martial, Epigrams 10.48 (trans. Goold 1993: 369) points out that the followers of Isis – ‘the Pharian heifer’ alluding to her Alexandrian roots – announce the temple’s closure at 8 o’clock in the evening. 53 Epigrams II 14, 13–20, transl. Goold 1993: 143–5. 54 See the convincing reconstruction of Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995: 66 and Pl. 31 55 Lembke 1994: Pl. 2.3–4. 56 Lembke 1994: Pl. 2.1–2. 57 Apuleius’ final initiation takes place in the Iseum Campense, a temple to which he is called by a ‘gentle image’ (clemens imago): ‘Moreover, this third initiation of yours is necessarily called for, if you remember that the goddess’s holy symbols which you received at Cenchreae are still in the temple there where you left them, so that here in Rome you cannot wear them …’, trans. Kenney 2004: 213. 58 Bommas 2005a: 234; Kleibl 2009: 122. 59 Trans. Granger 1983: 67–9; Bommas 2005a: 114. 60 Trans. after the Latin edition of Helm 1910: 1. 61 See Lembke 1994: Pl. 2.3–4. The width of this exedra could have measured 50 metres. See Lembke 1994: 20. 62 Lembke 1994: 18. 63 These are depictions of the Nile, Tiber, Okeanos (twice) and a water god. Lembke 1994: Pl. 19–22. 64 Coarelli 2002: 286; Almeida 2003: fig. 7. 65 Lembke 1994: 25. 66 For this restoration inscription, see Lembke 1994: 71 and 143 (ad 12). Also above the main entrance into the temple for Isis at Pompeii a buidling inscription was set up; see Hoffmann 1993: 24. 67 See Lembke 1994: 255 for an overview. 68 A similar layout can be observed in the temple of Dion of Severan times (Bommas 2005a: 100–1), the Red Hall in Pergamon (Bommas 2005a: 113–16) and many more. 69 Zanker 1987: 115 (Engl. trans. 111) based himself on Ovid Fast. 5.553 (deus est ingens et opus) when he stated that the grandeur of each temple corresponded with that of the divinity.



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70 Tschudin 1962: 25–6. Lembke 1994: 67 suggested that the second building phase included Alexandrian architectural elements. 71 See above, Martial, Epigrams, 2.14.13–20 72 Carroll 2004: 91. 73 Thébert et al. 2001: 84–98 and figs. 76–80. 74 Carroll 2004: 91–2. 75 Kleibl 2009 does not address this topic although her study exclusively deals with interior decoration of Isea. 76 The most recent publication is Friggeri, Nava and Paris 2008: 150–1. 77 For the import of exotic plants and fruits to Rome, see Carroll 2004: 42–4 and 96–100. 78 Museo Vaticano, Merkelbach 2001: 127n. 4. 79 On images of crocodiles in the Egyptian and Roman world, see Hoffmann 2005: 428–33. 80 This location will certainly have reduced the ferocity of these crocodiles on display which might in any case have been adolescent if not younger animals that could be kept among humans as described by Herodotus, Hist. 2.69. 81 Bommas 2005a: 114–15. 82 Meyboom 1995: 93–4. For the depicting of the hippopotamus hunt watched by crocodiles, see Meyboom 1995: 31–2 and Pl. 19. 83 Hoffmann 2005: 739. 84 Examples come from Herculaneum. See Nava, Paris and Friggeri 2007: 151–2. 85 Ibises were the most common exotic animals within temples for Egyptian gods and therefore frequently depicted. 86 See Lücker 1997. 87 Bommas 2005c: 640–1 (with bibliography). 88 Lembke 1994: 228–9. 89 Rackham 1979: xiii. 90 Parlasca 2004: 405–19, esp. 406, has labelled these artefacts as ‘ “second-hand”Aegyptiaca’, a clumsy term that moreover discredits the importance of these artefacts as cult objects. 91 Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995; Lembke 1994: 195–8, 202–10, 221–38. 92 Parlasca 2004: 406. 93 Wirsching 2002. 94 Sist 2008: 69 with regard to the Iseum Campense pointed out that ‘more careful analysis of decorative functions can help to understand contexts of still uncertain assignments’. 95 See fn. 91.

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96 This pair of baboons dates to the reign of Nectanebos I (Lembke 1994: 228–9). 97 This pair of lions can be dated to Nectanebos I (Lembke 1994: 223–4). 98 The obelisk which today stands in front of the pantheon (Fig. 3) and its counterpart, today in the garden of the Villa Celimontana. 99 Alfano 2001: 287. Against this view, see now Swetnam-Burland 2007: 114 and n. 3. 100 Whether the structures recently unearthed under the Baths of Trajan in Rome qualify as a musaeum as suggested by the excavators in July 2011 (see Lorenzi 2011) cannot be decided with certainty unless clearer evidence is presented. 101 One part was occupied by the well-known royal library of Alexandria, a centre of research perhaps equivalent to modern-day universities which might have included a zoological garden according to Pearce and Bounia 2000: 87. There is, however, no evidence that supports this view. 102 Vieregg 2008. 103 As noted by Malaise 2005: 205: ‘Que les Romains étrangers aux cultes isiaques aient apprécié les pharaonica de ce temple comme une sorte de parc ou muse de l’art égyptien est bien possible, mais ce n’était pas leur raison d’être.’ 104 Roullet 1972; Lembke 1994: 25–50; Bommas 2005c: 321. For a general overview of aegyptiaca in Rome, see Roullet 1972; Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995: 131–224 (63 objects recorded), while Lembke refers to 64 objects from the Iseum Campense alone. Manera and Mazza 2001 is incomplete but offers a wide spectrum of res sacrae. 105 Friggeri, Nava and Paris 2008: 151–2. 106 Lipka 2009: 55. 107 Lollio Barberi, Parola and Totti 1995: 51–4 and 78–9. 108 Müller 1969 is still the most comprehensive study of this site. 109 The extent to which daily rituals of cults for Egyptian gods in Greece and Rome followed ancient Egyptian routine is still a matter of debate. See Bommas 2005b: 234–7. 110 For the ancient sources on this function of Isis, see Assmann, J. 2010. 111 As narrated in Apuleius, Metamorphoses, Book 11. 112 Bommas 2011b. 113 For the shaping of memories through material data, see Kwint et al. 1999. This methodological approach is still favoured today for exhibitions of ancient Egyptian artefacts. 114 Zanker 2003. 115 One of the most prominent examples for strategy is the ara pacis. See Dalheim 1989: 11 and 22; Zanker 2003: 179.



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116 Bommas 2005a: 86–8. 117 The quest for meaning was the driving force behind Plutarchus’s study De Iside et Osiride as stated in his foreword. See Griffiths 1970: 119. 118 Bommas 2012a. 119 See Wilson 2000. For the close link between cultural memory and history, see Bommas 2011c. 120 For the this term, see Assmann, A. 2006: 185. 121 Sontag 2003: 85–6. 122 According to Cicero, ad Atticum 14.8.1 and 14.20.2, Cleopatra was living in Rome when Caesar was murdered. 123 Nora 2005. Within the field of Egyptology, lieux de mémoire have not yet been studied apart from occasional references. See Bommas 2012b: 48 and 102. 124 Giuliani 2006. 125 Rüpke 2006.

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devozioni private e impiego ideologico del culto’, in E. A. Arslan (ed.), Iside. Il mito, il mistero, la magia. Milan, 306–21. Friggeri, R., M. L. Nava and R. Paris (eds), 2008. Rosso Pompeiano. La decorazione pittorica nelle collezioni del Museo di Napoli e a Pompei. Milan. Gatti, G., 1943–4. ‘Topographia dell’Iseo Campense’, Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia: Rendiconti 20, 117–63. Giuliani, L., 2006. ‘Zerstörte, wiederverwendete und konservierte Antike – Rom auf dem Weg zur Museumsstadt’, in E. Stein-Hölkeskamp and K.-J. Hölkeskamp (eds), Erinnerungen der Antike. Die römische Welt. Munich, 677–700. Goold, G. P., 1985. Ovid II. The Art of Love, and other poems. London. —1993. Martial I. London. Gordon, R., 1990. ‘Religion in the Roman Empire: the civic compromise and its limits’, in M. Beard and J. North (eds), Pagan Priests. Religion and Power in the Ancient World. London, 235–55. Granger, F., 1983. Vitruvius on Architecture I. London. Griffiths, J. G., 1970. Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride. Cambridge. Grüner, A., 2004. ‘Das Pantheon und seine Vorbilder’, Römische Mitteilungen 111, 495–512. Hamilton, W., 1973. Plato. Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII. St Ives. Helm, R., 1910. Apulei Platonici Madaurensis Florida. Leipzig. Hoffmann, F., 2005. ‘Krokodildarstellungen in Ägypten und Rom’, in H. Beck, P. C. Bol and M. Bückling (eds), Ägypten Griechenland Rom, Abwehr und Berührung. Frankfurt a. Main, 428–33. Hoffmann, P., 1993. Der Isis-Tempel in Pompeji. Munster. Hornbostel, W., 1973. Sarapis. Studien zur Überlieferungsgeschichte, den Erscheinungsformen und Wandlungen der Gestalt eines Gottes. Leiden. Iacopio, I., 1997. La decorazione pittorica dell’Aula Isiaca. Milan. Johnston, A. I., 2007. ‘Mysteries’, in S. I. Johnston (ed.), Ancient Religions. Cambridge, MA/London, 98–111. Kenney, E. J., 2004. Apuleius. The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses. St Ives. Kleibl, K., 2009. Iseion. Raumgestaltung und Kultpraxis in den Heiligtümern gräcoägyptischer Götter im Mittelmeerraum. Worms. Kwint, M., 1999. ‘Introduction: The Physical Past’, in M. Kwint et al. (eds), Material Memories. Design and Evocation. Oxford/New York. Kwint, M. et al., 1999. Material Memories. Design and Evocation. Oxford/New York. Lee, G., 1982. Tibullus: Elegies. Introduction, Text, Translation and Notes. Liverpool. Lembke, K., 1994. Das Iseum Campense in Rom. Studie über den Isiskult unter Domitian. Heidelberg.

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Lipka, M., 2009. Roman Gods. A Conceptual Approach. Leiden/Boston. Lollio Barberi, O., G. Parola and M. P. Totti, 1995. Le Antichità Egiziane di Roma Imperiale. Rome. Lorenzi, R., 2011. ‘Apollo Mosaic Found in Rome Tunnel’. Available at http://news. discovery.com/history/apollo-mosaic-rome-archaeology-110729.html (accessed 8 November 2011). Lücker, H., 1997. ‘Optimierung der Haltung von Ibissen im Zoo Dresden’. Available at http://library.vetmed.fu-berlin.de/resources/global/contents/VET164623/ IZW/Z%C3%BCrich%20PDF/L%C3%BCcker.pdf (accessed 7 November 2011). Lyne, R. O. A. M., 2001. ‘Augustan Poetry and Society’, in J. Boardman et al. (eds), The Oxford Illustrated History of the Roman World. Oxford, 182–205. Malaise, M., 1972. Les conditions de pénétration et de diffusion des cultes égyptiens en Italie. Leiden. —2002. ‘Nova Isiaca documentata Italiae. Un premier bilan (1978–2001)’, in L. Bricault (ed.), Isis en occident. Actes du IIème Colloque international sure les études isiaques, Lyon III, 16–17 May 2002, Leiden, 1–68. —2005. Pour une terminologie et une anayse des cultes isiaques. Brussels. Manera, F. and C. Mazza, 2001. Le collezioni egizie del Museo Nazionale Romano. Milan. Merkelbach, R., 2001. Isis regina – Zeus Sarapis. Munich/Leipzig. Meyboom, P. G. P., 1995. The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, Early Evidence of Egyptian Religion in Italy. Leiden/New York/Cologne. Moormann, M., 1988. La pittura parietale romana come fonte di conoscenza per la scultura antica. Assen/Maastricht-Wolfeboro. Müller, H.-W., 1969. Der Isiskult im antiken Benevent und Katalog der Skulpturen aus den ägyptischen Heiligtümern im Museo del Sannio. Berlin. Nava, M. L., R. Paris and R. Friggeri, R., 2007. Rosso Pompeiiano. La decorazione pittorica nelle collezioni del Museo di Napoli e a Pompeii, Museo Nazionale Romano, 20 December 2007–31 March 2008, Milan. Negro, A., 1993. Rione II Trevi.3. Rome. Nora, P. (ed.), 2005. Erinnerungsorte Frankreichs. Munich. Palma Venetucci, B., 2008. Culti orientali a Roma. Tra scavo e collezionismo. Rome. Parlasca, K., 2004. ‘Ägyptisierende Tempelreliefs und Architekturelemente aus Rom’, in L. Bricault (ed.), Isis en occident. Actes du IIème Colloque international sure les études isiaques, Lyon III, 16–17 May 2002, Leiden, 405–19 Pearce, S. and A. Bounia, 2000. The Collector‘s Voice I. Aldershot. Rackham, H., 1979. Cicero, De natura deorum. Harvard, MA



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Roullet, A., 1972. The Egyptian and Egyptianizing Monuments of Imperial Rome. Leiden. Rüpke, J. 2001. Die Religion der Römer. Munich. —2006. ‘Tempel, Daten, Rituale – die Götter als Langzeitgedächtnis der Gesellschaft’, in E. Stein Hölkeskamp and K.-J. Hölkeskamp (eds), Erinnerungsorte der Antike. Die römische Welt. Munich, 554–69. Salzman, M. R., 1990. On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity. Berkeley, CA. Sirano, F., 2007. ‘Erma femminile con attributi isiaci’, in M. L. Nava et al. (eds), Rosso Pompeiiano. La decorazione pittorica nelle collezioni del Museo di Napoli e a Pompeii, Museo Nazionale Romano, 20 December 2007–31 March 2008, Milan, 153 Sist, L., 1997. ‘L’Iseo-Serapeo Campense’, in E. A. Arslan (ed.), Iside. Il mito, il mistero, la magia. Milan, 297–305. —2008. ‘Gli Isei: funzioni e significati delle decorazioni’, in B. Palma Venetucci (ed.), Culti orientali a Roma. Tra scavo e collezionismo. Rome, 65–72. Sontag, S., 2003. On Photographs. St Yves. Stein-Hölkeskamp, E. and K.-J. Hölkeskamp (eds), 2006. Erinnerungsorte der Antike. Die römische Welt. Munich. Swetnam-Burland, M., 2007. ‘Egyptian Objects, Roman Contexts: A Taste for Aegyptiaca in Italy’, in L. Bricault, M. J. Versluys and P. G. P. Meyboom (eds), Nile into Tiber. Egypt in the Roman World. Proceedings of the IIIrd International Conference of Isis Studies, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, 11–14 May 2005, Leiden/Boston. Takács, S., 1995. Isis and Sarapis in the Roman World. New York. Thébert, Y., et al., 2001. ‘Il santuario di Elagabalus: un giardino sacro’, in F. Villedieu (ed.), Il giardino dei Cesari, Dai palazzi antichi alla vigna Barberini, sul monte Palatino. Rome, 107–27. Tomorad, M., 2005. ‘Egyptian Cults of Isis and Serapis in Roman Fleets’, in A. Amenta et al. (eds), L’acqua dell’antico Egitto, Proceedings of the First International Conference For Young Egyptologists, Chianciano Terme, 15–18 October, Rome, 241–53. Tränkle, H., 1990. Appendix Tibulliana. Berlin/New York. Tschudin, P. F., 1962. Isis in Rom, PhD dissertation, Basel. Turcan, R., 1996. The Cults of the Roman Empire (trans. from the French edition by A. Nevill). Padstow. —2000. The Gods of Ancient Rome. Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial Times (trans. A. Nevill). Edinburgh.

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Versluys, H. S., 2004. ‘Isis Capitolina and the Egyptian Cults in the Late Republican Rome’, in L. Bricault (ed.), Isis en occident. Actes du IIème Colloque international sure les études isiaques, Lyon III, 16–17 May 2002, Leiden, 421–48. Vieregg, H. K., 2008. Geschichte des Museums. Eine Einführung. Munich. Wilson, D. D., 2000. ‘Realizing Memory, Transforming History: Euro/American/ Indians’, in S. A. Crane, Museums and Memory. Stanford, 115–36. Wirsching, A., 2002. ‘Die Obelisken auf dem Seeweg nach Rom’, Römische Mitteilungen 109, 141–56. Witt, R. E., 1971. Isis in the Ancient World. Baltimore, MD. Zanker, P., 1987. Augustus und die Macht der Bilder. Munich. (Engl. Trans. A. Shapiro, 1990. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor, MI.)

9

Isis in the Greco-Roman World: Cultural Memory and Imagination Juliette Harrisson

‘… priscaque doctrina pollentes Aegyptii … appellant vero nomine reginam Isidem.’ ‘… and the Egyptians, excelling in ancient learning … call me by my true name, Queen Isis.’ Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.4. The Greco-Roman Isis cult was a deliberately Egyptianizing cult. Actively engaging with Egypt and with cultural memories of ancient Egypt was one of the cult’s aims, as the above quote from Apuleius’ novel demonstrates; his protagonist, Lucius-as-ass, encounters a goddess who is known by many names, but it is the ancient Egyptians who know her ‘true’ name. Only the Egyptians, according to Lucius/Apuleius, maintain the ancient memory of this name, and the true form of the goddess is passed down through the Isis cult that Lucius encounters at Cenchrea. However, as this paper will demonstrate, actual resemblances between Isis worship in ancient (pre-Ptolemaic) Egypt and Isis worship in the Greco-Roman world are few. What Greco-Roman devotees of Isis were actually doing for the most part was not remembering ancient Egyptian rites, values or even myth, but creating an imaginary Isis out of a blend of Greco-Roman Egyptian elements and aspects of Greek ‘mystery’ religion. In this way, they created a new Isis within their shared cultural imagination – that is, within the notions of divinity, spirituality and the extra-natural understood, if not believed, by the majority of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire – that was consciously (falsely) believed to be a shared memory.1

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The only area of Isis-worship in which elements appear to have been genuinely, accurately remembered from ancient Egypt right through to the Roman period is in her mythology (though we must add to this the caveat that it is difficult to determine how much her myth may have changed over such a long period of time, because our best evidence for the myth comes from the Roman period). The central story of the myth tells how, following the murder of her brother-husband Osiris and his dismemberment, Isis sought his body parts all over Egypt and put them back together for proper burial, creating the first mummy and magically conceiving their son Horus in the process. Diodorus Siculus’ Library (1.11–22) and Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride (12–20), both Roman-period texts, provide the fullest accounts of the myth, but their accounts seem to tally with the essential story from ancient Egypt; for example, the Pyramid Texts, the earliest Egyptian funerary texts discovered, describe Isis searching for the dead Osiris, mourning for him, then bringing him back to life (in this case, along with her sister Nephthys).2 P. M. Fraser has described Isis, Harpocrates (Horus) and Anubis as ‘Egyptian deities of respectable, though not of great, antiquity’.3 There is, however, one major aspect of Isis’ myth and divine character that was much newer and was especially prominent during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Although Osiris is not forgotten and still frequently appears as Isis’ consort, she also gains another consort – Serapis. Serapis appears to be a combination of Osiris and the Apis-bull and seems to have come into being under either Alexander the Great or the early Ptolemies.4 The Romans referred to him as Sarapis, but I have chosen to use the earlier spelling because it may reflect the god’s origin; ser means to foretell or prophesy in Egyptian, so the name Ser-Apis may indicate that Serapis was originally a ‘foretelling Apis’.5 It might be argued that the inclusion of Serapis, a ‘younger’ god, in Roman period accounts of the myth of Isis indicates a significant change from pre-Ptolemaic Egypt. However, Serapis as an individual in fact makes little impact on Plutarch and Diodorus’ versions of the myth. Plutarch devotes most of the space given to Serapis to trying to work out who or what this particular god is, associating him with, among others, Osiris, Pluto, Dionysus, a son of Heracles and the name of the coffin of the Apis-bull (Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, 28–9). Serapis as a character has little to do in the mythic narrative. Diodorus Siculus, with the exception of the reference to Heracles, makes



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largely the same connections, and mentions Serapis only briefly (Diodorus Siculus, Library, 1.25). The exact origins of the cult of Serapis have been widely disputed. Most agree that Serapis was originally a combination of Osiris and the Apis-bull from Memphis.6 However, there is much disagreement concerning whether the transference of the god to Alexandria, a city with which he is strongly connected, and his emergence as Serapis occurred during the reigns of the early Ptolemies or earlier, possibly under Alexander the Great. Stambaugh, for example, has suggested that Alexander ‘came across’ a shrine of Osiris and commissioned a new structure for Osiris, at the same time linking him with Osiris-Apis from Memphis and thereby introducing the Hellenized Serapis.7 Heyob agrees that this is the most likely origin of the cult and adds that both the name and the character of the god bear this out.8 Stiehl also argues, chiefly on the basis of Roman-period evidence, that the cult pre-dated Ptolemy.9 She argues, for example, that an attempted incubation at the temple of Serapis carried out as Alexander the Great was dying and recorded by both Plutarch and Arrian provides evidence for the pre-Ptolemaic existence of the cult, on the assumption that Plutarch and Arrian are correct in suggesting that the temple was already in existence by that point (Plutarch, Alexander, 76; Arrian, Anabasis, 7, 25, 1–26, 3).10 Fraser, on the other hand, argues that Serapis came into being under the early Ptolemies, in Alexandria.11 He acknowledges that Serapis was ‘adapted from an aspect of an Egyptian deity, Osiris’, but suggests that the new god ‘was freshly conceived in terms of both Egyptian and Greek theological beliefs’.12 Like Stiehl, he also bases his assessment on Roman-period sources, but chooses to focus on the two sources that actively describe an origin for the cult: Plutarch’s On Isis and Osiris and Tacitus’ Histories. These main sources, Fraser observes, suggest the cult originated under Ptolemy Soter or Ptolemy Philadelphus.13 He also notes that the chronology suggested by Eusebius puts ‘the arrival of Sarapis’ at the end of Soter’s reign or at the beginning of that of Philadelphus.14 More recently, Alvar also claims that ‘there can be little doubt’ that Ptolemy I established the cult, largely based on the evidence of Plutarch.15 Bommas, however, argues that the sources Fraser was relying on have been misinterpreted, partly due to a misunderstanding over the meaning of Sinopê.16

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Plutarch’s version of the story records a dream apparently dreamt by Ptolemy I Soter, which demonstrates certain links between Pluto, Serapis and Osiris. In Ptolemy’s dream, a colossal statue of Pluto from Sinopê orders him to move it to Alexandria, which Ptolemy does, ‘not without the help of divine providence’ (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 28).17 Plutarch goes on to discuss the debate concerning which god the statue represented that ensued when it was displayed in Egypt, demonstrating that Pluto is to be identified with Serapis, and further identifying Serapis with Osiris. This does not seem to fit his suggestion in his Life of Alexander that a temple to Serapis was already present in Alexandria. It is important to remember here that Plutarch is not unwilling to change historical details for dramatic effect in his biographies; for example, he moved Julius Caesar’s well-known dream of having sex with his mother from his quaestorship in Spain to the night before he crossed the Rubicon, apparently for dramatic effect.18 Tacitus records the same story in his Histories, but there it is not the statue that appears to Ptolemy, but decore eximio et maiore quam humana specie iuvenum, ‘a youth with exceptional splendour and greater than human appearance’, who is described as one who oblatum per quietem, ‘appeared in the course of his rest’, which presumably refers to his sleep, though the specific word somnus is not used (Tacitus, Historiae, 4.83). Tacitus writes that Ptolemy ignored the dream at first, until the same ‘apparition’ but more ‘terrible’ threatened him with ruin if it was not obeyed. The process of identifying the statue is also considerably more complicated than in Plutarch’s version, and the process of obtaining it from Sinopê much more difficult. It may be that the popular story Tacitus records – that the statue eventually put itself on board ship – is what Plutarch was referring to by ‘not without the god’s help’ (Tacitus, Historiae, 4.84). Tacitus also concludes his record of the story with a discussion of the identification of gods, and his purpose in including the story seems to be to explain the origin of Serapis. We are left, then, with a handful of sources, all post-dating the event by a number of centuries, some of which contradict each other (including two written by the same author). Certainty is impossible, but there is one clue that might point to a solution. As is clear from the sources so far cited, dreams and incubation (which I have previously defined as a practice in which a person performs a ritual act and then sleeps in a sacred place, with the deliberate



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intention of receiving a divine dream, often related to sickness and medicine) play a central role in the mythology and worship of Serapis.19 However, as I have argued elsewhere, incubation was an essentially Greek practice for which there is limited evidence in pre-Ptolemaic Egypt, though it became extremely popular in Egypt in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.20 It seems likely, therefore, that this story of carrying out an incubation ritual in an attempt to save Alexander has probably become attached to him at a later date, when the practice had become more common. This would seem to imply that Plutarch’s account in On Isis and Osiris is the more accurate. Further, this seems to be a logical assumption, since Plutarch would be much more likely to invent or move incidents in his biographies, works intended to entertain and improve morals by example, than in a philosophical work in which the aim is to get at the truth concerning these Egyptian gods. We may tentatively conclude, then, that the cult of Serapis probably came into being under the early Ptolemies. Although Serapis is therefore probably a Ptolemaic ‘invention’, it is important to note that, as described above, he was often remembered not as Ptolemaic, but as Alexandrian. This is significant because among the many legends surrounding Alexander were several tying him ever more closely to Egypt, including some which made him part Egyptian. The Alexander Romance, a novel written in Greek between the first and third centuries ad, claims that Alexander was the son of the last native king of Egypt, Nectanebos (Pseudo-Callisthenes, The Alexander Romance, 1.1).21 As rightful pharaoh, he is also claimed as the son of the Egyptian god Ammon (Pseudo-Callisthenes, The Alexander Romance, 1.30). According to the Romance, in the process of founding Alexandria, he was led by dreams and oracles to found the Serapeum at Alexandria; it is implied that he is rediscovering an ancient god who has been neglected (Pseudo-Callisthenes, The Alexander Romance, 1.31–3). Serapis is remembered as Alexandrian and Alexander is remembered as Egyptian; thus Serapis becomes, in the cultural memory, a properly ancient Egyptian god rediscovered by Alexander, a native Egyptian pharaoh. I will briefly outline some basic aspects of how Isis was depicted and worshipped in ancient Egypt and in the Hellenistic world, to provide a point of comparison with the Greco-Roman Isis of the period of the Roman Empire.22 In ancient Egypt, Isis was chiefly associated with marriage and motherhood, and one of the most common depictions of her shows her suckling Horus

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or Harpocrates, in an image not dissimilar to the later Christian Virgin and Child.23 Isis was also known as ‘great in magic’; for example, in the Metternich Stela, in which she is described as ‘the possessor of magic’.24 Her association with magic and spells probably stems from the part of her myth describing the conception of her son Horus. Although there are some variations in the details – for example, Faulkner has argued that the version recorded in Spell 148 of the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts describes Horus being conceived through a miraculous flash of lightning, rather than post mortem through necrophilia as is usually the case – the conception of a child from a dead father in all versions requires some use of magic in order to be successful.25 She was sometimes depicted as a kite or a woman with long wings, hovering over the dead body of Osiris in order to conceive Horus.26 Perhaps because of this association with magic, or with life-giving powers, she could also be connected with medicine, as she is in Papyrus Ebers, which is a medical text. As the mother of Horus, a god associated with the divine nature of the pharaoh, Isis was also associated with royalty; her name may have originally meant ‘seat’.27 Her other common headdress was a solar disc between cow horns; she was the Isis-cow, the mother of the Apis-bull, and from the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 bc) onwards she was closely associated with the goddess Hathor.28 Hathor was a cow-goddess, sometimes depicted as a woman with cow’s ears, sometimes as a cow and sometimes as a woman with horns and a solar disc between them. Although she could be a representation of divine malevolence against humanity, she was more often associated with sexuality and music and her cult was closely associated with the sistrum, a rattling instrument usually played by women which often included an image of her head on the handle. Hathor was sometimes worshipped under the name ‘lady of Byblos’.29 Fraser has suggested that the cult of Isis had already been dispersed by Egyptian merchants before the Hellenistic period, but the Hellenistic cult of Isis appears to have come into being at Alexandria.30 The earliest evidence for the Hellenized Isis cult outside of Egypt is the aretalogy found inscribed at Maroneia, near the Black Sea. This inscription, from the late second or early first century bc, seems to be strongly influenced by the Eleusinian mysteries, as it concludes with praise of Athens and of Eleusis specifically.31 As Gasparro has observed, within the text, only the Egyptian names of the goddess and



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her husband, Serapis, and a brief reference to Egypt as her favourite place of residence give any clue to her non-Greek origin.32 In the early third century bc, the Hellenized cult of Isis-Serapis appeared in Delos. An inscription on Delos describes how a priest called Apollonius built the Serapeum on the island. He describes his family as being of the Egyptian priestly class, though, as Austin has noted, their names are Greek, the inscription is in Greek and the cult of Serapis they established was that of the Hellenized Serapis.33 From Delos, the cult eventually spread to Italy, brought to Campania by Italian merchants.34 Both members of the Greco-Roman cult of Isis and Greco-Roman writers in general often show a keen desire to engage with ancient Egypt, which was venerated for its great antiquity and the wisdom thought to be found there. Diodorus Siculus opened his universalizing work by stating that ‘since Egypt is the country where mythology places the origin of the gods, where the earliest observations of the stars are said to have been made … we shall begin our history with the events connected with Egypt’ (Diodorus Siculus, Library, 1.9). On the subject of Isis specifically, he claims, ‘as for Isis, when translated the word means “ancient” [παλαιάν], the name having been given her because her birth was everlasting and ancient’ (Diodorus Siculus, Library, 1.11). Despite a certain amount of lip-service to the wisdom and antiquity of Egypt, however, Greek writers always find themselves coming back to the conclusion that whatever they are talking about is really Greek in origin. Plutarch, in particular, has a tendency to temper any authority given to Egypt with the suggestion that the gods and their myths are really Greek anyway, claiming that ‘Isis is a Greek word, and so also is Typhon, her enemy, who is conceited, as his name implies, because of his ignorance and self-deception’ (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 2/351f). His many references to the gods’ Greek identities seem to go beyond the usual syncretism and almost imply that they are Greek. Twice he refers to words brought to Egypt from Greece in ancient times and then transferred back to Greece again from Egypt (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 29/362e, 61/375e-376a). Intriguingly, he refers to Serapis as ‘foreign’ (ξενικός) but Osiris as Greek (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 61/376a). Overall, the implication is that even Egypt’s traditional place as the oldest of cultures is denied, as everything Egyptian is revealed, ultimately, to be Greek. Alvar has suggested that one of the aims of this treatise is to justify the

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relationship between the mysteries of Isis and the Eleusinian mysteries, and this may have been a factor in Plutarch’s work in this regard, but generally speaking, this seems to be part of a much wider attempt on the part of Greek writers such as Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus to claim the heritage of most of the Mediterranean for the Greeks.35 The cult of Isis, as represented by Plutarch, is a Greek cult of ultimately Greek origin which embraces Greek values. The Egyptian element of the cult remains superficial. Even the language and the names of the gods, in Plutarch’s account, are claimed for Greece. Isis was still associated with Hathor in the Hellenistic period in Egypt, but by the Roman period, in the form of the cult that spread through Italy, the memory of Hathor as a separate but connected goddess seems to have started to fade (though in Egypt itself she remained important, with a temple built at Dendera during the Roman period, for example).36 Diodorus Siculus remembers that Isis is associated somehow with a cow, and suggests that she is given horns on her head by the Egyptians because the cow is ‘held sacred to her’ in Egypt; but he also suggests that they do this partly because of ‘the appearance which she has to the eye when the moon is crescentshaped’ (Diodorus Siculus, Library, 1.11). He does not appear to connect the horns with Hathor at all. Herodotus had stated that Isis was represented as a woman with cow’s horns exactly like the Greek images of Io, presumably having misunderstood or misrepresented Egyptian Isis/Hathor images, and this may be the ultimate source of the connection sometimes drawn by later sources between Isis and Io (Herodotus, Histories, 2.41).37 Isis was frequently identified with Io during the Roman period. A fresco from Pompeii, for example, shows Io with horns on her head, being greeted by Isis.38 According to Apollodorus, when Io had recovered her son and settled in Egypt, she set up an image of Demeter, whom the Egyptians call Isis, and Io herself is also called Isis in Egypt (Apollodorus, The Library, 2.1.3). Both Apollodorus and Plutarch associate Isis with the town of Byblos; Apollodorus claims Io recovered her son from the queen of Byblos (Apollodorus, The Library, 2.1.3) while Plutarch records that Isis found Osiris’ sarcophagus in Byblos (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 15, 357a). However, neither make any reference to Hathor, the Egyptian ‘lady of Byblos’. Hathor’s name and her separate identity are forgotten, swallowed up into Isis and Io, and cow imagery is almost all that is left of her.



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The Roman period engagement with Egyptian culture in general was enthusiastic, but only skin-deep. Swetnam-Burland has argued that it was the image of a thing that made it Egyptian to Roman eyes and suggests that it did not matter particularly whether an object was made from Egyptian materials or used an Egyptian design – it only mattered that the image was of something Egyptian.39 Even in the Temple of Isis at Pompeii, Egyptian-themed images appear, but in a distinctly Roman style. The frescoes are chiefly in the Fourth Style of Roman interior decoration, a style characterized by large images of views across the landscape, framed by architectural details.40 These landscapes were usually idealized images of vaguely Mediterranean feel, featuring hilly regions and mountains with temples dotted around them. In the case of the frescoes from the Temple of Isis, these images also include scattered Egyptian elements: an ibis bird wanders across the bottom of an image from the ecclesiasterion, for example, or Isis appears with Io in the scene described above.41 In the sacrarium, the paintings are more heavily Egyptianized and less professionally painted that in the outer rooms; Moorman has suggested that this indicates they may have been the work of a non-professional painter who was an initiate.42 Whether this is the case or not, the same basic features are present as in the outer rooms. Those who used the temple clearly wanted to engage with Egyptian culture on a conscious level, but the form of the decoration remained squarely Roman. The form and practice of the cult itself was also only superficially Egyptian, though adherents did their best to keep the group memory of ancient Egypt alive. As a mystery cult, the Hellenized cult of Isis bore some similarities to the Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter, one of the oldest and most important mystery cults. Isis, as a goddess, had been associated with Demeter at least as far back as Herodotus, pre-dating the Hellenistic development of the GrecoRoman Isis cult, so it is natural that her cult should be particularly similar to that of Demeter (Herodotus, Histories, 2.59). Of the five mystery cults Burkert identified as the most prominent and important in his monograph on the subject, those of Demeter and Isis show the greatest similarity, sanctuaries of Isis being modelled after those of Demeter and Persephone.43 We have already seen how important the Eleusinian mysteries were to the writer of the inscription at Maroneia. In addition to the similarities with the Eleusinian Mysteries, other Greek

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elements also found their way into the cult. There were certain elements of Egyptian religion that were not considered appropriate in Greek religion. For example, aspects of the Egyptian cult of Isis involving animals did not fit Greek practice and were omitted, while other typically Greek practices found their way in to take their place.44 For example, we know from Pausanias, from Apuleius and from the epigraphic evidence that Isis was particularly associated with prophecy and healing through dreams. Pausanias describes a temple of Isis which one is only allowed to enter if invited in a dream (he does not mention if there was any kind of system for checking this) (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 10.32.13). Apuleius makes many references to divine dreams of Isis in the final chapter of his Metamorphoses, including instructions (11.3–6) and invitations (11.22, 11.26, 11.27, 11.30) received through dreams, which may be a reference to this sort of practice.45 This is a particularly Greek and Near Eastern notion of how mankind might interact with the gods.46 Although there is evidence for an interest in prophetic dreams in ancient Egypt, this interest greatly increased following the conquest of Egypt by Alexander, and, in particular, the practice of incubation, developed in Greece from Near Eastern predecessors, became very popular in Egypt from this period onwards and became a major feature of Isiac sites. The connection of Isis with dreams and incubation, then, is just one of many aspects of the cult that was entirely Greek in origin. Those involved in the organization of the cult did want to remember, pass on and maintain certain aspects of Egyptian religious ritual. The cult was based chiefly in temples with attached clergy, like Egyptian religious practice, but unlike some of the other mystery cults.47 The Egyptian tradition of keeping the cult image in the innermost part of the temple, accessible only to a few, was, of course, particularly appropriate for a mystery cult and was maintained, and some of the Egyptian ritual was retained as well.48 However, as we have seen, the form and function of the cult was much more Greek mystery religion than a reflection of Egyptian religious practice. I have defined the term cultural imagination as referring to ideas shared, but not necessarily commonly ‘believed in’, among a very large group of people and which may endure for a long time.49 The interaction between the memory of ancient Egypt and the ancient Egypt of the Greco-Roman cultural imagination may best be demonstrated with a short case study of the



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‘Isis book’ of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. Apuleius wrote the Metamorphoses, structured around the story of a man who turns into an ass but also incorporating a lengthy narrative of the story of Cupid and Psyche and a description of a festival of Isis, in the second half of the second century ad. It is the only Latin novel from the ancient world to have survived in full. In the Isis cult as described by Apuleius, we can see both some genuinely ‘remembered’ Egyptian elements and many ‘newer’ elements. Overall, the will among the participants to Egyptianize is strong, but actual memories of ancient Egypt are weak. The question of how seriously we should take Book 11 of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, the final Book in the novel and the one in which he describes his protagonist’s ‘conversion’ and initiation into the cult of Isis, has been the centre of a great deal of debate for many years. Some argue that Book 11 is a sincere, autobiographical story of religious conversion.50 Others argue that the scene should be read purely as a comic parody of cult devotees like Lucius, and S. Harrison has even suggested a possible real-life target for this sort of humour: Aelius Aristides.51 Harrison also points to the many different genres and influences that come together in the novel.52 Taking the third option, one of the most influential theories in the last couple of decades has been that of Winkler, who argues that the story is not necessarily autobiographical and that the sequence can be read both ways, as the narrator deliberately leaves enough ambiguity that either one of two possible interpretations is equally possible.53 However, this question is largely irrelevant for our current purposes. There is no need to assume that the Metamorphoses, or any part of it, is autobiographical. Aside from the obvious fantastical content, there is no reason to assume that Apuleius did not invent his hero from the basic outline provided in older versions of the story of Lucius, or the Ass (which tells a shorter, more broadly comic version of the story, and pseudo-Lucian’s version of which has also survived in its entirety).54 However, it is known that authors of fiction frequently draw on their own experiences and we also know from his Apologia that Apuleius was initiated into several mystery cults (Apuleius, Apologia, 55), so it is reasonable to assume that Apuleius had some personal knowledge of the Isis cult, possibly specifically at Corinth and Rome, and used this in writing his novel. His description of the practical features of the cult, therefore, we assume to be broadly accurate.

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The climax of the Metamorphoses takes place at Cenchrea and at Corinth, and this does not appear to have been a meaningless choice on Apuleius’ part. Leaving aside for the moment one statement referring to the ‘man from Madauros’ (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.27), Lucius is identified at the beginning of the novel as a Corinthian and Apuleius’ version of the story takes his hero there instead of on a journey through Thessaly to Thessaloniki, as is the case in pseudo-Lucian’s Lucius, or the Ass. Lucius’ story is one of coming home (before his journey to Rome interrupts his homecoming; see below). Why Corinth and Cenchrea? It is possible that Apuleius himself had visited the place and witnessed the festival he describes there, and that this was the only reason he chose this setting and this festival for the climax of his novel. However, this place may also have seemed especially suitable for Apuleius’ story, because of the different elements of Greco-Roman Isis worship that could be found together there. According to Pausanias, there were two precincts of Isis on the Acrocorinth, one of Isis Aegyptia and one of Isis Pelagia, that is, Egyptian Isis and Isis of the sea (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.4.6).55 There were also some other temples and shrines to Isis in the area, one of which was at Cenchrea (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.2.3). The Isis temple at Cenchrea, dating from the second century ad, has only tentatively been identified, but seems to have included the usual wall paintings of Egyptian scenes heavily featuring ibises and the Nile (these are a later renovation of presumed similar earlier friezes), a building which may have been constructed, Susan Handler has suggested, in an Egyptianizing style, and two remaining figures, of Homer and Plato.56 We may tentatively imply from this that Isis was worshipped under two main titles, or aspects, in Corinth and perhaps in Cenchrea – Egyptian Isis, Isis Aegyptia, and Isis of the Sea, Isis Pelagia. It is a festival of Isis Pelagia that Apuleius describes, culminating on the sea shore at Cenchrea. The presence of Isis Pelagia in this coastal area will surprise no one, and is borne out by the numismatic evidence; the strongest association of Isis in coins from Corinth and, particularly, from Cenchrea, is that of Isis Pelagia, and the motif of Isis with a sail clearly identifies her with the sea and marine activity.57 This image of a woman with a large, curved sail, may ultimately be derived from ancient Egyptian images of Isis with long wings but this is a tentative assertion and, even if this is the case, all associations



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of the wings and their accompanying myth are lost, totally subsumed by the importance of her association with the sea. The other aspect of Isis at Corinth is more interesting: Isis Aegyptia. The name itself suggests that this is a tradition that is more interested than most in actively trying to remember the Egyptian origins of the goddess. Coins depicting Isis carrying a sistrum and situla appear in a number of Peloponnesian cities, including Corinth, from the reign of Hadrian through to that of Severus Alexander. Bricault and Veymiers have suggested that these may have been connected to places where a particularly Egyptian Isis was worshipped, under the name Isis Aegyptia, because the more Hellenized image of the goddess would present her carrying a cornucopia and a sceptre.58 The association of the situla with Isis goes back at least to the Ptolemaic period and may, therefore, represent a remembered Egyptian element of her cult. The association of Hathor and, through her, Isis with the sistrum certainly goes back to pre-Ptolemaic Egypt, as we have seen. As these coins demonstrate, Isis was frequently associated with the sistrum in the Roman period, showing that, just like the connection made between Isis and Io springing from the depictions of Isis with cow horns, an element of her ancient connection with Hathor has been represented, but without any memory of the second goddess. Apuleius’ description of the Isis cult at Corinth (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.7–18) emphasizes three main aspects of the cult: the association with the sea (it is a festival of Isis Pelagia that Lucius attends, 11.7–18); the connection with the Underworld that the mystery cult provides (emphasized by the reference to Lucius coming to the gates of Proserpina, 11.23); and the Egyptian origin of the cult (particularly in the description of the paraphernalia carried in the procession, 11.7–9). Isis Pelagia and her association with the sea appears to be an entirely Greco-Roman development, but the association of Isis (and especially of Osiris) with death, rebirth and the Underworld is as ancient as the gods themselves, and the nature of the cult of Isis Aegyptia certainly demonstrates a desire to reach back into the Egyptian past on the part of the worshippers. Some of the genuine links to Isis’ Egyptian past described above can also be seen in the Metamorphoses. For example, when Lucius, the protagonist, sees a vision of Isis, Apuleius describes her as holding a sistrum (with a boat-shaped gold dish decorated with an asp in the other hand) (Apuleius,

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Metamorphoses, 11.4). Clearly, Corinth was not the only place where this association was made, but Corinth does seem to have been one of the places where the Egyptian elements of the Isis cult were particularly prominent and where some limited aspects of her Egyptian nature were perhaps remembered, or some effort was made to remember them, as well as copying obviously Egyptian motifs from images. Much of Apuleius’ description of the Egyptian elements of the cult here, however, displays the usual superficial acknowledgement of its Egyptian origins. When he describes the statue of a cow that is carried in the procession, for example, he says that it represents the goddess as fruitful Mother of everyone, and makes no mention of Hathor (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.11). Like Diodorus Siculus, he associates Isis with the moon rather than the sun (the moon is shining brightly when Lucius falls asleep and the lunar goddess features in his prayer; Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.1–2). Any ‘memories’ of ancient Egypt remain fragmentary, with essential elements from their Egyptian origins missing. We can see, in Apuleius’s description of elements of the Isis cult in Corinth and Cenchrea, some deliberate attempts on the part of those involved in the cult to engage with the goddess’s Egyptian past. We have already seen that one of the aspects in which Isis was worshipped at Corinth was Isis Aegyptia, Egyptian Isis, and this very name indicates the desire on the part of initiates to reach back, remember and revive the Egyptian past. Apuleius’ description of the rites of Isis Pelagia also shows some deliberate attempts to evoke the goddess’s Egyptian past. The procession includes a man dressed as the god Anubis, one person carrying a situla with a snake-handle, and others carrying palm leaves and other Egyptian objects (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.11). However, the importance of the marine aspect of Isis to this port community is always uppermost in the minds of the people Apuleius describes, as this festival exists in order to ask for a good sailing season (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.16).59 Egyptian elements are, ultimately, secondary to the much more immediate purpose of the festival, upon which, if one sincerely believed in the goddess and her ability to help those at sea, lives could depend. In Corinth and Cenchrea, Apuleius’ story is dominated by Isis and by her mysteries, and the results for the hero Lucius are uniformly positive. The goddess’s cult is celebrated as a mystery cult of Egyptian origin, the goddess herself as a saviour queen. Lucius has his possessions returned to him and is



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cautioned to wait and be patient until he is really ready to become an initiate of her cult (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.20–1). He is eventually told, by Isis in a dream, that he may undergo initiation and enthusiastically does so. During the initiation ceremony, which is not described in detail for obvious reasons, Lucius claims he goes to the gates of the Underworld and back, and his family rejoice at his unexpected return after a year’s disappearance (while he was trapped in the body of an ass; Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.22–5). Emotionally, the Isis cult in Corinth and Cenchrea represents belonging in this story. Lucius is home, among his own people, restored to human form and initiated into a supportive cult. However, Lucius has one more metamorphosis to undergo before the end of the novel. Instructed by further dreams from Isis, he goes to Rome, where things change. Once he leaves Corinth, Isis is no longer dominant – she remains an important presence, but her consort Osiris becomes the dominant partner. Osiris, as we have seen, was Isis’ ancient Egyptian consort, preferred here to Serapis, who was an important part of her cult in Corinth but who is mentioned only briefly by Apuleius.60 Osiris takes over Lucius’ life entirely, to such an extent that, as Lucius’ narrative voice tells us, even the firstperson narrator-protagonist worries briefly that he is being cheated (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.29). Where the cult in Corinth provided reassurance and a sense of belonging, the cult of Isis and Osiris in Rome, emotionally, represents difference. Lucius’ narrative voice emphasizes that he is in a foreign country, speaking a less familiar language and without the support of friends and family (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.28). Rather, he is at the mercy of the cult and, at one point, of a priest with the significant name ‘Asinius’, donkey (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.27). It is here that Lucius undergoes his final metamorphosis, into the person he will finally become. This last metamorphosis is the most intriguing and controversial of all, and the ultimate source of the argument that the novel is autobiographical, because Lucius seems, at this point, to become more like Apuleius himself. He makes a living pleading in the law courts, just as Apuleius saved his own life and earned notoriety in a legal case (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.28; Apuleius, Apologia). Lucius pleads in Latin, one of Apuleius’ native languages (as opposed to the Greek language of Corinth and Cenchrea, in which the only other surviving version of the story is written).

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Furthermore, it is here that we come across the ever difficult line that states he is from Madauros, Apuleius’ home town, rather than from Corinth, his hero’s home, which is especially perplexing considering Lucius has only just come from Corinth to Rome. However, there may be another explanation for this strange turn of events. Lucius’ final transformation creates a new cultural identity for himself, and part of this new identity is that he is becoming more Egyptian. Apuleius pulls together elements of his own cultural identity – Latin, Madauros, the courts – but Lucius’ transformation is not into Apuleius, but into an Egyptian. The preface to the novel, which appears to refer to the document itself, describes the story as written on Egyptian papyrus with a Nilotic reed and claims this as the reason for the use of animal metamorphosis within the story, which the preface identifies as Egyptian (despite the apparently Greek origin of the story as told by pseudo-Lucian) (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 1.1). Egypt is then left to one side for much of the novel until the appearance of the Egyptian gods at the end. Here, the reader is brought full circle, as the narrator of the story becomes Egyptian as well and begins a new life, remembering an old and foreign culture within the heart of Rome. Whereas, in Corinth and Cenchrea, the goddess appeared chiefly to help Lucius, in Rome he must become totally subservient to the powerful and ancient god Osiris. This is symbolized by his shaving of his head, and in the final lines of the novel Lucius proudly describes how he displays his baldness for all to see, marking him out as an Egyptian priest, as different from everyone around him (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.30). The attempt to evoke cultural memories of ancient Egypt feeds into a cultural identity that embraces Egyptianess for Lucius’ final transformation into an Egyptian devotee. This final transformation of Lucius transforms, not his physical body, but his cultural identity. Apuleius was a person who embraced at least three cultural identities. He was a Greek philosopher: he spoke, read and wrote in Greek; he was a student of Greek philosophy and he had studied in Greece. He was a Roman: his father was a duumvir, he wrote as much in Latin as in Greek (perhaps more so, since all his surviving works are in Latin) and the Metamorphoses itself is specifically presented as a Latin – that is, Roman – reworking of a Greek/Egyptian tale. He did not usually emphasize his identity as a North African but, when his home town was dismissed as insignificant by



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his opponents at his trial on charges of witchcraft, he defended it and made no attempt to deny the association (Apuleius, Apologia, 24). Cultural identity, for Apuleius, is a complex issue and any one aspect of it can be played up against the others when the need arises. It is this interest in playing with cultural identity that comes through in the final transformation of the Metamorphoses. By drawing on cultural memories of ancient Egypt and placing them in contemporary Rome in the person of a Greek hero, Apuleius draws on all three cultures that go to make up his own identity – Greek, Roman and African. Although Egypt was often considered rather separate from other parts of North Africa, it remains closer in terms of climate and lifestyle. The high scholarly reputation of Greek-speaking Egypt and the presence of the library at Alexandria would also hold an extra appeal for the scholar Apuleius. The memory of ancient Egypt provides a way to form a new identity for his hero, that is neither Greek nor Roman, and Apuleius’ hero carves out a new cultural identity for himself from the memories of ancient Africa. This conclusion has implications for the wider study of cultural memory and identity. Cultural memories, as Assmann has emphasized, feed and reinforce cultural identity. One of the most important aspects of cultural memory, as Assmann defined it, is that it exists in order to cement a sense of cultural identity, and the cultural memory of a group establishes and reinforces that group’s sense of identity.61 In Corinth, attempts to remember Egypt are connected with the sea, because it is a port. In Rome, Lucius’ transformation is more associated with power, money and profit, and it is more masculine, because that is how Apuleius represents the dominant, military centre of Rome. This goes beyond just Apuleius. Although actual ‘memories’ of Egypt among initiates into the cult of Isis in the Roman world are weak and much of the appropriation of Egyptian culture is superficial and image-based, even these weak memories still feed into a sense of cultural identity, as the cult of Isis bases itself around the sea in a port town and in the Campus Martius, centre for culturally vital military activity, in Rome itself.62 The memories of another culture altogether reinforce the pre-existing cultural identity of each individual city. In the case of the cult of Isis, few if any of these memories relate to actual Egyptian practice. It might, then, be disputed how connected they really

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are to cultural memory.63 However, the important factor here is that, in the cultural imagination, these were memories. It was the ‘belief ’ of initiates of Isis that they were continuing an ancient Egyptian tradition in their choice of patron goddess and the way they worshipped her. Cultural memory here has been superseded by cultural imagination in the form of ‘memory’. This may perhaps be best compared with the transmission of myth and legend. We have moved into a different area from Assmann’s historical events commemorated to cement cultural identity, into the area of myth which can be used to question and probe cultural problems, questions and assumptions. Like cultural memory, group identity is central to the process, but unlike cultural memory, the substance of what is remembered may be open to greater change and more fluctuations over time.

Notes 1 A note on dates: various references are made in this paper to ‘the Roman period’ or ‘Greco-Roman writers’ – this period is roughly defined as the period from the Roman conquest of Greece in the mid-second century bc through to the end of the third century ad (after which the term ‘Late Antiquity’ is usually used). The period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 bc and the Roman conquest of Greece is usually referred to as the Hellenistic period in Greece and Rome. In Egypt, this period extends from the death of Alexander to the death of the last Greek pharaoh, Cleopatra VII, in 30 bc and is usually referred to as the Ptolemaic period. The phrase ‘ancient Egypt’ is sometimes used in this paper to indicate pre-Ptolemaic Egypt. 2 See Tobin 1991: 194 and Bommas 2012: 419–35. On the Pyramid Texts in general, see Shaw and Nicholson 1995: 235–6. On PT 576 = Pyr. §1500a–c, see J. Assmann 2008: 110 (with parallels). 3 Fraser 1972: 246. 4 For a catalogue of monuments to Serapis in Egypt in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, see Kater-Sibbes 1973: 1–64 and Schmidt 2010: 127–46. 5 See Bommas 2005: 24–5. 6 See Stambaugh 1972: 5; Tran Tam Tinh 1982: 101; Heyob 1975: 3; Stiehl 1963: 29–30; Fraser 1972: 250. 7 Stambaugh 1972: 13. Stambaugh argues for an Alexandrian origin for the cult partly on the basis that the legends which place the introduction of Serapis to



8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17

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Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I ascribe only the introduction of his statue to this period (Stambaugh 1972: 8). However, given the tendency among ancient religions in general and Egyptian religion in particular to consider the statue to be the living embodiment of the god, this seems to be unnecessarily splitting hairs. He further argues that ‘the ancient sources never say that Ptolemy created Sarapis’, but this does not tell us anything about the historical origin of the god – of course the ancient authors would not imply that any god had been deliberately created by a human being, unless they were Epicureans arguing for an early form of atheism (Stambaugh 1972: 12). Heyob 1975: 3–5. Bommas agrees with Stiehl on this point; see Bommas 2005: 23–5. Stiehl 1963: 22–3. At one point, Fraser appears to agree that the cult originated in Memphis (something Tacitus mentions briefly) and suggests that the sacred bull of Memphis became associated with Apis (associated in life with Ptah, Memphis’ city-god) and then with Osiris (Fraser 1972: 250). However, a little further on he suggests the cult may have been created in Alexandria and that ‘the Memphian cult of Sarapis’ ‘was probably inaugurated very soon after the Alexandrian one’ (Fraser 1972: 253). Fraser suggests that the ‘most plausible explanation’ for the cult is that Ptolemy Soter created it to give the Greek population of Alexandria a patron deity, incorporating Egyptian and Greek elements (Fraser 1972: 252). Fraser 1972: 246. Fraser, 1972: 246–7. Fraser 1972: 149. Alvar 2005: 53. See Bommas 2005: 24. Plutarch tells a remarkably similar story in his Lucullus: while besieging Sinopê, Lucullus dreams that a figure tells him to step forward because Autolycus has come to meet him (Plutarch, Lucullus, 23). The next day, he took the city and found a statue of Autolycus, the founder, lying on the beach, and was reminded of Sulla’s advice to him in his Memoirs, that nothing is so certain as what is signified in dreams (Plutarch, Sulla, 6; Lucullus 23). The purpose in this case seems to be to demonstrate the importance and efficacy of divine dreams. For the more usual placement of this dream in Spain, see Suetonius, Divus Julius, 7; Cassius Dio, Histories, 41.24.2. Brenk has referred to Plutarch’s use of this dream as ‘blatant manipulation of a dream for biographical purposes’(Brenk 1975: 346). See also Pelling 1997: 200–1.

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19 See Tran Tam Tinh 1982: 111; Harrisson 2010: 252–3. For the definition of incubation, see Harrisson 2010: 253. 20 Harrisson 2012, forthcoming. See also Szpakowska 2003: 3–4 on the general lack of interest in conceptualizing dreams in Egypt until well after the New Kingdom period. 21 Dowden has suggested that this story may have originated in a lost section of the Egyptian tale The Dream of Nectanebos (Dowden 1989: 655). 22 Isis was well known in the Greek classical period, but the Greco-Roman mystery cult focused around her really came into being during the Hellenistic period. On Isis’ presence in classical Athens, see Vasunia 2001: 27–9. 23 See, for example, a statuette of Isis suckling Horus from the Myers Collection at Eton College, ECM 1717 (Bommas 2010a: 37). 24 Ritner 1994: 34. 25 Faulkner 1968: 40. On the Coffin Texts in general, see Shaw and Nicolson 1995: 69. 26 See Shaw and Nicholson 1995: 142. 27 See Shaw and Nicholson 1995: 142; Bommas 2011a: 26. 28 Shaw and Nicholson 1995: 142. 29 See Shaw and Nicholson 1995: 119. 30 Fraser 1972: 260; Heyob 1975: 9; Bommas 2005: 16. See further, Bommas 2010b: 25–47. 31 Henrichs 1984: 157. 32 Gasparro 2007: 42–3. 33 Austin 1981: 226–7. 34 See Takács 1995: 5; Bommas 2005: 77–8. 35 Alvar 2005: 41. 36 See the Hellenistic statue assimilating her to Hathor in Witt 1971: 73. On the Roman temple at Dendera, see Bommas 2005: 103. 37 Vasunia has gone one step further, and suggested that Egyptian Hathor imagery may, in fact, be the inspiration for fifth-century Greek depictions of Io (Vasunia 2001: 37). 38 On Isis imagery in Pompeii, see Tran Tam Tinh 1964. 39 Swetnam-Burland 2007: 118–19. Against this view, see Bommas in this volume. 40 On the Fourth style of Roman interior decoration, see Ling 1991: 71ff. 41 Eric Moorman has discussed the wall paintings at the Temple of Isis at Pompeii in detail in his recent article, and includes several illustrations (Moorman 2007). 42 Moorman 2007: 152. 43 See Burkert 1987: 41, 47–8.

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

59 60 61 62

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See Heyob 1975: 2. On the epigraphic evidence, see Harrisson 2010: 252. See Harrisson 2012: forthcoming; see also Szpakowska 2003: 3–4. See Burkert 1987: 38. See Heyob 1975: 2. Harrisson 2010: 314. See, for example, Festugière 1954: 72, 76–7, 84; Kee 1983: 133. Harrison 2000–1. See also Keulen 2003: 107. Harrison 2005: 218. Winkler 1985: 226–7. See Sullivan 1989. See further Bommas 2011b: 81–2. Handler 1971: 62. See Bricault and Veymiers 2007: 404. Bricault and Veymiers 2007: 405. There are, of course, problems with over-reliance on numismatic evidence as coins can be issued from anywhere and taken all over the Roman world, and I thank Martin Bommas for pointing this out. However, the point bears mentioning. Isis Pelagia was also worshipped in inland places, such as Benevento and the Nemi-Lake. This is particularly interesting given that Isis temples in Rome were often referred to as Serapeia. I am grateful to Martin Bommas for this observation. Assmann 1995: 129. See also Bommas 2011b, in which this issue is explored in detail. The Campus Martius was starting to fill with buildings by Apuleius’ time, but its earlier significance as a site of military triumphs is remembered through the name. See further Bommas in this volume.

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—2006. Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies (trans. R. Livingstone). Stanford. —2008. Osirisliturgien in Papyri der Spätzeit. Altägyptische Totenliturgien 3, Heidelberg. Austin, M. M., 1981. The Hellenistic World from Alexander the Great to the Roman Conquest. Cambridge. Babbitt, F. C., 1936. Plutarch: Moralia Vol. 5. Cambridge, MA. Bommas, M., 2005. Heiligtum und Mysterium: Griechenland und seine ägyptischen Gottheiten. Mainz. —2010a. ‘Travels to the Beyond in Ancient Egypt’, in E. Georganteli and M. Bommas (eds), Sacred and Profane: Treasures of Ancient Egypt from the Myers Collection, Eton College and the University of Birmingham. London, 37–62. —2010b. ‘Isis in Alexandria’, Biblische Notizen Vol. 147, 25–47. —2011a. ‘Isis: Von der Königsmacherin zur Universalgöttin’, Epoc Vol. 5, 24–9. —2011b. ‘Pausanias’ Egypt’, in M. Bommas (ed.), Cultural Memory and Identity in Ancient Societies. London, 79–108. —2012. ‘Isis, Osiris and Serapis’, in C. Riggs (ed.), Oxford Handbook for Roman Egypt. Oxford, 419–35. Brenk, F. E., 1975. ‘The Dreams of Plutarch’s Lives’, Latomus, Vol. 34, 336–49. Bricault, L. and R. Veymiers, 2007. ‘Isis in Corinth: The Numismatic Evidence. City, Image and Religion’, in L. Bricault, M. J. Versluys and P. G. P. Meyboom (eds), Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman World. Leiden/Boston, 392–413. Burkert, W., 1987. Ancient Mystery Cults. Cambridge, MA/London. Butler, H. E. (trans.), 1909. The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura. LaVergne, TN. Dowden, K., 1989. ‘Pseudo-Callisthenes: The Alexander Romance’, in B. P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 650–735. Faulkner, R. O., 1968. ‘The Pregnancy of Isis’, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 54, 40–4. Festugière, A-J., 1954. Personal Religion Among the Greeks. Berkeley/Los Angeles. Fraser, P. M., 1972. Ptolemaic Alexandria Volume 1: Text. Oxford. Gasparro, G. S., 2007. ‘The Hellenistic Face of Isis: Cosmic and Saviour Goddess’, in L. Bricault, M. J. Versluys and P. G. P. Meyboom (eds), Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman World. Leiden/Boston, 40–72. Graves, R. (trans.), 1990. Lucius Apuleius: The Golden Ass. London. Handler, S., 1971. ‘Architecture on the Roman Coins of Alexandria’, American Journal of Archaeology 75, No. 1, 57–74. Harrison, S. J., 2000. Apuleius: A Latin Sophist. Oxford.



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—2000–1. ‘Apuleius, Aelius Aristides and Religious Autobiography’, Ancient Narrative 1, 245–59. —2005. ‘The Novel’, in S. J. Harrison (ed.), A Companion to Latin Literature. Oxford, 213–22. Harrisson, J. G., 2010. Cultural Memory and Imagination: Dreams and Dreaming in the Roman Empire. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Birmingham. —2012. ‘The development of the practice of incubation in the ancient world’, in Proceedings of the conference on Medicine in the Ancient Mediterranean World held at the University of Cyprus, Nicosia, September 2008. Forthcoming. Henrichs, A., 1984. ‘The Sophists and Hellenistic Religion: Prodicus as the Spiritual Father of the Isis Aretalogies’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 88, 139–58. Heyob, S. K., 1975. The Cult of Isis Among Women in the Graeco-Roman World. Leiden. Kater-Sibbes, G. J. F., 1973. Preliminary Catalogue of Sarapis Monuments. Leiden. Kee, H. C., 1983. Miracle in the Early Christian World: A Study in Sociohistorical Method. Yale/New Haven/London. Keulen, W. H., 2003. ‘Comic Invention and Superstitious Frenzy in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: The Figure of Socrates as an Icon of Satirical Self-Exposure’, American Journal of Philology 124, 107–35. Ling, R., 1991. Roman Painting. Cambridge. Moormann, E., 2007. ‘The Temple of Isis at Pompeii’, in L. Bricault, M. J. Versluys and P. G. P. Meyboom (eds), Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman World. Leiden/ Boston, 137–54. Pelling, C., 1997. ‘Tragical Dreamer: Some Dreams in the Roman Historians’, Greece and Rome, 2nd Ser. 44, No. 2, 197–213. Perry, B. E., 1966. ‘The Egyptian Legend of Nectanebus’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 97, 327–33. Ritner, R. K., 1994. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice. Chicago. Schmidt, S., 2010. ‘Der Sturz des Serapis. Zur Bedeutung paganer Götterbilder im spätantiken Alexandria’, Biblische Notizen Vol. 147, 127–46. Shaw, I. and P. Nicholson, 1995. British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. London. Stambaugh, J., 1972. Sarapis Under the Early Ptolemies. Leiden. Stiehl, R., 1963. ‘The Origin of the Cult of Sarapis’, History of Religions 3, No. 1, 21–33. Sullivan, J. P., 1989, ‘Pseudo-Lucian: The Ass’, in B. P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 589–618. Swetnam-Burland, M., 2007. ‘Eastern Objects, Roman Contexts: A Taste for

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Aegyptiaca in Italy’, in L. Bricault, M. J. Versluys and P. G. P. Meyboom (eds), Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman World. Leiden/Boston, 113–36. Szpakowska, K., 2003. Behind Closed Eyes: Dreams and Nightmares in Ancient Egypt. Swansea. Takács, S., 1995. Isis and Sarapis in the Roman World. Leiden/New York/Köln. Tobin, V. A., 1991. ‘Isis and Demeter: Symbols of Divine Motherhood’, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 28, 187–200. Tran Tam Tinh, 1964. Essai sur le culte d’Isis à Pompei. Paris. —1982. ‘Sarapis and Isis’, in B. F. Meyer and E. P. Sanders (eds), Jewish and Christian Self-Definition: Vol. 3: Self-Definition in the Graeco-Roman World. London, 101–17. Vasunia, P., 2001. The Gift of the Nile: Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander. Berkeley/Los Angeles. Winkler, J. J., 1985. Auctor and Actor: A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’s Golden Ass. Berekeley/Los Angeles/London. Witt, R. E., 1971. Isis in the Ancient World (originally published as Isis in the GraecoRoman World). Baltimore/London.

10

Cultural Memory and Roman Identity in the Hymns of Prudentius Peter Kuhlmann

Within the fourth century ad a fundamental cultural and religious change took place in the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine began to Christianize the Roman Empire and relocated the imperial residence from Rome to Byzantium, the νέα ῾Ρώμη. Before the ‘Constantinian shift’ Christianity was only a minority religion within the empire, but now it was particularly promoted by the imperial dynasty.1 The Christian emperors oppressed the pagan cults more and more until they were forbidden finally under Theodosius around 380 ad. Christianity had become the state religion.2

Rome and Christianity in the Fourth Century ad Originally, Roman identity – especially within the nobility – was inextricably linked with the polytheistic cults and with a specific system of values.3 A core value is pietas, that is, the commitment of the Romans to the gods as the foundation of Roman rule. Moreover there are additional terms of values like victoriousness (victoria) in the context of the typically aristocratic canon of values (virtutes). This canon of values promotes military capabilities and selfdenial as well as political involvement in the service of the res publica. Due to these values or virtues (virtutes) the members of the nobility obtain glory (gloria) during their lives and fame after death (memoria), which is a strong incentive for further achievements in favour of state and society. According to the pagan conception, the consolidation and the extension of Roman rule

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over the oikumene contributes to Roman identity within the upper class. An important basis of this rule is the pursuit of glory and memory as a social standard.4 Christianity threatens this traditional system of values. The rejection of the polytheistic cults (in the sense of a civic religion) called into question the cultural system of Rome because the pagan gods warranted Rome’s salus and victoria in return for the cult.5 From the fourth century onwards the leading Christians of the state were no longer willing to tolerate pagan cults. The new universal monotheistic religion claimed a monopoly in the Roman state and, by pagan perception, thereby put the salus rei publicae at risk.6 For the individual Christian, the well-being of the state was replaced by individual salvation in the afterlife. The political Roman universal rule was replaced by a spiritual universal rule, that is, a Christian fides catholica. Because of this paradigm shift, the traditional system of values of the nobility seemed to lose its significance because the dedication to a this-worldly state and its rule did not originally mean anything.

Prudentius and His Works Despite this evident clash of cultures we can observe a kind of cultural synthesis of pagan and Christian cultures in the literature of around ad 400.7 In particular, the poet Prudentius, who was born in Spain,8 tried to create a novel synthesis of the values of the traditional Roman state and the Christian conception of the world.9 He incorporated the aristocratic canon of virtues into Christianity and thus created a concept that could be called a ‘Christian mos maiorum’ as it was based on the cultural repertoire of the pagan past of Rome.10 Therefore in this article the following questions will be considered. How does Prudentius transform the pagan and primarily aristocratic canon of values (virtutes) to fit into a new Christian system of Roman identity? And what is his relation to pagan literature and culture?11 The textual basis for this investigation will be the Peristephanon, a collection of 14 hymns in honour of martyrs, which Prudentius composed or at any rate published shortly after ad 400.12 Not much is known about Prudentius as a person. A short poetic praefatio precedes the edition of his collected works



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and gives only little information about his life. The works of Prudentius, all of which are poems, are concerned with Christian faith. In the poems contra Symmachum, Prudentius condemns belief in polytheistic gods, and in his epic works Apotheosis and Hamartigenia he defends the true catholic faith against contemporary heresies. The epic Psychomachia describes the war of the virtues against the vices. Much blood is shed in this merciless battle, and often the reader will feel pity for the vices which are mostly cruelly mutilated, until eventually the virtues prevail. Much blood is shed in the hymns to the martyrs as well. Tongues and breasts are torn from living bodies, intestines are ripped out, martyrs are drowned, burned or decapitated, or all at once. A particularly well-known hymn is the martyrdom of St Lawrence (Pe. 2), a patron saint of Rome. Lawrence, who lived in the middle of the third century, was a deacon under Pope Sixtus II. He was forced to hand over the treasures of the Roman church to the greedy pagan praefectus urbi. Lawrence gathered all the beggars, sick and needy people who were under the protection of the church, and presented them to the prefect on the day he was to hand over the money, shouting, ‘Behold the treasures of our church!’ Enraged by this, the prefect sentenced Lawrence to be roasted alive. But even shortly before his death, Lawrence said to the prefect from the stake: ‘My flesh is done, eat it up, try whether it is nicer raw or roasted.’13 The texts of Prudentius are not only interesting examples of the grim Christian humour of late antiquity; they also exhibit a Manichaean outlook typical of early Christian literature. The Christians and the saints are positive examples; the heathens of Prudentius’ hymns are always members of the Roman nobility – city prefects, governors or judges – but their character is depicted as negative throughout. In spite of this polemic attitude towards the pagan Roman elite, Prudentius took over a number of traditional Roman values and created a synthesis of the pagan mos maiorum and Christian values. This topic will be approached by addressing language, culture and space.

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Aspects of Language: Semantic Fields, Intertextuality and Prosody In the opening lines of the Lawrence hymn, Prudentius emphasizes the power and the glory of the – by then Christian – city of Rome:14 Antiqua fanorum parens, iam Roma Christo dedita, Laurentio uictrix duce ritum triumphas barbarum. Reges superbos uiceras populosque frenis presseras, nunc monstruosis idolis inponis imperii iugum.

Rome, thou ancient mother of temples, but now given up to Christ, Lawrence has led thee to victory and triumph over barbarous worship. 5

Thou hadst already conquered haughty kings and held the nations in check; now thou dost lay the yoke of thy power on unnatural idols.

Haec sola derat gloria urbis togatae insignibus, 10 feritate capta gentium, domaret ut spurcum Iouem,

This was the one glory lacking to the honours of the city of the toga, that it should take savage paganism captive and subdue its unclean Jupiter,

non turbulentis uiribus Cossi, Camilli aut Caesaris, sed martyris Laurentii 15 non incruento proelio.

not with the tempestuous strength of Cossus or Camillus or Caesar, but by the battle in which the martyr Lawrence shed his blood.

Armata pugnauit Fides proprii cruoris prodiga; nam morte mortem diruit ac semet inpendit sibi.

The faith fought in arms, not sparing her own blood, for by death she destroyed death and spent herself to save herself. 20

Remarkable are the many expressions from the semantic field ‘war’ or ‘military’. If the words Christo in the second verse and martyris Laurentii in verse 15 were replaced by names of pagan gods or heroes, the passsage could be an ordinary description of a victorious war fought by the city of Rome against her external enemies in a pagan epic text. The active subject is Roma in the first four stanzas, but in stanza five suddenly it is Fides. It is only here that it becomes evident that the text is primarily a religious one, although, of course, fides is a typical term of value in the pagan Roman culture, too. In Christian texts, however, fides generally means ‘Christian faith’.15 In Prudentius’ writings



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this Christian faith is characterized by rather militaristic features: she is armed and able to fight. So the acting subject Fides appears as a personification and an allegory like, for example, Fama, in the works of Ovid and Vergil.16 Saint Lawrence, too, is presented as a soldier: his martyrdom is a bloody battle. This metaphor is also frequently used otherwise in the texts,17 for example, in the hymn to Lawrence (verses 501–8): Sic dimicans Laurentius non ense praecinxit latus, hostile sed ferrum retro torquens in auctorem tulit. Dum daemon inuictum Dei testem lacessit proelio, perfossus ipse concidit et stratus aeternum iacet.

In this warfare Lawrence did not gird a sword on his side, but turned back the foe’s steel against its wielder. 505

In making war on God’s indomitable witness, the devil was stabbed himself and fell, and now lies prostrate for ever.

The martyr has waged war against the enemy or the evil demon of heathendom respectively, and he has defeated him. Prudentius uses military terminology here again in order to illustrate the victory of Christian faith over pagan cults. This choice of words distinctly reminds the Roman reader of literary models from pagan literature within a real military context. A particularly interesting passage in this context is one from the first hymn, which is dedicated to the Spanish soldier martyrs Emeterius and Chelidonius (Pe. 1.24–30 and 51). The text shows strong intertextual references to Horace; compare Prudentius: hoc genus mortis decorum est. hoc probris dignum uiris, membra morbis exedenda, texta uenis languidis, hostico donare ferro, morte et hostem uincere. pulchra res ictum sub ense persecutoris pati. nobilis per uulnus amplum porta iustis panditur.

…

25

It is an honourable way of death and one that becomes good men, to make of the body, which is a fabric of feeble flesh and doomed to be wasted by disease, a gift to the enemy’s sword, and by death to overcome the foe. A noble thing it is to suffer the stroke of the persecutor’s sword; through the wide wound a glorious gateway opens to the righteous, and the soul, cleansed in the scarlet baptism, leaps from its seat in the breast. …

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dulce tunc iustis cremari, dulce ferrum perpeti.

51

Sweet was it then for the righteous to be burned or to suffer the sword.

This can be compared with the famous verse of Horace: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.18 Like in the works of Horace or in early Greek elegy, death is presented as inevitable for man; death on the battlefield brings eternal glory and ennobles the one who sacrifices himself for the patria or for his faith. In Prudentius’ Christian metaphoric language the two real soldiers Emeterius and Chelidonius become soldiers of Christ due to their martyrdom. This militia Christi also occurs in the writings of other Christian writers,19 but Prudentius is downright obtrusive in using these military metaphors. Here and in several other passages, the well-read reader is reminded of the pagan model of Horace. It is especially one of the Roman odes that reflect on the topics of Roman state and Roman values. Intertextual allusions to Roman odes can be found in many other passages of Prudentius’ work.20 Besides, even the metres in the hymns of Prudentius show his relatedness to Horace. Unlike other contemporary Christian lyricists, Prudentius uses the classical, purely quantitative, metres which are mainly taken from the odes and epodes of Horace.21 This is remarkable because around ad 400, the quantitative vowel system collapsed: most Latin-speaking people were not able to accurately tell long vowels from short ones. This is why Saint Ambrose in his poems used those metres in which the natural accent to a large extent coincided with the ictus of the verse. Medieval Latin lyrics subsequently only complied with the natural accents of the words, as is the case in most modern languages. With regard to linguistic aspects, too, Prudentius was a poet who wrote for an educated audience which still was familiar with the classical metres and uses a very traditional Latin pronuncition when reciting orally. Unlike Ambrosius’ works, in Prudentius’ poems the coincidence of the natural word accent and the invariable elementa longa of the metre is apparently rather accidental, perhaps in some cases even avoided.22 This can be shown in two passages selected by chance, where the discrepancy between natural accent (´) and metrical longa (underlined) is marked: Antíqua fanórum párens, iam Róma Chrísto dédita,



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Lauréntio uíctrix dúce rítum triúmphas bárbarum.  (2 ia) hoc génus mórtis decórum (e)st. hoc próbris dígnum uíris  (4 tro^)

For the appropriate auditory impression, a careful realization according to classical phonetics is crucial. The iambic dimetres have a hammering and martial rhythm; the catalectic trochaic tetrameters have their origin in triumphal poetry and evoke a triumphal procession in the listeners’ minds.

Cultural Identity: Society, Roman Values and Religion As the remarks on his style have shown, Prudentius uses figures in his poetry which meet the literary taste of a noble audience. Even the choice of certain genres can be linked to this. The epic genre with its metre, the hexameter, gives the Psychomachia a heroic character like the Iliad or the Aeneid.23 The lyrical poems with their difficult metres and complicated hyperbata are – by the time of c. ad 400 – fully intelligible only for a highly literate audience, who is familiar with these figures through aristocratic education.

Aristocratic and Christian norms To this aristocratic flair of the poems belong the Roman terms of values, which appear in all hymns, such as virtus or gloria and related attributes and manifestations24 – the high frequency of military terms and concepts has already been pointed out in the texts treated above. In the traditional Roman society, the military career was a mandatory stage in the life of a nobleman. The term vir-tus originally denoted the very qualities that constitute a man, among which were especially achievements on the battlefield. By means of these achievements, a nobleman attained gloria, that is, fame, for the ages. A non-nobleman could hardly attain virtus in this sense because the term gloria, according to the traditional mos maiorum, is applicable only to the class of the nobiles. Interestingly enough, even Christ and God himself play a role in this system of values. In the first hymn, Christ commands the cohorts of faith.25 In the hymn to Lawrence it is the saint who is a commander in Christianity’s war against the heathens.26

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Virtus is a property which God as well as the saints or potentially even ordinary men have. Hence in the hymn to St Vincent mention is made of the virtus Dei;27 in the hymn to Hippolytus a mother says to her little son:28 omnes capaces esse virtutum Deus mandavit annos

The Father has ordained that all ages should be capable of courageous deeds…

By this she means to say that people of every age – adults and children – can attain virtus in the Christian sense. This last example shows the reassessment of Roman values by Prudentius. On the one hand the traditional system of virtus and gloria is fully present with respect to terminology; on the other hand it does not seem to be tied to the social group of the Roman nobiles necessarily. This can be confirmed by examining the acting characters in the hymns and their dispositions and behaviour. As already indicated, Prudentius portrays the characters of the hymns rather one-sidedly: the saints are the good guys and the pagan Roman officials are the bad guys. The Christian martyrs have exactly the traits a nobleman should have according to ancient moral values. They have what is called enkráteia in Greek – roughly ‘self-control’ in any situation; they never lose their serenitas – even if roasted alive, dismembered or tortured in any other way; and they can distinguish clearly between true goods in life from false ones. In the hymn to Lawrence this can be seen in the famous scene in which Lawrence makes the macabre joke already mentioned:29 Postquam uapor diutinus decoxit exustum latus, ultro e catasta iudicem conpellat adfatu breui:

400

After the long-continued heat has burned his side away, Lawrence on his part hails the judge and addresses him briefly from the gridiron:

‘Conuerte partem corporis satis crematam iugiter et fac periclum, quid tuus Vulcanus ardens egerit.’

‘This part of my body has been burned long enough; turn it around and try what your hot god of fire has done.’

Praefectus inuerti iubet, 405 tunc ille: ‘coctum est, deuora et experimentum cape, sit crudum an assum suauius!’

So the prefect orders him to be turned about, and then ‘It is done,’ said Lawrence; ‘eat it up, try whether it is nicer raw or roasted.’

Haec ludibundus dixerat …

These words spoken in jest …



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The Roman officials, in contrast, act quite differently: their behaviour is characterized by the terms ira, furor or furere. When in the hymn to Lawrence the prefect, expecting great treasures of gold, sees the crowd of beggars and sick people, he loses his temper and verbally abuses the holy priest Lawrence:30 ‘Ridemur,’ exclamat furens praefectus, ‘et miris modis per tot figuras ludimur, et uiuit insanum caput! Inpune tantas, furcifer, strophas cauillo mimico te nexuisse existimas, dum scurra saltas fabulam?‘

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‘He is mocking us,’ cries the prefect, mad with rage, ‘making wonderful sport of us with all this allegory. And yet the madman lives! Think you, rascal, to get off with contriving such trickeries with your comedian’s quibbling and theatrical buffoonery?’

In the hymns to Eulalia and to Agnes the officials react to the Christian convictions of the two young girls in a similar way. The virginal Eulalia does not want to marry but rather dedicate her life to Christ as a chaste virgin. The infuriated judge orders that the girl be tortured in order to force her into marriage and the pleasures of matrimony,31 but – of course – without success. Saint Agnes – she is a young girl, too – refuses to worship the pagan gods. Despite her youth she adheres to Christianity. Because of this the judge is caught by rage and sends her into a brothel.32 Agnes can keep her virginity even there, though not without divine intervention. In both cases the judges are either provincial governors (Pe. 3: Spain) or Roman city prefects (Pe. 14) and consequently members of the highest Roman nobility. But their conduct in no way suits the aristocratic code of behaviour: they let themselves be carried away by their affections and react in an unrestrained and inappropriate way.33 This is particularly obvious in the case of the the two young girls. In the hymns to Lawrence and to Eulalia we see Roman officials who value exterior gifts of fortuna – like gold or honour – higher than the true and eternal values in life. The martyrs, on the other hand, realize what a true good is and what a false one, and they are willing to die for this true good. They are happy even in the agony of torture – as the Stoics demand from the ideal sage. This corresponds with the Stoic doctrine of the value of things. Saints recognize life as a mere adiaphoron and have attained virtus as the summum bonum and hence gloria by their conduct.

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This is interesting because Stoicism was a somewhat fashionable philosophy among the Roman nobility,34 and the Roman upper class was familiar with the guiding principles of the important philosophical systems due to their rhetorical and philosophical education.35 Especially Stoicism and its teachings about virtus were in great accordance with the nobility’s code of honour, and many features of Stoic philosophy were accepted by Christian authors such as Lactance, Ambrose and Jerome.36 Besides, the saints meet the aristocratic standards of the upper class in what is – at first glance at least – an external way: they show eloquentia. This can be concluded indirectly from the very long speeches of the martyrs in the hymns. These speeches have a dual addressee: they are addressed to the Roman officials mentioned in the text, but of course also to the reading audience of the hymns. In these thoroughly polished speeches, the martyrs outline the principles of their belief and their actions. Multiple times the narrator frankly calls the Carthaginian church father Cyprian facundus37 and eloquens38. This facundia or eloquentia in the person of Saint Cyprian is united with his great wisdom and learning;39 so here – in the person of a saint of the Christian church – Cicero’s ideal of the union of sapientia and eloquentia40 has come to life. To sum up, Prudentius does not abandon the traditional Roman canon of values; on the contrary, he retains it largely unchanged. He transfers it to the Christian church and shows that it is precisely the pagan upper class who have lost virtus and the values of the mos maiorum. The saints of the church carry on these values in a Christianized form. The term of nobility lives on as well; however, it is not noble origin or wealth that ennobles men, but Christian faith. Thus, the holy martyr Romanus tutors his pagan Roman judge in the tenth hymn:41 … absit, ut me nobilem sanguis parentum praestet aut lex curiae: generosa Christi secta nobilitat viros.125

Far be it from me that the blood of my parents or the law of the senate-chamber should make me noble; it is Christ’s noble teaching that ennobles men.



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Religion and cult Another complex belonging to the Roman system of values in the broadest sense is the field of cult and religion.42 As we have seen, in the hymns of Prudentius anybody can launch a career as a nobilis. By dying as a martyr, the saints even gain eternal gloria and are venerated like Roman heroes. This parallel between heroes and saints is illustrated explicitly, for example, in the hymn to Lawrence. At the beginning of the hymn we have:43 … non turbulentis uiribus Cossi, Camilli aut Caesaris, sed martyris Laurentii15 non incruento proelio.

… not with the tempestuous strength of Cossus or Camillus or Caesar, but by the battle in which the martyr Lawrence shed his blood.

Due to this social and spiritual advancement the saints can act as advocates or patrons of man in heaven and help man achieve salvation.44 Compare the end of the hymn to Lawrence where it says:45 … per patronos martyras potest medellam consequi. 580

… through the advocacy of the martyrs he may attain to healing.

But this requires correct worshipping, as the narrator explains in the hymn to Saint Vincent:46 adesto nunc et percipe voces precantum supplices nostri reatus efficax orator ad thronum Patris. …

545

Be with us now and give ear to the voice of our entreaty as we pray, and plead effectually for our sins before the Father’s throne. …

si rite sollemnem diem veneramur ore et pectore. si sub tuorum gaudio vestigiorum sternimur.

561

If we duly reverence the day of thy festival with lips and heart, if we bow down before thy relics rejoicing in them …

This means that the observance of the feast days and the worship of the relics, among other elements belongs to the correct exercise of the cult. In a way, not much has changed compared to the ritualistic pagan cult. There is a kind of clientship between the saints or the gods on the one side and man living in this world on the other. If humans as clients of the saints or gods exercise the cult correctly they will receive blessings from their heavenly patroni in return.

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The veneration of saints was organized locally, just like the traditional cults of gods and heroes, which means that a god or a hero in the beginning was exclusively linked with his home town. Similarly, this remains true for the saints in Prudentius’ world, as Saint Agnes of Rome exemplifies in the last hymn (Pe. 14.1–4): Agnes sepulcrum est Romulea in domo fortis puellae, martyris inclytae, conspectu in ipso condita turrium servat salutem virgo Quiritium.4

The grave of Agnes is in the home of Romulus; a brave lass she, and a glorious martyr. Laid within sight of their palaces, this maiden watches over the well-being of Rome’s citizens …

Just as the pagan gods and heroes are responsible for the salus rei publicae, the local saints protect their respective towns. The choice of the expressions Romulea domus for Rome, inclyta for St Agnes, and Quirites for the Roman citizens gives this passage a Roman-pagan and at the same time heroicaristocratic ring.

Aspects of Space: Rome and the Empire The last passage deals with the question of space. Pauline Christianity is a so-called ‘universal religion’, that is, it is not confined to a particular space in the sense of a town or a nation, which is quite unlike Judaism or the local cults of pagan Rome, Greece or Egypt. Especially in the hymn to Lawrence, however, the city of Rome is of particular importance, which is conspicuous because Prudentius himself is from Spain and so are most of the martyrs (headdresses) in the Peristephanon. Prudentius resolves the paradox of local relatedness and Roman centralism by adopting and Christianizing the idea of Rome developed in Vergil’s Aeneid. In several passages of Prudentius’ work there are intertextual references which are recognizable for the literate reader, for example, to the speech of Anchises in the sixth book of the Aeneid. Therefore it is necessary to compare the passage already discussed above with Vergil:47



Cultural Memory and Roman Identity in the Hymns of Prudentius Reges superbos uiceras populosque frenis presseras, nunc monstruosis idolis inponis imperii iugum. Haec sola derat gloria urbis togatae insignibus, feritate capta gentium domaret ut spurcum Iouem

5

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Thou hadst already conquered haughty kings and held the nations in check; now thou dost lay the yoke of thy power on unnatural idols. This was the one glory lacking to the honours of the city of the toga, that it should take savage paganism captive and subdue its unclean Jupiter.

This is to be collated with Vergil:48 tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento, hae tibi erunt artes, pacique imponere morem, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.

Remember thou, O Roman, to rule the nations with thy sway – these shall be thine arts – to crown Peace with Law, to spare the humbled, and to tame in war the proud!

The conceptions of the two authors are similar: the many peoples of the world are connected to Rome through Rome’s rule over them. This matches the somewhat martial idea Prudentius has of Christianity rather well. To him Rome has become Christian and now has the task to utilize its rule over the world to spread and protect Christian faith (around the world). Another important point, which is literarily manifest most notably in form of the hymns, is the physical presence of certain saints in Rome. The two central martyrs, Peter and Paul, who – alongside Jesus – in some sense founded Christianity as a religion, are buried there. The martyrdoms of these two heroes of Christianity in Rome and the presence of their relics and tombs as new Christian lieux de mémoire makes the city of Rome a ‘sacred (memory) landscape’,49 as the hymn to the two apostles50 shows in particular. At the beginning of the hymn to Lawrence, Prudentius praises the city of Rome as a sacred space as well because of its many sanctuaries.51 In fact the two apostles are not even Romans, but have rendered the city a sacred place simply by their presence. It is Rome that becomes a central attraction for saints from around the world, combining foreign and Roman elements within its walls. This integrative power of the city of Rome is explained in the hymn to St Romanus (Pe. 10) – nomen est omen. This deacon

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was originally from Antioch and had served as a priest in Caesarea for a long time. In his long speech to the judge Romanus refers to Rome as the capital of the world.52 Earlier, the saint is referred to as the leader of the Christian army, to which all groups of men belong:53 grex Christianus, agmen imperterritum 57 matrum, virorum, parvulorum, virginum …

The Christian flock … a company undismayed of mothers and husbands, little children and maidens …

plebis rebellis esse Romanum ducem.

(The soldiers report) that Romanus is leader of the people …

62

In verse 62 the reader cannot necessarily decide whether the ambiguous Romanus is a proper name or an ethnic appellative term ‘the/a Roman’ – nor can he do so at any other point in the text. The sentence could theoretically be translated as: ‘that the leader of this insurgent people is a Roman’. Because of this semantic ambiguity the Roman reader can have the connotation ‘Roman’, whenever he reads Romanus. To an extent, this Romanus is a kind of prototype for the ideal Christian by Prudentius’ standards. His local origin does not matter; by being a true Christian and sharing the true ChristianRoman values he becomes a Roman. As is known from Livy or from the fourth book of Propertius,54 Rome as a city and also as an empire has always been a melting pot of different ethnicities, the consequence being that all are Romans because they shared the same values. The city of Rome has a prominent function, because it is the local origin of these values and has made the founding and the expansion of the empire possible through its military strength. The existence of the Imperium Romanum in turn made the spread of Christianity possible in the first place, as observed by the church father Meliton of Sardes or St Eusebius of Caesarea.55 In this regard, Rome is also of great importance for salvation.56 First and foremost, however, in Prudentius’ work the city of Rome was, still is and continues to be the bearer of a certain canon of traditional values which significantly contributes to the identification of the Christian citizens of the Roman Empire.



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The Intended Audience of Prudentius’ Hymns? Finally the question arises as to who was the intended reading audience for the hymns. Of course, this question invites speculation, but from what has been said above, plausible conclusions can be drawn. The hymns are probably aimed primarily at an audience whose education had stirred a desire for sophisticated poetry. Before Prudentius, this audience did not possess much literature with Christian stories; the biblical epic of Iuvencus (fourth century) is an example of such a literary Christian text.57 So we can image Christian readers with an aristocratic education as the most likely audience. Since the Constantinian shift in the fourth century, there had been many Christian aristocrats without exceptionally Christian beliefs – an example is Apollinaris Sidonius (431/2–479).58 In addition, there certainly were many religiously indifferent noblemen like Claudian, Ausonius or the author of the Historia Augusta. The traditional Roman cults were not permitted anymore, and Christianity in the conception of St Paul, Augustine and others – with its in many cases anti-Roman and anti-aristocratic views – was at first unappealing to this social group. The concept of a RomanChristian outlook in the works of Prudentius gave this group the possibility to identify with Christian faith in a Roman garment. For the many members of the upper class who were not of Roman-Italian origin, Prudentius’ conception of Rome was attractive, too. Prudentius was born in Spain and had become a Roman magistrate all the same. Therefore Prudentius is certainly the best example for the identification of a provincial person with the Christian idea of Rome. On the other hand, Prudentius seems to maintain the claim that he secondarily offers opportunities of identification to a non-aristocratic audience. This is indicated by the many passages in his work in which – just as in Livy’s works – the concordia ordinum, that is, a community of plebs and nobiles, is invoked. It has to be acknowledged that not all poems are equally difficult to understand. An uneducated audience was perhaps not able to comprehend all the metrical and stylistic subtleties, but was still able to enjoy the vivid and spectacular accounts of martyrdoms. It is therefore probably fair to say that this poem might nevertheless be aimed at a greater audience.

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Conclusion The hymns of Prudentius combine aspects of pagan memory culture, including aristocratic values and virtutes or pagan aspects of a civic and ritualistic religion, with a Christian memory culture based on a martyr cult and Christian orthodoxy. Prudentius’ programme clearly differs from Augustine’s rejection of most of the traditional Roman values such as memoria, victoria, gloria and pagan virtus. In this respect, Augustine, in spite of his dogmatic influence in other theological questions, represented an old tradition from well-known orthodox church fathers like Tertullian or Cyprian, which did not fit his own time. Prudentius’ new synthesis, on the other hand, led to a truly Roman church that could be attractive to the old elite, too.

Notes 1 An overview is given by MacMullen 1997; Piétri 2005: 193–237. 2 Piétri 2005: 462–96. 3 On the general topic, see Braun, Haltenhoff and Mutschler 2000; on the special values, see Haltenhoff 2000: 15–30; Haltenhoff 2005: 81–106; on the mos maiorum, see Bettini 2000: 303–51. 4 On memory, see Walter 2004: 26–37 and 118–30. The connection between memory culture and identity is discussed comprehensively by Giesen 1999. 5 Wlosok 1970: 54f. 6 Wlosok 1970: 53–67; Barceló and Gottlieb 1992: 3–59; Kuhlmann 2002: 173–6. 7 Döpp 1988: 25–43; on the Romanization of the Christian culture see MacMullen 1997: 103–51. 8 On the person Prudentius, see Palmer 1989: 6–31. 9 Paratore 1980: 51–86; Kah 1990; Evenepoel 1996; DeProost 1999. 10 On such processes of constructing identity, see Giesen 1999: 119. 11 Giesen (1999) gives a typology of such semantic reconstructions of culture codes that create identity within societies. 12 Fuhrmann 1994: 232–5. 13 Pe. 2.401–4. 14 Pe. 2.1–20. The English versions are based on H. J. Thompson’s translation in the Loeb Classical Library. 15 Thesaurus Linguae Latinae s.v. ‘fides’ (especially under III: ‘fides Christiana’).



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16 Verg. Aen. 4.174–97; Ov. Met. 12.39–63. 17 The most striking examples are the soldier-martyrs Emeterius and Chelidonius in the first hymn (Pe. 1). 18 Hor. c. 3.2.13–16; for the intertextual reference, see Lühken 2002: 243f. 19 This concept is already present in 2 Tim. 2.3-5; 1 Clem. 37; and well-known in the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian. See Brennecke 2002: 1231–3. 20 For an overview, cf. in Lühken 2002: 320. 21 Palmer 1989: 58–67. 22 Fuhrmann 1994: 239–41. 23 On the Psychomachia, see Malamud 1989: 47–77. 24 On the term virtus in Prudentius, see Lühken 2002: 242–6; Palmer 1989: 140; Roberts 1993: 182–7; Paschoud 1967: 227. 25 Pe. 1.67. 26 Pe. 2.3: Laurentio duce. 27 Pe. 5.473. 28 Pe. 10.743f. 29 Pe. 2.397–409. 30 Pe. 2.313–20. 31 Pe. 3.95–105. 32 Pe. 14.10–30. 33 Prolingheuer 2008: 155–60. 34 Fuhrmann 1994: 134–56. 35 The most important philosophy in late antiquity was Neoplatonism. On the role of Stoicism, see Fuhrmann 1994: 135–56. 36 On the influence of Stoicism on some Christian authors of late antiquity, see Fuhrmann 1994: 178, 184–6. On Stoic elements in the philosophy of Augustine and Boethius, see Flasch 2000: 44–52 and 82–4. 37 Pe. 13.10–20. 38 Pe. 13.97. 39 Pe. 13.15–20. 40 For example, in Cic. de inv. 1–5; de orat. 1.1–23; or. 11–19. 41 Pe. 10.123–5. See also Henke 1983: 155–63. 42 On some features of Romanization in the Christian cult based on archeological evidence, see Heid 2007. 43 Pe. 2.13–16. 44 Generally on the concept of the saints as patrons, see Brown 1981: 54–64. 45 Pe. 2.579f. 46 Pe. 5.545–68.

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47 Pe. 2.5–12. 48 Verg. Aen. 6.851–3. Concerning the parallels in detail, see Mahoney 1934: 31; Buchheit 1966; Palmer 1989: 128f.; Lühken 2002: 172–84. 49 Concerning the term, see Assmann 1997: 60; Cancik 1985/6. 50 Pe. 12.7f.; 29f. 51 On the general concept of lieux de mémoire as a part of memory culture, see Nora 1990 and Assmann 1999, who uses the term ‘Erinnerungsräume’. 52 Pe. 10.167: saeculi summum caput. 53 Pe. 10.57f. and 62. 54 Concerning the multi-ethnic origin of the Romans (Troiani, Aborigines, Latini, Sabini, Etrusci), see Liv. 1.1–13; Prop. 4.1; 2; 4. 55 Eus. laud. Const. K 16; theoph. 3.1f. 56 On this topic, see Buchheit 1966: 129. 57 Gemeinhardt 2007: 389, 416. 58 On Sidonius, see Küppers 2005.

Bibliography Assmann, J, 1997. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. Munich. —1999. Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses. Munich. Barceló, P. and G. Gottlieb, 1992. Christen und Heiden in Staat und Gesellschaft. Munich. Bettini, M. 2000. ‘mos, mores und mos maiorum. Die Erfahrung der “Sittlichkeit” in der römischen Kultur’, in Braun, Haltenhoff and Mutschler, 2000, 304–52. Braun, M., A. Haltenhoff and F.-H. Mutschler (eds), 2000. Moribus antiquis res stat Romana. Munich. Brennecke, H. C., 2002. ‘Militia Christi’, in H.-D. Betz (ed.), Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 5, 1231–3. Brown, P., 1981. The Cult of the Saints. Chicago, IL. Buchheit, V., 1966. ‘Christliche Romideologie im Laurentius-Hymnus des Prudentius’, in Festschrift Dölger, Heidelberg, 121–44. Cancik, H., 1985/6. ‘Rome as a Sacred Landscape’, Visible Religion 4/5, 250–65. DeProost, P.-A., 1999. ‘Le martyre chez Prudence: sagesse et tragédie’, Philologus 143, 161–80.



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Döpp, S., 1988. ‘Die Blütezeit der lateinischen Literatur in der Spätantike’, Philologus 132, 19–52. Evenepoel, W., 1996. ‘Le martyre dans le Liber Peristephanon de Prudence’, in SEJG [Sacris Erudiri: a journal on the inheritance of early and medieval Christianity] 36, 5–35. Flasch, K., 2000. Das philosophische Denken im Mittelalter. Stuttgart. Fuhrmann, M., 1994. Rom in der Spätantike. Reinbek. Gemeinhardt, P., 2007. Das lateinische Christentum und die antike pagane Bildung. Tübingen. Giesen, B., 1999. Kollektive Identität. Die Intellektuellen und die Nation. Frankfurt/M. Haltenhoff, A., 2000. ‘Wertbegriffe’, in Braun, Haltenhoff and Mutschler, 2000, 15–29. —2005. ‘Römische Werte in neuer Sicht?’, in Haltenhoff, Heil and Mutschler, 2005, 81–105. Haltenhoff, A., A. Heil and F.-H. Mutschler (eds), 2005. Römische Werte. Munich. Heid, S., 2007. ‘The Romanness of Roman Christianity’, in J. Rüpke (ed.), A Companion to Roman Religion. Oxford, 406–25. Henke, R., 1983. Studien zum Romanushymnus des Prudentius. Frankfurt/M. Kah, M., 1990. Die Welt der Römer mit der Seele suchend: Die Religiosität des Prudentius. Bonn. Küppers, J., 2005. ‘Autobiographisches in den Briefen des Apollinaris Sidonius’, in M. Reichel (ed.), Antike Autobiographien. Werke – Epochen – Gattungen. Köln, 251–77 Kuhlmann, P., 2002. Religion und Erinnerung. Die Religionspolitik Kaiser Hadrians und ihre Rezeption in der antiken Literatur. Göttingen. Lühken, M., 2002. Christianorum Maro et Flaccus. Zur Vergil- und Horazrezeption bei Prudentius. Göttingen. MacMullen, R., 1997. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. New Haven, CT. Mahoney, A., 1934. Vergil in the works of Prudentius. Washington, DC. Malamud, M. A., 1989. A Poetics of Transformation. Prudentius and Classical Mythology. Ithaca, NY. Nora, P., 1990. Zwischen Geschichte und Gedächtnis. Berlin Palmer, A.-M., 1989. Prudentius on the martyrs. Oxford. Paratore, E., 1980. ‘Prudenzio fra antico e nuovo’, in Da Teodosio a San Gregorio Magno. Rome, 51–86. Paschoud, F., 1967. Roma Aeterna. Rome. Piétri, C. et al. (eds), 2005. Die Geschichte des Christentums II. Freiburg/Breisgau.

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Prolingheuer, E., 2008. Zur literarischen Technik bei Prudentius’ Peristephanon. Hamburg. Roberts, M. J., 1993. Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs. Ann Arbor, MI. Thomson, H.-J. (ed.), 1943. Prudentius, with an English Translation (Loeb Classical Library). London. Walter, U., 2004. Memoria. Munich. Wlosok, A., 1970. Rom und die Christen. Stuttgart.

Afterword Juliette Harrisson and Phoebe Roy

Memory, whether personal, collective or cultural, can be experienced in either an active or a passive way. On a personal level, one might remember something in a passive way by recalling the details of an event without particular effort. Active remembering involves a deliberate act of making and keeping a record, sometimes written, sometimes not. This volume provides a series of snapshots across temporal, cultural and geographical boundaries of both active and passive creation and manipulation of religious memory in urban contexts. Aleida Assmann has outlined the chief methods of actively remembering an event on a cultural level as those involving selecting and collecting objects of memory, creating a canon or actively maintaining memory through monuments or museums. Cultural memory may be transmitted more passively through archives and store houses.1 We could perhaps add unorganized storysharing or using a name whose individual significance is lost to the different ways in which cultural memories may be transmitted in a passive fashion. This distinction between active and passive memory is particularly interesting in a religious context. The performance of religious ritual is the most passive transmission of memory of all, as participants engage in particular activities on a regular basis chiefly for the reason that this is what has always been done. On the other hand, the transmission of religious tradition is almost aggressively active. This is especially the case in the proselytizing, scripture-prioritizing religion of Christianity, but it is the case also in more fluid traditions, where the mythology may shift, but the deliberate transmission of the newly configured mythology is of paramount importance. As Assmann has demonstrated, forgetting can be active or passive as well and this is something that has been highlighted in this volume. Assmann’s categories of passive forgetting included neglect and the depositing of objects of memory in forgotten repositories; her categories of active forgetting

258 Afterword

focused on the wilful destruction of memory and included acts of censorship or the creation of taboos.2 In this volume, we have seen a perhaps more subtle example of the ways in which a people may actively and deliberately forget an unwanted truth through the conscious underplaying of the short life of a fig tree (Hunt) and a passive, perhaps accidental, example of how two separate Egyptian goddesses may be conflated into one (Harrisson). However, most of the papers in this volume have dealt with the more active side of cultural remembrance. The active manipulation of cultural memory to the point of memory alteration has been a running theme throughout the work. From the developing mythological tradition (Dowden) to the Christianizing of Egypt (Westerfeld) to the re-Orientalizing of a Hellenized goddess (Harrisson), memory in ancient religious and urban contexts is not just actively maintained, but actively manipulated. The benefit of this volume, however, is not just where it has taken us, but to where it might lead. The range of themes and contexts covered is further proof of the wide application of cultural memory as a theoretical tool for engaging with the ancient world; in the future, the importance of this approach in contemporary scientific research in emerging psychological and biological fields will become more marked. Since 11 September 2001, a number of studies of cultural reactions to significant political events and to cultural trauma have provided us with new insight into the way cultural memory works, and will continue to do so.3 Perhaps the next area of psychological study historians of cultural memory should look to concerns the creation of false memories. That entirely false memories can be planted in an individual has long been known.4 However, the application of this knowledge on a cultural level, particularly in the field of history, is less well-studied. At what point does active manipulation and direction of public memory become the implanting of false memory? On a cultural, historical level, is there any difference between the two? Whatever the answers, it seems clear that the interaction of memory and history will continue to provide a fruitful avenue of inquiry, particularly into the theoretically complex area of religion. Whether approached through the lens of literary study, history, archaeology or theory of religion, this is an area that can only benefit from increased interdisciplinary dialogue, such as we see in this volume, and further investigation of the part memory and forgetting play in the development of religious tradition on a cultural level.

Afterword

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Notes 1 A. Assmann 2010: 99. 2 Ibid. 3 See, for example, Comin, Manier and Hirst 2009; Kansteiner and Weilnböck 2010: 233–4. 4 See further, Loftus 2004: 145; Schacter and Dodson 2001: 1385–6.

Bibliography Assmann, A., 2010. ‘Canon and Archive’, in A. Erll, A. Nünning and S. B. Young (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, Berlin and New York, 97–108. Comin, A., D. Manier and W. Hirst, 2009. ‘Forgetting the Unforgettable through Conversation: Socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting of September 11 memories’, in Psychological Science, Vol. 20, No. 5, 627–33. Kansteiner, W. and H. Weilnböck, 2010. ‘Against the Concept of Cultural Trauma’, in A. Erll, A. Nünning and S. B. Young (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, Berlin and New York, 229–40. Lofter, E. F., 2004. ‘Memories of Things Unseen’, in Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 13, No. 4, 145–7. Schacter, D. L. and C. S. Dodson, 2001. ‘Misattribution, False Recognition and the Sins of Memory’, in Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, Vol. 356, No. 1413, 1385–93.

Index A page reference in italics indicates a figure; an ‘n.’ indicates an endnote. accommodation 188 Achilles 133, 134, 137–8, 140 death 130, 131, 134–5 Actium, battle 200 active forgetting, passive forgetting and 257–8 active memory 34, 38 passive memory and 257 scope 258 see also individual terms Adonis 191 advice and warnings 93–4, 97, 103n. 24, 103–4n. 25, 104n. 26 Aeneid (Vergil) 248, 249 Afranius 95–6 Agamemnon 137 agora 72, 80–1n. 55 see also forum Agum-Kakrime Inscription 26n. 61 Ahmose-Nefertari 51n. 6, 52n. 14 Aias 135 Akītu Chronicle 28n. 82 akītu festival 7, 11, 16, 17–19, 24n. 26, 28n. 82 scope 18, 19, 20, 28n. 83 Alexander the Great 215, 217 Alexander Romance, The (PseudoCallisthenes) 217 Alexandra (Lykophron) 137–8, 139, 142 Alexandria 215, 230–1n. 7, 231n. 11 Altar of Pudicitia 160–1 Amazons 133 Ambrosius 242 Amenhotep I 40, 48, 51n. 6, 52n. 14 festivals 36, 38, 39 amphorae 191 Amun xxviii, 36, 39 Andromache 134 Antefoker 42

Antilochus 140 Apis, bull 214, 215, 231n. 11 Apollodorus 137, 220 Apuleius 186, 189, 204n. 57, 213, 222–4, 225–6, 227–9 Aquinas, Thomas xxxii Arabia 70–1 archives xxix, 80n. 52 complexity xxxv constraint xxxiv, 20–1 disparities xix, 5–6, 7, 9–15, 20, 21, 22–3n. 13, 23n. 16, 26n. 61, 26n. 62, 26n. 64, 26n. 66, 26–7n. 67, 27n. 69, 198–9 encyclopedic 94, 103–4n. 25 limitations 15–16, 19–20 literacy 54n. 35 museums and 199–200 scope xix, 4, 25n. 45, 47, 60–1, 63–4, 70–1, 178 study, popular culture and 46 terminology 46, 70–1 testimony and xvii, xx, 18 toponyms 61–3, 66, 67–8, 69–70, 71, 72, 73, 75–6, 78–9n. 34, 80n. 53, 81n. 58 aretalogy 218–19 Ariccia 193 Arktinos 134 Arnobius 96–7 Arrian 215 Arsinoë 65 Arx 92, 102–3n. 14 Ashurbanipal 10, 13, 14–15, 16, 24n. 41 Asklepiades of Myrlea 140–1 Assmann, A. 257–8 Assmann, J. xxxiv, 34, 40, 132, 145n. 26, 145–6n. 29, 229

262 Index Aššur 26–7n. 67 Assyria 8–9, 16–20, 21 archives 5–6, 7, 9–15, 18, 20, 21, 26n. 61, 26n. 62, 26n. 66, 26–7n. 67, 27n. 69 battle 25n. 51 limitations 15–16 threats to 9, 10 Augustine 252 Augustus 180 autobiography aretalogy 218–19 complexity 227–9 disparities 223 scope 35, 47, 52n. 13 Autolycus 231n. 17 Axtell, H. 104–5n. 36 baboons 193, 194 Babylon and Babylonia 6–7, 8, 15–16, 21 archives 4, 5, 13–15, 18, 20, 21, 26n. 61, 26n. 62, 26n. 66 cadre matériel 4–5 continuity and 3 defiance 9, 10 destruction 8, 19–20, 23n. 21, 26n. 61    archives 9, 26–7n. 67 disparities 5 festival 28n. 82, 28n. 83 literacy 23n. 18 maintenance 3 rebuilding 9, 16–17, 24n. 35, 27n. 77    archives 7, 9–13, 27n. 69    festival 7, 11, 16, 17–19, 20, 24n. 26    inscriptions 17, 27n. 78   scope 7 scope 4, 7–8 streets 27n. 76   rebuilding 17 temples 17, 22n. 4 time and 5 walls 3–4 basket-carrying ceremony 16 Battle of Actium 200 Battle of the River Ulāia 25n. 51 Beautiful Feast of the Valley Festival 53n. 18 Bloch, Y. 23n. 20 Bommas, M. ix, xxvi–xxxviii, 177–212

Boulard, L. 77n. 12 boundary of sites 61–2 Brill’s New Jacoby 133, 135, 138, 139–40 Brinkman, J. A. 23n. 20, 27n. 69 Brockmeier, J. 52n. 13 Bubastis 36–7 bulls and cows 39–40, 214, 215, 218, 220, 231n. 11 Byblos 220 cadre matériel (material culture) 4–5 Caesarium (Hermopolis) church and 75–6 location of sites and 72 Caesarium (Oxyrhynchus) 81n. 58 Callisthenes, Pseudo- 217 Camenae 164, 171 Camillus, Lucius Furius 100 Campania 182 Canopic Processions of the Osiris Mysteries 40 Capitol, lion 187 Castor 154 caves 163 Cenchrea 224, 227 festival 224 temple 224 Ceres 150–1, 161 Černý, J. 36, 39–40 Chariton 136 chastity 245 Christianity 239, 245, 251 chastity and 245 conversion to 59, 73, 76n. 3 disparities 239 domination and 237, 238, 240, 249 festivals 247 location and 248, 249    home town 248 martyrdom 239, 244, 245, 246, 247 prayer 247 scope 238, 243–4, 246, 249–50, 252 terminology 240–1 testimony xx see also Copts; Hermopolis Magna; Oxyrhynchus Chronicle P 26n. 62 churches 64, 67, 70, 80n. 53, 183 images xxxii

Index location of sites and 71–2 scope 73 temples and 72, 73–4, 75–6, 81n. 68 uncertainty 81n. 71 Cicero xxxvi–xxxvii, 93–4, 95, 96–7, 103n. 24, 105n. 46, 114–15, 124n. 4, 180, 193–4 citadels scope 69–70 walls 68–9, 70 see also temples city walls 3–4 coinage 91, 233n. 58 contention 98–9 disparities 94 sea 224 sistra 225 situlas 225 terminology 98–9 comitium, tree 113, 116–17, 118–20, 122, 123, 126n. 22 commemoration xviii see also individual terms commoners 15–16, 251 access by 6, 54n. 36 knowledge and 6, 11, 17, 20–1, 44–5 scope 6, 34–5, 51n. 2 visits 43 see also individual terms community, friendship and 181 Concord, temple disparities 152 scope 152–3 Conon 113 Constantinian shift 237 Copts 61, 62–3, 70, 77n. 12 see also Hermopolis Magna; Oxyrhynchus Corinth 224, 225, 226, 227 cows and bulls 39–40, 214, 215, 218, 220, 231n. 11 crocodiles 192–3 Cruciform Monument 22n. 12 curia, tree 113, 115 Davies, N. 37 deeds and leases 77n. 12 Deiphobos 135 Deir el-Medina 38, 52–3n. 14 Delos 179, 219

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Demeter 221 Dennert, M. 94 Diktys of Crete 133, 134–6, 137, 138 Dio Chrysostom 136–7 Diodorus Siculus 214–15, 219, 220 Diomedes 135 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 114, 143 divinity 39–40 absence 149–50, 163, 170–1 boys and 150 contention 92–3 continuity and 177–81 disparities 150, 151 festivals 39, 40 money 154–5 paganism 96 scope 89, 91, 94–5, 96–7, 100–1 temples 93, 102–3n. 14 terminology 89–90, 102n. 4 time and 90 uncertainty 90 women and 150 see also individual names; mythology; pharaohs Djoser 42–3 documentation see archives Dowden, K. ix, 129–47 dreams 216–17, 222, 227, 231n. 17 dromoi (processional ways), location of sites, temples and 62, 66–7 Egeria 162, 163, 166 grove    continuity and 166–7    disparities 161–2, 163, 164, 167, 171    luxury and idleness 166    size and 162–3    time and 163, 165–6 Egypt art and artefacts 194–7, 198–9 constraint xxvii continuity and xxvii, 178–81, 182, 213–16, 217, 218–20, 221–3, 224–6, 227, 228–30, 230–1n. 7, 231n. 11 images xxxii    continuity and 177–8   disparities xxx   scope 199 language xxvii, xxxv, 46, 61–2, 214

264 Index politics xxxii–xxxiii recreation 188, 192–200, 201, 213 scope xxviii, xxix size and xxxiii state imposition 50, 51 time and 230n. 1 see also individual terms Egyptomania 181, 196 Eighteenth Dynasty 42, 44 festival 53n. 18 Elagabalus 191 Elam 12, 13, 14, 21 battle 25n. 51 Elephantine Island xxx Eleusinian mysteries 221 emotions, images and xxxii politics and xxxii enūma eliš (epic poem) 18 epics 18, 149, 150, 171–2n. 1 see also individual names Esarhaddon 6–7, 8–9, 10, 13–14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24n. 35, 27n. 69 false memory 258 Fasti 157–8 festivals 7, 11, 16, 17–19, 24n. 26, 28n. 82, 36, 37, 39, 40, 247 animals 52n. 14 processions 197–8    oracular processions 38–9 scope 18, 19, 20, 28n. 83, 28n. 89, 36, 37–8, 52–3n. 14, 53n. 18, 199 sea 224   processions 226 size and 36–7 Festus 89 fig trees 112–13 age    continuity and 111–12    limitations 112, 124n. 4    omission and 112 continuity and 125–6n. 21 location 113, 114, 115, 116–17, 118–20, 121–2, 123, 126n. 22, 127n. 33 nursing and 124n. 7 terminology 116, 117–18    continuity and 117–21, 122–3, 127n. 33    wolf 116–17, 119 whetstone and razor 114–16

wolf 118 Flaccus, Verrius 114 Florida (Apuleius) 189 foot, marble 183, 185 forgetting xvii, xxii–xxiiin. 16 active and passive 257–8 complexity xviii scope 258 see also individual terms Fortuna 156 forum 113 see also agora Forum Augusti 156–7 Frame, G. 24n. 35 Fraser, P. M. 215, 231n. 11 Freedberg, D. xxxi friendship, community and 181 Frymer-Kensky, T. 26n. 67 Gantz, T. 131 gardens plants 191 scope 191–2 terminology 164–5 Gardiner, A. 37 genealogy 43–5 George, A. R. 4 Gilgamesh 4 Goethe, J. W. von xxxi Gracchus 155–6 Grayson, A. K. 26n. 62 Greece constraint 129 continuity and 178, 213–15, 217, 218–20, 221–3, 224–6, 227, 228–30, 231n. 11 disparities 144n. 1 language xxxv, 61–3, 77n. 12 time and 230n. 1 see also individual terms Halbwachs, M. xvi–xvii, 4–5 Hammurabi 22n. 3 Hardie, A. 92, 95 Haring, B. 41 Harrison, S. J. 223 Harrisson, J. G. ix, 213–36, 257–9 Hathor 218, 220 cows 39–40, 218, 220 solar discs 218

Index Haudry, J. 92, 102n. 11 Heffernan, G. ix–x, 33–58 Hektor 136, 140 death 130, 132, 133, 134 Herculaneum 191–2 Hermopolis Magna 59 archives 62, 63–4, 66, 67–8, 69–71, 72, 73, 75–6, 78–9n. 34, 80n. 52, 80n. 53 churches 64 rebuilding 64 scope 63–4 state imposition 65 temples 64, 79–80n. 46 toponyms 60, 65–9, 71–2, 73–4, 75, 76, 78n. 29, 78n. 30, 78n. 31, 79 . 35, 79n. 42, 80–1n. 55, 81n. 68, 81n. 71 Herodotus 220 history complexity xvi, xvii, xxxv constraint xx–xxi disparities xxi knowledge and xvii scope xix, xx, 258 time and xvi uncertainty xv see also individual terms Hölkeskamp, K.-J. 106n. 60 Homer 130, 132, 136 Horace 242 Horus 214, 217–18 Huadry, J. 95–6 Hunt, A. x, 111–28 Hydatius 96 ibises 193 Idaios 135 identity complexity 227–30 disparities 49–50 images and xxxi, 35, 48–9 scope 237–8 see also individual names; fig trees; mythology idleness and luxury 166 Iliad (Homer) 130, 133–4, 136 incubation 216–17, 222 Io 220 cows 220 Iphigeneia 138

265

Iseum Campense 180, 182, 188, 194, 195, 196, 204n. 57 accommodation 188 animals 193–4 columns   crocodiles 192–3   images 192 disparities 186 foot 183, 185 gardens 191, 192 location 183, 189 main building 190   uncertainty 190 museum and 196, 197, 200 nymphaeum 190   court 190   exedra 189 obelisks 183, 191 rebuilding 182–3 relaxation 189 scope 183, 186–8, 190–1, 200–1 short cut 190 time and 182 uncertainty 203n. 34 visibility 191 Isidore of Seville 94 Isin 23n. 16 Isis 40, 178, 199, 213–14, 218, 219–20, 221–3, 225–7, 229–30 aretalogy 218–19 communal goddess 181 continuity and 177, 180, 182, 201–2n. 11 cows 218, 220 dreams 222, 227 Egyptomania 181 festivals 197–8 incubation 222 knowledge and 181 magic 218 money 224, 225, 233n. 58 motherhood 217–18 sea 224–5, 226 sistra 225 situlas 225 solar discs 218 temples 191–2, 194, 198, 221, 222, 224 see also Iseum Campense Iuppiter 93

266 Index Jacoby, F. 133, 135, 138, 139–40 Janssen, J. 54n. 35 Jeme 63 temple 69 Jonker, G. 4–5 Judaism 174n. 39 Juno 170 Jupiter 165–6, 169–70 Juvenal, Satires 149–51, 156, 157–8, 159–60, 161–4, 167, 168, 170–1, 172n. 19, 174n. 39 caves 163 continuity and 166–7 gardens 164–5 luxury and idleness 166 money 152, 153–5, 169–70 prayer 151, 168–9 size and 170 spring 164 temples 152, 153–4, 155, 156–7, 158–9, 161, 165, 169, 173n. 30, 186 terminology 160–1, 165, 167–8, 170, 174n. 38 time and 165–6

104n. 26, 105n. 45, 105n. 46, 120–1, 126–7n. 30, 240–2, 250 time and xxxv–xxxvi, 165–6 uncertainty 126n. 25 leases and deeds 77n. 12 Lichtheim, M. 79n. 42 lightning-struck objects 113, 115–16 lion, granite 187 List, King 5, 23n. 16 literacy 54n. 35 disparities 51n. 2 uncertainty 23n. 18 Liverani, M. 22–3n. 13 Livia 201–2n. 11 Livius Andronicus 92, 95 Livy 94, 100, 101–2n. 3, 115, 127n. 33, 166–7 love songs 47 Lucan 94, 104n. 26 Lucullus 231n. 17 Lupercal, tree 117, 118–20, 122, 123, 127n. 33 luxury and idleness 166 Lykophron 137–8, 139, 140–1, 142

king lists 48, 54n. 37 disparities 45 scope 44–5, 46, 53–4n. 30 Kuhlmann, P. x, 237–56

Maat 36 Madauros 228–9 Maenius, C. 100 magic 218 Maništušu 22n. 12 Marduk 6–7, 21, 24n. 41 absence 8, 13, 14, 19–20, 26n. 62 replacement 10 return 9–10, 11, 12–13, 14–15, 17, 18, 24n. 35, 26n. 67 Marduk Ordeal 26–7n. 67 Marduk Prophecy 14, 15, 26n. 61 Marinetti, A. 97–8 Maroneia 218–19 Mars 157–8, 162, 171 absence 155–7, 158 temple 156–7, 158 Martial 186 martyrdom 239, 245 eloquence and 246 scope 247 self-control and 244 terminology 241–2 material culture (cadre matériel) 4–5

language disparities xxvii popular culture 46 scope 61–3, 70–1, 77n. 12, 214 time and xxxv see also Latin; toponyms Larmour, D. H. J. x, 149–75 Late Antiquity 76n. 4 see also Hermopolis Magna Latin xxvii, 214 complexity 116–20, 122–3, 127n. 33 contention 95–6, 97–9, 120 disparities 89–90, 102n. 11, 124n. 7, 160–1, 164–5, 167–8, 170, 174n. 38 limitations 101n. 1 metre 242–3 scope 91, 92, 93–4, 97, 98, 99, 101–2n. 3, 102n. 4, 103n. 24, 103–4n. 25,

Index Meadows, A. 91, 93, 98–9 measures 93 Medinet Habu 69 Mediterranean region xiv meeting places xxxii see also individual terms Memnon colossi xxxiii Memoria 92, 95–7, 104–5n. 36, 105n. 38 temples 96 tombs 96 memory active 34, 38, 258    passive and 257 audience and xxix complexity xv–xvi, xxxv constraint xxxiv contention xxxiv disparities xxi, xxxiv–xxxv false 258 limitations xvi–xvii, 200 religion and xx scope xiv, xvi, xvii, xix, xxxi–xxxii, 34, 50, 51, 258 seeing memory xxxi, xxxii, xxxvi sites of memory xvii–xviii, 59 stability and 50 time and 34 uncertainty xv, xvi see also individual terms memoryscapes xxxvi scope xxxvi–xxxvii Memphis 215, 231n. 11 Mesopotamia abandonment 22n. 2 watercourses    abandonment and 3    population shift and 3 see also individual terms Messalla Corvinus, Marcus Valerius 178 Metamorphoses 186, 213, 222–4, 226–7 autobiography and 223, 227–8, 229 contention 223 disparities 226 identity and 227–8, 229 location 224–5 scope 225–6 truth, accuracy and 223 metre 242–3 Miano, D. x, 89–109

267

Michalowski, P. 23n. 16 militarism 243 terminology 240–1, 242 Minerva 89–90, 101n. 1 mnemones (‘rememberers’) 139–40 Moneta 90, 91–3, 94–5, 96–7, 100–1, 102–3n. 14, 153 money and 94 terminology 91, 92, 95–6, 97–8, 101–2n. 3, 102n. 11    measures and 93    money 91, 98–9   temples 99    warnings and advice 93–4, 97, 103n. 24, 103–4n. 25, 104n. 26 money 91, 233n. 58 contention 98–9 disparities 94 perjury and 169–70 scope 154–5 sea 224 sistra 225 situlas 225 temples and 152, 153–4   robbed 169 terminology 98–9 Monmonier, M. 76, 76n. 7 monuments (monumenti) scope 98, 99–101, 106n. 60, 107n. 63 terminology 98, 99, 105n. 45, 105n. 46   money 98–9 see also individual names mortuary estates 37, 40–1 scope 41 size and 41 motherhood 217–18 mummification 214 muses 164, 171 museums archives and 199–200 constraint 196–7 scope 196, 197, 198, 200, 201 mythology xxvi complexity 129, 131 constraint 130 contention 136–7 continuity and 137–8, 139–44, 145n. 26 disparities 134, 136 images xxxi

268 Index scope 130–2, 133–5, 141, 142 seeing memory xxxii trees 111–12 truth, accuracy and 131, 132, 135–6, 138–44, 145–6n. 29 see also individual names Nabû 28n. 82 Nabû-mušēs.i 25n. 59 Navius, Attus 114, 115, 116, 117–18 Nebuchadnezzar I 12–15, 19, 20, 21, 23n. 20, 27n. 78 Nestor 140 neuroscience xxiin. 8 New Kingdom 42 Nielson, J. P. x, 3–32 nobility 237–8, 243, 246, 251 disparities 239, 246 lack of control and 245 home town 248 militarism 243 scope 244, 252 Nora, P. xvii, xviii, 201 North Africa 228–9 see also Egypt Numa 162, 163, 166–7 nursing 116, 118, 119, 123, 124n. 7 obelisks 183, 184 visibility 191 Odysseus 135 oracles 38–9 Osiris 178–9, 215, 216, 227 festival 40, 52n. 14 mummification 214 Ovid 127n. 33, 152–3, 157–8, 186 Oxyrhynchus archives 62, 81n. 58 toponyms 65, 68, 79n. 40 paganism 96, 239, 246 complexity 76n. 1 constraint 237, 238 disparities 239 domination and 239 home town 248 scope 237–8, 252 slaughter 240 terminology 241 see also individual names

Palatine, tree 113 Paris 135 passive forgetting, active forgetting and 257–8 passive memory, active memory and 257 Patroklos 140 death 132 Pausanias 222, 224 Pedersén, O. 26n. 64 Penthesileia 133, 134 perjury, money and 169–70 Pestman, P. W. 61–2 Petosiris 79n. 42 pharaohs 40, 41 festivals 37, 38 genealogy 43–5 graffiti 45–6 identity 49–50 images 38–40, 51n. 6    autobiography 35, 47   festivals 36, 36, 37, 37–8, 52–3n. 14    identity and 35, 48–9    king lists 46    popular culture 46, 47   primacy 33–4    scope 33, 35, 41, 42–3, 44, 47–8 king lists 44–5, 48, 53–4n. 30, 54n. 37 mortuary estates 37, 40–1 power 39 primacy 50 scope 43, 51 temples 41 visits 33   limitations 49 Piazza della Rotonda, obelisk 183, 184 plants 191 Plato 181 Pliny the Elder 102n. 4, 113–14, 115, 124n. 5, 124n. 7 trees 111, 112–13, 115–18, 119–21, 122–3, 125–6n. 21, 126n. 22 Plutarch 214, 215–16, 217, 219, 220, 231n. 17 Pluto 216 politics emotions, images and xxxii scope xxxii–xxxiii Polyxena 133–4, 135, 137–8 death 135

Index Pompeii 221 popular culture scope 46–7 study and 46 prayer 247 disparities 151, 168–9 Priam 133–4 priests archives 5, 61–2 children and 156 crocodiles 192 forgery 22n. 12 king list 45 Prosdocimi, A. L. 97–8 Prudentius 238–9, 251 Prudentius hymns 240 audience 251 chastity and 245 disparities 239 festivals 247 lack of control and 245 location and 248–50    home town 248 martyrdom 239, 244, 245, 246, 247 metre 242–3 prayer 247 scope 238–9, 243–4, 250, 252 slaughter 239, 240 terminology 250   martyrdom 241–2    militarism 240–1, 242   slaughter 241 Pseudo-Callisthenes 217 Ptolemy I (Soter) 215, 216, 230–1n. 7 Ptolemy II (Philadelphus) 215 Ptolemy Chennos 138, 139 Pudicitia 159–60 absence 160 terminology 160–1 puteal (container) 114–16 Quirinal Hill xxxiii Quirinus 155–6, 172n. 19 Rackham, H. 124n. 7 Ramesses II 40 Ramesside Period genealogy 43 popular culture 46, 47

269

scope 42 tombs 33, 35 razor and whetstone 114 location 114, 115 puteal 114–16 Redford, D. 48–9, 53–4n. 30, 54n. 31 Rekhmire 42 relaxation 189 religion constraint xxix disparities xxix memory and xx scope xxvi, xxviii, 258 testimony xx see also individual terms Remus, Romulus and nursing and 116, 118, 119, 123 tree 111–13, 122–3 Richter, T. S. 77n. 12 Ricoeur, P. xv–xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, xxxv rituals xxvi basket-carrying ceremony 16 incubation and 216–17 time and 90 see also festivals River Ulāia 25n. 51 Roeder, G. 78n. 29 Rome 186, 248, 251 complexity xix continuity and 178–81, 182, 213–16, 217, 219, 220, 221, 222–3, 224, 227, 228–30, 230–1n. 7, 231n. 11 disparities 150 domination and 240, 249 images xxxii    continuity and 177–8   disparities xxx–xxxi    identity and xxxi   scope 199 lack of control and 245 language see Latin scope xiv–xv, xxviii, xxix, 89, 201, 246, 249–50 size and xxxiii time and 230n. 1 tolerance xxviii uncertainty xix–xx see also individual terms Romulus 156

270 Index Remus and nursing and 116, 118, 119, 123    tree 111–13, 122–3 Roy, P. xi, 257–9 Ruia 37 saepta Iulia 183, 186 St Agnes 245 home town 248 St Cyprian 246 St Lawrence 239 St Lawrence hymn 240 lack of control and 245 location and 248–9 martyrdom 244, 247 slaughter 240 terminology    militarism 240, 241   slaughter 241 St Maria Sopra Minerva 183 St Romanus location and 249–50 terminology 250 Šamaš-šuma-ukīn 7, 10–11, 16, 18–19, 21 Saqqara graffiti 42–3 king lists 45, 46 Sargon II 24n. 26 Satires see Juvenal, Satires Scheid, J. xxvi Schmitz, H. 78n. 29 sea 224–5 festival 224, 226 money 224 seeing memory xxxi, xxxii knowledge and xxxi memoryscapes xxxvi Sennacherib 8, 10, 16–17, 23n. 21 Serapeum 203n. 47 size and xxxiii Serapis 214–15, 217, 218–19, 230–1n. 7, 231n. 11 dreams and 216–17 incubation and 216–17 terminology 214 Servius 105n. 38 Seti II 33 Simonides xxxvi Sinopê 215–16, 231n. 17

sistra 225 sites of memory xvii–xviii, 59 see also individual terms situlas 225 slaughter 239, 240 terminology 241 Smith, C. xi, xiv–xxv solar discs 218 Sontag, S. 200 Spencer, A. J. 67, 79–80n. 46 spring 164 Stambaugh, J. 230–1n. 7 Statius 142 Stewart, P. xxxi Stiehl, R. 215 Stoicism 245–6 study, popular culture and 46 Suda (encyclopedia) 94, 103–4n. 25 Sumer 5–6, 23n. 16 Swetnam-Burland, M. 221 Syene 62 Tacitus 120, 126n. 25, 216 Tarquinius Priscus 114 Tell el-Amarna xxx temenos wall 68–9, 70, 79n. 42 temples 64, 67, 81n. 58, 92, 96, 100, 203n. 47 abandonment 79–80n. 46, 161 access 54n. 36, 222 animals 194   crocodiles 193   ibises 193 churches and 72, 73–4, 75–6, 81n. 68 contention 92, 102–3n. 14 disparities 93, 155, 156–7, 158, 165, 173n. 30, 196 dromoi, location of sites and 62, 66–7 gardens 191–2 images   baboons 193   disparities 221   scope 33 location of sites and 72 money and 152, 153–4   robbed 169 mortuary estates 41 museums and 196–7, 198, 199–200 rebuilding 17, 22n. 4

Index robbed 158–9 scope 41, 99, 106n. 56, 106n. 61, 152–3, 224 size and xxxiii terminology 165 tomb 79n. 42 walls 68–9, 70, 79n. 42 see also citadels; Iseum Campense Testament of Basel 96 Teukros 134–5 Thebes archives 61–2, 63 graffiti 45 size and xxxiii tombs see pharaohs theft 158–9, 169 Thomas Aquinas xxxii Thoth 66, 193 Thoth-Hermes 64, 66–7, 68–9, 70, 79n. 42, 79–80n. 46 Thutmose III 36, 37 Thutmose IV 37, 40–1 Tibullius, Albius 178–9 Tiglath-pileser III 24n. 26 Timolaos 141 Tjuneroy 54n. 31 king list 45 Todorov, T. xvii, xviii tombs 79n. 42, 96 see also pharaohs toponyms agora 72, 80–1n. 55 boundary of sites 61–2 churches 70, 71–2, 73–4, 75–6, 80n. 53, 81n. 68, 81n. 71 citadels 69–70 contention 60, 76n. 7 disparities 60, 75 location of sites 61, 62, 65, 66–7 scope 59–60, 61, 62–3, 65–6, 68, 72–3, 76, 78n. 30, 79n. 40

271

streets 66, 67, 78–9n. 34, 79n. 35   churches 67   temples 67 temples 68–9, 72, 79n. 42, 81n. 58 time and 75 uncertainty 67–8, 78n. 29, 78n. 31 Török, L. 74, 81n. 68 trees age and 111 nursing and 124n. 7 terminology 126n. 25, 126–7n. 30 see also fig trees Tukulti-Ninurta I 26n. 62 Ulāia River, battle 25n. 51 Umbricius 162–3 Underworld 225 Uruk 4 Valerius Maximus 92–3 Varro, Marcus Terentius xxvi, 95, 98, 105n. 45, 143 Veii 92 Venus 89 Vergil 142–3, 248, 249 Wang, Q. 52n. 13 warnings and advice 93–4, 97, 103n. 24, 103–4n. 25, 104n. 26 Westerfeld, J. xi, 59–86 whetstone and razor 114 location 114, 115 puteal 114–16 Williams, J. 91, 93, 98–9 Wiseman, T. P. 99 wolf location and 116–17 nursing and 118, 119, 124n. 7 Zanker, P. xxxi