Introduction

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

Introduction
Museums and Muses

Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords

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

Keywords:   Rome, Roman values, artefacts, praxis, museums, collection studies

The Museum of American History on the National Mall in Washington DC is a

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

Page 1 of 33

 
Introduction

easily speak of ‘identities’) in this instance are based on specific cultural

artefacts, each with its own history and its own story to tell.

Step outside the museum and the picture is no more coherent. There is a series
of museums, none of which has anything in particular to do with the other. These
include a museum of the American Indian, across from another museum, the
National Gallery of Art, that contains a collection of (primarily) paintings and
sculptures from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period. Across the Mall
from the contemporary wing there is a large botanical garden, while next to the
Museum of the American Indian stands the Air and Space Museum. Walk across
the Mall once more and you arrive at the Museum of Natural History, which in
turn stands across from the Sackler Gallery, a collection of Eastern and African
art. Architecturally the Mall is an organizational disaster. Modern glass buildings
with giant mobiles suspended in enormous empty spaces stand next to neo-
Classical buildings adorned with copies of Renaissance sculpture. While each of
these museums has an organizing principle in its own right (although some
critics note the fragility of such systematic unity), collectively they represent
what is (p.2) tantamount to an almost willful incoherence.1 What, after all, do
paintings by Manet and Vermeer have to do with the Lunar Module (or one
another for that matter)? How is the Hope Diamond related in any way to ritual
masks of Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest? Wandering off the Mall
one can visit the National Portrait Gallery, as well as the Holocaust Museum.
Again, one must ponder the relevance of Lincoln’s death mask to the artefacts
that commemorate a twentieth century atrocity. Are these not fragmentary
products with unrelated histories, cultural contexts, and origins?

The picture becomes less clear if one takes into consideration Washington’s
numerous monuments. Many of these are themselves artificial creations that had
or (in most cases) have absolutely no local historical value per se. No military
battles were fought at the Lincoln Memorial, no great legislation was passed at
the Washington Monument. Rather, over time they have accrued value for their
symbolic significance. This is particularly true of the Lincoln, where a bronze
plaque commemorates where Martin Luther King Jr. stood when he delivered his
‘I have a dream’ speech, and the Vietnam War Memorial, where thousands still
come annually to mourn their dead and leave offerings. Such monuments
represent, in their own right, spaces where ‘official’ historical memory and the
commemorated past serve as a point of negotiation between the current
structures of power within American society and those who would challenge its
narrative.2

Of course, some places do have a significance stemming from the historic events
that occurred there: Ford’s Theatre, the Watergate Hotel, Blair House, all of
these in one way or another figure into the historical landscape that is
Washington. Add to this the significant historical ‘clutter’ that has accrued over
time such as the Washington National Cathedral (with its stained glass that

Page 2 of 33

 
Introduction

depicts subjects ranging from the landing in Normandy to the Lewis and Clark
expedition), the myriad bronze statues of figures from Grant to Gandhi, or even
the fresco depicting the apotheosis of George Washington that adorns the
interior of the Capitol dome (in which he enters a heaven not of the Trinity but of
the Olympian deities).

Yet Gandhi, Vermeer, the Lunar Module, and Julia Child’s kitchen all cohere for
several reasons. Of these perhaps the most important is place: all are situated in
the heart of a city that itself rests at the centre of a vast empire that bestrides a
(p.3) continent and, arguably, the world and beyond. They are a collective
expression of historical experience, as well as political, cultural, and social
values, and of economic power. They tell us who we are, and, equally important,
who and how we should desire to be. In the same way that we fill our houses
with random material and cultural objects that collectively speak much to our
own personal identity and experiences, a similar situation holds true for the
urban landscape of the United States’ capital. The diverse monuments, art
works, and hodge-podge of cultural objects are symbols of that to which we are
told we ought to aspire and of our values. In the case of such monuments as the
Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, they are, in a sense, victory monuments that
represent the triumph of free people over tyranny and repression. Moreover in
the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorial, the values are literally enshrined in temples
based on neo-Classical design. Collectively they constitute some of the ‘raw
material’ which, as S. Pearce has argued, either organizes itself or is willfully
structured into ‘the kind of cultural construct which we call human [in this case,
specifically, American] society’.3

In the case of the United States (to draw from a contemporary example), the
very existence of such memorials—and, for that matter, the collections on the
Mall—are not politically neutral. They constitute a statement of power or
domination of one group or one idea over another, and not infrequently (as in the
case of the Museum of the American Indian) can serve to remind a dominant
group of an act of resistance on the part of a once (and regrettably in many
respects still) subordinate people. Indeed, the cityscape constitutes a venue
where competing claims by divergent groups have occasionally played
themselves out. To cite but two examples: in 1995 a new annex of the Air and
Space Museum opened up in McLean Virginia, a suburb of Washington DC,
where the Enola Gay, from which the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima,
had been mounted for public display. On the day the new exhibition opened,
several Japanese protesters stood nearby to object to the display and the text
that accompanied it which they believed did not sufficiently address the moral
ambiguities involved in America’s use of an atomic weapon.4 In addition, as of
this writing, a public discussion is (p.4) currently taking place in Washington
DC over where and how Martin Luther King Jr. is to be commemorated on the
Mall. Such debates in and of themselves encapsulate who we collectively are as
a people in the early twenty-first century, as we argue over such diverse topics
Page 3 of 33

 
Introduction

as the place of minorities and their history in American culture, or the history of
our use of force against other nations. The debate has been taken up in
academic circles as well, most naturally among those involved in the discipline
of art history and the more specialized subject of collecting and museum
display.5

The situation for Washington will remain a dynamic one for as long as it remains
a major centre of power. Whom, how, and what to commemorate is bound to
continue to remain controversial. Along with such controversy, there will be the
thorny matter of how to fund memorials of this sort; yet the commitment of vast
sums to build, house, collect, and maintain such commemorations is itself an
important statement concerning the values placed on identity, power, and its
maintenance in the form of visual symbols. That such commemoration and
display are controversial brings up yet another issue, that of the viewer. Various
commemoratives and displays are bound to signify different things to different
individuals.6 The ‘meaning’ of the Enola Gay would be decidedly different for my
father, who was a United States infantryman in the Philippines during World War
II, than for one of the Japanese protesters noted above. That is to say, there is no
such thing as a single, monolithic ‘American’ viewer of such objects, and that
despite the attempt to control the various messages that objects invariably
convey, the meaning of such objects is rarely static.

(p.5) Let us now consider a city that, in antiquity, functioned as a similar

repository of historical ‘clutter’, Rome. As a city Rome developed organically
based on the physical topography of its location, situated as it was on a series of
hills and ridges (see map 1.1). A central depression located between the
Capitoline hill to its north, the Palatine hill to its south-west, and the Esquiline to
its east became what would be the religious, political, and economic centre of
the city, the Roman Forum (see map 1.2), and as such became preferred real
estate for the display of cultural objects over time. By the period of the republic,
in the third and second centuries BC, the Campus Martius, encompassed by the
great bend in the Tiber to the north of the city proper, was becoming a popular
venue for display, while the Capitoline, with its temple to Jupiter Optimus
Maximus, had long since been among the most prestigious and sacred sites for
advertising one’s achievements. As a map of Rome shows (map 1.3), by the
imperial period the Campus Martius had morphed into a virtual entertainment
district, with its numerous theatres, porticoes, temples, and baths, while the
Palatine had become a massive complex housing the emperor, his family, and the
imperial bureaucracy. By this time too, several emperors had added their own
imperial fora (see map 7.1). As was the case

Page 4 of 33

 
Introduction

(p.6)

Map 1.1 The seven hills and other major

topographical features of Rome. The city
evolved organically around these physical
features over time.
Drawing by Elizabeth Riorden.

Page 5 of 33

 
Introduction

(p.7)

Map 1.2 Map of the Roman Forum in the

mid-fourth century AD.

Page 6 of 33

 
Introduction

with contemporary Washington,

statues, monuments, and
repositories of cultural artefacts
abounded. Similarly, like any city
that constitutes a major centre of
power and wealth of a vast state,
Rome as an imperial capital—like
a museum—became a repository
of the history and achievements of
its people, all of which reflected
some distinct ideologies. By
nature and by chance this
repository was bound to be
eclectic and chaotic, even in cases
where there was arguably
‘programmatic intent’, such as
Augustus’ Forum (see fig. 7.11). As Map 1.3 Map of Rome around AD 100.
such, part of the task of this study
will be to put the numerous
incoherent cultural ‘fragments’ into a cohesive order, a process that arguably reflects
the very definition of ‘culture’.7
Such fragments—literary, archaeological, historical, and cultural—collectively
collapsed together in Rome, as they will in this study, to construct a coherent (p.
8) view of Roman identity and power.8 Hooper-Greenhill has noted that the
British in their museums of the nineteenth century were able to ‘create a
reliable, solidly material, core of value and emulation at the centre of a vast,
diverse, and dispersed empire’.9 Something similar could be said of the
collective identity of the Romans as expressed through the diverse cultural
material scattered throughout the city. It should be noted that such a reading
involves a taxonomy that the Romans themselves did not consciously apply to
objects in terms of visual culture (although there did exist systematic
organization within texts, such as Pliny’s Natural History).10 Disparate objects of
a visual or a physical nature, ranging from works by the Greek masters to
Aeneas’ ship, unify to create a central Roman narrative which can be read as
establishing a Roman identity (or identities) over time and, invariably, as
reflecting and perpetuating Roman power and a collective sense of the Roman
self. The present study thus stands in the context of other readings of the city by
scholars such as Edwards, Favro, Jaeger, and Vasaly (and, in more general
terms, Urry and Flaming) whereby Rome is a place to be read as a text.11
Indeed, the intersection between the term monumentum as both a physical
memorial one would find in an urban context and as a text invites a similar
‘reading’ for the city. It is the creation and reception(s) of the city as text with
which this study concerns itself.

Page 7 of 33

 
Introduction

(p.9) Overview
As we examine how the collection of such artefacts reflected Roman values,
several immediate issues come to mind: how was the material acquired? What
types of material were gathered, exhibited, or otherwise accrued
commemorative value over time? What was the context in which cultural
artefacts (such as statues and paintings) were exhibited? How were such
artefacts and memorabilia maintained? How did the disparate monuments and
cultural-historical memorabilia create what we might call an ‘inter-functionality’
by which objects resituated themselves from their original contexts to form
coherent statements about Roman identity and power? Each of these questions
raises issues pertaining to how Romans viewed themselves both collectively and
individually. They also raise basic questions about class, status, and how these
were expressed both in private and public contexts.

Analysis of such questions offers numerous organizational possibilities for the

author, and it is difficult to choose any specific ordering principle that will prove
satisfactory to all readers. As MacDonald has noted, museum studies offer a
wide range of cross-disciplinary perspectives.12 In their study on museum
culture, Sherman and Rogoff recognize four organizing principles to their
subject: the object, its context, its viewing public, and its reception.13 We remark
their study and its structure here since our own investigation concerns itself
with similar issues devoted in broad terms to related material from an ancient
perspective. Hence we first turn as a preliminary to the study as a whole to two
central issues, the Roman collector and the Roman viewer. Both of these are
admittedly infinite subjects with equally vast possibilities in terms of approach
and methodology. The question we address in chapter three will concern what
the Romans thought about viewing. We start off there by examining what
Romans themselves tell us concerning their expectations for display and the
setting of cultural objects. In addition, we will examine their reactions to the
physical topography of their city. The discussion also includes considerations of
class, and how this could and did have an impact on how cultural artefacts and
commemoratives were both presented and viewed. Finally, we turn to some of
the powerful reactions such cultural artefacts and monuments could evoke.
Viewing and the viewer in particular are subjects for potentially endless
discussion, which involves us in an infinite array of possibilities that could
conceivably lead us into territory ranging from archaeological reconstruction, to
ekphrasis in Roman and Greek poetry, to reconstructing visual culture based on
an examination of the artistic record and (p.10) literary texts, an area that has
been recently explored in Elsner’s (2007) study, Roman Eyes. Visuality and
Subjectivity in Art and Text. While it would be wrong to ignore such evidence
and the possibilities it offers for interpretation, it is essential to clarify from the
start that we are most concerned here with what the Romans tell us openly and
explicitly about their own reactions to viewing material of historical or artistic
significance. We will therefore be concerned with how Romans desired to view

Page 8 of 33

 
Introduction

and to what extent the Roman community as a whole could appreciate

historically and culturally significant artefacts.

In addition, the diversity of viewers in antiquity is one that merits close attention
and has recently been the subject of a number of studies. Elsner, for example,
has noted that numerous responses to ancient visual culture were possible and
socially contingent, depending on among other factors, gender, class, and
ethnicity; consequently no ‘model viewer’ exists, which implies that a variety of
readings can coexist.14 That ‘the meanings of objects are contingent, fluid, and
poly-semantic, but none the less constructed by the materiality of the object’, is
something that museum theorists and classicists have both come to recognize,
and bears emphasizing.15 The various readings we here offer, even the
structuring of the material itself, constitutes only a narrow slice of the
conceivably enormous hermeneutical range the material collected and discussed
in this study presents.

We will initially turn our attention, however, to a consideration of how cultural

material made its way into Rome, with a passing glance at private collecting,
and how such collecting was itself a reflection of Roman power and identity. For
the Romans, the simple act of collecting was occasionally an act of political
competitiveness, a reflection of the city’s visually competitive urban space where
men of military or political talent asserted their claims to auctoritas and dignitas
permanently through monuments and cultural artefacts.

It should be further noted that throughout this study the term ‘art’ operates
inevitably as a convenient term for cultural property, although it is arguably a
term of privilege along with ‘masterpiece’ or ‘authentic’, and such terms sit
opposite words such as ‘artefact’ or ‘copy’.16 As many contemporary museum
theorists and art historians have recognized, because all these terms convey a
judgement of value, I sometimes use terms such as ‘art’ and ‘cultural artefact/
object’ interchangeably for works one might uncritically accept as ‘art’, although
(p.11) for other objects we use terms such as simply ‘cultural artefact’.17 Both
the exchange of these terms and our noting it are important, since one suspects
that elite Romans (one thinks for example of Pliny’s encyclopaedia) certainly did
pass judgement on what constituted art as opposed to a mere ‘wonder’ despite
the lack of a modern systematic method of classification.18 ‘Cultural artefact’,
moreover, covers a wide range of material from both the human and natural
realm that simply does not fall under the rubric of ‘art’.

We will at times use these various terms interchangeably, since a work of art,
such as Praxiteles’ Eros, would be widely recognized as such, although it is also
a cultural artefact, just as is the German war mask that adorned the Temple of
Augustus (see p. 265). It is doubtful, though, whether the latter would be
considered ‘art’ per se. However the value imposed on each, whether through
the fame of former owners, the artist who created the work, or the manner in

Page 9 of 33

 
Introduction

which it came to be possessed by the Romans, make both products of a wider

culture and render them valued objects not merely by simple virtue of their
existence, but through a series of larger cultural dynamics. Because such
dynamics contribute to the objects’ value and are invariably shifting and
negotiable, we rely on the various terms noted above.

The next three chapters (four through six) will examine the disparate types of
cultural artefacts in ancient Rome. Here we will focus on why certain objects
and sites were preserved, how they preserved historical memory, and what that
memory was potentially intended to communicate.19 There are a variety of ways
to classify such a wide array of cultural artefacts. One could, for example,
categorize them according to the type of artefact, or according to the period
which specific artefacts and monuments commemorated. Here we have
categorized the various commemoratives and artefacts in terms that, we hope,
are most (p.12) illustrative of the way such material constructed a collective
memory and a space where Roman identity was variously created, negotiated,
and assessed.

In the first of these chapters (chapter four) we examine how imperial domination
by the ruling elite influenced the appearance of the city. The elite used cultural
objects both to maintain and perpetuate their control over not merely Roman
society, but other peoples as well. As Holliday has noted, such display was not
just an additional luxury of conquest, but inherently bound up with it.20 In the
next chapter, we look at how the Roman social and historical record was
remembered through a variety of cultural material in a manner that reinforced
Roman values and ideology beyond those directly associated with military
conquest and imperial hegemony (such as the commemoration of women who
were important to the Roman historical record). Finally, in chapter six we
examine how the natural world was exhibited as a symbolic form of domination
by the city; such display inadvertently served as an ambiguous reflection on the
(sometimes monstrous) nature of empire.

One of the more important aspects of the display of cultural artefacts is their use
in the competition between powerful individuals or families; such use itself is
telling about Roman power and how the city served as a field for political rivalry,
where grandees tried to lay claim to political power or to legitimize it. Power
and its legitimization will be the central though not exclusive consideration in
chapter seven, where we examine the major imperial collections and their
significance. What were the major imperial displays within the city, and what did
they potentially signify? More importantly, how did such collections and displays
come to reflect the values of individual emperors, and how did they function in
their larger topographical settings? While numerous studies have looked at
imperial collections, those under Augustus have received the lion’s share of
attention. We here put Augustus’ collections in the context of other substantial
collections and in their larger cultural and historical context. One omission in

Page 10 of 33

 
Introduction

these four chapters that might seem glaring is the absence of any focused
discussion on the Roman response to Hellenism; that is because this discussion
is embedded to a certain extent in the present study, and because Hellenism’s
cultural influence has been the specific focal point of numerous other studies.21

Finally, we turn to the simple problem of maintenance. The question of oversight

and finance for monuments and cultural objects in and of itself can (p.13) tell
us something concerning how the Romans valued such material, and
consequently about the Roman ideology of power, memory, and the Romans’ own
identification between objects and themselves. Other considerations arise that
tell us to what extent they valued the physical reminders of their romanitas,
their ‘manner’, and by extension, ‘sense’ of being Roman. The actual buildings
and their restoration, for example, was something that during the republic was
partly up to the state but seemingly more so to individual families. Actual
restoration of cultural artefacts and their maintenance is more problematic; we
are sometimes unclear on the physical process of restoration, though we do
know that restoration of some sort took place. In terms of access to and general
maintenance of cultural property, as well as matters of security, we have a
clearer picture. Again, that there were processes in place for finance,
restoration, security, and upkeep itself indicates the Romans’ desire to preserve
property of cultural or historical significance.

Sources
A work such as this one is bound to rely, in no small part, on our literary
record.22 That is due to the simple fact that virtually every cultural object has
utterly vanished, while any of the venues for display, the temples and porticoes,
survive as mere ruins. Hence a paradox: the study is about cultural artefacts and
their display, but it cannot be said to be exclusively ‘art historical’. Rather it falls
into the realm of museum theory and cultural history (something that should,
perhaps, be already apparent), and naturally includes forays into the realm of
display and collecting. With so much material vanished, we depend for the most
part on literary accounts and occasionally the archaeological record to
reconstruct ancient collections and displays. The images used to illustrate this
study therefore, are intended to give what at best must be for the most part a
conjectural and impressionistic sense of the appearance of ancient collections
and objects within the city.

In the course of this study we will draw heavily on Pliny the Elder and other
literary sources, which will inevitably lead us to focus primarily though not
exclusively on the Roman elite.23 The city itself was the creation of that elite,
and they wrote about the city they had built. Such sources are not without their
(p.14) problems: to what extent did an author actually view the objects? Was
the author in fact accurate in describing and giving the history of a particular
memorial or artefact? What are the possible ulterior motives that, for any
number of reasons—rhetorical, political, or social—could lead an author (such as

Page 11 of 33

 
Introduction

Cicero in his speeches) to variously embellish, distort, or otherwise mislead one

using him as a source? How familiar was Pliny the Elder with the objects he
described and what were his sources for those he knew about only second hand?
24
Is Cicero’s depiction of Scipio as a diligent restorer of art to the Sicilians from
its Carthaginian captivity reliable (see chapter 2 pp. 52–6)? These and similar
questions will merit consideration in turn as they arise in our study.

For the moment, suffice to state that since Pliny (for one) lived in and was
familiar with the city of Rome, my own belief is that he will have had a good idea
about what was in the Forum and other prominent locations; for places more ‘off
the beaten path’ it is likely that he had access to some sort of imperial
inventory.25 Cicero’s case is more difficult: his remarks about Scipio, for
example, arise in a highly charged rhetorical context, the prosecution of Verres,
making them suspect. However Cicero was intimate with Sicily, Verres was
genuinely guilty, and the comparison Cicero makes between Scipio and Verres
may have been for the most part accurate and certainly was plausible for
Cicero’s Roman audience. We need to be aware of such difficulties, and will
address them as they appear. At the same time, the complete veracity of our
sources is less at issue for us; it is more important for our purposes to ascertain
what was understood and believed about particular objects and what that tells
us about the Roman sense of self. For example, whether Dionysius of
Halicarnassus is correct to assume that the Temple of the Penates in the Velia
held the actual Penates that Aeneas brought to Rome is, in a sense, irrelevant.
For us in this case, neither is the truth of Aeneas’ existence nor the various
versions concerning the origin of the Penates at issue—nor, for that matter, are
the literary traditions and the value of those traditions for reconstructing Roman
‘prehistory’.26 Rather what is at issue is what Dionysius’ (p.15) belief about
their origin tells us about Roman cultural identity.27 As Barkan has noted,
Rome’s past was largely imagined; what matters is how the past and present
relate to one another as ‘symbol and exegesis’.28

Another important matter to bear in mind is that while certain objects,

particularly those of a sacred nature, tended to remain where they were and
were not (for the most part) moved, the situation with cultural property in the
city was fluid. This implies that the relationship between objects, one to the
other, and to the city as a whole, periodically changed. We are not dealing with a
phenomenon that was static, but one that was frequently in flux due to
restoration, renovation, the personal tastes or programme of an emperor, or
catastrophes such as fire. For example, when Pliny tells us that in his day
Praxiteles was represented by images of Bonus Eventus and Bona Fortuna on the
Capitoline, it is likely that they were not there prior to his period, but represent
a restoration and replacement of statuary in that place after the fire of AD 69
when the Capitol burned to the ground.29

Page 12 of 33

 
Introduction

The Praxis of Objects: Objects, Identity, and Power in Modern Theory

The phrase I use to title this section, the ‘praxis’ of objects, may appear at first
glance a paradox. Inasmuch as the term derives from the Greek verb prattein
(‘to do’), implying action, in what sense can objects act and, by extension, have
what we might call an active life? The question is an important one for our study.
Since several key assumptions concerning objects function as a basis for this
work, a brief survey of the current scholarly landscape concerning the social,
cultural, and political theory of objects will serve to inform our own approach
and assessment. One of this study’s central assumptions is that objects and
identity rely, both for the individual and society, on a symbiotic relationship
whereby the object becomes an extension of the self or the culture to which that
self belongs. In (p.16) this way objects assist in the construction of identity
both for the individual and for the society at large. More than that, however,
objects are also put into the service of power. Often this takes the form of the
display of an object signifying the appropriated power of a subjugated ‘other’,
and reflecting the ideology of an elite or even of a society at large qua possessor.
Frequently, and particularly in the case of the Romans, this appropriation is
intended to perpetuate and maintain power. How such ideology is conveyed
depends on how a given object is intended to communicate, and is further
constructed by the values imposed on particular objects and the context of their
display.30 It is important to note as a preliminary to this study that viewers will
have been inclined to make a series of connections among various objects and
their own culture at large. It is precisely those potential connections and
associations that we will attempt to sort out and analyse.

Cultural studies on collecting in particular have long recognized the link

between objects and the creation of individual identity. In addition, the ability of
objects to function as symbolic or metonymic signifiers constitutes a system by
which objects communicate a language dependent on the type of relationship
constructed between the object and its social context.31 Such relationships
depend on the human imposition of values on objects in order to reaffirm their
value.32 A variety of theoretical and sociological studies have examined how
such relationships are constructed. Among them Pearce’s study (1995) is
especially pertinent in this regard, though others, such as Appadurai,
Baudrillard, Bennett, Clifford, and Geertz have also noted the power of objects
to act as signifiers that communicate status, political power, and domination, or
reaffirm one’s own identity.33 As Pearce observes, objects also serve collectively
to create social (p.17) categories in order to organize and structure life, while
objects and the structures in which they are set ‘depend upon our ability to
recognize social norms … one way of describing what we might otherwise call
“accepted values” or “proper behaviour” ’.34

Consequently, objects are closely tied up with the construction of personal

identity, becoming who we are, and in turn shaping our own persona, whether
individually or collectively.35 They have the power to construct who we are on
Page 13 of 33

 
Introduction

both an individual and a group or national level, and can assist, as a number of
studies have shown, even in the creation of national identity.36 This is an area
that has been thoroughly explored by theorists of collecting, many of whom have
discussed the symbolic function of objects and their role in the creation of
identity.37 Among cultural historians of the Roman period, Edwards has taken
this issue on in the most explicit terms, noting the direct connection between
(p.18) knowledge of Roman cultural identity and the Roman self particularly in
terms of understanding the city visually and reading it as a text.38 In terms of
collecting for our period and its connection with identity, along with Chevallier
(1991), and now Bounia (2004), Elsner has noted the clear relationship between
the acquisition of cultural artefacts and the construction of Roman identity (or,
more properly, identities), while A. Wallace-Hadrill’s Rome’s Cultural Revolution
(2008) similarly examines the consumption of luxury goods and Roman
identity.39 Most recently, I. Östenberg’s fine study, Staging the World: Spoils,
Captives, and Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (2009), has
explored the construction of Roman identity in visual terms through the specific
objects displayed in triumphs.

Cultural theorists have further noted that objects are vital for the conservation
of human memory, something closely linked to human identity. As has been
observed by Fentress and Wickham (whose theoretical study on social memory
considers the variety of means by which social memory is transmitted), ‘we are
what we remember’, and we are also ‘how’ we remember.40 That is to say,

The way we represent ourselves in our memories, the way we define our
personal and collective identities through our memories, the way we order
and structure our ideas in our memories, and the way we transmit these
memories to others—is a study of the way we are.41

The question of how ancient societies remember, or for that matter forget, has
been a subject of recent interest among classical scholars, with Edwards (1996),
(p.19) Alcock (2001), and Flower (2006) in particular at the forefront of the
discussion.42 Indeed, Edwards makes quite explicit this connection between the
visual and its association with memory in her discussion concerning Aeneas’ visit
to the Palatine when he sees the virum monimenta priorum (‘the monuments of
the men of the past’).43 Yet perhaps one of the clearest connections made
between memory and identity in Rome, as Edwards (1996) has noted, was that
made by Flavio Biondo, secretary to Pope Eugenius IV. Biondo was interested in
‘reviving the ancient form of the city through a proper reading of ancient texts’,
and observed that ‘Rome, through ignorance of its inhabitants, has lost its
identity’.44 In a more recent work, Flower has pointed out an aspect of memory
that will be of direct concern for our study: the desire and need on the part of
nobiles and the ruling elite for notoriety through the preservation of memory in
the form of public visual reminders, be they triumphs, statues, paintings, or
other public memorials.45 This is not to deny the presence of what S. E. Alcock

Page 14 of 33

 
Introduction

referred to as a ‘spectrum of memories’ which potentially embraced more

socially, culturally, and ethnically diverse groups in antiquity; rather it
acknowledges the simple reality of who governed and controlled the display and
conservation of cultural material in Rome.46

It is this intersection of objects, identity, and power that has in fact drawn the
attention of numerous contemporary theorists. Thus in his essay, ‘Collecting Art
and Culture’, J. Clifford notes that ‘collections embody hierarchies of value,
exclusion, rule-governed territories of the self … this kind of gathering involves
the accumulation of possessions, the idea that identity is a kind of wealth (of
objects, knowledge, memories, experience)’.47 A similar line of thinking has been
followed by others such as Pearce, who observes that ‘politically, the motive
behind [the] collecting is that of display, which through its sheer impressiveness
can convey legitimacy … The display of wealth is the basis for prestige which
(p.20) underpins political power’.48 Pearce also asserts that objects constitute
human goals and desires that invite us to act upon them.49 Seen in this way,
objects have the potential to create a conversation with the viewer concerning
the relations of power between the object, its previous owner, and the viewer, a
relationship that, as Stocking notes, is implicitly a relation of power.50 In
addition to symbolic forms of power that serve to create legitimacy or make
statements concerning relations of power, theorists have noted that objects have
the capacity to generate cultural capital and ‘sustain their own authority’.51

In sum, objects reflect relations of power through three essential modes. Since
they are often appropriated, looted, or purchased, they are an indication of the
possessor’s wealth or power. That power conveys an authority that serves to
legitimate or perpetuate power through various means, some of which we shall
explore in the following chapters.52 By virtue of the simple fact that the
possessors and looters of cultural property, certainly in Rome but one suspects
in most societies as well, tend to make up the dominant hierarchy, they also
invariably express the values and tastes of that hierarchy, values that are
frequently designed to act in the interests of the dominant elite, to perpetuate its
power and legitimize its hegemony over the rest of society.53 It should be noted,
however, that this was not the entire story. As R. Bradley has noted, ‘not all
antiquities were associated with ancestors or with sources of political power.
Many were linked instead with the supernatural, and often they were feared’.54
As we shall see, this was certainly the case with any number of cultural artefacts
within the city.

How objects communicate, and much of what they have to communicate, will of
course depend on context, and it is the relationship between objects, their
context, and their potential significance that will be central for much of the (p.
21) present work.55 To cite one example of how the context or relationship
between objects could change their meaning radically, Gregory has noted in his
study on the political significance of imagines that cultural objects for display

Page 15 of 33

 
Introduction

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

Museum and Collection Studies

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

Page 16 of 33

 
Introduction

was by no means a ‘collecting’ institution, and that it is disassociated from the

modern museum in this sense, although it bears noting, I believe, that both have
in common the preservation of memory.63

Significantly, the complex in Alexandria was named after the Muses, and it is
worth remembering that the Muses were the daughters of Mnemosyne, that is,
of Memory herself. If one thinks of the Muses and their specific spheres of arts,
letters, history, and science (in the broad sense of knowledge as understood in
antiquity, as opposed to the modern one of experimentation and theory), all are
readily encompassed in the Museion. The association of art, history, science, and
(p.23) literature within a single institution, and their emanation from
Mnemosyne found its way into Athenaeus’ description of Athens as the Museion
of Hellas (5.187d). Athenaeus’ remark could, on the one hand, have in mind the
enormous literary and philosophical talent that Athens both produced and
attracted. He may also have had in mind its monuments that so impressed
Cicero in the De Finibus (see p. 85). Yet there is no reason not to think that he
potentially had both meanings in mind—that Athens was a general cultural
repository of the ancient world, and one that also preserved the memory of great
men. What was to be remembered, and how an individual or an event was to be
remembered, however, offered a vast field for negotiation, visual conversation,
and contention among the various segments of Roman society.

Modern specialists in museum studies naturally have a very different concept of

the ‘Museum’, and their approaches to understanding that institution (which will
inform our own in part) have ranged in their methodology over time from
positivist surveys to highly theoretical analyses that draw on contemporary
cultural and sociological studies. Alsop’s work, The Rare Art Traditions,
published in 1982, covered a great deal of basic territory, offering a lengthy
narrative overview on the history of collecting from the Greek through the early
modern period. Foucault’s works, particularly The Archaeology of Knowledge
and The Order of Things, have had a significant influence over subsequent
museum theorists, elucidating how museums ‘both sustain and construct
cultural master narratives that achieve an internal unity by imposing one
cultural tendency as the most prominent manifestation of any historical period’,
and contextualizing objects in a way that gives them meaning.64 Foucault’s
influence is consequently detectable in much of the subsequent scholarship that
we find on museum and collection theory. We have already noted Pearce’s work
above, a work that is concerned in particular with identity and the collector.
Other approaches to ‘museology’ tend to be heavily anthropological, such as the
series of essays in Stocking which examines how material objects of one culture
are appropriated by another and the implications this has for relations of power,
not only between two different cultures, but between diverse elements of the
same culture as well.65 Bennett’s 1995 study (The Birth of the Museum) on the
other hand is one that examines the museum’s potential for social control and
investigates, among other things, the use of classification and ordering of
Page 17 of 33

 
Introduction

knowledge as a means to refashion social behaviour and to function as a field for

competing narratives.66

(p.24) MacDonald, in Theorizing Museums, argues for a more nuanced view.

She rejects looking at museums purely ‘as agencies of social control’ or merely
as places where ‘the definition and distinction of taste is important’. Rather she
argues that they are dynamic institutions that ‘inevitably bear the imprint of
social relations beyond their walls and beyond the present’.67 We need to be
cautious, she continues, about reading into display conscious manipulation on
the part of the exhibitor and excessive passivity on the part of the viewer.
MacDonald’s work, as is the case with numerous museum studies, focuses
closely on actual contemporary museum praxis, as does the series of essays
edited by Sherman and Rogoff (1994). Such studies are intended to address
contemporary issues of national, ethnic, and gender identity in the context of
displays and their audience(s) in modern museum culture. Most recently, and in
a sense quite pertinent to our study, J. Cuno has published a monograph as well
as a series of essays concerning the ethics of collecting antiquities, many from
the very cultures we will examine here.68 The concerns and interests of
contemporary museum specialists—competing narratives, the appropriation of
material culture, the social and political dynamics of display and memory—all
have a place in the present work which, as noted, straddles the realm of museum
and collection studies, art, and cultural history.

Among the vast array of studies on Roman art, display, collection, and its
significance, none have looked at Rome exclusively and in more comprehensive
terms as a museum city, and attempted to interpret it as such. Many studies on
ancient Rome however have recognized the existence of the museum as an
enticing subject for investigation in the course of exploring related areas, and it
is among these that the current examination takes its place. Among the earliest
of such studies was Jex-Blake’s commentary (and Seller’s subsequent revision)
on Pliny’s chapters on art in ancient Rome which noted the ‘museographical’
nature of Pliny’s work and includes a museographic index, though it is little
more than a catalogue and heavily positivistic in its approach.69 K. Lehmann’s
(1945) article was a conjectural study based on Martial’s epigrams concerning
the possible collection and its arrangement in the Temple of Divus Augustus. It is
a subject to which we shall return in chapter seven, but for the moment suffice
to note that it was by no means a comprehensive study, and one that offered only
a limited (p.25) discussion concerning a single collection. Becatti’s (1950)
study on art and taste in antiquity, with its tangential references to conservation
and lengthy discussions of viewer reaction to art, arguably falls into the realm of
museum theory and collecting (and concentrates heavily on what the literary
sources tell us about viewer response), while his study on art in Tiberius’ Rome
was quite narrowly focused.70 Von Holst attempted to put collecting in antiquity
in its larger context, though the study was one that collected material that
tended to be insufficiently documented.71 The study also contains no source
Page 18 of 33

 
Introduction

criticism and was written without the advantage of any more current critical or
social theory. Other studies that touch on this area, such as those by Koch, Pape,
and Celani, all tend to focus on a single period, with specific interest in Greek
art as opposed to other cultural objects within the city.72 Casson’s (1974) survey
of travel in antiquity included a chapter devoted to a brief and general overview
of museums in the context of ancient tourism.73 Alsop’s (1982) study cited above
also set ancient collection in its much larger context, though it tends to focus on
the economics of ancient collecting.74 Rouveret’s (1987) brief study examined
those collections mentioned in Pliny and also included a cursory examination of
other collections in the city, and stands in the context of a number of other
studies, including Beaujeu’s, whose article (1982) asks whether Romans had the
concept of the museum through a consideration of the repositories of cultural
property (the various temples, porticoes, and fora) and their upkeep. Gualandi’s
study (also 1982), similarly focuses almost exclusively on those collections
catalogued by Pliny, while Duret’s and Néraudau’s work also examined briefly
Rome as a repository for cultural material, focusing in particular on Greek
statuary.75 Previously, D. E. Strong’s article on Roman museums addressed, in a
very general and brief discussion, the subject of acquisition, maintenance, and
display in ancient Rome.76 Isager, in his work on Pliny, has a somewhat more
extended discussion (p.26) on art collections in Rome and catalogues the
individual venues, but again does not venture into the realm of ideology.77
Similarly, scholars such as Carey and Murphy, as a result of their focus on Pliny
and his vast catalogue of art and cultural objects, have arguably been at the
forefront of collection studies in their Roman cultural context.78

Much more recent is A. Bounia’s (2004) excellent monograph, The Nature of

Classical Collection: Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE–100 CE. It is an
extensive and highly theoretical study, valuable in particular for its philosophical
and sociological insights, although its focus is not specifically the city of Rome. It
is instead a tightly focused study on collecting as addressed in four authors,
Pliny the Elder, Martial, Cicero, and Petronius. Bettina Bergmann’s fine but brief
(1995) article has a short section that looks at the city as a museum, though she
notes that much of the collecting was serendipitous.79 That cultural objects
made their way to Rome incidentally and in connection with military conquest,
and were in turn intended to advertise the achievements of those who imported
such material, led Hölscher to argue against the view of the city as a museum.80
He argued that such material was almost exclusively a matter of transmitting
values grounded in Rome’s military culture, an observation that will prove a
significant (though by no means the exclusive) focus in our own study. We can
now add Margaret Miles’ book, Art as Plunder (2008), which examines the
nature of cultural property in antiquity, and includes a close reading of Cicero’s
Verrines and the consideration of a select number of collections within the city.
Even more recently, Östenberg’s (2009) study noted above (p. 18), has looked at
the importation of cultural property and its display in a triumphal context. Yet no

Page 19 of 33

 
Introduction

study, to date, has made a more comprehensive attempt to assess the vast and
diverse array of cultural property that accrued over Rome’s long history, from its
foundation until its collapse. Here, however, it is important to append yet
another caveat. Although I have situated the work in the context of museum
studies, in a sense this is not a study that can be exclusively categorized as one
that falls solely under the rubric of collection or museum theory, or, for that
matter, of art history, Roman topography, or archaeology. Inevitably, though,
elements of all of these areas will prove essential, indeed, inseparable, from our
understanding of how certain material was displayed.

(p.27) We will draw on all of the above works, although in terms of a

theoretical model for the present inquiry we owe an important debt to E.
Hooper-Greenhill, whose study Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (1992)
offers a starting point for our own. She notes that two schools of thought
emerged about the role of museums in Britain during the late eighteenth and
into the nineteenth century concerning specifically their pedagogical potential:
the first was that the education the institution of the museum offered would
have a civilizing effect, and render an increasingly restive population demanding
greater political rights more docile. Quite a different line of thinking believed
that the educative powers of the museum would help to enlighten politically and
economically marginalized people, resulting in turn in a demand for greater
freedoms and equality.81 Beyond their pedagogical function, there was their
potential for helping to create a coherent national identity and a sense of shared
experience that would link the past and present history of the vast British
Empire.82 She cites as a specific example the National Portrait Gallery,

Whose specific task in the mid-nineteenth century was to picture the

nation, to legitimate its character, and to construct its past. It achieved
this, in part, through the depiction of an ‘imagined community’, a
community that drew its constituents from the past (those who were to be
viewed), and from the present (those who were to be the viewers). The
intersections of these imagined and corporeal bodies, juxtaposed through
imagined connections between the past and the contemporary, created a
new cultural nodal point, one that was constituted through perceptions of
the identity of the nation which were deeply cut through with assumptions
about class, gender and race.83

Moreover, the emergence of the modern institution also constituted the ‘tangible
testimonials to the right to rule’.84 That is to say, it became an instrument of
power, ‘the power to name … to create official versions, to represent the social
world, and to represent the past’.85 In addition to the establishment and
perpetuation of power within their own society, it is also the function of the
modern museum ‘to place the peoples of the world in relationships of domination
and (p.28) subservience’.86 The museum became a place where the incoherent
was put in a strict order, giving a new complexity, context, and interpretation to

Page 20 of 33

 
Introduction

all manner of cultural and natural objects which maintained two frames of
reference: their aesthetic reference on the one hand, and their place as
signifiers of a specific mode of life on the other.87 The result of such objects was
to maintain and foster a sense of identity that, if we apply the model to the
Romans or to any other similar people for that matter, was inextricably related
to what we might call their ‘power culture’. The aim (and result) of those
displaying such objects was to educate, legitimate, and ultimately to dominate.

However, the effort to construct that identity around a diverse array of objects
can appear incoherent, contradictory, and patchwork. It is the task of the
museum to suppress this disordered state of affairs through the process of
collection and the creation of apparently relevant relationships among various
artefacts. In this way cultural objects with no apparent connection—Wilt
Chamberlin’s shoes and Nancy Reagan’s china, or Cleopatra’s pearl earrings
and Apelles’ painting known as the Venus Anadyomenē (Birth of Venus), ‘become
involved in the construction of identity and difference’.88 Hooper-Greenhill notes
that ‘objects are made meaningful according to how they are placed within
relations of significance, and that these relationships depend on who is
determining what counts as significant’.89 Although here too, a caveat is
necessary, since meaning—significance—is never mono-but polyvalent and
shifting. The personal value a viewer attributes to an object or to the
relationship of several objects is one thing, collective meaning is another, and
both often are completely independent of the original ‘intent’ of the object qua
object which has almost always been divorced from its original physical and
cultural context. While Hooper-Greenhill applies theories of power and identity
to contemporary museums, one could say very much the same—despite clear
cultural and historical differences—of the ancient collection(s) found in Rome.
Taken in sum, the city as a whole frequently creates, like a museum, what
Hooper-Greenhill refers to as a ‘master narrative’, acting as ‘the constructor of a
present day “reality”… through bringing into focus a memory of the past that
(coincidentally) supports the present’.90

(p.29) In the case of Rome, that master narrative was one that enshrined a
coherent national identity and was expressive of Roman power. Such a narrative
educated viewers, simultaneously casting into relief the hierarchal nature of
Roman power and the right to wield it: the collective result was (in part) the
establishment of the right of those in power to maintain legitimate control over
the vast majority of Romans who socially, politically, and economically wielded
less influence. Among the powerful, material display served as a reminder of
one’s res gestae (‘achievements’) and auctoritas (‘authority’) constituting an
assertion of power among the elite. The further purpose of such display was to
educate the empowered in the Roman school of aspiration, a subject we shall
explore at several points in this study. Hence the relationship of the subjugated
and the dominant can be read in various objects and monuments found
throughout Rome. The ‘official version’ of Roman history and cultural
Page 21 of 33

 
Introduction

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

Notes:
(1) On coherence or its absence in contemporary museums see D. Crimp, On the
Museum’s Ruins (Cambridge Mass. 1993), 47–8; cf. 50–4, where he bases much
of his discussion on M. Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the
Human Sciences (New York 1970).

(2) Concerning which, see S. Sandage, ‘A Marble House Divided: The Lincoln
Memorial, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Politics of Memory, 1939–1963’,
The Journal of American History, 80 (1993), 135–67.

(3) S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the European

Tradition (London 1995), 13; cf. J. Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten (New York
1977), 7.

(4) For discussion of the controversy see V. Zolberg, ‘Museums as Contested

Sites of Remembrance: The Enola Gay Affair’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe
(eds.), Theorizing Museums. Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing
World (Cambridge 1996), 69–82; also see T. F. Gieryn, ‘Balancing Acts. Science,
Enola Gay, and History Wars at the Smithsonian’, in S. MacDonald (ed.), The
Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture (London 1998), 197–228. For a
good general discussion of how fraught the contemporary commemoration of
such traumatic events can be see S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past:
Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge 2002), 19–21.

(5) See e.g. J. C. Berlo and R. B. Phillips, ‘The Problematics of Collecting and
Display, Part 1’, ArtB 77 (1995), 6, who discuss the question of the relationship of
power between Native American claims to their own objects as instruments of
power set against ‘the imperialist project of inscribing relationships of power’ in
the context of official institutionalized display; also see M. MacMillan, Dangerous
Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (London 2009), 125–7, for a similar
debate concerning the War Museum in Ottawa and its display of the death and
destruction the allied bombing visited on Germany in World War II. For a good
general discussion over the contentiousness of historical memory and
commemoration see R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock (eds.), Archaeologies of
Memory (Oxford 2003), 2.

Page 22 of 33

 
Introduction

(6) See M. Bal and N. Bryson, ‘Semiotics and Art History’, ArtB 73 (1991), 207,
for their theoretical discussion on the attempts to fix meaning; E. Hooper-
Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London 1992), 118, who
notes the infinity of meanings an object can have, observing that such meaning
is historically situated and contingent on historical circumstances. Such a
contingent meaning of objects has been discussed in several recent studies by
classicists; see e.g. J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of
Art from the Pagan to the Christian World (Cambridge 1995), 4, 89; D. Fowler,
‘Even Better than the Real Thing: A Tale of Two Cities’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and
Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 61–2; V. Huet, ‘Stories One Might Tell
of Roman Art: Reading Trajan’s Column and the Tiberius Cup’, in J. Elsner (ed.),
Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 21; P. Stewart, Statues in
Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 14–15.

(7) See J. Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography,

Literature, and Art (Cambridge Mass. 1988), 234–5.

(8) For the construction of social memory and identity in its Hellenic (as opposed
to Roman) context see in general Alcock, Archaeologies (n. 4).

(9) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 40.

(10) For the modern classification of objects in the context of museum display,
with its layer of ‘scientific’ curiosity see e.g. B. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, ‘Objects of
Ethnography’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics
and Politics of Museum Display (Washington DC 1991), 386–443; cf. S.
MacDonald, ‘Introduction’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.). Theorizing
Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World (Cambridge
1996), 7, on the modern museum as a form of classification. For Pliny’s
‘classification’ of objects see S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and
Empire in the Natural History (Oxford 2003), 26–30.

(11) For the modern city (specifically, Istanbul) as a museum see D. Flaming,
‘Making City Histories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.), Making Histories in Museums
(London 1996), 135–6. For the theoretical underpinnings of the city qua text see
J. Urry, ‘How Societies Remember the Past’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.),
Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World
(Cambridge 1996), 50–1. Also see Van Dyke and Alcock, Archaeologies of
Memory (n. 5), 5, for the inscription of meaning on place; see too E. Thomas,
Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford
2007), 115. For ancient Rome as a museum city see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating
the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the
Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 51; cf. C. Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual
Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996), 30, who notes that ‘in the republic, at
least, the city itself was Rome’s chief historical text. Topography functioned as a

Page 23 of 33

 
Introduction

substitute for literary narrative’. For ancient Rome as a text also see M. K.
Jaeger, The Poetics of Place: The Augustan Writers and the Urban Landscape of
Rome, PhD thesis, University of California (Berkeley 1990); D. Favro, ‘Reading
the Augustan City’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art
(Cambridge 1993), 230–57 (for a specifically ‘Augustan’ narrative); A. Vasaly,
Representation: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley 1993).

(12) MacDonald, ‘Introduction’ (n. 10), 6.

(13) D. J. Sherman and I. Rogoff (eds.), Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses,

Spectacles (Minneapolis 1994), xiv.

(14) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 6), 1–4, who notes that a variety of
‘different conceptual frameworks’ is what makes viewing meaningful.

(15) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 10.

(16) For the value assigned to such terms see Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 297;
on the value of the copy versus the ‘authentic’ in antiquity see C. Hallett,
‘Emulation versus Replication: Redefining Roman Copying’, JRA 18 (2005), 419–
35.

(17) For such distinctions and their embedded prejudices in their modern
museological context see C. Duncan, ‘The Art Museum as Ritual’, in J. C. Berlo
and R. B. Phillips, ‘The Problematics of Collecting and Display, Part 1’, ArtB 77
(1995), 12: in modern museums until quite recently western collections were
considered ‘art’, non-western ‘artefacts’. See J. Elsner, ‘From Pyramids to
Pausanias and Piglet: Monuments, Travel, and Writing’, in R. Osborn and S.
Goldhill (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge 1994), 224–5,
for a discussion of the monument as constituting an artefact as ‘an idea about
something which was once (and may still be) an existent artefact but has also
acquired a complex ideological resonance’.

(18) For the distinction made in contemporary terms see Sherman and Rogoff,
Museum Culture (n. 13), xii: ‘art’ is associated with pleasure, ‘artefact’ with
instruction. On this distinction in modern museums see L. Jordanova, ‘Objects of
Knowledge: A Historical Perspective on Museums’, in P. Vergo (ed.), The New
Museology (London 1989), 22–40; cf. J. Clifford, ‘Objects and Selves – an
Afterword’, in G. Stocking (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and
Material Culture. History of Anthropology 3 (Milwaukee 1985), 242.

(19) For a good discussion of the construction of social memory through objects
and place in general, including a good theoretical discussion, see Alcock,
Archaeologies (n.4); Van Dyke and Alcock, Archaeologies of Memory (n. 5), 1–3.

(20) See P. J. Holliday, The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the

Visual Arts (Cambridge 2002), xxiii.
Page 24 of 33

 
Introduction

(21) See e.g. J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and
Terminology (New Haven and London 1974); The Impact of Greek Art on Rome’,
TAPA 108 (1978), 155–74; E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome
(Ithaca 1992); K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture. An Interpretive Introduction
(Princeton 1996), 332–63; A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution
(Cambridge 2008), 3–35, for a good general (and theoretical) discussion.

(22) Although the authors of those works, as Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer
(n. 6), 12 observes, are themselves interpreters and viewers of ancient art; cf. 21
for his discussion on the difficulties in reconstructing a visual experience
through text.

(23) Such a focus is admittedly quite orthodox as J. Elsner, Roman Eyes. Visuality
and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton 2007), xiv, notes, but he also rightly
notes elsewhere, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 6), 11 that we must privilege
viewer response from the centres of power due to the nature of our sources.

(24) On Pliny the Elder’s sources see V. Naas, ‘L’art grec dans L’Histoire naturelle
de Pline L’Ancien’, Histoire de L’art, 35–6 (1996), esp. 16–19 for those concerning
Greek art; cf. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 10), 8–10, for a discussion of
the scholarship on Pliny’s sources. For how Pliny wrote his work see A. Locher,
‘The Structure of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, in R. French and F.
Greenaway (eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His
Sources and Influence (London and Sydney 1986), 21–8, esp. 26–7.

(25) See W. Coulson, The Reliability of Pliny’s Chapters on Greek and Roman
Sculpture’, CW 69 (1976), 361–72, who argues that Pliny was quite familiar with
the works of art he recorded and a careful researcher who drew on Greek
sources; cf. G. Gualandi, ‘Plinio e il collezionismo d’arte’, in Plinio il Vecchio sotto
il profilo storico e letterario. Atti del Convegno di Como 1979 (Como 1982), 259–
98, for Pliny on art collection.

(26) For the discussion of which see T. J. Cornell, The Value of the Literary
Tradition Concerning Archaic Rome’, in K. A. Raaflaub (ed.), Social Struggles in
Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders (Berkeley 1986),
52–76; cf. Elsner, ‘From Pyramids to Pausanias and Piglet’ (n. 17), 226, who
notes that it is not the ‘correct’ history by our standards that was or is important
‘but that it be convincing to the particular group of individuals … for whom it
serves as an explanation of the world they inhabit’.

(27) ‘Belief’ is the key word here, any error of such belief notwithstanding. See
D. Preziosi, ‘Museology and Museography’, ArtB 77 (1995), 13, who notes that
the museum is a ‘particular mode of fiction … an indispensable component of
statehood and of national and ethnic identity’. Cf. J. Fentress and C. Wickham
Social Memory (Oxford and Cambridge Mass. 1992), 24, who note that ‘our
knowledge of both the past and present is built on ideas and recollections in the
Page 25 of 33

 
Introduction

present mind’. The museum (and the past) in a sense, is a fictional form of
narrative. On the instability of memory concerning history and artefacts and on
their ability to ‘codify’ social meaning see R. Bradley, ‘The Translation of Time’,
in R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford
2003) 221–7.

(28) See L. Barkan, Transuming Passion: Ganymede and the Erotics of Humanism
(Stanford 1991), 17.

(29) Pliny, HN 36.23.

(30) For the visual as an utterance that communicates in its ancient context see
T. Hölscher, The Language of Images in Roman Art (Cambridge 2004), 2, who
remarks on the ‘syntactical’ nature of visual communication: ‘how a society may
coin a means of visual communication, how this language then reacts upon the
society as it uses and develops it, what the overall visual system is able to
achieve as a result, which structures of meaning are implied in its syntax and
repertoire of motifs. All of these are of real importance for social and cultural
history’.

(31) See Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 8: ‘The impact of structuralist and linguistic
thought—particularly in relation to the analysis of human communication
through words, myths, the organization of human relationships, and objects—
offered ways of understanding the links between these things in the context of
the crucial distinction between metonymy and metaphor’; cf. 15, 22. Also see T.
Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (New York 1995),
146–7, for discussion of artefacts as rhetorical objects whose meaning is derived
from the series of other signifiers that surround them.

(32) See J. Berger, Ways of Seeing (London 1972), 86: the collected object
reconfirms the possession of what it is desirable to possess.

(33) See A. Appadurai, ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in A.

Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective
(Cambridge 1986), esp. 38, for the observation that luxury goods in particular
serve a ‘rhetorical and social’ function and noting that ‘the necessity to which
they respond is fundamentally political’; J. Baudrillard, The System of Objects
(London 1996), 73–6 for how objects, esp. antique ones, represent the myth of
the origins of the self; also see Bennett, Birth of the Museum (n. 31), 128–30,
who remarks the power of the present to communicate with and reconstruct the
past in its own image through the deployment of objects. Cf. Clifford, ‘Objects
and Selves’ (n. 18), 244, who argues that objects, particularly of an external
provenance taken out of their original context, are ‘given value in systems of
meaning whose primary function is to confirm … knowledge and taste’; also see
C. Geertz, ‘Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight’, Daedalus, Winter (1972),

Page 26 of 33

 
Introduction

23: objects reduced to the level of ‘sheer appearances’ in fact articulate their
meaning more powerfully.

(34) Also see Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 18: ‘Objects play their own part in
perpetuating ideological structures and creating individual natures’, citing H.
Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago 1958), 137, who observed that ‘The
things of the world have the function of stabilizing human life, and their
objectivity lies in the fact that … men, their ever-changing nature
notwithstanding, can retrieve their sameness, that is, their identity, by being
related to the same chair and same table. In other words, against the
subjectivity of men stands the objectivity of the man-made world’. Cf. Pearce, 18:
‘Objects are not inert or passive; they help us to give shape to our identities and
purpose to our lives’.

(35) For collective identity, see F. E. S. Kaplan (ed.), Museums and the Making of
‘Ourselves’ (London 1994), 2, who notes that in terms of previous societies,
‘collections and displays were intended to unite a populace, to reduce conflict,
and to ensure political stability and continuity’. See Bennett, Birth of the
Museum (n. 31), 148–9, for the museum as an institution that establishes
national identity in the context of a long historical trajectory stretching both into
a very obscure origin and ‘into a boundless future’.

(36) The bibliography on this subject is ample. For a good discussion see Kaplan,
Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselves’ (n. 35), 1–2, who considers how the
modern museum arose with the formation of national identities and the
emergence of the modern nation-state, and remarks how museums have ‘played
important roles in creating national identity and promoting national agendas’.

(37) See Pearce, On Collecting, (n. 3), 27: ‘Collections are sets of objects, and …
like all other sets of objects, they are an act of the imagination, part corporate
and part individual, a metaphor intended to create meanings which help to make
individual identity and each individual’s view of the world’. Cf. ibid., 151; see
esp. 303: ‘Knowledge is a product of our social and psychological selves, and
hence, among other things, of all the efforts to construct individual identity
through the accumulation of collections.’ Also see F. Baekeland, ‘Psychological
Aspects of Art Collecting’, Psychiatry, 44 (1981), 45–59; Clifford, ‘Objects and
Selves’ (n. 18), 237–8; J. Canizzo, ‘How Sweet It Is: Culture Politics in Barbados’,
Muse, Winter (1987), 22–7; P. Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting,
and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley 1994), 298–316; G.
Kavanagh, ‘Making Histories, Making Memories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.), Making
Histories in Museums (London 1996), 6.

(38) See Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 17: To be at home in Rome was not to be
born there (how many Romans could make that boast?). It was rather to be
master of Roman knowledge. Without such knowledge, Romans might be

Page 27 of 33

 
Introduction

thought to imperil their own identity, while, by implication, Roman knowledge

could confer romanitas on the foreigner’.

(39) Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 6), 125–55, with particular emphasis
on the formulation of religious identity and viewing in Pausanias; cf. J. Elsner
and R. Cardinal (eds.), The Culture of Collecting (Cambridge Mass. 1994), 3; on
the definition and question of elite Roman identity or identities as culturally
defined, see J. Huskinson, ‘Elite Culture and the Identity of Empire’, in J.
Huskinson (ed.), Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman
Empire (London 2000), 95–123, esp. 96–7 citing Tacitus’ Agricola as an example
of multiple identities consisting of elements that are distinctly Roman, Greek,
elite, and provincial; cf. J. Huskinson, ‘Looking for Culture, Identity, and Power’,
in J. Huskinson (ed.), Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity, and Power in the
Roman Empire (London 2000), 10, who observes that while gender and ethnicity
are essentially fixed parts of human identity, one’s cultural identity is malleable;
also see R. Miles, ‘Communicating Culture, Identity, and Power’, in J. Huskinson
(ed.), Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman Empire
(London 2000), 34, who argues (drawing on close study of the Philopappos
monument) that identity is performative and notes the possibility of multiple
identities for the individual in antiquity. See Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural
Revolution (n. 21), 3–17, both for discussion of the construction of Roman
identity and a good theoretical summary of the question of the construction of
identity; cf. 23–8 for the ‘dialogue’ particularly between Greek and Roman
cultural identity.

(40) Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory (n. 27), 7.

(41) Ibid.; cf. Urry, ‘How Societies Remember the Past’ (n. 11), 55, for the
convergence of memory and visual culture, who notes that one does not
necessarily receive ‘artefactual history’ passively, since it involves reminiscence.

(42) Concerning the ancient theory of memory however, see in particular F. Yates,
The Art of Memory (London 1966), 1–49; cf. J. Farrell, The Phenomenology of
Memory in Roman Culture’, CJ 92 (1997), 373–83, for his discussion of memory
in ancient Rome; for a related discussion on memory see S. Price, ‘Memory in
ancient Greece’, in A. H. Rasmussen and S. W. Rasmussen (eds.), Religion and
Society. Rituals, Resources and Identity in the Ancient Graeco-Roman World. The
BOMOS-Conferences 2002–2005 (Analecta Romana Instituti Danici,
Supplementum 40) (Rome 2008), 165–76.

(43) See Vergil, Aeneid 8.312, 355–8; for discussion see Edwards, Writing Rome
(n. 11), 11: The use of ruins to evoke a superior past was to recur in many much
later meditations on the site of the city’.

(44) Ibid., 7–8.

Page 28 of 33

 
Introduction

(45) See H. Flower, The Art of Forgetting. Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman
Political Culture (Chapel Hill 2006), 51–5, esp. 53, for her astute observation
that nobilis comes directly from ‘notable’ or well-known; see now Wallace-
Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 21), 218–25, for a good discussion of the
construction of the identity of a Roman nobilis.

(46) Alcock, Archaeologies (n. 4), 24.

(47) Clifford, Predicament of Culture (n. 7), 218, cf. 238; also see G. Stocking,
Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture, History of
Anthropology 3 (Madison Wis. 1985), 5, for objects as a display of wealth.

(48) Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 105; cf. Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory
(n. 27), 88: ‘Events can be remembered more easily if they fit into forms of
narrative that the social group already has at its disposal … But they tend to be
remembered in the first place because of their power to legitimize the present,
and tend to be interpreted in ways that very closely parallel (often competing)
present conceptions of the world’.

(49) Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 166.

(50) Stocking, Objects and Others (n. 47), 5.

(51) T. Murphy, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia
(Oxford 2004), 14 citing in general Foucault (1970) where Murphy notes that
‘institutional knowledge’, which is what a collective heritage preserves in a
sense, creates ‘certain tacit negotiations with their readers, asserting and
sustaining their authority, implying or inscribing their proper use and audience’.
Cf. Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 9–10; also see in general P. Bourdieu, Distinction:
A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge Mass. 1984).

(52) For a good general discussion of the process whereby objects and place
legitimate authority see Van Dyke and Alcock, Archaeologies of Memory (n. 5), 3.

(53) See Pearce, On Collecting, 304: ‘Values are not “natural” and “revealed”;
they are constructed in the interest of specific social groups in order to enhance
their dominance but these groups also attempt to conceal this naked aggression
by fig-leaves of supposed tenderness, intellectual excitement, and so forth’. Cf.
Naas, ‘L’art grec’ (n. 24), 22 for the connection of power and collecting in
ancient Rome.

(54) Bradley, ‘The Translation of Time’ (n. 27), 225.

(55) See Bal and Bryson, ‘Semiotics and Art History’ (n. 6), 175–80 for a good
theoretical discussion on the semiotics of context, esp. 175 where they note that
context itself can constitute a text and ‘consists of signs that require
interpretation’. Cf. Barkan, Transuming Passion (n. 28), 10, who notes that

Page 29 of 33

 
Introduction

objects from a disjoined culture or tradition find meaning from their own
‘semantic universe’.

(56) A. P. Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”: Responses to Portraits and the Political

Uses of Images in Rome’, JRA 7 (1994), 84–5; for a related discussion see Pearce,
On Collecting (n. 3), 14.

(57) Suet. Aug. 59; Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 56), 85. The same could be
said of larger architectural programmes that constituted the venues for cultural
artefacts in general; see S. E. Alcock, ‘The Reconfiguration of Memory in the
Eastern Roman Empire’, in S. E. Alcock, T. N. D’Altroy, K. D. Morrison, and C. M.
Sinopoli, Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History (Cambridge
2001), 334–5; also see Alcock, Archaeologies (n. 4), 54.

(58) See Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 96–8; for the modern use of the term as
referring broadly to a collection of material objects see E. Schulz, ‘Notes on the
History of Collecting and Museums’, JHC 2.2 (1990), 211–12.

(59) See Varro, De Re Rustica 3.5.9; Pausanias 1.30.2; Diogenes Laertius 5.51; A.
Bounia, The Nature of Classical Collecting: Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE–
100 CE (Ashgate 2004), 293 for discussion.

(60) See R. Barnes, ‘Cloistered Bookworms in the Chicken-Coop of the Muses:

The Ancient Library of Alexandria’, in R. MacLeod (ed.), The Library of
Alexandria. Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (London and New York
2000), 61–78 for discussion.

(61) See L. Canfora, The Vanished Library. A Wonder of the Ancient World
(Berkeley 1987), for his study of the Library that was a part of the Museion; see
esp. 100–6 for a discussion of the sources; cf. L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient
World (New Haven 2001), 31–47; for the official management of the Museion and
its role as a cult centre see M. El-Abbadi, Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of
Alexandria, 2nd edn. (Paris 1992), 86–7; see R. MacLeod, ‘Introduction:
Alexandria in History and Myth’, in R. MacLeod (ed.), The Library of Alexandria.
Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (London and New York 2000), 1–15 for
an excellent discussion of the Library and the separate institution of the
Museion; concerning the purpose and function of the Library see H. J. de
Vleeschauwer, ‘Afterword: The Museion’, in H. C. Wright, The Oral Antecedents
of Greek Librarianship (Provo 1977), 176–80.

(62) See in general C. Jacob and F. Polignac (eds.), Alexandria, Third Century BC:
The Knowledge of the World in a Single City (Alexandria 2000).

(63) See Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 98.

(64) See Sherman and Rogoff, Museum Culture (n. 13), xi–xii.

Page 30 of 33

 
Introduction

(65) See Stocking, Objects and Others (n. 47), 5; cf. e.g. A. E. Coombs, ‘Museums
and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities’, Oxford Art Journal, 11
(1988), 57–68.

(66) See Bennett, Birth of the Museum (n. 31), 1–10.

(67) MacDonald, ‘Introduction’ (n. 10), 4–5.

(68) J. Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient
Heritage (Princeton 2008); J. Cuno, (ed.), Whose Culture? The Promise of
Museums and the Debate over Antiquities (Princeton 2009).

(69) For the ‘museological’ nature of Pliny’s work see K. Jex-Blake and E. Sellers,
The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (repr. Chicago 1968 and 1977
with prefaces and select bibliographies by Raymond V. Schroder, SJ) (London
and New York 1896), xci–xcii; for the ‘museographic’ index see 247–52, for Rome
specifically see 249–52; cf. Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 59), 182–
207. Jex-Blake and Sellers were preceded by E. Bonaffé’s survey, Les
Collectioneurs de l’ancienne Rome. Notes d’un amateur (Paris 1867).

(70) See G. Becatti, Arte e gusto negli scrittori latini (Florence 1950), 90–6;
‘Opere d’arte nella Roma di Tiberio’, AC 25–6 (1973–74), 18–53.

(71) See N. Von Holst, Creators, Collectors, and Connoisseurs: The Anatomy of
Artistic Taste from Antiquity to the Present Day (London 1967), 21–42.

(72) See G. F. Koch, Die Kunstaustellung (Berlin 1967), 12–30; M. Pape,

Griechische Kunstwerke aus Kriegsbeute und irhe offentliche Aufstellung in Rom
(Hamburg 1975), 143–93; A. Celani, Opere d’arte greche nella Roma di Augusto
(Naples 1998).

(73) L. Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (Toronto 1974), 238–52.

(74) See e.g. J. Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and
its Linked Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared (New York 1982), 43 for
his argument that collecting began with the advent of the Greek pottery market;
cf. 99 for discussion of the market for Greek reproductions.

(75) See L. Duret and J. P. Néraudau, Urbanisme et métamorphoses de la Rome

antique (Paris 1983), 279–93 for Rome’s function as a ‘museum’; cf. 304–16 for
the importation of Greek artistic treasures, esp. statuary.

(76) D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological Theory

and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes (London
1973), 247–64.

Page 31 of 33

 
Introduction

(77) See e.g. J. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the
History of Art (London 1991), 159 for the Temple of Concord’s collection.

(78) See esp. S. Carey, ‘The Problems of Totality: Collecting Greek Art, Wonders,
and Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC 12.1 (2000), 1–13; also see
Murphy, Pliny (n. 51).

(79) B. Bergmann, ‘Greek Masterpieces and Roman Recreative Fictions’, HSCP

97 (1995), 87–94.

(80) T. Hölscher, ‘The Transformation of Victory into Power: From Event to

Structure’, in S. Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient
Rome (Cambridge 2006), 41–2.

(81) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 27.

(82) Also see A. E. Coombs, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture, and
Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (New Haven
1994), 57, who notes that in Britain a 1902 initiative making museum visits for
school children ‘an integral part of their curriculum’ was wedded to what was
termed ‘social imperialism’, designed to promote a unified ideology whereby ‘all
classes could be comfortably incorporated into a programme of expansionist
economic policy in the colonies coupled with the promise of social reforms at
home’.

(83) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 28; cf. 31 where she notes that the
government desired that the portraits in the National Gallery be of admirable
individuals whose deeds were worthy and would promote good conduct.

(84) Ibid., 29; cf. 37: ‘By being publicly displayed in the company of leaders and
heroes from the past, the immediate predecessors of the national administration
were given recognition as appropriate rulers’.

(85) Ibid., 19.

(86) Ibid., 24.

(87) Also see J. Buzard, The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the
Ways to Culture 1800–1918 (Oxford 1993), 7 for discussion of this dual frame of
reference.

(88) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 49.

(89) Ibid., 50.

(90) Ibid., 25; cf. Bennett, Birth of the Museum (n. 31), 130, who notes ‘the past,
as embodied in historic sites and museums, while existing in a frame which

Page 32 of 33

 
Introduction

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

Page 33 of 33

 
Collecting and Acquisition

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

Collecting and Acquisition

Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords

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

Keywords:   cultural materials, Rome, artefacts, personal identity, Roman power, Cicero

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

Page 1 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

not to say that Roman concerns for collecting were purely based on
considerations of domination. The masterpieces of the Greek world also held an
irresistible aesthetic attraction to the light-fingered Roman governor or
ambitious general.2 In addition, cultural property taken from Greece and
elsewhere constituted a form of cultural capital for the elite.3 It represented in
symbolic terms the military, economic, and religious domination of the ‘Other’,
and became an integral part of Roman self-expression. Collection of Greek
cultural property is particularly relevant in this regard, since it came to be
identified not merely with taste, culture, and sophistication, but was also a clear
mark of power and prestige.

We will be pursuing this line of thought in subsequent chapters in one form or

another. What we would like to explore here is the progressive importation into
the city of cultural material. The means itself, often based on violence or
economic muscle, in fact connects such material directly to Roman power by
virtue (p.32) of the methods of acquisition. The overall impression our sources
give is that the public display of such material (particularly war spoils) was a
distinct good, with a general disapproval of excess acquisition for private use.4
Part of this impression stems from Cicero’s representation of acquisition in his
Verrine orations, perhaps our best single literary source for this phenomenon.
However as we shall see, the disposal of such material was one that was fraught
with all manner of contingencies; acquisition of cultural property could be
viewed in different ways at different times, depending on the circumstances. The
material that did find its way into private collections however does offer us an
opportunity to survey how personal identity could be expressed and even shaped
through the collection of objects, and how ‘attitudes towards the “other” inform
perceptions of the “self” ’.5

Cultural Artefacts, Prestige, and Competition

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

Page 2 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

One common thread that exists among those who variously collected or imported
cultural property into Rome was the mania for all things Greek. As the premier
culture of the Mediterranean in classical antiquity, aspiring to own or possess
Greek cultural objects could signify one’s erudition, cultural sophistication, or
political and military domination of a society believed more advanced in the
areas of art, science, and literature. Despite the objections of such figures as
Cato the Elder, it offered the ambitious Roman something to which to aspire.9 In
addition, when Roman generals adorned the city with such material it had a
number of functions: the display of art works created a collective hegemonic
visual discourse throughout the city in which great works of art became a part of
the story of Roman conquest and of Rome’s history and, consequently, national
identity (considerations that we will explore in greater depth in chapter four). In
a society where political prestige was paramount, visual culture played a key
role in that competition. Greek cultural artefacts also became something of a
political football in Roman circles, in which the presence of Greek art and its use
turned contentious.

It bears noting that from an early date (the occasionally negative view of foreign
importation of art and luxury especially from the East notwithstanding),
commanders were always eager to adorn their triumphs, themselves a sort of
temporary exhibition, with the spoils of conquered peoples to commemorate
their achievements.10 Indeed, such display during a triumph was the highlight of
(p.34) a Roman’s career, and establishes a direct connection between the
display of cultural material and Roman prestige and power. But Roman
domination did not come, to the Romans’ way of thinking, without pietas,
something visually expressed in the various dedications in which the power of
foreign gods were literally taken and transferred to the city of Rome. One of the
most famous and earliest examples we have of this is the importation of the cult
image of Juno of Veii, transferred to Rome after the dictator M. Furius Camillus’
victory over Veii in 396 BC. The event serves as a locus classicus for Roman
pietas, when famously the ritual of evocatio (a summoning forth of the deity) was
used in moving the statue (and the goddess herself) to Rome.11 The Romans,
having captured Veii, deconstructed the goddess’ temple and moved her (after
having asked Juno’s permission) into the Temple of Juno on the Aventine.
Camillus may have had a special affection for Juno, since he also dedicated three
golden bowls to her on the Capitoline in the chapel of Jupiter after he defeated
the Etruscans at Sutrium in 389 BC.12 The Capitoline was a favourite (and
prominent) location for the advertisement of one’s pietas from an early date and
was a cult site associated with imperial victory as well.13 The Romans believed it
to be Jupiter’s abode even predating the mythical King Evander; by tradition
King Tarquin the Proud chose it as the location for the central state cult, and we
need to imagine its site and buildings (see fig. 2.1) becoming crowded over time
with a profusion of cultural objects. Hence after Camillus, Livy (6.29.8–10)
relates that T. Quinctius Cincinnatus, the commander in a campaign against

Page 3 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

Praeneste (and the eight surrounding towns it controlled) in 379 BC, took a
statue of Jupiter Imperator from Praeneste (p.35)

and dedicated it on the Capitol

between the shrines of Jupiter and
Minerva and added the following
inscription: luppiter atque divi
omnes hoc dederunt ut T.
Quinctius dictator oppida novem
caperet (‘Jupiter and all the gods
granted that Titus Quinctius as
dictator captured nine towns’).14
While Livy may well be mistaken
in his identification of the statue,
which is quite possibly that
mentioned by Cicero and
dedicated by T. Quinctius Fig. 2.1 The Capitoline, with its temple to
Flamininus who triumphed over Jupiter Optimus Maximus, was the site of
Philip V of Macedon in 194 BC, the the central cult of the Roman state, and,
essential point here is the place of as this model illustrates, gives a sense of
dedication, not the dedicator per an area cluttered with buildings that in
se.15 Whoever dedicated it, that a antiquity would have been still more
general would choose to take a
cluttered with tatuary, votives,
Jupiter with the title Imperator,
commemoratives, and assorted cultural
set it up on the Capitoline and
objects. A model of the Capitoline from
commemorate his assistance in his
campaign was to the Roman mind the Museo della Civiltà Romana, Rome.
an unquestionable act of pietas—it
accepted the power of the god as
one that helped Rome. Moreover, the statue and its placement directly attributes
divine support, thus favour, to the general’s success, something that was to have a long
tradition in Roman culture reaching into the empire.16
(p.36) Over a century later M. Fulvius Flaccus similarly imported a new deity
after his conquest of Falerii (264 BC); on that occasion it appears the god
Vortumnus (or Vertumnus) made his first appearance in Rome, and spoils from
the campaign (conducted against the Volsinii) were dedicated in front of the
Temple of Mater Matuta.17 If we can trust our sources then, the trend was
already in place prior to hostile Roman encounters with the Greeks to their
south and east, by which time it was a well-established practice that generals
dedicated prestige objects in public venues to immortalize their victories and
doubtless add also to their auctoritas. Moreover, the importation of deities or
their imagines (‘images’) added to or at least visually asserted Roman
domination over her foes from an early date, arguably on a divine scale.

Shortly before Fulvius’ victory in 264 BC the city supposedly started to be

inundated with Greek cultural artefacts; the trend started, according to our
sources, with M. Curius Dentatus’ triumph after the Pyrrhic War (275 BC).

Page 4 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

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

Page 5 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

criticism that was perhaps driven by Marcellus’ desire to enhance the city’s (and
his own) image, as well as to finance the completion of the Temple of Honos et
Virtus, which he had vowed after the battle of Clastidium in 222 BC.26
Marcellus’ looting of Syracuse is a prime example that shows how contingent the
handling of plunder could be when viewed from a variety of perspectives; Greek
sensibilities came into play, as did Roman politics and cultural considerations, in
particular Polybius’ concern about the moral impact of luxury, a concern that
was by no means confined to Greek authors (see pp. 68–9).

Plutarch’s life further indicates that Marcellus was subject to reproach for his
excessive despoiling of the city, and was subsequently compared unfavourably to
Fabius Maximus who later captured Tarentum (in 209 BC), which he left
comparatively unscathed, although as Östenberg points out, Plutarch’s version is
dubious, given what Livy and Strabo tell us of Fabius’ plundering of Tarentum’s
acropolis.27 When Fabius’ turn came to dispose of the material left in Tarentum,
Plutarch more favourably reports that he said, ‘Let us leave their angry gods to
the Tarentines’.28 Regardless of the extent of Fabius’ plundering, while among
divinities Fabius reportedly ‘only’ took a bronze colossus of Hercules by Lysippus
which he set up on the Capitoline, he also placed a bronze equestrian statue of
himself next to it.29 The statue may well have been similar to the gilded, larger-
than-life statue of Hercules that now is a part of the Capitoline collection (fig.
2.2). For Scipio’s rival there could be no clearer statement: the association of his
equestrian statue with Lysippus (the only sculptor allowed to portray Alexander),
and with Hercules (the enduring hero who undertook the steep path to virtue),
was a stark reminder that Fabius was the real hero of the war and the real
conqueror of Hannibal: unus (p.39)

Page 6 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(p.40) homo nobis cunctando

restituit rem (‘one man, by
delaying, restored our state to us’,
Ennius, Annales 363, O. Skutsch,
ed. (Oxford 1985)). It was a case
where a Roman grandee used the
artist, the subject, and the work’s
various historical associations to
make a statement regarding his
own achievements.
A similar motive may have been
at work when M. Terentius
Lucullus (brother of the
renowned L. Licinius Lucullus)
dedicated a colossal Apollo on
the Capitoline from Apollonia, a
Greek city he took during his
campaigns against the
Mysians.30 In the politically
competitive atmosphere of the
late republic, and in the wake of
a public campaign by Pompey to
minimize his rival’s
achievements, Lucullus may Fig. 2.2 A large Hellenistic statue in
have wanted to remind people gilded bronze of Hercules holds the
of his role in the tumultuous apples of the Hesperides and is possibly
East of the 70s BC. In addition, based on an original by Lysippus. There
Lucullus appears to have had a were a number of such large statues that
special relationship with the Roman generals dedicated on the
deity as a man of culture and Capitoline. H: 2.41 m. c. second century
studied luxury, and it will have BC. Museo del Palazzo dei Conservatori,
suited him well.31 Rome.

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

Page 7 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

as a public statement of power over a foreign enemy, as well as a means of

enhancing his political prestige in Rome itself.

Throughout the second century BC the importation of Greek objects reportedly

increased. C. Lucretius Gallus acquired numerous pictures in his conquest of
Greece (Boeotia) in 170 BC, though, foreshadowing Verres, supposedly not
entirely by honourable or honest means; and, like Verres, he was prosecuted for
allegedly illegal appropriation of cultural property and criticized for his private
use of artistic treasures.33 Two decades after Nobilior the renowned conquest by
M. Aemilius Paullus of Perseus, the last king of the Antigonid dynasty, saw the
importation of some significant cultural artefacts, lavishly (p.41)

paraded in his triumph.34 Grand

acquisitions also attended
Metellus Macedonicus’ and L.
Mummius’ conquests in 146 BC. In
that year, following his triumph, Q.
Metellus Macedonicus surrounded
the temples of Jupiter Stator and
Juno Regina with a portico, a
structure whose sole raison d’être
was to show off a haul of twenty-
five equestrian statues that
Alexander the Great had
commissioned from Lysippus
commemorating his companions
fallen at the battle of the Granicus
in 334 BC, no doubt similar to a
smaller copy, possibly based on
the same group, of Alexander
himself, discovered in Fig. 2.3 This miniature bronze equestrian
Herculaneum (see fig. 2.3).35 The
statue of Alexander the Great from
narrative structure Metellus
Herculaneum was possibly based on one
created through the deployment of
from the life-sized group Metellus
these spoils may have been
intended to compete with the Macedonicus brought back as spoils from
prestige Mummius had garnered Greece in 146 BC to adorn his portico.
with (p.42) his victory at Corinth, H: .50 m. A Roman copy after a Greek
whereby Metellus could present original. Museo Archeologico Nazionale,
himself, in a sense, as the Naples.
conqueror of one of antiquity’s
greatest military dynasties (as a
successor kingdom to Alexander the Great).
Our sources indicate that Mummius’ conquest and sack of Corinth in 146 BC
entailed one of the largest hauls of artistic treasures in Rome’s history.36 They
also generally agree that Mummius was generous in his distribution of plunder
and scrupulous in his accounting, threatening that if anyone lost a painting or

Page 8 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

statue it would have to be replaced.37 Livy asserted that, unlike others, he

appropriated little for his own personal enjoyment (Periochae 52), and instead
gave an exhibition of the spoils after which he took care to distribute them
throughout the city for its ornamentation rather than adorning his house; the
statues alone reportedly numbered three thousands.38 The quantity may be
exaggerated though likely was large by any measure; similarly, the claim of
Mummius’ moderation is something of a moot point, since he appears to have
exploited the material he took by using it as an instrument of patronage. He was
thereby able to use cultural property not merely as an expression but literally as
an instrument of political power. Mummius proceeded to use the spoils as a
source of revenue to adorn the city. Thus, according to our sources, he sold off
all the bronze vessels from the theatre in Corinth and used the proceeds to make
a dedication to Luna.39 Indeed, Mummius’ conquest—as was the case with
others who sold off spoils for cash—gave him a long reach, with communities in
provinces as far away as Spain benefiting from his largess in light of the ample
number of imports he could bestow as beneficia (‘favours’).40 Closer to home, the
bronze Apollo that adorned the god’s precinct in Pompeii may offer a surviving
example of the sort of material (p.43) Mummius distributed, with the words
Luci Mummi written on the statue base (fig. 2.4).41 His generosity was
reportedly taken advantage of when L. Licinius Lucullus asked Mummius to lend
some statues to adorn his newly built Temple of Felicitas (‘Good Fortune’) until
its dedication, when he promised their return. The statues included Praxiteles’
group known as the Muses of Thespiae (Thespiades) and a Venus, also by
Praxiteles.42 Contrary to his promise however, Lucullus dedicated them to the
goddess and did not return them but rather dared Mummius to remove the now
sacred property.43 Yet their dedication in Lucullus’ temple actually enhanced
Mummius’ renown according to our sources, and harmed Lucullus’ reputation.
As Gruen has pointed out, it was a testament to Mummius’ religious scruple and
possibly his genuine appreciation of Greek artistic talent that he did not press
for the statues’ return after their consecration.44 It was an instance where
cultural objects were used as instruments of political rivalry in Rome’s politically
agonistic environment, which we shall explore later (pp. 150–6). The lesson our
sources such as Livy and Strabo take away from Mummius’ importation and that
of other Romans in general is that the public disbursement of cultural artefacts
could enhance one’s repute and even political clout in terms of the prestige such
material could bring to nobles and their households. The particular use to which
it was put also became a means by which Roman identity—one’s liberalitas
(‘generosity’), frugalitas (‘thrift’), munificentia (‘munificence’), moderatio
(‘temperance’), and the like—could be variously constructed or negotiated, while
the artefacts themselves became signifiers of Roman power and dominance over
conquered peoples.

It should be re-emphasized, however, that there was no unambiguously ‘good’ or

‘bad’ way to handle plunder, but rather it depended on a variety of factors, as

Page 9 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

the example of Marcellus illustrates. Cato’s apparent concern, for example,

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

Page 10 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(p.45) Glabrio in 190 BC, after

some loot from Glabrio’s campaign
went missing (Livy 37.57.13–14).
Cato also aimed his fire at
commanders for appropriating
objects not captured in war; his
speech ne spolia figeretur nisi de
hoste capta (‘That spoils not be
dedicated unless taken from an
enemy captive'), may have
similarly attacked commanders
who despoiled objects without
defeating the enemy.46 The rough
and tumble of Roman political life
made the use of plunder deeply
fraught and contentious,
rendering its disposal an
occasionally convenient target.
The most renowned example of
this is of course Cicero’s
prosecution against Verres, in
which he attacked Verres’
acquisition of spoils not by right
of conquest but by open theft.
Cicero also emphasized that
Fig. 2.4 A copy of a bronze statue of
Verres saved his loot for private
Apollo (the original now in the Museo
use rather than for adorning the
Archeologico Nazionale in Naples) stands
city or putting the material on
on the east side of his temple precinct in
public display.47 By way of
Pompeii and gives a sense of how some of
comparison, Cicero cites P.
Mummius’ loot might have been
Servilius Isauricus as one
displayed in situ. Mummius’ haul allowed
among the judges in the case
him to bestow such objects on towns
who in 74 BC had captured the
throughout Italy and beyond. Temple of
city of Olympus in Lycia, a place
Apollo, Pompeii.
full of works of art, winning
spoils through strength,
parading them in his triumphal procession, and then carefully entering them into
the public accounts in the state treasury.48 Cicero produced Servilius’ accounts
at trial and entered them as evidence into the court proceedings; he further
notes the accounts’ detailed records, including the number of the statues, their
size, form, and condition.49 Given the Roman love of order and measuring it is
very likely that this was standard procedure during campaign, when accounts
were recorded of the material taken and presented to the state, something that
Livy’s (and Plutarch’s) detailed accounts of the displays in a number of triumphs
would seem to indicate. In addition, Fabius Maximus’ famous remark about
leaving the angry gods at Tarentum to the Tarentines was reportedly elicited by
Page 11 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

the inquiry of a scriba (‘clerk’) who appears to have been taking inventory of
such material (Livy 27.16.8). It is entirely possible that he or his sources may
well have had access to records of this sort.50 The pontifices appear to have kept
similar inventories, according to Livy, who tells us that they were in charge of
determining to which category of art material taken from a city belonged.51 In
the course of the principate moreover such cataloguing was to become an
important activity overseen by well-placed magistrates (see p. 55). To return to
Verres though, his case appears illustrative of the general principle that the
disposal of plunder could be highly contentious and attitudes towards its
disposal politically motivated. (p.46) Cicero certainly used the chance to
prosecute Verres to enhance his reputation, and further political considerations,
such as the composition of juries and the place of senators on them were in play
as well, as were Cicero’s own political connections in Sicily.52 Verres also had
powerful defenders, including Hortensius, and one wonders if the prosecution
would have taken place at all were it not for a good dose of Ciceronian ambition.

We have already noted Cicero’s representation of Marcellus’ importation of

artistic treasures from his Sicilian campaign. He mentions in addition L.
Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus who fought in Asia, T. Quinctius Flamininus who
fought Philip V of Macedon, M. Aemilius Paullus who conquered Perseus, and L.
Mummius who sacked Corinth, remarking that their spoils adorned the city, its
temples, and every part of Italy, an assertion plausible enough and corroborated
by other sources, while he maintains (less credibly) that their houses were
devoid of statues and pictures. Verres’ adornment of the Forum on the other
hand, with plunder dishonestly, even violently appropriated from allies, was
simply a melancholy spectacle, evidence according to Cicero not of valour but of
depravity.53 This was a far cry from the likes of Aemilius Paullus who, when he
triumphed over Perseus in 167 BC, allegedly took nothing from the spoils except
a silver cup, which he gave to his son-in-law Tubero, and books.54 Such
scrupulous behaviour was extolled as exemplary and was a means by which to
gauge a man’s moral fibre.

When Pompey, for example, came into possession of some of Mithridates’ attire
and armaments, a subordinate named Publius stole a sword belt purportedly
worth four hundred talents and the king’s tiara, a work of apparently excellent
craftsmanship. The two pieces were then handed over secretly by Mithridates’
foster-brother Gaius to Sulla’s son Faustus. Pompey later found the culprit out
with the help of Pharnaces and the thefts were duly punished (Plut. Pomp. 42.3).
In the literary and historical record, Pompey was noted for his (relative) respect
for cultural property. Cicero, in the Pro Lege Manilia (40), praises his integrity
during his extraordinary command to end piracy that was then rampant
throughout the Mediterranean, noting that he refused even to look at the
statues, paintings, and other temptations Greek cities presented to a Roman
commander. Later Cicero argues in the same speech (66) that one of Pompey’s
qualifications for command in Asia was his abstemiousness, a characteristic of
Page 12 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

his noted elsewhere in the historical record.55 Thus when Stratonice, one of
Mithridates’ concubines, surrendered to Pompey, he refused, according to (p.
47) Plutarch (Pomp. 36.6–7) to accept any of the adornments and goods of the
fortresses she possessed, instead receiving only those objects that would adorn
his triumph or Rome’s temples. Cicero’s lavish praise will have doubtless been
coloured by his interest in alliance with Pompey. It bears noting however, that
Pompey appears to have relied, as did Cicero, on Cicero’s friend T. Pomponius
Atticus to procure pieces for his private collections rather than simply on
plunder.56 His contemporary and predecessor in command, the sybaritic
Lucullus, was equally selective while in the East. Upon capturing Sinope, a city
adorned with numerous treasures, he respected its patrimony, taking according
to Strabo (12.3.11) only a globe by Billarus and a statue of Autolycus (the city’s
founder) by Sthennis. Cato the Younger was more thorough in his scouring of
Greek cities. In 58 BC, upon Ptolemy’s suicide, he stripped Cyprus of its
treasures and carted them off to Rome (the looting presumably included the
famous shrines of Zeus and of Aphrodite).57 He reportedly sold all the statues he
took except one of Zeno, founder of the Stoic school, a favourite philosopher of
Cato’s.58

Despite such appropriation, it appears that Cato (as was similarly the case for
Pompey) had a reputation as one who was scrupulous in his accounting for
cultural property acquired in battle or during governance of a province. Hence,
Plutarch tells us (Cat. Min. 38) that Cato was meticulous in the accounts he kept
of despoiled artistic treasures and careful in their transport back to the city, and
also notes his distress at the loss of accounting records after his campaign
against Ptolemy in Cyprus. In the same passage Plutarch states that he
apparently took it as a matter of personal integrity his ability to account for all
plundered material; any losses at sea were accounted for and, if possible,
recovered by the use of cork floats acting as markers for the valuable wrecks.59
Public officials were apparently required to keep records of this sort, since
Cicero indicates that Verres (Verr. 2.4.36) could produce no accounts attesting
whether or not statues from Sicily he had given as gifts to friends had been
purchased or not. Such records will have been no doubt produced for the senate,
will have gone into the public accounts, and been kept on the books. Similar
public records existed as well for private purchases, which were generally kept
by customs officials who assessed export duty (portorium) on luxury items.60

(p.48) One other means of acquisition that ought not to go without mention is
that which could take place through treaty and negotiation. Gruen notes, for
example, a ‘revealing clause’ in the pact between the Romans and the Aetolians
against Philip V in 212 or 211 BC that gave the Romans ‘free disposal of all
moveable booty’, that would include art objects.61 Such ‘legitimate’ acquisition,
through war or negotiation, of cultural property and its subsequent public
display were the ‘proper’ ways for a Roman of high standing to acquire and use
such material. It was with this in mind that Juvenal (8.100–7) could caricature
Page 13 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

Verres for plundering peaceful allies and for using their loot for private pleasure.
Such an attitude at least in terms of the public use of property was one that was
quite persistent in Rome, and one that could be exploited from the time of Verres
(and likely before) to the time of Nero (and beyond). Privately one suspects that
one got away with what one could and only when an individual was politically
vulnerable did the private use of cultural property became an issue. Political
patronage and the ties one had to the aggrieved parties will have doubtless been
determining factors in whether one was prosecuted for ‘illegal’ appropriation or
not, as was the case for Cicero, who had developed connections among the
Sicilians, resulting (in part) in Verres’ prosecution. Moreover while privately
connoisseurship was respected and collecting such treasures among the elite
common, publicly it could prove a different matter. One ought not to be too
enamoured of such objects, which should be consumed moderately for private
use, with the lion’s share reserved for public enjoyment.

There is no better example of this than Cicero’s prosecution of Verres, the

corrupt governor of Sicily who, rather than gathering loot by right of conquest,
simply appropriated it, thereby abusing his authority.62 The difficulty in
assessing Verres’ actions, however, is one of distortion: we must look through
the prism of Cicero’s rhetoric, though given Verres’ self-imposed exile due to his
apparently indefensible position it is reasonable to assume that Cicero’s
portrayal is generally a fair if not entirely accurate one. The breadth and scale of
Verres’ depredations were astonishing, and started early in his career when he
served on the staff of Cn. Cornelius Dolabella in the East. Hence when at
Tenedos, contrary to the wishes of its citizens, he carried off a particularly fine
piece of statuary on display in the comitium, while he also deprived Chios,
Erythrae, and Halicarnassus of particularly fine works (Verr. 2.1.49), though
Aspendus, which Cicero says contained much fine statuary, suffered particular
insult (Verr. 2.1.53), with both public and (p.49) private shrines relieved of
their art treasures. Worst of all, he appropriated ‘even that famous citharode of
Aspendus’ (etiam illum Aspendium citharistam), an apparent cultural icon to
which the proverb ‘all the music was inside him’ was attached. As Dolabella’s
legate Verres even violated Apollo’s sanctuary and birthplace on Delos by looting
it of its ancient statuary (Verr. 2.1.46).

His tenure as governor in Sicily gives us an added window into the rough and
tumble process by which the illegal acquisition of cultural property could take
place. During his governorship he hired two brothers onto his staff from Cibyra,
Tlepolemus and Hiero, one a modeller in wax, the other a painter; they were
sent to scout out particularly fine pieces, Verres believing no doubt that as
artists they would have connoisseurs’ eyes for loot.63 Armed with his agents,
Verres undertook a devastating programme of pillaging the island of its cultural
treasures. In Syracuse Verres took a statue of Paean and of Aristeus from the
Temple of Liber, and a statue of Jupiter Imperator from its temple; the last of
these was particularly egregious, if Cicero’s claim that it ranked among the top
Page 14 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

three statues of Jupiter in the world is credible.64 He also removed from

Syracuse for his own use a series of paintings in Minerva’s temple that depicted
a cavalry engagement of King Agathocles.65

In addition to looting towns of artistic treasures wholesale, Verres had a

practised nose for sniffing out fine pieces in private collections as well.
Consequently, Verres simply appropriated some quality bosses from Phylarchus
of Centauripa that had once belonged to King Hieron (Verr. 2.4.29). In this
instance it was not necessarily the artistic workmanship that gave the pieces
their value, but rather the history of the artefact. The incident constitutes an act
of meta-collecting, in which a previous owner or collector, by reason of his or her
repute, adds to or actually generates the work’s value.66 Yet another private
collector to suffer at the hands of Verres was Pamphilus of Lilybaeum, who
owned a jug made by Boëthius, a large and lovely work according to Cicero
(Verr. 2.4.32). Indeed, Cicero asserts that in the end no statue, painting, or
image remained in the province (Verr. 2.4.1–2). Moreover Verres’ predations
were not purely a matter of robbery. There were times when at least a pretense
was made of a legal purchase, though in Verres’ case this was laughable at best.
Hence Cicero (p.50) produced in court the account books for purchase from a
prominent and wealthy provincial named Heius (Verr. 2.4.12–14): Cicero
introduced these accounts into evidence and ridiculed them, since Verres had
bought pieces by Praxiteles, Polyclitus, and Myron for a very small sum through
intimidation. Ultimately, Cicero makes this whole affair a matter of sacrilege on
the grounds that Verres had plundered statues consecrated in Heius’ family
chapel.67 It was the impious nature of Verres’ appropriations that Cicero found
so easy to exploit, and he compared Verres’ actions to Mummius’ in Greece,
contrasting somewhat dubiously Mummius’ respect for consecrated statues with
Verres’ greed (Verr. 2.4.4). Verres, though, may have been more interested in
objects that could convert into hard cash than material with any historical
significance. Thus, nearly two hundred years later, Plutarch (Nic. 28.5) could
recount seeing the shield of Nicias, the Athenian commander who had come to
grief in Sicily in 413 BC, still hanging in one of Syracuse’s temples as a victory
trophy.

During the principate there was less opportunity for such pillaging (with some
notable exceptions), and areas that were conquered, at least after the Augustan
settlement, such as Britain or Dacia, will not have offered the trove of artistic or
cultural treasures as did the East. Augustus himself reportedly brought the
treasure of the Ptolemies back from Egypt in his Alexandrian triumph, including
no doubt artefacts that were similar to the Farnese Cup, a refined objet d’art of
the sort that we can imagine subsequently found its way onto the Roman art
market (see fig. 2.5). Augustus, however, likely sold much of the treasure off,
since Suetonius (Aug. 41.1; cf. 71.1) says that a great deal of cash passed into
private hands after his triumph. He reportedly melted down the gold and kept
only a myrrhine cup. According to Strabo (14.2.19), Augustus was equally
Page 15 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

moderate when he appropriated a portrait of Antigonus by Apelles from the

Coans whose famed temple to Aesculapius contained a number of famous votive
offerings, including Apelles’ painting of Aphrodite Anadyomenē (‘Aphrodite
Rising from the Sea’). In return, Augustus gave the Coans a remission of 100
talents.

The East in particular appears always to have been a place of temptation. The
future emperor Tiberius, for one, while in self-imposed exile on Rhodes,
compelled the Parians to sell him a renowned statue of Vesta.68 Tiberius’
successor, Caligula, was—not surprisingly—substantially less moderate. His
tastes tended towards the more grandiose, as apparent in his appropriation of
Alexander the Great’s breastplate, which he had stolen from his tomb, if we can
believe (p.51)

Suetonius (Calig. 52).69 Caligula

also undertook to relocate the
statue of Olympian Zeus to Rome,
but while it was being dismantled
for transport it reportedly gave
out a mighty laugh, causing the
scaffolding to collapse and the
workmen to flee in terror.70 In a
somewhat different version,
Josephus says that one of the chief
engineers in charge of the project
reported to Memmius Regulus,
who was given the task of
transporting the statue, that it
would be ruined if moved. (p.52)
Regulus was only saved from
execution for his delay by
Caligula’s death. More generally,
Josephus says that Caligula
relieved Greek temples of their Fig. 2.5 The Farnese Cup, a sardonyx
paintings, sculptures, and cameo, is a Greek original from the third
dedications ‘since it was not right
or second century BC, and very likely an
that beautiful objects remain
example of the sort of thing that entered
elsewhere than in the most
the art market after Augustus defeated
beautiful place’ (i.e., Rome) and
that he adorned his palace, Cleopatra in 30 BC and appropriated the
gardens, and residences in Italy treasures of the Ptolemies. H: .20 m.
with his plunder.71 Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.
This was no light matter. During
the empire certain cities in the
Greek East will have been points of pilgrimage and tourist destinations. Their
cultural heritage may have been a partial factor in the vitality of local economies
and, more importantly, a source of civic pride: Cicero (Verr. 2.4.4), for example,

Page 16 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

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

The Restoration of Cultural Property

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

Nonetheless, the Romans did have a notion that cultural property, if possible,
should be restored to its rightful owner—provided it suited their purposes. The
activities of Scipio Aemilianus after the Third Punic War are perhaps our best
example of one who undertook to return cultural artefacts to their proper
place.79 Plutarch reports that when Scipio took Carthage he proclaimed that
those contingents from Sicily who wanted could lay claim to the plunder the
Carthaginians had previously taken and repatriate it. He also ordered a general
Page 17 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

search of the plunder from Carthage for items captured in the past from the
Sicilians for the purpose of restoration; treasures were subsequently returned to
the people of (p.54) Thermae, Gela, and Agrigentum, the last of which received
back Phalaris’ notorious brazen bull.80

According to Cicero (Verr. 2.2.86–7), some communities particularly benefited,

the citizens of Himera among them. After the destruction of their community,
Himera’s citizens had settled nearby at Thermae. Scipio returned to them as
much property as he could find: this consisted of several bronze statues,
including one considered exceptional; a woman who represented Himera itself
(both the town and the nearby river); a statue of the poet Stesichorus (a native
of Himera); and a statue ‘of great charm’ of a she goat. Scipio’s restoration of
the Himerans’ treasures was commemorated through inscription, though that
did not deter Verres from later appropriating them, much to the anguish of some
who considered these pieces as memorials of ancient victories, of friendships
and alliances, and of illustrious benefactors.81 Verres, in short, literally stole
Himera’s history, a history Scipio had previously ‘restored’ and of which he had
become very much a part. Scipio also showed his magnanimity towards Segesta
as well. During the wars, the Carthaginians had taken a bronze image of Diana
(of exceptional workmanship) which Scipio subsequently restored, again
something noted in inscription.82 Cicero could cite further examples of Scipio’s
munificent and magnanimous restorations, including a beautiful statue of
Mercury at Tyndaris (Verr. 2.4.84), a bronze Apollo by Myron (with the artist’s
signature on the statue’s thigh) restored to Agrigentum’s temple of Aesculapius
(Verr. 2.4.93), and finally, near Engyion, Scipio reportedly rededicated
breastplates and helmets of Corinthian chased bronze and large chased bronze
water pots in a temple of the Magna Mater (Verr. 2.4.97). All of these artefacts
Verres eventually took, and the shame of his actions was doubtless magnified in
comparison with Scipio’s previously generous restorations, restorations that will
have redounded much to his credit, something he doubtless appreciated.83

His generosity could also have been motivated by his desire to win clients among
the Sicilians through a public show of beneficence. Cicero tells us, for example
(Verr. 2.4.82), that the Segestans’ image of Diana was no longer a mere sacred
object, but a memorial of Scipio’s moderatio. Elsewhere Cicero remarks that the
hapless inhabitants naïvely trusted that artefacts standing as memorials to
Scipio’s generosity would protect them from the rapacious Verres (2.4.84–5). Yet
while, as (p.55) Cicero states, Scipio may have been concerned about public
aesthetics, the beautification of Sicily’s cities, and the enjoyment of public
ornament by future generations, such concerns conveniently supported political
considerations as well.84 Fides (‘good faith’) in the form of political loyalty and
support was the frequent remuneration of such beneficia. It also, of course,
stood as a testament to one’s pietas.

Page 18 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

We have further indication that restoration of cultural property was a concern

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

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

Page 19 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

we should be somewhat wary),

had a zeal (studium) for collecting
which morphed into disease,
madness (amentia), and fury
(furor).94 Yet Verres’ interest may
have been more than just a
passing one, since it has recently
been suggested that Verres
himself may have been an art
dealer.95
(p.58) Other less well-known
men were equally avid
collectors. C. Avianius Evander
was a famous connoisseur of his
day.96 The Damasippus in one of
Horace’s satires (2.3.16) may be
identical with the collector
Damasippus of Cicero’s
letters.97 Verres himself when Fig. 2.6 Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s A
he pillaged Sthenius of Roman Amateur (1870), set Roman
Thermae’s collection had collectors in a distinctly Victorian milieu
apparently happened on a and is just one of several examples of
notable collector with a trained Tadema’s imaginative depictions of how
eye.98 As a young man, Sthenius Roman art lovers would sometimes make
had travelled throughout Asia their purchases and consume works of
collecting fine statues and art. Oil on wood panel, 29 × 39 1/2
paintings, as well as good- inches. Photo by John R. Glembin and
quality silver and Corinthian courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum
bronze. Varro too collected fine and the Layton Art Collection. Gift of the
art, and throughout his works following: Layton Art Gallery Trustees,
he displays an interest in the plus Layton funds, between 1892–96:
subject in general. We know George Dickens, Frederick Layton,
from Pliny (HN 36.41) that he William Plankinton, B. K. Miller, Samuel
possessed a very fine statue by Marshall, J. H. Van Dyke. L149.
Arcesilaus, the same artist who
executed Venus Genetrix’s cult
statue in Caesar’s forum (see p. 227). The work was a lioness with winged cupids
sporting on her and all done from a single piece of stone.

Edwards has noted that the collections amassed by republican notables such as
Lucullus were intended to align themselves culturally with the Hellenistic kings
they had conquered and proposes that this ‘un-Roman’ aspect of collecting may
have led to Agrippa’s suggestion to Augustus concerning making private art
collections public.99 Agrippa’s remark in addition appears to support
Thompson’s contention, who noted that such collections constituted ‘museums’

Page 20 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

in their own right.100 The observation is still more apt when we consider that
Vitruvius advises men of standing to furnish their homes with a room functioning
as a pinacotheca (‘picture gallery’).101 Such rooms would bear a resemblance to
those in houses at Herculaneum, Pompeii, and elsewhere, such as we find, for
example, in the House of the Vettii’s cubiculum in Pompeii (see fig. 2.7).
Moreover, as Leach has pointed out, collectors built separate (p.59)

rooms or even buildings for prized

art works, as did Hortensius, who
built an aedes on his Tusculan
estate for a painting of the
Argonauts (Pliny, HN 35.130).102
Among Roman collectors in this
period, Cicero stands out due
largely to the survival of several
letters (Att. 1.1, 3–11, but
especially 6–9 dated to 67 BC)
that shed light on his tastes and
the priorities of one collecting
for private purposes.103 The
term private, however, needs
some brief clarification, since
the context of Cicero’s
display(s) arguably skirted the
realm of both the public and the
private. (p.60) Stambaugh has Fig. 2.7 These frescoed walls from the
noted that the position of the House of the Vettii in Pompeii contain
Roman house from street, to scenes depicting the infant Hercules and
door, fauces (‘entrance way’), the death of Pentheus, and are an
atrium (the main entrance hall), example of how Roman panel painting
tablinum (functioning as a could be rendered in a wealthy Roman
bedroom or study), and finally house to create the effect of a
to garden or portico marked ‘a pinacotheca. House of the Vettii, Pompeii.
progression from public to
private space’ and that ‘the
tendency to keep the door open gave a certain public access deep into the
house’.104 The observation of such progression was already made by Vitruvius in
his discussion of the ‘private’ and ‘public’ aspects of the Roman house (6.5.1).105
An indication of the ‘public’ nature of such ‘private’ space, as Leen notes, is that
its very architecture is ‘public’ in style, imitating gymnasia, palaestra (‘exercise
grounds’), libraries, or public gardens.106 The two spheres of public and private
had their own demands, although the two could and did occasionally overlap.107

Page 21 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

Cicero’s letters are almost exclusively concerned with outfitting his villa at
Tusculum with statuary, and he asks his contact in Athens, Atticus (Att. 1.6), to
keep an eye out for material suitable for his villa’s lecture hall. Atticus responds
(Att. 1.8) that he had seen some Hermae (herms, i.e. bust statuary of Hermes or
other deities) of Pentelic marble with bronze heads. Cicero asks Atticus to send
them and also informs Atticus of his purchase of some statues from Megara from
L. Cincius for 20,400 sesterces.108 We later learn (Att. 1.9) that Cicero is eagerly
awaiting the statues’ delivery (the ‘Megarian’ ones, as well as the Hermae), and
asks Atticus to send along anything else he thinks suitable for his ‘Academy’ (i.e.
his lecture hall) and to ‘trust his purse’.109 It was not until the next year in 66
BC that the statues arrived at Caieta upon which Cicero paid for the shipment
(Att. 1.10). Such shipment was a hazardous business, as the Mahdia wreck
(along with numerous others throughout the Mediterranean) indicates; the
wreck, discovered off the coast (p.61) of Tunisia in 1907, also attests to a
robust art market in Rome, since it was carrying a shipment of finely sculpted
columns and various relief carvings from Athens and Attica of the very sort that
Cicero or someone of his ilk would have used.110

Unfortunately, Cicero does not tell us what he paid for the herms and whatever
else was shipped, but he thanks Atticus for procuring the statuary at a good
price. In the meantime, Atticus found some choice pieces and informed Cicero,
who was still looking to decorate his lecture hall and palaestrum in Tusculum.
Cicero asks Atticus to send along ‘my statues and my Hercules herms and
anything else you might find’; he also asks him to ‘please get me some bas-
reliefs which I can install in the stucco of my small entrance hall and two puteals
with figures’. In a letter dating from the same year (Att. 1.4), Cicero appears to
have acquired a Hermathena for his Academy. He was apparently well pleased
with it, noting the subject’s appropriateness for the location, and he asks for
more such pieces.111 He also, conversely, specifically rejects other works whose
subject he felt inappropriate to the function of the room, including some statues
of Bacchants, presumably such as the intriguing fragment of one (after Scopas)
now in Dresden (fig. 2.8).112 In the same letter he tells Atticus that he has yet to
see the pieces he sent him earlier since they were at his house at Formiae,
though he expresses his intention to take them to Tusculum, and to decorate his
house at Caieta whenever he has a surplus.

It would be incautious to attribute motives for collecting to others based on

Cicero’s own ideas or preferences concerning particular objects; however, to a
limited extent, we can reconstruct the significance of such collecting for Cicero.
To Cicero’s way of thinking, collecting objects of a high cultural value (that were
predominately Greek) provided a means to exhibit one’s humanitas
(‘humanity’).113 Such objects served as social signifiers to indicate the function
of a particular space within the house, and as Vitruvius noted should be
appropriate to a given space.114 One would therefore expect a herm of Hercules

Page 22 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(who reflected athletic prowess) in the palaestrum, an example of which we find

(p.62)

(p.63)

Fig. 2.8 This fine fragment of a sculpted

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

Page 23 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

from the villa in Oplontis (fig. 2.9),

or a Hermathena to finish off his
Academy (Cic. Att. 1.9)—it was
only fitting. Yet this ought not to
be pressed too far. Even if it is
convention, the very choice a
collector makes constitutes an
assertion of his or her own
identity, and Cicero appears quite
sincere when he states that he
intends these objects to function
as the visible signs of his
humanitas, something integral to
Cicero’s (or, arguably, any
Roman’s) prestige and (p.64)
influence.115 Indeed, in the De
Officiis (1.138–9), Cicero noted
that one of the central functions of
the house was to express a man’s
identity and his power:
There is a use to which the
proper disposition of building
Fig. 2.9 This herm of Hercules, a Roman
must be accommodated, yet
copy possibly based on a Greek original
nevertheless attentiveness to
after Lysippus, was something Cicero and
suitability and dignity
Romans in general viewed as suitable for
(commoditatis dignitatisque)
a gymnasium or palaestra, athletics
must be employed … for
reflecting the toil of the hero’s labours.
dignity must be ornamented
Museo Archeologico, Oplontis.
by the house, not sought
entirely by the house, nor
ought the master to be honoured by the house but the house by the
116
master.

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

Page 24 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

properly deploy or use such cultural commodities constituted in and of itself a

form of intellectual identity.120

During the empire we know of a number of notable collectors or individuals who

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

Page 25 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

Pliny ‘to display the skills of a

connoisseur while disclaiming
them, and portrays himself as a
public benefactor while still
engaging in art collection and self-
advertisement’.125 It stands as an
example where Pliny uses an
object to reaffirm simultaneously
his liberalitas, pietas, and his
status as an elite benefactor.
(p.67) Pliny’s uncle was
familiar with a number of
private collections or collectors,
not merely of art works, but of
other precious cultural objects.
He states, therefore, that he
himself had seen documents of
Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus
owned by Pomponius Secundus,
written nearly two hundred
years before; these appear to
Fig. 2.10 A Roman copy in bronze of
have been remarkable, though
Hercules Epitrapezios (‘Hercules seated
he states that autograph copies
at a table’) after a popular original by
of letters by Augustus, Cicero,
Lysippus, may give us a sense of the one
and Vergil were common place
owned by Martial’s friend Novius Vindex.
(HN 13.83). While some of
H: .75 m. Museo Archeologico Nazionale,
Augustus’ correspondence will
Naples.
have constituted state
documents, many of his letters,
along with Cicero’s and Vergil’s,
will have been in the hands of private collectors. The desire to possess books or
letters of historical and cultural importance was nothing new, as Sulla’s seizure
of the library of Apellicon the Teian attests (Plut. Sull. 26.1–2). The library
contained most of the works of Theophrastus and Aristotle; Sulla transferred it
to Rome and it later passed to Tyrannion the Grammarian and was subsequently
‘published’ by Andronicus the Rhodian.126 Manuscripts had already proved a
valuable item in Aemilius Paullus’ day as noted, and Lucullus also acquired a fine
collection during his campaigns in the East.127 Such material attested to the
collector’s learning, as well as to his sense of history and devotion to high
culture.

Items previously owned by celebrated figures also caught collectors’ eyes: Pliny
(without mentioning its current owner), notes that in his day there still existed a
citrus wood table once owned by Cicero for which he paid (even a century
before) 500,000 sesterces, while the nefarious Sejanus owned a statue of

Page 26 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

Fortuna of great antiquity, a work that apparently was a source of great pride for
the praefect.128 The price of Cicero’s table was outrageous, but it was that very
price that sometimes gave an object, paradoxically, its value. Such was the case
when Gegania paid 50,000 sesterces for a candelabrum of Corinthian bronze.129
A similar situation may have held for two pictures Agrippa purchased from the
Cyzicans (an Ajax and an Aphrodite) for which he paid 1.2 million sesterces.130
Indeed, as is the case today, the price served to make an object worthy of
possession (though Pliny criticized Agrippa for paying so high a price), and there
are a number of other instances of exorbitant prices paid for such works.131
Naturally, collectors who could afford it also commissioned works (p.68) from
well-known artists, such as Arcesilaus, one of Lucullus’ intimates, whose clay
models (proplasmata) sold for more than the finished works of his fellow
artists.132 Price, artist, history, previous owners, all could impart value to a
particular object which, owing to its expense, its rarity, or its origins could be
converted into a piece of cultural capital for its owner, with Greek cultural
artefacts taking pride of place.133 Such objects in turn confirmed the power of
the owner as a member of the elite and the values of his own class, reaffirming
the importance of the movers and shakers who dominated the narrative of the
historical past for Roman collectors. They simultaneously also reaffirmed the
value of wealth and consumption by virtue of their power to collect.

The desire to possess ‘old’ objects in particular looks back to the auctoritas that
history or genius was thought to convey in antiquity; an object’s age itself could
become a signifier of its importance and give an object an intrinsic value which
translated into social clout for the owner. Pliny the Elder noted, however, that
connoisseurs had to take care lest they be charged with excess pretension (HN
34.6), a sentiment echoed in Martial (9.59) when he derided the snobbery of a
certain Mamurra, whom Martial represents as having impoverished himself by
his extravagant tastes, even turning his nose up at a Polyclitus. Such
connoisseurship was for Pliny closely tied to status, with the aspirant to high
culture trying to distance himself from the man in the street although possessing
no more real knowledge than the hoi polloi. Pliny’s criticism of pretension
though had already been anticipated in satirical form in Petronius’ Satyricon,
when the hapless nouveau riche pretender Trimalchio muddled the history of
Corinthian bronze.134

Our sources generally indicate that there was a social dynamic concerning how
one collected: as in the republic, private collecting ultimately used for public
benefit was publicly applauded, and the collecting of fine objects to show off to
one’s friends at dinner or during visits to one another’s villas was to be
expected. When used however to exceed one’s social status or create, as it were,
a false identity for oneself, then collecting turned to the detriment of the
individual. Similarly, excess luxury was frequently, indeed, famously suspected in
our sources and castigated; such representation is echoed, in part, by historical
narratives such as those of Sallust or Tacitus who tend to employ primitive social
Page 27 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(p.69) analysis in looking to historical causality. When our historical sources

scrutinize the challenges Rome faced in the late republic, they are inclined to
look at the situation in moral terms, and thus view as socially debilitating for
Roman political life and society at large the importation of luxury goods by M.
Marcellus, Aemilius Paullus, L. Mummius, and L. Sulla after their victories in the
East.135 Yet such consumption remained a vital part of life even for those most
inclined to lament it, as the vast possessions of Sallust and the holdings of both
Pliny the Elder and Younger throughout Italy attest.136 Indeed, as A. Wallace-
Hadrill has noted, consumption, luxury, and its attendant regulation was a
means by which social order (and, presumably, identity) was formed.137

Beyond the social dynamics of collecting, there were also the legal dynamics
through which legislation attempted to regulate consumption. In particular, the
numerous sumptuary laws from Cato the Elder to the emperor Tiberius and
beyond will have regulated the flow of consumption, though how effectively is
open to question. The Zeitgeist may have been as much at play in determining
the nature and patterns of consumption as any legislation on the books. Tacitus
for one noted the ebb and flow of the consumption of luxury goods throughout
the principate and praised the frugalitas (‘thrift’) of his times in comparison to
the luxus (‘luxury’) that flourished under the Julio-Claudians.138 The censor no
doubt from time to time could act as a brake on conspicuous consumption, as
Cicero indicates occurred in 50 BC, when App. Claudius Pulcher as censor was
giving art collectors a hard time (Fam. 8.16.4). The concern to regulate luxury
goods will have been a matter, in part, of the regulation of social equilibrium
with a view to maintaining a balance of power throughout the elite, attempting
to create a parity of consumption as it were, especially during the republic.139

In the principate this will have become less of an issue in some respects. The
resources of the emperor allowed for the display of enormous public collections
(see chapter seven). But the emperors themselves were avid private collectors of
art works and historical artefacts just as were their republican forebears. Julius
Caesar, for one, was known to have an eye for gems, carvings, and statues of the
old (p.70) masters.140 He had desired his collection be given over for public
enjoyment upon his death, but Antony appropriated it, much to Cicero’s
indignation, for his own private pleasure.141 Augustus’ private collection was an
eclectic array of artistic, historic, and natural objects that he kept in his house in
Rome and his villa on Capri. He was the owner of Apelles’ Lineum (‘The Line’) a
finely executed line that Apelles, according to Pliny the Elder, had left as a
calling card for his contemporary and rival Protogenes (and part of its value
doubtless derived from its history).142 His tastes included curiosities as well as
masterworks of art. Thus, at his villa on Capri, he reportedly ‘collected the bones
of large animals’, possibly the fossilized remains of extinct mammals and
dinosaurs, as well as the arms of ancient heroes.143 It is worth noting that
neither Julius Caesar nor Augustus appear simply to have appropriated art for
their collections, but offered recompense (although Augustus did come in for
Page 28 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

criticism for his excessive zeal for collecting Corinthian bronze, a proclivity he
shared with Nero).144 The 100-talent reimbursement by Augustus to the Coans
has already been noted, while Caesar also purchased from Timomachus of
Byzantium two paintings, one of Ajax, the other of Medea, for eighty talents,
though these were eventually put on public display.

Tiberius’ collection similarly inclined towards the Hellenistic, but also towards
the erotic. Hence, the famous anecdote about the painting in his bed chamber on
Capri by Parrhasius depicting Atalanta performing fellatio on Meleager, a
picture Tiberius so valued that he refused an offer of 10,000 gold pieces for
it.145 (p.71) In addition, he possessed a collection of erotic manuscripts—
presumably Greek—from Elephantis (Suet. Tib. 43.2). That Suetonius mentions
this in his construction of Tiberius qua tyrant also furnishes us with a notion of
what a ‘subversive’ collection might contain, offering a commentary on the
‘norms’ of what was considered ‘proper collecting.146 Such a view is reinforced,
arguably, by Pliny the Elder’s diatribe against erotic subjects found on silver
cups of the sort discovered in Pompeii and Boscoreale (see fig. 2.11).147 More
tastefully (at least to Pliny’s mindset), Tiberius also owned some fine Hellenistic
baroque statuary groups, including Odysseus and his companions blinding
Polyphemus as well as Scylla attacking Odysseus and his companions; these
elaborate and violent compositions adorned the emperor’s grotto-turned-dining-
room at Sperlonga and were well-suited to Tiberius’ interests in mythology (see
fig. 2.12–13).148 On the whole, everything points in Tiberius to a selective
refinement of taste for the Hellenistic.149

Tiberius’ collection, in addition to erotica, included a painted portrait of an

archigallus by Parrhasius for which Pliny says he paid the enormous sum of six
million sesterces (HN 35.70), and Lysippus’ Apoxyomenos, temporarily taken
from the Baths of Agrippa and replaced with a copy (see fig. 2.14). Popular
outcry was such however, that Tiberius was forced to return it.150 Tiberius in
fact offers us one of the best windows into the connection between personal
identity and the (p.72)

Page 29 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

link with objets d’art: as scholars

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

Fig. 2.11 The Warren Cup depicts a

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

Page 30 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

The question of public Fig. 2.12 A sculpted marble group

accessibility to imperial
collections is not an easy one,
and will be considered in
greater detail in chapter eight.
Beyond a doubt the public
would not have had access to
the Parrhasius in Tiberius’ villa.
Though it is likely the art works
collected during Nero’s
ransacking of Greece in ad 67,
with a view to furnishing his
Domus Aurea, would have been
accessible to the public at least to a limited degree.153 The case may have been
similar on the Palatine, where (p.74)
depicting Scylla’s attack on Odysseus and
his men graced Tiberius’ grotto-turned-
dining room at Sperlonga and was
particularly suited to the emperor’s
tastes. It was part of a much larger
composition detailing episodes from the
adventures of Odysseus. First century
BC-first quarter of the first century AD.
Museo Archeologico Nazionale,
Sperlonga.

access seems to have been

limited, though the imperial court
was something of a liminal area,
occupying a middle ground
between the public and private
spheres. Certainly someone such
as Pliny the Elder, who moved in
the highest circles, had access to a
part of the Palatine during the
imperial salutatio and other
occasions as well. Consequently, it
may be the result of first hand
experience, rather than access to
imperial inventories, that he can
tell us (relatively speaking) a good
deal about the status of the
imperial collection in Titus’ day
and gives a list of artists whose Fig. 2.13 This detail from the Scylla
works in marble filled the palace group draws particular attention to the
(HN 36.38): Craterus, Polydeuces, sculpture’s graphic violence, itself
Hermolaus, Pythodorus, Artemon,
reflective of the harsh political climate of
and Aphrodisius of Tralles were all
Tiberius’ court. Museo Archeologico
represented. The crème de la
Nazionale, Sperlonga.
crème, however, was the Laocoön
(HN 36.37) ‘a work to (p.75)

Page 31 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(p.76)

Fig. 2.14 Lysippus’ Apoxyomenos was

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

Page 32 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

be preferred to all those both in

the art of painting and of
sculpture’, opus omnibus et
picturae et statuariae artis
praeferendum, and the work of
three artists, Hagesander,
Polydorus, and Athenodorus of
Rhodes, a famous copy of which
now survives in the Vatican
Museum (see fig. 2.15).154 Under
the Flavians too, some of the
material taken in the sack of
Jerusalem (allegedly for the sake
of safe-keeping) was kept on the
Palatine, such as the elaborately
wrought curtains from the (p.77)
Temple (see p. 280 for
discussion). Vespasian’s one vice
was purportedly avarice, while his
son Domitian was despised for the
introverted and private nature of Fig. 2.15 Famously recounted in Vergil’s
his regime.155 The combination of Aeneid, the well-known Laocoon, much
the two possibly had the result of
praised by Pliny, represents the death of
increasing the value and quantity
the Trojan priest and his sons. The
of culturally precious material
kept in the more private, less sculpture was one of the jewels in the
accessible setting of the Palatine crown of the imperial collection on the
and proved so unpopular Palatine. H: 1.84 m. A first century AD
politically that Trajan, who copy of a Hellenistic bronze from the
followed Domitian, could court second century BC. Cortile del Belvedere,
popular support by his Museo Pio Clemente, Musei Vaticani.
transference of the imperial
collection of jewels (accrued
probably under both the Julio-Claudians and Flavians) to public property, dedicating
them along with other valuable artworks to Jupiter Capitolinus, a display of public
munificence celebrated by Martial.156 It was one of the many ways in which cultural
property came into play as a part of the narrative that was but one aspect of political
competition in Roman antiquity. (p.78)

Notes:
(1) See A. Appadurai, ‘Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in A. Appadurai
(ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge
1986), 31 for collecting as an activity that ‘is eminently social, relational, and
active’.

(2) Something that was also true for earlier eastern potentates, see M. Miles, Art
as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property (Cambridge
2008), 16–28.

Page 33 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(3) For artistic material as ‘symbolic capital’ see R. L. Gordon, ‘The Real and the
Imaginary: Production and Religion in the Graeco-Roman World’, in R. L. Gordon
(ed.), Image and Value in the Graeco-Roman World: Studies in Mithraism and
Religious Art (Brookfield Vt. 1996), 22–3.

(4) See e.g. D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological

Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes
(London 1973), 248, who notes that materials were taken by right of conquest,
and that Cato was indignant that private houses were filled with the images of
gods. For two good discussions on attitudes governing the acquisition of Greek
art see E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 232–
71; T. Hölscher, ‘Hellenistische Kunst und römische Aristokratie’, in G.
Hellenkemper Salies (ed.), Das Wrack. Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia
(Cologne 1994), 875–88.

(5) See E. Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London

1992), 9; cf. J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from
the Pagan to the Christian World (Cambridge 1995), 21, who notes the
‘reflexivity’ of art in which the object also constructs the viewer and the viewer
the object.

(6) For a general narrative on the importation of artistic material into Rome and
its nature see G. Becatti, Arte e gusto negli scrittori Latini (Florence 1950), 1–31.
The studies that discuss this question are numerous. For importation through
conquest see H. Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel im republikanischen
Rom’, in G. Hellenkemper Salies (ed.), Das Wrack. Der Antike Schiffsfund von
Mahdia (Cologne 1994), 857–66; S. Carey, The Problems of Totality: Collecting
Greek Art, Wonders, and Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC 12.1
(2000), 1–13; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 44–59.

(7) On the sacred nature of much of what Romans looted see J. Rüpke, Religion of
the Romans. Translated and edited by R. Gordon (Cambridge and Malden Mass.
2007), 57–8; I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and
Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009), 82–6, who
notes the term simulacrum which predominately applies to sacred cult statues is
rarely applied to plundered images of the gods, with the term signum preferred
instead.

(8) All of this is a matter of continuing scholarly controversy; see I. Shatzman,

‘The Roman General’s Authority Over Booty’, Historia, 21 (1972), 177–205; A.
Ziolkowski, ‘Urbs direpta or How the Romans Sacked Cities’, in J. Rich and G.
Shipley (eds.), War and Society in the Roman World (London 1993), 69–91; J. B.
Churchill, ‘Ex qua quod vellent facerent: Roman Magistrates’ Authority over
Praeda and Manubiae’, TAPA 129 (1999), 85–116; Östenberg, Staging the World
(n. 7), 61–8.

Page 34 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(9) For Cato’s complex attitude towards Hellenism see Gruen, Culture and
Identity (n. 4), 52–83, 110–13; cf. J. J. Pollitt, ‘The Impact of Greek Art on Rome’,
TAPA 108 (1978), 158–60.

(10) For the negative perspective on imports see Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 11;
Livy 34.3–4, 39.6.7–9; Velleius Paterculus 1.13.5; Plut. Marc. 21; cf. Pliny,
Panegyricus 55; for discussion see A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural
Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 315–19; cf. 356–8 on how importation through
triumphs influenced fashion. On the triumph’s origins see E. Gjerstad, ‘The
origins of the Roman republic’, in Les origines de la République romaine,
Fondation Hardt, Entretiens 13 (Geneva 1967), 3–43; H. S. Versnel, Triumphus:
An Inquiry into the Origin, Development, and Meaning of the Roman Triumph
(Leiden 1970); J. Scheid, ‘Le flamine de Jupiter, les Vestales, et le général
triomphant’, in C. Malamud and J.-P. Vernant (eds.), Corps de dieux, Le temps de
la réflexion 7 (Paris 1986), 213–30; E. Künzl, Der römische Triumph.
Siegesfeiern im antiken Rom (Munich 1988); M. Beard, The Roman Triumph
(Cambridge Mass. 2007), who challenges numerous assumptions concerning this
institution; for visual representations of triumphs see Östenberg, Staging the
World (n. 7); for the triumph as a commemorative ceremony constituting a form
of ‘social remembering’, see P. Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge
1989), 41–71.

(11) For Juno of Veii’s evocatio see Livy 5.21.1–4, 5.22.3–8; Lactantius, Divinae
institutiones 2.7.11; cf. 2.16.11; for her temple (which is not to be confused with
the one in the Portico of Octavia) see LTUR 3.125–6. The bibliography on this
episode and on evocatio in general is extensive; see e.g. Y. Basanoff, Evocatio:
étude d’un rituel militaire romain (Paris 1947); G. Dumézil, Archaic Roman
Religion, 2 vols. (Chicago 1970), 424–7; P. Bruun, ‘Evocatio deorum: some notes
on the Romanization of Etruria’, in H. Biezais (ed.), The Myth of the State; based
on papers read at the Symposium on the Myth of the State held at Åbo, 68 of
September 1971, Scripti Institituti Donneriani Aboensis 6 (Stockholm 1972),
109–20; J. Le Gall, ‘Evocatio’, in Mélanges J. Huergon, L’Italie préromaine et la
Rome républicaine. Mélanges offerts à Jaques Huergon, Collection de L’Ecole
Française de Rome (Rome 1976), 519–24; J. Rüpke, Domi militiaeque: Die
religiöse Konstruktion des Krieges in Rom (Stuttgart 1990), 162–4; A. Blomart,
‘Die evocatio und der Transfer « fremder » Götter von der Peripherie nach Rom’,
in H. Cancik und J. Rüpke (eds.), in Römische Reichsreligion und
Provinzialreligion (Tübingen 1997), 99–111; M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price,
Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge 1998), 34–5; G. Gustafsson,
Evocatio deorum: Historical and Mythical Interpretations of Ritualized
Conquests in the Expansion of Ancient Rome. Acta universitatis Upsaliensis,
Historia Religionum, 16 (Uppsala 2000); for the sacking of Veii see Miles, Art as
Plunder (n. 2), 45–52.

Page 35 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(12) Livy 6.4.2; for discussion see S. P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X
(Oxford 1997), 422–3.

(13) See J. R. Fears, ‘The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology’, ANRW
2.17.1 (1981), 3–141.

(14) For discussion see Oakley, Livy Books VI–X (n. 12), 622–3; Östenberg,
Staging the World (n. 7), 79.

(15) See Cic. Verr. 2.4.128–31; Östenberg, Staging the World (n.7), 83–4, esp. 84
n. 410; the constant reassembling and cleaning up of material made such errors
not uncommon, see p. 303–4.

(16) Including e.g. Augustus’ attribution of his victory at Actium to Apollo, see p.
237.

(17) See Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.46; Festus 228L; the Fasti Triumphales for
264; for the Temple of Mater Matuta in general see LTUR 2.281–5; for the
importation by Fulvius of 2000 statues from the Volsinii see Pliny, HN 34.34; for
the introduction of Vortumnus see Propertius 4.2.1–4; for discussion see M. C. J.
Putnam, ‘The Shrine of Vortumnus’, AJA 71 (1967), 177–9; see M. Torelli, ‘Il
donario di M. Fulvio nell’area di S. Ombono’, Studi di topographia romana, 5
(1968), 71–5 for discussion of the statue bases related to Fulvius’campaign; also
see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 89, who believes the number of statues
inflated; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 858; Hölscher,
‘Hellenistische Kunst’ (n. 4), 877; M. McDonnell,‘Roman Aesthetics and the
Spoils of Syracuse’, in S. Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in
Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2006), 72–5; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 211. For a
similarly impressive importation see Livy 39.5.14 for the 785 bronze statues and
230 marble statues carried in M. Fulvius Nobilior’s triumph over Ambracia in
189 BC.

(18) For a good discussion of the politically contentious nature of Marcellus’

triumph see M. R. Pelikan Pittenger, Contested Triumphs. Politics, Pageantry,
and Performance in Livy’s Republican Rome (Berkeley 2008), 150–9.

(19) Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 63.

(20) For Cicero’s representation of Marcellus in the Verrines see Gruen, Culture
and Identity (n. 4), 96; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 63–5; for a general discussion
of Cicero’s prosecution see F. H. Cowles, Gaius Verres: A Historical Study.
Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, 20 (Ithaca 1917).

(21) Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 97–8; also see in general Wallace-Hadrill,
Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 338.

Page 36 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(22) Livy 25.40.1–3, probably following Polybius’ account which is fragmentary;

see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 94–101; McDonnell, ‘Spoils of
Syracuse’ (n. 17), 68–90; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 64.

(23) Cic. Rep. 1.21–2; for a description see Cic. Nat. D. 2.88; cf. Ov. Fast. 6.277–
80. For Marcellus’ adornment of the Temple of Honos et Virtus see Gruen,
Culture and Identity (n. 4), 101; cf. 241–2 where Gruen notes that Marcellus
reserved material taken from private homes for private distribution, and from
public buildings for public use, citing Polybius 9.10.13; cf. Miles, Art as Plunder
(n. 2), 64. For a history of the temple see M. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (Ann
Arbor 1997), 125 with n. 45; also see A. Ziolkowski, The Temples of Mid-
Republican Rome and their Historical and Topographical Context (Rome 1992),
58–60; in general see LTUR 3.31–3; for the cults to the various abstract virtues in
Rome and their place in Roman religious culture see H. Mattingly, ‘The Roman
virtues’, Harvard Theological Review, 30 (1937), 103–17; J. R. Fears ‘The Cult of
the Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology’, ANRW 2.17.2 (1981), 827–948.

(24) Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 98.

(25) See C. Pelling, ‘Plutarch: Roman Heroes and Greek Culture’, in M. Griffin
and J. Barnes (eds.), Philosophia Togata. Essays on Philosophy and Roman
Society (Oxford 1989), 199–208; S. C. R. Swain, ‘Hellenic Culture and the Roman
Heroes of Plutarch’, in B. Scardigli (ed.), Essays on Plutarch’s Lives (Oxford
1995), 229–64.

(26) For Marcellus’ critics see Plut. Marc. 21.2–5; for the temple’s construction
see Livy 27.25.7, 29.11.13; Val. Max. 1.1.8; Plut. Marc. 28.1; see Gruen, Culture
and Identity (n. 4), 95, 99–100 for discussion.

(27) For Marcellus see Plut. Marc. 21; for Fabius’ more thorough despoiling of
Tarentum see Strabo 6.3.1; Livy 27.16.7, who compares Fabius’ looting to
Marcellus’ at Syracuse; on the sack of Tarentum see C. Brauer Jr., Taras. Its
History and Coinage (New York 1986), 190–5; Östenberg, Staging the World (n.
7), 87.

(28) Fab. 22.6; Marc. 21.

(29) Strabo 6.3.1; Pliny, HN 34.40; Plut. Fab. 22.6. Pliny and Strabo indicate that
Lysippus’ works were relatively abundant in Tarentum. For discussion of Fabius’
importation of this statue and his use of it to settle scores with rivals, see Gruen,
Culture and Identity (n. 4), 101–2; cf. P. Gros, ‘Les statues de Syracuse et les
‘dieux’ de Tarente’, RÉL 57 (1979), 85–114; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und
Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 859; for its dedication on the Capitoline and subsequent
move to Constantinople see S. Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique
Constantinople (Cambridge 2004), 152–4; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 69.

Page 37 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(30) Augustus possibly moved the statue to the Palatine; executed by Calamides
the Elder between 480 and 460 BC, its height was thirty cubits; see Pliny, HN
34.39; cf. Strabo 7.6.1; App. Ill. 30.

(31) See Plut. Luc. 41.5.

(32) For Fulvius’ conquest of Ambracia and the importation of artwork see
Polybius 21.30.9; Livy 38.43.5, 39.4; Pliny, HN 35.66; cf. Polybius 9.10;
Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.12.16; for discussion see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n.
4), 107–10; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 859; D. Kinney,
‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 120–1; Beard,
The Roman Triumph (n. 10), 43, 254, 264; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 69–70; for
a general history of the temple see LTUR 3.17–19.

(33) Livy 43.4.7; cf. Cic. Verr. 2.1.55, 2.2.4, 2.4.120–1.

(34) See Livy 45.40; Pliny, HN 34.64–5; Plut. Aem. 32–4; see Gruen, Culture and
Identity (n. 4), 115–17; Beard, The Roman Triumph (n. 10), 116–17, 137–8, 150–
1; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 71–2.

(35) Velleius Paterculus 1.11.3–5; cf. Plut. Alex. 16.7–8; see pp. 257–9 for the
portico’s construction.

(36) For discussion of Mummius’ conquest and its significance see Gruen, Culture
and Identity (n. 4), 123–30; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 859–
60; N. Purcell, ‘On the Sacking of Carthage and Corinth’, in D. Innes, H. Hine,
and C. Pelling (eds.), Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for Donald Russell on
his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford 1995), 133–48; K. W. Arafat, Pausanias’
Greece. Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers (Cambridge 1996), 92–7; Miles, Art as
Plunder (n. 2), 73–6.

(37) Velleius Paterculus 1.13.4–5; Strabo 8.6.23 says the plunder included
Aristides’ Dionysus, which he calls a kalliston ergon; cf. Pliny, HN 35.24 who
dubiously relates that King Attalus II of Pergamum bought it for 600,000 denarii,
a price that motivated Mummius to appropriate it and take it to Rome for
exhibition in the Temple of Ceres; for discussion see Gruen, Culture and Identity
(n. 4), 125. The painting perished in a fire in 31 BC.

(38) For the number see Pliny, HN 34.36; cf. Cic. Orat. 232 who says Paullus and
Mummius filled Rome and Italy with art; Livy, Periochae 52 who mentions
marbles, bronzes, and paintings; also see Polybius 39.6; Cic. Off. 2.76; CIL I.
2.626–32. Mummius’ famous importation became virtually proverbial; see e.g.
Cic.Mur. 31; Vergil, Aeneid 6.836–7; Horace, Epistulae 2.1.192–3; Petronius,
Satyricon 50. On the large scale production of Greek bronzes of the sort
Mummius imported to Rome see C. C. Mattusch, Classical Bronzes: The Art and
Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary (Ithaca 1996), 1–34; cf. Purcell, ‘Sacking of

Page 38 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

Carthage and Corinth’ (n. 36), 137 for Mummius’ victory as one over things; see
143 for Mummius’ abstemiousness.

(39) Vitruvius 5.5.8.

(40) CIL I.2.626–32. As was the case for L. Stertinius in 196 BC, Livy 33.27.3–4;
see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 104; in general see L. Yarrow, ‘Lucius
Mummius and the Spoils of Corinth’, SCI 25 (2006), 57–70.

(41) See Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 131–3 for
discussion; since statues and bases could be frequently switched, we should not
assume that the bronze statue in the illustration discovered in Pompeii actually
came from Mummius’ spoils, although it is quite possible.

(42) Cic. Verr. 2.4.4; Pliny, HN 34.69; on the Temple of Felicitas see LTUR 2.244–
5.

(43) Strabo 8.6.23; on the ius divinum that rendered such material the property
of the gods, see Gaius, Institutiones 2.1–9; see Rüpke, Religion (n. 7), 130 for
discussion.

(44) Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 125.

(45) Ibid., 110–13.

(46) For discussion see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 112; cf. ORF fr. 97; a
similar charge was lodged against M. Fulvius Nobilior by M. Aemilius Lepidus,
consul in 187 BC, see Livy 38.43.2–5; 38.44.6.

(47) Cic. Verr. 2.5.127.

(48) Cic. Verr. 2.1.56–7.

(49) For a discussion of such inventories see D. E. Strong, Roman Museums

(London 1994), 251, citing (inter alia) IG 9.2.135 (inventories from Delos); cf.
Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 54 for Servilius’ accounts; see Östenberg, Staging
the World (n. 7), 100–1 for a discussion of similar triumphal inventories.

(50) See e.g. Livy 39.5.13–16.

(51) Livy 38.44.5; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 108 for discussion.

(52) See Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 119–29 for discussion.

(53) Cic. Verr. 2.1.58.

(54) Plut. Mor. 198B–C notes the cup as supposedly the first silver object to enter
the Aemilian house; cf. Val. Max. 4.4.9; Pliny, HN 33.142. For Aemilius’

Page 39 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

importation of Perseus’ library see Plut. Aem. 28.11; for discussion see L.
Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven 2001), 65–8.

(55) With the notable exception of the violation of the Temple in Jerusalem; see
Joseph. AJ 14.72.

(56) See Cic. Att. 4.9.1; see A. Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’, AJP 112
(1991), 233 for discussion.

(57) See Ammianus Marcellinus 14.8.14–15; also see Velleius Paterculus 2.45.5;
Plut. Cat. Min. 39.1–3.

(58) See Pliny, HN 34.92.

(59) See L. Pietilä-Castrén, ‘New Men and the Greek War Booty in the 2nd
century B.C.’, Arctos 16 (1982), 121–44 for detailed discussion of the transport
of booty after pillaging.

(60) See Cic. Verr. 2.2.176: L. Canuleius, a harbour agent, wrote to his company
complaining that Verres had paid no export duty on a number of luxury items
(including Delian ware and Corinthian vessels).

(61) See Livy 26.24.11; SEG 13.32; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 94 for
discussion.

(62) See e.g. A. Rouveret, ‘Toute la mémoire du monde: La notion de collection

dans la NH de Pline’, in J. Pigeaud and J. Oroz (eds.), Pline L’Ancien: témoin de
son temps (Salamanca and Nantes 1987), 432–3 for discussion; for a catalogue
of Verres’ thefts see A. Bounia, The Nature of Classical Collecting. Collectors and
Collections, 100 BCE – 100 CE (Ashgate 2004), 278–9; see Miles, Art as Plunder
(n. 2), 105–51, 158–64, for Verres’ career and family background and for the
case’s legal background.

(63) Cic. Verr. 2.4.30; cf. 2.4.47; see Strong, Roman Museums (n. 49), 256; Miles,
Art as Plunder (n. 2), 175, 205–6 for discussion.

(64) T. Quinctius Flamininus took one of the remaining three from Macedonia,
but had the decency to dedicate it to Jupiter on the Capitoline, making it public
property, Cic. Verr. 2.4.128–30; see p. 35 with n. 15.

(65) Verr. 2.4.122; cf. 2.2.50 where Cicero accuses Verres of plundering
Syracuse’s temples of every art work imaginable.

(66) The tradition was a long one, whereby the previous owner of an object made
the object famous—or at least worthy of a poem. See e.g. Anthologia Palatina
6.97 = The Garland of Philip, (Antiphilus) on a spear dedicated to Artemis by

Page 40 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

Alexander the Great and Anthologia Planudea 276 (Bianor) on a statue of Arion
and the dolphin set up by Periander of Corinth.

(67) For discussion see G. Zimmer, ‘Das Sacrarium des C. Heius. Kunstraub und
Kunstgeschmack in der späten Republik’, Gymnasium, 96 (1989), 493–531; A.
Vasaly, Representation: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley
1993), 111–14; Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 62), 277; Miles, Art as
Plunder (n. 2), 155, 206–8; cf. P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society.
Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 142, who notes that Heius’ house
was something of a public museum in its own right, citing Cic. Verr. 2.4.3–7.

(68) See Cass. Dio 55.9.6; cf. p. 268.

(69) Though Cass. Dio 59.17.3 is perhaps rightly sceptical of this claim.

(70) Calig. 57.1; Cass. Dio 59.28.3 says that Caligula planned a new temple on
the Palatine to house the statue, and to remodel it to make the work resemble
himself; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 95 for discussion, who notes a similar
reaction by the Palladium at Vergil, Aeneid 2.171–5.

(71) Joseph. AJ 19.7, 10; cf. Suet. Calig. 22.2; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2),
252–5 for discussion.

(72) Pliny, HN 35.127.

(73) Tac. Ann. 16.23.

(74) See Tac. Ann. 15.45; Suet. Ner. 24.1–2; for discussion see E. Champlin, Nero
(Cambridge Mass. 2003), 180 with 318–19, n.10; cf. Suet. Ner. 38.3; Cass. Dio
63.11–12. Acratus and Carrinas Secundus acted as his agents; for a detailed
discussion of Nero in Greece and his pillaging see Arafat, Pausanias’ Greece (n.
36), 143–50.

(75) For a detailed discussion of the legislation and the history of legislation that
surrounds claims to cultural patrimony see K. Fitz Gibbon, ‘Chronology of
Cultural Property Legislation’, in K. Fitz Gibbon (ed.), Who Owns the Past?:
Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (Brunswick NJ 2005), 3–7; W. G.
Pearlstein, ‘Cultural Property, Congress, the Courts, and Customs: The Decline
and Fall of the Antiquities Market?’, in K. Fitz Gibbon (ed.), Who Owns the Past?:
Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (Brunswick NJ 2005), 9–31. The
most famous modern claim of course remains the Elgin Marbles; see K. Fitz
Gibbon, ‘The Elgin Marbles. A Summary’, in K. Fitz Gibbon (ed.), Who Owns the
Past?: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (Brunswick NJ 2005), 109–
21. Also see J. Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our
Ancient Heritage (Princeton 2008); J. Cuno (ed.), Whose Culture? The Promise of
Museums and the Debate Over Antiquities (Princeton 2009). Miles, Art as

Page 41 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

Plunder (n. 2) in general constitutes a good detailed study of the ancient concept
of cultural property and its influence on the modern concept.

(76) For Scipio’s restoration see Purcell, ‘Sacking of Carthage and Corinth’ (n.
36), 141–2; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 95–100.

(77) Consequently during Cicero’s prosecution he stated that Verres’ victims

sought no restitution of their property, probably because there was very little
chance of it; see Verr. 2.5.127.

(78) For the phrase fruitur dis iratis see J. Ferguson, Juvenal. The Satires (New
York 1979), 115, which he explains as an oxymoron, since one does not normally
profit from the anger of the gods, in this case, the gods Marius had despoiled.
For Marius’ trial (Tacitus and Pliny the Younger were the prosecutors) see Pliny,
Ep. 2.11.

(79) See Livy, Periochae 51, according to which Scipio returned ‘the greater part
of the spoils’ (spoliorum maior pars) to Sicily; cf. Cic. Verr. 2.1.11, 2.2.85–6,
2.4.73; Diodorus Siculus 32.25; Val. Max. 5.1.6; Plut. Mor. 200B; App. Pun. 133;
Eutropius 4.12.2.

(80) Cic. Verr. 2.4.73, 80; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 97 for discussion.

(81) Cic. Verr. 2.2.89–119; the local senate along with Sthenius, a man of some
influence, vehemently opposed their removal and the consequences for Sthenius
were dire. A marble base at Termini Imerese survives attesting to Scipio’s
restoration, see IG 14.315; SIG3 677; ILS 8769; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2),
97 for discussion.

(82) See Cic. Verr. 2.4.72–5, 2.4.80: the town greatly revered it but Verres found
it irresistible. See Vasaly, Representation (n. 67), 117–20 for discussion.

(83) Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 98–9 further posits that Scipio’s restoration
consciously emulated Alexander the Great’s restoration of cultural property to
Greek cities captured back from Persia.

(84) See Verr. 2.4.98, 2.5.124.

(85) See Polybius 39.3; Plut. Phil. 21.6; cf. Anthologia Planudea 16.26a
(anonymous); for discussion see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 126; Purcell,
‘Sacking of Carthage and Corinth’ (n. 36), 142.

(86) Strabo 14.1.14; see T. S. Scheer, ‘Res Gestae Divi Augusti 24: die
Restituierung göttlichen Eigentums in Kleinasien durch Augustus’, in C.
Schubert and K. Brodersen (eds.), Rom und der griechische Osten: Festschrift
für Hatto H. Schmitt zum 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart 1995), 209–23 for discussion
of Augustus’ appropriations in the East after his victory (from those who

Page 42 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

supported Antony); for the competing discourse between Antony and Augustus
concerning the appropriation of art objects, see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 102–
4.

(87) Pausanias 9.27.2–4; cf. Strabo 9.2.25; see Kinney, ‘Spolia…’ (n. 32), 136; K.
Gutzwiller, ‘Gender and Inscribed Epigram: Herennia Procula and the Thespian
Eros’, TAPA 134 (2004), 383–418 for discussion of the statue. For the epigrams
celebrating the statue see the Anthologia Planudea 167 (Antipater); 203
(Julianus); 204 (Praxiteles); 205 (Tullius Geminus); 206 (Leonidas of Alexandria
(?)); the work was given in payment to Praxiteles’ mistress Phryne, the famous
courtesan. The statue perished in the fire of AD 80; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n.
2), 254.

(88) See Agr. 6.5; cf. Suet. Ner. 32.4; see J. M. Beaujeu, ‘A-t-il éxisté une direction
des musées dans la Rome impériale?’, in Comptes Rendus de L’Academie des
Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Nov.–Dec. (1982), 682 for discussion.

(89) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 4), 253–4 who bases this conjecture on
the extensive preservation of statistics and data in Pliny’s catalogue.

(90) Pliny, HN 34.84; see R. H. Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture: A

Study of Flavian Rome (Brussels 1996), 59; cf. this text pp. 274–5.

(91) See p. 280 n. 139 for discussion.

(92) For a very general discussion concerning private collecting in antiquity see J.
Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and its Linked
Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared (New York 1982), 190–211. More
detailed studies include e.g. E. Bartman, ‘Sculpture Collecting and Display in the
Private Realm’, in E. Gazda (ed.), Roman Art in the Private Sphere (Ann Arbor
1991), 71–88; P. G. Warden, ‘The Sculptural Program of the Villa of the Papyri’,
JRA 4 (1991), 257–64; P. G. Warden and D. Romano, ‘The Course of Glory: Greek
Art in a Roman Context at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum’, Art History,
17 (1994), 228–54; and L. Stirling, The Learned Collector. Mythological
Statuettes and Classical Taste in Late Antique Gaul (Ann Arbor 2005).

(93) For Lucullus see Varro, De Re Rustica 1.2.10; Pliny, HN 34.36; Plut. Luc.
39.2; for Hortensius see Pliny, HN 35.130; he also owned a sphinx given to him
as a gift by Verres which he particularly prized, Pliny, HN 34.48; for discussion
see X. Lafon, ‘A propos des “villae” républicaines: quelques notes sur les
programmes décoratifs et les commanditaires’, in X. Lafon (ed.), L’art décoratif á
Rome á la fin de la République et au début du Principat (Rome 1981), 151–72; cf.
Plut. Cic. 7; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 6.3.98; for discussion see Beaujeu,
‘Une direction des musées’ (n. 88), 673 with n. 8; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2),
127–8. On the economics of the luxury in such villas see J. H. D’Arms, Commerce
and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge Mass. 1981), 72–96, esp. 80–5;

Page 43 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

also see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 190–208 on Roman
villas, luxury, and Roman identity.

(94) For Cicero’s stance see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 67), 225–6
with a summation of the scholarly approaches to Roman attitudes concerning
Greek art. Stewart argues that Cicero’s own private interest in art and professed
ignorance in his oration is attributable to a difference between a public versus
private pose, but Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 166–7 suggests that there was a
shared respect for and knowledge of art works in Cicero’s audience and that
Cicero’s professed ignorance is in fact simply sarcasm.

(95) See A. Weis, ‘Gaius Verres and the Roman Art Market: Consumption and
Connoisseurship in Verrine II.4’, in A. Haltenhoff, A. Heil, and F. H. Mutschler, O
tempora, o mores! Römische Werte und römische Literatur in den letzen
Jahrzehnten der Republik (Saur 2003), 359–65; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 200–
6 for discussion.

(96) Cic. Fam. 7.23.2; also see RE 2.2 (1896), 2372, 6.1 (1907), 843 for Avianius;
see J. H. D’Arms, ‘CIL X, 1792. A Municiple Notable of the Augustan Age’, HSCP
76 (1972), 207–16 for Avianius’ family; for discussion see Strong, ‘Roman
Museums’ (n. 4), 256; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 861. On
those with a fine eye for art see Cic. Fam. 7.23.1–2; 13.2; Statius, Silvae 4.6;
Mart. 9.59; Pliny, Ep. 3.6; Arrian, Epicteti dissertationes 2.24.7; for discussion
see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 4), 257; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 175, 205–
6.

(97) He is also mentioned along with Avianius in Fam. 7.23; for discussion see
Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 4), 257; K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture. An
Interpretive Introduction (Princeton 1996), 339.

(98) Cic. Verr. 2.2.84–5; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 207–8 for discussion.

(99) See Plut. Luc. 39; cf. Pliny, HN 35.26; see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the
Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the
Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 55 for discussion; cf. Pollitt, ‘Impact of Greek
Art’ (n. 9), 164 who suggests that as a form of wealth it was also a danger to the
emperor; for Lucullus’ rich tastes see S. Hales, The Roman House and Social
Identity (Cambridge 2003), 20–3.

(100) See M. L. Thompson, ‘The Monumental and Literary Evidence for

Programmatic Painting in Antiquity’, Marsyas, 9 (1960–61), 70; cf. K. Schefold,
Pompejanische Malerei. Sinn und Ideengeschichte (Basel 1952), 44–51.

(101) Vitruvius 6.5.2; see C. Hallett, ‘Emulation versus Replication: Redefining

Roman Copying’, JRA 18 (2005), 433 on Roman pinacothecae, esp. in the context
of triclinia, citing Varro, De Re Rustica 1.59.2; also see R. Ling, Roman Painting

Page 44 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(Cambridge 1991), 135; B. Bergmann, ‘Greek Masterpieces and Roman

Recreative Fictions’, HSCP 97 (1995), 102–7.

(102) See Pollitt, ‘Impact of Greek Art’ (n. 9), 162; E. W. Leach, The Rhetoric of
Space: Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and
Augustan Rome (Princeton 1988), 374; Pliny says Hortensius paid 144,000
sesterces for the painting.

(103) For Cicero as a collector and his attitude towards art see G. Showerman,
‘Cicero’s Appreciation of Greek Art’, AJP 25 (1904), 306–14; Leen, ‘Cicero and
the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 243–4; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6),
861–2; Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 62), 290–300; Miles, Art as
Plunder (n. 2), 210–17.

(104) See J. E. Stambaugh, The Ancient Roman City (Baltimore 1988), 164; for
detailed discussion see A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The Social Structure of the Roman
House’, PBSR 56 (1988), 59; Y. Thébert, ‘Private and Public Spaces: The
Components of the domus’, in E. D’Ambra (ed.), Roman Art in Context. An
Anthology (New York 1993), 213–37 on the public versus private components of
the Roman house in Africa (cf. Thébert, ‘Private Life and Domestic Architecture
in Roman Africa’, in P. Veyne (ed.), A History of Private Life from Pagan Rome to
Byzantium (Cambridge Mass. 1987), 353–82); A. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and
Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton 1994), 17–37; A. M. Riggsby,
‘“Public” and “Private” in Roman Culture: The Case of the cubiculum’, JRA 10
(1997), 36–56, whose focus is the cubiculum; S. Treggiari, ‘Home and Forum:
Cicero between “Public” and “Private”’, TAPA 128 (1998), 1–23; ‘The Upper-class
House as Symbol and Focus of Emotion in Cicero’, JRA 12 (1999), 33–56; S.
Hales, ‘At Home with Cicero’, GaR 47 (2000), 44–55; The Roman House and
Social Identity (Cambridge 2003); Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution
(n. 10), 190–208 where he discusses the overlap between public and private in
Roman houses.

(105) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 5), 59–62 for discussion.

(106) Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 243.

(107) See O. J. Brendel, Prolegomena to the Study of Roman Art (New Haven
1979), 153–6 on the divergent nature of public and private art; also see Leach,
Rhetoric of Space (n. 102), 136.

(108) Cic. Att. 1.8.2; see Pollitt, ‘Impact of Greek Art’ (n. 9), 162; cf. Galsterer,
‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 861.

(109) For discussion of the statues and ‘Academy’ see V. J. Rosivach, ‘Cicero’s
Statues’, New England Classical Journal, 41.4 (2004), 387–95.

Page 45 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(110) See B. S. Ridgway, ‘The Wreck of Mahdia, Tunisia, and the Art Market in
the Early First Century BC’, JRA 8 (1995), 340–7 for discussion; also see
Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6) and G. Zimmer, ‘Republikanisches
Kunstverständnis: Cicero gegen Verres’, in G. Hellenkemper Salies (ed.), Das
Wrack. Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia (Cologne 1994), 867–74 for Cicero
and his collecting in the context of the wreck; see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s
Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 361–71 for the Mahdia wreck and the Roman trade
in luxury goods.

(111) See Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 240 for Cicero’s Academy
in his house and in its larger context; see also Zimmer, ‘Republikanisches
Kunstverständnis’ (n. 110), 871–2.

(112) Fam. 7.23.2; see Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 239 for
discussion.

(113) For discussion see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 4), 256; Leen, ‘Cicero and
the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56); Hales, Roman House (n. 99), 18–20; cf. 58.

(114) Vitruvius 7.5.5–6; on objects’ ‘suitability’ see Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric
of Art’ (n. 56), 237, 239; for discussion of the architecture of Cicero’s villas in
their Vitruvian context, and in the context of the construction of Roman identity,
see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 170–3, who also has a
good discussion concerning the function of gymnasia in Cicero’s villas.

(115) On Greek cultural material’s expression of power and status in a ‘private’

setting see Hölscher, ‘Hellenistische Kunst’ (n. 4), 881–4.

(116) Cf. Vitruvius 6.5.1–3; for discussion see Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of
Art’ (n. 56), 237–8; for related discussion see T. P. Wiseman, ‘Conspicui Postes
Tectaque Digna Deo: The Public Image of Aristocratic and Imperial Houses in
the Late Republic and Early Empire’, in L’Urbs: espace urbain et histoire.
Collection de L’Ecole Française de Rome 98 (Rome 1987), 393; Bounia, Nature of
Classical Collecting (n. 62), 295–6.

(117) See A. Desmouliez, Cicéron et son goût: Essai sur une definition d’une
aesthetique romaine à la fin de la République (Brussels 1976), 266–316, esp.
304–6 for decorum as it applies to Cicero’s taste in art; also see Leen, ‘Cicero
and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 235; see Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting
(n. 62), 291–3 for the suitability of an object to the place; also see E. Perry, The
Aesthetics of Emulation in the Visual Arts of Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2005),
31–49 for how décor was interpreted by those with knowledge and authority,
who created a formulaic visual culture, but one that left scope for interpretation
depending on context.

(118) See e.g. De Or. 1.127–8; cf. 1.113–14, 1.5–18.

Page 46 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(119) For the construction of identity in antiquity see p. 18 n. 39. For private
collections as a showcase for personal erudition see J. Elsner, Imperial Rome and
Christian Triumph (Oxford 1998), 172.

(120) See Appadurai, ‘Commodities’ (n. 1), 41, who argues that ‘Commodities
represent very complex social forms and distributions of knowledge. In the first
place, and crudely, such knowledge can be of two sorts: the knowledge
(technical, social, aesthetic, and so forth) that goes into the production of the
commodity; and the knowledge that goes into appropriately consuming the
commodity’. Commodities—and objects—as he notes, have ‘life histories’ closely
tied to the life history of the consumer; for objects and their individual histories
that give them meaning also see R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock, (eds.),
Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003), 5.

(121) Ep. 8.18; concerning Domitius see R. Syme, ‘The Dating of Pliny’s Latest
Letters’, CQ 35 (1985), 177, 180–2.

(122) Ep. 3.1. For Corinthian ware’s popularity see e.g. Cic. Att. 2.1.11; Fin. 2.23;
Rosc. Am. 133; Tusc. 2.32; Verr. 2.2.46, 83; see B. Baldwin, ‘Trimalchio’s
Corinthian Plate’, CP 68 (1973), 46–7 for discussion; concerning Corinthian
bronzes in the larger context of Roman patterns of consumption see Wallace-
Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 372–6. For Vestricius Spurinna see R.
Syme, Roman Papers Vol. VII (Oxford 1991), 541–50.

(123) Mart. 9.43; Statius, Silvae 4.6; cf. Mart. 9.44, 12.69; see Alsop, Rare Art
Traditions (n. 92), 206–7 for Vindex as a collector. Vindex also appears to have
owned works by Myron, Apelles, Polyclitus, Praxiteles, and Phidias; for general
discussion of the Lysippus statue see E. Bartman, ‘Lysippos’ Huge God in Small
Shape’, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 73 (1986), 298–311; W. J.
Schneider, ‘Phidiae Putavi Martial und der Hercules Epitrapezios des Novius
Vindex’, Memnosyne, 54 (2001), 697–720; S. Lorenz, ‘Martial, Herkules und
Domitian: Büsten, Statuetten und Statuen im Epigrammaton liber nonus’,
Mnemosyne, 56 (2003), 566–84; C. McNelis, ‘Ut Sculptura Poesis: Statius,
Martial, and the Hercules Epitrapezios of Novius Vindex’, AJP 129 (2008), 255–
76; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 265–70.

(124) For the appeal of its antique look see Alsop, Rare Art Traditions (n. 92),
196. Pliny does not mention the artist; his assessment of its appearance
indicated its age as ‘old and antique’ (vetus et antiquum), and possibly as
authentic too. On authentic versus counterfeit pieces in antiquity see D.
Emanuele, ‘Aes Corinthium: Fact, Fiction, and Fake’, Phoenix, 43 (1989), 350–4;
also see Phaedrus, Prologue 5.4–9, who notes the market for fakes of Praxiteles,
Myron, and Zeuxis. See too Hallett’s related discussion concerning copies in
Roman antiquity (‘Emulation versus Reduplication’ (n. 101), 419–21), which
argues that Romans could be just as happy with a fine replica as with an

Page 47 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

original; cf. 43 for his discussion of the case of Dubius Avitus, who commissioned
copies of cups to be made by Zenodorus originally by Calamis (Pliny, HN 34.47);
also see M. Marvin, The Language of the Muses. The Dialogue between Greek
and Roman Sculpture (Los Angeles 2008), 121–67.

(125) Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 67), 230.

(126) Strabo 13.1.54; for discussion see H. Lindsay, ‘Strabo on Apellicon’s

Library’, RhM 140 (1997), 290–8; Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (n. 54),
68–9.

(127) Plut. Luc. 42.1–4; see Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (n. 54), 69; cf.
61–108 for Roman libraries in general; also see C. Edwards and G. Woolf
‘Cosmopolis: Rome as World City’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the
Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 14–15.

(128) For Cicero’s table see Pliny, HN 13.92; for the statue of Fortuna see Cass.
Dio 58.7.2.

(129) Pliny, HN 34.11–12; see Emanuele, ‘Aes Corinthium’ (n. 124), 351; Wallace-
Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 371–9 for discussion.

(130) Pliny, HN 35.26; see Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 862 for
discussion.

(131) Listed in Pollitt, ‘Impact of Greek Art’ (n. 9), 162, who notes that ‘Crassus
paid 100,000 sesterces for some cups by the Greek engraver Mentor (fifth or
early fourth century BC); C. Gracchus is said to have bought some figures of
Dolphins for 5,000 sesterces a pound, Pliny, HN 33.147’. He also notes that
‘Lucullus was ready to pay … as much as a million sesterces, for a statue of
“Felicitas” by Arcesilaos’, noting that that was for a contemporary artist still
living. For a brief catalogue of expensive collectibles in antiquity see Bounia,
Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 62), 298; also see W. K. Pritchett, The Greek
State at War, 5 (Berkeley 1991), 107 for a list of the price’s Pliny notes were
paid for specific works.

(132) Pliny, HN 35.155–6; for Arcesilaus also see p. 227.

(133) See Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (n. 119), 110 for objects
giving their owner distinction by virtue of the tradition in which they took part.

(134) See Baldwin, ‘Trimalchio’s Corinthian Plate’ (n. 122), for his short but
informative discussion of this episode; cf. Emanuele ‘Aes Corinthium’ (n. 124),
355.

Page 48 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(135) On the importation of luxury as a moving target in our sources see Wallace-
Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 346–7; for the consumption of luxury
objects and their relationship to Roman social identity, see in general Wallace-
Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), esp. 441–54.

(136) See Carey, ‘Problems of Totality (n. 6), 7–9 for Pliny the Elder’s attack on
the collection and consumption of luxury goods and decadence in the early
empire; for ‘consumerism and social anxiety’ in the Roman literary record, esp.
Pliny the Elder, see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 345–53.

(137) Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 325.

(138) See Tac. Ann. 3.55; cf. the speech of Asinius Gallus, Ann. 2.33; see R. Syme,
Tacitus (Oxford 1958), 573, who notes that display was all the nobiles had left
after the republic.

(139) For a good discussion on consumption and luxury laws including the
theoretical background see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10),
329–38.

(140) Suet. Iul. 47; Marc Antony had similar tastes, and reportedly proscribed a
man to obtain a particularly precious jewel, Pliny, HN 37.82; see F. de Oliveira,
Les Idées politique et morales de Pline L’Ancien (Coimbra 1992), 182 for
discussion.

(141) Cic. Phil. 2.109, 3.30, 13.11; see Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 97), 344 for
discussion.

(142) See Pliny, HN 35.81–3. The panel perished by a fire in Augustus’ house in
AD 4.

(143) Suet. Aug. 72.3; see A. Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters. Paleontology in
Greek and Roman Times (Princeton 2000), 142–4 for Augustus’ paleontology
collection. Cf. the anecdote in Phlegon of Tralles concerning an embassy to
Tiberius with the tooth of an alleged hero over a foot long, FGrH 257 F36.14; see
R. Garland, The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-
Roman World (Ithaca 1995), 50 for discussion; also see J. F. Healy, ‘Pliny on
Mineralogy and Metals’, in R. French and F. Greenaway (eds.), Science in the
Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, his Sources and Influence (Totowa NJ and
London 1986), 112–14 on the ancient interpretation and theory of fossils.

(144) Suet. Aug. 70.2: Augustus was ‘very desirous of expensive furniture and of
Corinthian [sc. bronzes]’, pretiosae supellectilis Corinthiorumque praecupidus.
See Baldwin, ‘Trimalchio’s Corinthian Plate’ (n. 122), 46, who notes that
Augustus ‘was allegedly dubbed Corintharius for proscribing owners of vasa
Corinthia which he coveted. Pliny, HN 34.6 claims Antony proscribed Verres for

Page 49 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

much the same reason’; cf. Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 205–6. For Nero’s taste
for Corinthian bronzes see Pliny, HN 34.48.

(145) Suet. Tib. 44.2; for Tiberius’ taste in art see Pliny, HN 34.62, Cass. Dio
55.9.6; see B. Levick, Tiberius the Politician (London 1976), 231 for discussion;
cf. A. Stewart, ‘To Entertain an Emperor: Sperlonga, Laokoön and Tiberius at the
Dinner-Table’, JRS 67 (1977), 84–5. For Tiberius’ proclivity towards erotic art see
J. R. Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: Construction of Sexuality in Roman Art 100
B.C.–A.D. 250 (Berkeley 1998), 29.

(146) Although it has also been noted by S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An

Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (London 1995), 408, that
collecting and the erotic overlap. Hence Pearce notes that ‘the diction of
collecting is full of explicitly sexual words like “fetish”, “voyeur”, “passion” and
“love” ’. For Tiberius, ‘subversion’ is perhaps simply a commentary on the true
nature of collecting, and a sort of psychological meta-collecting of the self.

(147) Pliny, HN 33.3–4; see T. McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman
World: A Study and Social History of the Brothel (Ann Arbor 2004), 128–30 for
discussion. For two good discussions of the Warren Cup’s subject see J. R.
Clarke, ‘The Warren Cup and the Context for the Representations of Male-to-
Male Lovemaking in Augustan and Early Julio-Claudian Art’, ArtB 75 (1993),
275–94; J. Pollini, ‘The Warren Cup: Homoerotic Love and Symposial Rhetoric in
Silver’, ArtB 81 (1999), 21–52.

(148) For discussion of the sculptures see F. Coarelli, ‘Sperlonga e Tiberio’,

DialArch 7 (1973), 97–122; B. Conticello and B. Andraea Die Skulpturen von
Sperlonga, Antike Plastik Vol. XIV (Berlin 1974); Stewart, ‘To Entertain an
Emperor’ (n. 145), 76–90; R. Brilliant, My Laocoön. Alternative Claims in the
Interpretation of Artworks (Berkeley 2000), 10–12; B. Ridgway, ‘The Sperlonga
Sculptures. The Current State of Research’, in N. T. de Grummond and B. S.
Ridgeway (eds.), From Pergamum to Sperlonga. Culture and Context (Berkeley
2000), 78–91; M. Squire, ‘The Motto in the Grotto: Inscribing Illustration and
Illustrating Inscription at Sperlonga’, in Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds.),
Art and Inscription in the Ancient World (Cambridge 2007), 102–27.

(149) In comparison we know little from the literary record about Caligula’s and
Claudius’ tastes; for Nero, in addition to his pillaging of Greek treasures during
his tour in 67 we hear also of a pair of drinking cups with scenes embossed from
Homer (Suet. Ner. 47.1), and a favourite terracotta statue of an Amazon by
Strongylion that he carried around in his retinue (Pliny, HN 34.82).

(150) Pliny, HN 34.62; see Hölscher, ‘Hellenistische Kunst’ (n. 4), 878 for the
larger context of this incident.

Page 50 of 51

 
Collecting and Acquisition

(151) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 67); G. Houston, ‘Tiberius on
Capri’, GaR 32 (1985), 179–96; S. Rutledge, ‘Tiberius’ Philhellenism’, CW 101
(2008), 453–67.

(152) Tiberius himself was ‘collected’ in the end: Suet. Tib. 6.3, says that
childhood presents he received from Sex. Pompeius’ sister, Pompeia, including a
cloak, a broach, and some gold plaques, were still exhibited in his day at Baiae.

(153) For what Nero took from Greece see Pliny, HN 34.84; Pausanias 10.7.1,
10.19.2; Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes 31.148. See p. 273 for the question of
public versus private access to Nero’s Domus Aurea, its collection, and its reuse
by Vespasian. See Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 255–9 for discussion of Nero’s
pillaging of Greece; also see p. 52.

(154) Pliny, HN 36.37–8.

(155) See, respectively, Suet. Vesp. 16.1–3; Dom. 3.1.

(156) Mart. 12.15: Quidquid Parrhasia nitebat aula/ donatum est oculis deisque
nostris, ‘Whatever shone in Parrhasius’ hall/has been given to our eyes and to
our gods’; Martial goes on to attack Domitian as a proud king (superbi regis)
who reveled in luxury (luxus).

Page 51 of 51

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0003

Abstract and Keywords

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

Keywords:   viewers, artefacts, visual culture, cultural values, elite, cultural property

Tales and anecdotes abounded in antiquity concerning the response of viewers

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

Page 1 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

number of studies by well-known scholars have addressed similar subjects

before, considering in the process what visual culture could tell us about the
structures of power in Roman antiquity, and their approaches have varied
widely.2 The present discussion, seeking to build on previous studies, will serve
as a starting point for the remainder of the work, since it will prove instructive,
if we are going to consider the nature of cultural (p.80) property and possible
responses to it, to understand the nature of how its audience viewed,
understood, and appreciated it.

Viewing and attitudes towards viewing occasionally constituted an area of

distinction and identity in Roman society, in which the educated observer was
set against less knowledgeable counterparts. Yet material artefacts and their
display also functioned as a means to a broader communication of ideology and
identity for Roman society as a whole, although how and to what extent such
objects and displays communicated to ‘ordinary’ Romans is problematic to say
the least. As has recently been pointed out, our view of ancient cultural objects
is often dominated by a category that relies on ‘the all-too-general use of the
highcultural, production-centered aesthetic categories of interpretation,
imitation, and aemulatio for Roman public sculpture’ which was ‘valid for only a
narrow range of thinking artists and viewers’.3

However, the subordinate classes stood as an audience to the elite’s desires and
expectations. Priests, orators, and generals noted for virtus set up the objects
that spoke to the mass of the Roman people. That same elite consequently
determined what was expected in terms of styles, settings, and the general
decorum that encompassed the display and viewing of cultural artefacts.
Educated Romans tended to be exclusionary in terms of how they understood
the nature of viewing and arguably set in place what we might term a ‘hierarchy
of the gaze’. Such stratification, in the opinion of Roman literati, depended
clearly on the level of the viewer’s education and sophistication and tended to
exclude those of humbler status. Yet despite this hierarchical perspective on
viewing, there were also certain attitudes and responses to cultural material that
were likely shared. Cultural objects on display in Rome were intended to
communicate to a wide audience on a variety of levels. Our elite sources, while
they occasionally represent the understanding of visual culture as a province of
the privileged, also reveal it as a point of consensus and integration within the
community and among viewers. The general ability of objects to communicate in
one way or another with the viewer may have motivated Cicero’s remarks (De
Or. 3.195) that all men have an intuitive sense that allows them to form a
judgement concerning what is appropriate in the execution of pictures, statues,
and other works. Supporting Cicero’s claim is the simple fact that the
exhibitions of noteworthy statuary by aediles in the Forum, the assorted images
generals displayed in triumphs, the painted porticoes adorned with statuary, all
were designed to curry favour with not only the citizen body but the city as a
collective whole. As was the case with architectural forms, cultural objects
Page 2 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

served to foster a sense of communal (p.81) solidarity, but in so doing required

some shared notions concerning perceptions and attitudes towards them.4 We
say this, however, aware of the vastly diverse ways that elites and non-elites
(and for that matter, Romans and non-Romans) both could read such works, and
to further note that the language of non-elite art could and did express a vastly
different set of values at times than those with which we are here concerned.5

E. Thomas has recently noted that ‘The symbolic forms of Roman architecture,
then, established and sustained relations of domination between elites and non-
elites’; the same could be said of the property that served to ornament such
venues.6 However, the dominant reading, as we shall later see, was also ‘ranged
against the power of readers to generate new interpretations’.7 We will therefore
also consider the potentially ambiguous readings cultural material presented to
viewers in subsequent chapters. Our concern here is to show the division
between viewers based on social demarcation that had to be reconciled with the
need for cultural objects to speak to a broad audience. While the capacity for
such objects to communicate in wider terms was largely established through the
use, for example, of a relatively simplified set of iconographic or
representational forms (such as funerary busts, loricate statuary (i.e., adorned
with a breastplate), or symbols and objects associated with particular deities),
the meaning of such objects and the ability of various audiences to ‘decode’
them was almost certainly far more fluid.8

Finally, while we are here interested in the question of possible responses and
attitudes towards cultural property, of equal importance is the level of
knowledge Romans had of their own visual history. A fragment of Ennius (Scipio
10–11) asks, Quantam statuam faciet populus Romanus/ quantam columnam
quae res tuas gestas loquatur? ‘How great a statue will the Roman people
make?/ How great a column (p.82) to speak of your achievements?’ The extent
to which cultural objects literally ‘spoke’ to individuals in Rome is indicated by
the extent to which they enter the language of metaphor and description in the
literature as a point of reference in authors such as Petronius, Ovid, and others.9
The question for us is how Romans (and others) understood the language of the
great variety of cultural artefacts in the city. Admittedly, this topic is enormous,
particularly the question of response. Let me therefore emphasize that this
discussion does not pretend to be exhaustive and focuses specifically on a
limited range of responses and issues pertaining to viewer accessibility and
expectation.

Elite Viewers: Historical Knowledge and art Criticism

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

Page 3 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

treasures, the ability to appreciate them, and the knowledge of cultural heritage
in general was not the sole domain of the privileged classes, as will become
clear in this discussion. It does bear mentioning, though, that the distinction
drawn between the interested or educated observer as opposed to the more
casual onlooker is one our sources, specifically Cicero and Plutarch, do make.
The dichotomy is best expressed in Plutarch (Mor. 575B), who referred to two
types of viewers (specifically of painting): the more common individual will look
at the general impression the painting gives and then walk off having just taken
away a mere sketch or outline of the whole, whereas the more discerning viewer
will observe with greater critical judgement, scrutinizing details and critiquing
that which is poorly done. The ability to critically analyse, view, or understand
was a means by which (p.83) distinctions could be made between elites and
non-elites, thereby reaffirming elite identity and power.11

At the top of those who knew best how to appreciate art and were connoisseurs
of it were the artists themselves. As Elsner has pointed out, this may be due in
no small part to the ancient view that artists claimed a ‘special access to the
truth’ of both the human mind and form.12 Pliny the Younger was certainly
among those who privileged the artist among critics (Ep. 1.10.4), asserting that
an artist is the best judge of a painting or sculpture, and whose letter also
implies deference to professional (such as it was) opinion as opposed to those of
the mere critic. Pliny’s uncle drove home the point in a well-known anecdote:
Alexander the Great famously gave a pretentious disquisition on painting in
Apelles’ studio, only to elicit the artist’s admonition that the boys grinding the
colours were laughing at him.13 That the artist had the most critical eye was
something Cicero similarly asserted (Fin. 2.115), and we have already noted
Verres’ trust of artistic judgement in the course of his looting of Sicily.14 After
the artists themselves came the famous collectors who had built a reputation of
discriminating taste (see pp. 64–9). Critics no doubt abounded, as Plutarch’s
Moralia (346A–B) shows when one viewer compares Parrhasius’ portrait of
Theseus with Euphranor’s, with an implied preference for the latter. Euphranor
himself was the author of a treatise entitled De Symmetria et Coloribus (‘On
Symmetry and Colours’) and was just one of many artists who wrote on their
craft, none of which are extant.15 However the existence of such treatises on art
by artists themselves doubtless reinforced the artist’s auctoritas.

In second place was the elite class, which, from at least the third century BC on,
had come to value (and collect) Greek art in particular. During the period of the
middle republic it appears that painting, at least briefly, had even become a part
of a young man’s education. Holliday has noted that the cognomen Pictor may
indicate a lack of embarrassment about painting and the arts in general during
this period and that painting in the republic had become a part of the
educational (p.84) curriculum but fell out of favour after Pacuvius.16 The initial
impetus towards such interest may have been Valerius Messalla’s commission of
a painting depicting the campaign against Tarentum in 265 BC that was
Page 4 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

displayed in the senate.17 While painting vanished from the curriculum for a
time, it conceivably returned by the early empire, since we find that Hadrian,
Nero, and the fictional children of Trimalchio’s guests in Petronius’ Satyricon all
received hands-on education in it.18 If one did receive such education then we
would expect one to claim greater authority in their ability to critique, although
this claim to authority is offset by a cultural dynamic whereby in Roman society,
at least in the political sphere, too much knowledge of art could prove an
embarrassment.19 This appears merely a public pose, however, since self-styled
art critics abounded among the Roman elite. We need only consider those
discussions concerning the decline of art in Petronius (Satyricon 88), Vitruvius
(7.5), and Pliny (HN 14.2–6) to appreciate that among Rome’s educated art
criticism flourished. The situation is perhaps best illustrated in Philostratus the
Elder’s Imagines, where, in imagining a visit to a gallery in Neapolis, he has the
viewer (who acts as the teacher too), praise the collection and particularly the
fine eye of the one who assembled it.20

In addition to the critiquing of artistic works, the ability to read topography and
cultural objects was arguably yet another source of empowerment for the elite.
It gave them access to an understanding of history, and, given the significance of
history as a political tool and an instrument of governance, ensured the
perpetuation of their power and privilege. As was the case with art works, the
varying levels of knowledge depended not just on one’s education but values as
well. Cicero gives us a fictional though plausible example of this in the opening
of (p.85) the fifth book of his De Finibus, where the interlocutors express their
wonder at and appreciation of the topography of ancient Athens (where the
dialogue takes place), a topography that brings to mind particular aspects of the
city’s history and culture corresponding to the values of the individual viewer.21
Hence, Quintus Cicero expresses his admiration for Sophocles as they pass by
Colonus Hill (5.3), while Athens puts Atticus in mind of Epicurus. Atticus in turn
notes the powerful stimulation of the imagination and the recollection of famous
men that a renowned place such as Athens creates, and goes on to recall that he
once visited Metapontum and refused to go to his lodging until he visited
Pythagoras’ house (5.4). Athens’ orators and statesmen were what excited
Lucius Cicero, the dialogue’s third interlocutor. For Lucius a visit to Phalerum to
see where Demosthenes used to practice oratory and a pilgrimage to Pericles’
tomb were imperative, and he confessed to feeling overwhelmed by Athens’
historical monuments. As Gregory notes in his discussion of this passage,
‘Places, buildings, pictures, even the association of names, all these served to
remind the elite Roman of the historical past and of his Graeco-Roman
heritage’.22

This is not to say that the ability to appreciate Rome’s heritage was exclusively
elite. As Vasaly’s study on Cicero has shown, Cicero could refer to at least the
better known topographical features in Rome whose associations would be
immediate to many Romans. Similarly, in Livy, Manlius could appeal to the
Page 5 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Capitoline that he saved or Horatius’ father to his son’s spear in their respective
trials, both as a means to evoke a particular set of Roman values (sacrifice and
valour). Though both episodes are problematic, they nonetheless represent
plausible reactions to Rome’s physical patrimony. Monuments and artefacts
constituted a reflection of something shared by the community, to which Roman
society could collectively relate.23 Indeed, as Sailor has shown, from the
perspective of Tacitus at least, one of the key indicators of communal collapse in
the civil war of 69 was the destruction of the Capitoline and the loss of any
semiotic significance for the soldiers of the monuments and sacred buildings
within the city.24

(p.86) It is worth noting that in these cases it is not the historical accuracy or
the furthering of knowledge that is of interest, but rather the emotive or
evocative power of monuments to support a particular system of values that is at
stake. In this way, memorials, monuments, and the various objects associated
with the great men of the past become integral to the perpetuation of memory,
hence, power, in antiquity. Cicero in fact, in the De Inventione noted that
memory ensured the recollection of virtus, which encompassed iustitia, fortitudo,
and moderatio (‘justice’, ‘courage’, and ‘temperance’), through which Rome had
proven itself worthy to rule. Since virtus is a martial value on which much of the
auctoritas of the ruling elite was based, memory and power were in a sense
directly linked. In addition, the use of visual markers as an analogy and tool for
memory practice among the elite intelligentsia certainly reflects a genuine
reality concerning mnemonic markers in Cicero’s day amongst the more general
population, which relied on monuments and topography rather than written
signifiers when navigating the city.25 Quintilian discusses memory in similar
terms.26 Memory—and power—of necessity was literally inscribed on the city,
hence the minds of its inhabitants.

In general, Athens, Rome, and their monuments recalled for Cicero and others
the memory of worthy men of the past and had a greater impact on the mind
than even hearing or reading about their deeds, making the reality of the past
more vivid, an observation reflecting that of other Roman writers.27 While
Cicero is here speaking of Athens, he also notes that it applies to Rome as well
through the character of Piso, who recalls that ‘so great a force of recollection is
present in places that, not without cause, has the instruction of memory been
drawn out from them’ (tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis; ut non sine causa ex
iis memoriae ducta sit disciplina, Fin. 5.2), referring specifically to his gazing
upon memorials of men such as Cato the Elder, Scipio, and Laelius.28 The
remark makes explicit an assumption that arguably reflects the potential for
topography to function similarly to Roman imagines at a funeral (see also p.
106): that is, to instruct Romans (p.87) in what is worthy of remembrance in
the hope that they also will act accordingly if they desire commemoration.
Elsewhere Cicero states quite explicitly that it was not so much the artworks, as
the very places famous men lived, sat, argued, and were buried that delighted
Page 6 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

the mind with recollection.29 The notion of the imago as both a statement of
Roman values and as something that reaffirms them is discussed in similar terms
in Cicero’s Pro Archia (30):

Many of the foremost men have eagerly left statues and images, not of
their minds but of their bodies; ought we not to prefer far more to leave an
effigy of our counsels and virtues shaped and refined by the highest
talents? (consiliorum relinquere ac virtutum nostrarum effigiem nonne
multo malle debemus summis ingeniis expressam et politam?)

As Leen has noted, effigiem … expressam et politam is a phrase that one can use
rhetorically to refer to the composition of a speech or to the creation of an actual
image, indicating an understanding ‘that realities can be manufactured’.30 In the
De Legibus and De Finibus that reality is one created, and in turn consumed by
the dominant elite. It is, after all, Scipio and Demosthenes who impress Piso and
L. Cicero, creating an exclusive echo chamber.31

Cicero’s remarks in the Pro Archia and elsewhere are supported by Tacitus, who,
like Cicero, observes that historically significant sites, whether important for
Greek or Roman identity, had a special attraction. While Cicero never states as
much specifically, as noted above, he certainly implies that historical sites could
be virtual pilgrimage destinations, having something of a quasi-religious
attraction for the viewer. Tacitus indicates a similar phenomenon in his telling of
Germanicus’ eastern tour (Ann. 2.53–4) when he reports that the sight of the
monuments at Nicopolis, in western Greece, moved Germanicus with the
ambiguous memory of the conflict between his great uncle, Augustus, and his
grandfather, Marc Antony (‘there was a great image there of things sad and
happy’, magnaque illic imago tristium laetorumque). He subsequently toured the
rest of Greece and Asia, desiring to visit its famous cities and oracles, which
included a stop at Ilium both out of historical sentiment and religious devotion.
His own identity and family history, Rome’s Greek heritage, and Rome’s Trojan
origins create a nexus of associations that Germanicus attempted to make real
through his visits to the actual sites, and to experience that ‘pleasure of
recollecting’ to which Cicero had alluded.

(p.88) Needless to say, to travel and appreciate such places did (and still does)
indicate a position of privilege within society. So too did the education that
opened the path to a deeper appreciation and understanding of both their Greek
and Roman heritage. Such education allowed not just for a deeper reading and
understanding of the history of a given site or monument, it also permitted
alternative, even allegorical readings of such sites that reached beyond the
superficial. Plutarch, for one, speaks of the symbolic interpretation of some of
the iconography associated with certain deities.32 Later on, Lucian makes a clear
distinction between the educated and uneducated viewer in this regard.33 How
accessible a ‘symbolic’ reading of a particular artefact was to its audience, how

Page 7 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

‘readable’ its nexus of historical or mythological associations might have been,

and how exclusive to those with specialized knowledge is hard to say. How many,
for example, knew as Plutarch did that Phidias put a serpent next to the statue
of Athena Parthenus to indicate that maidens need watching? Or that next to his
Aphrodite at Elis Phidias sculpted a tortoise to indicate that silence becomes a
woman? Such interpretations were sometimes a matter of controversy (such as
why there was a statue of a bronze palm tree with frogs at the base in the
Treasury of the Corinthians at Delphi), while others were a matter of more
learned understanding, such as why a famous statue of Apollo at Delphi held a
rooster in his hand.34

While we have cast our net only after Greek exempla, we nonetheless know that
some images carried in the triumphal processions were allegorical in nature (see
pp. 199–204). The image of Macedonia in the painting from the villa of P. Fannius
Synistor at Boscoreale (fig. 3.1) gives us one possible alternative out of several
for how such personifications were depicted.35 Allegorical reading of this sort is
not to be confused with the general expectations of the iconography of particular
figures that were popular and well-attested in the artistic (and literary) record.36
(p.89)

A certain ‘standardized’
iconography likely helped viewers
to identify Bacchus, Apollo,
Hermes, Diana, and other figures
as such. In addition, as J. Rüpke
has noted, a certain level of
religious knowledge will have
been socially transmitted by
various means (such as
participation in family rituals), and
will have had a role in an
individual’s level of
understanding.37
(p.90) Allegorical readings
also raise the more general
though very important question
of larger cultural or historical
connections that could be made
by viewers. For example, we
note that ekphrases in ancient
Fig. 3.1 Roman provinces were often
writers were not infrequently
depicted allegorically as female
intended to highlight or
personifications, usually with specific
underscore central themes
iconographic attributes identifying them
within the work in which they
as specific provinces. The province here
were embedded; the reader or
depicted is generally thought to be that of
listener would be expected to

Page 8 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

understand the artful allusions Macedonia from a fresco in the villa of

such descriptive excursus held Publius Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale. c.
for the theme and or structure 50 AD. Museo Archeologico Nazionale,
of the work as a whole. We Naples.
think, for example, of Vergil’s
description of the Temple of
Apollo at Cumae in book six that links to a number of general themes and events
within the Aeneid (6.18–33): the exile of Daedalus that reflects Aeneas’ loss of
country; Daedalus’ treacherous bull that looks back to the equally deceptive
Trojan Horse; Pasiphae’s passion that mirrors Dido’s own; and the loss of Icarus,
Daedalus’ son, on the journey to Italy recalling the death of Aeneas’ father
Anchises under similar circumstances.38 Vergil would have expected his readers
to appreciate such connections, and the case was the same with ‘visual texts’
within the city. Educated viewers at least would understand, as Holliday has
argued, the thematic associations created by the various allusions—historical,
mythical, or other—within collections in their urban contexts.39

Finally, we note that among elite viewers a somewhat distinct categorization of

canonical artists came to be preferred, indeed, even proverbial in our sources.
Phidias, Polyclitus, Lysippus, Praxiteles, and Myron round out our sculptors,
while the painters included Apelles, Zeuxis, and Protogenes. Such ‘canonization’
helped to determine what was to be acceptable, what valued, and what not, for
Roman viewers. Certain artists came not only to be preferred, but actually
mirrored Quintilian’s succinct and famous judgements concerning Roman
authors.40 Hence, as Hölscher notes, Phidias became known for his maiestas,
pondus, and eximia pulchritudo (‘majesty’, ‘weight’, and ‘remarkable beauty’);
Polyclitus for his décor supra verum (‘that went beyond the truth’); Lysippus for
veritas and pulchritudo (‘realism’ and ‘beauty’).41 These preferences must be (p.
91) reconstructed piecemeal from a variety of sources, but doubtless works
such as Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria or Pliny’s Historia Naturalis served to
construct the system of values and judgements that gave birth to the ancient
canon, and these, in turn, as Elsner notes, were influenced by Hellenistic
sources.42 Pliny, for example, tells us that Pasiteles, a Greek from southern Italy
who became a citizen after the Social War, was the leading sculptor in Rome in
the first century BC and wrote a work called Nobilium Operum in Toto Orbe (‘On
the World’s Notable Art Works’, HN 36.39). To judge from Pliny, there was a
distinct hierarchy of values and forms set out in works of this sort, one that
served to give authority, legitimacy, and authenticity to particular artists and
styles. Greek classicism, in particular, became the standard, though a
remarkable amalgam of styles coexisted side by side in his day.43 These were the
objects endowed with value to the exclusion of other works from other peoples
(at other periods), and over time Rome became what we might call an
‘interpretative community’ and learned to value such works to the point of
fetish.44

Page 9 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

The process of fetishizing particular objects is closely related to the process that
has been referred to as ‘sacralization’. Certain works, by virtue of a privileged
status either in their physical context or their place in the literary record are
rendered ‘sacred’ in their own rights.45 By virtue of their privileged position, the
objects, whether they previously enjoyed a religious context or not, are
‘respiritualized… as aesthetic objects’.46 They are no longer ‘living’ pieces, but
‘are wrenched out of their own true contexts and become dead to their living
time and space in order (p.92) that they may be given an immortality within
the collection’.47 As already noted, much material once brought to Rome was
consecrated, therefore, literally sacrosanct; but rendering cultural material
sacred was also accomplished simply by virtue of setting it apart, passing it from
the profane world to one in which it was deemed extraordinary and special. This
is a phenomenon that is more apparent for collections that adorned porticoes
and galleries as opposed to statues that were ultimately set up in temples and
became objects of direct religious veneration—objects with which, in other
words, Romans had daily ‘ordinary’ contact and which continued to have an
active life. In this sense, as Stewart has noted, such material occupied a liminal
space between art and religious objects.48

The ‘sacred’ aspect of cultural material was reflected in the expected ‘norms’ of
behaviour for those who frequented collections, something that had, in the right
venue, the potential to constitute a virtual public ritual, and to create an
experience in which everyday life and its social expectations were turned around
(a phenomenon that still abides arguably to this day with certain expectations
and unwritten codes governing the conduct of the museum visitor).49 As Elsner
points out, the religious ‘ritual-centered attitude to images in antiquity…
influenced both ways of seeing and thinking about art’ that was not confined
merely to images of a religious nature or to a religious context.50 Indeed, as
Favro has noted, the carefully ‘choreographed’ context in which objects were
exhibited in general ‘can provide some consistency by establishing set physical
relationships and a uniform ambience’.51 As a ritual, a certain level of
‘performance’ on the part of the viewer was demanded. It may be with this in
mind that two sources indicate that viewing will best take place in silence. Pliny
the Elder explicitly notes that despite the profusion of artworks in Rome, the
noise of the city made the contemplation and admiration of such works
difficult.52 Yet another indication—though only that—that an appropriate
decorum must be maintained (p.93) is the passage in Petronius (Satyricon 90)
in which Eumolpus finds himself the object of scorn by the patrons of an art
gallery for his attempt to recite verse while others try to take in the gallery’s
paintings.53 Doubtless, as Duncan compellingly asserts, the nature of display
would in a sense create a ‘dramatic field’ that ‘invites performance’ from the
viewer.54 The ritualistic, performative nature of such visits and the expectation
of silence and contemplation is further indication of the sacred nature (we think
of the ritual silence that attended some religious rites and the desire to avoid ill-

Page 10 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

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

Viewer Expectation: Naturalism and Realism

In addition to the privilege accorded to certain artists there was also a distinct
preference for a certain style. The episode in Petronius (Satyricon 28–9) in which
Encolpius is startled as he enters Trimalchio’s house is instructive in this regard:

In the entrance way itself a door-keeper was standing dressed in green,

girded up with a cherry-coloured belt, and shelling peas in a silver dish.
Moreover above the threshold a golden cage was hanging, in which a
spotted magpie greeted those entering. But while in the midst of marveling
at everything I nearly fell backwards and broke my legs. For on the left as
one entered, not far from the door-keeper’s chamber, a huge dog bound by
a chain had been painted on the wall, and above it had been written in
squared lettering: BEWARE OF THE DOG. And even my companions
laughed at me.

The painting implicitly frightened Encolpius because of its realism. That a work
of art should strive towards a naturalism imitative of life was a standard
expectation expressed in our authors in antiquity.55 In addition, our sources
indicate certain expectations concerning line, colour, presentation, and display,
though realism receives a preponderance of attention. While the collective
literary voice that expressed a preference for realism in antiquity is
predominantly elite, this is not without its problems.

Part of the difficulty is the privilege given to realism (the quality of similitudo,
‘likeness’ or, in the case of copies, aemulatio, ‘imitation’) by our literary sources,
something that we will explore shortly.56 Realism, or perceived realism, was the
(p.94) ‘desired norm’ when Romans (or Greeks for that matter) viewed a work
of art, and has not gone unnoticed by art historians.57 The term realism, it
should be noted, is used here with the understanding that it is a very
controversial and problematic concept in its application towards our
understanding and assessment of cultural artefacts, particularly painting and
sculpture, the style of which can be potentially driven as much by ideological
dynamics as any concern for ‘realism . As such, it constitutes a value judgement,
and how much of a concern it was to those beside the very small sample of
opinion we find in our literary sources is very much open to question.58 Our own
understanding of the ancient view of realism, however, is often at variance with
what we would consider ‘realistic , and raises numerous problems of definition.
Clearly, the heroic male nude after the Polyclitan canon (see fig. 3.2), or the
female form modelled on Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Cnidos (fig. 3.3) represent
‘naturalistic’ models albeit in an idealized form (or with an intensified
naturalism).59 But what of the grotesque baby Hercules from Hadrian’s villa (fig.
3.4)? Or the Nilotic mosaic at Palestrina with its odd sense of scale (fig. 3.5)? Set

Page 11 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

against the numerous portrait busts of so many matres and patres familias in the
veristic style (see fig. 3.7), can we call such works ‘realistic’? And who is to say
which was more generally preferred?60

As we shall soon see, those who did not strive for realism came in for occasional
criticism. Yet it should be noted that what we (and the Romans) would consider a
wide variety of styles lived side by side, with some styles privileged above others
in the literary account, even if the surviving material record tells a more
complicated and nuanced story. We will address the literary (p.95)

(p.96)

Fig. 3.2 Polyclitus’ Doryphorus (fifth

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

Page 12 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

(p.97)

Fig. 3.3 The ‘Capitoline Venus’. Based on

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

Page 13 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

(p.98)

Fig. 3.4 This rather grotesque statue of

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

Page 14 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

record below, but it is important to

note for the moment that a diverse
set of subjects were presented in a
wide array of styles and contexts,
and offered the potential for a
wide set of interpretations.
That realism was a highly
privileged quality in our sources
is vividly illustrated in two
roughly contemporary though
very different writers, Plutarch
and Martial, both of whom
attest to the expectation of Fig. 3.5 The scale and perspective of this
naturalism and realism in visual Nilotic mosaic is more on the order of the
media. Plutarch (Mor. 18A), in fantastic than the realistic, though may
comparing imitation in poetry to offer a window into how geographic
that in painting, implies a paintings and cartographic depictions
general consensus that what were sometimes executed. Later second
one looks for in painting is century BC, possibly after a Hellenistic
virtuosity of imitation, that is, (perhaps Alexandrian) painting. W: 6.56
the realistic execution of a m. H: 5.25 m. From the Temple of
given subject: Fortuna at Praeneste. Museo Prenestino
Barberiano, Palestrina.
When we see a lizard or an
ape or the face of Thersites
in a picture, we are pleased with it and admire it, not as a beautiful thing,
but as a likeness. For by its essential nature the ugly cannot become
beautiful; but the imitation, be it concerned with what is base or with what
is good, if only it attained to the likeness, is commended.61

(p.99) Still more explicit is Plutarch’s demand for realism and naturalism
expressed in his discussion of Apelles’ and Lysippus’ portraiture of Alexander
the Great where he notes (Mor. 335A–B) that vividness and naturalism—however
these were understood—were the two aspects of their works which elicited a
visceral response from viewers. In fact, according to Plutarch someone went so
far as to inscribe verses on Lysippus’ statue that the bronze was eager to speak.

A number of passages in Pliny the Elder appear to further attest to a general

expectation that the artist will strive for a realism that was generally approved
of and demanded by his audience, such as his citation of Varro’s anecdote about
a modeller in clay named Possis. He sculpted clay models of fruit and grapes so
lifelike no one could tell the difference between his models and the real thing.62
The story is one of many in Pliny, including the famous tale of a disgruntled
Protogenes who threw a sponge at a dog in one of his paintings, frustrated at not
being able to achieve the proper effect of foam on the animal’s mouth; the

Page 15 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

sponge left a mark that, to Protogenes’ eyes, made the foam look quite realistic
(HN 35.102–3). Moreover, it is a virtual common-place in Pliny that realism was
closely associated with similitudo and (on some occasions) even the ability to
deceive (as the dog had deceived and surprised Encolpius at Trimalchio’s
house).63 Perhaps the most famous story in this regard is of the contest held
between Parrhasius and Zeuxis. The latter executed a painting of grapes so
realistic that some birds swooped in to try to eat them; Parrhasius, however,
painted a curtain so life-like that even Zeuxis was deceived, asking his rival to
reveal his new painting behind the curtain before realizing his error and
admitting defeat (HN 35.65).

A similar approval of realism is implied in several of Martial’s epigrams, where a

given statue or painting appears to take on an almost living form: images
variously breathe, live, or take on such realistic proportions as to inspire fear.64
Centuries before, Lucilius too, though perhaps more derisively (and allowing
space for even more rhetorical embellishment than the urbane Martial), recalled
the effects of realism on small children: ‘As young children believe that all
bronze images/ are alive and human, thus do such men think that fictitious
dreams/ are true, they believe a heart is within the brazen images’ (Ut pueri
infantes credunt signa omnia aena/ vivere et esse homines, sic isti somnia ficta/
vera putant, credunt (p.100) signis cor inesse in aenis).65 Such vivid realism is
something Horace possibly had in mind when he remarked (Epistulae 2.1.248–9)
that the ‘character and mind of famous men’ (mores animique virorum clarorum)
were indicated in the bronze sculpture just as they were through the words of
the poet.

Petronius too, though in a work of fiction and through the mouth of Encolpius
(Satyricon 83), expressed his admiration for some works by Protogenes so real
that ‘they contended with the veracity of nature itself’, and a masterpiece by
Apelles called The Goddess on One Knee concerning which Encolpius remarks
‘the lines of the images were of so subtle a nature and precise that you might
believe that the subjects’ very soul’s had been painted’. The same picture
depicted an eagle carrying off Ganymede to heaven, and elsewhere a ‘dazzling
white’ (candidus) Hylas disgusted by a lascivious Naiad. The painting also
portrayed Apollo cursing his hands and decorating his unstrung lyre with a
flower after the death of Hyacinthus. The picture’s erotic content elicited
Encolpius to comment that love too, affects the gods. While all of these subjects
are related to Encolpius’ own (neurotic) experiences, what is striking about the
passage is that it seems that realism and eithopoieia—the ability to convey
character and emotion through painting—are the qualities which draw
Encolpius’ attention and which appear to move him the most as well (perhaps
not a surprising response given his own inclination to be emotionally
overwrought).66

Page 16 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

The emotive effect of realism is remarked by Pliny as well, who noted that a
lame figure (possibly Philoctetes) by the sculptor Pythagoras ‘could make the
viewer himself sense that he was suffering with the wound’.67 The remark is
reflective of an ugly rumour that circulated concerning Parrhasius’ depiction of
Prometheus’ torments. Parrhasius stood accused of purchasing a captive from
Olynthus and having him tortured to represent his subject more vividly.68 Such a
desire for realism, in which the very character and soul of the subject is
expressed in the work, is perhaps most strikingly and romantically embodied in
the sexual attachments viewers made with images, a phenomenon raised to a
virtually iconic (p.101) status in Ovid’s story of Pygmalion, though it is attested
periodically throughout our sources.

Quintilian too expressed the expectation of the ‘living’, realistic or naturalistic

execution of sculpture, using the example of Myron’s Discobolus, and stating
that the viewer would look to the curvature of a statue or figure and the
variation of curve; such curvature and variation, according to Quintilian
(Institutio oratoria 2.13.8–14), helped that work in particular to achieve its
animation. At the same time, he also remarked that there were viewers who
objected to this work because it was not upright as a discus-thrower ought to be.
He answered such criticism by noting that it misunderstood the art of the
sculptor, asserting that it was the novelty (novitas) and difficulty of the execution
that most deserved praise. Such dissent, however, is worth noting: while there
was a general preference for realism there was apparent disagreement about
how to achieve it and such works were not without their critics.

The discussion continued throughout antiquity. Lucian and Philostratus both

appear to have regarded realism, if not the supreme value, at least one that was
among the most cherished.69 Yet while there may have been a broad preference
for realism or naturalism through precise imitation in sculpture, ascertaining
any sort of privileged style for paintings is a bit more problematic. There
appears to have been a less universal consensus, for example, concerning the
use of colour. Thus Cicero noted that unpolished, unadorned, and dark (horrida
inculta opaca) paintings delighted some, while others preferred a polished,
cheerful, and bright style (nitida laeta collustrata, Orat. 36). Plutarch (Mor.
473F) implied a preference that vivid colours be placed in the foreground that
are radiant and cheerful to conceal and suppress the more muted colours in a
painting. Colour also served, it would appear, as a means to assess the date of a
painting at least according to Cicero (Orat. 169), who noted a sparing use of
colour in ancient paintings as opposed to contemporary ones.70 The controversy
here however concerned colour and style. Can we extrapolate anything
concerning realism from this? Perhaps looking back to Cicero’s earlier remark,
the preference of some for the inculta as opposed to the collustrata may indicate
an equal preference for a less abstract style, though we cannot be at all certain
since we know relatively little concerning the development of Classical painting.
However Vitruvius, for one, is quite explicit in his demand for ‘realism’ in terms
Page 17 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

of painting, and excoriates (p.102) contemporary artists with their taste for
fantastic architecture and phantom constructions that would—quite literally—
not hold up in reality (7.5.3–4; see fig. 3.6).71 As Elsner has pointed out, not
everyone agreed.72

Before we leave our discussion on realism, it is worth noting that particularly for
painting, but also for any artwork in general, placement was an added
consideration, and more than one author remarks that it is essential that there
be good light and that the viewing be accessible. To do otherwise might
undermine the work’s quality or alter its effect (Cic. Brut. 261). Seneca the
Younger was adamant that a picture have the proper light so that it might give
optimal pleasure to the viewer (Epistulae 7.65.17; De Beneficiis 2.33.2), while
Vitruvius was very specific about proper light for good viewing, and felt northern
exposure preferable (6.4.2, 6.7.3).73 Strong has noted that Pliny, for one,
observed that porticoes, scholae, and exedrae in particular, offered good lighting
and perspective for exhibiting artworks.74 Well before Pliny, Horace (Ars Poetica
361–5) had noted that some pictures were better in certain light than others,
some viewed better from afar, others close up. The question of distance and the
viewer’s ability to view easily the more elevated art work on a monument is a
matter that has preoccupied modern scholars: how did Romans view, for
example, the more elevated portions of Trajan’s Column? It was also a problem
recognized by the ancients. Pliny tells us that the caryatids on M. Agrippa’s
Pantheon were of good workmanship and also praises the sculptures on the
pediment of the structure, but goes on to note that they were less well-known
because of the height of the pediment, which made them difficult to see (HN
36.38).

Two of our sources indicate that the location and the subject of a particular
artwork should suit one another as well, specifically in a religious context. Thus,
Seneca the Elder finds it peculiar that paintings with certain untoward subjects,
such as the adulteries of various deities, found their way into temples
(Controversiae 10.5.14). Nor did he find the subject of Hercules slaying his
children fit for a religious setting. Strong notes that in general an artwork’s
subject would be related to the specific cult, although beginning in the late
republic profane works with no such relation began to appear inside temples
themselves.75 (p.103)

Page 18 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Communal Viewing
According to some literary
sources, the stereotypic mass
response to cultural objects was
very different from what we find
among elite viewers as depicted
in Cicero’s De Finibus. Polybius,
for example, specifically noted
the army’s disregard for
artworks and votive offerings at
the sack of Corinth (39.3),
where as an eyewitness he
claims that he saw men dicing
on paintings that had been Fig. 3.6 This frescoed cubicle (so-called
flung on the ground, including cubicle ‘E’) from the Villa della Farnesina
Aristides’ Dionysus as well as shows the kind of delicate, ‘unrealistic’
Hercules in Torment with architecture that Vitruvius excoriated as
Deianeira’s Robe.76 Cicero is in reality non-functional. Museo
similarly dismissive of those Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle
who lack a general Terme, Rome.
understanding of material
culture, including both works of
art and the monuments around them which rendered such material meaningless
(Att. 6.1.17). This generally elitist take on the ability of most to appreciate fine
artworks is reflected in the admittedly less reliable Juvenal, who speaks of the
rough and ready soldier of old, who treated artworks harshly out of ignorance,
breaking up fine silver cups to use as trappings for their armour and horses
(11.100–7).

(p.104) Of equal note is the ignorant barbarian with no appreciation of what he

was viewing. Pliny tells the anecdote of the Teuton ambassador who was asked
his opinion of a famous painting displayed in the Forum ‘of an old sheep herder
with his staff’.77 The ambassador foolishly responded that he would not even
want the original as a gift. Pliny speaks of the painting as though it were well-
known and perhaps elsewhere in his day (referring to it as ilia (‘that famous’)
pastoris senis cum baculo). The important point here is that the central aspect of
the ‘barbarian’s barbarity’ is his inability to appreciate an artwork as such.

Equally scorned were those who were variously impressed or intimidated by

imagines. Horace, for one, criticizes in his Satires the foolish individual ‘who is
awestruck at inscriptions and portraiture’ (qui stupet in titulis et imaginibus,
1.6.17). He reflects here the opinion of Cato the Elder who noted that there were
always going to be those who could see through the use of imagines or
monuments as a means to advertise a mediocre personality (see p. 155).78 Pliny
the Younger echoes both when he expresses disgust at a monument to Pallas,
Page 19 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Claudius freedman and Agrippina the Younger’s consort, while the venerable
Verginius Rufus’ tomb was already overgrown with thickets.79 The possibility
that images could assert one’s authority and intimidate the viewer (even a
relatively sophisticated one), finds support in Cicero’s Verrine orations, where
Cicero asserts that Verres sought to forestall his accusers by the erection of
equestrian statues in Rome, thinking that no one would call him to account when
he saw that Sicily’s merchants and farmers had honoured him with statuary
(Verr. 2.2.167–8). Perhaps the most famous instance of such stupefaction occurs
in Ammianus Marcellinus, who relates the awestruck wonder of the emperor
Constantius on his first visit to Rome in AD 357 (16.10.13–15). Monuments,
inscriptions, cultural objects, all were employed in the service of power and in
the construction of its legitimacy and authority, a point Horace understood
implicitly when he subversively ridiculed those whose reactions were precisely
the response Rome’s ruling elite desired.

Ignorance, ‘barbarian’ incomprehension, or simple stupefied intimidation, were

codes by which elite and non-elite viewers were occasionally distinguished. Such
distinction notwithstanding, there were a series of areas which served as a
space where the elite and non-elite appear to have shared particular values, or
where differences were subsumed under a shared ethos of understanding. (p.
105) As Hölscher has noted, the vocabulary of visual representation ‘won
widespread approval with the large and diverse groups of peoples throughout
the Empire and has posited that ‘perhaps the visual language of Roman art had a
more rudimentary set of functions for the general public as a whole’.80 That this
almost certainly was the case is especially evident in three areas in our sources:
the general respect accorded to images, the sense of common pleasure derived
from viewing, and the ‘communal’ aspect of viewing.

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

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

as punishment for a storm he caused (Aug. 16.2), while under Tiberius, after
Germanicus’ untimely death, people reacted en masse by vandalizing temples,
altars, even their own Lares in a show of extreme mourning (Calig. 5).84

(p.106) Perhaps the most famous instances of the universal respect accorded
to imagines, aside from images found in what would appear a clear and obvious
religious context, (such as a statue of Jupiter in his temple on the Capitoline),
are the imagines displayed in a funerary context, possibly represented in our
artistic record by the togate statue of a venerable Roman appearing to hold the
imagines of his ancestors (fig. 3.7).85 In such a context, Polybius, Sallust, and
Tacitus all refer either to their potential for exhorting men to virtus or as
vehicles for perpetuating memory.86 Pliny the Elder himself, as Carey notes, is
illustrative of the power of the imago to evoke memory with a view to the
perpetuation of mos maiorum, something we will explore in greater detail in the
following chapter.87 For now, it bears noting that Pliny remarked in his
discussion of libraries the setting up of imagines ‘of those immortal spirits who
speak to us in these places’ (HN 35.9–11).88 To preserve the image of the man,
according to Pliny, was to confer immortality.

The public context in which such imagines were often displayed was an
opportunity for the aristocracy to instruct a public audience in a set of virtues
which its audience could in turn share and strive to emulate.89 The role of the
audience was participatory: the participation of the viewer in the value system
expressed by the commemoration of a particular set of those values ensured the
status of those in power but also included the participation of the group in their
support. It was one of the central rituals, given its public nature and its
presumably mixed audience, that served as a central negotiating point in which
elite and non-elite could subsume their differences by partaking in the
recollection of a (p.107)

Page 21 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

shared ethos—that of virtus and

the perpetuation of its memory
and reenactment—that benefited
Roman society at large.90
Viewing was therefore a matter
of context and values. Naturally,
images of the gods were subject
to veneration. Yet respect was
also extended to images of city
officials and nobles as well, and
separating religious from
political sentiment concerning
images is frequently impossible
given the intrinsic interplay
between (p.108) the two in
Roman society. This is true even
before the advent of the
principate and the dedication of
Caesar’s statue in the Temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus. Scipio
Africanus imago was kept, after
all, in the same temple; it is an
instance where the context of
the image functioned on
virtually equal terms with the
image itself, and signified the
respect and veneration that
Hannibal’s conqueror and the
saviour of the Roman state was
accorded.91 In the late republic
at any rate, if we can believe
Fig. 3.7 The so-called Barberini togatus
Cicero, even a morally dubious
represents a wellrespected Roman of
character such as Verres rated
high status in the veristic style carrying
a public statue, and it was
the images of his ancestors, possibly in
assumed that it would be
preparation for a funerary ritual. The
respected. It is with this in mind
images were intended, in part, to exhort
that Cicero deems remarkable
the living to emulate the virtues of their
the Syracusans overthrowing of
maiores (‘ancestors’). H: 1.65 m. First
Verres’ statues and noted that
century BC or AD. Museo del Palazzo dei
‘even statues set up in public
Conservatori, Rome.
bestowed a type of sacred
honour among men and a sort
of divine consecration’.92 While this is said of a Roman magistrate and not a
divinity, it is worth noting that Cicero may not be exaggerating in this case, since

Page 22 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Verres was accorded a quasi-divine status in that province, where a festival

known as the Verralia was celebrated in his honour. More sincere veneration of
individual personalities is a phenomenon that preexisted Verres in the form of
setting up the imagines of one’s ancestors in a sacred context (whether at a
lararium or in a funerary context), but which also extended to other renowned
personalities under the empire. Pliny the Younger therefore mentions a number
of people who paid homage to the images of Vergil, Brutus, and Cassius.93 The
last two in particular were venerated, albeit in a private context, by Romans of
good birth.94

That imagines in general received special treatment is something we also find in

Plutarch, who mentions the reverence and pietas due to statuary, noting that
some not only believe it to be an image of the deity, but the deity itself (Mor.
379D).95 The observation reflects Seneca the Elder’s remark (Controversiae 8.2)
that the mind could only comprehend the majesty of Zeus (illa maiestas) once it
(p.109) had seen Phidias’ work.96 The sentiment was a cliché by late antiquity,
and Plotinus could remark that the statue was conceived ‘as it would appear to
mortals, if the god were to make himself known before our eyes’.97 As regards
imagines of a religious nature, for some viewers the god was actually considered
present in the image; as L. S. Nasrallah has noted in her recent study, ‘Pausanias
refers to some statues not as “an Artemis” or “the statue of Artemis,” for
example, but as “Artemis” herself’.98 Hermes the Egyptian (also known as
Trismegistus), cited by Augustine, discussed the special divine power or
presence attributed to statuary in a treatise on statues in which he noted that
imagines were virtually animate, and enumerated, among other properties, their
ability to perform miracles.99 A real-life instance of such belief may find some
support in Cicero (Verr. 2.4.94), who noted that Verres took by force a beautiful
statue of Hercules which was an object of special reverence by the people of
Akragas, as the chin, worn down from people touching it in offering prayers of
thanks, showed (as is similarly the case today with Arnulfo di Cambio’s statue of
Saint Peter, whose foot is worn down by pilgrims visiting Saint Peter’s Basilica).
In addition, the larger social undercurrent of Roman society expected that
imagines would be accorded respect, if not veneration, something that is borne
out by various laws governing behaviour towards images.100 We need only recall
the right of asylum granted not only to temples, but to images as well. Hence,
Tacitus relates a situation under Tiberius in which individuals were laying hold
of statues of Caesar and then verbally abusing their fellow Romans—usually
those of higher status than themselves—as a way to rail against them with
impunity.101

In general, the respect and reverence for imagines as something sacred was
necessarily universal. Moral law, based on a religious foundation, was
considered (p.110) central to Roman society. Such a foundation, built on the
pax deorum, was a key component not simply of religious life, but of the state
and of the Romans’ ability to function as a civil society, at least according to
Page 23 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

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

Viewing With Pleasure

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

Page 24 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

contradiction between the viewer

who feels pain at seeing the sick
or the dying, but that a painting of
Philoctetes (possibly in reference
to one by Aristophon from the
sixth century BC) or a statue of
Jocasta (specifically one executed
by Silanion in the fourth century
BC) elicited delight and
wonder.105
(p.112) Plutarch’s discussion
calls to mind Vergil’s depiction
of Aeneas’ reaction to the
Temple of Juno in Carthage in
the Aeneid (1.446–95).106
Although an ekphrasis in a
fictional work, it is a plausible
enough emotional response to
something meant to be read
visually.107 The images elicit
tears from Aeneas, yet at the Fig. 3.8 Timomachus of Byzantium may
same time give him the have been the model for this fresco in
reassurance that he is by no which Medea premeditates the murder of
means in the midst of savages her children. Plutarch noted that the
(1.451–2). Indeed, as Vergil’s painting’s horrific subject afforded the
presentation famously shows, viewer a paradoxical pleasure. The
pleasure and pain coexist side original may have stood in the Temple of
by side (‘Even here glory has its Venus Genetrix in Caesar’s forum. A
own rewards,/ there are tears Roman copy after a Greek original. From
for human things and the affairs the Casa dei Dioscuri, Pompeii. Museo
of mortals touch the heart’, Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.
Sunt hic etiam sua praemia
laudi,/ sunt lacrimae rerum et
mentem mortalia tangunt, 1.461–2). Taken together, both Plutarch and Vergil
bring up an aspect of viewing that looks back to Aristotle (Poetica 1449b) who
noted that the subject of tragedy brought pleasure through a purge of the
emotions and bad humours, as well as through the sensations of recollected
experiences the viewer may have survived or the pleasure of watching one toil in
the midst of troubles in which the viewer takes no part.108

While we may question how many viewers had the skills to ‘decode’ ancient
works of art (or other cultural objects for that matter), it is doubtful that the
sensation of pleasure was the exclusive province of a particular class, but rather
a universal response elicited from interested viewers. There are indications in
our sources that individuals from all walks of life were enamoured, if we may use

Page 25 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

the term, of particular works of art. We note, for example, that a passage in the
Justinianic Digest (21.1.65) admonished that it was a fault of some slaves to
continually want to sit and carefully look at paintings, and warns the buyer of
slaves to be wary of those who like to stop while on their errands and spend (p.
113) excessive amounts of time gazing at artworks.109 The admonition makes
no sense unless we understand that there were some from the servile class who
were acknowledged to derive pleasure from viewing artistic works. In addition,
as noted previously (p. 71), Tiberius provoked public outrage at his removal of
Lysippus’ Apoxyomenos from the Baths of Agrippa, and there were vociferous
protests in the theatre, including chants of ‘Bring back the Apoxyomenos!’.110
Why the mass outcry were it not that it had a devoted public following?

The pleasure derived from works of art reaches its pinnacle in tales about erotic
attachment. One of the loci classici for such tales (in addition to the numerous
ones that surround Praxiteles’ Cnidian Aphrodite) is that of Pygmalion related by
Ovid.111 Similar tales find their way into supposedly more ‘historically based’
accounts, including, to mention just some of the more prominent ones, Livy,
Valerius Maximus, Pliny the Elder, and Athenaeus, who all recount similar
stories. Athenaeus relates (13.605f–606a) that Cleisophus of Selymbria fell in
love with a statue (a work of Ctesicles) in the temple at Samos (presumably in
the Heraion), an incident related in Adaeus of Mytilene’s work On Sculptors .112
Valerius Maximus in a similar anecdote concerning Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of
Cnidos (a work he describes as quasi spirantem, ‘almost breathing’) also notes
the erotic attachment one viewer developed for the work (8.11.ext.4).113 In a
similar episode, Pliny the Elder remarks that by the Temple of Felicitas was a
group of Thespiades, one of which, if we can believe Varro, captured the fancy of
a Roman knight, one Junius Pisciculus, who fell in love with it (HN 36.39).
Emperors, (p.114) such as Tiberius, may not have been immune from similar
attractions.114 The ultimate effect is to put on display an object of intense desire,
at the same time frustrating and negating that desire as a result of the (usually)
sacred nature of the work.115

Such anecdotes, as noted above, are mirrored in Petronius fictional account of

Encolpius’ reaction to paintings in a gallery in southern Italy (Satyricon 81–83),
which, as Elsner discusses, is erotically charged.116 This is especially the case
given the subjects of the paintings, which included Apelles’ The Goddess on One
Knee, a Jupiter and Ganymede, and a Hylas and the Naiad, as well as a depiction
of the myth of Apollo and Hyacinthus, showing Apollo cursing his hands and
adorning his unstrung lyre with a flower in mourning for the dead Hyacinthus.
The pictures– sexually charged contents caused Encolpius to contemplate how
love affects the gods, something he relates back to his own experiences.117 As
Elsner has remarked in his extended discussion of Encolpius’ (and Eumolpius’)
visit to the gallery, ‘What Encolpius actually sees in the gallery is what his
immediate personal circumstances have conditioned him to see’.118

Page 26 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Similarly in Lucian’s Amores (13–17), there is the recounting of two visitors to

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

Towards a Community of Viewers: Guides and Inscriptions, Ignorance and

Understanding
While intuition and appreciation of artworks may have been something that
could be shared among varying social classes (including slaves), understanding
and knowledge of a given artefact and the ability to decode works of art, even
within the elite, could not be assumed. Although there was a great deal of visual
vocabulary that observers from various strata of society no doubt could readily
access immediately (such as a trophy of arms adorning a house), written text
was another essential way in which material objects communicated their
‘messages ; this is especially true for the myriad lesser known historical or
religious figures, not to mention hordes of officials honoured with public
imagines. While scholars are right to point out the importance of visual culture
in a society where literacy was far from the norm and to note that monuments
and artworks played an important role in communicating about Roman politics,
history, and culture, we need to be cautious concerning just how accessible and
how well understood such monuments were, even to a fairly literate audience.121
None of this is to deny that the subject could not be read or understood by an
audience on multiple levels. As Onians has observed, words and images in
Roman antiquity were used in conjunction to communicate with the viewer.122
Rather it is a cautionary note that visual literacy ought not to be assumed, and
that fuller understanding required, at times, assistance.

(p.116) Although admittedly a work of fiction, Petronius’ Satyricon once again

opens for us a plausible window into how problematic it could be even for a
fairly literate individual to access and understand visual narrative. Upon his
entrance into Trimalchio’s house, Encolpius needs to inquire about the subjects
of the paintings in the atrium, which turn out to be scenes from the Iliad and the
Odyssey (Satyricon 29). That seems an inexcusable lapse on Encolpius’ part, and
may be intended to show up his ignorance (particularly given the episode’s
satirical context), until we consider that even modern scholars occasionally need
assistance ascertaining the subjects of visual narratives in ancient Roman
sculpture and painting. It must be noted, however, that the medium itself will

Page 27 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

have conveyed a message that the owner of the house was a man of wealth and
status. It was perfectly understandable on the other hand, that Encolpius would
need to be given an account of a painting that depicted a combat of local
gladiators. More approachable (provided one was literate) were the scenes from
Trimalchio’s own life, in part because each scene was accompanied with an
inscription. Their arrangement, in chronological order along a portico, will have
helped in reading them.123

Such written narrative, however, while it could assist the viewer with the
comprehension of the monuments and exhibitions scattered throughout the city,
was no guarantee of understanding. The relationship between object and text in
antiquity is one much discussed by scholars in literary terms, and as we noted,
poems (such as those we find in abundance in the various Greek anthologies)
and inscriptions existed for specific objects, though to what extent objects in
general were ‘labeled’ is problematic.124 In relative terms, however, there exists
a substantial body of epigrammatic and epigraphic evidence for cultural
objects.125 Naturally principes and grandees would want to advertise their
achievements and did so through a variety of media, including statue bases and
other forms of written dedications, such as the one Hadrian composed to
celebrate two votive cups made from the horn of wild bulls set in gold, spoils
from his campaigns against the Getae that he gave as votives to Casian Zeus in
his temple at Antioch (p.117) (Anthologia Palatina 6.332). This intersection of
the visual and textual as an expression of power appears most starkly in the
Roman triumph. Triumphatores would use plaques with written texts in large
lettering to supplement the tabulae (pictorial representations of landscapes and
battle scenes).126 It was also with this in mind, no doubt, that Augustus in the so-
called ‘Hall of Fame’ in his forum containing the statuary of famous Romans (the
summi viri) used written narrative to commemorate their achievements—and no
doubt to shape the interpretation and narrative concerning each.127 In addition,
Pliny the Elder tells us that after Augustus set up Apelles’ Aphrodite
Anadyomenē in the Temple of Divus Julius he added to it a series of Greek verses
that praised the work (HN 35.91).128 While visual language and literacy will
have taken precedence, text clearly played a role, as the extant corpus of
inscriptions on such bases indicates.129 As has been noted by Bowman and
Woolf, such inscriptions and texts in and of themselves constituted a vital
expression of power.130 Yet how such texts were integrated with the object was a
far more complex process, one that, as Bergmann has noted, will have required
both visual assessment and the ability to understand what the text was trying to
communicate concerning the object.131

The very presence of text, however, itself an indicator of power and privilege, in
addition to the space an object occupied and the visual language to which it laid
claim, served as an authorizing signifier for the creation of legitimacy for the
displayer who attempted further to control meaning through context.132 The (p.
118) presence of text purely as an indication of power ought not to be confused,
Page 28 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

however, with a wide range of literacies, the nature of which is a vexed and
controversial matter for ancient Rome. In general though, one suspects that
when publicly inscribed texts were inaccessible to the viewer, as noted above,
there were always those willing to help (and perhaps show off and impress in the
process).133 This is not to imply that images needed text to be meaningful,
though surely on a certain level their ‘controlled meaning , originating from an
authorial source and expressed frequently through inscriptions, if it was to be
retrieved by as many viewers as possible, will have required assistance.

Ignorance or bafflement was not always a matter of illiteracy however. There

was always the potential that someone simply did not know the cultural heritage
of a given site. One can meet plenty of well-educated Romans today (or residents
of any other city for that matter) whose knowledge of the city does not extend to
the historical or archaeological knowledge of the professional academic (but
who do have their own narratives and stories about the city that are expressive
of their own values and culture). As is the case now, in antiquity there were
guides whose job it was to inform the visitor or the viewer about the historical,
mythical, and cultural background of a site, yet as is the case today, the accuracy
of their information could be dubious. Although we have no record of these at
Rome, we do elsewhere, and it is easy enough to imagine their presence in the
city. Though one must be careful with precise analogies, the situation in other
sites may give us some idea of who these were and what they did.

We know from Cicero, for example, that in Syracuse there were mystagogi
(‘guides’) who showed visitors around. After Verres’ vicious plundering of the
city, they showed tourists what artworks had been where prior to Verres’ theft
(Verr. 2.4.131).134 Plutarch attests to the existence of guides at Delphi and
actually relates an argument with a tourist (named Basilocles) and Philinus, who
acted as a guide (Mor. 394E). The guides were known as periēgētai (Mor. 395A;
cf. 400D) and gave detailed tours, including the interpretation of inscriptions
and the discussion of nuances of various artworks. In the passage in Plutarch,
the periēgētēs gets involved in a detailed discussion concerning the colour of
bronzes at Delphi, and then spins a yarn about a golden statue King Croesus had
dedicated of the woman who baked his bread (Mor. 401E), although in this
instance the periēgētēs is exposed as uneducated. There were also guides who
gave tours of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, who told viewers to shield their
eyes lest they (p.119) be blinded when looking at Menestratus’ Hercules and
Hecate.135 As the Plutarch passage indicates however, just how well educated
such guides were, and just how accurate their information was, is questionable.
Such guides are perhaps best attested in Pausanias, although he avoids the use
of the word periēgētai in favour of exēgētai.136

If guides were lacking, there was always the chance that a less informed but
appreciative onlooker could meet one of greater expertise through chance
encounter, such as we see in Petronius (Satyricon 88–9), which, while a fictional

Page 29 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

account, is a credible enough everyday experience, when Encolpius needs to ask

Eumolpus concerning the age of the pictures and the subjects of those that are
less well-known.137 Similar motifs in which bystanders assist a bewildered
viewer in understanding and interpreting such paintings are to be found in
Lucian (Hercules 4; Amores 8 and 15), Callistratus (Descriptions 6.4),
Philostratus’ Imagines (1 proem 4), and the Tabula of Cebes (1.3). A similar and
equally plausible fiction is related in Ovid (Ars Am. 1.213–28), where he creates
a scenario in which a female viewer, ignorant of what the various images depict
during a triumphal procession, relies on the knowledge (sometimes of dubious
accuracy) of a sexual predator and chance bystander to relate the names and
events portrayed:138

And when some woman will inquire about the names of the kings,
About what places, what mountains, what waters are carried in the
procession,
Answer everything, and not just the things someone asks.
And the things you don’t know pretend you know well.
This one is the Euphrates, a reed bound to its forehead.
The one who has the blue lock of hair hanging down is the Tigris.
Make these Armenians; this one is Persian, descended from Danaë.
That one is a city in the valleys of the Achaemenids.
That one and that one generals; and be sure to mention what their
names are;
Give the true ones if you can, if not, make up something suitable.

(p.120) Holliday conjectures that at triumphal celebrations at least ‘some

triumphatores may have hired special attendants (apparitores) or claquers to
read the passing inscriptions to the crowds’.139

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

Page 30 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

concerning a monument near the Circus under white paving stones called ‘The
Pyre of the Nine Tribunes’. Did it commemorate

nine patrician ex-consuls, killed as tribuni militum in battle against the

Volsci; or nine tribunes of the plebs burnt alive by their colleague P. Mucius
for complicity in Sp. Cassius’ attempted coup d’état; or nine bold tribunes
‘delivered to the flames’ by the populace at the secret instigation of the
patricians?144

If Roman visual culture was about identity, power, and its reinforcement, then
access to its language was vital. Inscriptions, individuals with local knowledge,
or simply more literate passers-by, all likely served to assist the general viewer
in (p.121) reading visual culture’s less accessible ‘passages’. Iconography
would be expected to be clear and pointed in order to speak as explicitly as
possible to the viewer: hence, the caduceus for Mercury, the crow for Corvus.
Access, however, even to what may appear the most obvious subject, should not
always be assumed, even for a literate viewer. The understanding of visual media
in Rome will have required a communal effort, not always, but certainly on some
occasions, in which certain viewers will have likely acted as an intermediary
between the viewer and the object. He or she will have become a part-time
facilitator in the preservation of memory and the creation of traditions around
particular objects.

Conclusion: Collective Knowledge and Shared Viewing

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

Page 31 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

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

Notes:
(1) For response and meaning as something contingent see pp. 3–4.

(2) To cite but a sampling, see R. B. Bandinelli, ‘Arte Plebea’, DialArch 1 (1967),
7–19; A. Vasaly, Representation: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory
(Berkeley 1993); J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art
from the Pagan to the Christian World (Cambridge 1995); J. Elsner, (ed.), Art and
Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996); Elsner, ‘Image and Ritual: Reflections
on the Graeco-Roman Appreciation of Art’, CQ 46 (1996), 515–31; H. I. Flower,
Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford 1996); P. J.
Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and
Reception’, ArtB 79 (1997), 130–47; P. Zanker, ‘In Search of the Roman Viewer’,
in D. Buitron-Oliver (ed.), The Interpretation of Architectural Sculpture in
Greece and Rome, Studies in the History of Art Vol. 49 (Washington DC 1997),
179–92; J. R. Clarke, Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: Visual Representations
and Non-Elite Viewers in Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 315 (Berkeley 2003); T. Hölscher,
The Language of Images in Roman Art (Cambridge 2004); J. Elsner, Roman Eyes.
Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton 2007).

(3) See Hölscher, Language of lmages (n. 2), 9 n. 14; also see p. 7: ‘We can no
longer approach works of art exclusively from the standpoint of production, as
the expressions of artists or patrons, but we must also examine them as forms of
communication—that is, as a factor in the collective life of a society’.

(4) For discussion of this ‘broad communication’ see S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies

of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge 2002),
177: ‘Elite patrons may have been principally responsible for the creation or
maintenance of monuments, but—inscribed as they were in accessible and
populous spaces—commemorative choices were plainly a matter for viewing and
debate across a broad community’; on a similar accessibility of meaning of
architectural forms (e.g. the triangular pediment of temple construction) in
antiquity see E. Thomas, Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in
the Antonine Age (Oxford 2007), 150–1; cf. 53–69.

(5) See Clarke, Art … Ordinary Romans (n. 2), passim.

(6) Thomas, Monumentality (n. 4), 150.

Page 32 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

(7) See A. K. Bowman and G. Woolf, (eds.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient
World (Cambridge 1994), 7, who also note that the restriction of writing and
texts to an empowered elite was able ‘to impose an “authorized” reading’.

(8) For simplification of imagery as a means of communication see J. Fentress

and C. Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford and Cambridge Mass. 1992), 47–8:
‘Images can be transmitted socially only if they are conventionalized and
simplified: conventionalized, because the image has to be meaningful for an
entire group; simplified, because in order to be generally meaningful and
capable of transmission, the complexity of the image has to be reduced as far as
possible’.

(9) See e.g. Petronius, Satyricon 126 where he compares a girl’s smile with
Praxiteles’ Diana. For the reverse metaphor of a read (or spoken) text as a
monument see e.g. Cic. Fam. 5.12.1; Horace, Carmina 3.30.1; Livy, Praefatio 10;
Tac. Agr. 2.1. For discussion see T. P. Wiseman, ‘Monuments and the Roman
Annalists’, in I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman (eds.), Past
Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge 1986),
87–100, esp. 88; see M. K. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (Ann Arbor 1997), 15–29
and A. Feldherr, Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History (Berkeley 1998), 1–50 for
this phenomenon in Livy; also see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 4), 5–6, 168–70 for
the connection between monuments and memory and the Roman conception of
the word monumentum.

(10) See Clarke, Art … Ordinary Romans (n. 2), 7–9 for a theoretical discussion of
elite versus non-elite viewers; also see R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock, (eds.),
Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003), 8 for discussion concerning the
‘restrictive’ meaning of objects among social groups; see Thomas,
Monumentality (n. 4), 229–30 for discussion of elite versus non-elite responses to
architecture, specifically in Lucian, De Domo.

(11) See Clarke, Art … Ordinary Romans (n. 2), 4–7 for a good discussion of this
distinction; also see N. Slater, ‘“Against Interpretation”: Petronius and Art
Criticism’, Ramus, 16 (1987), 166 for the various traditions of art criticism in
antiquity; cf. J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and
Terminology (New Haven and London 1974), 11.

(12) See J. Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (Oxford 1998), 244
citing inter alios Philostratus Maior, Imagines 1 proem 1; Philostratus Minor,
Imagines proem 3; for an excellent general discussion of connoisseurship with
emphasis on Pausanias and Lucian see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 49–66.

(13) There are two versions of this story, one in Pliny, HN 35.85–6, one in Plut.
Mor. 472A, who makes it not Alexander but Megabyzus.

(14) See p. 49 n. 63 for discussion.

Page 33 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

(15) Pliny, HN 35.128; for the theory of colour in Greek and Roman art see J.
Gage, Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction
(London 1993), 14; see W. D. Coulson, ‘The Nature of Pliny’s Remarks on
Euphranor’, CJ 67 (1972), 323–6 for Euphranor’s place in the history of ancient
artists.

(16) See Pliny, HN 35.77; Plut. Aem. 6.8–9; for its loss of favour see Pliny, HN
35.20; for discussion see P. J. Holliday, The Origins of Roman Historical
Commemoration in the Visual Arts (Cambridge 2002), 20; E.S. Gruen, Culture
and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 132.

(17) Pliny, HN 35.22; see Holiday, Origins (n. 16), 82.

(18) Petronius, Satyricon 46; Suet. Ner. 52; S.H.A. Hadr. 16.10; cf. 14.8. Also see
Aur. Vict. Caes. 14.6; cf. S.H.A. Ant. Pius 4.9 for Aurelius’ interest; for painting as
an instructional tool see N. Bryson, ‘Philostratus and the Imaginary Museum’, in
S. Goldhill and R. Osborn (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture
(Cambridge 1994), 255.

(19) See A. Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’, AJP 112 (1991), 231, who notes
that Cicero contradicts his professed public ignorance of art through his evident
knowledge of individual artefacts in the Verrines and who notes that G.
Showerman (‘Cicero’s Appreciation of Greek Art’, AJP 25 (1904), 306–14) takes
at face value Cicero’s professed ignorance; see also p. 57 n. 94.

(20) For a good brief discussion of the history and reception of Philostratus’
Imagines, esp. concerning the authenticity of the collection, see Bryson,
‘Philostratus’ (n. 18), 257; Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 21–48. For
the possibility of the collection’s thematic arrangement see K. Lehmann, ‘The
Imagines of the Elder Philostratus’, ArtB 23 (1941), 16–44; cf. Bryson,
‘Philostratus’ (n. 18), 262–3. For general discussion see e.g. M. Conan, ‘The
Imagines of Philostratus’, Word and Image, 3 (1987), 162–71; O. Schönberger,
‘Die “Bilder” des Philostratus’, in G. Boehm and H. Pfotenhauer (eds.),
Beschreibungskunst-Kunstbeschreibung: Ekphrasis von der antiker bis zur
Gegenwart (Munich 1995), 157–73; J. Elsner, ‘Making Myth Visual: The Horae of
Philostratus and the Dance of the Text’, MDAI(R) 207 (2000), 253–76.

(21) For the De Finibus in the context of place description see Vasaly,
Representation (n. 2), 28–32; C. Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to
the City (Cambridge 1996), 28–30. For Cicero’s discussion in its greater context
of Roman attitudes towards Greece in general see S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of
the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge 2002), 66–8.

(22) A. P. Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”: Responses to Portraits and the Political

Uses of Images in Rome’, JRA 7 (1994), 86; cf. Wiseman, ‘Monuments’ (n. 9), 87–
100; Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 21), 20–3; Thomas, Monumentality (n. 4), 5, 169;

Page 34 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

also see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 125–55 on identity and place in
Pausanias; A. J. B. Wace ‘The Greeks and Romans as Archaeologists’, Bulletin de
la Société Royale d’Archéologie d’Alexandrie, 38 (1949), 21–35 points out that
this interest in cultural significance and even preservation did not lead to
excavation and applied archaeology; also see D. E. Strong, Roman Museums
(London 1994), 6.

(23) See Vasaly, Representation (n. 2), 15–17 for discussion; see e.g. 36–8, 99–
100, on Cicero’s appeal to the statue of Jupiter Stator in his temple during his
orations against Catiline.

(24) D. Sailor, Writing and Empire in Tacitus (Cambridge 2009), 183–249.

(25) Something that constitutes the subject of several surveys. See F. Yates, The
Art of Memory (London 1966), 2–12 on Cicero’s mnemonic techniques in the De
Or. and in the Rhetorica ad Herennium; also see D. Favro,‘Reading the Augustan
City’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (Cambridge
1993), 232–4, with discussion of Rhetorica ad Herennium 3.16–24; cf. D. Favro,
The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), 5–11; Alcock,
Archaeologies (n. 21), 21–3.

(26) See Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 11.2.17–22; for discussion see Yates, Art of
Memory (n. 25), 2–3; J. Onians, ‘Quintilian and the Idea of Roman Art’, in M.
Henig (ed.), Architecture and Architectural Sculpture in the Roman Empire
(Oxford 1990), 4–8, and Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and Rome (New
Haven 1999), 178, 193–9; also see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 77–
80 for his discussion of memory and the house in Quintilian.

(27) Holliday, Origins (n. 16), 130–1 observes that Cic. De Or. 2.357, Horace, Ars
Poetica 180–2, and Val. Max. 5.4.ext.1 all remark on visual media’s potential for
assisting memory.

(28) Cf. Fin. 5.6; see Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 21), 17–18 for discussion; see
Van Dyke and Alcock, Archaeologies of Memory (n. 10), 5–6 for discussion of
memory and the experience of place.

(29) Leg. 2.4; see Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 21), 18 for discussion; cf. Vasaly,
Representation (n. 2), 33, who notes that ‘Cicero’s emotional attachment to
places that spoke to him of his own history and identity reflects the deeper
connections of Romans to places in Rome of communal symbolic significance’.

(30) See Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 19), 232 for discussion.

(31) For a fine theoretical discussion of how memory is constructed and shared
within a given social order see P. Connerton, How Societies Remember
(Cambridge 1989), 3.

Page 35 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

(32) Mor. 381D–F; for discussion of allegory in ancient visual culture see M. L.
Thompson, ‘The Monumental and Literary Evidence for Programmatic Painting
in Antiquity’, Marsyas, 9 (1960–1), 36–7; Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2),
10, who notes that various modes of interpretation—allegorical, literal, symbolic,
and deconstructionist—existed side by side. For a basic study of Plutarch’s
response to images see C. Clerc, ‘Plutarche et la culte des images’, Revue de
l’histoire des religions, 70 (1914), 107–24.

(33) Lucian, De Domo 6 and 21; for discussion see Elsner, Imperial Rome (n. 12),
181.

(34) For the tortoise see Plut. Mor. 142D; for the frogs 399F; for the rooster
400C. Various explanations were proposed for the latter two: the palm’s frogs
possibly indicated spring’s arrival, while Apollo’s rooster conceivably symbolized
the dawn and Apollo’s role as the sun god.

(35) See Holliday, Origins (n. 16), 112; Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n.
2), 136–7; see I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and
Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009), 199–212 for
an excellent discussion of the pitfalls of assuming allegorical as opposed to
literal interpretation in the artistic record, based on a discussion of the depiction
of cities.

(36) See e.g. Ovid who implies that Diana was depicted a particular way by
painters: ‘Such are the legs of Diana portrayed, girded up/when she pursues
powerful beasts, herself more powerful’, Am. 3.2.30–1; see Elsner, Roman Eyes
(n. 2), 248–9 for a brief but interesting discussion on the diverse modes of
representation of various deities and the significance of such variation.

(37) See J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans. Translated and edited by R. Gordon
(Cambridge and Malden Mass. 2007), 12.

(38) For a detailed discussion concerning links between the theme of a work and
ekphrasis see J. A. Heffernan, Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from
Homer to Ashbery (Chicago 1993), 10–46 with particular focus on the
connections between Achilles’ shield and the Iliad as a whole, and its inter-
textual relationship with Vergil’s Aeneid; see esp. 22–36; also see R. Thomas,
‘Vergil’s Ekphrastic Centrepieces’, HSCP 87 (1983), 175–84 for a related
discussion.

(39) See Holliday, Origins (n. 16), 205.

(40) Although ancient preferences were sometimes imprecise; see Quintilian,

Institutio oratoria 12.10.9; cf. 12.10.3 where he remarks some preferred only
older artists such as Polygnotus and Algaophon; cf. 12.10.3–9 for his general
assessment of ancient artists. For discussion see J. Alsop, The Rare Art

Page 36 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and its Linked Phenomena Wherever
These Have Appeared (New York 1982), 201–2; cf. V. Andó, Luciano critico d’arte
(Palermo 1975), 80–7 esp. 82 n. 319 for a detailed list.

(41) On the ancient theoretical view of art, especially relating to specific artists
and styles see Hölscher, Languages of Images (n. 2), 92–8; Elsner, Roman Eyes
(n. 2), 51–8. Cf. S. Settis, ‘Did the Ancients Have an Antiquity? The Idea of
Renaissance in the History of Classical Art’, in A. Brown (ed.), Language and
Images of Renaissance Italy (Oxford 1995), 44–6 on the development and nature
of ‘art histor/ in antiquity. On the meaning of maiestas, pondus, verum, and
pulchritudo see Hölscher, Language of Images (n. 2), 95–8; cf. Elsner, Imperial
Rome (n. 12), 244. For style as a conveyor of meaning see A. Kuttner, ‘Some New
Grounds for Narrative: Marcus Antonius’ Base (the Ara Domitii Ahenobarbi) and
Republican Biographies’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient
Art (Cambridge 1993), 213.

(42) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 15–16.

(43) See Hölscher, Language of Images (n. 2), 10–21, esp. 14–15, who discusses
the temporal collapsing in Roman visual culture of the diverse styles, Classical
and Hellenistic, and how they coexist simultaneously. For the ‘Classical’ as a
basis for ‘the standard’ of artistic criticism see ibid., 119. Such categorization by
nature made the work rare or ‘Classical’; see Alsop, Rare Art Traditions (n. 40),
73–4, 201, who notes that the ‘cut-off’ period for the Romans was the fourth
century, and that, despite the canonization of the Classical, Apelles and Lysippus
represented the peak; also see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 15–16
for a related discussion.

(44) See D. J. Sherman and I. Rogoff, (eds.),Museum Culture: Histories,

Discourses, Spectacles (Minneapolis 1994), xiii for a theoretical discussion of the
‘historically specific’ construction of ‘interpretative communities’; cf. Alsop, Rare
Art Traditions (n. 40), 129–32, who notes that response to an artefact is often
contingent on the artist and that response is historic as much as aesthetic.

(45) On the ‘sacred’ nature of objects see S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An

Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (London 1995), 24; cf. R.
Belk, M. Wallendorf, J. Sherry, M. Holbrook, and S. Roberts, ‘Collectors and
Collecting’, Advances in Consumer Research, 15 (1988), 548–52.

(46) G. W. Stocking, (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material
Culture, History of Anthropology, 3 (Madison Wis. 1985), 6.

(47) Pearce, On Collecting (n. 45), 24.

(48) See P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response

(Oxford 2003), 230–1, who notes this in regard to a bronze statue Pliny

Page 37 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

dedicated at Comum, Ep. 3.6; Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), xv notes in general the
capacity of objects to demarcate space as sacred.

(49) See in general C. Duncan, ‘Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship’, in I.
Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of
Museum Display (Washington DC 1991), 90–2, and ‘The Art Museum as Ritual’,
in J. C. Berlo and R. B. Phillips (eds.), ‘The Problematics of Collecting and
Display, Part 1’, ArtB 77 (1995), 6–24, esp. 11 for the ritualistic nature of the
contemporary museum visit.

(50) J. Elsner, ‘Image and Ritual’ (n. 2), 531; for a more detailed discussion see J.
Elsner, ‘Between Mimesis and Divine Power: Visuality in the Graeco-Roman
World’, in R. S. Nelson (ed.), Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance
(Cambridge 2000), 60–3; for the visual experience of the viewer in a sacred
context see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 13–26.

(51) Favro, Urban Image (n. 25), 228.

(52) HN 36.27. See S. Carey, ‘The Problems of Totality: Collecting Greek Art,
Wonders, and Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC 12.1 (2000), 4 for
discussion of the Pliny passage.

(53) Only an indication because we cannot be certain whether the object of scorn
is his bad verse, the noise he makes, or both.

(54) Duncan, ‘Art Museums’ (n. 49), 12.

(55) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 16–17; cf. Elsner, Roman Eyes
(n. 2), 1–11; for realism in Petronius see F. M. Jones, ‘Realism in Petronius’, in H.
Hoffman (ed.), Groningen Colloquia on the Novel, 4 (1991), 105–20.

(56) For an excellent discussion of aemulatio see C. Hallett, ‘Emulation versus

Replication: Redefining Roman Copying’, JRA 18 (2005), 419–35 with his review
of E. K. Gazda, (ed.), The Ancient Art of Emulation. Studies in Artistic Originality
from the Present to Classical Antiquity (Ann Arbor 2002), and E. Perry, The
Aesthetics of Emulation in the Visual Arts of Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2005); cf.
H. Bardon, ‘Le concept de similitude à Rome’, ANRW 1.2 (1972), 857–68; also
see P. Stewart, The Social History of Roman Art (Cambridge 2008), 146–7 which
focuses on this concept in the context of the variations we find in the execution
of the Doryphorus. See L. S. Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art and
Architecture (Cambridge 2010), 120–2 for discussion of the wider range of
meaning the Greek term mimēsis could have in this regard.

(57) See Elsner’s outstanding discussion of realism and naturalism in Ovid’s

myth of Pygmalion (Roman Eyes (n. 2), 113–31); cf. Hölscher, Language and
Images (n. 2), 91 for a brief discussion of Roman ‘realism’. For the value placed
on realism see R. L. Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary; Production and
Page 38 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Religion in the Graeco-Roman World’, in R. L. Gordon (ed.), Image and Value in

the Graeco-Roman World: Studies in Mithraism and Religious Art (Brookfield Vt.
1996), 9–10, who notes the Greek term zoön, ‘a living thing’, for a statue as well
as andrias, ‘male , and eikon, which by Homer’s time meant ‘be like ; also see G.
M. A. Richter, ‘The Origin of Verism in Roman Portraits’, JRS 45 (1955), 39–46; D.
Jackson, ‘Verism and the Ancestral Portrait’, GaR 34 (1987), 32–47; and Gruen,
Culture and Identity (n. 16), 155–82 for the Romans preference for verism.

(58) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2) 17–18 for discussion; Elsner’s
intent in the first section of his study (15–124) is in fact to reconsider Pliny’s
view of naturalism through a direct examination of the artistic record.

(59) Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 48), 97–8 notes rightly that naturalism
applied frequently to the portrait, ‘but not more broadly with the portrait statue
since the body type is often idealized and heroic.

(60) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 1–13 for the problems of
‘naturalism’ versus abstraction and viewer response to both.

(61) Translation from the Loeb edition by F. G. Babbitt; cf. Plut. Mor. 346F–347A.
The passage looks back to the beginning of Aristotle, Poetica 1448b1.

(62) Pliny, HN 35.155–6. For discussion of realism in Pliny see J. Isager, Pliny on
Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (London 1991),
136–40, who notes Pliny’s demand for similitudo; see esp. 137; S. Carey, Pliny’s
Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford 2003), 105–
11. On the question of art occupying a liminal space between art and life see W.
Steiner, The Colors of Rhetoric: Problems in the Relation between Modern
Literature and Painting (Chicago 1982), 5–10.

(63) See e.g. HN 35.23; cf. HN 35.88; see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n.
2), 17–18; on realism’s relationship to deception in antiquity see Elsner, Roman
Eyes (n. 2), 124–8, 191–2, 196–9; also see Slater, ‘“Against Interpretation”’ (n.
11), 167.

(64) See e.g. Mart. 6.13, 7.84.

(65) Cited in Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 1.22.13. For the significance of the
verb credunt here as reflecting realism and Lucilius’ debt to Hellenistic
ekphrases see A. Laird, ‘Ut figura poesis: Writing Art and the Art of Writing
Augustan Poetry’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge
1996), 80.

(66) For Petronius, however, as J. Elsner has observed, (‘Seductions of Art:

Encolpius and Eumolpus in a Neronian Picture Gallery’, PCPS 39 (1993), 42–3),
and Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 177–99, the desire for realism, while reflecting

Page 39 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

both traditional and current tastes, was something that, by the nature of its
deception, was itself a reflection of decadence.

(67) HN 34.59; see Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary’ (n. 57), 10, who notes
that ‘citations of this kind could be almost indefinitely multiplied’, citing other
passages where ancient authors remark the realism or living quality of statuary.
Cf. e.g. Propertius 2.31.8; Pliny, HN 34.79, 36.13.

(68) Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 10.5; see H. Morales, ‘The Torturer’s
Apprentice: Parrhasius and the Limits of Art’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in
Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 182–209 for discussion.

(69) For Lucian and realism see Andó, Luciano critico d’arte (n. 40), 75–80, cf.
61–75; for realism in Philostratus see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2),
21–39, esp. 28–39.

(70) Cf. Cic. De Or. 3.98 where he also remarks the inherent attraction of the
unpolished and obsolete (horrido obsoletoque) style despite the colourful nature
of contemporary works; on Cicero’s general notions concerning painting and
sculpture and the language he uses to describe the arts in general see M.-L.
Teyssier, ‘Cicéron et les arts plastiques, peinture et sculpture’, in R. Chevallier
(ed.), Présence de Cicéron (Paris 1984), 67–76.

(71) For the larger historical and cultural context of Vitruvius criticism see
Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 49–58, 63–4; Onians, Classical Art (n.
26), 219–24.

(72) Beyond those who clearly appreciated and commissioned such ‘abstract or
‘fantastic’ works, Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 63 cites the orator
Papirius Fabianus, for whom all art was illusion.

(73) See D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological

Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes
(London 1973), 258; Alsop, Rare Art Traditions (n. 40), 206; Elsner, Art and the
Roman Viewer (n. 2), 81–3 for discussion.

(74) Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 73), 258.

(75) Ibid., 248 notes that the Portico of Metellus appears to have been the first
building in Rome designed specifically to show a ‘profane’ work of art (Lysippus’
Alexander group); that may or may not be true in a strict legal sense, but, if we
take our lead from Cicero and others, there was no such thing as a purely
profane image, see p. 108.

(76) See p. 42 for discussion and references.

Page 40 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

(77) Pliny, HN 35.25; he also tells us that paintings were commonly displayed in
the Forum, though he indicates that by his day the practice had ended.

(78) The sentiment also finds a place in Diogenes Laertius 6.72 who remarks that
Diogenes the Cynic attacked popular honours awarded to men of noble birth; see
Thomas, Monumentality (n. 4), 71 for discussion.

(79) Pliny, Ep. 7.29, 8.6 with particular scorn saved for the honours bestowed by
senatorial decree, which included fifteen million sesterces and the praetor’s
insignia; for Verginius’ life and career see R. Syme, Roman Papers Vol. VII
(Oxford 1991), 512–20.

(80) Hölscher, Language of Images (n. 2), 8.

(81) See C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C.

Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 46, who
notes the potency of the statue’s significance.

(82) H. I. Flower, Ancestor Masks (n. 2), and H. I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting.
Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (Chapel Hill 2006).

(83) See Pliny, HN 35.4; Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes 31 esp. 31.155, 43, 47–53,
71, 99, 105–6, 112, 155; see D. Kinney, ‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio
Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 135 for discussion; cf. Isager, Pliny on Art and
Society (n. 62), 115–16; it was not illegal, however, as Kinney notes, to replace
such heads except possibly in cases of the princeps (noting Tac. Ann. 1.74),
though the case Tacitus relates in this instance was dismissed.

(84) See H. S. Versnel, ‘Religious Mentality in Ancient Prayer’, in H. S. Versnel

(ed.), Faith, Hope, and Worship (Leiden 1981), 38–9 for discussion.

(85) On the sanctity of cult images, with specific focus on Cicero as a source, see
M. Miles, Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property
(Cambridge 2008), 171–3; for imagines in a funerary context see F. Dupont, ‘Les
morts et la mémoire: Le masque funèbre’, in F. Hinard (ed.), La mort, les morts
et l’au-delà dans le monde romain (Caen 1987), 167–72; Flower, Ancestor Masks
(n. 2); cf. J. Bodel, ‘Death on Display: Looking at Roman Funerals’, in B.
Bergmann and C. Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of Ancient Spectacle (New Haven
1999), 259–81 for a related discussion.

(86) See e.g. Polybius 6.53; Sallust, Bellum Iugurthinum 4; Tac. Agr. 46; also see
Pliny, HN 35.6–8 for the imagines and their place in the Roman house and the
discussion by Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 62), 139–41 for their
function as conservators of memory. For their role in stimulating the young to
acts of virtus see Flower, Ancestor Masks (n. 2), 13–14; for their role at public

Page 41 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

funerals see 91–127; also see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 16), 152–6; A.
Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 219.

(87) See Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 62), 151–6 for discussion; also see
Onians, Classical Art (n. 26), 168–70.

(88) He attributes the introduction of this practice in Rome to Asinius Pollio.

Previously such portraits, according to Pliny (in the same passage), could also be
found in written works such as Atticus’ volume on portraits, while later a part of
Varro’s output included the portraits of seven hundred illustrious individuals in
his work Hebdomades vel de imaginibus, on the lives of famous Greeks and
Romans (cf. Aulus Gellius 3.10.1).

(89) Such as the funerals of the great which could be heavily attended; see Tac.
Ann. 1.8 for the crowds at Augustus funeral and the concern for ‘crowd control ,
with the memory of Caesar’s funeral looming. The case was similar for grandees
in the republic, as in the case of Clodius’ riotous funeral in January of 52; see
Asconius, Commentary on Cicero Pro Milone 32–3; Cass. Dio 40.48–9.

(90) In this sense it represented the sort of intersection that V. Zolberg, ‘“An Elite
Experience for Everyone”: Art Museums, the Public, and Cultural Literacy’ in D.
J. Sherman and I. Rogoff (eds.), Museum Culture. Histories, Discourses,
Spectacles (Minneapolis 1994), 49–65 examines, whereby elite culture intersects
with a non-elite public.

(91) See Val. Max. 8.15.2; this despite Scipio’s eschewing of such honours; see
Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 16), 121–2 for discussion.

(92) Verr. 2.2.158; Syracuse was not alone: Tauromenium, Tyndaris, and Leontini
also tore down Verres statues (Verr. 2.2.160); for discussion see Miles, Art as
Plunder (n. 85), 184–5.

(93) Out of his collection of diverse imagines, the poet Silius Italicus gave Vergil’s
particular attention (Pliny, Ep. 3.7.8); cf. Seneca the Younger, Epistulae 7.64.9–
10, who noted the incitamenta animi that imagines could arouse; see Stewart,
Statues in Roman Society (n. 48), 256 for discussion.

(94) See Pliny, Ep. 1.17 for Titinius Capito’s admiration of Brutus and Cassius;
Tac. Ann. 16.7 for C. Cassius Longinus’ fatal admiration of them; Ann. 3.76 for
their notable absence at the funeral in AD 22 of Junia Tertulla, Cassius’ widow;
for discussion see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 22), 92.

(95) For discussion see D. Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the
History and Theory of Response (Chicago 1989), 82–98, who notes that in
numerous cultures the act of consecration renders the image divine and ‘makes
the image work’; also see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 88–97 on
viewing and the sacred. For the tensions between the animate and inanimate
Page 42 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

nature of divine iconography see Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary (n. 57), 8–
10; for a good discussion of the ‘living’ and miraculous nature of statuary,
especially cult statuary, see Rüpke, Religion of the Romans (n. 37), 73–4.

(96) For Phidias’ Zeus see Pausanias 5.11.9; Plut. Aem. 28.5; Dio Chrysostomus,
Orationes 12.52–3; for discussion see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 62),
152; Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 16), 246; Nasrallah, Christian Response (n.
56), 230–2.

(97) Plotinus, Enneades 5.8.1 (On Intelligible Beauty); cf. e.g. Aelius Aristides,
Sacred Discourses 3.47; Artemidorus of Daldis, Oneirocritica 2.39; see Elsner,
Imperial Rome (n. 12), 205 for discussion.

(98) Nasrallah, Christian Response (n. 56), 121; also see Gordon, ‘The Real and
the Imaginary’ (n. 57) for a good discussion on the ‘divine’nature of images; see
Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 11, 22–6; see esp. 228–35 for discussion specifically
on the power of the statue of Artemis of Ephesus.

(99) Augustine, De civitate Dei 8.23; cf. p. 174 on the statue of Caecilia or
Tanaquil from which metal shavings were taken.

(100) See D. Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and
Beliefs (Cambridge 1998), 76–114.

(101) Ann. 3.36; the statues were, however, of Caesars, hence divine in nature, as
opposed to statues simply of orators or magistrates; conversely, up until now
accusers were still unsuccessful in any prosecution against those who had, in
any way, profaned a statue of the Divine Augustus; see Tac. Ann. 1.73; F. R. D.
Goodyear, The Annals of Tacitus. Volume II (Annals 1.55–81 and Annales 2)
(Cambridge 1981), 153–7 for discussion. For a good succinct example and
discussion of the divine nature of the imperial image see Elsner, Art and the
Roman Viewer (n. 2), 170; for statuary and asylum see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2),
11–12.

(102) On the visible presence of the gods and their role in social and legal life,
see Elsner’s excellent discussion about Artemis of Ephesus in Achilles Tatius’
Leucippe and Clitophon (Roman Eyes (n. 2), 234–5).

(103) Fin. 2.115; on the Romans’ abiding admiration for Phidias and Polyclitus in
particular see Mart. 9.24; cf. 10.89 on Polyclitus’ Juno which the poet says would
elicit Phidias’ envy and would have won Paris’ judgement on Ida.

(104) Mor. 18A–B. It was with this in mind that Plutarch asserts that the subject
per se does not commend the painting, but the virtuosity in imitating the action
depicted; for discussion of Timomachus’ Medea see Isager, Pliny on Art and
Society (n. 62), 120; the various copies in Campania show her seated or
standing, and the question arises concerning which (if any) faithfully represents
Page 43 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Timomachus’ painting; see B. Bergmann, ‘Greek Masterpieces and Roman

Recreative Fictions’, HSCP 97 (1995), 94–6 for discussion.

(105) Mor. 674A; see Holliday, Origins (n. 16), xix; cf. 18 for a good discussion of
this passage.

(106) For discussion see R. Williams, ‘The Pictures on Dido’s Temple’, CQ 10

(1960), 145–51; Laird, ‘Ut figura poesis’ (n. 65), 87–91, who notes that Vergil’s
depiction draws on Homer (Odyssey 8.83–8) but changes a verbal (the poet
Demodocus’ story of the trials and tribulations of the Danaans and Trojans) for a
visual medium; cf. 99–100 for the special prominence that ekphrasis gives to the
viewer and their role in the response to art. On response to visual culture in the
Aeneid also see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 78–87. For ekphrasis as a negotiator
between the spoken and the visual see E. W. Leach, The Rhetoric of Space:
Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan
Rome (Princeton 1988), 10–17; see 309–21 for a specific discussion of this
Aeneid passage and its larger context in Roman visual culture; also see A.
Kuttner, ‘Culture and History at Pompey’s Museum’, TAPA 129 (1999), 343–73,
esp. 350–9 for ekphrasis in Catullus and Propertius, with particular emphasis on
the visual response to Roman topography, specifically Pompey’s portico.

(107) The bibliography on ekphrasis in general and what it tells us of viewer

response is vast. See e.g. G. Downey, ‘Ekphrasis’, RAC 4 (1959), 921–44; E.
Pernice and W. H. Gross, ‘Die griechischen und römischen literarischen
Zeugnisse’, in U. Hausmann (ed.), Handbuch der Archäologie: Allgemeine
Grundlagen der Archäologie (Munich 1969), 433–47 for a good assemblage of
the ancient testimonia on ekphrasis. See Laird, ‘Ut figura poesis’ (n. 65), 75–102
for the relationship between art and text in ekphrasis, esp. 84–5; perhaps the
best discussion on the nature of such visual texts is now to be found in Elsner,
Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 23–39, in which he argues, significantly, that
ekphrasis ‘offers access to reality, and gives us a window into how artistic works
were viewed and functions itself as an interpretation of visualization. Also see in
general Elsner, Imperial Rome (n. 12), 245–6, and,Roman Eyes (n. 2), 68–77, for
discussion on ekphrasis and the Roman viewer.

(108) Also see e.g. Lucretius 2.1–6; Vergil, Aeneid 1.202–6; cf. Homer, Odyssey
12.212.

(109) My thanks to Arthur Pomeroy for this reference.

(110) Pliny, HN 34.62; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 48), 142 for
discussion in the context of artwork as public property; on the Apoxyomenos see
N. Cambi, ‘The Athlete Cleaning a Strigil’, in M. Michelucci (ed.), Apoxyomenos.
The Athlete of Croatia (Milan 2006), 20–33.

Page 44 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

(111) For a detailed discussion see J. Elsner and A. Sharrock ‘Ovid’s Mimesis and
the Myth of the Real: Ovid’s Pygmalion as Viewer’, Ramus, 20 (1991), 149–82;
Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 113–31; for a general discussion that encompasses a
history of arousal by images (including a brief analysis of the episode of
Pygmalion) see Freedberg, Power of Images (n. 95), 317–44; for a good general
discussion of the Cnidian Venus and viewer response see Nasrallah, Christian
Response (n. 56), 250–68. For general discussion concerning naturalism and the
erotic see J. Elsner, ‘Naturalism and the Erotics of the Gaze: Intimations of
Narcissus’, in N. B. Kampen (ed.), Sexuality in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1996),
247–61; ‘Between Mimesis and Divine Power: Visuality in the Graeco-Roman
World’, in R. S. Nelson (ed.), Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance
(Cambridge 2000), 45, 48–52; Roman Eyes (n. 2), 1–11.

(112) The incident is also mentioned in a comedy by Alexis called A Picture, and
an unknown work by the comedian Philemon; see CAF 2.312, 2.521. For Adaeus
see Athenaeus 5.210b.

(113) Cf. Pliny, HN 36.20; see too Lucian, Amores 13–17; for an excellent
extended discussion see N. Salomon, ‘Making a World of Difference: Gender,
Asymmetry and the Greek Nude’, in A. O. Koloski-Ostrow and C. L. Lyons (eds.),
Naked Truths: Women, Sexuality, and Gender in Classical Art and Archaeology
(London 1997), 197–219.

(114) See pp. 70–1 for discussion of Tiberius’ erotic taste in art. For imperial
erotic proclivities see C. Vout, Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome (Cambridge
2007), passim, but esp. 52–112 concerning the erotic allure of Antinoös,
Hadrian’s lover.

(115) For a similar effect on the consumer in the modern museum see S.
Greenblatt, ‘Resonance and Wonder’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.),
Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington DC
1991), 49.

(116) Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 188–96. For the larger relationship to the
Satyricon of Encolpius as viewer see Slater, ‘“Against Interpretation”’ (n. 11),
passim.

(117) The episode also constitutes an instance of meta-viewing, in which the

gallery patrons themselves are viewed in much the same way as a painting.
Hence Encolpius reads his fellow visitor to the gallery, Eumolpus, just as he
would a picture (‘the face was of someone troubled and who appeared to
promise something great’, exercitati vultus et qui videtur nescio quid magnum
promittere).

Page 45 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

(118) See Elsner, ‘Seductions of Art’ (n. 66), 30–4, who notes that Petronius’
depiction of Encolpius’ experience is not only subversive of the assumptions we
find in Pliny, but ‘reverses, satirises and parodies the whole structure of erotic
attachment which comes from romance [such as Daphnis and Chloe, or Leucippe
and Clitophon] by its constant theme of homoerotic rather than heterosexual
love’. On Encolpius’ psychological state as a precondition for how he views the
paintings see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 184–93. For the psychological aspects of
the projection of viewer onto viewed see F. Baekeland, ‘Psychological Aspects of
Art Collecting’, Psychiatry, 44 (1981), 52; cf. Slater, ‘“Against Interpretation”’ (n.
11), 169, who, concerning Encolpius in the pinacotheca, remarks that ‘The
experience of the mirabilis seems to be one of identification, a feeling of
involvement in the scenes represented .

(119) For a discussion of the Lucian passage see Elsner and Sharrock, ‘Ovid’s
Mimesis’ (n. 111), 156–8; Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 117–20; for Lucian’s
discussion of artworks in general see S. Maffei, Luciano di Samosata: Descrizioni
di Opere d’Arte (Turin 1994); for a discussion on the erotically charged sculpture
itself and the reactions it famously evoked see A. Stewart, Art, Desire, and the
Body in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1997), 97–106.

(120) And on the part of private collectors especially; see Baekeland, ‘Aspects of
Art’ (n. 118), 51, who observes that ‘many collectors like to fondle or stroke the
objects they own or to look at them over and over from every angle, both up
close and at a distance’. Also see J. Clifford, ‘Objects and Selves—an Afterward’,
in G. Stocking (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material
Culture, History of Anthropology, 3 (Madison Wis. 1985), 239, who notes that ‘a
“proper” relation with objects (rule-governed possession) presupposes a
“savage” or deviant relation (idolatry or erotic fixation)’.

(121) Favro, Urban Image (n. 25), 231 notes that images acted as a text all could
access, learning about Roman politics ‘not only from speeches and graffiti, but
also from artwork, buildings, and places’. For the language of architecture and
its ability to communicate with a wide audience see above, n. 4.

(122) Onians, Classical Art (n. 26), 179–87.

(123) For discussion see J. Bodel, ‘Trimalchio’s Underworld’, in J. Tatum (ed.), The
Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore 1993), 237–59. Straight chronological
narrative in Roman visual media is not to be assumed however; see V. Huet,
‘Stories One Might Tell of Roman Art: Reading Trajan’s Column and the Tiberius
Cup’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 9–31,
esp. 16 for discussion of the lack of ‘narrative flow’ in Trajan’s Column.

(124) For a good discussion on the relationship between image and text see Z.
Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds.), Art and Inscription in the Ancient World
(Cambridge 2007), 1–16, esp. 12–14.
Page 46 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

(125) Christodorus of Thebes, for example, wrote an entire book devoted to an

epigrammatic description of the statuary in the Zeuxippus, the gymnasium at
Byzantium; see S. Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople
(Cambridge 2004), 160–85 for a compendium of the epigrammatic descriptions
of the bath’s artworks and discussion of its remains; cf. the series of Cyzicene
epigrams that ‘labeled’ in verse a series of sculpted reliefs, not to mention the
extensive array of Greek epigrams already noted.

(126) See Holliday, Origins (n. 16), 217.

(127) As with other inscriptions, some were used as sources by Roman historians,
such as Valerius Maximus, who mined Augustus’ inscription for an anecdote
about King Tullius (3.4.3); cf. Pliny for his use of an inscription under Scipio
Aemilianus’ statue in Augustus’ forum (HN 22.13). For ancient historians’ use of
inscriptions see J. Bodel, ‘Epigraphy and the Ancient Historians’, in J. Bodel (ed.),
Epigraphic Evidence. Ancient History from Inscriptions (London 2001), 1–56,
esp. 41–5. Wiseman, ‘Monuments’ (n. 9), 90 notes the lack of reliability of such
inscriptions (particularly of the honorific sort) citing Cic. Att. 6.1.17 (who noted
specifically the misleading nature of the inscriptions of Q. Metellus Scipio on his
maiores’ statues) and Livy 4.16.3–4, 8.40.4.

(128) Cf. e.g. Pliny, HN 35.115: at the Temple of Juno at Ardea the painter
inscribed verses on his paintings.

(129) For the modern triumph of text over object in contemporary museum
displays see B. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, ‘Objects of Ethnography’, in I. Karp and S.
D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display
(Washington DC 1991), 394.

(130) For the legitimization of power through public texts and inscription see A.
K. Bowman and G. Woolf (eds.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World
(Cambridge 1994) 6–8; see R. Miles, ‘Communicating Culture, Identity and
Power’, in J. Huskinson (ed.), Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity, and Power in
the Roman Empire (London 2000), 35 for a related discussion concerning the
conferring of legitimacy and power through titles.

(131) See B. Bergmann, ‘A Painted Garland: Weaving Words and Images in the
House of the Epigrams in Pompeii’, in Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds.), Art
and Inscription in the Ancient World (Cambridge 2007), 60–101.

(132) See Bowman and Woolf, Literacy and Power (n. 130), 8: ‘Monumental texts
may exercise power through their location in space and the way they look. A
particular layout might be associated with a particular political system’.

(133) For a general discussion of the problems in ancient literacy and our
understanding of graphocentric literacy see Bowman and Woolf, Literacy and

Page 47 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Power (n. 130), 1–16; they argue for a wider literacy than previously assumed,
although they omit discussion of visual literacy per se.

(134) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums ’ (n. 73), 260 for discussion.

(135) Pliny, HN 36.32; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 73), 260 for discussion,
where he also notes that ‘a good story usually increased the value’ of an
artefact, citing Juvenal 6.156–7; Statius, Silvae 4.6.59–88 (on a statue of
Hercules belonging first to Alexander, then to Hannibal, and finally to Sulla).

(136) For periēgētai in Pausanias see C. P. Jones, ‘Pausanias and His Guides’, in S.
E. Alcock, J. F. Cherry, and J. Elsner (eds.), Pausanias. Travel and Memory in
Ancient Greece (Oxford 2001), 33–9.

(137) See Elsner, ‘Seductions of Art’ (n. 66), 35 for discussion of the passage; for
its subversive nature see esp. 36–7; also see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 188–96
for an excellent treatment of the place of Eumolpus in the context of Roman
viewing.

(138) Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 2), 146 notes (addressing
specifically tituli during triumphal processions) that, given the limitations of
written communication in the context of public communication in antiquity, the
literate elite would have assisted in reading such inscriptions.

(139) Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 2), 146; also see Stewart, Social
History of Roman Art (n. 56), 123–5, who grapples with the problem of the level
of political understanding for the ‘ordinary viewer.

(140) See Holliday, Origins (n. 2), 203 for discussion; for a good theoretical
discussion about ancient gaps in historical memory, the new interpretations that
arose as a result, and their larger social significance, see R. Bradley, ‘The
Translation of Time’, in R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock (eds.), Archaeologies of
Memory (Oxford 2003), 221–27.

(141) See Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.87.2, 3.1.2; Festus 184L; Pseudo-Acro’s scholia
to Horace’s Epodes 16.13 citing Varro.

(142) For the cult of Anna Perenna see T. P. Wiseman, ‘The Cult Site of Anna
Perenna: Documentation, Visualization, Imagination’, in L. Haselberger and J.
Humphrey (eds.), Imagining Ancient Rome: Documentation–Visualization–
Imagination, JRA Supplement 61 (Portsmouth RI 2006), 51–61.

(143) See Holliday, Origins (n. 2), 203.

(144) See Wiseman, ‘Monuments’ (n. 9), 88–9 for discussion who notes ‘We
cannot simply assume that accurate knowledge of the true nature of such
monuments survived till the beginning of the Roman historiographical tradition’.

Page 48 of 49

 
Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

For the ancient citations see Val. Max. 6.3.2; Festus 180L; Cass. Dio 5.22.1 =
Zonoras 7. 17.

(145) See Holliday, Origins (n. 2), 203, who notes that by the end of the republic
the Roman elite cast its achievements in Hellenistic style ‘increasing the power
of the imagery for an international audience’.

Page 49 of 49

 
Displaying Domination

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

Displaying Domination
Spoils, War Commemoratives, and Competition

Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0004

Abstract and Keywords

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

Keywords:   ancient Rome, cultural objects, artefacts, conquest, Roman society, imperial domination

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

Page 1 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

reality, Foucault’s “politics of truth”. In effect, the cultural practice of history

constituted Roman social reality’.2 (p.124) Romans collected and preserved a
variety of objects and set up diverse commemorations that were not mere
reflections of their power or cultural dynamics, but rather a means by which that
power through material objects and places also came to reinforce and construct
a reality and became a part of the very culture itself.

Amongst Rome’s small ruling clique there was fierce rivalry in an effort to win as
much political clout as possible, often through success in warfare. Consequently,
what was frequently deemed worthy of remembrance was the violent
appropriation of power by the aristocracy based on armed conquest. The result
was a material culture in which objects for display abounded that were directly
connected with warfare: these included shields, war standards, chariots, as well
as paintings, statuary, and other visual media, commemorating military
campaigns. When not celebrating overtly violent domination, the hegemony that
Rome grew to enjoy both as an indirect and direct result of conquest, was
recalled through a variety of historical memorabilia scattered throughout the
city recalling political patronage and a variety of beneficia. None of these objects
was politically neutral. As concerns the elite, the political structure in which
they lived, as Holliday notes, was ‘a compelling impetus for the development of
the arts of self-promotion’.3 The result was at times the contentious use of visual
media, as the city became a vast political pamphlet in which cultural artefacts
became a part of the argument over claims to political power and prestige.

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

Page 2 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

illustrated in Cicero’s De Divinatione), it nonetheless believed vital for public

consumption.

Spoils taken directly from enemy dead have pride of place in Rome’s earliest
historical record. This begins from the outset with the first king, Romulus, and
the spolia opima, initially dedicated in the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius—Rome’s
first temple, dedicated to Jupiter ‘who smites’ (or ‘carries out on a funeral
pyre’).6 The tradition of the spolia is well-known but a brief review is instructive:
according to tradition Romulus dedicated the spoils he took from King Acron of
Caenina after he slew him in battle. Only men who had slain an enemy king in
hand-to-hand combat were allowed to dedicate the spolia opima, and this
happened only two more times in Roman history after Romulus, when A.
Cornelius Cossus killed Lars Tolumnius, king of Veii in 428 BC, and when M.
Claudius Marcellus killed Viridomarus, king of the Insubres (in Gaul) in 222 BC.
The last of these, Marcellus (according to Plut. Marc. 6–8) reportedly dedicated
the armour (of gold and silver) by cutting a giant oak, fashioning it in the shape
of a tropaeum, hanging the armour on it, and carrying it in triumph.7 While the
tradition of the (p.126)

spolia and their origins could be

traced back to Romulus, they may
have in fact dated much later than
the archaic period, as has recently
been suggested.8 For our purpose,
it is the tradition and its place in
the larger context of Roman
values that is of primary
importance, as is the prevalence
of the display of such spolia in the
surviving visual record, as we see
on a fragmentary relief from the Fig. 4.1 A relief from the Temple of
Temple of Apollo Sosianus Apollo Sosianus of Romans triumphing
depicting Romans triumphing over
over Gauls, who sit bound underneath a
Gauls (see fig. 4.1; cf. fig. 7.10).
trophy of Gallic arms set up as emblems
Such display of personal valour
of victory, a trophy type similar to that
in battle would have provided a
used by M. Marcellus for display of the
public testament to one’s virtus.
spolia opima. H: .85 m. First century BC.
An equally famous marker of
Centrale Montemartini, Rome.
such valour was the so-called
Pila Horatia, where the sole
remaining brother of the renowned Horatii, who had defeated the Curiatii (in
settling the score between Alba Longa and Rome), had set up the spoils from the
stripped bodies of the enemy dead (Livy 1.26.10).9 (p.127) The practice of such
public display as a testament to one’s personal success in battle may have been
widespread and extended beyond the elite, since a passage in Livy (23.23.6)
appears to indicate that ‘average’ soldiers possibly adorned the exterior of their

Page 3 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

houses in a similar manner. Pliny (HN 35.6–7) tells us that the houses of the
great had spoils fastened to them as a part of their décor—especially on the
outside—and that it was not permitted, even for a new buyer, to take them down;
as a result ‘houses celebrated eternal triumphs’ (triumphabantque … aeternae
domus).10 The houses of Q. Lutatius Catulus and Pompey the Great were famous
in this regard.

From an early date such arms included the shields of the defeated, or those
commissioned by a triumphator with portraits, and became a common means to
display one’s military success and valour. Livy for one relates that, after a battle
with the Samnites in 309 BC in which the dictator L. Papirius Cursor triumphed,
Papirius used the shields of the vanquished, considered remarkable for their
gold inlay, to decorate the Forum (Livy does not state whether this was a
permanent or temporary display, though likely the latter).11 Such spoils could be
remarkable both for their appearance and by virtue of the enemy from whom it
was taken. Thus L. Marcius, who defeated Hasdrubal in 212 BC in Spain,
reportedly displayed in his triumph a silver shield weighing 137 pounds with a
portrait of the defeated Carthaginian general on it (Livy 25.39.12–17), possibly
resembling the sort of image we find on the clipeus situated on a base between
two trophies (see fig. 4.2); the shield likely belonged to the general himself.12 It
is almost certainly the same shield that hung in the Capitoline until the fire of 83
BC (and known as the Marcian shield).13 Examples of how these might have
been exhibited are attested in the cubiculum of the villa at Boscoreale, where a
captured shield is depicted as hung on the exterior of a residence (see fig. 4.3).14
The arms would have been available, therefore, for any passers-by to view (and
such artefacts will have possibly displayed inscriptions as to their origin as well).
(p.128)

Page 4 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

(p.129)

Fig. 4.2 An imago clipeata would consist

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

Page 5 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

The nature of material acquired

could change with the enemy. As
the city began to conquer to the
north and the Gauls became a
significant challenge, their golden
torques came to be a prized
possession for Roman generals
(see fig. 7.23).15 Polybius (2.31.5–
6) says that the consul L. Aemilius
sent the Gallic standards and
torques that he captured to adorn
the Capitoline in 225 BC (after his
entry into Rome in triumph).
Similarly, Florus (1.20.4) says that
Flaminius dedicated a bronze
tropaeum to Jupiter paid for after
he melted down the golden
torques of the Gauls (the Insubres) Fig. 4.3 A frescoed cubiculum from the
he defeated while on campaign in
villa at Boscoreale depicts the exterior of
northern Italy in 222 BC. In 196
a house decorated with a clipeus. Romans
BC M. Claudius Marcellus also
would display trophies captured from
triumphed over the Gauls in
northern Italy and subsequently their enemies as spoils and adorn the
deposited a very heavy gold exterior of their houses with them as
torque taken from a Gaul in the signs of their prowess in battle. c. 50 BC.
Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
(Livy 33.36.13). The Capitoline York.
will have been a particularly
appropriate venue for the
deposition of such spoils in (p.130) this instance, since by tradition it was the only
section of the city to hold out against the Gauls when they captured Rome in c.390 BC.
More than simply ordinary loot, the possession of the torque represented the figurative
‘stranglehold’ that Rome held over the conquered whose own symbol of power was
now safely confined in the very citadel they once besieged.16
Among the most famous of enemy spoils were the six brazen beaks of the enemy
ships that C. Maenius captured at the battle of Antium in 338 BC and set up on
the rostrum in the Forum.17 As the Gauls were later safely ensconced on the
Capitoline, here too we see enemy power transferred to yet another centre of
the state, a vital staging area for Roman political life. Later, in the First Punic
War, a columna rostrata was set up by M. Aemilius Paullus (consul in 255 BC),
though this time on the Capitoline (and completely destroyed in 172 BC in a
storm according to Livy 42.20.1).18 The tradition of putting enemy rostra on
display abided into the empire. Appian (B Civ. 5.130) tells us that the senate
voted Octavian, Caesar’s heir, the honour of a column with a golden statue of
him wearing the garb he wore upon entering the city after the Philippi campaign
—the column was to be adorned with the beaks of ships he had captured at
Actium and it was to be erected in the Forum, along with several other such

Page 6 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

monuments (see fig. 4.4).19 It may have been these or different columns
according to Servius (who says they were set up in honour of Augustus and
Agrippa) that were adorned with rostra from Augustus’ Egyptian campaign that
Domitian subsequently moved from the Forum or Palatine to the Capitoline (In
Georgica 3.29). This was different from the Augustan rostrum, also decorated
with rostra from Actium, next to which stood an archaic statue of Hercules in a
tunic—Augustus’ placement of the rostrum next to the statue will have had the
conveniently added effect of simultaneously reminding Romans of Augustus’
toils in achieving such conquests and of his defeat of Marc Antony (Pliny, HN
34.93).20 As was the case with the Gallic torques, that the rostra were in the
political heart of the city was (p.131)

no accident; it was an indication

that not only could Rome and its
nobility figuratively ‘govern the
ship of state’, they could dominate
others’ ships as well, not just
steering, but possessing and
displaying them. It was a form of
physical and political
emasculation that had a long
tradition in Rome.21
Taking it further, we could
argue that it also represented
the conquest of a significant
part of the physical world, the
sea, symbolized by the display
of naval weaponry in the heart
of the city. The analogy may not Fig. 4.4 The coin shows Augustus atop a
be quite so far-fetched. Romans rostrate column with the legend IMP
and Greeks both displayed CAESAR, ‘Caesar Imperator’. Enemy
enemy ships as war spoils. rostra (the beaks of captured enemy
Plutarch tells us that Aemilius ships) were exhibited publicly, starting in
Paullus (Aem. 30.2–3) after his the fourth century BC, and gave their
victory in Greece in 167 BC name to the speaker’s platform (the
sailed Perseus’ royal galley with rostrum) in the Comitium. Reverse of a
its sixteen banks of oars to silver denarius, 29–27 BC. The American
Rome, adorned with captured Numismatic Society, NewYork.
arms and scarlet and purple
cloth.22 Paullus may have been
following a Hellenistic tradition, since it was apparently not unheard of for
victors to dedicate war ships in sanctuaries, as did Antigonus Gonatas after he
defeated Ptolemy II Philadelphus at Cos in 261 BC, after which he dedicated a

Page 7 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

ship to Apollo.23 It has (p.132) been conjectured that Perseus’ ship was kept in
the navalia, presumably a large series of sheds near the Tiber.24

We should note that the Roman preservation of ships of historical significance is

attested in other contexts. According to Procopius, one of the oldest cultural
objects in the city’s memory was Aeneas’ boat, which commemorated his arrival
to the city, and was still reportedly in an excellent state of preserve in the sixth
century AD.25 Procopius himself confesses ignorance: was it the boat Aeneas
actually sailed in from Troy or the one he used to sail up the Tiber when he
sought Evander as an ally? He further notes (De Bello Gothico 8.22.5–16) that
the Romans had built a boathouse in the middle of the city near the Tiber to
preserve it, and remarks the vessel’s impressive workmanship, which showed no
signs of decay. The boat arguably symbolized the Romans’ weathering of
adversity, and their native fortitudo et constantia, something further reflected in
how long-lived the boat was as an artefact. It is an instance where the literal
endurance of an object served to mirror the endurance and antiquity of the
Roman people.

Captured enemy standards are also a relatively well-attested item for display, a
tradition in place from at least the middle republic on (see previously p. 129).26
Cassius Dio (55.10.3–4) and Suetonius (Aug. 29.2) both tell us that Augustus
intended that any who held triumphal honours dedicate their sceptre and crown
(and other triumphal tokens, presumably in the form of spolia) in the Temple of
Mars Ultor in his new forum. Standards captured from the enemy were also
dedicated there, something he himself did when he set up the Roman standards
lost at Carrhae in 53 BC (which he had retrieved in 20 BC), although prior to the
completion of his new forum in 2 BC they were displayed in the Temple of Mars
Ultor on the Capitoline, a dedication celebrated on his coinage (see fig. 4.5).27
Standards were also deposited which had been recovered from the Dalmatians
in the Second Dalmatian War (which started in 34 BC, App. Ill. 28) in the Portico
of Octavia. Suetonius in the same passage cited above reports that, up until the
time of Vespasian, the Temple of Mars Ultor was the repository of all triumphal
tokens taken by victorious generals in accordance with Augustus’ injunction. (p.
133)

Page 8 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

That this became the central

repository for cultural artefacts
pertaining to success in battle
underscored the central premise
of the right and righteousness of
the princeps in waging war. Such
objects became the symbolic
product of a bellum iustum by
virtue of their location within the
Temple of Mars Ultor, (whose
epithet implied a war of revenge,
hence an initial wrong that must
be righted). Moreover the
individual objects within the Fig. 4.5 Lost by Crassus at the Battle of
temple were the property of the Carrhae in 53 BC, the reverse of this
imperial family, emphasizing the
aureus issued by Augustus depicts the
various grades of subordination
Roman standards recovered from the
and status that obtained under the
Parthians and set up in a round hexastyle
principate (flowing downward
from the emperor to the general to temple of Mars Ultor on the Capitoline.
the senator who deliberated They were subsequently deposited in the
concerning war, from the time of new Temple of Mars Ultor in Augustus’
Augustus on, in the temple itself). forum. The British Museum, London.
Objects of this sort will have
continually reminded the senate of
the princeps’ success in war, and of his own power. Perhaps it was no coincidence that
the senate met there with relative frequency, to be reminded continually of their
subordinate status by objects like the statue of Victoria, set up by Augustus and
clothed ‘with the spoils of Egypt’, as part of his (p.134) final act of personal
vengeance against Antony and a reminder of his subsequent permanent domination.28
It is worth noting in this regard that the temple’s very epithet, Ultor, promises the
continuity of such conflict, ensnaring the Romans in an unbreakable chain of
vengeance and the promise of future strife.
One final classification of artefact that merits mention is the war chariot.29
There were a number of these captured from enemy kings that were deemed
worthy of display in their own right (for an example of which see fig. 5.5).
Mithridates’ gem-studded chariot which Pompey rode in his triumph was among
the treasures he eventually deposited in the Capitoline from his conquest (along
with the cloak of Alexander the Great found among the conquered Mithridates’
possessions).30 Much later it is reported that Aurelian (S.H.A. Aurel. 33.3) during
his triumph over Zenobia in AD 274 (and other peoples as well), dedicated a
chariot, purportedly drawn by four stags and once belonging to the king of the
Goths, to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.31 In addition to enemy chariots, our sources
mention that chariots driven by actual triumphatores were esteemed as cultural
curiosities in their own right. Cassius Dio (43.14.6) says that the senate decreed
that Caesar’s chariot be placed on the Capitol facing Jupiter’s statue (in addition
to erecting Caesar’s statue in bronze with a likeness of the inhabited world at his

Page 9 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

feet).32 Years later when Nero returned from Greece and entered the city in
triumph he drove the same chariot Augustus had used in his own triple triumph
(Suet. Ner. 25.1). While uncertain as to the chariot’s location, the Capitoline or
the Temple of Mars Ultor are likely candidates for its residence. And,
considering the wording of our sources, it is entirely likely that it was a part of
the triumphator’s right to dedicate his chariot to Jupiter. That literal vehicle of
triumph was perhaps the most powerful symbol of domination, and deposition on
the Capitoline would be quite fitting. The values instilled into and imposed upon
such objects, their aspirational nature, as it were, is attested by Nero’s desire to
drive Augustus’ own chariot, and by the symbolic power of placing Caesar’s (p.
135) chariot facing Jupiter. Finally, taken on purely symbolic grounds, the
acquisition and display of such regal chariots as that of Mithridates or the king
of the Goths creates a twofold triumph in a sense, of triumphator over
triumphator.

In the period of the principate, display of enemy spoils was not merely limited to
the foreign or the exotic. The domination of domestic foes, thwarted from within,
was equally celebrated when the occasional assassination or conspiracy gone
awry motivated emperors to set up vows for their salvation. Cassius Dio
(59.22.7) and Suetonius (Calig. 24.3) report that Caligula dedicated three
daggers in the Temple of Mars Ultor when the conspiracy of Cn. Lentulus
Gaetulicus (aided by Aemilius Lepidus) was foiled in AD 39. Thirty years later
during the civil wars of 69, Vitellius celebrated his defeat of his rival Otho in a
similar fashion by sending the dagger with which Otho had committed suicide to
the Temple of Mars, though not in Rome but at Colonia Agrippinensis (Suet. Vit.
10.3). Four years before, in the wake of Piso’s conspiracy, Nero dedicated a
dagger taken from one of the conspirators, Flavius Scaevinus, placing it in the
Capitoline and dedicating it to Jupiter the Avenger.33 In addition, Nero rewarded
M. Cocceius Nerva, the future emperor, and Ofonius Tigellinus, his villainous
Praetorian Praefect, with the honour of statues in the palace and triumphal
effigies in the Forum for their part in crushing the conspiracy.34 The three
instances in which the daggers were set on public view looked back to the
republic, in which control of enemy spoils equalled a symbolic possession of
their power, but was also now uniquely a province of the principes, who since
the time of Augustus publicly celebrated the ferocious vengeance exacted from
their opponents both foreign and domestic.

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

 
Displaying Domination

34.33). Dressed on the (p.136) occasion of a triumph in triumphal garb, it

recalled for Romans the first triumph ever celebrated in the city, that of
Hercules over Cacus, and by association attributed for the day to the
triumphator the qualities of Hercules (in addition to his association with
Jupiter).35 In addition, it embodied the collective Roman response of force
against the ‘Other’. Livy relates, however, that the earliest specific piece of
statuary honouring personal valour was that of Horatius Cocles, who famously
made his stand on the bridge against the Etruscan army of Lars Porsenna, and
that it was erected in the Comitium.36 Again, the Comitium will have been an apt
venue for Horatius’ commemoration as a saviour of the community for which he
had been willing to sacrifice himself, since Roman citizens regularly congregated
for political association in this central location.

There is no need, however to render a full-scale catalogue of the myriad statuary

found in Rome, a project long since completed, and recently revisited in
Stewart’s admirable study.37 Such statuary was designed to reflect or inscribe
on the face of the city the deeds of excellence performed by the elite, to
perpetuate the memory of their achievements, collapse the past into the present,
and bear physical witness to key aspects of the mos maiorum.38 Some were
justly well known or even curiosities in their own right, such as the statue of
Valerius Corvus in the Forum of Augustus, on which the raven that had
distracted Valerius’ adversary and allowed him to dispatch his foe was famously
perched (Aulus Gellius 9.11). The statue, as was the case for so many, will have
been accompanied by brief res gestae, something that was not uncommon.39 Nor
was it just valour in war that was deemed worthy of commemoration.

(p.137) Success in one’s office could earn one the honour of a statue as well. T.
Seius’ aedileship (345 BC) was particularly memorable for the practical
accomplishment of supplying the public grain at a discounted price; his statue
was therefore erected on both the Palatine and Capitoline (Pliny, HN 18.16). The
honour was not without precedent. L. Minucius Augurinus (who managed to
convict Spurius Maelius), when tribune of the plebs an eleventh time (456 BC),
reduced the price of grain for a period of twenty days, and the people in return
voted him a statue that stood on the Porta Trigemina (Pliny, HN 18.15). Both
cases are remarkable as instances of commemoration of the aristocracy as
benefactors of those who stood outside the Roman power structure, or on its
margins. Such commemoratives served as reminders of the protective power of
the elite, reaffirming their own sense of worth, both for themselves and their
dependents.

Statuary such as Corvus’ will have been ubiquitous in Rome, whether in front of
the Temple of Castor and Pollux, with its commemorative equestrian statue of Q.
Marcius Tremulus (for his victory over the Hernici in 306 BC, Livy 9.43.22), or
the statue on the Capitoline of M. Aemilius Lepidus, dedicated after he had
saved the life of a fellow citizen in battle (which represented him in a boy’s gown

Page 11 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

with a bulla (a protective pendant worn around the neck to protect young boys))
and which had been set up by senatorial decree (Val. Max. 3.1.1).40 To cite but
one further example, the author of the lives of the two Gallieni (S.H.A. Gall. Duo
19.4) states that a statue of Gallienus’ grandfather had remained, to his day, at
the base of the Palatine at the front of the Via Sacra (between the temples of
Antoninus and Faustina and Vesta near the Arch of Fabius) with an inscription
Gallieno iuniori (‘to Gallienus the Younger’). Such commemorations supposedly
served, in this case, as a historical source for the biographer of the two
Gallieni.41 More importantly however, it will have served as a means for
Gallienus in his capacity as a usurper to legitimize his authority by attesting to a
pedigree through ancestral imagines (as well as written text). A similar situation
may have obtained for two of the short-lived emperors of AD 69. Suetonius
reports that Galba, upon becoming emperor, set up a tablet in the forecourt of
the palace with his family genealogy which traced its roots back to Jupiter on his
father’s side and Pasiphae on his mother’s, while Vitellius’ statue on the rostrum
also may have traced out an illustrious family lineage.42

(p.138) Cultural material of this sort shared an intent similar to the imagines
paraded at Roman funerals, which had the power to exhort to virtus (see pp.
106–7), and were intended to perpetuate the ideology of power and aristocratic
control. Thus Pliny (Ep. 2.7), to cite but one example, praises a triumphal statue
of Vestricius Spurinna (and his son Cottius who died while he was abroad), and
says that such a reward will spur young men (presumably of the right class) to
deeds of valour.43 This is not to imply that the audience for such visual
representations was exclusively elite, far from it. Given the ubiquity of such
imagines it would be wrong to limit the audience that visually ‘read’ them, just
as it would be wrong to assert that a particular image carried a single exclusive
meaning. Such images arguably reflected the collective muscle of Roman
manpower and its deployment through force, something not lost on its Roman
audience regardless of class distinctions.

In addition to statuary, soon after the establishment of the republic, according to

Pliny (HN 35.12) individuals in Rome started to set up portrait shields in temples
(not to be confused with shields taken as spoils from conquered foes discussed
above), or shields containing abbreviated res gestae. The first to do this
according to tradition was Appius Claudius, consul with P. Servilius in 495 BC,
who dedicated a number of shields in the Temple of Bellona in an elevated spot
so that the titulos honorum could be read.44 Pliny implies that these were no
longer extant in his day. He further tells us that M. Aemilius Lepidus, Q. Lutatius
Catulus’ colleague in the consulship, similarly set up such shields in 78 BC in the
Basilica Aemilia as well as his home, with imagines depicted on them (HN 35 .
13).45 Doubtless there were numerous others between the time of Appius and
Aemilius as well. Augustus similarly installed a clipeum with a series of virtues
listed on it, a marble copy of which is still extant (Augustus, Res Gestae 34; see
fig. 4.6).46 Such shields may have held a symbolic value, reminding the viewer of
Page 12 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

the ‘shielding protection’ of the clipeus’ dedicator and the strength of the victor
in stripping away the enemy’s defense, rendering him vulnerable.

Beginning in the third century BC (and, very likely, before), painting came
increasingly into vogue as a means to advertise one’s achievements. Among the
(p.139)

subjects suitable for

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

 
Displaying Domination

western exterior of the Curia Hostilia a painting was commissioned depicting the
victory of M’. Valerius Messalla over King Hieron and the Carthaginians (Pliny, HN
35.22). It was later part of the Basilica Porcia.53 Much later the emperor Maximinus
displayed paintings in a similar venue outside the senate house that depicted his
campaigns against Germania.54
At the height of the Second Punic War Ti. Sempronius Gracchus chose a rather
atypical subject after his defeat of Hanno near Beneventum in 214 BC. After his
victory, the townspeople welcomed him and laid out meals in the open courts of
(p.141)

(p.142) their homes with all the

soldiers invited to partake of the
feast in common. Instead,
however, Gracchus had them hold
the celebrations out on the street,
with the slave volunteers that
made up his army feasting and
wearing caps of liberty or white
woolen filets to celebrate their
freedom (Livy 24.16.16–19).55
Gracchus reckoned that the event
should have a permanent record
and ordered a picture painted
depicting the feast day, a picture
appropriately set up in the Temple
of Jupiter Libertas that his father
had dedicated on the Aventine.56
The ultimate victor of the war with
Hannibal, Scipio Africanus,
proudly paraded tabulae in his
triumphal procession depicting
scenes from the war in Africa,
though where these were
ultimately displayed is unknown.57
Unfortunately, it is generally the
case that the ultimate specific Fig. 4.7 Roman aristocrats started in
display context for such paintings earnest to use painting as a means to
remains uncertain.58 A word of advertise their achievements in the third
caution is needed too about
century BC. This wall painting depicts a
whether such paintings were
scene from the Samnite Wars (of battle
always necessarily part of a
and surrender) from a tomb on the
triumphal procession; they could
simply have been commissioned as Esquiline in Rome and may give us a
commemoratives in their own sense of how such early paintings
right and were not necessarily a appeared. Third century BC. H: 87.5 cm.
part of the triumphal celebration Museo del Palazzo dei Conservatori,
itself.59 Rome.

Page 14 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

For those about whose display we are informed, there is something to be said
about the location of these paintings. The Aventine, for example, had close
associations with the plebeian class, which had seceded there en masse during
its agitation against the nobility in the so-called struggle of the orders. Its
various temples pertained to personal health and welfare, or liberation, and
included those dedicated to Liber (Bacchus), Libertas, and Ceres.60 Moreover as
noted, L. Mummius dedicated a number of paintings there after the sack of
Corinth, including Aristides’ Dionysus in the Temple of Ceres. Both deities were
closely associated with the plebs.61

(p.143) The Capitol, where the triumphing general’s victory procession ended
culminating in sacrifice, was an aptly chosen site for dedicating pictorial
commemoratives.62 We hear, for example, that L. Scipio Asiaticus put a picture
in the Capitol of his victory over Antiochus III in Asia in 190 BC (which
reportedly annoyed his brother Africanus since his son was taken prisoner in the
battle).63 Not much later, Aemilius Paullus, a patron of Pacuvius, commissioned
paintings in the Temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium that likely will have
commemorated an event associated with Aemilius Paullus’ military successes
(Pliny, HN 35.135). In addition, Aemilius also brought the famous painter
Metrodorus of Athens with him to commemorate his victories.64 In the late
republic, according to Appian (Mith. 117), at Pompey’s triumph over
Mithridates, images were carried in the procession of Mithridates fighting, then
defeated, then put to flight:

Even the besieging of Mithridates, and the night when he fled, and the
silence were represented. Finally it was shown how he died, and the
daughters who perished with him were depicted also, and there were
figures of the sons and daughters who died before him, and images of the
barbarian gods decked out in the fashion of their countries.65

Scholars have long assumed that these were paintings, and this may well be the
case, but it has recently been suggested that such images could have actually
been models, or scenes against which actors re-enacted the events.66 The
images, if they were in the nature of scene paintings or statuary, likely found
their way to the Capitoline with some of Mithridates’ other treasures, or were
possibly used to adorn the portico of Pompey’s theatre.

Equally appropriate to the setting on the Capitoline was Munatius Plancus’

dedication of two paintings (seized while he was on campaign) in the Temple of
Minerva next to the shrine of Iuventas. Their subjects were the rape of
Persephone and Victory seizing a quadriga on high (Victoria quadrigam in
sublime rapiens).67 Here we have an instance where the paintings portrayed apt
subjects for Plancus’ station, especially the latter of the two, since the subject of
Victory taking the triumphal four horse chariot up to heaven could clearly be
associated with his status as imperator (a salutation Pliny notes he earned on

Page 15 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

campaign). The former is perhaps a more disturbing image of conquest in which

Persephone is (p.144)

violently seized by Pluto, a

suitable metaphor for Rome’s
violent seizure of conquered
peoples. Lest we think such a
connection fanciful, we need only
to consider that Romans tended to
view conquered provinces as
feminine entities to be subdued
and put on display (see pp. 199–
203). In addition, the location of
the works, in the Temple of
Minerva, a deity whose field was
both war and culture, would have
been an equally suitable setting.
Fig. 4.8 The emperor Titus is portrayed
Fondness for battle scenes,
in an imperial quadriga in triumphal
triumphs, the display of
procession over Judaea in AD 70 on his
captives, and the like, will not
arch in the Forum. A winged Victory
surprise, if one considers the
hovers behind him. The relief reflects in
surviving artistic and
visual terms the sort of subject we know
monumental record in the form
was popular among Rome’s ruling elite
of relief sculpture (as on the
from both the existing material and
Arch of Titus (see fig. 4.8 –9) or
literary evidence, including scenes of
Trajan’s Column), statuary
battles and triumphs, both painted and
(such as the Dacian captives
sculpted. H: 2 m. W: 3.85 m. The Arch of
that adorned Trajan’s forum
Titus in the Roman Forum, Rome.
(see fig. 4.10)), and
sarcophagi.68 In some cases, it
is perhaps not too much to (p.145)

state that the commemoration of

the event was as important as the
event itself. In a sense, the act of
commissioning works of art for the
sake of commemoration and its
public display constitutes in and of
itself an extension of the ideology
of triumphalism. Unlike the simple
appropriation of enemy spoils, the
creation of such commemoratives
is a community intensive activity,
Fig. 4.9 The spoils of the Temple in
which requires, merely for the
Jerusalem plundered and razed by Titus
acquisition of the colours for
are set on display before the people
paint, the marble for sculpting, or
other material, extensive during his triumph. The scene, a part of
the same narrative as figure 4.8, gives us
Page 16 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

connections of trade and importation of talent. Moreover, it is a privileged act, which

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

Fig. 4.10 A bound Dacian captive from

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

Page 17 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

(p.147) Amicitia and a glimpse at one of the better known

Memory cultural artefacts ever imported into the
In addition to commemoratives city, the Temple’s candelabrum and table
that celebrated conquest and stand. The Arch of Titus in the Roman
domination, there was a set of Forum, Rome.
subtler commemoratives which
implied an ostensibly more
benign hegemony. From the earliest period of Roman history, numerous artefacts
and relics recalled the nexus of friendships, alliances, and treaties between
Rome and other states. Consequently, Rome’s power and the growth of that
power could be read through a series of material objects that indicated variously
submission, desire for integration into or protection under Roman power, or that
were genuine tokens of friendship. Such objects composed a text on which the
history of Roman expansion and influence was writ large, constituting a proud
record of Roman prestige and of the desire of others to seek peace with and the
protection of Rome.

First and foremost among these objects were the diverse treaties of peace or
friendship found throughout the city. Such recorded material was not
inconsequential to the Romans, and it is worth noting that Vespasian, after the
Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus’ destruction by fire in AD 69, meticulously carried
out a recovery project involving the restitution of nearly three thousand tablets
valued for both their historic and aesthetic characteristics (Suet. Vesp. 8.5):

He undertook that three thousand bronze tablets that had perished by fire
at the same time be restored and that copies be sought out from
everywhere possible, the fairest and most ancient instrument of empire on
which were contained almost from the beginning of the city decrees of the
senate and plebs concerning an alliance, treaty, or privilege conceded to
anyone.

The passage indicates that both the beauty of the material and the contents
were notable in their own right; bronze was the preferred, though not the only
medium for preserving public historical records of this sort, and the number of
treaties and pacts set in bronze and other material was so substantial (as the
Suetonius passage indicates) that there is no need for anything more than a few
general words about them here.

The earliest such artefact is attested in the monarchy, when Tarquin made peace
with Gabii. The terms of the treaty were on display in the Temple of Semo
Sancus on a shield of wood covered with the hide of a sacrificial bull with the
peace terms inscribed on it.70 From the time of the republic, one of the earliest
such relics was a column of bronze which stood behind the rostrum in the Forum
inscribed with a treaty made with all the Latins and struck by Spurius Cassius
and (p.148) Postumus Cominius in 493 BC.71 In 340 BC the equestrians of

Page 18 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

Campania were granted Roman citizenship and a bronze tablet was affixed
(appropriately) to the Temple of Castor and Pollux in memory of the event (Livy
8.11.16); they were given citizenship reportedly because they refused to assist
the Latins against the Romans. Later on, in Polybius’ day, Romans could read the
treaty between Rome and Carthage, an agreement made in the time of Pyrrhus’
invasion (279 BC). It was preserved on bronze tablets next to the Temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus in the quaestors’ treasury (Polybius 3.26.1). And in Caesar’s
time, Josephus says there was a decree on the Capitoline that renewed a treaty
of friendship between the Romans and Jews (commemorating Hyrcanus’
assistance to Caesar in Egypt); the decree noted a gift of a gold shield worth
50,000 gold pieces (AJ 14.146–7). The Romans themselves kept a catalogue of
such treaties on rolls made of linen known as the lentei libri kept in the Temple
of Juno Moneta (Livy 4.7.11–12). These contained not only the various treaties
struck by Roman officials but a list of Roman magistrates on record as well.

Apart from the obvious recording of treaties, among the more common tokens of
friendship and esteem were crowns and statues. In the course of Rome’s history,
the collection of gold crowns offered by various states or individuals, as
Östenberg has recently illustrated, was formidable.72 One of the earliest records
of such a dedication (to cite but one example) is that of the Latins and Hernici
who paid homage to Rome (for ‘good government’ and the ‘restoration of
harmony’) by presenting a gold crown to Jupiter on the Capitol. Livy (3.57.7)
says the crown was small due to the resources of both states at the time (449
BC). Such crowns constituted symbolic recognition of the superiority of Roman
strength and a desire for protection under Rome’s aegis. The dedication of the
Hernici was consequently just the first (as far as we know) of numerous gold
crowns various states dedicated in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.73 The
crown and its location are both significant. First, the crown itself was not merely
(p.149) the symbol of royal power (Rome acting as the world’s regent), but also
of victory. Deposited in Jupiter’s temple, whose cult on the Capitoline was where
every victory culminated in triumph, such objects stood as a testament to Roman
power and to bringing outsiders within the sphere of that power (and protection)
on both a human and divine level.

Crowns of this sort may have been second only to the statues that recalled
friendship between Rome and other allied states, such as the statue of Victory a
delegation brought from Syracuse in 216 BC.74 The senate put the 220 pound
gold statue, considered a good omen at the time, in the Temple of Jupiter on the
Capitoline (Livy 22.37). Equestrian statues were a particular honour: to cite but
one example, Cassius Dio (70.2.3) says that when King Pharasmanes of Iberia
visited Rome, the emperor Antoninus Pius set up an equestrian statue to him in
the Temple of Bellona. The sincerity of certain dedications were no doubt subject
to some scrutiny, as will have been the case with the gold statues of Verres that

Page 19 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

the Sicilians had set up to him in Rome in token of friendship, a joint offering of
the Sicilian people, according to the inscription.75

More exotic gifts are recorded from the East. These include a golden vine worth
500 talents that Aristobulus, the ruler of the Jews, gave to Pompey while in
Damascus in 64–63 BC which he deposited in the Temple of Jupiter on the
Capitoline, along with a crown the Egyptians gave to him at the same time worth
4000 gold pieces (Joseph. AJ 14.34–6). In the empire, tokens of amicitia from far
afield appear to have been amassed. Thus, Aurelian (S.H.A. Aurel. 29.1–3) was
said to have deposited a short woolen garment, a gift of the King of Persia that
had come from India and of such purple hue that all others paled in comparison.
Such gifts were not immune from the avaricious grasp of Roman officials with
their voracious appetite for finery. Cicero reports that two sons of King
Antiochus of Syria had brought a beautiful lamp stand to the city adorned with
gems and intended for dedication in the Temple of Jupiter. However, the
reconstruction of the temple after the fire of 83 BC was not yet complete, and
they decided to take the lamp stand back to Syria with them with the promise to
return (p.150) in order to dedicate it at the proper time. According to Cicero,
the corrupt Verres got wind of their intent and appropriated it.76

Cultural property of this stamp, taken in its totality, bore witness to the
numerous alliances and friendships the Roman state formed with outside powers
and hence to its influence and might. The appropriation of material not taken by
force but given in friendship made Roman power a visual reality within the city,
and re-contextualized, say, a simple crown into a comprehensible expression of
Roman imperium. States offered crowns, gold, and purple cloth as tokens of
obsequium to the Roman state and its people. Such gifts and dedications stood
as a visual testament to the desire of others to become a part of the Roman
sphere or as an acknowledgement of its might, and thereby reaffirmed Roman
identity and legitimized Roman power.

Political Competition and Aesthetics

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

Page 20 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

rubble (Plut. Mor. 559D). Similarly, Plutarch tells us that when Aratus took
Sicyon he destroyed a number of portraits of ‘the tyrants’, and was barely
prevented from destroying a portrait of Aristratus (a contemporary of Phillip II,
Arat. 13). It was the work of Melanthus (who executed it reportedly with Apelles’
assistance) and depicted Aristratus standing next to a chariot of (p.151)
victory. It was saved by the intervention of Neacles (a friend of Aratus), who
tearfully pleaded with him to spare it.78

For the Romans the phenomenon of cultural objects turning politically

contentious dates back to at least the third century BC (though it almost
certainly took place before), since it may have been a sense of slighted glory at
the hands of the Scipiones that led Fabius Maximus to dedicate a colossal
Hercules by Lysippus (possibly similar to that in fig. 2.2) from Tarentum on the
Capitoline in 209 BC next to an equestrian statue of himself in bronze (see p.
38). Similarly, there is the possibility that M’. Acilius Glabrio’s dedication of a
gilded equestrian statue in the Temple of Pietas in 181 BC, honouring his father
in fulfillment of a vow when King Antiochus was defeated at Thermopylae in 191
BC, may have been intended to vindicate a charge of peculation brought up by
Cato the Elder some years past.79

The political competition over such monuments turned more blatant and more
violent during the late republic. The case of King Bocchus is instructive in this
regard. Bocchus dedicated some statues to Victory on the Capitoline (a base of
which still survives in the Capitoline Museum, see fig. 4.11), and a golden statue
group which depicted his handing over Jugurtha to Sulla, a monument replicated
on Sulla’s signet ring, and on coinage from the period (see fig. 4.12) which
allows us to conjecture the group’s appearance. Marius, stung by the visual
reminder of a victory which he believed rightly his, later tried to remove the
work by force but failed.80 Ultimately it was allowed to stand and Sulla’s
memory left its mark on the city (and he was further honoured with a gilded
equestrian statue, App. B Civ. 1.97). Clearly, Marius and Sulla elicited strong
sentiments in their followers—we need think only of the commission made for
Marius (Plut. Mar. 40.1) by a man named Belaeus who had helped Marius flee
the Sullans at Miturnae; it was a (p.152)

Page 21 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

(p.153) picture of Marius’

embarkation, later dedicated in a
temple at the site. Such
commemoration could result in a
dubious response. A statue may be
intended as an honour, yet
Plutarch says that the statue of
Marius set up by the residents of
Ravenna bore witness to his harsh
and bitter character (Mar. 2). Both
Marius and his colleague and
rival, Q. Lutatius Catulus,
decorated buildings with arms and
spoils (in particular shields) taken Fig. 4.11 The so-called ‘monument of
during their campaign against the
Bocchus’, may have been one of several
Cimbri, each desiring to claim
that the king had set up to commemorate
credit for the victory over a
Sulla’s victory over Jugurtha in 105 BC.
dangerous foe. Catulus decorated
a portico on the Palatine with the The base itself, on which winged victories
spoils, while Marius adorned some hold a shield, may have been topped with
of the new shops in the Forum a statue of Victory. Centrale
(possibly the tabernae Montemartini, Rome.
argentariae) with shields taken
from the Cimbri which had
portraits of Gauls on them.81 It
stands as an example in which
competition over memory left its
mark openly on the city.
Equally bitter was the feud
between Cicero and Clodius.
Cicero was able to exploit
Clodius’ actions during his
exile, when he not only pulled
down Cicero’s house, but
erected a Temple of Libertas on
the site. Cicero tells us that
Libertas’ cult statue came from
Tanagra, and was that of a
courtesan appropriated from a Fig. 4.12 This scene on a coin in which
tomb.82 A nobleman—we do not Bocchus (kneeling as the suppliant with
know who—had taken and used the olive branch) delivers up Jugurtha
the statue to adorn his (bound up and dejected) to Sulla, who is
entertainments when he was seated, is very likely representative of a
aedile, wanting to put on a series of contentious monuments
memorable show. Cicero commemorating the end of the war
accused Clodius of desecration against Jugurtha in which Sulla tried to
on three counts: the image had
Page 22 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

decorated a tomb, it snatch credit away from Marius. Reverse

represented a meretrix, and it of a silver denarius of Sullan issue. The
was set up sacrilegiously. In American Numismatic Society, New York.
short, Clodius had committed
an abomination, and literally
made libertas a whore. Most famously of all, in the period leading up to Caesar’s
assassination, the statues of Brutus’ ancestor, M. Junius Brutus the Liberator,
became something of a political rallying point for anti-Caesarian sentiments,
with graffiti and garlands placed on his statuary.83 Indeed, Brutus was said to
have been inspired to act against Caesar due to the image of his ancestor that
stood next to those of Rome’s ancient kings, his sword in hand (Plut. Brut. 1.1).84

The violent reaction imagines could elicit, and the political undertones that
permeated such violence continued into the principate. We hear, for example,
that Agrippina the Elder’s imagines and those of her son Nero were paraded (p.
154) around the streets in AD 29 at the height of Sejanus’ persecution of both
mother and son.85 A similar demonstration took place with the imagines of
Nero’s wife, Octavia, in AD 62 during her persecution by Nero.86 When Aemila
Lepida was on trial under Tiberius, a similar spectacle took place when the
woman, besieged by accusers, entered Pompey’s theatre and gestured to the
monumenta et imagines of her ancestors around her, reminding the people of
her illustrious lineage and arousing the mob’s sympathy.87 These are merely a
few of the numerous other examples one could cite, and examined in Gregory’s
study of the use of imagines as symbols around which fierce political passions
could occasionally become inflamed.88

If images could be used as political rallying points, the Romans were also fully
aware that other images, especially pictorial representations, could be used for
similar political ends, such as canvassing for office, arguing court cases,
attacking a political or legal opponent, or the passing of various laws and
legislation—frequently with mixed results. We have already noted the case of L.
Scipio who offended his brother Africanus by displaying a painting of his victory
over Antiochus III because Africanus’ son had been taken prisoner during the
war. Almost half a century later L. Hostilius Mancinus, the first of the
commanders in the Third Punic War to force an entrance into Carthage,
displayed in the Forum a city plan of Carthage with representations of the
attacks on it, all the while standing by the image and describing to the people
the assault on the city and the details of the siege in order to court popularity for
the consular elections (an office he won, for which he reportedly incurred the
enmity of Scipio Aemilianus).89

In the late republic we know that Cato the Younger (Plut. Cat. Min. 43) spoke
against the extension of the command of the first triumvirate and the re-
allotment of provinces; afterwards the mob was incited to violence, and pelted
Pompey’s statues. Nearly a decade later, Appian (B Civ. 2.101) relates the

Page 23 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

audience’s negative response during Caesar’s triumph in 46 BC, when images

were displayed during the procession of the civil war:

The people… groaned over their domestic ills, especially when they saw
the picture of L. Scipio, the general-in-chief, wounded in the breast by his
own hand, casting himself into the sea, and Petreius committing self-
destruction at the banquet, and Cato torn apart (p.155) by himself like a
wild beast, [while] they applauded at the deaths of Achillas and Pothinus,
and laughed at the flight of Pharnaces.90

One wonders whether Caesar intended such a sympathetic response for his
Roman adversaries, or if it was something unexpected.91 An equally emotional
display is reported when Verres exhibited his loot from Asia and Achaia (Cic.
Verr. 2.1.59–60). There happened to be in Rome at the time delegations from the
cities of both provinces whose members, upon seeing the various images taken
away from their sanctuaries, burst into tears, with some exclaiming that the ruin
of Rome’s friends and allies was at hand, since such things were displayed in the
Forum itself, where once those who had wronged allies were prosecuted.92 The
powerful impact of visual representations when pleading at court did not escape
the notice of Roman jurists. The exploitation of visual images in legal settings
actually had a long history in Rome. Cicero, for example, relates the case of
Aulus Gabinius against Lucullus in 67 BC: Gabinius brought a picture of
Lucullus’ Tusculan villa to attack his luxurious way of life with a view to exciting
the mob to indignation (Cic. Sest. 93). Nearly a century and a half later,
Quintilian tells us that lawyers were still bringing paintings into court to
illustrate the crimes of defendants in order to sway the jurors’ emotions.93

The disgust that the imagines of certain men could elicit abided into the empire.
Pliny the Younger, as noted (p. 104) derided the monument to Claudius’
freedman Pallas, in part because he attributed Pallas’ achievements not to merit
but to fortune (something he found particularly frustrating), and derided the
inscription as ridiculous, indicative only of waste and the rascality of Pallas.
Much later, Ammianus Marcellinus (14.6.8) voices his disapproval of certain men
receiving the honour of a statue, citing an anecdote of Cato the Elder who, when
asked why he did not have one, responded that he preferred to have people
wonder why one who so deservedly merited a statue did not have one, than that
they grumble that one without merit did.94 Intense, even harsh reactions were
expected towards imagines. With this in mind it is remarked as noteworthy that
Octavian was magnanimous in his response to a statue of Brutus that stood in
Mediolanum in which he took no offence (though he initially rebuked the city for
harbouring an adversary, before finally allowing the statue to stay because they
(p.156) had shown fides to a friend even in adversity).95 In the extreme the
reaction could famously effect the destruction of such imagines, and both

Page 24 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

popular unrest and so-called damnatio memoriae could result in either the
spontaneous or calculated erasure of a man’s presence and memory.96

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

(p.157) History and Remembrance

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

 
Displaying Domination

Rome’s politically agonistic environment, was at times contentious. That is

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

Notes:
(1) In the area of classical antiquity, on how art, ritual, and symbol (sometimes in
the form of objects) interact to support the empowered, see N. Hannestad,
Roman Art and Imperial Policy (Aarhus 1986), 9–14; P. Zanker, The Power of
Images in the Age of Augustus. Translated by Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor 1988); P.
J. Holliday, The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts
(Cambridge 2002); T. Hölscher, The Language of Images in Roman Art
(Cambridge 2004), 47–57. For how objects carry symbolic value and their role in
public competition amongst the elite see R. L. Gordon, ‘The Real and the
Imaginary: Production and Religion in the Graeco-Roman World’, in R. L. Gordon
(ed.), Image and Value in the Graeco-Roman World: Studies in Mithraism and
Religious Art (Brookfield Vt. 1996), 23.

(2) Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 194; cf. P. Connerton, How Societies Remember
(Cambridge 1989), 4, who asserts that knowledge of the past and recollected
knowledge tend to be conveyed by ritual performance, something in a sense true
for the Romans, who relied on mos maiorum. On the ‘construction’ of the Roman
nobilitas (and a definition of the term) through its ethos and mode of life see F.
Goldmann, ‘Nobilitas als Status und Gruppe – Überlegungen zum
Nobilitätsbegriff der römischen Republik’, in J. Spielvogel (ed.), Res publica
reperta. Zur Verfassung und Gesellschaft der römischen Republik und des
frühen Prinzipats (Festschrift Jochen Blecken) (Stuttgart 2002), 45–66, esp. 57;
see 62–6 for the connection between imagines and the creation of the nobility as
a distinct group nobilitas; also see A. Afzelius, ‘Zur Definition der römischen
Nobilität in der Zeit Ciceros’, ClMed 2 (1938), 40–94; ‘Zur Definition der
römischen Nobilität vor der Zeit Ciceros’, ClMed 7 (1945), 150–200. For more
theoretical discussions on the construction of reality by elites, see e.g. the series
of essays in H. A. Millon and L. Nochlin (eds.), Art and Architecture in the
Service of Politics (Cambridge Mass. 1978); D. Castriota, (ed.), Artistic Strategy
and the Rhetoric of Power: Political Uses of Art from Antiquity to the Present
(Carbondale 1986); R. I. Rotberg and T. K. Rabb, (eds.), Art and History. Images

Page 26 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

and Their Meaning (Cambridge 1988). For a discussion on the social background
to the display of commemoratives that depict ritual see R. M. Van Dyke and S. E.
Alcock, (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003), 4; also see A. Feldherr,
Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History (Berkeley 1998), 1–50; cf. S.
MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 1981); J. Elsner,
Roman Eyes. Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton 2007), 29–48.

(3) Holliday, Origins (n. 1), xix.

(4) F. Baekeland, ‘Psychological Aspects of Art Collecting’, Psychiatry, 44 (1981),

49–50 notes that the relationship between owner and trophy object can be one in
which the possessed object also functions as a talisman which ‘connects me
magically with the previous possessor’; for a good general discussion of the
display of enemy weaponry see I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives,
and Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009), 22–30,
41–7.

(5) T. Hölscher, ‘The Transformation of Victory into Power: From Event to

Structure’, in S. Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient
Rome (Cambridge 2006), 27–48.

(6) See LTUR 3.135–6 for the temple.

(7) See Plut. Marc. 8; also see Propertius 4.10; Livy 4.32.4,11; Val. Max. 3.2.5;
Silius Italicus 1.133, 3.587, 12.280; Florus 1.20.5; Cass. Dio 54.8.3; Aur. Vict. De
Vir. Ill. 25.1–2; CIL 10.809. For an excellent discussion concerning who had the
right to dedicate the spolia see J. Rich, ‘Augustus and the spolia opima’, Chiron,
26 (1996), 85–127; for a general study of the Roman war trophy and victory
monuments see G. Ch. Picard, Les Trophées romains (Paris 1957); Östenberg,
Staging the World (n. 4), 19–30, esp. 19–20; see Hölscher, ‘Transformation’ (n.
5), 31–3 for the development of the battlefield tropaeum beginning in the late
second century BC.

(8) See H. I. Flower, ‘The Tradition of the spolia opima: M. Claudius Marcellus
and Augustus’, ClAnt 19 (2000), 34–64, who suggests it was something that
occurred at key points in the historical period and that Marcellus was
instrumental in the origin of what became an ‘urban legend’; for a related
discussion see M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge Mass. 2007), 293.

(9) For the Pila Horatia see LTUR 4.89–90.

(10) Pliny also states that they had paintings of the maiores on the outside of
houses. See J. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the
History of Art (London 1991), 116 for discussion; for related discussion see S.
Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History
(Oxford 2003), 149; K. E. Welch, ‘Domi militiaeque: Roman Domestic Aesthetics

Page 27 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

and War Booty in the Republic’, in S. Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.),

Representations of War in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2006), 91–161.

(11) Livy 9.40.16. The latter because Livy states that it became the custom of the
aediles to decorate the Forum in such a way when carriages with images of the
gods were pulled through it.

(12) See M. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (Ann Arbor 1997), 122–7.

(13) Pliny, HN 35.14. Certain Greek communities had a similar custom; the
Athenians hung Spartan shields captured at Sphacteria in 425 BC on the Stoa
Poikile in their agora; see Pausanias 1.15.4; J. Camp, The Athenian Agora.
Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens (London 1986), 71–2 for discussion.

(14) For a discussion of imagines clipeatae see R. Winkes, ‘Pliny’s Chapter on

Roman Funeral Customs in the Light of clipeatae imagines’, AJA 83 (1979), 481–
4.

(15) On the subject of Gallic spoils, esp. gold torques, see Östenberg, Staging the
World (n. 4), 108–11.

(16) It was also reportedly the only thing worn by the Celts in battle, and
therefore represented a symbolic stripping of the enemy, thereby rendering him
vulnerable.

(17) Livy 8.14.12; Florus 1.5.10; see F. Coarelli, Il Foro Romano I: periodo arcaico
(Rome 1983), 39–42, 47 for discussion.

(18) There were other such monuments within the city, including one set up in
the Forum by M. Antonius, who triumphed over the Cilician pirates in 100 BC
with L. Valerius Flaccus, Cic. De Or. 3.10; see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 1),
41–2; W. M. Murray and P. M. Petsas, ‘Octavian’s Campsite Memorial for the
Actian War’, TAPS 79 (1989), 118–19; A. Kuttner, ‘Some New Grounds for
Narrative: Marcus Antonius’ Base (the Ara Domitii Ahenobarbi) and Republican
Biographies’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art
(Cambridge 1993), 206; for discussion of rostra exhibited throughout the city
see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 54–7.

(19) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 1), 80–1.

(20) For the various rostra in the Forum see Pliny, HN 16.8. For toil and Augustan
ideology see p. 242 with n. 64; for Hercules, Augustus, and Antony see pp. 242–
3.

(21) The proverbial and metaphorical governing of ‘the ship of state’ became a
virtual cliché in Roman antiquity; see e.g. Horace, Carmina 1.14.

Page 28 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

(22) Cf. Livy 45.35.3; for a detailed description of the flag ship of a Greek
monarch and its luxury see Athenaeus 5.207c (a description of Hieron II’s ship).
It was Cn. Octavius who won the naval victory over Perseus, Festus 188L. See P.
Gros, ‘Les premières générations d’architectes héllenistiques à Rome’, in
Mélanges J. Huergon, L’ltalie préromaine et la Rome républimine. Melanges
offers à Jaques Huergon, Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome (Rome 1976),
388 with n. 3 for discussion; for a good general discussion of visual display in
naval triumphs (and for Cn. Octavius) see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4),
47–50, esp. 50.

(23) Athenaeus 5.209e; see J. C. Edmundson, ‘The Cultural Politics of Public

Spectacle in Rome and the Greek East, 167–166 B.C.E.’, in B. Bergmann and C.
Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of Ancient Spectacle (Studies in the History of Art, 56)
(New Haven and London 1999), 77–95; he also deposited a statue of Athena by
Phidias in the Temple of Fortuna Huiusce Diei, see F. Coarelli, Il Campo Marzio.
Dalle Origini alla Fine della Republica (Rome 1997), 275, cf. 275–92 for
discussion of the temple; also see M. Miles, Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins
of Debate about Cultural Property (Cambridge 2008), 72.

(24) See Livy 42.12, 45.35.3; see Coarelli, Il Campo Marzio (n. 23), 345–60; LTUR
3.339–40.

(25) For a brief discussion of Rome’s Trojan heritage see C. Edwards, Writing
Rome. Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996), 63–6, who focuses on
Aeneas’ tour of the city; also see pp. 160–5.

(26) For display of enemy standards see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 38–
41.

(27) Cass. Dio 54.8.3 mentions a temple of Mars Ultor on the Capitoline in which
the standards of captured enemies were also set; see Zanker, Power of Images
(n. 1), 108–9; D. Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996),
88–9; LTUR 3.230–1. See S.H.A. Aurel. 28.5 for a literary description of such
standards (cf. p. 285).

(28) Cass. Dio 51.22.1–3 says the statue was from Tarentum and that ‘the spoils
of Egypt’ were also used to decorate the Temple of Julius Caesar and of Jupiter
Capitolinus as well; he also remarks that despite Cleopatra’s defeat her
splendour was still visibly evident throughout the city (as in her magnificent
pearls that adorned the ears of Venus in the Pantheon, Pliny, HN 9.119–21); at
51.17.6 he further notes that the Romans were enriched after her defeat since
they acquired a great deal of material she herself had looted from sacred sites.

(29) For discussion of the display of enemy chariots see Östenberg, Staging the
World (n. 4), 30–8; cf. 95–6.

Page 29 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

(30) See Strabo 12.3.31; App. Mith. 117.

(31) For discussion see G. Zecchini, ‘I cervi, le amazzoni e il trionfo “gotico” di

Aureliano’, in G. Bonamente, F. Heim, and J.-P. Callu (eds.), Historiae Augustae
Colloquium Argentoratense, Historiae Augustae Colloquia NS 6 (Bari 1996),
349–58; also see p. 285.

(32) Cf. Cass. Dio 43.21.2; see M. Gelzer, Caesar. Politician and Statesman
(Cambridge Mass. 1968), 278–9 for discussion; also see C. Nicolet, Space,
Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1991), 39; below
p. 198.

(33) Tac. Ann. 15.74, who also states that Nero subsequently built a temple to
Salus, and a memorial in the temple from which Flavius Scaevinus had taken the
dagger—either from the Temple of Salus or from the Temple of Fortuna, both in
Ferentinum, Tac. Ann. 15.53.

(34) Tac. Ann. 15.72; cf. Ann. 14.12: in the wake of Agrippina the Younger’s
murder in AD 59 the senate celebrated Nero’s ‘deliverance’ from his mother’s
‘plot’ by voting a gold statue of Minerva to stand next to that of the princeps in
the senate.

(35) For the nature and appearance of the triumphal garb worn by Roman
generals and emperors see Beard, The Roman Triumph (n. 8), 225–33.

(36) Livy 2.10.12. Aulus Gellius 4.5.1–5 also notes the statue, though he says it
was moved after being struck by lightning to a more elevated area on the lower
slope of the Capitoline in the northwest part of the Forum.

(37) See G. Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue in Rom: literarische und

epigraphische Zeugnisse (Rome 1983); also see J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Rome. BC
753–AD 337: Sources and Documents (Edgewood NJ 1966), 20–2, 27–9, 53–8;
Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 226 n. 89, who lists commemorative statues from the
republic; for a discussion of the vast population of statuary in Rome see P.
Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford 2003),
1–7, 123–36. For a more theoretical discussion see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating
the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the
Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 44–70, esp. 47–9 for honorific statues. See E.
D’Ambra, Art and Identity in the Roman World (London 1998), 19 on the
tradition of honourary statues Romans granted starting from the fourth century
BC.

(38) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 37), 8 for statuary’s
commemorative as opposed to aesthetic role; cf. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of
Culture (n. 10), 139, who notes Pliny’s observation that an imago is intended to
perpetuate the memory of its subject and lauds its ability to do so, citing HN

Page 30 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

35.6. See L. S. Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture

(Cambridge 2010), 5 for statuary as a confirmation of elite power.

(39) Cf. pp. 116–18. Augustus famously had his own res gestae inscribed before
his mausoleum; before his time Decimus Brutus, a patron of the poet Accius and
notable general of his day, had laudatory verses of the poet adorning the
entrance of one, though possibly several temples in Rome; see Cic. Arch. 27; Val.
Max. 8.14.2.

(40) It is easy to underestimate the power of equestrian as opposed to other

statuary. S. Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the
Souvenir, the Collection (Baltimore 1984), 90 has noted that the effect of
equestrian statuary is to further emphasize the difference in status (those who
can, versus those who cannot afford to ride), and the subjugation of man over
nature.

(41) Cf. p. 117, n. 127.

(42) For Galba see Suet. Galb. 2; cf. Vit. 1.2, 3.1. Such attempts at visual display,
intended to assert legitimacy and authority, will have been all the more urgent in
the civil strife of AD 69.

(43) He also adds that he is happy to have a statue of Cottius at which to look,
stating that it would be a pleasure to contemplate the statue of a young man of
the highest quality. Pliny adds that such statues recall fame and distinction, as
well as form and face.

(44) See H. I. Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture
(Oxford 1996), 75 for discussion in their larger context as imagines; for the
Temple of Bellona see LTUR 1.190–3.

(45) Though Pliny does imply that these may have had images of those who
actually used the shields, and we cannot be absolutely certain that these do not
rightly constitute enemy spoils as opposed to commemorative objects. See
Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 10), 117 for discussion.

(46) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 1), 95–7 for discussion; for the religious
significance of the virtues celebrated on the shield in their larger Augustan
context see J. R. Fears, ‘The Cult of the Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology’,
ANRW 2.17.2 (1981), 884–8.

(47) For the development of the genre of Roman triumphal painting see e.g. G.
Zinserling, ‘Studien zu den Historiendarstellungen des römischen Republik’,
Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, 9 (1960),
403–48; G. A. Mansuelli, ‘Γραϕαὶ καὶ σχήματα τω̑v γϵγοvóτωv (App. Punic. 66)’,
RdA 3 (1979), 45–58; P. J. Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function,

Page 31 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

Development, and Reception’, ArtB 79 (1997), 130–47; Östenberg, Staging the

World (n. 4), 189–99, 251–6.

(48) See Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 16.3.6; cf. Cic. Tusc. 1.4; Val. Max. 8.14.6, who
notes that Fabius had signed his name to the painting. For discussion see Isager,
Pliny on Art and Society (n. 10), 118; E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in
Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 92. On the Temple of Salus see LTUR 4.229–30.

(49) See Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 19, 30–1 for discussion of some of the earliest
historical painting citing Festus 228L.

(50) Similarly, the corrupt C. Lucretius Gallus dedicated pictures taken during his
conquest of Greece (Boeotia) in 170 BC in a temple of Aesculapius in Antium
(Livy 43.4.7).

(51) See Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 48), 90 for discussion.

(52) For Vortumnus see p. 36; for the picture see Festus 228L; for discussion see
Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 48), 87, 90; Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal
Painting’ (n. 47), 136; for the temple see LTUR 5.213–14; see above p. 36 n. 17.

(53) Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 198 argues that Messalla’s painting may have
resembled the Alexander mosaic in its composition; cf. Holliday, ‘Roman
Triumphal Painting’ (n. 47), 135; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 192–3; for
the Curia Hostilia in general see LTUR 1.331–2.

(54) S.H.A. Max. 12.10–11; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 195.

(55) See Festus 108L; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 48), 94 for discussion.

(56) For the ideological associations between the painting’s subject and the
Temple of Jupiter Libertas see Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 32, who notes the work’s
innovative subject; for the temple see LTUR 3.144.

(57) App. Pun. 66; see Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 136–7 for discussion.

(58) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 192–9.

(59) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 194; see 248–9, where the display
of paintings in a processional context is noted as problematic, given the flat two-
dimensional presentation along a parade route.

(60) For the importance of the site to outsiders in our sources see e.g. Livy 1.33,
2.28.1, 3.50–4, 3.67; App. B Civ. 1.26; Plut. C. Gracch. 15.1; Aur. Vict. De Vir.Ill.
21.3; Augustine, De civitate Dei 3.17; later in the empire, as is indicated by
Trajan’s residence there, it became a neighbourhood of the elite; see LTUR
1.147–50. For discussion of the Aventine and its plebeian associations see M.
Torelli, Typology and Structure of Roman Historical Reliefs (Ann Arbor 1992), 99
Page 32 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

noting esp. Liber, Libera, and Ceres; T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy
and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 B.C.) (London
1995), 261–3; T. P. Wiseman, Remus. A Roman Myth (Cambridge 1995), 114; B.
Spaeth, The Roman Goddess Ceres (Austin 1996), 92.

(61) For a general discussion of Ceres’ cult see H. Le Bonniec, ‘Le culte de Cérès
à Rome des origines à la fin de la république’. Études et Commentaries 72 (Paris
1958); also see Spaeth, The Roman Goddess Ceres (n. 60), 81–102; M. Beard, J.
North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge 1998),
64–6; for the temple’s location see LTUR 1.260.

(62) See Atilius Fortunatianus’ De Saturnio in Keil, Gramm. Lat. 6, p. 293–4; see
Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 197 for discussion.

(63) See Pliny, HN 35.22; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 48), 105–6;
Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 193 for discussion.

(64) See Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 32, who notes that Hellenism was then having its
heyday in Rome; cf. Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 47), 142 for
discussion of Metrodorus and of Aemilius’ patronage of artists and literati to
celebrate his triumph.

(65) Translation from the Loeb edition by Horace White.

(66) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 253.

(67) Pliny, HN 35.108; Plancus served under Caesar in the Gallic and Civil Wars;
he later served under Marc Antony in the East but eventually went over to
Octavian’s side; see Broughton, MRR 3.146.

(68) For display of captives in triumphs see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4),
275–9.

(69) See E. Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London

1992), 40 for discussion.

(70) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.58.4; Festus 276L.

(71) See Cic. Balb. 53; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 6.95; Livy 2.33.9; see Cornell,
Beginnings of Rome (n. 60), 299–300 for discussion. On the ubiquity of such
bronze inscriptions, see Joseph. AJ 14.188, 14.266 (esp. on the Capitoline); Suet.
Vesp. 8.5.

(72) Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 119–27.

(73) To cite but a few of the numerous gold crowns—all of varying number and
weight—see Livy 7.38.1–2 (from the Cathaginians’ celebrating the Roman
success against the Falisci in 342 BC); Livy 32.27.1 (presented in 198 BC by
Page 33 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

King Attalus I of Pergamum); Livy 36.35 (from King Philip V of Macedon after
the defeat of Antiochus in 191 BC); Livy 43.6.5–6 (from the city of Alabanda in
Asia in 170 BC and, in the same year, from the Lampsacans—both had sided with
Rome against Macedon and were hopeful of receipt into Roman amicitia); Livy
44.14.3 (from Pamphylian envoys in celebration of a renewal of amicitia; cf. the
Rhodians who did the same when trying to regain Rome’s friendship after they
had cast their lot with King Perseus of Macedon (Livy 45.25.7)). The tradition of
bestowing crowns as gifts abided into late antiquity. Hence S.H.A. Prob. 15.4
says that Probus requested that the senate deposit golden crowns that various
communities in Gaul had bestowed upon him in the Temple of Jupiter
Capitolinus.

(74) On the cult of Victory and its prominence in the republic see S. Weinstock,
‘Victoria’, RE 2, Reihe 8 (1955), 2501–42; T. Hölscher, Victoria Romana.
Archäologische Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Wesensart der römischen
Siegesgöttin (Mainz 1967); J. R. Fears, ‘The Theology of Victory at Rome:
Approaches and Problems’, ANRW 2.17.1 (1981), 736–826; Beard, North, and
Price, Religions of Rome (n. 61), 69.

(75) Cic. Verr. 2.2.114. The Romans were also not averse to perpetuating the
memory of the opposite sort of behaviour in which the basic fides that governed
Roman relations with others had been breached and inimicitia rather than
amicitia commemorated. Hence four statues of envoys, C. Fulcinius, Cloelius
Tullus, Spurius Antius, and L. Roscius, murdered while on embassy to Fidenae in
437 BC, stood on the rostrum in the Forum; see Livy 4.17.1–6.

(76) Cic. Verr. 2.4.60–71; see A. Vasaly, Representation: Images of the World in
Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley 1993), 114–17 for discussion.

(77) See A. P. Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”: Responses to Portraits and the

Political Uses of Images in Rome’, JRA 7 (1994), 90 for the sociological model he
follows for his discussion; see C. D. Elder and R. W. Cobb, The Political Use of
Symbols (New York and London 1983), 37 for a related discussion.

(78) For similar visceral reactions to artwork in the Greek tradition see e.g. Plut.
Mor. 336C–D when Crates the Cynic exclaimed upon seeing a golden statue of
the famed courtesan Phryne at Delphi that it was an akrasias tropaion, ‘a trophy
of intemperance’.

(79) Livy 40.34.4–5; Val. Max. 2.5.1, who adds that it was the first gilded statue
of a living person in Italy. Pietas, as was the case with other abstractions, such
as Felicitas, Concordia, Honos et Virtus and others, were honoured with temples
in particular during the middle republican period, see Fears, ‘Cult of the
Virtues’ (n. 46), esp. 864–9; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 61),
62, 69, 90; also see J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans. Translated and edited by R.
Gordon (Cambridge and Malden Mass. 2007), 55, 78, who notes that such
Page 34 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

abstractions ‘reflected in their very names the ideals of an élite that both went
to war and performed religious functions’; for pietas as both a personal and
collective value see J. Champeaux, ‘“Pietas”: piété personelle et piété collective à
Rome’, Bulletin de l’Association G. Budé, 48 (1989), 263–79.

(80) See Plut. Mar. 32.2; Sull. 6.1–2; see H. I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting.
Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (Chapel Hill 2006), 90 for
discussion, who argues rightly that the monument will have been dismantled
after Marius’ and Cinna’s seizure of power in 86 BC; cf. Gregory, ‘“Powerful
Images”’ (n. 77), 93 for the conflict between Sulla and Marius over imagines.
Later, during Caesar’s aedileship in 65 BC (against the opposition of the nobles),
he dedicated a statue of Marius and of Victories with trophies and inscriptions
commemorating Marius’ defeat of the Cimbri; see Velleius Paterculus 2.43.4; see
Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 90 for discussion. For Sulla’s propaganda
efforts see E. S. Ramage, ‘Sulla’s Propaganda’, Klio, 73 (1991), 93–121.

(81) For Catulus see Val. Max. 6.3.1c; cf. Cic. Cael. 78; Dom. 102, 103, 114; Verr.
2.4.126; Varro, De Re Rustica 3.5.12; LTUR 4.119; for Marius see Cic. De Or.
2.266; cf. Pliny, HN 35.25; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 6.3.38. Plut. Mar. 23.5
also notes that Q. Lutatius Catulus displayed a bronze bull that was sacred to the
Cimbri as a trophy in his house.

(82) For the whole episode see Cic. Dom. 111–12; see B. Berg, ‘Cicero’s Palatine
Home and Clodius’ Shrine of Liberty: Alternative Emblems of the Republic in
Cicero’s De Domo sua’, in Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, 8
(1997), 122–43 for a good discussion of the significance of the incident for
Cicero; for its religious and political context see Beard, North, and Price,
Religions of Rome (n. 61), 114–15; A. Lisdorf, ‘The Conflict over Cicero’s House:
An Analysis of the Ritual Element in Cicero’s De Domo Sua’, Numen, 52 (2005),
445–64; for the cult of Libertas see Fears, ‘Cult of the Virtues’ (n. 46), 869–75.

(83) Plut. Brut. 9.8; cf. Cass. Dio 43.45.3–4, who also notes that Caesar’s statue
had also been added to the group that constituted the seven kings and Brutus.
Also see p. 291 for discussion.

(84) See also Cic. Phil. 2.26; Cass. Dio 43.45.4, 44.12.1; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful
Images”’ (n. 77), 91 for discussion.

(85) Tac. Ann. 5.4; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 90 for discussion.

(86) Tac. Ann. 14.61; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 96 for discussion.

(87) Tac. Ann. 3.23; see A. Rouveret, ‘Tacite et les monuments’, ANRW 2.33.4
(1991), 3091 for discussion.

Page 35 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

(88) Including e.g. the parading of Galba’s imagines in the wake of Vitellius’
victory and Otho’s suicide at the Ceralia in April 69, Tac. Hist. 2.55; see Gregory,
‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 90 for discussion; cf. Galba’s use of the imagines of
Nero’s victims when addressing the troops and mounting his revolt in Spain,
Suet. Galb. 10.1; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 89 for discussion.

(89) Pliny, HN 35.23; for discussion see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 10),
119; Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 47), 145; Östenberg, Staging the
World (n. 4), 193.

(90) Translation from the Loeb edition by Horace White.

(91) See Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 94 for discussion of the mob’s
reaction to the images in Caesar’s triumph; cf. Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 145–6;
Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 25), 62; also see Hölscher, ‘Transformation’ (n. 5),
38–9 for audience reaction to the paintings in both of Pompey’s triumphs as well.

(92) See Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 23), 82–94 for a discussion of the Sicilian
reaction to their plundered property; cf. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (n. 12), 127–
30 for a good discussion of cultural objects’ (specifically the spoils Marcellus
took from Syracuse) ability to stimulate variously invidia, miseratio, or
misericordia, citing Livy 26.32.4–5.

(93) Institutio oratoria 6.1.32; see Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 18; for a related
discussion see Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 47), 145.

(94) Cf. Plut. Mor. 198F; Cat. Mai. 19.4.

(95) See Plut. Comparison of Brutus and Dion, 5. Also see Cass. Dio 53.32.4 for
Augustus’ indulgence towards L. Sestius despite his keeping images of Brutus;
see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 92 for discussion.

(96) See e.g. Tac. Hist. 1.36; Suet. Tib. 13.1; Plut. Galb. 26.4; Cass. Dio 63.25; see
Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 95–7 with n. 64–6 for discussion; for good
general treatments of the subject see E. Varner, Mutilation and Transformation:
Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture (Leiden 2004); Flower, The
Art of Forgetting (n. 80).

(97) As would the various temples in the area of the Circus Flaminius; see e.g.
Pliny, HN 36.26; the area included numerous shrines, such as those to Mars (see
LTUR 3.226–9) and Neptune (see LTUR 3.341–2) in Circo; for the Circus
Flaminius’ relationship to the triumph see Livy 39.5; Plut. Luc. 37.2; for
discussion see E. La Rocca, ‘Sul Circo Flaminio’, ArchLaz 12 (1995), 108–10.

(98) See D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological

Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes
(London 1973), 259 for discussion. The practice of temporary display was not

Page 36 of 37

 
Displaying Domination

limited exclusively to the aediles. In Cicero’s time, M. Aemilius Scaurus had

constructed a temporary theatre whose scenae frons was three stories high and
consisted of 360 columns of Hymettean marble; between the columns reportedly
there were 3,000 bronze statues in addition to scene paintings and Attalic fabric
threaded with gold (Pliny, HN 36.114).

(99) See S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the

European Tradition (London 1995), 319, who remarks, citing a private collection
of Dickens memorabilia made public, ‘What we see here is the translation of
personal souvenirs into community relics, of family heirlooms into heritage as
the heirloom of us all, partly as a result of—and partly to underpin—the notion of
“greatness”’.

Page 37 of 37

 
Constructing Social Identity

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

Constructing Social Identity

Pietas, Women, and the Roman House

Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords

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

Keywords:   artefacts, cultural materials, Roman values, commemoratives, Roman society, houses

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

Page 1 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

celebrated a variety of roles for women in Roman society and their place in it;
and finally, the Roman house, specifically, houses of men who had had a powerful
influence in shaping Rome’s history. To classify such memorabilia under the
rubric of ‘domestic’ is not to argue that any of these categories were wholly
disassociated from matters military. All three commemorative forms were at
various times and in various ways connected with Rome’s fiercely competitive
elite and its triumphalist ideology. Pompey the Great’s house, for example, was
important in part by virtue of his accomplishments as a successful general,
although numerous houses of the great preserved the memory of kings,
historians, and emperors without direct associations with Roman conquest.

Memorabilia of this sort were vital for the visual record they presented of
Rome’s history and for the expression of what Romans believed were important
qualities for defining oneself as Roman. Cultural relics from Rome’s early
history, for example, stood as a testimony to some of the Roman’s most
(nominally) cherished virtues, most importantly pietas which Romans themselves
felt had a significant role in the military success so important for the power and
identity of Rome’s ruling families. In turn, elite families expressed their power
not merely through war memorabilia as discussed in the previous chapter, but
through their houses, and used them to advertise their benefactions and military
triumphs, as (p.160) well as express their prestige and dignitas.1 Some of those
houses, in turn, became places of historical value in their own right, integral to
Rome’s collective memory and to its cultural patrimony. While the role of women
within the elite was often marginal (at least in the public realm), they
nonetheless played an important role in the life and history of the state so that it
was impossible not to give them recognition. Frequently however, were they to
have any form of acknowledgement, they were forced either to appropriate more
ostensibly ‘masculine’ virtues, or to give a physical, symbolic indication of
submission to or support of Roman power and to represent ideal Roman notions
concerning the role of women.2 Collectively such objects and sites will have
presented a variety of socio-historical narratives which instructed Romans about
their past and about the values that collectively created and transmitted a
uniquely Roman identity.

Early Roman History, Pietas, and Roman Identity

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

 
Constructing Social Identity

images were thought to represent the Penates, it was an apparently mistaken

identification, since they were seated young men holding spears (an iconography
(p.161) more closely associated with the Dioscuri) and were of ancient
workmanship.5 The mistake is of little importance: what matters is of course
what ancient viewers thought, and the belief was that Aeneas had introduced
this particular set of deities. In their capacity as Roman gods, the Penates along
with the Lares protected the Roman familia or household. Their temple was
located in the Velia, hence near another cult that was central to the Roman
familia, that of Vesta.6 They have a direct connection to Aeneas: in book one of
the Aeneid, when Aeneas meets a disguised Venus after being driven to the
shores of north Africa by a storm, he introduces himself stating, sum pius
Aeneas, raptos qui ex hoste penates/ classe veho mecum (‘I am pious Aeneas
who carries with me in my boat the Penates seized from the enemy’, Aeneid
1.378–9). The interjection of the Penates here is indicative of their importance in
the Roman pantheon, and their importance was emphasized by their very
prominent place in the visual record with Aeneas’ sacrifice to the Penates on
Augustus’ Ara Pacis (fig. 5.1).7 Cicero adds further indication of their
importance, noting that the Penates were a key element in maintaining the res
publica (Rep. 5.7). They served to legitimize marriage, the key institution, to his
way of thinking, for a well-ordered state (a view arguably supported by the
subsequent strict laws on marriage imposed by Augustus).8 The familia, its
honour and power, were driving elements in Roman political competition (and
arguably, expansion, as well). The Penates, as guardians of that institution,
constituted a key element central to Roman identity and power. The Romans
consequently understood the Penates as an essential component of the Roman
self, just as Aeneas himself, as one scholar has recently noted, comes to
formulate his own identity around them.9

(p.162)

Among such Trojan relics perhaps

the most significant and vital was
the Palladium, a statue of Pallas
Athena believed to have been of
divine origin.10 Considering the
importance of the object, however,
there was a good deal of confusion
concerning the statue. Strabo
(13.1.41) gives an alternative local
version of the story surrounding
the statue that was there in Ilium
in his own day stating it was
standing, whereas Homer said it
was a seated statue (citing Homer; Fig. 5.1 The Sacrifice of Aeneas (his head
see e.g. Iliad 6.92, 273).11 Florus covered) to the Penates (pictured in the
(1.2.3) says that Numa gave the
small temple in the upper left hand
Page 3 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

Palladium to the Romans, while Ovid, in passing, claimed its origins were from Troy
(Fast. 6.424). Dionysius of Halicarnassus concurs (Ant. Rom. 1.68–9, 2.66.5), stating
that the Palladium was contained in the Temple of Vesta and acted as a talisman, (p.
163) keeping Rome safe.12 He asserts that it was brought by Aeneas from Troy and
assures his readers that Odysseus and Diomedes had stolen a mere copy, a tale
immortalized in a statue group (part of a series of scenes from the life of Odysseus) at
Tiberius’ villa at Sperlonga (fig. 5.2).13 Dionysius further remarks that the Vestal
Virgins kept other unspecified relics that the uninitiated were prohibited from viewing
(Ant. Rom. 2.66.6). Later on Servius and Silius Italicus both state that the Palladium’s
theft precipitated Troy’s fall, though Silius reports a version in which Diomedes gave
the original Palladium to Aeneas at Lanuvium.14 What is suspicious concerning the
claims of Strabo, Dionysius, and Ovid is that all are writing under Augustus, a time
when the first princeps was working vigorously to create associations between Rome,
his own dynasty (and its claim to power and legitimacy), and Troy. The competing
claims, attributing the Palladium’s origins to Numa, may have taken a backseat under
Augustus who will have had an interest in emphasizing its Trojan origins since he
traced his own ancestry to Aeneas, Anchises, and Venus. Moreover his great uncle,
Julius Caesar, had already seen fit to display Aeneas with the Palladium on his coinage
(see fig. 5.3).
Much later, Procopius gave a corner) was commemorated on the Ara
version of the Palladium’s saga Pacis (dedicated by Augustus in 12 BC),
that resembles Silius’, with and underscores the perennial
Diomedes handing over the importance of these deities, not merely
original to Aeneas at the behest for the survival of individual Roman
of an oracle (De Bello Gothico households, but for the legitimacy of the
5.15.9–14).15 The artefact Roman state. H: 1.55 m. Museum of the
became a centre of dispute later Ara Pacis, Rome.
in the empire. The Byzantines in
the fourth century AD asserted
that the emperor Constantine had dug up the genuine statue while constructing
his forum in Constantinople, and the Palladium and its authenticity briefly
became a focal point of contention between the two cities for ruling auctoritas.16
The Palladium was a cornerstone of Roman power and success. It was
meticulously protected even during fire, and the survival and strength of the city
was believed to depend on it.17 That it was a symbolic football tossed (in legend)
between the Trojans and the Greeks, and later a genuine object of contention
between the Greek East and Latin West is no coincidence or surprise. It was
believed to protect Roman greatness, hence the various claims upon this
important talisman.18 The Penates (p.164)

Page 4 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(p.165)

Fig. 5.2 The representation of the theft

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

Page 5 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

and the Palladium were therefore

especially vital for the
preservation (and continuity) of
Roman success, and, along with
Aeneas’ ship (see p. 132), brought
the Trojan past into the Roman
present and made that deep past a
lived experience.19 They were the
oldest of the numerous tangible,
empirical testaments in the city to
a historical trajectory that was
propelled by an active
participation of divine powers.
The majority of such material,
however, dated back to the time
of the kings, and of these, the
imprint of Rome’s founder,
Romulus, had the greatest
prominence. In very real terms,
Romulus’ biography could be
read on the city’s face. The site
Fig. 5.3 A silver denarius shows Aeneas
itself where Faustulus
carrying Anchises and the Palladium from
discovered Romulus and Remus
Troy. The Trojan hero, even before the
as infants, the ficus Ruminalis,
advent of Caesar who as a member of the
was always one of the city’s
Julian clan traced his lineage back to
most significant—and sacred—
Anchises and Venus, had become a
sites. It was under this tree
significant part of Roman identity.
(situated near the Lupercal)
Reverse of a denarius issued in 69 BC.
that the twins were discovered
Muenzkabinett Museen zu Berlin.
being suckled by the she-wolf
Lupa.20 Over time various
officials adorned the (p.166) site: at some point a statue of Lupa was placed
there, while in 296 BC the curule aediles, Cn. and Q. Ogulnius, added statues of
the infants under its teats.21

Equally revered was Romulus’ humble residence on the Palatine, the so-called
casa Romuli, the first in a long series of houses resided in by Roman grandees
deemed of sufficient historical significance to merit preservation. Yet there was
some controversy amongst Romans concerning the site of Romulus’ residence,
since an alternative tradition located it on the Capitoline, where a second casa
Romuli was maintained in the area Capitolina.22 Indeed, Vitruvius noted its
archaic appearance since it had a thatched roof as did, according to Vitruvius,
other temples on the arx (2.1.5; for reconstruction of the hut see fig. 5.4). The
alternative tradition is not necessarily a matter of confusion but of ideology. In
our sources Romulus is noted both for his military prowess and for his pietas,

Page 6 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

and the modest house also served to underscore the ancient Roman value of
frugalitas (‘thrift’). To situate his house, therefore, on the Palatine, where
Rome’s political power players always had their residences, and on the
Capitoline, the centre of the state cult and Rome’s religious core, attests to both
the virtus and pietas of Rome’s founder (as does the conservation of the spolia
opima, concerning which see pp. 125–6) and establishes from its inception that
these were qualities desirable in Rome’s leading men.23 Moreover, like a Greek
heroön dedicated to the founder of some colony, the casa Romuli was carefully
tended, and although it burned down several times throughout Rome’s history,
was always rebuilt.24 In the same way, the ficus Ruminalis was always watched
for any signs of change and the wilting of the tree was always considered ill-
omened.25 However the analogy of Romulus’ house as heroön is certainly more
apt for his tomb, which was believed to be located (perhaps not coincidentally)
at yet another political centre, the (p.167)

Comitium in the Forum, a site that

was considered (and in fact was)
sacred. The site gains all the more
significance when we consider
that burial was prohibited within
the pomerium, Rome’s sacred
boundary, and only a very few
were ever allowed such an honour.
There was, then, a biographical
sketch of the birth, life, and death
of the founder that left its mark on
the city. These sites were not only
carefully preserved and
considered sacrosanct, but in the
case of the first two, also Fig. 5.4 A thatched roof and primitive
functioned as indicators of the post beams marked the construction of an
state’s well-being. archaic Roman hut that will have likely
In a similar manner, the resembled that on the Palatine (and
memory of Romulus’ brother, Capitoline) thought to have belonged to
Remus, also abided in the city Romulus and maintained as both a sacred
at a site called the Remuria (or, and historical site. Antiquarium del
alternatively, Remoria), on the Palatino, Rome.
Aventine where Remus was
buried, and where he favoured
(according to Dionysius) the establishment of the city.26 According to Dionysius
(and Livy), Remus not only took the auspices from the Aventine but was also
buried there after Romulus (p.168) murdered him. Ovid tells us that the spot
was marked by the aedes Bonae Deae Subsaxaneae (Fast. 5.149–54). Another
tradition placed him in the same hut as Romulus on the Capitoline (Propertius
4.1.1–10). It may be sheer coincidence that another of Romulus’ adversaries,
Titus Tatius, also had his tomb on the Aventine.27 However, the Aventine was

Page 7 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

always a place dedicated to outsiders, to those who stood beyond the Roman
power structure, and it would not be surprising if such ‘Otherness’ were
reflected in the material culture and topography of the site.

The conflict between Romulus and Remus was the event which founded the city;
that foundation was based on augury, something that was to become a vital
component of the Roman state (as most vividly reflected in Octavius’ adoption of
the name Augustus).28 In terms of cultural artefacts, in addition to the actual
sites of his birth, life, and burial spot, the dead Romulus left little behind except
his lituus, which he used (in marking off templa in the heavens) to take the
auspices when he founded the city, and which was kept in the Curia Saliorum
Palatinorum in a sacrarium.29 The same sources record that the lituus
miraculously survived a fire during the city’s sacking by the Gauls, and Cicero
could give a description of the staff (a crook with a slight curve at the top that
resembled a trumpet and derived its name from just such an instrument). The
preservation of such an object will have attested to Romulus’ pietas, and to his
observance of the proper augural procedures in the establishment of the city,
procedures that subsequently had to be strictly followed before any significant
political or military action took place.

Such holy relics served at times to underscore the Romans’ belligerent,

triumphalist ideology. Every year Romans saw the hasta Martis that was kept in
the Regia.30 Similarly ‘the bloody spear’ (to doru to haimatōdēs) which the
fetiales used in their ceremonial declarations of war was kept in the Temple of
Bellona (Cass. Dio 72.33.3). Other sacred objects were of an equally bellicose
nature, such as Minerva’s chariot that was used in races (presumably during ludi
of various sorts, although it broke apart one year according to Dio (47.40.4)
when returning to the Capitoline). Jupiter’s chariot on the Capitoline
(presumably the one kept for triumphal processions) lasted until 32 BC when it
too broke apart in an unspecified circus, an omen of the looming conflict
between Antony and Octavian (Cass. Dio 50.8.2). It may well have been the same
gilded and (possibly) turreted chariot—or one of similar design—that Florus
asserts the Etruscans had (p.169)

Page 8 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

introduced and driven in their own

triumphal processions, similar
perhaps to the Monteleone
Chariot (1.5.6; see fig. 5.5).31
These were just some of the many
chariots on permanent public
display or used for exhibition
throughout the city, such as the
one at the Capitoline’s entrance in
which stood a victory with the
reins in its hands (Tac. Hist. 1.86).
To sacred spears and chariots we
can add Numa’s dedication of the
shields in Mars’ sacrarium in the
Regia, deemed sacred since they Fig. 5.5 The Monteleone Chariot is of the
32 sort that was on display in numerous
had fallen from heaven.
Talismans, relics, and various sites venues throughout Rome, including the
deemed (p.170) sacred one on the Capitoline in which a statue of
preserved the religious heritage of Victory stood holding the reins, and those
the city, and, in some cases, were
brought out for special occasions.
thought to preserve the city’s very
Etruscan, second quarter of the sixth
existence. Thus the bones of one
century BC. H: 1.30 m.; L: 2.09 m. The
of the legendary founders of the
city, Quirinus, were entombed and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
kept in a sarcophagus in his
eponymous temple.33 From
Rome’s very beginnings, such relics constituted an ideologically important part of the
city; indeed, we may literally say they were embedded in it.
Yet another cultural object preserved from this period was Naevius’ whetstone
and razor, objects closely identified with the importance of Roman religious
ritual. Naevius had used the razor to cut a whetstone in order to prove to a
sceptical King Tarquin the power of augury. Tradition attests that these objects
were buried in a puteal in the Comitium.34 A statue of Attus Naevius with his
head covered stood on the spot where the miracle occurred—on the steps of the
Curia on the left, near the burial site of the sacred objects ‘so that it might be a
monument of this miracle for posterity’ (ut esset ad posteros miraculi eius
monumentum, Livy 1.36.5).35 The statue itself still stood in Procopius’ day (in
the sixth century ad) as one of the oldest in the city, along with three ancient
statues of the Tria Fata (the three fates), and those of the seven kings which
stood in the area Capitolina.36

The pietas of Rome’s ancient kings was given additional proof by various
venerated objects or statues of remarkable antiquity. Hence, Romulus’
successor, Numa, reportedly dedicated a statue of Pythagoras in the Comitium,
which Livy interpreted as indicating a relationship between Pythagorean
mysticism and Numa’s proverbial pietas (Livy 1.18.1–2).37 Subsequently, two
other artefacts dating to Numa’s reign came to light in the second century BC,

Page 9 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

consisting of (p.171) two sarcophagi, one containing Numa’s writings on

religion and philosophy, the other empty but supposedly Numa’s own.38 Rome’s
penultimate sovereign, Servius Tullius, was noted for having his image in wood
and covered with gold leaf in the Temple of Fortuna.39 As was the case with
Romulus’ lituus, its special properties included its antiquity and its survival of a
fire, something that inevitably elevated an object from the merely curious to the
miraculous. Moreover the statue’s face was always covered with a robe, initially,
according to legend, so that he would not be compelled to look upon his
murderous daughter, Tanaquil (also known as Tullia), if she entered the
temple.40 Tullius’ toga praetexta also stood in the same temple and draped the
cult image itself; these apparently survived until the reign of Tiberius, by which
time they had apparently deteriorated and perished.41 Such longevity no doubt
added to the miraculous nature of the object. Equally ancient if not older was
the cult statue in the Temple of Saturn, where the god’s ivory statue was filled
with oil (presumably for preservation), and its feet bound with woolen fillets
which were untied during the Saturnalia.42 However, of all the cultural objects
that survived from the regal period of religious importance, the cult statue of
Jupiter Optimus Maximus, commissioned by Tarquinius Superbus, Rome’s last
king, was paramount. It was reportedly the work of an artist named Vulca, who
made the terracotta statue which was painted with cinnabar.43 In terms of
‘power objects’ the cult statue of Rome’s central deity, which embodied, quite
literally, triumph and conquest, was not merely a relic of the ancient past. It was,
rather, an object of aspiration and desire, something (p.172) which an
ambitious aristocrat, at least in Rome’s early history, desired to emulate as a
triumphator, and, consequently, an object that both reflected and perpetuated
Rome’s more violent tendencies.44

As noted in the introduction, the sacred objects and monuments preserved from
Rome’s past constructed for the Romans visible and tangible reminders of their
pietas. The success and survival of the state both in domestic and military affairs
depended heavily on the proper performance and regulation of religious rituals
and institutions that were invariably in the hands of a few powerful families.
Consequently, the founder in particular must receive the proper show of respect
in order for the city to thrive, and various cultural objects or sites (the casa
Romuli and the ficus Ruminalis) function as indicators of the state’s wellbeing.45
Equally if not more important are the various objects that preserved the memory
of the vital religious institution of augury, always a key to the success of the
ruling elite in warfare and in political life in general, a success that also helped
to ensure their political domination at home through the assertion of their
dignitas and auctoritas. For the most part, the topographical location of the
various sites and objects throughout the city that recalled these characteristics
was equally significant: the competing claims for the house of Romulus on the
Capitoline or Palatine and its religious importance, the location of Naevius’
whetstone or Romulus’ tomb in the Comitium, the ever-present reminder of

Page 10 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

Numa’s pietas through Pythagoras’ statue in the same location, serve as

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

(p.173) Commemorating Women

As was the case in general throughout the city and throughout its history,
cultural artefacts reflected or were re-contextualized to reflect an idealized
Roman self. For women that idealization was constructed to reinforce their
traditional roles in Roman society, or to integrate them into an ideological space
that would be acceptable to Roman men. Such idealized virtues and their place
in Roman society have recently been explored in Milnor’s fine study on gender
and domesticity in the Augustan period. She cites as an example of idealized
feminine virtues the extant laudatio of a woman named Muria, praised for her
‘modesty, purity, chastity, obedience, wool-working, diligence, and loyalty’.47 The
feminine, when it was commemorated, was celebrated in such a way as to
reinforce its role in serving elite power, either by support of that power through
perceived feminine virtues, or through a display of elite male domination over
the feminine itself. However Romans also betray a certain level of anxiety over
the commemoration of women, as is arguably indicated in Cato’s attempt to
forbid statues of women in the provinces.48 Similar anxiety is betrayed through
the Roman tendency to make statues of women in general smaller than those of
men.49 The sheer paucity of public commemoration of women in the republic
especially, is itself a testimony to the role of Roman women—or lack thereof—in
public life; indeed, only four public statues are attested for women during the
republic, but this changed during the principate.50 In larger terms such lack of
commemoration stands as a part of a narrative tradition that devalues the role of
women by virtue of the male hegemonic discourse that determines such ideology
and drives the nature of display, a situation that still persists in the context of
contemporary museum exhibitions.51

(p.174) The reinforcement of a ‘safe’ and traditional feminine paradigm for the
Romans is found in one of the earliest artefacts preserved in the city, the distaff
and spindle of Gaia Caecilia (also known as Tanaquil), the virtuous wife of
Tarquinius Priscus, preserved in the Temple of Semo Sancus (a deity that was
also an outsider since it was of Sabine origin).52 Caecilia received
commemoration in the same temple with a bronze statue; pilgrims reportedly
removed filings from her girdle as a talisman against illness.53 Pliny, quoting
Page 11 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

Varro, says that the wool on the distaff and spindle (which he asserts was
Tanaquil’s) was preserved at least in Varro’s day, as well as a royal robe woven
by her and worn by King Servius Tullius.54

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

that centred on weaving, and

deemed sufficiently important for
depiction in the sculptural relief
narrative adorning the forum (see
fig. 5.6).55
A similar encouragement to
(ideal) womanly virtue was
embodied in the image in the
Temple of the Magna Mater
with its statue of Claudia Quinta
(Tac. Ann. 4.64), the woman of
ill-repute who vindicated her
reputation when she helped to
bring the cult object of the Fig. 5.6 A portion of the colonnade from
Magna Mater to Rome after the the Forum Transitorium that housed the
ship on which it was (p.176) temple of Minerva. Started by Domitian
carried became stuck on a sand and finished by Nerva, the frieze on the
bar in the Tiber, a story colonnade depicts part of a larger

Page 12 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

depicted in a surviving relief on narrative of the myth of Arachne, and was

an altar in the Capitoline designed, in part, to reinforce societal
collections in Rome (fig. 5.7). expectations concerning the proper
Claudia’s image (which stood in activities for Roman women. The Forum
the vestibule) was worthy of Transitorium, Rome.
note, since it had twice been
spared in fires, giving further
proof of Claudia’s virtue.56 The temple (and statue) was located on the Palatine,
an elite neighbourhood, on the Via Victoria. Neither site was coincidental. The
cult had been imported to ensure Roman success, a success dependant on
favourable outcomes in war and on the steady governance of the aristocracy.
Claudia’s statue was a testament to the elite’s power and pietas, and of an ideal
womanly virtue serving as an example to all, a virtue in this case literally
tempered in fire.

Later on a seated statue of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, was set up in the
Portico of Metellus.57 Cornelia, from an ancient noble family, the mother of two
sons to whom she famously referred as ‘her jewels’ (Val. Max. 4.4 pr.), will have
very likely been depicted in such a way as to recall her devotion and service to
her family and her children whom she taught to serve the state.58 Her fecundity
and her dedication to her children’s upbringing were well-known, and made her
a good candidate for public commemoration. Caecilia, Cornelia, and Claudia
Quinta—we can only conjecture how such statues might have looked in
appearance; perhaps, at least as concerns Caecilia and Claudia, they were
similar in form to those found in Herculaneum (see fig. 5.8), recently discussed
by Trimble in her study of statue types of women in early imperial Italy. Such
statue types, Trimble notes, were designed to bring to mind ‘exposure and
revelation…by the depiction of modesty and concealment’.59 Trimble further
remarks the tension such a depiction creates between desire and restraint,
between the idealized feminine trait of modesty that also holds out the promise
of fecundity, qualities that the statue, particularly the fine one now in Dresden,
goes a long way towards representing. We can well imagine that the ideology
driving such depictions, if (p.177)

Page 13 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(p.178)

Fig. 5.7 Claudia Quinta’s story in which

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

Page 14 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(p.179) not the precise and

ultimate execution of these
commemorations, will have no
doubt influenced their
presentation.
Claudia, Caecilia, and Cornelia
were not alone. Pliny tells us
that three ancient statues of the
Sibyl stood near the rostrum in
the Forum (Pliny, HN 34.22–3),
dating back to the time of
Tarquinius Priscus, and second
only in age to those of the kings
on the Capitolium.60 The story
was that the Sibyl originally
approached either Tarquinius
Priscus or Superbus and asked
an exorbitant amount of money
for her nine books of
prophecies. Refused the price,
she burned three; rebuffed a
second time, she burned
another three, until the king Fig. 5.8 This statue of a large
finally relented and purchased Herculaneum-type woman tries to have it
the remaining books.61 The both ways. She modestly conceals even as
commemoration is remarkable her tight garb reveals her fecund figure,
for two reasons; first and creating a tension between the demands
foremost due to its centrality of chastity and fertile sexuality. c. 50 AD.
and prominence in the Forum. White marble. H: 2.03 m.
Second, however, the Sibyl was Skulturensammlung, Staatliche
a non-Roman outsider, Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
something Dionysius in his
version of the story pointedly
remarks; the name is in fact Greek, sibylla, meaning prophetess. Moreover, as
was the case with Caecilia and Claudia, the statues bore witness to the powerful
magic or special proximity to the divine women were thought occasionally to
possess.62 The three statues (likely reflecting the number of books ultimately
preserved) appear to attest to the power and place in Roman life of the Sibyl
who proved, in the end, vital to Roman interests through the bestowal of her
prophecies, which were consulted and interpreted by the prestigious board of
the quindecemviri sacris faciundis.

A diverse set of other artefacts further attested to the role of women in

preserving the Roman state. Perhaps the most peculiar and striking of these was
the tomb of Tarpeia on the Capitoline at which libations were offered annually.

Page 15 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

Tarpeia was infamous for the citadel’s betrayal to Titus Tatius, king of the
Sabines, and his men in return for what they wore on their left arms, hoping to
extract their gold rings. Instead she was crushed under the weight of their
shields, which they also bore on their left arms. Her tomb however recalled a
more noble intent than the popular legend told in Livy: her request was not out
of greed, but aimed at disarming the enemy and leaving them vulnerable.63

(p.180) Less ambiguous was the tradition surrounding Cloelia’s encounter with
the Etruscans, by whom she had been captured when they attacked the city
under the leadership of Lars Porsena. Cloelia, thinking of the integrity of her
family, led an escape of captive Roman women from the Etruscan camp and
made her way back by swimming the Tiber. She was honoured with the
remarkable distinction of an equestrian statue at the summit of the Via Sacra
(Livy 2.13.11).64 Livy is right to note the unusual nature of the honour.
Equestrian statues were reserved for men by virtue of their role as warriors in
Roman society, and as such the statue represents the assumption of a masculine
trait by Cloelia—indeed, it is by virtue of that masculine trait and her action in
the course of war that she was deemed worthy of commemoration from the start.
Both Tarpeia’s and Cloelia’s memorials recollect and celebrate their fortitude,
courage, devotion, or resourcefulness in the state’s service. In Cloelia’s case,
moreover, as Stewart has pointed out, the location, ‘at the busiest point,
celeberrimo loco, on the Sacra Via in Rome’ was ‘an image that should put the
young men in their litters to shame’.65 If we accept Stewart’s view then we can
imagine that the desire to outstrip the likes of a Cloelia will have been all the
more imperative for the statue’s male viewers. More than that, however, such
memorials (in which women ‘cross-dress’ and assume masculine traits), as
Kampen has noted, will have destabilized gender categories and provoked
thinking for the Romans about ‘the permeability of boundaries’ that rendered
identity ‘fluid’.66 They held out the possibility that women could ‘hold their own’
in the traditionally male domain of war and set their own lives at risk. Cloelia
and others of her ilk, as Stewart notes, doubtless created a sense of male anxiety
amongst the less battle-hardened men.

Less felicitous was the Tigillum Sororium that commemorated the murder of a
sister by the sole surviving brother of the Horatii, who had slain the Curiatii of
Alba Longa in set combat.67 The sister had dared to weep for one of the Curiatii,
her lover, in her brother’s moment of triumph for which he murdered her. He
expiated his crime by passing under the yoke, a beam that spanned a branch of
the Via Sacra.68 The ‘yoke’, along with the tomb of his sister and two altars, one
on (p.181) one side to Juno Sororia, another on the other to Janus Curiatius,
stood nearby. The monument in this case represents an area of negotiation
between the demands of family and the state, of personal honour set against
personal desire and loss, and of the demands of the dead and the grief due to
them set against celebration and victory. While it ostensibly reminds one of
Horatius’ transgression and punishment, it simultaneously recalls his triumph as
Page 16 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

well, reinforced (coincidentally) by the location of the site on the Via Sacra,
where triumphal processions marched. At the same time, it offers an alternative
narrative to the moment of triumph, since the precondition for military triumph
is tragedy, something the Tigillum Sororium vividly reflects. It thus offers the
possibility of an alternative reading of the dominant paradigm, since it gives a
tragic, as opposed to a purely triumphalist interpretation of armed conflict.

As noted above, however, better attested were artefacts recalling the role of
Roman women in the preservation of the state from both war and plague. The
Temple of Venus Calva (‘the bald’) represents yet another example of a
commemorative that celebrated masculine power and identity at the expense of
the feminine. Concerning the temple’s cult statue, two alternative traditions
survive. The aedes famously housed a marble statue with bronze hair, according
to one version of the story, to honour the Roman women who gave up their hair
during the siege of the Capitoline by the Gauls to make bowstrings and catapult
cords.69 An alternative version of the story, however, maintained that Ancus
Marcius’ wife set up the statue as a thanks offering to Venus for salvation from
an epidemic in which Roman women lost their hair (which was subsequently
restored).

The first version is the more remarkable and interesting one, since in that tale’s
version (to which the majority of our sources adhere), the women were forced to
relinquish a central trait of feminine identity, long hair. In a sense, by so doing
the women took on a male identity and their sacrifice enabled them literally to
arm their men and to become a weapon in the defense of the state. In addition,
while we ought not to press the point too far, it nonetheless bears noting that
baldness was also symbolic of liberation and allows the possibility of a ‘resistant
reading’ of this particular object. Freedmen shaved their heads and became
enfranchised as citizens.70 It is possible, in this sense, to understand baldness as
a sort of liberation and as one of the symbolic (though not actual) fields of the
(p.182) possibilities of empowerment for Roman women. Even if we do not
wish to press this point too far, their assistance to the state holds out the
underlying possibility of empowerment, since to partake of military service
meant the potential for a political voice.

The first version concerning Ancus’ wife naturally implies a very different
reading, since the ‘celebration’ of the women’s cure for baldness offers the
reassurance that this central sexual trait for Roman women had been restored
and that Roman women will remain in their proper sphere. They will not be
liberated from male hegemony but subordinated to it and in their proper place—
hence, the bronze hair noted in our sources, possibly because it was on a marble
statue and will have stood out. A resistant and destabilizing reading of the
statue, or a reassuring one, both were possible depending on the version of the
tale one chose to accept.

Page 17 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

The version of the statue of Venus Calva that attributes it to Ancus Marcius’
wife, however, stands in the context of what must have been numerous
dedications set up by women throughout the city in the wake of ominous signs
and portents. To cite but one example, Livy (21.62.8) says that after portentous
omens in 217 bc a statue of Juno was dedicated by the matronae of Rome on the
Aventine (of bronze), presumably in the Temple of Juno on the Aventine. The
temple itself was subsequently struck by lightning in 207 bc while twenty-seven
virgines were practicing a hymn that was to be sung in order to expiate two
portentous births (that of a hermaphrodite and a newborn who looked like a four
year old child). The priests took this as a sign for married women to collect
contributions from their dowries to make and dedicate a golden bowl to Juno.
When the actual procession of the twenty-seven maidens was finally held, two
cypress statues were also carried in the ceremony and deposited in her temple
(Livy 27.37).71

While the dedications and depositions of material in this case honoured uxorious
virtue and service to the state, these were not the only qualities celebrated in
women: idealized beauty entered into the picture—sometimes literally and with
paradoxical results. Hence Flora, Pompey the Great’s favourite courtesan,
famous for leaving bite marks on his neck, graced the walls of the Temple of
Castor and Pollux. Caecilius Metellus, commissioned to restore the temple,
reportedly had Flora’s portrait painted on account of her remarkable beauty.72
More famously, Caesar had a golden statue of his paramour Cleopatra set up in
the Temple of Venus Genetrix (see pp. 228–9; fig. 5.9). Caesar reportedly put it
next to that of Venus where it stood until Appian’s time (B Civ. 2.102).

(p.183)

Page 18 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(p.184) Both are classic cases of

male objectification of women,
with Caesar’s perhaps the most
egregious. Not only was Cleopatra
a desirable object to be
conquered, but also one, in light of
the material in which the statue
was cast, literally to be desired
(perhaps avidly so). Like Flora,
she occupies a place of idealized
feminine Roman beauty. Indeed,
since precious metals were
generally reserved for the gods
themselves, it is perhaps not too
much to assert that not only was
Cleopatra an object to be desired,
but that she was desire herself, a
quasi-parallel rival to Venus. Set in
the goddess’ temple, she will have
stood in her gilded splendour as a
challenge to the goddess Venus
Genetrix, since Cleopatra herself
was the ‘Genetrix’ of Caesarion,
the product of Caesar’s own desire
for Cleopatra who rendered
Augustus sufficiently nervous to Fig. 5.9 Cleopatra’s portrait, here after
effect his execution.
her gold statue in the Temple of Venus
As a result, Cleopatra, through
Genetrix, simultaneously celebrated her
her political connections and
role as Caesar’s bewitching and alluring
place in Rome’s narrative,
mistress, while also recalling her
ended up enshrined in the
subsequent defeat at the hands of
Roman pantheon of heroes and
Augustus. Musei Vaticani.
heroines, even though she
herself was a strange and
dangerous foreign potentate, much in the same way that Hannibal, another of
Rome’s nemeses, was commemorated in numerous statues throughout the city,
provoking Pliny’s ire (HN 34.32; see fig. 5.10). As Edwards points out however,
both Hannibal and Cleopatra were simply too important a part of Roman identity
not to commemorate.73 As for her location, in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, her
ability as ‘the Other’ to impose fear was, as noted, arguably transformed into
desire. In this sense she serves also to reflect her ambiguity in Horace’s famous
ode, where she undergoes a metamorphosis from the fatale monstrum leading
the ‘contaminated herd’ into a defiant Roman male of masculine virtus who, as
Cato before her, ends her life like a good stoic Roman. She consequently
occupied, for the Romans, a safe space, subjected to the gaze and enshrined in
the same temple as the city’s maternal deity. At the same time, the possibility of
her integration into the masculine sphere of Rome’s ideological urban text
Page 19 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

results in a destabilized reading, since she holds out the potential for resistance
to that ideology even as she is integrated into its visual record, undermining
Roman virtus and frugalitas by enticing the viewer to a desire for eastern luxury
which Romans deemed so subversive.74

Although such artefacts were intended to publicly assert the predominant male
ideology over the feminine, what lurks beneath are varying degrees of tensions
and contradictions. While women in a commemorative context frequently are
coopted into the male sphere, they also offer the potential for resistance to it.
Certainly, monuments such as those commemorating Caecilia’s distaff or Claudia
Quinta are designed to reaffirm ideas on the part of Roman men concerning the
(p.185)

role of women. The general

assumption that underlies an
otherwise incoherent set of
artefacts is that feminine power—
of a Claudia Quinta, of a Tarpeia,
of a Cloelia—must be pressed into
the service of the state or
otherwise support the dominant
ideology of elite society. Yet the
possibility of an alternative
narrative for women is present in
the more fluid readings of
commemoratives that we
occasionally find embodied in
Cleopatra’s or Venus Calva’s
images.
The Domus As Historical
Patrimony: The Elite Roman
Powerhouse
(p.186) The domus was a
significant focal point of the
Roman elite, in part because the
Fig. 5.10 While portraits of Rome’s
nature of Roman politics was so
enemies, such as this bust of Hannibal,
intensely personal and based so
may have roused the ire of patriotic
frequently on family honour.
Romans such as Pliny, their place in the
The perpetuation of Roman
history of the Roman state was simply too
power at any time, republic or
important to ignore and demanded
empire, not infrequently
commemoration. Museo Archeologico
concerned the continuity of
Nazionale, Naples.
power in a specific household, a
familia or gens, be it the
Cornelii or the Claudii in the
republic, or the individual households of the emperors during the principate. The

Page 20 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

existence of the house as a famous landmark or entity in its own right indicates
at the core something concerning the esteem in which the powerful were held,
and in which they held themselves. The house was similarly a place for display
and presentation. It was a means to assert one’s power, one’s political
programme, and one’s connection with the people in terms of benefits; houses of
the powerful were consequently viewed as important in their own right.75

We have already noted the decorating of the house with arms and other spoils,
as well as the sort of private collections that the elite would use for their
adornment. In addition, a house might show off an illustrious lineage in its
atrium in the form of ancestral imagines, or contain biographical depictions of
the dominus of the familia, as was the case with Trimalchio in Petronius’
Satyricon (fiction, to be sure, but a real enough scenario). However the house
also functioned as a repository for other cultural artefacts and served to remind
other Romans of the beneficia bestowed on the city and its people by the great
families whose doors were open to the public. Yet it is important to note that the
house represents a somewhat more liminal ambience for display than, for
example, a temple, since it fluctuates between a public and private space.76
Questions of access and display and the tension between the two are not always
easy to ascertain, and access could vary from individual to individual.
Nonetheless, Roman houses—of Romans both living and dead—had a powerful
pull on the (p.187) Roman imagination, and some were duly famous in light of
their owners or the cultural material on display in them.

There are several houses of the powerful or beneficent noted as places of

interest early on in the city’s history. The earliest of these, as noted above, was
the hut of Romulus. There is indication that, in addition to Romulus’ humble
abode, the house of Tarquinius Superbus on the Oppian may have been a site of
curiosity to which the public had access; the location of the remaining royal
houses also abided in Roman memory.77 One of the earliest champions of the
free state, Publicola, had a house decreed to him at public cost on the Palatine,
an apparently unique structure since its front doors swung not inward, but
outward, according to Plutarch, in order that he might always partake of public
honour.78 It is equally plausible that the doors opened outward towards the
public which he so championed, rather than looking inwards towards the
personal prestige so craved by Roman aristocrats. Similarly, Cincinnatus’
memory was preserved by a four acre grassland known as the Prata Quintia, the
site of his estate where he was working when summoned by the senate (Pliny,
HN 18.20).

The roles that Romulus, Publicola, and Cincinnatus variously filled are arguably
mirrored in the action of the great men of the late republic, whose memories and
deeds were also perpetuated, in part, through their homes. We hear, for
example, that Q. Lutatius Catulus, victor along with Marius over the Cimbri, had
a house that could well have been considered a proper public site; Cicero noted

Page 21 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

the spoils that were on display on it, as did a number of other sources.79 Most
famous from this period, however, was the house of Pompey the Great, which
appears to have long held a special place in Roman sentiment if we can believe
Plutarch, who remarks the general distress at Marc Antony’s treatment of the
house—and the company he kept there in comparison to Pompey.80

(p.188) Later the emperor Tiberius occupied it (Suet. Tib. 15.1), though it
survived even into the third century, when it was still known as the domus
rostrata because it was adorned with the beaks of the pirates’ ships Pompey
captured during his campaign against them in 67 BC. Although a source whose
accuracy is often dubious, the Historia Augusta relates that the house was later
owned by the Gordiani (Gord. Tres 2.3, 3.6–8) until it was taken over by the
imperial treasury in the time of Philip the Arab. The same source also relates
that Gordian had an admirable picture of a wild beast hunt executed to adorn
the house which he had presumably given during his aedileship (when he
reportedly gave one spectacle a month paid for out of his own pocket). The
language of the author of the lives of the three Gordians implies that there was
public access to the painting and house, since he states that ‘even now’ (etiam
nunc) the picture showed two hundred stags with antlers in the shape of the
palm of a hand, along with stags from Britain, thirty wild horses, one hundred
wild sheep, ten elk, one hundred Cyprian bulls, three hundred red Moorish
ostriches, thirty wild asses, one hundred and fifty wild boars, two hundred
chamois, and two hundred fallow deer, all killed on the sixth day of the games.
Such detailed commemoration of games was not atypical in antiquity, for
Numerian displayed on the Palatine a painting of a similar nature.81 While the
source is problematic, it nonetheless becomes somewhat more plausible when
set in the larger context of pictorial commemoration of such benefactions that
stretched back to the republic, when, according to Pliny, C. Terentius Lucanus
started the practice of having paintings made of gladiatorial shows and having
them exhibited in public.82 Similarly, among republican aristocrats the house of
Pompey’s rough contemporary, the historian Sallust, survived quite late into
antiquity and was preserved as a site, though it was partially destroyed during
the Gothic sack in AD 410.83 That Procopius deemed it worthy (p.189) of note
is a testament to the power such houses had over the Roman imagination, even
quite late.

Beginning with the empire, the homes and birthplaces of the emperors
sometimes turned into historical sites or shrines in their own right. Suetonius
reports that the first princeps was born in the Ox Heads (Aug. 5), a place in the
district of the Palatine, and that a shrine set up after his death marked the spot;
the house at Nola where Augustus died was made into a shrine as well (Cass.
Dio 56.46.3–4). The house at the Ox Heads was later owned by Gaius Laetorius,
a patrician, and the part of the building in which Augustus was born was
subsequently consecrated by senatorial decree.84 Later, the small and dingy
slum house where the emperor Titus was born was also a site open to the public
Page 22 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(Suet. Tit. 1). It was the same case for his brother and successor Domitian, who
converted his birthplace, a house on Pomegranate Street, into a temple of the
Flavians (Suet. Dom. 1.1). The house where Trajan lived on the Aventine prior to
his adoption by Nerva may have been a proper site too, since it finds a place in
the catalogue of the fourteen regiones, but that is all we hear of it.85 It is
recalled as the place where he lived on the Aventine (a good neighbourhood
where members of the aristocracy resided) before Nerva adopted him.

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

The powerful emotional place of the house in aristocratic life is further indicated
not only by the survival of such houses, but also by the tradition in the literary
record of the destruction of the houses of those who had attempted to harm the
Page 23 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

Roman state.86 The tradition started from very early on with the alleged
attempted coup by the consul of 486 BC, Spurius Cassius. According to tradition,
Cassius started a programme of land distribution (Livy 2.41.10–11) and was
subsequently accused of aiming for a return of the monarchy.87 In the version
Livy reports, he was executed and his estate confiscated; Livy says that a statue
was made out of the proceeds and dedicated to Ceres (in her temple on the
Aventine according to Pliny who also states that it was the oldest statue of Ceres
in Rome) and inscribed as ‘a gift of the Cassian family’.88 His house was pulled
down, and according to Livy it was the open space in front of the Temple of (p.
191) Tellus. Livy’s story has been considered one that Flower has rightly argued
away as anachronistic in terms of the ‘erasure of memory’, something that
belongs to a later period. In an equally dubious episode, the Romans reportedly
took similar action in the case of Spurius Maelius, who aimed at revolution in
440 BC. Livy (4.16.1) reports that when Maelius’ plot failed he was captured and
executed, his house demolished, and the space kept permanently vacant and
called the Aequimaelium.89 As Flower notes, the Roman explanation may have
simply functioned as an explanation ‘out of whole cloth to explain the
topography of the Aequimaelium’.90 A similar vacant spot was kept on the
Palatine, where Vitruvius Vaccus, a resident of Fundani, had a house. His abode
was flattened after his involvement in hostilities against Rome.91

All three of these cases are historically problematic. However it is easy to

appreciate why the traditions and histories accruing around these places
emerged as they did, particularly the sites of Cassius’ and Maelius’ houses. By
Livy’s day, Rome had the experience of the conflict between ‘populist’ politicians
and the senatorial aristocracy under its belt. The narrative concerning Cassius’
actions and the attendant results doubtless underscored the distaste of much of
the elite for the so-called populares and their methods. As such, they stood as
negative commemorations, as a sort of damnatio memoriae, functioning
(paradoxically) as reminders to those who would champion causes against the
interests of the privileged of the dire consequences that might ensue. Cicero, for
one, experienced a similar damnatio first hand (though for very different
reasons), and lived to tell the tale.92

Well before the emergence of Rome as a Mediterranean power, there was an

established tradition of respect for the houses of the great and the famous. It
was a celebrated act of clemency when Alexander sacked Thebes and expressly
moved to protect the poet Pindar’s abode.93 Such houses may have existed in
Rome, yet almost exclusively it was the house of a member of the elite—a king, a
dictator, a beloved general, an emperor, the occasional historian—whose house
preserved the memory of ‘the great man’. Virtues of war, patronage, and
political power were embodied in the spoils and the cultural material (such as
paintings depicting (p.192) games, or the bestowal of office, or genealogical
lists) that adorned them.94 Consequently, they served to reinforce the underlying
assumption of other types of commemoratives within the city which reaffirmed
Page 24 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

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

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

Notes:
(1) See p. 64.

(2) The role of women and the representation of their lives in their totality were
naturally not up for consideration in Roman antiquity. For the place of womens’
histories in modern museum theory (and museums in general) see e.g. E.
Carnegie, ‘Trying to Be an Honest Woman: Making Women’s Histories’, in G.
Kavanagh (ed.), Making Histories in Museums (London 1996), 54–65; for the
subject of cultural and ethnic diversity in the same context see N. Merriman and
N. Poovaya-Smith, ‘Making Culturally Diverse Histories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.),
Making Histories in Museums (London 1996), 176–87.

(3) M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History

(Cambridge 1998), 171–81; also see J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans. Translated
and edited by R. Gordon (Cambridge and Malden Mass. 2007), 176–81.

Page 25 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(4) For Rome as a ‘sacred landscape’ see H. Cancik, ‘Rome as Sacred Landscape
and the End of Republican Religion in Rome’, Visible Religion: Annual for
Religious Iconography, 4 (1985), 250–65, esp. 253, where he remarks on Rome’s
‘visible religion’ in the form of Roman monuments, cultural objects, and the
vestments and accoutrements for public rituals.

(5) For this temple see Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.54; Livy 45.16.5; Augustus, Res
Gestae 19; Servius, In Aeneidem 3.12; LTUR 4.75–8; on the early introduction of
the Dioscuri and their Greek origins see Beard, North, and Price, Religions of
Rome (n. 3), 12; for the identification of the Penates with the Dioscuri see K.
Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (Princeton 1969), 154–7.

(6) On the connections between the two cults see G, Radke, ‘Die dei Penates und
Vesta in Rom’, ANRW 2.17.1 (1981), 343–73; Vesta was a deity who was notably
significant for Augustus, who had a shrine to her on the Palatine and from whom
he claimed descent, see Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 189–
91; for his claim to descent see A. Fraschetti, Roma e il principe (Rome and Bari
1990), 331–60; D. Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical
Tradition (Oxford 1991), 205–24.

(7) For discussion of Aeneas’ sacrifice on the Ara Pacis see P. J. Holliday, ‘Time,
History, and Ritual on the Ara Pacis Augustae’, ArtB 72 (1990), 549–51; J. Elsner,
Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from the Pagan to the
Christian World (Cambridge 1995), 194–9; for the connections made by Julius
Caesar with his Trojan ancestry and the mythical Trojan past see A. Erskine,
Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Rome (Oxford
2001), 17–23, 35–6.

(8) The bibliography on Augustus’s marriage laws is extensive; see e.g. L. F.

Raditsa, ‘Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage, Procreation, Love Affairs
and Adultery’, ANRW 2.13 (1980), 283–90, 310–19 with an extended
bibliography; S. M. Treggiari, Roman Marriage (Oxford 1991), 60–80; S. Dixon,
The Roman Family (Baltimore 1992), 79–81, 119–21.

(9) See M. Bettini, ‘Ghosts of Exile: Doubles and Nostalgia in Virgil’s Parva Troia
(Aeneid 3.294ff.)’, ClAnt 16.1 (1997), 8–33; for a good discussion of the cult itself
see A. Dubourdieu, Les origines et le développement du culte des Pénates à
Rome. Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome, 118 (Rome 1989).

(10) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.69; Ov. Fast. 6.419–22; on the Palladium in general
see LTUR 5.128–9; other Trojan relics included Aeneas’ boat, see p. 132.

(11) See Erskine, Troy between Greece and Rome (n. 7), 141–2 on the conflicting
tradition in Strabo.

Page 26 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(12) Also see Cic. Phil. 11.24; it was kept in the inner sanctum of Vesta’s temple;
Livy 26.27.14; see Silius Italicus 13.79–81 for its protection against the Gauls in
390 BC. See Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 3, 53–4 for
discussion.

(13) For discussion of the sculptures see p. 71 with n. 148.

(14) See Silius Italicus 13.36–78; Servius, In Aeneidem 2.166.

(15) According to Procopius (who gives a detailed description of its appearance),

the Romans maintained a stone copy of it in one of Rome’s temples to Fortuna; it
stood near a bronze statue of Athena.

(16) See S. Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge
2004), 205–6 for discussion.

(17) For its survival in the fire of 241 BC and its rescue by L. Caecilius Metellus,
the pontifex maximus, see Cic. Scaur. 48; Ov. Fast. 6.436–54.

(18) It—or a copy—may have been on the Palatine by the fourth century, as CIL
10.6441 suggests; for statuary as talisman see C. A. Faraone, Talismans and
Trojan Horses. Guardian Statues in Greek Myth and Ritual (Oxford 1992),
passim.

(19) For discussion see Erskine, Troy between Greece and Rome (n. 7), 15–43;
see 245–53 for the patronage of Ilium under the Caesars.

(20) Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.54; Pliny, HN 15.77; Plut. Rom. 4.1; Festus 332–3L;
Servius, In Aeneidem 8.90; cf. Livy 1.4.5; Ov. Fast. 2.411; also see LTUR 2.249.

(21) Livy 10.23.12; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.79.8.

(22) See Vergil, Aeneid 8.654; Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 2.1.5. For a
detailed discussion see A. Balland, ‘La Casa Romuli au Palatin et au Capitole’,
RÉL 62 (1984), 57–80, who argues that the conflicting tradition is the product of
Augustan ideology: the house on the Palatine was associated with Romulus qua
founder of the city while the Capitoline residence was the domus regia. For the
confusion also see C. Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to the City
(Cambridge 1996), 32–42 with a detailed discussion of the hut in the literary
tradition; cf. P. Pensabene, ‘L’area sud-ouest del Palatino’, in M. Cristofani (ed.),
La grande Roma dei Tarquini (Rome 1990), 86–90; see too E. Thomas,
Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford
2007), 22, who argues that Augustus’ intention in emphasizing the hut was to
contrast the monumental nature of his building programmes; also see in general
LTUR 1.241–2 for Romulus’ hut on the Palatine and Capitoline.

Page 27 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(23) For the wide array of associations the hut carried, see Edwards’ discussion
Writing Rome (n. 22) cited above; she also notes that it will have had larger
ideological implications for Roman notions concerning frugalitas, with Seneca
the Elder, Controversiae 1.6.4 noting the dwelling’s humble nature; cf. Livy
5.53.8; Ov. Fast. 3.183–8; Seneca the Younger, Consolatio ad Helviam 9.3.

(24) See e.g. Cass. Dio 48.43.4 for its destruction in 38 BC; it burned again in 12
BC, according to legend, after crows dropped meat freshly plucked from a
sacrificial fire, see Cass. Dio 54.29.8.

(25) See e.g. Tac. Ann. 13.58 in which the tree portended Nero’s murder of his
mother Agrippina.

(26) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.87.3; cf. 1.85.6; Plut. Rom. 9.4, 11.1; Aur. Vict. OGR
23.2; LTUR 1.241–2.

(27) Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.152; Plut. Rom. 23.3; Festus 496L.

(28) A name linked to the very word augur, as well as augescere; see I. Gradel,
Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford 2002), 112–15.

(29) See Cic. Div. 1.30–1; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 14.2.2; Val. Max. 1.8.11; Plut.
Rom. 22.1–2; Cam. 32.5; LTUR 1.335–6.

(30) Aulus Gellius 4.6.1–2; Cass. Dio 44.17.2; Servius, In Aeneidem 7.603; cf.
Obsequens 6, 44, 44a, 47, 50.

(31) For the nature and appearance of the triumphal chariot see M. Beard, The
Roman Triumph (Cambridge Mass. 2007), 222–5.

(32) See Livy 1.20.4, who speaks of the ancilia; also see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom.
2.70–1; Plut. Numa 13; for discussion of the priests who carried the shields and
the shields themselves see T. Schäfer, ‘Zur Ikonographie der Salier’, JdI 95
(1980), 342–73.

(33) See Pseudo-Acro’s scholia on Horace, Epodes 16.13; for Quirinus as a

Roman deity see A. Brelich, ‘Quirinus. Una divinità romana alla luce della
comparazione storica’, Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 31 (1960), 63–
119; see LTUR 4.185–7 for the Temple of Quirinus.

(34) Cic. Div. 1.33; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.71.5; Livy 1.36.5; cf. Pliny, HN 15.77;
for discussion see M. Scarsi, ‘Neque Atti Navii nomen memoria floreret tam diu’,
BStudLat 35.2 (2005), 401–39, who argues that the commemoration’s purpose is
to construct a second foundation myth based, like Romulus’ first foundation, on
augury.

Page 28 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(35) For the puteal, statue, and implements see F. Coarelli, Il Foro Romano I:
periodo arcaico (Rome 1983), 28–31; for discussion of the episode of Naevius
and the whetstone and its larger religious and cultural significance see R. M.
Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy Books I –V (Oxford 1965), 151; G. Piccaluga,
‘Attus Naevius’, Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 40 (1969), 151–208; M.
Beard, ‘Acca Larentia gains a son: myth and priesthood at Rome’, in M. M.
MacKenzie and C. Rouech (eds.), Images of Authority (Cambridge 1989), 41–61;
Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 23–4.

(36) Procopius calls them the Moirai, three ancient statues of Sibyls which stood
by the rostra, De Bello Gothico 5.25.19–20. They were believed to be set up by
Tarquinius Priscus; see Pliny, HN 34.22; also see p. 179.

(37) It was one of several statues adorning the Comitium in the republic,
including those of Marsyas and Alcibiades; see Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (n. 35),
87–119; for the relationship between Pythagoras and Numa see M. Storchi,
Numa e Pitagora: sapientia constituendae civitatis (Naples 1999); for a good
discussion of the Marsyas statue and its significance see Thomas, Monumentality
(n. 22), 147–8.

(38) Livy 40.29.2–14; Val. Max. 1.1.12; Plut. Numa 22.2.

(39) Plutarch notes Servius’ special affinity for Fortuna and states that he
dedicated numerous temples to her throughout the city; see Mor. 281D–E; cf.
Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.27.7; the temple was near the Temple of Mater Matuta in
the Forum Boarium; for Servius’ various temples to Fortuna, see F. Coarelli, Il
Foro Boario. Dalle Origini alla Fine della Repubblica (Rome 1988), 253–77, 301–
28; for the proximity of the Temple of Fortuna to Mater Matuta see F. Castagnoli,
‘Il culto della Mater Matuta e della Fortuna nel Foro Boario’, StRom 27 (1979),
145–52; Coarelli, Il Foro Boario, 205–328; for a detailed study of the cult of
Fortuna see J. Champeaux, Fortuna. Recherches sur le culte de la Fortune à
Rome et dans le monde romain des origines à la mort de César, 2 vols.
Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome, 64 (Rome 1982–7); see A. Passerini, ‘Il
concetto antico di Fortuna’, Philologus, 90 (1935), 90–7 for a related discussion.

(40) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.40.7; Livy 24.47.15; Ov. Fast. 6.613–25, 569–72; Val.
Max. 1.8.11.

(41) See Varro apud Nonium 278 L; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.27.7; cf. 4.40.7; Ov.
Fast. 6.613–26; Val. Max. 1.8.11; Cass. Dio 58.7.2; cf. Pliny, HN 8.197, 36.163.
They were home-spun made by Tanaquil, though possibly by Caecilia; for the
toga praetexta as integral to Roman identity, see A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s
Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 43; for the temple in general see LTUR
2.278.

Page 29 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(42) For oil as a preservative see p. 298; for the woolen fillets see Macrobius,
Saturnalia 1.8.5.

(43) The four horse chariot on the pediment, also made of clay, was possibly
Vulca’s work too. For the statue see Pliny quoting Varro, HN 35.157. He says
that Pasiteles had already perfected clay modelling in Italy, but that Vulca was
also a master in this medium. See T. N. Gantz, ‘Terracotta Figured Friezes from
the Workshop of Vulca’, OpRom 10 (1974–5), 1–22; A. Andrén, ‘In Quest of
Vulca’, RPAA 49 (1976–77), 63–83; G. Colonna, ‘Tarquinio Prisco e il tempio di
Giove Capitolino’, PP 36 (1981), 41–59 for discussion of Vulca and his workshop.

(44) And we emphasize early history here, in light of Beard’s recent study on
triumphatores; she doubts whether triumphing generals in the late republic
tried to emulate Jupiter with red paint; see Beard, The Roman Triumph (n. 31),
225–33. She also questions the nature of the dress, arguing that the general’s
clothing was likely not taken directly from Jupiter’s statue.

(45) For a general study of the attention received by the various founders of
Rome, including Aeneas, Romulus, and Quirinus, see B. Liou-Gille, Cultes
‘héroique’ romains. Les fondateurs (Paris 1980).

(46) For an interesting discussion concerning the interplay between past and
present with monuments and objects see J. Elsner, ‘From Pyramids to Pausanias
and Piglet: Monuments, Travel, and Writing’, in R. Osborne and S. Goldhill
(eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge 1994), 229.

(47) See K. Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus: Inventing
Private Life (Oxford 2005), 31–2 for discussion; for Muria see CIL 6.10230.

(48) Pliny, HN 34.31; see P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation

and Response (Oxford 2003), 130 for discussion.

(49) See N. B. Kampen, ‘Social Status and Gender in Roman Art: The Case of the
Saleswoman’, in E. D’Ambra (ed.), Roman Art in Context. An Anthology (New
York 1993), 115–32.

(50) See J. Trimble, ‘Replicating the Body Politic: The Herculaneum Women
Statue Types in Early Imperial Italy’, JRA 13 (2000), 41–69; also see M. B. Flory,
‘Livia, and the History of Public Honorific Statues for Women in Rome’, TAPA
123 (1993), 287–308; both discuss the public commemoration of members of the
imperial family and the break this represents with the republican past.

(51) See J. Fentress and C. Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford and Cambridge
Mass. 1992), 137–43, esp. 138; G. Porter, ‘Seeing through Solidity: A Feminist
Perspective on Museums’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.), Theorizing
Museums. Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World (Cambridge
1996), 103–26, who argues that the representation of women’s roles in museums
Page 30 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

is generally not as fully developed or active as those of men, and that women
remain voiceless; also see C. Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art
Museums (New York 1995), 102–33 with specific focus on the MoMA.

(52) For Semo Sancus’ Sabine origins see Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.66; Ov. Fast.
6.213–18; also see p. 147 with n. 70. The god’s sphere was the protection of
oaths; for the temple, its history, and location, see LTUR 4.263–4.

(53) Also see Plut. Mor. 271E; Paulus ex Festo 85L; see G. Lahusen,
Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue in Rom: literarische und epigraphische
Zeugnisse (Rome 1983), 33 for discussion of Caecilia’s statue. Cf. Pliny, HN 7.20:
King Pyrrhus’ toe, which miraculously survived cremation reportedly could cure
inflammation of the spleen; it was put in a temple, though Pliny does not say
which; also see Plut. Pyrrh. 3.4; for discussion see R. Garland, The Eye of the
Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca 1995),
103. Similarly Pyrrhus’ thumb was still kept, HN 28.34; where and whether it
had the same miraculous heeling powers Pliny does not say.

(54) HN 8.194; the robe was in the Temple of Fortuna Seiani, concerning which
see LTUR 2.278.

(55) See E. D’Ambra, Private Lives, Imperial Virtues: The Frieze of the Forum
Transitorium in Rome (Princeton 1993) for an extensive study of the forum and
its relationship to this subject. For the feminine virtue of wool-working see
Milnor, Gender, Domesticity (n. 47), 29, 31, 215–16. Milnor’s study collects a
great deal of material on the ideological function of the representation of
women’s roles, esp. in a domestic context; see e.g. 99–102 for her discussion of
the depiction of the story of Pero and Mycon in the House of Lucretius Fronto in
Pompeii.

(56) For the fires in 111 BC and AD 3 see Val. Max. 1.8.12; for Claudia see Livy
29.14.5–14; Ov. Fast. 4.225–344; Pliny, HN 7.120; Herodian 1.11; for Claudia and
the introduction of the Magna Mater see F. Bömer, ‘Kybele in Rom’, MDAI(R) 71
(1964), 130–51; M. J. Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis; the Myth and the Cult
(London 1977) 41, 57; T. P. Wiseman, Clio’s Cosmetics: Three Studies in Greco-
Roman Literature (Leicester 1979), 94–9; J. Gérard, ‘Légende et politique autour
de la mère des dieux’, RÉL 58 (1980), 153–75; for the statue see Lahusen,
Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue (n. 53), 34.

(57) See Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue, (n. 53) 96; Pliny, HN 34.31.

(58) See Plut. Ti. Gracch. 1; C. Gracch. 4.2–4, who notes that the people so
honoured her that they awarded her the bronze statue; for Cornelia’s devotion to
her family, children, and their education see Tac. Dial. 28.5–6. On her

Page 31 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

disapproval of her sons’ activities see Plutarch, C. Gracch. 13.2. On Cornelia in

general see now S. Dixon, Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi (London 2007).

(59) Trimble, ‘Replicating the Body Politic’ (n. 50), 65–6; the tension between
revelation and concealment abided into late antiquity; for a related discussion
see J. Elsner, Roman Eyes. Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton
2007), 218–19 on the Projecta casket.

(60) Also called the Tria Fata, Procopius, De Bello Gothico 5.25.19; see LTUR
5.856; cf. above p. 170.

(61) See Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.62; Pliny, HN 13.88; Aulus Gellius 1.19;
Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 1.6; for discussion of the episode see J. Gagé,
Apollon romain. Essai sur le culte d’Apollon et le développement du ‘ritus
Graecus’ à Rome des origines à Auguste. Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises
d’Athènes et de Rome, 152 (Paris 1955), 24–38, 196–204, 432–61, 542–55, 677–
82; K. Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte, Handbuch der
Altertumswissenschaft vol. 4 (Munich 1960), 160–1; G. Radke, ‘Quindecimviri’,
RE 24 (1963), 114–48; H. W. Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical
Antiquity (London 1988), 190–215; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome
(n. 3), 62–3.

(62) As such, they sometimes attained quite a level of influence, as with the
prophetess Martha, a Syrian woman in whom Marius put great stock, Plut.Mar.
17.1–3; see also the parallel in ancient Germanic society observed by Tacitus
with Veleda, Hist. 4.61, 4.65, 5.22, 5.24.

(63) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.38; also see Livy 1.11.6–9; Ov. Met. 14.775–7; Fast.
1.260–2; Val. Max. 9.6.1; Plut. Rom. 17.2–5; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 2.5–6; Servius,
In Aeneidem 8.348; cf. Propertius 4.4; Silius Italicus 13.839–43. B. W.
Boyd,‘Tarpeia’s Tomb. A Note on Propertius 4.4’, AJP 105 (1984), 85–6 suggests
that Propertius’ aetiological explanation connected her name to the place
negatively.

(64) Also see Pliny, HN 34.28–9; for discussion see Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (n.
35), 36; Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue (n. 53), 109; for a good
recent discussion of Cloelia as a figure embodying (in part) the values of the
community see M. Roller, ‘Exemplarity in Roman Culture: The Cases of Horatius
Cocles and Cloelia’, CP 99 (2004), 1–56.

(65) Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 48), 139.

(66) See N. B. Kampen, ‘Omphale and the Instability of Gender’, in N. B. Kampen

(ed.), Sexuality in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1996), 243–4.

(67) See Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (n. 35), 111–18 for the location of the Tigillum.

Page 32 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(68) On the common legend associated with the Tigillum and the expiation of
Horatius see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.22.7; Livy 1.26.13; Festus 380L; Aur. Vict.
De Vir. Ill. 4.9. Livy 1.26.14 also describes her tomb (of squared stone) located
where she was murdered; see LTUR 5.74–5; J. Richardson, A New Topographical
Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and London 1992), 400.

(69) Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 1.20.27; S.H.A. Max. 33.2; Servius, In

Aeneidem 1.720; for the temple see LTUR 5.113–14.

(70) See the scholiast to Lucian, De Mercede conductis 1–2, Hermotimus 86, who
states ‘Slaves who obtain their freedom shave their heads since they appear to
have escaped servitude’s storm, as do people saved from a shipwreck’ (Nonius p.
848, Lindsay); see J. Winkler, Auctor & Actor. A Narratological Reading of
Apuleius’ Golden Ass (Berkeley 1985), 224–7 for discussion. See Elsner, Roman
Eyes (n. 59), 254–9, 283–7 for a good discussion on reading cultural resistance in
Roman visual media; cf. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 7), 8 for resistant,
subversive, and deconstructionist readings of Roman art objects.

(71) See Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 82 for discussion.

(72) Plut. Pomp. 2.2–4.

(73) See C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C.

Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 63.

(74) Concerning the subversive potential of eastern luxury see p. 33 n. 10.

(75) See S. Hales, The Roman House and Social Identity (Cambridge 2003), 41–
50 for a good general discussion; cf. P. J. E. Davies, ‘“What Worse than Nero,
What Better than his Baths?”: “Damnatio Memoriae” and Roman Architecture’,
in E. Varner (ed.), From Caligula to Constantine (Atlanta 2000), 37, who has also
noted the importance of Roman aristocratic homes, citing the case of Scipio
Africanus in Val. Max. 2.10.2; cf. the house of Livius Drusus, Velleius Paterculus
2.14.3; similarly, for Cicero’s house as a memorial see S. Hales, ‘At Home with
Cicero’, GaR 47 (2000), 44–55; also see S. Treggiari, ‘Home and Forum: Cicero
between “Public” and “Private”’, TAPA 128 (1998), 1–23 and ‘The Upper-Class
House as Symbol and Focus of Emotion in Cicero’, JRA 12 (1999), 33–56 for the
house as a symbol of honour and success; see too A. Bounia, The Nature of
Classical Collecting. Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE–100 CE (Ashgate
2004), 157–60; for the location of Cicero’s house (and his rival Clodius’) see S.
M. Cerutti, ‘The Location of the Houses of Cicero and Clodius and the Porticus
Catuli on the Palatine Hill in Rome’, AJP 118 (1997), 417–26.

(76) See p. 60 n. 104.

Page 33 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

(77) For Tarquinius see Solinus 1.26; cf. Pliny, HN 34.29; see Coarelli, Il Foro
Romano (n. 35), 35–7; T. P. Wiseman, Unwritten Rome (Exeter 2008), 271–92 for
discussion; see Solinus 1.21–6 (who may have relied on Varro) for the remaining
kings; see Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (n. 35), 56 for discussion. According to
tradition, the Sabine king Tatius had his house in arce on the Capitoline where
the Temple of Juno Moneta later stood; Numa had one initially on the Quirinal,
then later (appropriately enough) near the Temple of Vesta in Regia; Tullus
Hostilius had a house in Velia where later stood the Temple of the Penates;
Ancus Marcius’ was located in summa sacra via where the Temple of the Lares
stood; Tarquinius Priscus’ was ad Mugoniam portam supra summam novam
viam; Servius Tullius’ on the Esquiline supra clivum Urbium; and finally
Tarquinius Superbus had his on the Esquiline supra clivum Pullium ad Fagutalem
lacum.

(78) Publ. 20.2; for the decree see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.39.4.

(79) See above p. 153 n. 81.

(80) Also see Velleius Paterculus 2.77.1; Suet. Gram. 15.1; Florus 2.18.4; Cass.
Dio 48.38; S.H.A. Gord. Tres 3.6; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 84.3. Plut. Ant. 21.2–3 esp.
notes the distress caused by Antony’s purchase and occupation of the house,
remarking specifically the men of dubious character he entertained there; also
see Cic. Phil. 2.67–8.

(81) S.H.A. Carus 19.1–2 says that during the reign of Carus, Carinus, and
Numerian games were given ‘distinguished by novel events’ (such as bears
acting in a farce, a rope walker, one hundred horn blowers, and mechanical
scaffolding) depicted in paintings near the Palatine. Gordian’s own house
appears to have been a site for a time as well (S.H.A. Gord. Tres 32.1), and the
author of his vita notes its beauty but says nothing more.

(82) HN 35.52: to honour his grandfather he presented thirty pairs of gladiators

in the Forum and exhibited a picture of the matches in nemore Dianae. The
tradition continued into the empire. Pliny notes that a freedman of Nero’s
presented gladiatorial games at Antium and had individual portraits of the
gladiators and their trainers displayed in public porticoes. Beyond the literary
record, both paintings and mosaics commemorating gladiatorial combats and
venationes are common enough subjects.

(83) Procopius, De Bello Gothico 3.2.24. Sallust’s house was near the Salarian
Gate and was set ablaze, but was only half burnt; the rest was preserved and
survived even into the sixth century. The Anthologia Planudea (Crinagoras) 40
says that it was found near the Tres Fortunae where there were three temples,
those of Fortuna Primigenia, Fortuna Publica Populi Romani, and Fortuna

Page 34 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

Publica Citerior. For the location of the house see K. J. Hartswick, The Gardens of
Sallust: A Changing Landscape (Austin 2004), 8–10; also see LTUR 3.79–81.

(84) Cf. Suet. Aug. 6: at Augustus’ childhood home in Velitrae his nursery was
still kept as a shrine which no one could enter lest they be seized by a sudden
terror. For Augustus’ birthplace and boyhood house see Davies, ‘“What Worse
than Nero?”’ (n. 75), 37.

(85) See LTUR 4.164–5.

(86) For a general discussion of how buildings, houses, and other edifices built
for or by the condemned were treated, see Davies, ‘“What Worse than
Nero?”’ (n. 75), 31–42; see esp. 38 for discussion of Maelius, Cassius, and
Manlius; also see in general K. Mustakallio, Death and Disgrace. Capital
Penalties with Post Mortem Sanctions in Early Roman Historiography (Helsinki
1994).

(87) See, inter alios, Cic. Rep. 2.60; Diodorus Siculus 11.37.7; Dion. Hal.
Ant.Rom. 8.68–80; Livy 2.41; Val. Max. 5.8.2, 6.3.2; Florus 1.17.25; Cass. Dio
5.19. For an excellent discussion of the problems of damnatio memoriae in this
case see H. I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting. Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman
Political Culture (Chapel Hill 2006), 48–9; cf. E. Gabba, ‘Studi su Dionigi
d’Alicarnasso: La proposta di legge agraria di Spurio Cassio’, Athenaeum, 42
(1964), 29–41; Ogilvie, Livy Books I–V (n. 35), 337–45; E. Gabba, ‘Dionigi
d’Alicarnasso sul processo di Spurio Cassio’, in Atti del primo Congresso
internazionale della Società italiana di Storia del diritto (Florence 1966), 143–53;
A. Lintott, ‘The Tradition of Violence in the Annals of Early Rome’, Historia, 19
(1970), 18–22; T. P. Wiseman, ‘Topography and Rhetoric: The Trial of Manlius’,
Historia, 28 (1979), 32–50; T. J. Cornell, ‘Rome and Latium to 390 B.C.’, in The
Cambridge Ancient History2 7.2: The Rise of Rome to 220 B.C. (Cambridge
1989), 264–81; The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to
the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 B.C.) (London 1995), 253–5, 263, 271.

(88) HN 34.15. There may have been more than one statue of Ceres offered up,
since Dionysius, relating the same story (Ant. Rom. 8.79.3), uses the plural.

(89) See also Val. Max. 6.3.1c; cf. Cic. Dom. 101; Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.157;
Diodorus Siculus 12.37.1; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 12.4.6; Livy 4.15.8–16.1;
Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 3.7.20; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 17; for discussion see
Ogilvie, Livy Books I–V (n. 35), 550–7; M. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (Ann Arbor
1997), 42.

(90) Flower, The Art of Forgetting (n. 87), 48.

(91) Livy 8.20.8. From the proceeds of the material bronze discs were set up in
the Temple of Semo Sancus, concerning which see p. 174 n. 52. Why Vitruvius

Page 35 of 36

 
Constructing Social Identity

had a house in Rome, though himself from Fundani, is unclear; see S. P. Oakley,
A Commentary on Livy Books VI –X, Vol. 2 (Oxford 1998), 602–6 for discussion of
the incident; on the two versions of his punishment see S. P. Oakley, A
Commentary on Livy Books VI–X, Vol.2 (Oxford 1997), 82; for his house see LTUR
2.215.

(92) See p. 153 n. 82.

(93) Plut. Alex. 11.12; Arrian, Anabasis 1.9.10.

(94) See S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural
History (Oxford 2003), 149, who also notes the imagines in the atrium, records of
res gestae in the tablinum, and booty on the doors that collectively made the
domus itself a commemorative monument.

Page 36 of 36

 
The Monster and the Map

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

The Monster and the Map

Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0006

Abstract and Keywords

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

Keywords:   natural world, domination, Roman empire, city

‘The world and the city of Rome occupy the same space.’

Ovid, Fasti 2.684

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

Page 1 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

Licinius Sura, (p.194) one of the most prominent members of Trajan’s court
(Pliny, Ep. 4.30, 7.27), and Plutarch, who wrote a work titled De Curiositate,
(which was not about curiosities per se, but about the nature of curiosity and
that which attracts it, including the grotesque).4 L. Ampelius, who can only be
placed between the time of Trajan and Diocletian, left a Liber Memorialis, which
includes the only clear description of the Great Altar of Pergamum extant.5 The
genre was popular and abided into late antiquity and beyond.6

Arguably much of Pliny belongs to the same genre, in particular book seven,
with its catalogue of things wondrous and strange in virtue of their size, age, or
other unusual qualities. Such wonders are only known to us through texts
written by those who tended to view the world as a place of potential danger
that needed to be subdued, controlled, and observed. The taming of this chaotic,
strange world was achieved visually through mapping the world as well as
putting its strangeness, its ‘Otherness’ on display. As the Romans appropriated
the world’s territory and its resources, so too did they appropriate its
aberrations, abnormalities, and perceived dangers, all of which had the power to
create a dynamic tension by which Roman rule was simultaneously reaffirmed
and called into question.7 The collection of maps and the world they embraced
showed the Romans the land they dominated and reflected the identity such
conquest had served to create—a collective identity on its face of invincibility
and domination.8 To be made safe, the world ultimately had to be made
aesthetic, something symbolized through cartographical depictions and all their
permutations. The ability to know the world, to visualize and measure it as
something contained in the securely ordered and sacred space of the city, within
Rome’s imperium, and in turn within the inviolable pomerium, made the world
Roman, knowable, and controllable.

So too with natural aberrations. The eviscerated and dismembered bodies of

fantastic creatures and their bones functioned as a symbolic indicator of what
(p.195) Rome could do and had done to its enemies and rivals: skinned and
disfigured, the Romans remade them into something Roman.9 Lifeless, set on
display, the monstrous is emasculated, laid symbolically prostrate and reflective
of a world helpless before Roman power, while at the same time constituting a
mirror of Rome itself. The world’s creatures and natural wonders were
increasingly set on display while Rome gradually transformed into something of
unnatural size and monstrous, something desiring and attracting the gaze as a
thing of wonder, something that was the product of monstrosity and the literal
dissection of enemies in battle, and of land appropriated from the vanquished. In
turn, the more Rome conquered the more Rome was itself dissected into a
collection of provinces, regions, districts, and administrative arenas.10 Such
wonders thereby reflect Roman identity and the harsh reality of Roman
conquest, yet simultaneously carry the capacity of resistant readings; as such
artefacts variously invite loathing, envy, or wonder, so too does the city.11
Physical deformity (including gargantuan size), for example, was an indicator of
Page 2 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

a larger depravity or deviancy, a notion with a longstanding tradition in

antiquity.12 Though what was bigger than Rome, an entity so vast to Livy ‘that it
now toiled of its own magnitude’ (ut iam magnitudine laboret sua, praefatio 4)?
That which tames the monster in turn becomes monstrous, ever transgressing
its own limits.13 Indeed, as scholars have noted, Pliny’s own catalogue is a
monstrosity, by virtue of its size and the vast array of objects and facts it
contains.14 The collective effect of Pliny’s work constructs what T. Murphy called
a ‘triumphal geography’ that surveys the entire (p.196) orbis terrarum and
gives an ‘authorized version of knowledge’ that promises ‘completeness,
reliability, and authority’.15 And yet that knowledge can never be complete—it is
always being added to or revised as Rome expands and conquers in its ever
dynamic role as an entity determined to encompass more of the oikoumenē (‘the
inhabitable world’) and to redefine its limits.16 The dynamic nature of expanding
knowledge is perhaps best illustrated by Tacitus’ Agricola, where he notes the
several revisions in Roman knowledge of Britain since Rome’s first contact with
the island.17

It is perhaps noteworthy that some, though not all, of Pliny’s enumerated

curiosities come from the outer boundaries of the Empire, depending at what
point in history they were brought into the city. The tall Arabian, the gorilla
skins, exotic balsam trees from Judaea, all assert implicitly the potential for or
reality of Roman conquest. The introduction of such exotica into triumphs or
displays in ancient Rome was a manifestation of the city’s mastery over the
natural world, and all its monstrous permutations.18

The World Under The Gaze: Measuring and Mapping

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

Page 3 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

indicative of possession of the place as well.22 Rome took the world’s measure by
its conquests, and Rome itself was in turn measured by the world it possessed.

It is not too far to state that the notion of the map, and with it domination, was
embedded in Rome’s topography and historical memory in the most absolute
sense. Consequently, even the very names of some of the streets, the most basic
topographical phenomenon in Rome after its hills, walls, and famous cloacae,
reflected the diversity of Rome’s dominion. Thus Dionysius of Halicarnassus
(Ant. Rom. 5.36.4) notes that the Vicus Tuscus was so called because members
of the Etruscan community settled and resided there after the battle of Cumae in
474 BC; the street was marked by a statue of Vortumnus, a divinity that was an
Etruscan import, according to Roman tradition (see p. 36 with n. 17). The Vicus
Cyprius was so called because the Sabines settled there after admission into the
city as citizens and named it ‘for the good omen’. Similarly, the Vicus Africus was
named for the hostages from Africa who were kept under guard there during
one of the Punic Wars (Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.159). There were doubtless
more streets that reflected Rome’s domain; the most obvious one in this regard
(p.198)

was the Clivus Victorius ascending

the Palatine.23 The world was
thereby mapped out, confined
within its walls, and literally
downtrodden. The topography
mirrors, in a sense, the statues of
Caesar and Augustus which
depicted the globe under their feet
(see fig. 6.1).24
As Rome expanded to include
the world, the world, in turn,
had to be brought into the city,
measured and dominated by
Rome’s gaze. Yet it was not
merely enemy land that was
mapped, measured, and
confined within the city’s
Fig. 6.1 Octavian stands with the world
bounds. Natural wonders and
literally under heel. The statue type was
their aberrations were equally
after a similar one of his grand-uncle,
things to be subdued,
Julius Caesar. Reverse of a silver
dominated, confined, and
denarius, 31–29 BC with the legend
exhibited. The connection
CAESAR DIVI F. (‘son of the divine
between the aberrant and the
Julius’). The American Numismatic
exhibited was something deeply
Society, New York.
etched not merely in the Roman
psyche, but in their very

Page 4 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

language; hence the connection between monstrum and monstrare (‘to show’).25
To know that which was strange or fearful was no longer to fear it. (p.199) As
the process of mapping implied knowing and subduing, similarly, to map the
world’s wonders was to render them no longer distant or fearful but familiar and
by so doing to make the power over them complete. Natural wonders or
monstrosities had the potential to function not only as a symbolic domination
over the world’s people, but over the natural world itself.

Mapping of Rome’s conquest took a number of forms, ranging from

cartographical paintings, to large piazzas whose pavements were engraved with
maps of the world or the cosmos, to fantasy mosaics such as that at Praeneste
(see fig. 3.5).26 One of the first to display such a map was C. Sempronius, who
dedicated either a map or an allegorical depiction of Italy in 252 BC in the
Temple of Tellus on the Esquiline, (commissioned by Gaius’ father, Publius in 268
(Varro, De Re Rustica 1.2.1)).27 It is uncertain whether Italia was in the form of a
map or an allegorical representation such as we find with the provinces on the
Temple of Divus Hadrianus (see fig. 6.2 and 6.3); in this sense the Empire
represented itself as a collection of easily subdued, effete subjects whose
innately feminine qualities made them inherently inferior to their Roman
conquerors.28 Such subjugation is perhaps best captured in the dejected
personification thought to be of a conquered province we see in a relief now in
Naples (fig. 6.4). The subject of Italia will have been appropriate for Sempronius’
painting, given that at this period Rome had recently completed and was in the
process of consolidating its conquest of Italy; equally symbolic is its dedication
in the Temple of Tellus, confining Italy within the Roman ‘Tellus’ or earth. Years
later, Livy (41.28.8–10) reports that in 174 BC a tablet was set up to Jupiter in
the Temple of Mater Matuta with an inscription concerning Ti. Sempronius
Gracchus’ conquest of Sardinia; Livy says that it (p.200)

Page 5 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

(p.201)

Figs. 6.2 and 6.3 These reliefs from the

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

Page 6 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

had the shape of the island on it

with representations of battles
and his triumph.29 The connection
made in this painting (as Livy
describes it) inextricably linked
geography and violence, mapping
and conquest, connections
perhaps most explicitly expressed
in the surviving artistic record in
the sculpture programme (p.202)
of the Sebasteion (the temple of
the imperial cult) in Aphrodisias,
with, for example, its violent
depiction of Claudius’ conquest of
the province of Britannia (fig.
6.5).30 Such linkage was made not
only in visual arts, but throughout
our literary sources as well. It
stands as the visual representation
of the narrative connections found
between mapping and conquest in
such authors as Strabo and Pliny,
and, (p.203)
Fig. 6.3 See caption for fig. 6.2.

Fig. 6.4 Two caryatids on a base with a

conquered and dejected province in
feminine form in between. The
representation here may well reflect
depictions of allegorized provinces and
cities subdued and displayed in Roman
triumphs on tabulae and in sculpted

Page 7 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

to a similar extent, in the war models. H: .87 m. Museo Archeologico

commentarii of Caesar and Nazionale, Naples.
Tacitus’ Agricola.31 In Pliny the
intent is perhaps even more
explicit, since the world is brought
together under a series of various
anecdotes, facts, and data that
stand within an encyclopaedia,
and (p.204) within a Roman
world. The world is collected
literally in his book in the form of
geography, ethnographic data, as
well as facts about the material
world, its resources, its art, and its
peoples.32
Visual depictions of this nature
will have reached their pinnacle
under the principate by which
point cartographical painting
had become a virtual genre,
with Strabo himself referring to
a category of painting he
termed geōgraphikon pinaka
(2.5.13). Strabo emphasized the
importance of geography for Fig. 6.5 Claudius’ subduing of the
those in public affairs, a subject province of Britannia is portrayed in a
particularly imperative during particularly violent fashion in this relief
Augustus’ programme of from an imperial cult temple in the
imperial expansion and province of Asia. H: 1.65 m. The
consolidation (1.1.16–18).33 Sebasteion, Aphrodisias.
There is perhaps no better
example of this than Agrippa’s
map which Pliny (HN 3.16–17) tells us was in the Portico of Vipsania (see fig.
6.6). The map depicted ‘the world’ (orbem terrarum) and had been designed by
Agrippa and completed by Augustus.34 The nature of the display is difficult to
guess, but there was certainly a list of cities, and possibly even a narrative that
accompanied them: we know for example that it listed Pompey’s conquest of 876
oppida in one campaign alone (in Spain (Pliny, HN 3.18)), and the distances
between various points were listed in detail.35 Such narratives were not unusual.
Pompey for one had dedicated a list of the cities he had conquered on his
eastern campaign in the Temple of Minerva (p.205)

Page 8 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

(Pliny, HN 7.97; Diodorus Siculus

40.4.1) while Augustus in his
forum had a list of conquered
provinces set up (Velleius
Paterculus 2.39.2).36 The scale of
Agrippa’s map was quite large,
and embraced the entire portico
according to Pliny (HN 3.17). Such
a setting will have been
appropriate. The portico also
Fig. 6.6 K. Sallman’s reconstruction of
contained a grove of laurels (Mart.
Agrippa’s map of the world from the
1.108.1–4), an apt addition, since
the tree was symbolic of victory Portico of Vipsania, based on Pliny the
and conquest. The connection Elder’s description.
between mapping and militarism
could not be clearer; as has been
noted, the very production of such maps stemmed from the need for military
intelligence.37 Neither was this the only map on display. As Nicolet points out, there
was a large map of Campania (no doubt just one of many regions exhibited) in the
Atrium Libertatis, while Vitruvius notes the existence of maps that also may have been
monumental in nature.38
The description of a map in the forum at Autun (Panegyrici Latini 5.20–1) gives
us perhaps our best glimpse into how such a map might look.39 The orator (p.
206) Eumenes in a speech given in AD 298 tells us that the position of the
countries is depicted, ‘with their names, their extent, and the distances which
separate them’. Most importantly, Eumenes relates that the map on public
display serves as a way to instruct the young in imperial ideology and values:
‘Let our city’s youth look under these porticoes and each day consider all the
lands and seas, all the cities restored by their virtue, the peoples subdued
through their valour, the nations frozen with fear’. The assumption is that the
visual impact will instill the lesson more clearly of the ‘great deeds of our brave
leading men’. It is unlikely that this lesson will have changed much since
Sempronius first introduced his map of Italia in the Temple of Tellus some five
centuries before.

In keeping with his programme of imperial expansion Augustus also dedicated a

portico ad Nationes, so named because of its gallery of statues that represented
‘all nations’, a suitable fit for the empire he helped to create—and collect.40
Similar images were carried in Augustus’ funeral (Cassius Dio 56.34.2), though
in what material is uncertain.41 The precedent for both may well have been
Pompey’s statuary programme for his theatre which was adorned with displays
of conquered nations.42 Other similar allegorical representations of conquered
nations or provinces appeared elsewhere in a variety of contexts, as on the
Temple of Divus Hadrianus noted above, whose metopes represented the various
provinces of the Empire (all women with various indications and symbols of their
province). As Edwards has noted, Cicero also refers to the simulacra oppidorum

Page 9 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

carried in a general’s triumph (Pis. 60), and Ovid clearly implies the allegorical
depiction of certain figures in the description of a triumphal procession in his
Ars Amatoria (1.223–4, see p. 119), while Silius Italicus in the Punica (17.635–42)
refers to (p.207) Scipio’s triumphal procession and remarks on an image of
Carthage lifting her hands to heaven and images of Spanish cities.43 As
Östenberg admonishes however, whether such depictions were paintings,
models, or statues is subject for contention, and we need to exercise caution.44
When we are told that Marcellus paraded in his ovatio cum simulacro captarum
Syracusarum (Livy 26.21.7 ), or that M. Fulvius Nobilior displayed in his house
an image of Ambracia (Livy 38.43.9), we cannot assume exactly how and in what
medium they were portrayed.45 Regardless, the function of such programmes
and displays was not far different from those of similar modern exhibitions.
Hooper-Greenhill notes that displaying objects creates a hierarchy of value and
power even in our own contemporary milieu:

A major function of museums during the modernist period was the

mapping of the world through the collection of artefacts…many of which
were to be drawn together in museums in such a way as to map out the
world. The extremities, the margins, the peripheries and the limits of the
known world were pictured and imagined.46

The same could be said of the eclectic array of objects brought into the city in
antiquity, but the ‘imagining of the limits and peripheries’ is perhaps most
vividly embodied in the allegorical depictions of the provinces. As if to
emphasize Rome’s imperial domination, a statue of Hercules Melqart, taken
from Rome’s supreme foe, Carthage, stood in front of the entrance to Augustus’
Portico ad Nationes (Servius, In Aeneidem 8.721). If the sculpture programme
was in keeping with Roman practice that we see elsewhere (as on Hadrian’s
temple), presumably the individual nations will have been allegorized as women
with attributes particular to the individual provinces or peoples.47 If such were
the case, the Hercules at the portico’s entrance will have served symbolically to
keep in line, with his superior strength, Rome’s subjects; he will have kept
conquered peoples literally ‘in their place’, confined within the bounds of this
empire in miniature that celebrated Augustus’ vast conquests. He will have
further emphasized the labour—a theme that frequently arises in Augustan
literature and visual art—that it took to confine and keep the nations within the
boundaries of the portico and the Empire.48 According to Pliny, the statue of
Hercules was also one before which the Carthaginians used to offer human
sacrifice (HN 36.39). An artefact with such a history and in such a context holds
out a number of potential interpretations: the barbarism of the enemy as
opposed to the civilizing force of (p.208) Rome is one; the statue could also
signify the Roman people’s ‘labours’ in achieving their empire; potentially it
could even signify a recognition of the barbarism (as a Carthaginian, hence
foreign object) and violence of imperial conquest, a conquest now completed
with Augustus. Hercules Melqart, therefore, becomes simultaneously
Page 10 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

representative of barbarism, resistance, and the forces of ‘civilization’, creating

a complex web of associations.

Collecting The World: Monsters, Monstrosities, and Wonders

Animals and Minerals
The forces of order and empire over chaos and barbarism received further
affirmation through the collection of natural wonders and curiosities that
gradually made their way into the city. Carey sees in the Roman collection of
wonders ‘a strong link between…knowledge and Roman conquest’ as well as
between distance and wonder.49 It bears noting that it was not so much a
scientific knowledge in the modern sense with which Pliny and others were
concerned, but with knowledge of the unusual that comes with familiarity.50
Curiosities of nature were ubiquitous in Rome and took a variety of forms, some
of which would be vaguely familiar to us. Aviaries and collections of live animals
were among the modes of display (along with venues where wild animals would
be slaughtered en masse). Pliny says that the custom of setting up aviaries with
cages was first started by M. Laenius Strabo, a man of the equestrian order from
Brindisium (HN 10.141). The practice continued well into the empire, if we can
believe Alexander Severus’ biographer, who says that Severus constructed
aviaries on the Palatine for his own enjoyment with hens, ducks, pheasants and
other birds, but that he took care that such a menagerie would not burden the
public grain supply (S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 41.6–7).51 Tacitus mentions a similar
phenomenon when he tells us that in AD 64, during Tigellinus’ notorious ‘water
festival’, Nero’s praefect had collected birds and animals from remote countries
(Ann. 15.37). Similarly, Suetonius states that whenever a rare animal (p.209)
was brought to the city Augustus displayed it publicly (citing a rhino he
exhibited in the Saepta Julia, a tiger in an unspecified theatre, and a serpent
nearly 90 feet long in the Comitium, Aug. 43.4). The importation of such
wonders, living and dead, had precedence during the republic. Pliny, for
example, tells us that Hanno displayed the skins of gorillas in the Temple of Juno
in Carthage until Rome captured the city; the skins will have been presumably
rededicated in a Roman temple or a similar venue (HN 6.200).52

Aside from the exhibition of rare animals or their remains, there was a decided
interest in what we might term the monstrous: natural wonders extraordinary
for their size or the story behind them. The first instance we hear of this sort of
phenomenon was when a large creature was set on display during the First
Punic War, when a number of sources tell us that the Romans encountered an
enormous serpent in North Africa at the river Bagradas. According to Valerius
Maximus (1.8 ext. 19), the creature (reportedly 120-feet in length) was killed
with great difficulty by Atilius Regulus’ men. Its skin was impossible to
penetrate, it crushed many men in the coils of its tail, and finally was killed with
a barrage of spears and catapults; its body putrefied and its stench forced the
Romans to move their camp. The skin was ultimately removed and sent to Rome
as a trophy.53 Pliny (HN 8.37) says that the 120-foot skin, along with its jawbone,
Page 11 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

was still on display in an unspecified temple in Rome in his day. Though his
account is unclear, Pliny also implies that the remains of an enormous polypus
mollusk (octopus, squid, or cuttlefish?) were kept as a curiosity in Rome (HN
9.93). The creature was captured in Baetica when M. Lucullus was governor
there and found to weigh 700 pounds; a member of Lucullus’ staff, Trebius
Niger, wrote an account of the episode and noted the fierceness of the animal
and the difficulty in capturing it.

In addition, there were collections of stones of remarkable size (or

workmanship) scattered throughout the city. Pliny the Elder tells us that Livia
dedicated a 150 pound rock crystal on the Capitoline, the largest one known
until that time (HN 37.27), while Augustus dedicated four elephants in obsidian
in the Temple of Concordia pro miraculo (HN 36.196, see chapter seven p. 267).
Subsequently, Nero temporarily set up in the Temple of Fortuna Seiani an onyx
of remarkable size; it was noted for its translucent quality and reportedly had a
shine sufficient to light the temple’s interior (HN 36.163). Pliny similarly notes
(HN 37.18–19) a series of myrrhine cups Pompey dedicated to Jupiter on the
Capitoline, cups of such quality that Nero exhibited a single broken one in
conditorio. (p.210) Contemporaneous with Pompey, P. Lentulus Spinther (cos.
57 BC) reportedly exhibited onyx wine jars holding nine gallons of Chian wine
imported from Egypt or Syria (HN 36.59). In this instance, the sheer size of such
precious material, and no doubt too their quality, rendered them noteworthy. All
of the objects Pliny mentions constitute examples whereby pieces of precious
stones that is, literally of the earth, are possessed and put on display.54

The Romans doubtless felt an attraction towards such curiosities, in particular of

the monstrous animal variety, and frequently connected them with the
mythological past. Roughly two generations after Lucullus’ over-sized mollusk,
in 58 BC, M. Aemilius Scaurus brought from Jaffa in Judaea the skeleton of the
monster to which Andromeda was said to have been offered and used it, along
with other unspecified curiosities, to court popular favour during his aedileship
(HN 9.11). Pliny says the creature’s skeleton was forty feet long, the height of its
ribs taller than that of an Indian elephant, and its spine eighteen inches thick.55
Similarly, in AD 200 we are told by Cassius Dio (76.16.5) that an enormous sea
monster had come ashore ‘at the Augustan harbour’ and was captured;
Septimius Severus had a model made of the creature and exhibited it in the
hunting theatre, into which fifty bears were herded in order to show its vast size.
The remains of large elephant tusks (possibly of ancient proboscides) adorned
the exterior of several temples in Rome according to Pliny (HN 8.31), though the
most spectacular pair may have been those thought to be of the Calydonian boar.
Pausanias reports that Augustus took the boar’s tusks as spoils from the
Arcadians in punishment for their support of Marc Antony. By Pausanias’ day
they were kept in the emperors’ gardens (possibly those of Caesar across the
Tiber, 8.46.1). Pausanias says that the ‘keepers of the wonders’ asserted that one
of the boar’s tusks was broken, but that the other, kept in the sanctuary of
Page 12 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

Dionysus in the gardens, was three feet long.56 Perhaps in keeping with his
antiquarian interests, the emperor Claudius exhibited two mythical creatures
during his reign, a phoenix displayed in the Comitium and a hippocentaur
(preserved in honey).57 Such displays will have made even (p.211) the supra-
natural a real and tangible reality; in addition, they will have had the effect of
validating and appropriating Greek (and, in the case of the phoenix, Egyptian)
‘mythological’ creatures into the Roman sphere—proof not just of Roman control
of territory, but also of a larger cosmic field that transcended human history and
time, reflective of Rome’s own destiny which transcended both.

In at least two instances, human or animal remains acted as talismans to ensure

the prosperity of the city—one an actual talisman, the other the product of a
sacrificial talisman.58 In the time of Augustus, the bones of Orestes were
brought from Diana’s shrine at Aricia to Rome and buried in front of the Temple
of Saturn in the Forum.59 Allegedly, his remains ensured Rome’s greatness,
though we have no idea how the grave was marked. The Temple of Diana on the
Aventine, in addition to its curious cult statue, also contained the horns of an
enormous heifer, something unusual in and of itself, since stag horns generally
adorned Diana’s shrines.60 The story is told that a heifer of great size and
appearance was born to the herds of a man named Antro Curiatius, and that a
soothsayer predicted that, were it sacrificed to Diana on the Aventine, Rome
would become the world’s mightiest city. The horns, which may have been gone
by Livy’s day (1.45.4), commemorated the event. Why Orestes would act as a
talisman is perhaps not hard to surmise at least in general terms: he stands in
the tradition of other Greek imports, including Hercules and Evander, who had a
role in the legendary history of the city from an early date. But both the story of
Orestes’ bones and the heifer stand in the context of integration and conquest
very early in the city’s history of things Greek or over neighbouring peoples. In a
sense, though seemingly unconnected, both stand as a Roman claim to
domination over those with whom the community was in contact from its
inception.

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

 
The Monster and the Map

several operative cultural norms: the so-called ‘natural’ world, any accepted
cultural milieu, or, potentially, beyond one’s territory.62 Moreover, as a number
of scholars have remarked, human ‘freaks’ specifically were (and still are)
displayed to reaffirm the spectator’s ‘normalized’ status and to mark out that
which is ‘aberrant’.63 While the Latin term mirabilia may not carry precisely the
same negative connotations (though monstrum certainly does), it still implies in
the context of the present discussion that which is trans-normative, that stands
outside generally approved Roman cultural norms, and carries the same
negative implications as the term ‘freakish’.

Such supra normative spectacles could include people of unusual size or simply
of note-worthy fame who constituted wonders or attractions in their own right.
Pompey the Great had such human curiosities memorialized in the statuary
programme in his theatre.64 One of these included a woman from Tralles named
Eutychis who had given birth to thirty children and subsequently had her funeral
pyre carried by the twenty who survived. Alcippe was also commemorated in
Pompey’s theatre, a woman who had reportedly given birth to an elephant.65 On
record, too, are a number of human specimens of unusual size, (p.213) both
living and dead: hence we hear that under Claudius a man named Gabbara was
brought to Rome from Arabia who was reportedly nine feet nine inches tall.66
Similarly, under Augustus two people named Pusio and Secundilla, each over ten
feet tall, had their bodies preserved in tombs in the Horti Sallustiani to be gazed
at ‘as a marvel’ (miraculi gratia).67 On the opposite end were two Roman
equestrians, Manius Maximus and M. Tullius each three feet tall, still on display
after their deaths.68

Nor were the living free from such curiosity. Augustine reports that just before
the Goths attacked and destroyed Rome a woman of very tall stature was in the
city and frequently mobbed by crowds wherever she went (De civitate Dei
15.23). Similarly, those of great age (Pliny, HN 7.158) or of celebrated reputation
could attract travellers to the city, such as the pilgrim from Gades who travelled
to Rome just to get a glimpse of Livy.69 A similar scene was enacted in that age
when a group of piratical chieftains ventured to Liternum to get a view of
Augustus, ‘as it were expecting some divine benefit’ (quasi caeleste aliquod
beneficium expetentes, Val. Max. 2.10.2). Finally, we note that the emperors
themselves kept those with abnormalities as a form of entertainment for their
pleasure, such as Nero’s courtier Vatinius, ‘among the foulest spectacles of his
court…with his twisted body and his scurrilous witticisms’ (inter foedissima eius
aulae ostenta…corpore detorto, facetiis scurrilibus).70 It was, in the end, a
perverse reminder of what was Roman, what was un-Roman, and ultimately,
what was to be considered human, what a monstrosity—and as such worthy to
be put on display (monstrari).

Page 14 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

Plants
In addition to the human and animal, lesser or even inanimate objects, such as
plants, trees, and precious spices were also the subjects of interest and wonder
(p.214) within the city.71 Such display will have been reflective of something
well-established by the Roman elite and picked up in the literary sources, and
that is the domination of resources by Rome’s imperial machine.72 The natural
world and man’s relationship with it is not neutral for the Romans; rather the
natural world is for the Romans to survey and exploit. As one scholar of Pliny’s
Natural History (from which we get much of our information) has observed,
Pliny’s erudition has no air of inquiry about it, but is instead redolent of a survey
with a view to use.73 Here again moreover, as was the case with the animal and
human, size, age, or the exotic nature of an object as well as other attributes,
could render something a curiosity. Pliny states that the largest tree ever seen in
Rome was a 120 foot long larchwood with a uniform thickness of two feet.
Tiberius exhibited it in the naumachia, where it lasted until AD 59 when Nero
built a vast amphitheatre of wood (HN 16.201). Tiberius’ larchwood broke the
previous record held by a tree Agrippa deposited in the porticoes of the
Diribitorium ‘left over from the timber used for the voting office’; it was one
hundred feet long with an eighteen inch thickness.74 Pliny also tells us (HN
12.111) of a more exotic tree that Vespasian displayed in his triumph in AD 70
when he and Titus exhibited balsam trees on the Capitoline for the first time
from Judaea and further states that ever since Pompey the Great, (presumably
exotic) trees had figured into Roman triumphal processions.75 In addition,
Vespasian was the first to dedicate both in the Capitoline and in the Temple of
Peace crowns of cinnamon surrounded with embossed gold. Pliny further states
(HN 12.94) that a cinnamon root of great weight was dedicated in the Temple of
Divus Augustus on the Palatine (built by his wife Livia); it was placed in a golden
bowl (aureae paterae) and he says that drops distilled from it annually and
hardened into grains, and that this continued until the temple was destroyed by
fire. Unusual plant specimens were not the sole province of emperors; well
before the advent of Augustus, Pompey had also assembled a novel array of flora
in the form of living specimens in the city.76

(p.215) Beyond size and provenance, age also served to make flora unique, and
there were a number of such trees in the city that became the object of
veneration or wonder as a result of their age. There were, for example, three
very old lotus trees in Rome (Pliny, HN 16.235–6), one in the precinct of Juno
Lucina dating to 375 BC (which apparently predated the foundation of the
temple, according to Pliny), a lotus tree in an uncertain location called the hair
tree, since it was where Vestal Virgins brought offerings of their hair, and one in
the area of the Vulcanal which, according to Pliny’s source (Masurius) was the
same age as the city.77 Pliny also notes that a cypress of equal age stood nearby
and fell near the end of Nero’s reign and was left lying where it was. Still older,
in fact, purportedly predating the city, was a Holm oak on Vatican Hill to which

Page 15 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

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

The Colossus in Pieces

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

and putting the pieces accurately together and fitting them one to the
other, she sewed up the whole body; then, displaying to the sculptors, she
bade them represent in a bronze statue the fate which had befallen her
Page 16 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

husband. So the artists straightway made the statue. The woman then took
it and set it up on the street leading up to the Capitol, on the right as one
ascends thither from the Forum, and it shows both the features and the
fate of Domitian, even to the present day.82

(p.217) By Justinian’s (and Procopius’) time such a monument will have

mirrored Roman identity and power indeed. The state had long since become a
series of membra disiecta, its body long since hacked by civil strife and invading
tribes, dismembered into so many diocese and petty barbarian kingdoms.83

However, well before Justinian, and before Domitian for that matter, the
Empire’s monstrosity was at times reflected in the visual representation of its
leadership, starting with colossal statues of Augustus (though not necessarily in
his lifetime).84 While there had indeed been colossal statuary in Rome prior to
this period, it predominately was of deities, and many were Greek imports.85 The
trend arguably reached its climax under Nero with his colossus that eventually
gave the Flavian amphitheatre—a meta-monstrosity in its own right—its name,
and with his massive portrait on a 120 foot high piece of linen, a feat never
before attempted.86 But Nero, as Tacitus remarked (Ann. 15.42), was not one to
feel constrained by nature’s limitations.

(p.218)

In a sense such works, and even

their venues, were emblematic of
a carnival quality the Romans
could not escape, symbolically
reflecting the excess luxury,
consumption, and the grotesque
that was a part not only of the
reign of Nero, but also of the
Empire in general.87 The dynamic
is encapsulated in a colossal
statue of Tiberius dedicated in AD
30 in Caesar’s forum, a statue that
was a mirror of the grotesque Fig. 6.7 The fragments of the head and
monster into which Tiberius hand of Constantine were emblematic not
himself had turned by that date.88 just of colossal statuary throughout the
The relatively common occurrence city by late antiquity, but of the
of the survival of colossal statuary
monstrosity, in every sense, of the Empire
attests that this was not an
in general. H: 2.6 m. From a 9 m. statue
isolated phenomenon (see fig. 6.7).
from the Basilica Nova. Museo del
Stewart has noted in his study of
gigantism and its cultural Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.
significance that the gigantic can
function as a metaphor, a
projection of the giant’s body onto the world, where it, in turn, becomes a container of

Page 17 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

all things, something surely at work in Tiberius’ case, but (p.219) also for Roman
gigantism in general.89 Indeed, even the sources that attempt to catalogue and contain
the giant that Rome had become turn into unwieldy monstrosities as a result of their
consumption of a superabundance of over-sized data. As noted above, numerous
scholars have remarked the size, the unwieldiness, the seeming incoherence, the sheer
monstrosity of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History.90 Strabo has recently been similarly
set in the context of the very colossi about which he writes, and he himself refers to his
work as a kolossourgia.91 Yet as Edwards observes, Rome and the world it sought to
consume could never be contained, measured, or sated, since as Pliny notes, it was
restrained by neither temporal nor spatial constraints.92
Hence, by its very nature, the monster violates and transcends itself, as Rome
grasps beyond the boundaries not only of the world but of time. For Rome even
the vague, nebulous legends of the past—aged trees under which Romulus
suckled, the Greek hero Orestes, Scaurus’ monster from Jaffa—stand in its
grasp; that which is outside of human experience Rome reduces to a part of its
imperial endeavour, thereby reflecting Rome’s own divine, timeless nature. Of
course, the timelessness of Rome’s imperium sine fine (Vergil, Aeneid 1.279)
proved as mythological as the origin of some of the relics it so avidly consumed.
(p.220)

Notes:
(1) As has been illustrated by Romm’s 1992 study, and as is encapsulated in the
title of such fictional works as Antonius Diogenes’ Wonders Beyond Thule; see J.
S. Romm, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought (Princeton 1992), 202–14
for discussion.

(2) Pliny, HN 7.75; cf. 7.85; see E. Pernice and W. H. Gross, ‘Die griechischen und
römischen literarischen Zeugnisse’, in U. Hausmann (ed.), Handbuch der
Archäologie: Allgemeine Grundlagen der Archäologie (Munich 1969), 483 for
discussion; for Pliny the Elder’s sources see 481–92. For a good discussion of
mirabilia in Pliny see J. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s
Chapters on the History of Art (London 1991), 186–203; see 46 for their role as
memorabilia; cf. J. F. Healy, Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology (Oxford
1999), 63–70; S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the
Natural History (Oxford 2003), 79–91. On writers of mirabilia in Pliny’s day see T.
Murphy, ‘Pliny’s Naturalis Historia: The Prodigal Text’, in A. J. Boyle and W. J.
Dominik (eds.), Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003), 305. For
Pliny’s predecessors see Carey (above, 18) citing Cato the Elder’s Praecepta ad
filium, Varro’s Antiquitates and Disciplina, and Celsus’ Artes. For Cato’s work see
E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 77–8.

(3) See T. Murphy, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the
Encyclopedia (Oxford 2004), 57, 60–1 for discussion of Mucianus’ work; also see
Pernice and Gross, ‘Zeugnisse’ (n. 2), 484. On Mucianus as a source for Pliny see
B. Baldwin, ‘Pliny the Elder and Mucianus’, Emerita, 63.2 (1995), 291–301.

Page 18 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

(4) Its title was Peri Polupragmosunēs, On Busybody-ness (see Mor. 517F, 521B–
D); in it Plutarch criticizes those who gawk at the sensational or grotesque
instead of fine artworks. Also see Mor. 520C for Plutarch’s bazaar of human
monstrosities; see M. Beagon, Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder
(Oxford 1992), 10–11 for discussion.

(5) See Pernice and Gross, ‘Zeugnisse’ (n. 2), 461; for general discussion of
Ampelius’ work see M. P. Arnaud-Lindet, ‘Le Liber Memorialis de L. Ampélius’,
ANRW 2.34.3 (1997), 2301–12.

(6) See N. Purcell, ‘The City of Rome’, in R. Jenkyns (ed.), The Legacy of Rome: A
New Appraisal (Oxford 1992), 427–9.

(7) See S. Carey, ‘The Problems of Totality: Collecting Greek Art, Wonders and
Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC 12.1 (2000), 5 for discussion of
the bond between conquest and the importation of mirabilia, ‘Now, instead of the
Roman Army going to the ends of the earth, the ends of the earth come to
Rome’.

(8) Something frequently addressed in C. Nicolet, Space, Geography and Politics

in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1991); see esp. 7–8 for the movement
towards ‘global’ mapping; cf. 35–41 for Rome’s embracing of the oikoumenē
(‘the inhabitable world’).

(9) On this ‘dialectic of the monster’ see J. A. Heffernan, ‘Looking at the Monster:
“Frankenstein” and Film’, Critical Inquiry, 24.1 (1997), 136–7. For ‘the monster’
in Roman society see C. A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The
Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton 1993), 85–106; see esp. 85–90 for what
constituted the curiosus in ancient Rome.

(10) For a good discussion of ‘world acquisition’ in the context of collecting see
K. Melchionne, ‘Collecting as an Art’, Philosophy and Literature, 23.1 (1999),
150.

(11) For the city and the ‘wonder’ it evokes see C. Edwards, Writing Rome.
Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996), 97–102.

(12) Starting with Homer’s Thersites; for discussion see Barton, Sorrows (n. 9),
164–6.

(13) See A. L. Motto and J. R. Clark, ‘The Monster in Seneca’s Hercules Furens
926–939’, CP 89 (1994), 269–70 for the literary background of the monster as
transgressor; see Barton, Sorrows (n. 9), 174 for a related discussion.

(14) See A. Locher, ‘The Structure of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, in R.
French and F. Greenaway (eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the
Elder, His Sources and Influence (Totowa NJ and London 1986), 20 for Pliny’s

Page 19 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

work as ‘a literary monstrosity’; cf. M. Vegetti, ‘Lo spettacolo della natura. Circo,
teatro e potere in Plinio’, Aut Aut, 184–5 (1981), 120–2, who notes that the text
literally is a monster, remarking in particular the cruel and savage—the
monstrous—nature of certain aspects of Pliny’s catalogue; see too M. Vegetti,
‘Zoologia e antropologia in Plinio’, in Plinio il Vecchio sotto il profilo storico e
letterario. Atti del Convegno di Como 1979 (Como 1982), 130, who called it ‘un
incubo popolato di fugure e spettacoli meravigliosi e terribili’; also see A.
Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Pliny the Elder and Man’s Unnatural History’, GaR 37.1 (1990),
81, who notes the unnatural and transgressive nature of Pliny’s work; E.
Thomas, Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine
Age (Oxford 2007), 214 remarks in general the monumental nature of the
catalogue in antiquity, beginning with Homer’s catalogue of ships in the Iliad’s
second book.

(15) See Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 14. For Murphy’s excellent discussion of Pliny’s
geography see 129–64; also see 1–2 where he notes his work was ‘patterned
after that vast empire that has made the universe available for knowing’; also
see 5 for Pliny as a triumphalist text. For the encyclopaedia as encompassing the
world, see A. Dihle, ‘Plinius und die geographischen Wissenschaft in der
Römischen Kaiserzeit’, in Tecnologia, economia e società nel mondo romano
(Como 1980), 121–37; A. Rouveret, ‘Artistes, collectionneurs et antiquaries:
l’histoire de l’art dans l’encyclopédie plinienne’, in E. Pommier (ed.), L’Histoire
de l’histoire de l’art de l’antiquité au XVIIIe siècle (Paris 1995), 51; Carey, Pliny’s
Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 33–40 for the connection between the geographic
and taxonomic range the work covers, and empire. For the larger Greek and
Roman background to Pliny’s geography see R. French, Ancient Natural History
(London 1994), 114–41.

(16) On the oikoumenē and its extent see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 39–40, 104.

(17) For discussion see S. Rutledge, ‘Tacitus in Tartan: Textual Colonization in

Tacitus’ Agricola’, Helios, 27 (2000), 77–9; K. Clarke, ‘An Island Nation: Re-
Reading Tacitus’ Agricola’, JRS 91 (2001), 94–112.

(18) See French, Ancient Natural History (n. 15), 216 for discussion; for the
natural world tamed in a triumphal context and set under the Roman gaze see I.
Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representation in the
Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009), 274–5.

(19) E. Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London

1992), 17 notes that mapping renders something real and implies ‘discovery,
order and ownership’; cf. Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 7–9, who notes the inextricable
links between geography, mapping, and empire.

Page 20 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

(20) On Rome’s ‘absorption of the world’ as synonymous with the mundus itself
see C. Edwards and G. Woolf, ‘Cosmopolis: Rome as World City’, in C. Edwards
and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 2–3; cf. Carey,
Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 99–101. See Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n.
7), 10 for Pliny as a microcosm of Rome. The city itself was mapped in turn in
the form of the Marble Plan set up in the Forum of Peace under Septimius
Severus; see R. H. Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture: A Study of Flavian
Rome (Brussels 1996), 55–8; J. Trimble, ‘Visibility and Viewing on the Severan
Marble Plan’, in S. Swain, S. Harrison, and J. Elsner (eds.), Severan Culture
(Cambridge 2007), 368–84; also see A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural
Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 301–12, who notes that this was but one in a
series of such city plans displayed in Rome.

(21) Ov. Fast. 6.477–8; Pliny, HN 34.10; Tac. .Ann. 12.24.

(22) See Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 82; cf. 79–80 for discussion of
how Pliny’s syntax in discussing Roman possession and display of art emphasizes
Roman ownership.

(23) Streets could preserve historical memory in general. The Vicus Sceleratus
(actually a section of the Clivus Orbius) leading up to the Esquiline, was perhaps
the most (in)famous of these, since it commemorated Tanaquil’s abuse of her
father’s (King Tullius’) body after his assassination when she ran over it with a
chariot. See Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.159; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.39.3; Livy
1.48.6–7; Ov. Fast. 6.609–10; Val. Max. 9.11.1. The city gates seemed also to
function as repositories of memory, see Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.163–5.

(24) For a discussion of the numismatic evidence for these statues see P. Zanker,
The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Translated by Alan Shapiro (Ann
Arbor 1988), 40–1; also see Cass. Dio 43.14.6.

(25) See S. Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the
Souvenir, the Collection (Baltimore 1984), 108, who also notes its ostensible if
not actual connection with moneo, a verb of warning, presumably against
imminent threat.

(26) For Roman cartographical depictions see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 98–111; cf.
C. Nicolet, ‘Rome dans la carte: Cartes de Rome’, in F. Hinard and M. Royo
(eds.), Rome. L’espace urbain et ses représentations (Paris 1991), 9–16; for
topographical and cartographical paintings in the republic see P. J. Holliday, The
Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts (Cambridge
2002), 105–8, who observes that the Palestrina mosaic may take as its model a
painting of this genre, though also notes that there are objections; cf. P. J.
Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and
Reception’, ArtB 79 (1997), 138–9; for a detailed study of the mosaic see P. G. P.

Page 21 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

Meyboom, The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina: Early Evidence of Egyptian Religion in

Italy (Leiden 1995).

(27) Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 111 notes that this sort of painting had its origin in
the triumphal pinakes with topographical depictions; for the Temple of Tellus in
general see LTUR 5.24–5.

(28) For the ‘Freudian’ element to such collecting, in which the provinces could,
conceivably, be understood as women substituting for erotic conquests see J.
Forrester, ‘ “Mille e tre”: Freud and Collecting’, in J. Elsner and R. Cardinal
(eds.), The Culture of Collecting (Cambridge Mass. 1994), 232–3; for the
provinces on Hadrian’s temple see C. Parisi Presicce, ‘Le rappresentazioni
allegoriche di populi e province nell’arte romana imperiale’, in M. Sapelli (ed.),
Provinciae fideles: Il fregio del tempio di Adriano in Campo Marzio (Rome 1999),
83–105; I. M. Ferris, Enemies of Rome. Barbarians through Roman Eyes (Stroud
2000), 83–5, who argues that they represent a consolidation of conquest after
Trajan’s expansion; for a good discussion of the temple’s construction and its
larger architectural context see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 14), 32–4.

(29) See Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 26), 137–8; Östenberg, Staging
the World (n. 18), 193–6 for discussion; see p. 36 n. 17 for the Temple of Mater
Matuta.

(30) See R. R. R. Smith, ‘The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at

Aphrodisias’, JRS 77 (1987), 115–17 for the identification of Britannia; for a good
discussion of the images of the provinces see R. R. R. Smith, ‘Simulacra gentium:
The ethne from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias’, JRS 78 (1988), 50–77; for an
excellent discussion of this particular relief see Ferris, Enemies of Rome (n. 28),
55–60; other good recent discussions of the Sebasteion’s sculptural programme
include S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments,
and Memories (Cambridge 2002), 89–93; L. S. Nasrallah, Christian Response to
Roman Art and Architecture (Cambridge 2010), 76–84. Östenberg, Staging the
World (n. 18), 220–1 has suggested a religious significance for the reliefs with
the personifications representing the subdued gods of conquered peoples; also
see 222–30 in general for the depiction of conquered provinces and peoples.

(31) As in, for example, Caesar’s detailed geography of Gaul that precedes his
conquest; see Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 1.1; for Britain see Tac. Agr. 10; for
discussion see Rutledge, ‘Tacitus in Tartan’ (n. 17); Clarke, ‘An Island Nation’ (n.
17); for the connection between geography and warfare see S. Mattern, Rome
and the Enemy. Imperial Strategy in the Principate (Berkeley 1999), 41–66; for
the relationship between imperial texts and geography see Nicolet, Politics (n.
8), 101 where he notes the possible link between Agrippa’s commentarii and his
map.

Page 22 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

(32) See Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 14 for a discussion of Pliny’s encyclopaedia as a
form of legitimate institutional knowledge in this regard; see 20, 22–4, where
Murphy observes that Rome takes centre stage. Also see Carey, Pliny’s
Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 17–40 on Pliny as an encyclopaedia of the world, esp.
21, for Pliny’s work as representing its own universe or ‘totality’, ‘so that along
with the contents of the world, totality itself becomes a subject which must be
catalogued in its entirety’; also see Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n. 7), 5, who
notes that Pliny’s text ‘transforms the world into an inventory of Roman
possessions’; cf. E. Schulz, ‘Notes on the History of Collecting and Museums’,
JHC 2.2 (1990), 205–6; see for a general discussion P. Grimal, ‘Encyclopédies
antiques’, CHM 9 (1965), 459–82; A. Roncoroni, ‘Plinio enciclopedista’, in A.
Roncoroni (ed.), Plinio e la natura (Como 1982), 9–13.

(33) See Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 9, who also notes the use of maps mentioned in
Velleius Paterculus during the campaign against Maroboduus in AD 6.

(34) Also see Cass. Dio 55.8.3–4. See Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n.
26), 137, who believes the map would have been painted. For the connection
between Agrippa’s map and Strabo’s geography, see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 8;
also see 7–9, 95–122 for a detailed discussion; for its place in the Augustan city
see R. Moynihan, ‘Geographic Mythology and Roman Imperial Ideology’, in R.
Winkes (ed.), The Age of Augustus (Interdisciplinary Conference held at Brown
University April 30–May 2, 1982) (Louvain-la-Neuve 1982), 149–62; D. Favro,
The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), 116; see Carey, Pliny’s
Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 64–7 for the influence of Agrippa’s map in Pliny’s
encyclopaedia. For its affirmation of domination see D. Favro, ‘Reading the
Augustan City’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art
(Cambridge 1993), 245. For a bibliography of conjectures concerning this map
see K. Brodersen, ‘Terra Cognita. Studien zur römischen Raumerfassung’,
Spudasmata, 59 (1995), 269–70; also see 275–86 where he suggests not a map
proper but an inscription listing distances. For the portico in general see LTUR
4.151–3.

(35) For further reference to Agrippa’s map (in his discussion of geography) see
4.78, 81, 83, 91, 102, 105, 5.9–10, 65, 102, 6.37, 39, 57, 136–7, 164, 196, 207,
209, all of which usually include distances from one point to the next or the total
miles of a given region—e.g. the length of a coastline or the total circumference
of an island or peninsula or continent (cf. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 1.1). In 6.40
Pliny refers to maps of regions sent home from the front, referring specifically to
those during the campaign in Armenia under Nero.

(36) See Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 47–61 for the discussion of the
use of catalogues on Roman monuments, such as the Res Gestae or Augustus’
victory trophy over the Alpine tribes at La Turbie; for the list in Augustus’ forum

Page 23 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

see K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture. An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton 1996),

203; for the Temple of Minerva in general see LTUR 3.353–4.

(37) See French, Ancient Natural History (n. 15), 209.

(38) Vitruvius 8.2.6; see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 99–100 also citing Granius
Licinianus 10.2; for the Atrium Libertatis see LTUR 1.133–5.

(39) For this passage in its larger context of Roman geography see Nicolet,
Politics (n. 8), 111.

(40) See Servius, In Aeneidem 8.721; cf. Septimius Severus who ordered bronze
images of all subject nations arrayed in their national garb to be carried at
Pertinax’s funeral, Cass. Dio 75.4.5; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18),
217 for discussion. For ‘collecting countries’ see J. Elsner and R. Cardinal (eds.),
The Culture of Collecting (Cambridge Mass. 1994), 2: ‘Empire is a collection of
countries and of populations; a country is a collection of regions and peoples;
each given people is a collection of individuals, divided into governed and
governors—that is, collectables and collectors’. For a discussion of the
representation of provinces in Rome also see M. Jatta, Le rappresmtazione
figurate delle provincie romane (Rome 1908); L. Houghtalin, ‘The Represenation
of the Roman Provinces’, diss. Bryn Mawr College (1993); H. Cancik, ‘Die
“Repraesentation” von “Provinz” (nationes, gentes) in Rom’, in H. Cancik and J.
Rüpke (eds.), Römische Reichsreligion und Provinzialreligion (Tübingen 1997),
129–43; Ferris, Enemies of Rome (n. 28), 59 on the Augustan portico’s similarity
with Aphrodisias’ Sebasteion.

(41) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 36), 207 for discussion; cf. P. Liveriani,
‘“Nationes” e “civitates”, nella propaganda imperiale’, RhM 102 (1995), 219–49;
Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 217–18, who suggests that wood and other
lighter materials are likely candidates for images that had to be carried;
Nasrallah, Christian Response (n. 30), 76–7.

(42) Coponius sculpted the statues, Pliny, HN 36.41. For discussion see Carey,
Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 62–3; Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 32 notes that the
statuary constituted a virtual res gestae; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18),
219 cautions against assuming the statuary programme was based on anything
similar in his triumph in 61 BC.

(43) For discussion see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of
Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge
2003), 65; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 200.

(44) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 199–212 for discussion.

(45) Ibid., 208–12; see 212–14 for the depiction of cities in general.

Page 24 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

(46) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 19), 18.

(47) See Edwards ‘Incorporating the Alien’ (n. 43), 65–6 on Augustus’ programme
and its context.

(48) See p. 242 n. 64 for discussion.

(49) See Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n. 7), 5; Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2),
84–5 where Carey notes that many of the mirabilia in Pliny’s catalogue come
from places most distant from ‘the centre’.

(50) As Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 160–4 notes, the ‘science’ involved little more than
who was the ‘first’, for example, to display exotica. For the distinction between
the types of knowledge spectacles of this sort impart as opposed to the museum
(with its more rational basis) see T. Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History,
Theory, Politics (New York 1995), 3–5.

(51) For aviaries in antiquity, see L. R. Johnson, Aviaries and Aviculture in Ancient
Rome, PhD thesis, University of Maryland, College Park (1968).

(52) For discussion concerning the larger context of Pliny’s narrative on zoology
see Vegetti, ‘Zoologia e antropologia’ (n. 14); L. Bodson, ‘La zoologie romaine
d’après la NH de Pline’, in J. Pigeaud and J. Oroz (eds.), Pline L’Ancien: témoin de
son temps (Salamanca and Nantes 1987), 107–16.

(53) Cf. Florus 1.18.20; Cass. Dio 11.13 (Zonaras).

(54) Compare Augustus’ forum, concerning which Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n.
36), 203 has observed that the variety of marbles imported from throughout the
Empire represents a use of material that in and of itself constitutes a statement
of imperial world dominion.

(55) Cf. Pliny, HN 5.128; see J. Boardman, ‘“Very Like a Whale”—Classical Sea
Monsters’, in A. Farkas (ed.), Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval
World (Mainz 1987), 77 for discussion.

(56) Procopius, De Bello Gothico 5.15.8 alternatively states that the boar’s tusks
were in Beneventum in his day and worth seeing; they reportedly measured
three spans around and formed a crescent.

(57) Pliny, HN 10.5, 7.35; everyone knew, however, that the Claudian phoenix was
a fraud; also see Cass. Dio 58.27.1; Pliny further notes a phoenix’s appearance
under Tiberius (his source was Cornelius Valerianus), as does Tacitus, although
Pliny dates the appearance to AD 36, Tacitus to AD 34 (Ann. 6.28); for Tacitus’
dating of the episode see E. Keitel, ‘The Non-Appearance of the Phoenix at

Page 25 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

Tacitus Annals 6.28’, AJP 120 (1999), 429–42. For reports of natural wonders to
emperors see Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 198–9.

(58) Cf. the Palladium discussed above, pp. 162–5; also see e.g. Roma Quadrata, a
chapel (sacellum) on the Palatine in front of the Temple of Apollo, which served
as a repository for the objects considered of good augury for the state when it
was founded; the sacellum was still extant in AD 204 (CIL 6.32327); see Ov. Tr.
3.1.31–4; Joseph. AJ 29.3.2; Festus 258L; LTUR 4.207–9; see A. Grandazzi, ‘La
Roma quadrata: mythe ou réalité’, MÉFRA 105 (1993), 493–545 for discussion.

(59) Servius, In Aeneidem 2.116, 7.188; Hyginus, Fabulae 261; see C. M. C.

Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia (Cambridge 2007), 41–7
for discussion.

(60) See Livy 1.45.4–5; Val. Max. 7.3.1; Plut. Mor. 264C–D; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 7;
the temple also sported the oldest sundial in Rome; see Censorinus, De Die
Natali 23.6; for the temple see A. Alföldi, Early Rome and the Latins (Ann Arbor
1960), 106–7; A. Momigliano, ‘An interim report on the origins of Rome’, JRS 53
(1963), 95–121; C. Ampolo, ‘L’Artemide di Marsiglia e la Diana dell’Aventino’, PP
25 (1970), 200–10; M. Gras, ‘Le temple de Diane sur l’Aventin’, RÉA 89 (1987),
47–61; see Green, Roman Religion (n. 59), 87–111 for a discussion of the
relationship between Diana of the Aventine and her cult site in Aricia; see in
general LTUR 2.11–13.

(61) For a general study of this subject see R. Garland, The Eye of the Beholder:
Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca 1995).

(62) See Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 109–10; cf. S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An
Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (London 1995), 317, who
notes that the ‘freak’ stands outside so-called ‘normal’ cultural parameters.

(63) See Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 109; for a related discussion see N.
Humphrey, ‘The Illusion of Beauty’, in N. Humphrey (ed.), Consciousness
Regained (Oxford 1984), 121–37; Pearce, On Collecting (n. 62), 317.

(64) Pliny, HN 7.34; see Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 98 for
discussion.

(65) Pliny, HN 7.34; on Alcippe see Garland, Eye of the Beholder (n. 61), 54 citing
Phlegon of Tralles (who may or may not be referring to Pompey’s theatre) and
also citing ‘four pairs of conjoined twins, a boy with the head of a dog, and a
stillborn infant allegedly born to a male homosexual’ (FGrH 257 F36.20, 23, 25).

(66) Pliny, HN 7.74–5; see Barton, Sorrows (n. 9), 86 for Gabbara in his context
among other curiosities, including the dwarf Cinopas and a diminutive liberta
belonging to Augustus’ daughter, Julia.

Page 26 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

(67) Pliny, HN 7.75; see Garland, Eye of the Beholder (n. 61), 54 for discussion; cf.
Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n. 7), 5; see K. J. Hartswick, The Gardens of Sallust:
A Changing Landscape (Austin 2004), 19 and her study in general for the Horti
Sallustiani and its collection.

(68) Pliny, HN 7.75; see Garland, Eye of the Beholder (n. 61), 54 for discussion;
also see Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n. 7), 5.

(69) Pliny, Ep. 2.3.8; the living themselves could further act as commemoratives
of Rome’s past, as was the case, arguably, with the descendants of the orator
Hortensius, whose impoverished family was given financial support from the
imperial purse so that so illustrious a family might not go extinct, see Tac. Ann.
2.37.

(70) Tac.Ann. 15.34; for Vatinius also see Mart. 10.3.4, 14.96.1; Juvenal 5.46–8;
the ‘defect’ was said to be a long nose (Mart. 10.96). For other such characters
see Horace, Sermones 1.5.52 (for Sarmentus), and Juvenal 5.4 (for Gabba at the
court of Augustus); Tac.Ann. 12.49 and Juvenal 4.13–31 (for Paelignus and
Crispinus at the court of Claudius); Claudius’ own infirmities were the butt of
jokes at Caligula’s court (Suet. Calig. 23.2; Suet. Tib. 61). For emperors keeping
company with ‘the monstrous’ see Garland, Eye of the Beholder (n. 61), 45–58.

(71) See R. Chévallier, ‘Le bois, l’arbre et la forêt chez Pline’, in J. Pigeaud and J.
Oroz (eds.), Pline L’Ancien: témoin de son Temps (Salamanca and Nantes 1987),
147–72 for a general discussion of plant life in this context, esp. forests and
trees; see 164–7 for trees of a particularly marvellous sort; for trees in triumphal
displays see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 184–8.

(72) See e.g. the speech of Calgacus in Tac. Agr. 30–2 where he clearly views the
domination and appropriation of resources, both natural and human, as an
inherent aspect of Roman imperialism; see Rutledge, Tacitus in Tartan’ (n. 17),
76–81 for discussion.

(73) See French, Ancient Natural History (n. 15), 207.

(74) Pliny, HN 16.200; for Agrippa’s tree see Pliny, HN 36.201; Cass. Dio 55.8.4;
for discussion see Thomas,Monumentality (n. 14), 215.

(75) Pliny, HN 12.111; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 186–8.

(76) Pliny, HN 12.20, 111, 25.5–8; see A. Kuttner, ‘Culture and History at
Pompey’s Museum’, TAPA 129 (1999), 345–50 for discussion.

(77) There were a number of important sites also associated with both the fig and
laurel in Rome. The ficus Navia was a sacred tree in the Forum with a bronze
statue of Lupa nursing Romulus and Remus nearby and not to be confused with
the ficus Ruminalis, Pliny, HN 15.77; there was also a self-sown fig in the Forum

Page 27 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

associated with the olive and vine, HN 15.78; on the Palatine was a laurel that
according to tradition grew spontaneously the day of Augustus’ birth with the
leaves of which he crowned himself during triumphs, Servius, In Aeneidem
6.230. In addition, there was a massive vine from a single stem that shaded the
Portico of Livia and produced twelve amphorae of wine annually, HN 14.11
(citing Cornelius Valerianus).

(78) Pliny, HN 16.216; cf. p. 67 for Cicero’s long-lived citrus wood table.

(79) See Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 86 for the giant as a paradoxical consuming
force.

(80) See J. Clifford, ‘Objects and Selves—an Afterward’, in G. Stocking (ed.),

Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture, History of
Anthropology, 3 (Madison Wis. 1985), 239, who discusses how objects stand as
metonyms for other cultures. Also see Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 100 for
the world as physically represented in Rome not just by maps, but by the
‘fragments of Rome’s empire’ that were ubiquitous. Cf. B. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett,
‘Objects of Ethnography’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures:
The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington DC 1991), 390: the
specimen, as a fragment (of empire) becomes a document in which identity can
be transfigured and reread.

(81) For this corporeal aspect of the city see E. J. Gowers, ‘The Anatomy of Rome
from Capitol to Cloaca’, JRS 85 (1995), 23–32; cf. Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11),
82–5 for Rome as a body with the Capitoline as its head. For reassurance of
domination see Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 110, who notes ‘On display, the
freak represents the naming of the frontier and the assurance that the
wilderness, the outside, is now territory’; cf. 73 for the giant as ‘a mixed
category; a violator of boundary and rule; an overabundance of the natural and
hence an affront to cultural systems’.

(82) Translation by H. B. Dewing from the Loeb edition.

(83) But equally fitting, as J. Onians, Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and
Rome (New Haven 1999), 235 notes, for the last of the Flavians who oversaw the
completion of the vast amphitheatre whose sole function was as a place to
entertain viewers by hacking the bodies of men and beasts. On the figurative
dismembering and fragmenting of the city in late antiquity and into the Middle
Ages see Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 25–6, 89–95.

(84) For the colossus of Augustus see Mart. 8.44.6–8 who indicates that it was
near the Temple of Mars (aedemque Martis et colosson Augusti curris).

(85) See e.g. Livy 9.44.16 for a giant Hercules erected on the Capitoline after the
victory over the Samnites in 305 BC; Pliny, HN 34.43 for a giant Tuscan style

Page 28 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

statue of Apollo in the library of the Temple of Divus Augustus; Pliny, HN 34.43,
who relates that in 293 BC after Spurius Carvilius conquered the Samnites he
had a statue of Jupiter (on the Capitoline in Pliny’s day still) made from the
breastplates, greaves, and helmets of the enemy; from the left over metal filings
Spurius had a statue of himself made that stood before the image; see Gruen,
Culture and Identity (n. 2), 88. For a brief history of colossal statuary in Rome
and the architectural venues that housed them see now Thomas, Monumentality
(n. 14), 4, 208; cf. 150 where Thomas notes that size was also a reflection of
political power. P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and
Response (Oxford 2003), 152 notes that later Alexander Severus brought ‘artists
from everywhere to erect many colossi in Rome and “suitably adorning” the
Temple of Isis and Serapis with statues’ (see S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 26.4, 25.9, 26.8).

(86) See Pliny, HN 35.51–2. When finished it was in the Gardens of Maius (in
Maianis hortis), though later struck by lightning and burned. See L. R.
Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and
London 1992), 199, who believes that the fact that the portrait and the colossus
were both 120 feet indicates a relationship between the two. For discussion
concerning Nero’s colossus, see P. Howell, ‘The Colossus of Nero’, Athenaeum,
46 (1968), 292–9; C. Lega, ‘Il Colosso di Nerone’, BullCom 93.2 (1989–90), 339–
78; Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 156–76; for its context in Pliny’s
political thought see F. de Oliveira, Les Idées politiques et morales de Pline
l’Ancien (Coimbra 1992), 181; also see R. R. R. Smith, ‘Nero and the Sun-God:
Divine Accessories and Political Symbols in Roman Imperial Images’,JRA 13
(2000), 532–42 (with his review of M. Bergmann, Die Strahlen der Herrscher:
Theomorphes Herrschbild und Politische Symbolik in Hellenismus und der
Römischen Kaiserzeit (Mainz 1998)), esp. 536–7 for discussion of Pliny’s
treatment of the statue. Pliny may well have known the architect of the colossus,
Zenodorus; J. Reynolds, ‘The Elder Pliny and His Times’, in R. French and F.
Greenaway (eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His
Sources and Influence (London 1986), 6–7.

(87) For the giant as a symbolic figure for luxury, overabundance, and
consumption see Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 80–2.

(88) The work was a thanks offering from fourteen Asian cities for earthquake
relief. See CIL 10.1624 = ILS 156, a copy of the colossus’ base in Rome from
Puteoli; also see Tac. Ann. 2.47, 4.13; Pliny, HN 2.200.

(89) Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 70; for general discussion see 70–103.

(90) See n. 14 above. The vast size of Pliny’s work is echoed by his collection of
statistical data; see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 9–16; Purcell, ‘City of Rome’ (n. 6),
423–5; Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 99–100; Carey Pliny’s Catalogue of
Culture (n. 2), 45–7. For the lack of coherence and the enormity of Pliny’s work

Page 29 of 30

 
The Monster and the Map

see Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 34; for Pliny’s own emphasis on its extraordinary length
see the praefatio to book 18 and M. Beagon, ‘Burning the Brambles: Rhetoric
and Ideology in Pliny, Natural History 18 (1–24)’, in D. Innes, H. Hine, and C.
Pelling (eds.), Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his
Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford 1995), 118. A similar thought is found in Livy’s
praefatio when he refers to his undertaking as an immensi operis.

(91) See S. Pothecary, ‘Kolossourgia. “A colossal statue of a work”’, in D. Dueck,

H. Lindsay, and S. Pothecary (eds.), Strabo’s Cultural Geography. The Making of
a Kolossourgia (Cambridge 2005), 5–26, esp. 5 citing Strabo 1.1.23; see Onians,
Classical Art (n. 83), 249–56 for a related discussion.

(92) See Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 100: ‘Pliny describes the world itself as
aeternum, “everlasting”, and immensum, “immeasureable”, qualities he goes on
to attribute to Rome’. Part of this breaking of temporal limits is inherent in the
very nature of the cultural objects gathered in Rome; see Pearce, On Collecting
(n. 62), 170, who notes that ‘The material nature of objects means that they, and
they alone, have the capacity to carry the past physically into the present’. For
the ability of objects, particularly the antique, to suppress time and master the
temporal forces of birth and death see J. Baudrillard, The System of Objects
(London 1996), 76.

Page 30 of 30

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the

Princeps
Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0007

Abstract and Keywords

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

Keywords:   imperial collections, Roman Empire, artefacts, Augustus, Rome

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

Page 1 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

to triumphs there were temporary displays of the spoils in the Circus Flaminius
in the southern Campus Martius.3 The material was then put on permanent
exhibition in a variety of venues, and scholars have noted that individual
porticoes and temples would have constituted museums in their own right.4
Most collections accrued haphazardly over time, with little in the way of any
organizing principles. (p.222) There were on occasion, however, coherent
collections during the republic that were intended to reflect the values and
accomplishments of the triumphator through a nexus of connections among its
objects, such as that in the portico to Pompey’s theatre.5 Such collections and
venues emerged naturally from the self-advertising nature of the Roman
aristocracy.6

Let us consider as an introductory case study the relatively modest example of

M. Fulvius Nobilior, whose collection was a precursor to the more elaborate ones
found during the late republic and principate. After his campaign against
Ambracia (which ended in 187 BC), Fulvius deposited nine statues of the Muses
(by an unknown artist) in the Temple of Hercules Musarum.7 He dedicated the
remaining spoils in the same temple, although a well-known image of Ambracia
capta, carried in the triumph, was displayed at Fulvius’ house.8 Fulvius’
elaborate display stands as an example whereby the value of the individual
objects construct in their totality a web of significance by virtue of their
individual components, thereby creating a new set of values as a whole. Fulvius
also transferred a small shrine of the Camenae (the native Italic version of the
Muses), originally placed (according to tradition) by Numa in the Temple of
Honos et Virtus, to the Temple of Hercules Musarum (see map 7.3), which was
also the location of Rome’s collegium poetarum, putting, as Gruen notes, ‘the
fruits of war in the service of the advancement of culture’.9 It was in this small
shrine that he (p.223) deposited his fasti, while his res gestae, famously
immortalized by Ennius, were also dedicated in the temple.10 Taken in its sum
the collection stands as an instance where the Muses as guardians of culture
and memory work to render the ultimate expression of power, the
institutionalized violence of warfare celebrated in song, as something aesthetic,
even desirable. And as something desirable, culture in a sense here becomes
enmeshed in a web of violence, desire, and appropriation. War, triumph, epic
(even Herculean) struggle, the loot of a conquered people, its celebration in epic
poetry, and the literal enshrining of such values weave together a narrative that
expressed the aspirations and values of a fiercely aggressive elite.

As the city entered the imperial period, the tendency towards coherent,
programmatic collections becomes more apparent. Collections became less a
product of the aggregate historical and cultural dynamics of the city-state,
certainly less a product of political competition among the elite, and more a
reflection of the individual ruling family and its interests. The reflection of
Roman identity and history through the display of cultural property was
narrowed down from a series of ruling families to a single household. Certain
Page 2 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

dynamics naturally remained in place, including the concern to legitimate

authority and to construct a visual narrative that would serve the elite’s
interests and ideologies through the strategic deployment of cultural property;
only such deployment now intensified as the venues became more grandiose and
the visual programmes arguably more focused, expressing the values of a single
dynasty or princeps.

The shift can perhaps be best illustrated by a brief consideration of Asinius

Pollio’s collection in the Atrium Libertatis, created under Augustus. Certainly
Pollio’s collection was by all accounts splendid and conferred a great deal of
prestige on him.11 The building was prominently situated and functioned not
only as an art collection, but Rome’s first library as well.12 Pliny gives a list of
the large collection of sculpture (in marble) housed in the building (HN 36.33–5),
which included a group of centaurs with nymphs on their backs by Arcesilaus
(cf. HN 35.155); a group of Thespiades by Cleomenes; figures of Oceanus and
Zeus (p.224) by Heniochis; the nymphs of Appia by Stephanus; hermoerotes
(Eros figures as Hermes) by Tauriscus of Tralles; a Zeus Hospitalis by Papylus, a
pupil of Praxiteles; and Zethus and Amphion with Dirce and the bull carved out
of one block, the joint work of Apollonius and Tauriscus and brought from
Rhodes (see fig. 7.1). Also in Asinius’ collection was a Dionysus by Eutychides.
Praxiteles’ was represented by several works as well, including Maenads,
caryatids, an Apollo, a Neptune, and Sileni, while his son, Cephisodotus, was
represented by a Venus. The collection also included figures by Scopas taken
from a sculpture group that originally had included Vesta. Pliny (HN 35.9–10)
also alludes to a series of bronze portraits in the library associated with the
collection.

Yet it does not have the same significance as the imperial collections we find, or
for that matter, as the previous ones from the republic, since it appears the
collection was created based on purely aesthetic considerations. The time of the
republican grandee who competed for power, as Asinius knew well, had
vanished. He had no stake to play in a political environment that was no longer
as competitive as it once had been, nor did he have any agenda to promote. If
anything, Asinius’ collection will have been absorbed into Augustus’ attraction
towards Hellenic culture and his use of it in the context of visual display within
the city. That does not preclude the possibility of other readings, it is merely to
note that the power to use the city as a means towards visual self-promotion was
now to be in the control of the princeps, to serve his purposes as a place to
legitimize his power and consolidate his authority.13 While the collection
consisted of numerous ‘prestige objects’, and constituted a display of Pollio’s
beneficence (and was recognized as such), it also needs to be understood in the
context of Augustus’ encouragement of other similar projects, such as the
Temple of Apollo Sosianus or the Theatre of Balbus, an encouragement that in
and of itself is tell-tale of the emperor’s potentia.14

Page 3 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(p.225)

(p.226) As noted elsewhere in

our study (see p. 16 with n. 30),
individual cultural objects are
tantamount to utterances, their
collective narrative legible as text,
and this leaves open the question
of reader response. What we will
consider here is an array of
possible readings, some that
attempt to reconstruct ‘authorial
intent’, but others that offer
variant interpretations based on
the nexus of associations objects
in a given collection, or even
series of collections, could create.
Such readings, it should be noted,
were frequently dynamic: a new
turn in current events or a simple
change in an object’s context
could alter radically the
hermeneutic potential within a set
of cultural artefacts. While this
was already true in the republican
period, it is more readily traceable
during the principate, in part Fig. 7.1 The Farnese Bull, depicting the
because our portraits of imperial punishment of Dirce, was executed by
lives are more detailed, as is the Apollonius and Tauriscus of Tralles, two
historical narrative of the period. Hellenistic sculptors, and originally made
It may also be significant that up a part of Asinius Pollio’s collection in
we hear little of large the Atrium Libertatis. Possibly a Severan
collections (Pompey’s excepted) copy from the Baths of Caracalla, Rome.
until the advent of the H: 3.7 m. Museo Archeologico Nazionale,
principate. It is perhaps no Naples.
coincidence, therefore, that
Pliny the Elder dates the
recognition of the importance of public art exhibits to the foundation of the
Augustan principate, although Pliny’s assessment may well be skewed simply by
the numerous programmatic displays assembled under Augustus and successive
emperors. Pliny further notes that M. Agrippa advanced the public importance of
art and cites a speech Agrippa gave on the question of making art state property
rather than having it hidden away in private estates.15 However Pliny also
asserts that it was Caesar especially who imparted public authority (auctoritas)
to painting by dedicating pictures of Medea (see fig. 3.8) and Ajax in front of the
Temple of Venus Genetrix in his forum (HN 35.26). We therefore take our cue

Page 4 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

from Pliny by starting our discussion with Caesar, who represents a historical
transition from republican war-lord to imperial princeps.

Reading Caesar: Love and War, Gods and Empire

Caesar stands first in the line of emperors whose public collection receives
(relatively) extensive notice in our sources. The collection, such as it was, was
gathered in conjunction with the construction of his forum which included a
modest group of fine artefacts in its Temple of Venus Genetrix, something that
was to become a trend as emperors dedicated their fora and adorned them with
works of art (see map 7.1 with the model, fig. 7.2).16 Augustus (who finished it)
(p.227)

and Tiberius made subsequent

additions to Caesar’s forum.
Caesar vowed the temple on the
eve of the battle of Pharsalus to
Venus Victrix but subsequently
changed her appellation.17 He
commissioned the temple’s cult
statue from the Greek sculptor,
Arcesilaus (Pliny, HN 35.156), but
there were numerous other
artefacts that adorned the Map 7.1 Plan of Imperial Fora in the mid-
temple.18 The collection wove a second century AD.
narrative of empire, a central
nodal point of which was the
intersection of Caesar’s lineage, his own personality, and his place in Rome’s pantheon
of conquerors.
(p.228)

One of the best known of the

cultural artefacts to adorn the
temple, in addition to Arcesilaus’
statue, was a corselet of pearls
from Britain; similarly, pearl
earrings said to be Cleopatra’s
were set in her gold statue inside
the temple.19 The two artefacts
were closely connected. The
pearls, symbols of wealth, love,
and of the sea (ergo appropriate to
Venus who was born from it)
arguably connect the extent of Fig. 7.2 A reproduction of the Imperial
Caesar’s conquest, both in Fora as it appeared in the middle of the
geographic terms (from the pearls second century AD. From the lower right
of Britain to those of Egypt) and following to the left is Trajan’s forum, the
sexual terms (epitomized again by Forum of Augustus (itself appended to
Cleopatra).20 We note that sexual the Forum of Julius Caesar in the middle

Page 5 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

power is a force that was connected with earthly domination (p.229) throughout the
literary record in authors such as Vergil and Catullus, where geographic conquest and
domination is literally measured by and associated with sexual conquest.21 The
symbolic value of such an association may have been reinforced by a collection of gems
Caesar also dedicated in his temple (Pliny, HN 37.11), since jewellery was often
associated with the realm of the feminine (in this context, with Venus and Cleopatra
again). Caesar’s choice of precious gems for dedication also supports his reputation in
the literary record as a fastidious man who was excessively fond of clothes, liked to
dress in finery, and was something of a dandy.22 The close association of the feminine
aspects of the programme, taken in conjunction with his own personality and this
particular dedication, further constitutes an apt reflection of Caesar’s occasionally
ambiguous sexuality (underscored by his affair with Nicomedes, the King of Bithynia,
Suet. Iul. 49). In addition, both the statue (of Cleopatra) and the cuirass (of pearls)
serve as an intersection between love and war, reminiscent of the conquest of Egypt
and his invasion of Britain, but also of Caesar’s romantic adventurism. The objects
measure and express the extent of imperial and erotic conquest, and arguably beyond,
since Cleopatra’s statue was cast in gold, a material saved almost exclusively, up until
this period, for divinities (see fig. 5.9).23
Caesar’s conquest, then, is not of the illustration), the Forum
merely on a physical (both Transitorium (started by Domitian though
sexual and military) scale, but sometimes called the Forum of Nerva),
rather is raised to a far higher and Vespasian’s Forum of Peace. Museo
plane, one that is on a quasi-if della Civiltà Romana, Rome.
not actually divine level, adding
another dimension to his
relationship with Venus Genetrix, who, after all, was not always merely the
goddess of love. She was also associated, as we find in Lucretius (1.1–27 who
calls her Aeneadum genetrix, ‘creator of Aeneas’ clan’, in the very first line),
with a power over the earth that is near complete.24 Her domination both in
Lucretius’ poem and in Caesar’s temple to her reflects Caesar’s own dominion as
well, since her epithet ‘Genetrix’ connects Caesar to Venus both ancestrally, and
in her capacity as earth’s regent. Her imperiousness is mirrored in Caesar’s
bronze statue on the Capitoline which had the globe at its feet (possibly similar
to that shown in fig. 6.1) with the (p.230) inscription added that he was a
demigod.25 His vast dominion that encompasses the world arguably corresponds
to his ancient lineage, indeed, his ancient birthright, which stretched all the way
back to Venus, a lineage that encompassed the bounds of both divine and human
history.

Caesar’s forum made two important qualities we associate with the man—lover
and conqueror—indivisible. The connection was made explicit and complete
when Augustus later constructed his own forum, with its temple of Mars, in
conjunction with Caesar’s: it served as a symbolic ‘wedding’ between Rome’s
mother and father, between the elements of love and strife, between
regeneration and warfare, and obliquely referred to the role of both as Rome’s
new ‘founders’.26 The two seemingly opposite elements are in fact inseparable

Page 6 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

here because of the occasion on which Venus’ temple was vowed, on the eve of
Pompey’s defeat at Pharsalus (hence a martial context). That, too, may well
explain why we have here not a temple to Victrix but Genetrix, astutely avoiding
use of Pompey’s Venus at the same time reflective and reminiscent of the
vanquished, since the temple was a product of Caesar’s further conquest.

The association with Venus Genetrix was further reinforced by Caesar’s

equestrian statue that stood in front of the temple. It was apparently remarkable
because Caesar’s horse had unusual hooves on its front legs giving them the
appearance of human feet. It was originally an equestrian statue of Alexander
mounted on Bucephalus and was subsequently altered, with Caesar’s head
replacing Alexander’s, with the horse’s hooves also modified to reflect the
unusual feature.27 The statue was associated not just with Alexander but also
executed by his favourite sculptor, Lysippus, and will have emphasized Caesar’s
role as conqueror and connected him with antiquity’s greatest general.28 Equally
telling for our purposes is the statue’s location: his forum was set up in the same
manner (p.231) as any number of sacred precincts throughout the Greek East,
with a temple set in the back of a large sacred enclosure. It is perhaps to state
the obvious that his forum, set parallel to the new Curia but at the same time
dwarfing it, was intended as a political statement nullifying the old order
represented by the republican senate. To set his statue in the middle of such a
precinct, prominently in front of a temple, and then to advertise divine lineage,
underscored with the epithet Genetrix, was without precedent in the city and
emphasized Caesar’s claim to supreme auctoritas and potentia.

In addition, Caesar adorned the front of his temple with two famous paintings by
Timomachus, his Ajax and Medea (see fig. 3.8).29 According to our sources,
Caesar chose the paintings himself, though it is uncertain when they were added
to the forum. As was the case for any Roman of his class, they naturally will have
reflected his taste for Greek art, however, they could not have helped but to
offer possible readings that will have served as commentary on more current
events. Consider the Ajax, which depicted his madness (which ended in suicide).
The Romans were familiar with the tale and, more than likely, the Sophoclean
model on which it will have been based.30 After 46 BC, it will have been
impossible for contemporary viewers to look at the work without the death of
Cato coming to mind, Caesar’s great enemy, who chose suicide rather than
surrendering to his nemesis.31

Yet how the audience will have understood that event is not easy to ascertain,
though a variety of possibilities presented themselves to the viewer. A ‘pro-
Caesarian’ reading could understand the picture as depicting, metaphorically,
the blind madness on the part of his enemies—a madness that, like Sophocles’
hero, served only to bring disgrace upon Caesar’s opponents. A more ambiguous
reading would perhaps be more sympathetic towards Cato, who held his honour
at too high a price to live among men he considered morally duplicitous.32 A

Page 7 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

resistant and subversive reading, or a reading that reaffirmed Caesar’s actions?

33
Either is possible, though the potential for variant readings are especially
enticing in this instance, given the destabilized political environment Rome was
(p.232) experiencing at this period, when relations in power between
strongmen and the senate were both tense and fluid.

The subject of Medea obviously offered the viewer more than one interpretation
beyond the simple plot of the story.34 The painting represented Medea
contemplating the murder of her children, and the work was unfinished (and for
that reason admired all the more).35 The very subject could not have helped but
to evoke associations with the statue of Cleopatra within: Cleopatra
overwhelmed and charmed both Caesar and Marc Antony; indeed, by repute she
was the quintessential bewitching, exotic easterner, like her mythological
counterpart from Colchis. Taken as a collective triad Venus, Cleopatra, and
Medea formed a group in the archetypal realm of the feminine: Venus as love
goddess/mother, Cleopatra as queen/consort, and Medea as beguiling witch.
They encompassed and reigned in the realm of heaven, of earth, and mediated in
between, reflecting the extent of Caesar’s own reach, ultimately, as conqueror,
high priest, king, and demigod.36 One can imagine that Caesar would have been
delighted to have left behind such a memory. His detractors, though, will have
doubtless read all of this somewhat differently: in Venus one saw too Caesar’s
effeminacy, and in Cleopatra and Medea his weak surrender to amorous
appetites and ‘feminine wiles’. The Medea presents the ambiguous and
disturbing reading, too, of mother and murderess, a reflection of Caesar as Pater
Patriae, but also as the murderer of the republican patria of which he was
parent.37

The reading of other ‘Caesarian’ artefacts we find is no more stable, since they
offer the potential for resistant readings even as they attempt to establish an
official discourse. In the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, for example, Caesar’s
sella curulis (‘seat of consular honour’) and crown (possibly that famously
refused at the Lupercalia) were on display for all to see (fig. 7.4).38 Ostensibly
these objects projected Caesar’s power and his forbearance, although such
symbols are potentially ambiguous and allow for various interpretations: do
these tokens of royal power advertise Caesar’s refusal to become king? Do they
advertise his potential to have seized supreme power? Or perhaps it advertised a
power he in fact already (p.233)

Page 8 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

had, allowing him therefore to

dispose of its outward signifiers as
he saw fit? Or was the viewer
brought to mind of all three
simultaneously? Caesar himself
may have wanted the viewer to be
left in doubt.
What served ultimately to
clarify Caesar’s grandiose place
in commemorative terms were
honours such as the senatorial
decree granting Caesar the
right to locate his tomb inside
the pomerium. Before Caesar,
Romulus and an apocryphal
handful of others (such as
Orestes, see p. 211) were Fig. 7.3 A laurel wreath rests on a sella
known to have a tomb within curulis, a setting and context that was
the city’s sacred boundary. The similar for the crown that Caesar
decree was inscribed in gold famously refused at the Lupercalia then
letters, supposedly on a silver dedicated on the Capitoline. The legend
tablet, and placed at the feet of inscribed on the chair reads CAESAR DIC
the statue of Jupiter PER (‘Caesar, dictator in perpetuity’).
Capitolinus.39 Both the location Reverse of a silver denarius. The British
of the inscription and the Museum, London.
precious material used were
clear indicators of Caesar’s
special status, if not actual divinity. The decree ultimately came to fruition in the
form of the Temple of Divus Julius, dedicated where he was cremated, and built
by his heir and successor Octavian.40 That Caesar was granted this post-mortem
honour will have served to associate him as well with Rome’s founder, Romulus,
who was granted similar honours.41 (p.234) Although Romulus is associated
more closely with Augustus, it was nonetheless an apt if dubious honour for
Caesar, who wore the ancient dress of the kings and was rumoured to have regal
aspirations.42

Caesar’s association with Venus was subsequently picked up and ‘echoed’ as it

were by Augustus, when he adorned the Temple of Divus Julius with Apelles’
famous painting, the Venus Anadyomenē.43 The choice of the painting will have
been appropriate for two important reasons. First, the subject was suited to the
familial descent of the Julian clan from Venus. It both looks back to Caesar’s
divine parentage and Augustus’ own and as such helps to legitimize Augustus’
rule and authority, further solidifying the visual claim made in Caesar’s forum.44
That it was Venus Anadyomenē means that it depicted the birth of Venus, a
theme that looks to beginnings and origins, that is, to Venus Genetrix (in her

Page 9 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

capacity as ‘mother’), while the motif of birth also ties Augustus to both Caesar
and Venus qua Genetrix as he ushers in the birth of a new age and further
advertises his ties to his adoptive father.45

In addition, Apelles, as was the case with Lysippus, was associated with
Alexander; he was reportedly the only painter allowed to execute Alexander’s
portrait, and was certainly the biggest ‘name’ in the world of ancient painting.
Conveniently, Apelles was one of Augustus’ favourite artists. While that certainly
motivated his choice, the fact remains that Caesar’s ancestry, and by implication
Caesar himself, was to be commemorated by the same artist, and by tradition
the only artist aside from Lysippus permitted to portray Alexander. It is perhaps
no accident in this regard that Alexander’s favourite sculptor originally executed
the equestrian statue in Caesar’s forum. The overall effect of these associations
is to destabilize if not collapse the boundaries between Greek and Roman,
between past and present, and in so doing to colonize all with a Caesarian
identity and message of power.

(p.235) As we shall see below, the importance of the association with

Alexander and conquest in general was not lost on Caesar’s successor. Augustus
was to pick up the Caesarian threads that wove the intricate web of connections
between empire, the divine, and history, and to make them his own. It was
perhaps with this in mind that Augustus adorned the rostrum on the front of the
Temple of Divus Julius with the bronze beaks of ships taken from the battle at
Actium (Cass. Dio 51.19.2). Far different from his predecessor’s dubious
embracing of the Egyptian enchantress, the rams are a statement of refutation
of the queen’s charms; her weapons of domination are literally turned against
her, and set in their proper sphere as masculine trophies with little possibility
for ambiguous reading. Augustus has conquered the queen, but also conquered
the sea from which Venus emerged, as though to further establish both his
earthly and divine imperium.

Augustus, Violence, and Culture

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

Page 10 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

conjunction with the fabric of Greek culture, creating a unique form of Augustan
classicism and identity.

The mark Augustus left on the city has proven an irresistible subject for
numerous scholars, most notably Zanker, Galinsky, Favro, and Jaeger.47 There
(p.236)

can be no doubt that Augustus’

presence was ubiquitous
throughout the city in the form of
monuments and cultural objects,
from the Campus Martius to the
Palatine, from the Capitoline to
the new Temple of Mars Ultor. To
cite but one example, no senator
could sit in the new Curia under
Augustus without viewing the
numerous paintings he dedicated
in that chamber, paintings that
will have augmented the
auctoritas of the new princeps as
prestige objects in their own (p.
237) right.48 We focus here on
the three most significant
collections, those on the Palatine,
in Augustus’ forum, and in the Map 7.2 Map of Rome under Augustus.
49
Portico of Octavia.
All three collections naturally
reflected the complex personality of Rome’s first princeps, and have received
extensive treatment by a variety of scholars in their larger context within the
‘Augustan programme’. We give here a somewhat different reading of the
Augustan city: it has long been observed that Augustan order is based on a
visual rhetoric that holds out simultaneously the promise of a new stability and
the spread of romanitas even as its own imperial growth and contact with
external forces threaten its demise. Similarly, the collections also underscore
Augustus’ legitimacy and authority, even as they hold out a potentially resistant
reading. Our concern here is a reading of the interplay specifically of the objects
both among one another, and within their given contexts as collections, in order
to understand Augustus’ motives in the display of such objects, and their
(potential) meaning for the viewer. In addition, we here examine where Augustus
fits overall in his larger historical context as an emperor who exhibits culturally
significant material on a grand scale.

The Palatine Collection

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

Page 11 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

victory at Actium and, in a notorious costumed feast held during a famine in

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

adorned with a work by the

sculptor Lysias, a team of four
horses, Apollo, and Artemis, all
carved out of a single marble
block.57
The composition and
significance of the complex has
received extensive treatment by
numerous scholars. It has long
since been observed that
Artemis and Apollo are
prominent together in this
particular collection to Fig. 7.4 Plan of the House of Augustus
emphasize an ideology of and the Temple of Apollo Palatinus. On
vengeance.58 The theme was the right is the Temple of Apollo; on the
repeated in the Portico of the center bottom is the House of Augustus
Danaids, (who, as noted, paid while the center top is the House of Livia,
Page 12 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

with their lives for their his wife; on the left is the Temple of the
treachery against the sons of Magna Mater.
Aegyptus, itself significant
given Augustus’ campaign
against Cleopatra), and on the subjects carved on the doors.59 The doors also
depicted the Gauls being (p.240)

struck down at Delphi in revenge

for their attempted sack of
Apollo’s sacred site and the story
of Niobe’s children slain by
Artemis and Apollo for their
mother’s boasting that she was
more fortunate than Leto in her
children.60 Both stories contained
the lesson of divine retribution, a
theme that was to be directly (p.
241)

Fig. 7.5 These herms depicting the

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

Page 13 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

mirrored in the Temple of Mars

Ultor. But, vengeance is only one
part of the story.
The complex and its objects,
taken collectively, further
realize the prophecy of
promised Trojan vengeance
against Greece. Greek cultural
artefacts have been displaced
and given a new, distinctly
Roman context and significance
here. While the various images
still stand as objects of cult
veneration in their own right,
they now also are overseers of
historical circumstances that
have seen Roman history to its
teleological conclusion with
Augustus who will usher in a
novus ordo saeculorum. This is
embodied in the subjects of the
Fig. 7.6 The Sorrento Base depicting the
Danaids and the Gauls
Palatine triad of Diana/Artemis (centre),
represented in the portico and
Apollo (left), and Latona (right), with the
on the doors. The Danaids in
Sibyl at Latona’s feet; the Diana was the
their capacity as the
work of Timotheus, while the cult statue
murderesses of the sons of
of Apollo was by Scopas and the Latona
Aegyptus, as Galinsky notes,
by Cephisodotus. H: 1.17 m. Museo
will have brought up close
Correale, Sorrento.
associations with Cleopatra and
her attempt to wrest away the
eastern empire, while the Gauls are now at last tamed by the hand of Caesar.
Neither are any longer a threat, the danger has been safely contained, shaped,
reworked, and given a controlled narrative. At the same time, their liminal
nature as things (p.242) that stand on the margins of civilization, that are a
part of that civilization’s outer boundaries and the periphery is reinforced by the
location of these subjects on the temple doors which literally stand on the limen
or threshold and, for the Danaids, in their intercolumniation within the portico
(which forms part of the boundary of the precinct).61 The forces of chaos and
barbarism stand outside or on the edge of a divinely governed human culture
even as they are brought within its embrace.

The terracotta plaques that also adorned the precinct will have driven home the
point. One of them in particular, which shows Apollo competing with Hercules
over a tripod (fig. 7.7), is especially telling. Antony not only associated himself
with Bacchus, but with Hercules as well.62 The conflict between Antony and
Page 14 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

Octavian was to take on divine dimensions. Here too for Augustus, it was a
matter of barbarism versus the forces of civilization, since he famously remarked
that Antony had ‘gone native’, lamenting according to Cassius Dio (50.25.3) that
he no longer dressed as a Roman but wore the vestments of barbarians and was
in thrall to a prostitute. Augustus portrays himself as the embodiment of
civilization, while his rival Antony stands as its opponent, and the works here fit
in the context of the visually competitive environment that we also see during
the republic.

As noted, set above all were two chariot groups. On the temple itself there was
that of the sun, which was not merely a symbol of Apollo, but also, as Galinsky
notes, of the Hellenistic kings, while the Latins in fact traced their descent back
to Sol.63 On the propylea, the group of Apollo and Artemis impended over this
Augustan world. Both groups stood as a reaffirmation of the divine and cosmic
order, and their protection against barbarism. At the same time, however, such
reaffirmation rests on the need for something to be contained, of a latent
menace.64 The result is a destabilized reading that perpetuates the need for a
powerful centralized control, a form of rhetoric—here expressed in visual terms
—that reasserts the need for strength even as it creates a sense of instability,
(p.243)

constituting a rhetorical trope that

has long since been recognized as
a relatively common one in
western societies by cultural
theorists.65 A given narrative,
whether textual or visual, can be
presented to reassure even as it
holds out the possibility of danger
and threats. It reflects the larger
reality, in this sense, of the (p.
244) Augustan policy of
expansion and consolidation,
whereby the frontier was a place
of constant menace, because its
boundaries were either being
expanded or consolidated
throughout his tenure, while
concurrently the extended
presence of romanitas was
securely established throughout
much of the Mediterranean world Fig. 7.7 A painted terracotta relief from
and beyond. Such rhetoric finds the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine
expression in the place of the depicts Apollo and Hercules battling over
Danaids and Gauls on the edges the Delphic tripod, reflecting Augustus’
and outer boundaries of the civilizing battle (qua Apollo) against Marc
precinct. On the Palatine this

Page 15 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

intentional destabilization and simultaneous reassurance visually expressed a key

component of Augustan policy.
Such a reading finds support in Antony’s brute violence and force. H: .62
a similar programme in the m. Antiquarium del Palatino, Rome.
Temple of Apollo Medicus, later
Apollo Sosianus, located next to
the Portico of Octavia (see map 7.3). Originally built in 433/2 BC and often
thought to have been restored by C. Sosius between 34 and 32 BC, it was in fact
restored by Augustus.66 Pliny the Elder tells us that the temple contained a
number of important artworks, citing in particular a group of Niobids some said
were by Scopas, others by Praxiteles (HN 36.28).67 In addition, the temple
contained a marble statue of Apollo by Philiscus of Rhodes, with a Leto, Artemis,
and the nine Muses, a nude Apollo, and an Apollo with cithara in marble by
Timarchides (Pliny, HN 36.34–5). There was, as well, an Apollo in cedar-wood
from Seleucia (brought presumably by Sosius, Pliny, HN 13.53). We have little
idea how the material was arranged, but taken as a whole, the group was
reflective of Augustus’ interest both in Greek culture and in the special emphasis
he placed on Apollo, similar to what we find on the Palatine. Moreover, it is
worth noting that the pediment’s sculpture on this temple, much of which is still
extant, was Greek original.

In this instance, given the structure’s restoration date of 32 BC, it seems very
likely that Augustus’ emphasis on Apollo was intended to offset Antony’s close
identification with Bacchus, a scenario all the more likely when we consider the
relative absence of Bacchus in Augustan collections, and for that matter artistic
programmes in general. Favro has pointed out too that Sosius was initially
Antony’s ally and that the temple had been intended to set forth a competing
claim of victory, hence prestige. Sosius had earned a triumph for his war against
the Jews (celebrated in September of 34 BC after he installed Herod in power in
37), and was renovating the building next to the Portico of Octavia. The agonistic
motivation behind Sosius’ renovations could not be clearer, though in the end
(p.245)

Page 16 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

the building was integrated into

the Augustan programme.68 As
was the case with the Palatine
collection (and that of the Portico
of Octavia), we are confronted
again with the stark juxtaposition
of violence and civilization. Apollo
is here displayed (as he was on the
Palatine) as the citharode,
reflective of his role as a bringer
of order and culture, but he is also
represented as Apollo the slayer of
Niobe’s children, as one capable
of violent punishment, something
starkly illustrated by a statue of a
Niobid from the Horti Sallustiani
that may have at one (p.246)
time adorned the temple (fig.
7.8).69 The two roles are
encapsulated in the small painting
of a seated Apollo with his lyre,
Map 7.3 Map of the Campus Martius in
set against a blue backdrop, from
the third century AD.
his precinct on the Palatine (fig.
7.9): here as is often the case in
sculpture too, there is no muscular
god, but a slightly flabby, sensuous deity, a lover of peace and culture; yet peaking up
behind the god is the cap on his quiver of arrows, bearers of retribution and death. The
two roles create a dynamic tension between Apollo the creator, the artist, the force for
order and civilization, versus Apollo the destroyer, bringer of plague and sexual
predator, killer of Niobe’s children, and conquering deity of Actium. It is further worth
noting here also that, as was the case with Apollo Palatinus, battle scenes with the
Gauls were set on the temple’s external periphery, constituting a frieze course on
which Romans make war against their ancient foe (fig. 7.10), while on the temple’s
interior were scenes of triumph (see fig. 4.1); only after the Gauls had been subdued
was it deemed safe to bring them into the interior and, metaphorically, within both
Apollo’s sphere of culture and the confines of Roman power. The temple thereby
raises, as do similar compositions in the collections on the Palatine, the possibility of a
destabilized reading without closure, where order coexists uneasily with the potential
for a recrudescence of force. Hence, the possibility for violence creates the need for
order, but order requires in turn violence or the potential for violence, perpetuating
the need for Augustus’ domination.70
The Temple of Apollo Sosianus then, while ostensibly constructed with Augustus
blessings, creates a dynamic tension between the constructive and destructive
forces embodied by Augustus. It supports the regime—its civilizing force—even
as it holds out the possibility of destruction. Such tension has been noted by
Galinsky (see above n. 64), as well as a number of art historians who remark the
potential for chaos and disorder even in the context of peace, abundance, and
civilizing forces (embodied on, say, the Ara Pacis) throughout visual culture in

Page 17 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

the Augustan age. The temple’s collection thereby creates an alternate history,
in which a resistant reading is possible: Apollo may be the healer—Medicus—as
was (in a sense) Augustus; but he also brings destruction and death, something
Niobe’s tale grimly illustrates.

It must be emphasized, however, that that destruction itself was potentially

creative, a precursor to a new order and the spread of culture within it. This is
something we see very much at work in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine,
and elsewhere in Augustan collections, in which cultural objects reflect the new
cosmic and historical reality. In the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine (and in the
(p.247)

Page 18 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(p.248)

Fig. 7.8 A Niobid from the Horti

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

Page 19 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

famous library associated with it),

that reality was realized in the
grand pastiche of artistic styles
that spanned a period ranging
from the archaic (one thinks of the
terracotta plaques, themselves an
admixture of the archaic and the
classical) to the contemporary. We
note that the preference for the
first of these (the archaic) was in
keeping with the tendency of
Augustus’ day, and reflective of
Augustus’ own much advertised
pietas, in part because this
antique style was believed to Fig. 7.9 A fragment of a fresco from the
express a greater sense of Temple of Apollo Palatinus shows a
reverence for the gods (in this placid, slightly flabby Apollo sporting his
regard, see fig. 7.19 below).71 It lyre, which is qualified by the appearance
was (p.249)
of his quiver behind his back, indicating
his potential for violence under a
peaceful facade. Fragment of a fresco
from the Temple of Apollo Palatinus. H: .
56 m. W: .69 m. Antiquarium del Palatino,
Rome.

Page 20 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

with their assistance, Apollo’s

above all, that Augustus tamed
and conquered the world. His
achievements mark the ushering
in of a new era, one in which he
encompasses a vast cultural
universe that reflects Rome’s own
encompassing of the oikoumenē as
most vividly expressed, perhaps,
in Agrippa’s map (fig. 6.6). That
universe is further represented
(and ordered) in cosmic terms by
Apollo whose sign was the sun,
and Artemis whose sign was the
Fig. 7.10 Gauls and Romans in battle.
moon; and their spheres could be
The fragment of a frieze from the exterior
further divided into Apollo as the
representative of culture, of the of the Temple of Apollo Sosianus picks up
male, of the sexually charged on that of the interior (see fig. 4.1) which
youth, set against Artemis who shows Romans successfully triumphing
symbolized chastity, the feminine, over their defeated foe. H: .85 m.
and the wild.72 The diverse span of Centrale Montemartini, Rome.
their respective universal spheres
further reflects the cosmic order
itself, an order to which, as Kellum notes in her (p.250) discussion of the Temple of
Concordia’s collection, the ancients were quite sensitive (see p. 267).73
That cosmos as it is represented, however, is a distinctly Augustan creation, and
embraces a historical and cultural universe reflective of Augustus’ own power
and programme. As he stretched the boundaries of empire, he also facilitated
the spread of romanitas and Hellenism whose unique blend was to span the
world. The forces of rationality and civilization, of order and culture, create a
novel invention ultimately embodied in Augustus’ patron deity Apollo qua
citharode, something on which Augustus put special emphasis in the visual
record (see e.g. fig. 7.9), whose identity as both a Greek and Roman deity, and
giver of culture Augustus shared.74 He stands, in his capacity as Augustus’
divine patron, as a reassuring presence that divine power and human effort can
ultimately tame and subdue the forces of chaos and nature, a reassurance
underscored by other objects in the collection: hence the sun drives the horses,
Myron’s four powerful bulls wait ready at the altar, an ultimate destination of
sacrifice in service to men and gods, while Artemis’ presence arguably
represents a powerful force over nature. The assurance that the divine
ultimately acts justly and on behalf of order is expressed by the visual
representations covering the themes of retribution within the temple precinct,
harsh though these may be. Such power reinforced the earthly force of the
princeps, represented by the display of Alexander’s lamp stand, itself originally a
votive to Apollo of Cyme, now in its new home, a symbolic flame that could both

Page 21 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

burn and enlighten, and would ensure the continued spread of romanitas and of
Hellenism.75

The Forum of Augustus

Augustus’ forum, as is the case with Apollo’s temple on the Palatine, has
received extensive scholarly analysis, much of which concerns itself with its
structure and appearance, which was, as a number of scholars have noted,
organically connected with its content.76 Only a brief visual orientation and
contextualization (p.251) of its structure are necessary here before turning to
the nature of the collection itself. The elongated forum, with a hemi-cycle on
each side and its temple in the back was lined with galleries on two levels (see
fig. 7.11 with fig. 7.12). The lower galleries contained niches in its portico
adorned with bronze statuary of Rome’s great historical figures, the so-called
summi viri, while on the right hand side of the temple, in one of the hemi-cycles,
stood the notables of the gens Julia, (including Aeneas, Anchises, and Iulus) and
the kings of Alba Longa. To the left was Romulus with the spolia opima, possibly
with the rest of the kings of Rome.77

The upper storey, consisting of open galleries, were supported by caryatids and
alternated with shields carrying the heads of divinities (such as the still
surviving Zeus Ammon, see fig. 7.13). Set at the back was the Temple of Mars
Ultor (‘the avenger’) vowed on the eve of the battle of Philippi in 42 BC, where
the two leading conspirators against Caesar, M. Brutus and C. Cassius, perished.
Three cult statues stood in the temple: Mars flanked by Venus and Caesar,
known from a relief in Algiers (fig. 7.14).78 The construction material used to
build both the temple and forum was as rich and ambitious as the programme of
sculpture or the collection itself, and equally significant. Galinsky, for example,
has noted that the material, such as the various types of marble used from the
East, Italy, and North Africa, reflected the extent of Rome’s domination not just
over other peoples but their natural resources too, that is, literally over the
world.79

The collection within the temple and its forum appears to have been carefully
assembled, weaving together a tale of war and empire, and promising the
perpetuity of both. Let us first consider the material objects collected and
exhibited in the forum and temple complex. Augustus dedicated the Roman
standards, lost by Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC and now retrieved back from the
Parthians, in the Temple of Mars Ultor itself (see above p. 133 and fig. 4.5).80
Julius Caesar’s sword was also placed in the temple (Suet. Vit. 8.1), as were (p.
252)

Page 22 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

goblets of iron (Pliny, HN 34.141),

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

Page 23 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

Res Gestae 35) a quadriga which

was put either in the forum or
temple. A colossal statue of
Augustus himself stood in an
annex.83
To walk through the Forum of
Augustus was to walk through
Rome’s imperial destiny, from
its divine inception by Mars and
Venus, through its great men
with their collective
achievements, including the
Fig. 7.13 Caryatids constituted a striking
conquest of Rome’s great
architectural element on the Erectheum
cultural masters, the Greeks, to
in Athens, and were used to adorn the
the fresh victories of furthest
upper gallery of Augustus’ forum. The
Parthia. Particularly remarkable
face of Zeus Ammon, alternating with
was the way in which the forum
that of Hercules, was set in between,
reframed and reshaped the
evoking connections with Alexander the
Greek elements into a Roman
Great. The Forum of Augustus, Rome.
context. The caryatids in the
forum’s upper galleries (see fig.
7.13), for example, constitute a
clear reference to the Erechtheum on the Athenian Acropolis, a building that
celebrated Athens’ great founder and that city’s divine origins, connecting it
with Augustus’ forum that commemorated those who (p.255)

Page 24 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

founded Rome, and Rome’s

‘second founder’, Augustus.84 In a
similar way, the very structure of
Augustus’ forum, as was the case
with Caesar’s, looks back to the
great temple precincts (and
rulers) of the Hellenistic East,
each of whom had been brought
under the Roman thumb through
either diplomacy or force.
The connection between war
and culture was inherent in the
complex’s collection, and
underscored by the prominent
place given to such cultural Fig. 7.14 A relief based on the triad in
objects as Apelles’ paintings (in the Temple of Mars Ultor shows Venus
the most prominent part of the Genetrix on Mars’ right, while Julius
forum, according to Pliny) of Caesar’stands to his left. The National
war, triumph, and victory. It was Museum of Antiquities, Algiers.
also expressed by the way in
which objects, (p.256) such as
the two ivory statues mentioned above, one of Athena and the other of Apollo,
were exhibited in conjunction with one another. The significance of these two
deities would not be lost on the viewer. Apollo, as noted, was a guardian of
culture, but so too was Athena. More than that however, Athena was herself the
patron of that great producer of high culture, Athens, and a warrior goddess.
Looming over the whole scene was Mars, as Ovid duly notes (Fast. 5.551–70).85
The various associations between Augustus, Alexander, and Caesar, between war
and empire, between the Hellenistic past and the Roman present (and future), as
previous scholars have remarked, are here both substantial and immediately
apparent, sharing some elements noted earlier with Apollo’s Palatine temple.86

The literal artefacts of triumph and vindication associated with the Temple of
Mars, such as Caesar’s sword or the votive chariot are therefore complemented
by a diverse array of artistic masterpieces, such as Apelles’ Alexander, with
whom, as noted, Augustus associated himself on the Palatine. While the
connection with Augustus to Caesar and Alexander as conquerors has been the
subject of frequent discussion, it has less often been observed that Alexander’s
war was arguably also a war of revenge against the Persians, now replaced by
the Romans with the Parthians. The motif of vengeance was similarly evoked by
Athena’s statue, whose place in the forum was a direct result of Augustus’
vindication against Antony.87 The assemblage of Greek cultural objects therefore
intertwines Roman with Greek history, with Augustus and the summi viri
becoming enmeshed in Greek historic and cultural achievements.

Page 25 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

Yet the ethos of the collection remains uniquely Roman. The forum constituted
the ultimate procession of the imagines, and as such constituted a grand
funerary monument set permanently in front of a public audience, whose
orations set in stone and bronze delivered an eternal eulogy to the viewer. The
summi viri arguably acted as imagines exhorting the viewer to deeds of virtus in
war, whose divine patron Mars stood imposingly over the scene. In the Temple of
Mars, the Roman senate deliberated on matters pertaining to war, and from its
precinct generals and armies set out.88 Also at the temple, Roman boys were
literally made men, since it was where a young man assumed his toga virilis and
(p.257) was enrolled as a citizen; as a vir his role was to go out and display his
vir-tus on the field of battle. As more than one scholar has noted, the forum was
the visual realization of the Aeneid’s famed underworld procession in book six,
itself exhortatory in nature.89 The cumulative impact of the collection was to
perpetuate power, imperium sine fine and to keep Furor impius literally under
the watchful gaze of the Roman senate that met here to discuss war. Pausanias
tells us that ‘the statue of Athena meets those entering’. It was an apt reminder
that not only looked back to the Greek past, but to the Roman present in which a
powerful princeps drawing on the collective sagacity of the senate reflected the
wisdom and military prowess the warrior goddess embodied. If Athens was
indeed the ‘school of Hellas’, Rome was now the ‘school of empire’.

The lesson was not lost on Augustus’ successors. Claudius’ ‘improvements’ on

Apelles’ works, in which the face of Alexander was replaced with that of
Augustus, may have been associated with Claudius’ own place in Roman history
as conqueror of the exotic and distant Britain.90 He thereby set himself in the
context of a succession of conquerors, from Alexander to Augustus, with his own
accomplishments now giving him a place in a long line of victorious
commanders. While a shocking assault on what was considered a great
masterpiece, it will have been fitting. The conquest of Britain was, in a sense,
the realization of Augustus’ own vision (though a violation of his injunction
against further conquest), and celebrated by Claudius with a triumphal arch, as
well as a tableau of the British king’s surrender located somewhere in the
Campus Martius (Suet. Claud. 21.6). Years later when Tacitus wrote of his
father-in-law’s, Agricola’s, conquest of Britain, he noted the use of culture in
subduing the natives (Agr. 21.2) — a culture that was both Roman and Hellenic
(with its porticoes, baths, and banquets). The Britons’ conqueror, Agricola, was
himself the idealized product of Roman virtus, Greek learning, and provincial
good sense (Agr. 4.2–3). He represented, in the end, a living embodiment of
Augustus’ vision of romanitas, a vision vividly communicated through the nexus
of associations that the objects on display in his forum created.

The Portico of Octavia

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

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

Metellus. The portico was next to

the Theatre of Marcellus and near
the Circus Flaminius, an area with
numerous victory monuments of
republican era generals (see fig.
7.15 with map 7.3).91 The new
portico was possibly rebuilt along
the same lines as Metellus’. It
served as a memorial to Octavia’s
son Marcellus who started the
work and enclosed two temples,
those of Juno Regina and Jupiter
Stator, and included a library,
Fig. 7.15 The Theatre of Marcellus is
curia, and scholae.92 Already there
located in the lower left central portion of
in Augustus’ day facing the (p.
this model which shows the Campus
259) two temples was a group of
bronze equestrian statues Martius (as well as the Capitoline in the
executed by Lysippus representing lower right hand section of the image,
twenty-five of Alexander’s and much of the northern portion of the
companions who fell at the battle city). To the immediate left behind the
of the Granicus and brought back Theatre of Marcellus, enclosing the
as spoils by Q. Caecilius Metellus temples of Jupiter Stator and Juno
Macedonicus in 146 BC (see p. 41 Regina, is the Portico of Octavia. Directly
with fig. 2.3). Augustus
behind the theatre, peaking above it, are
subsequently added the standards
the temples of Apollo Sosianus and of
Gabinius recaptured from the
Bellona. Museo della Civiltà Romana,
Illyrians.93 We know that the
scholae in the portico contained Rome.
paintings by Antiphilus, including
a small one of Hesione and a large
one of Alexander and Philip with Athena (Pliny, HN 35.114). Pliny also says that in his
day there were several paintings by Artemon, including a Danaë with robbers
marvelling at her, a portrait of Queen Stratonice (probably the wife of Seleucus I
Nicator, King of Nearer Asia 312–281 BC), and a Heracles and Deianira; there was also
Artemon’s Hercules ascending to heaven with consent of the gods after his death on
Mt. Oeta, and the story of Laomedon, Hercules, and Poseidon (Pliny, HN 35.139). The
complex is noted by Velleius as an example of publica magnificentia (2.1.2).
In addition to the aforementioned objects, Pliny tells us that Dionysius’ (the son
of Timarchides) statue of Juno stood in Jupiter’s temple within the portico; in the
same place stood an Aphrodite by Philiscus and still more statues (of unknown
subjects) by Praxiteles (HN 36.35). Also in the Temple of Jupiter was a Pan and
Olympus group by Heliodorus ‘second in renown among such groups in the
world’, and an Aphrodite by Polycharmus, complemented by Doidalses’ Venus at
the bath (Pliny, HN 36.35; see fig. 7.16). Dionysius and Polycles (another son of
Timarchides) also made the statue of Zeus in the Temple of Juno Regina. Pliny
says (HN 36.42–3) the two cult statues themselves were apparently confused by
the workmen due to the ‘effeminate appearance’ of Jupiter’s temple, which they

Page 27 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

assumed to be Juno’s, and vice versa. The highlight of the collection will have
been the Aphrodite by Phidias that stood outside the portico, a statue, according
to Pliny eximiae pulchritudinis (‘of remarkable beauty’, HN 36.14). There was
also an Aesculapius and Diana by Cephisodotus, the son of Praxiteles (HN
36.24). Pliny tells us the collection also included a statue of Cupid holding a
thunderbolt, attributed to both Scopas and Praxiteles, but whose model, it was
agreed, was Alcibiades (Pliny, HN 36.28)94 In addition, (p.260)

(p.261) a seated statue of

Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi,
remarkable for the absence of
straps on its shoes, adorned the
portico (HN 34.31; cf. p. 176).
There were, it should be noted, a
number of sculptures whose
artists were unknown, mentioned
as housed in the scholae (HN
36.29): these included an array of
satyrs, as well as a Liber Pater and
a Libera.
The portico itself and the major
components of its collection will
have been assembled not long
after the completion of the
Forum of Caesar and of the
Temple of Divus Julius, and well
before that of Augustus’ forum.
As in the two previous
collections, a specifically
Augustan narrative is created
here, with an emphasis on
Classicism, culture, and the re-
contextualizing of Greek Fig. 7.16 The Crouching Venus by
masters in order to create a Doidalses was one of many ‘prestige’
narrative of divine associations pieces adorning the Portico of Octavia. A
for Augustus and his family. It Roman copy of the Hadrianic period after
was this complex interweaving the Hellenistic original. H: .92 m., 1.07 m.
of relationships no doubt that with base. Museo Nazionale Romano,
motivated placing the Phidian Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.
Aphrodite in the front of the
portico. Nor was it just any
Aphrodite, but one by the greatest of fifth century sculptors, (a work
complemented on the interior much later by one of the greatest names of the
fourth century, Praxiteles’ and his Eros). The Phidian Aphrodite too, by virtue of
its privileged position in front of the portico, will have been one of the most

Page 28 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

prominent pieces of sculpture in the collection. It will have formed a link, as had
the caryatids in Augustus’ forum, between the Roman present and the classical
Greek past, between Augustus’ divine lineage and his role as the imperial patron
and protector of Greek culture. The Phidian statue will have also given
audiences a preview of what was inside the complex. It was no ordinary
assemblage, but a who’s who of celebrated artists of antiquity whose names in
and of themselves would have lent prestige to the collection.

If Augustus’ lineage in the world of gods was given primacy of place, his position
in the world of men and of history was a close second. Once inside the portico
the viewer was confronted with what must have been the striking sight of the
Granicus group noted above, a group that once again associated Augustus with
Alexander. The group was reinforced by the presence of Antiphilus’ portrait of
Philip, Alexander, and Athena. Just in case the message was lost, the theme of
conquest and victory was underscored by the deposition of Gabinius’
standards.95 Augustus’ own imperial success now looked back to and bound
itself with the historical precedent of Alexander as well as to the divine
patronage of Aphrodite and Athena (who again here, stood as a guardian of
culture). Such imagery prefigured vividly the nexus that was to come later on in
his forum between culture and violence, though here there will have been a
relationship between the objects that raised the possibility of an ambiguous
reading: Lysippus’ and Antiphilus’ creations are cultural achievements in their
(p.262) own right, but particularly in the case of Lysippus’ Granicus group,
that creation is predicated on force and destruction, commemorating as it did
the death of Alexander’s companions in the heat of battle. Culture and conquest,
violence and the creative impulse, join here in a Danse Macabre, a ghoulish
dialectic of selfgeneration in which the precondition for culture is violence, with
much of that culture consisting of the representation of that very violence in
visual forms.

Indeed, the Granicus group as a text would have presented the viewer with
further ambiguities. Poised in the front of the portico, the group arguably stood
guard as protectors of Juno Regina and Jupiter Stator, as well as the precinct as
a whole. That precinct encompassed a lengthy chronological spectrum of art
(and artists), of subjects (in particular Hellenistic ones), of divine powers, in
conjunction with aesthetic beauty. In this sense, violence stands as a protector,
even spreader, of culture, a reasonable enough association given Alexander’s
(and for that matter, Augustus’) accomplishments. In regard to the temples they
fronted, we recall that Jupiter Stator was himself the ‘Stayer of Flight’, the deity
that made one of Rome’s earliest initial conquests (against the Sabines) possible
and was resonant with the Romans even in Augustus’ day (and arguably beyond)
in this regard.96 By tradition he had assisted Romulus in one of Rome’s earliest
battles, and in his capacity as Stator was one of the deities instrumental to
Roman success; events on the Granicus, in which Alexander’s companions had

Page 29 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

saved the day, were thereby tied with an event in Roman history and the two, in
a sense, became one.

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

Augustus Collected
Taken as a whole, the three
Augustan collections were
reflective of the princeps’
personality. The temple
dedicated to the godhead of
Divus Augustus, stood as a
summation of his life, and as a
visual reflection of the other
collections in general.97
Lehmann long ago conjectured Fig. 7.17 Plan of the Temple of Divus
concerning the arrangement of Augustus after Lehmann. 170. A gold
the collection based on a series statue of Victory; 171. A clay statue of a
of epigrams by Martial (14.170– child; 172. The Apollo Sauroctonos; 173.
82), and we here follow A painting of Hyacinthus; 174. A marble
Lehmann’s hypothesis Hermaphrodite; 175. A painting of Danaë;
concerning the order of the 176. A German war mask; 177. A
display (see fig. 7.17).98 Hercules in Corinthian bronze; 178. A
Praxiteles’ Corinthian bronze clay Hercules; 179. A silver Minerva; 180.
sculpture, the Apollo A painting of Europa; 181. A marble
Sauroctonos (‘lizard slayer’, Leander.
Mart. 14.172, fig. 7.18) and two
Hercules figures (one a
Corinthian bronze of Hercules as an infant strangling the serpents, another of
him in clay) may have stood on either side of Nicias’ painting of Hyacinthus
(Mart. 14.173), dedicated (p.264)

Page 30 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(p.265) by Tiberius here because

the artist was one of Augustus’
favourites.99 A pair of pictures,
those of Nicias’ Danaë (Mart.
14.175) and of Europa (Mart.
14.180) may have been displayed
together, as will have been the
marble reliefs of Hermaphroditus
and Leander (Mart. 14.174, 181).
In addition, there was a statue of a
boy in terracotta by Strongylion
(known as the Brutus, cf. Mart.
2.77) and a terracotta statuette by
Vulca (Mart. 14.171) that were
likely set up in conjunction with
each other, and the same will have
been the case for a golden statue
of Victory and a silver one of
Minerva (Mart. 14.170, 179).100
Somewhere within the collection
was a terracotta statue of a
hunchback (Mart. 14.182), while
above the door there was a
German war mask (Mart. 14.176).
Whether the entire collection
was in place in the reign of
Tiberius (the elegant, eclectic
array of objects may argue for Fig. 7.18 This Apollo Sauroctonos (‘the
his active involvement), or lizard slayer’) is after an original that was
whether it constitutes a brief among the select sculptures that adorned
snapshot of the collection at a the Temple of Divus Augustus. A Roman
given moment under Domitian, marble copy of a Greek bronze by
there were nonetheless a Praxiteles. c. 350 BC. H: 1.49 m. The
number of associations linking Louvre, Paris.
the collection to both the public
and private persona of
Augustus. The presence of Corinthian bronze, for example, a favourite
collectable of the princeps, will have commemorated a more personal side of the
emperor, whose fondness for Corinthian bronze was well known (see p. 70). It
was with the express intention of honouring Augustus’ personal taste (as
opposed to merely echoing the larger themes of his visual programmes
elsewhere), that Tiberius dedicated the Hyacinthus (and possibly the Danae as
well, Pliny, HN 35.131), a work that was probably brought by Augustus himself
from Alexandria.

Page 31 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

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

(p.266)

Page 32 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

The emphasis in this collection

once again on liminality, whereby
various boundaries are tested or
rendered fluid, permeable, or
threatening, is echoed by the
depictions of Hermaphroditus and
Hyacinthus, both of which are
stories concerning sexual
ambiguity and passion. Minerva
and Victory, by contrast, will have
stood as a reassuring presence,
with Minerva qua virgo (and
despite her own sexually
ambiguous nature in her capacity
too as ‘warrior’), as a bulwark
against the sexual violence
embodied in such subjects as
Danaë and Europa. Their presence
is supported by the two statues of Fig. 7.19 Terracotta was a material much
Hercules who remind the viewer used in the archaic period and evocative
of the man Augustus had defeated of the antique and the venerable in
in his early career (see p. 242), but Augustan Rome. This terracotta head of
simultaneously brought to mind a Apollo, found during the excavations of
hero whose status was half
the Domus Tiberiana in 1980, is of a sort
human, half divine (hence once
that will have no doubt adorned not
more testing and rendering
simply the Palatine, but Augustus’ temple
ambiguous the boundaries of
identity), and whose heroic efforts as well, and was well-suited to Augustus’
—with the divine assistance of occasionally conservative tastes. H: .25
Minerva herself—resulted in his m. W: .23 m. Thickness: 3 cm. Museo
assumption among the gods. Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle
There could be no more Terme, Rome.
appropriate message for the
Temple of Divus Augustus.
Tiberian Concordia
There is a question concerning who had ultimate responsibility for the collection
in the Temple of Concordia. Kellum, in her excellent discussion of the temple,
has argued for a close relationship between its collection and Augustus’ (p.267)
programme of peace and abundance, rightly noting that the collection should be
viewed in one sense as reflective of the personality of Augustus himself, pointing
to the place of Apollo in the temple, as well as the presence of Nicias, one of
Augustus’ favourite artists. She notes, however, that Tiberius was responsible
for the collection as well as Thrasyllus (his chief court astrologer), and focuses
chiefly on the role of the latter and how his knowledge of astrology was put into
use in the selection of objects for the temple; Thrasyllus, Kellum compellingly
argues, wove a web of cosmic connections between Augustus and the artefacts
housed within.101 Tiberius’ role is emphasized to a lesser extent, though we

Page 33 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

know that Thrasyllus and Tiberius had a close life-long relationship. Moreover,
while restoration certainly began in 7 BC (Cass. Dio 55.8.2), the year before
Tiberius went into self-imposed exile to Rhodes, the temple was not dedicated
until 16 January, AD 10, well after Tiberius’ return.102 In addition, we know that
Tiberius took an active concern in the selection of the temple’s collection; an
offhand remark by Pliny also indicates that Augustus may have had less
involvement in it than Tiberius, since he notes that Augustus made ‘a gift’ of four
obsidian elephants to the temple. Certainly one can and should read Augustus
into this collection; but the personality of Tiberius, himself an eager collector of
Greek cultural objects (see pp. 70–3), left its mark equally if not more so, on this
monument.

The collection is all the more remarkable if one considers that Tiberius was
notorious for his want of civilitas, and that part of this showed through his
reluctance to undertake building projects.103 Indeed, apart from the Temple of
Divus Augustus, his one major cultural project appears to have been the
restoration of the Temple of Concordia rededicated as Concordia Augusta, and
built from monies and spoils he obtained in his campaigns in Germany and Illyria
(which also paid for his restoration of the Temple of Castor and Pollux).104.He
remained actively engaged in the project, even while in exile in the East, for he
compelled the Parians to give up a particularly fine statue of Hestia in order to
(p.268) adorn the building.105 The temple and its collection made up a
complicated assemblage in which ancient political ideologies, familial relations
within the imperial house, and the interplay of the Greek and the Roman
mirrored back Tiberius’ own personality, and ultimately the tragedy of his reign.

The temple was first and foremost remarkable for its collection of Greek
memorabilia that, if we can believe our sources, included the following: the
aforementioned statue of Hestia (Vesta) from Paros, an Apollo and Juno by
Baton, a Latona with her twin offspring by Euphranor, an Aesculapius and
Hygeia by Niceratus, a Mars and Mercury by Piston, and a Ceres, Jupiter, and
Minerva by Sthennis.106 There were also paintings which included a bound
Marsyas by Zeuxis, a Liber Pater by Nicias, and a Cassandra by Theodorus.107
Additional objects included the above mentioned elephants presented by
Augustus (possibly, as Kellum observes, symbols of triumph and victory) and a
sardonyx belonging to Polycrates of Samos, a gift from Livia.108 If this
represents how the building was adorned at the time, it was a virtual pantheon,
with only two Olympians, Neptune and (perhaps remarkably) Venus, left off the
list (though their inclusion cannot be excluded if our list is incomplete).
Certainly the numismatic representation of the temple is something that itself
appears ‘busy’ by virtue of all the statuary depicted on the coin stamp (see fig.
7.20).109

Page 34 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

The temple looked back to the ‘republican’ ideology of concordia between the
orders and transformed it into one that was, as Kellum notes, dedicated to the
harmony within the imperial family, as well as that of the cosmos.110 The
relationship between Augustus, his family, and the larger world order will not
have been surprising for viewers familiar with the Temple of Apollo on the
Palatine. Like other monuments from the period, it sought to place the new
order in a larger historical and cosmic context. The history of the building itself
was relevant in this regard. It was established after the passage of the Licinian
laws in the early fourth century BC, representing a hard-won concord between
the plebs and patricians. Refurbished by L. Opimius in 121 BC after the first
serious disruption of Roman civic life following the ‘revolutions’ of the Gracchi
and their (p.269)

violent deaths, it was not restored

until Tiberius undertook the
project, and it will have been an
appropriate choice.111 Since the
temple represented, in a sense,
the harmony of republican
institutions and civic order, it may
have suited Tiberius’
temperament, not to mention
familial ideology (his father,
brother, and nephew were all
rumoured to have had republican
sentiments).112 Moreover, Tiberius
himself showed a distinct
preference for republican
institutions, a preference that
ironically resulted in his
reputation as a tyrant.113 Fig. 7.20 Tiberius’ restored Temple of
In Tiberius’ day, the Temple of Concord, shown on the reverse of this
Concordia still reflected sestertius, gives an indication of just how
Cicero’s vision of political ‘busy’ and ambitious its sculpture
harmony between the orders. programme was; indeed, the temple
On the top front of the roof functioned as a virtual museum in its own
stood the Capitoline triad, the right, complete with a gallery annex. The
official state cult, and to either British Museum, London.
side of these Ceres and Diana,
both of whom had their own
temples on the Aventine and who were particularly important to the plebs as
well as to women.114 The stairs approaching the temple (p.270) were flanked
with statues of Hercules and Mercury, both deities whose various associations
included their importance to men as gods of travel and commerce, as well as the
soldiery (which were not considered high occupations in our sources). Of further
note in this regard is how the subjects of the collection’s paintings reinforced

Page 35 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

the rhetoric of the building’s ideological content. The two paintings by the
renowned masters Zeuxis and Nicias depicted Marsyas and Liber Pater. Both
these deities were important for the plebs, with whom they were identified; in
addition, the presence of Liber Pater, a deity whose absence from Augustan
collections has been noted by Galinsky and others, may be a further indication of
the collection as a product of Tiberius’ own personality and predilections (whose
nickname, Biberius Caldius Mero, mocked his heavy drinking).115 It is perhaps
no coincidence in this regard that Tiberius conducted a number of restoration
projects on temples with similar plebeian associations, including those to Liber,
Libera, and Ceres (Tac. Ann. 2.49). The presence of such subjects amid
Hochkulture appears to reinforce the building’s original rhetoric as a whole, that
of concordia between the orders.

Tiberius’ interest in Concordia may have had a familial element as well. Cassius
Dio notes that Tiberius inscribed both his name and his brother’s on the temple,
and their names appeared together when the temple was finally dedicated either
in AD 10 or 12.116 According to Tacitus (Ann. 1.4), concerns were expressed
towards the end of Augustus’ reign that male members of the family would
potentially turn against one another when Augustus died and tear the state
apart, repeating the catastrophe of the late republic. Tacitus specifically alludes
to popular fears about Germanicus, Tiberius’ nephew, and to Drusus, Tiberius’
son. Tiberius’ commemoration of his brother Drusus may have been intended to
give reassurance over the harmony now between Germanicus and his own son
Drusus.117

As for the collection itself, such Greek masterpieces literally a stone’s throw
from the umbilicus, the centre of the city from which all the world was
measured, in a very real sense contains a Vergilian dimension of the tense
relationship between Greeks and the Romans, (as descendants of the Trojans
and as conquerors of the Greeks). There can now be concordia between the two
because Troy has exacted its revenge, and brought into its sacred heart the
spoils of its mortal (p.271) enemy, at the same time reconciling itself to its
cultural domination by Greece since that culture has been appropriated and
become an integral part of the Roman sphere. The reconciliation between the
two was reflected in the temple’s very construction, which was possibly a
combination of Roman money and motivation, but Greek planning and design.118
Given such cultural interplay, the potential for an ambiguous reading is
therefore as great here as in the Augustan collections. Although arguably
expressed in less violent terms than in the Portico of Octavia or the Temple of
Apollo on the Palatine, culture remains something that is conquered and
dominated but itself dominates in turn. The public could view and so
symbolically subdue that on which it gazed, while in turn its vanquished enemy
paradoxically colonized the Roman gaze by virtue of its very attraction and
centrality. The emphasis here, however, is not on force, but harmony. The careful
deployment of cultural objects constructing a narrative based on both violence
Page 36 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

and culture is notably muted in comparison to the Augustan collections

discussed above. What it shares in common is a re-contextualization of Greek
cultural property, in which the significance of material objects shifts as they
become grounded in specifically Roman social and historical conditions.

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

(p.272) Vespasian and The (Re)Creation of The World

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

To understand the collection, a few words concerning the new princeps are
necessary. In AD 70 Vespasian had a significant task to accomplish. He had to
establish the legitimacy of his imperial government in the wake of the bitter civil

Page 37 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

war that took place in 69 after Nero’s deposition and suicide in 68. In addition,
he had to reassert the sense of Roman control and confidence that the civil war
and (p.273) its attendant provincial revolts had shaken. He was also compelled
to look to the traditions and precedents set in place by the principate and follow
those if he was to maintain power. It was a careful balancing act, since
Vespasian was following close on the heels of Nero, an emperor who was
extremely unpopular with the senate, but whose reputation with the people at
large was far more favourable. His task—in which he succeeded admirably in the
end—was to court favour with both segments of Roman society.

Indeed, Vespasian’s forum did what Nero could not but what Augustus could:
create a monument that would recall his own military successes and combine it
with prestigious works that would establish his authority and legitimacy in visual
terms. To do this he looked to what by his day had been established as a
traditional, hence, legitimate use of a venue in the form of an imperial forum for
public display of material objects, distinctly rejecting Nero’s use of artwork for a
semi-private paradeisos.123 He thereby disassociated himself from Nero, at the
same time linking himself to Caesar and Augustus by constructing a new forum,
which was just one of several new projects he undertook, including the nearby
Flavian amphitheatre. He also borrowed another page from Augustus, not
building over any ancient buildings: here, however, he had the assistance of the
fire of 64 and, of course, Nero himself, who had taken advantage of the
catastrophe to begin construction on the Domus Aurea. In this sense, he was
declaring a novus ordo by building an entirely new structure on the site for
purely public enjoyment, while at the same time, by virtue of its distinct spatial
relationship with Augustus’ older forum, he literally aligned himself in a larger
topographical context with a popular predecessor (see map 7.1).

As for the collection itself, Pliny the Elder, Josephus, and others give us a
relatively detailed descriptions of its contents.124 Concerning the statuary
programme, Statius mentions the cult statue of Pax that Domitian dedicated
(Silvae 4.3.17), which may have been a replacement of the original (see fig.
7.21).125 Pliny also mentions (HN 36.27) a greatly admired statue of Venus by an
unknown artist. There was also a well-known painting by Naukydes of the (p.
274)

Page 38 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

athlete Cheimon who won the

wrestling competition at Olympia
in 488 BC.126 A bronze bull by
either Phidias or Lysippus, and a
calf by Myron, one of the most
treasured pieces here, were also a
part of the collection according to
Procopius.127 Indeed, Procopius
states that there were numerous
(unspecified) works by both
Lysippus and Phidias here still in
his day. In addition there was a
Ganymede sculpted by Leochares
and a statue of Pythocles done by
Polyclitus.128 Noreña notes that
recently discovered statue bases
associated with the forum also
indicate the presence of statues by
Praxiteles, Cephisodotus, and Fig. 7.21 A denarius depicts the goddess
129
Parthenocles. Many of these Pax sitting naked to the waist and
will have been objects looted from offering an olive branch. Although a
Greece for Nero’s pleasure palace, popular issue on imperial coins, this one
and (p.275) Pliny in fact gives a
may take on a special significance, and
brief catalogue of material that
the goddess may here be portrayed as
Vespasian used in his forum taken
she appeared in Vespasian’s temple.
directly from the Domus Aurea
(specifically Nero’s sitting room, Reverse of a silver denarius issued by
in sellariis domus aureae, HN Vespasian. The legend reads PON MAX
34.84) with a list of various artists TR P COS IV (‘Pontifex Maximus with
who had depicted a battle of tribunicia potestas, consul for a fourth
Attalus I and Eumenes fighting the time’). The American Numismatic Society,
Gauls (who invaded Asia Minor New York.
between 240–32 BC), including
Isigonus, Pyromachus,
Stratonicus, and Antigonus (copies of which may survive in the form of The Gaul
Committing Suicide with His Wife and The Dying Gaul in fig. 7.22 and 7.23).130 Pliny
also mentions an infant Hercules embracing a goose by Boëthius, a work that also
survives in copies. In addition, a (likely) Greek sculpture from Egypt was a remarkably
sized piece of basanite (cf. fig. 3.4) representing the Nile with sixteen of the river god’s
children (said to represent the number of cubits with the Nile at flood), in all
probability similar to a reclining marble statue of the Nile covered with erotes and now
in the Vatican (fig. 7.24).131
There were a number of well-known paintings that also graced the forum, such
as the one of an unknown subject (though highly praised in execution) by
Timanthes of Cynthus (or Sicyon, HN 35.74). Protogenes’ masterpiece, the
Ialysus, was also on display here and no doubt one of the highlights.132 Pliny
(HN 35.108–9) states that there was also a work by Nicomachus of Apollo and
Artemis, and by the same artist, the mother of the gods seated on a lion, as well

Page 39 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

as a picture of Bacchants with satyrs sneaking up on them, and a Scylla. In

addition, there was a painting of Alexander’s battle at the Issus by a female
artist named Helena, something that, one imagines, might have appeared similar
to the famous Alexander mosaic (fig. 7.25).133 In the case of most if not all these
works, as with Augustus, we see Vespasian using a number of ‘big name’ artists
to enhance his collection’s cachet.

In addition to the artworks, we have a very detailed account of the spoils

captured during the Jewish War and on display in the temple. While crushing the
(p.276)

(p.277)

Fig. 7.22 A Gaul committing suicide after

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

Page 40 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

rebellion in Judaea, Vespasian’s

son, Titus, attacked, plundered,
and destroyed the Temple in
Jerusalem, an episode for which
our primary source is Josephus.134
In fact, of all the spoils Rome
plundered in the course of its
history, we are better informed
concerning these than any other,
thanks in part to Josephus and
other sources as well, and they
have been the subject of a recent
and fine discussion in the context
of triumphal display and Roman Fig. 7.23 The ‘Dying’ or ‘Capitoline
imperialism by Östenberg.135 Gaul’, may have formed a part of the
Josephus tells us (BJ 7.158–62) same group as fig. 7.22. The torque
that Vespasian deposited the
around his neck was a trophy Romans
vessels of gold from the Temple in
prized and dedicated for the construction
his forum, but states that their law
of trophies and votives. H: .59 m. Palazzo
and the purple hangings from (p.
278) the Temple sanctuary were Nuovo, Musei Capitolini, Rome.
deposited and kept in the palace.
The vestments of the high priest
(worn when he entered the Holy of
Holies) were also likely deposited
in the forum. Josephus describes
them as adorned with precious
stones and gives a detailed
description of their appearance
(Procopius, probably referring to
these very vestments, says they
were covered in emeralds).136 At
several points, both in the Jewish
War and Jewish Antiquities,
Josephus remarks the various
vessels wrought in gold and Fig. 7.24 Sporting erotes run riot over a
studded with precious gems that large statue of the river Nile, each
the Romans looted; he includes an representing a cubit of the Nile’s annual
extended description during their flood. Vespasian had a special affinity for
procession in Vespasian’s triumph Egypt, since it was here that he was
(with specific mention of the large
declared emperor on 1 July AD 69. The
numbers of precious stones set in
statue is possibly after a similar one in
gold crowns and other works, BJ
Vespasian’s new forum. Braccio Nuovo,
7.132–5).
Museo Chiaramonti, Musei Vaticani.
(p.279)

Page 41 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

Not all of the material was pure

plunder. Some of it was handed
over during negotiations for
amnesty, if we can believe
Josephus (and we should here
maintain a healthy scepticism),
who says that shortly after the
sacking of the Temple one of the
priests, Jesus, son of Thebuthi,
negotiated a pardon from Titus in
return for delivering up some of
the sacred treasures: he handed Fig. 7.25 The famous Alexander Mosaic
over two lamp stands, along with
(possibly after a painting by Philoxenus of
tables, bowls, and platters, all of
Eretria) from the House of the Faun in
silver and gold (some of which,
Pompeii, gives us a possible window into
including the table of shew-bread
with incense cups and two silver how the work of Helena, who executed a
trumpets, are depicted on Titus’ painting ofAlexander’s battle at the river
arch, see fig. 4.9).137 Josephus Issus, might have appeared. H: 2.7 m. W:
cites this table (BJ 7.148–50), 5.2 m. Museo Archeologico Nazionale,
along with the wrought lamp and Naples.
the copy of the law, (all, again,
depicted on Titus’ arch), as the
highlight of the triumphal procession. Jesus also gave up the veils and the vestments of
the high priests inlaid with the precious (p.280) stones. Phineas, the temple
treasurer, further surrendered tunics and girdles belonging to the priests, and purple
and scarlet kept for repairs to the veils, as well as a great quantity of cinnamon, cassia,
and other spices for offerings, and various sacred ornaments.138
One of the major cultural artefacts taken by Vespasian on campaign, the veil of
the Temple that screened off the outer from the inner sanctum and its curtains,
was not for permanent public display, though carried in Vespasian’s triumph (BJ
7.132–5). Josephus had, in fact, already given a detailed description of the veil
earlier in his work (BJ 5.210–14): it had hung in front of the Temple’s golden
doors, a Babylonian tapestry with embroidery that was blue on linen of scarlet
and purple and a work (reportedly) of extraordinary skill. The subjects depicted
on it, according to Josephus, were symbolic of the universe, the scarlet
symbolizing fire, the blue the air, the fine linen the earth (since flax was of the
earth), and the purple the sea (since the dye was from the murex). In addition,
the tapestry portrayed the whole heavens, except the Zodiac. This was to be a
part of a private collection on the Palatine.139

The representations in the form of painted and other visual media of the
campaign paraded in the triumph will have likely also constituted a part of the
collection. These are described by Josephus who tells us that in Vespasian’s
triumphal procession an unspecified number of elaborate movable stage devices
(pēgmata) had been constructed, some of them three and four stories tall, many
of which were covered with tapestries interwoven with gold, and all with

Page 42 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

framework of gold and ivory.140 As was traditionally the case, many of the
depictions represented scenes from the war: the countryside’s devastation, the
slaughter of the enemy, captives, men in flight, walls demolished by siege
engines, fortresses overtaken, defeated suppliant enemies, temples on fire, and
houses destroyed. On each stage during the procession there was ‘the general of
the captured city (p.281) depicted in the attitude in which he had been taken’.
Josephus emphasizes the realism of the depictions on these tapestries
(hyphasmata), though he leaves it uncertain if these were all tapestries; it is
possible that some may have been paintings or other media.

The collection thus joined three worlds—in the form of defeated Judaea,
conquering Rome, and Hellenistic culture—both on a metaphoric and literal
level, and poses to us the inevitable question: how did the objects from these
three disparate cultures interact? As for the collection of classical material,
certain subjects will have decidedly resonated with the Flavian court and its
supporters. This is the case for the Venus Pliny had mentioned in particular.
During the conflict in 69, Vespasian had sent his son Titus to Paphos to consult
Venus’ oracle, which spoke favourably concerning his father’s chances of
success (Tac. Hist. 2.2–3). It is perhaps little wonder, then, that a masterwork
(albeit anonymous) was sought out for this particular deity. Her place will have
been important in terms of legitimizing the new court, granting it divine
approval. Venus too was the ancestor of the now extinct court of the Julio-
Claudians; as such, she will also have provided continuity and a link between the
previous dynasty that looked to establish its authority through divine lineage,
and the new one that also sought validation in part through her oracle.

The collection of sculptures from Pergamum that represented the Attalids’

struggle with the Gauls will have had their own special meaning for Vespasian as
well. The forces of Vespasian in securing the provinces of Germany from the
Vitellians had initially allied themselves with the Treveri, only to be betrayed
when a massive revolt broke out amongst the tribes in that region under the
leadership of Civilis.141 It was a hard fought and perilous battle, one the Romans
eventually won; the grouping will have stood as a reminder of Roman
domination, but also of the dangers on Rome’s northern frontiers, dangers that
were never to subside under the Flavians as Vespasian undertook the annexation
of the Agri Decumates, and Domitian, his son, found himself embroiled in wars
in Britain, the Rhine, and the Danube. Vespasian wrote of his exploits in his war
commentarii, and in his forum they were writ large in visual terms: he could
boast that he set the world in order after Nero and the civil wars of 69, and the
disposition of material in his forum was a reflection of that newly ordered
cosmos.142 In addition, there was the by now de rigueur reference in Helena’s
painting to Alexander. Vespasian thereby associated himself in a historical and
visual context not only with Rome’s greatest generals, but also with history’s
greatest conqueror.

Page 43 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(p.282) The large statue of the Nile will have been an equally important
reminder for Romans of his successful claim to the throne and succession.
Vespasian had been declared imperator on 1 July AD 69, in Alexandria, Egypt.
More than simply a reminder of his dies imperii (‘date of accession’) and the
place of his succession, the statue was also a vivid reminder of the direct
benefits Vespasian had bestowed on the Roman people themselves in that annus
terribilis. He had successfully secured the province, whose fertility fed the city,
and whose sixteen erotes sporting on the Nile god will have stood as a reminder
of his commitment to the city’s inhabitants. The Nile is further emblematic of
fertility, and its location in the Forum of Peace is perhaps no accident; the
association between peace and abundance is one found throughout the Augustan
programme as well. Indeed, as Noreña notes, Vespasian’s Forum of Peace will
have brought up associations with the Ara Pacis and Augustus’ own forum.143
The relationship is all the more readily apparent when we consider that
Vespasian’s was the first of the imperial fora built after Augustus’. From this
perspective the associations will have been unmistakable and stark. A
relationship, therefore, between Vespasian and Augustus established itself
through these various means and will have been readily appreciated by a Roman
audience.

The theme of legitimacy, and of the creation of a new order is picked up in yet
another sense by Protogenes’ masterpiece: Ialysus was the mythical founder of
Rhodes, and, as the founder of a new dynasty, viewers may have made the
connection between the Ialysus as such and Vespasian, who made it quite clear
early on that his sons would succeed him or no one, and that his reign signalled
the advent of a new order (Cass. Dio 65.12). In addition, a famous legend that
surrounded the work may have created yet another nexus between Greek and
Roman historical circumstances. As the painting was executed in the course of
Demetrius Poliorcetes’ long siege of Rhodes, so it was now admired and
displayed by the man who had accomplished (though more successfully) the long
siege of Jerusalem (a seemingly fanciful notion, unless we consider how well-
known Demetrius’ siege was in conjunction with the anecdote concerning the
painting’s execution in antiquity).144

The material from Judaea carried a more cosmic significance. This comes from
Josephus himself (BJ 5.216–19) who, in addition to relating the history of the (p.
283) objects, includes a summary of the symbolic significance of what he
believed to be the three most valuable pieces, the table, the lamp stand, and the
altar of incense: the seven branches of the lamps, explained Josephus,
represented the planets, while the twelve loaves on the table represented the
circle of the Zodiac and the year. The altar of incense adorned with thirteen
spices from sea and land, with which it was replenished, signified that all things
come from and are of God. Sea and land, space and time, and God and his
sacred implements: all were present symbolically within the forum along with,
we may presume, the visual narrative that related the history of how not only the
Page 44 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

symbols emblematic of the oikoumenē, but by extension the oikoumenē itself,

came under Vespasian’s, and Rome’s sway. Moreover beyond the oikoumenē, the
very heavens themselves stood poised for colonization by imperatores who
garnered the posthumous appellation of divus, Vespasian among them. In this
sense, the forum reflects Rome’s verging on the age of the dominate, where
Vespasian’s son and successor would soon lay claim to the heavens as dominus
et deus (Suet. Dom. 13.2).

The nexus of items displayed, the ancient law, the vessels of the Temple, the
symbolic nature of the spoils as representative of the cosmos and the divine,
even of nature itself, and, very likely, the narrative of their conquest, all
converge to create, as Josephus noted, a microcosm of the world, although a
particularly Flavian one.145 Scholars have long argued that it was the private
use of cultural objects and property by Nero that offended the senate and
Romans at large and that Vespasian tried to change this by making things more
public. Champlin’s recent study gives us an alternative perspective. There is
arguably more continuity with Nero’s regime than a break with it in Vespasian’s
collection. If we accept recent arguments that Nero’s Domus Aurea and its
complex was intended as a much more public facility than previously thought,
then Vespasian’s forum was just one part of an attempt to maintain and build on
what Nero had started. Nero was a lover of spectacles and one who provided the
city with them constantly. Both the Forum of Peace and the Colosseum built by
Vespasian’s sons served as complexes that were all about spectacle, and in the
case of the former, about the world, the divine, and the establishment of Flavian
power and legitimacy.

The Domus Aurea was similarly about the world, and was the supreme display of
a Hellenism gone wild, one that sought to identify itself with the grand monarchs
who succeeded Alexander.146 Vespasian’s forum rejected Nero’s brand of
Hellenism by seeking to tame and reinterpret it, to confine it back within the
bounds of the porticoes of the Forum of Peace, to make it a means by which
Vespasian’s own legitimacy could be read and the world understood, in short, to
establish rather than undermine his authority. Vespasian thus chose to follow a
path similar to that followed by Augustus, with whom he consciously (p.284)
associated himself, where conquest and culture, peace and triumph,
communicated the stability of the new order and the worth of the new
princeps.147As was the case with Mars Ultor, the Temple of Divus Julius, and
other assorted monuments and displays under Augustus, Vespasian sought in the
Forum of Peace, through the display of the spoils of war to establish his ‘military
credentials’ in visual terms.148 For good measure, Vespasian added an
exclamation point to his resumé as general with an expansion of the pomerium,
the fact that his victories included those over rebels and fellow Romans
notwithstanding.149 Finally, in case the message was lost, he closed the Temple
of Janus as had Augustus before him, itself a symbolic realization of the peace
his forum embodied.150 Vespasian’s forum was indeed a Flavian world in
Page 45 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

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

Epilogue: Aurelian and Empire Without End

In AD 274 the emperor Aurelian returned victorious from the East, having
crushed the breakaway empire of Palmyra in Syria. Several years before the
rebellion he had dedicated a Temple of Sol, a building remarkable for its
richness (p.285) and luxury (S.H.A. Aurel. 39.6; Eutropius 9.15.1).151 While the
Historia Augusta is always a dubious source, the temple receives a fair amount
of attention in several of the vitae. It may have already contained a silver statue
of the emperor himself (S.H.A. Tac. 9.2). In addition, there was supposedly a
portrait of Aurelian with his friend, Ulpius Crinitus (Aurel. 10.2). At some point,
it is uncertain whether before or after his triumph, two massive elephant tusks
from which Aurelian wanted to make thrones for the temple (a task left
unfinished), were said to have been dedicated (S.H.A. Firm. 3.4). After his
triumph over Zenobia the temple became a repository for spoils from the
East.152 Now visitors could view on display oriental robes studded with jewels,
as well as, possibly, enemy flags depicting dragons, elaborate head dresses, and
garments of spectacular purple (Aurel. 28.5). Zosimus also tells us (1.61.2) that
Aurelian adorned Sol’s temple with statues from Palmyra of Helios and Belos,
but the finest object was a short woolen garment, the gift of the Persian King of
Kings that came to him from India. It was of various purple hues and such that
all others paled by comparison (Aurel. 29.1–3).

We have now come, like Sol himself, full circle. Aurelian ruled for five years,
among the most successful of the emperors who governed during the imperial
crisis of the mid-third century AD. Yet he still adhered to traditional practices,
whereby cultural objects could and did speak to the auctoritas of the princeps,
and served, by virtue of that auctoritas, to legitimate a claim to title, rule, and
power. His patron deity was not Venus, but the Sun, who both figuratively and
literally looked over his empire. That empire was one that asserted authority
over upstart eastern queens, as Augustus had three centuries before, and
asserted its domination through the exhibition of her insignia, of her military
and royal power, even of her gods: royal clothes that indicated her status, her
war standards, and the statues of Helios and Belos, the former having been
arguably restored or relocated to his rightful place, the Temple of Sol. And, like
the battle rams at Actium that Augustus used to adorn the Forum, even the most
powerful beasts of nature, elephants, had been metaphorically neutered, their
tusks on display ready to be reduced to a mere symbol of Roman power. Finally,
there was the dazzling (p.286) purple of India, surrendered by the Persian
Page 46 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

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

Notes:
(1) See now in general I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and
Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009) for the
triumph as display.

(2) For M. Fulvius Nobilior’s triumph see p. 40 with n. 32; for Aemilius Paullus
see pp. 40–1 with n. 34; for Pompey see Plut. Pomp. 45; App. Mith. 116–17; Cass.
Dio 37.21; see M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge Mass. 2007), 7–14,
36–41; for Caesar see Suet. Iul. 37; Plut. Caes. 55.2; App. B Civ. 2.101–2; Florus
2.13.88–9; Cass. Dio 43.19; see M. Gelzer, Caesar. Politician and Statesman
(Cambridge Mass. 1968), 284; Beard, The Roman Triumph, 102–4, 136–7, 154–5;
for Vespasian see Joseph. BJ 7.132; Suet. Vesp. 12; Cass. Dio 65.12.1a; see M.
Beard, ‘The Triumph of Flavius Josephus’, in A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (eds.),
Flavian Rome. Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003), 543–58; F. Millar, ‘Last Year
in Jerusalem: Monuments of the Jewish War in Rome’, in J. Edmonson, S. Mason,
and J. Rives (eds.), Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (Oxford 2005), 101–29;
Beard, The Roman Triumph, 43–4, 93–6, 99–101, 151–3.

(3) See Livy 39.5; Plut. Luc. 37.2.

(4) See e.g. J. M. Beaujeu, ‘A-t-il éxisté une direction des musées dans la Rome
impériale?’, in Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres,
Nov.-Dec. (1982), 674 noting specifically the temples of Ceres, Castor and Pollux,
Diana, Fides, Apollo in Circo, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Venus Genetrix, Caesar,
Augustus, the Pantheon, the Curia, and the Forum of Augustus; cf. E. M. Orlin,
Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic (Leiden 1997), 132 n. 60,
who cites also the temples of Liber and Libera, Salus, Honos and Virtus, and
Felicitas.

(5) For Pompey’s theatre see A. Kuttner, ‘Culture and History at Pompey’s
Museum’, TAPA 129 (1999), 343–73 for an excellent detailed discussion of the
collection that included paintings by Pausias (HN 35.126), Polygnotus (HN
35.58–9), and Antiphilus (HN 35.114); see G. Sauron, Quis deum?: l’expression
plastique des idéologies politiques et religieuses à Rome à la fin de la
République et au début du Principat (Rome 1994), 249–314 for a general
discussion of the theatre complex; see esp. 266–80 for how the theatre embodies

Page 47 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

‘l’heroisation’ of Pompey the Great; also see F. Coarelli, ‘Il complesso pompeiano
del Campo Marzio e la sua decorazione scultorea’, RendPontAcc 45 (1971/2), 99–
122; M. Miles, Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural
Property (Cambridge 2008), 231–7.

(6) For the development of such venues see E. Thomas, Monumentality and the
Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford 2007), 2.

(7) Pliny, HN 35.66; Ov. Fast. 6.797–812; for discussion see P. J. Holliday, ‘Roman
Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and Reception’, ArtB 79 (1997),
141–2, who notes the inextricable link between Fulvius’ programme in the
Temple of Hercules Musarum and his attempt to construct himself through a
nexus of ‘personal and national accomplishments through a complex
interweaving of artistic, literary, religious, and political elements’. For the
temple see L. R. Richardson, ‘Hercules Musarum and Porticus Philippi in Rome’,
AJA 81 (1977), 355–61; M. Martina, ‘Aedes Herculis Musarum’, DialArch (1981),
49–68; F. Coarelli, Il Campo Marzio. Dalle Origini alla Fine della Repubblica
(Rome 1997), 452–84.

(8) Cic. Arch. 27; for discussion see E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in
Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 109; also see above p. 207.

(9) For the collegium poetarum see Val. Max. 3.7.11; Pliny, HN 34.19; Juvenal
7.38; Porphyry on Horace, Sermones 1.10.38 and Epistulae 2.2.91; see E. G.
Sihler, ‘The Collegium Poetarum at Rome’, AJP 26 (1905), 1–21; Gruen, Culture
and Identity (n. 8), 109 for discussion.

(10) For his fasti see Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.12.16; see Gruen, Culture and
Identity (n. 8), 109–13 for discussion.

(11) For the location and function of the Atrium Libertatis see N. Purcell, ‘Atrium
Libertatis’, PBSR 61 (1993), 125–55. For the collection see G. Becatti, ‘Letture
Pliniane: Le opera d’arte nei monumenta Asini Pollionis e negli Horti Serviliani’,
in Studi in Onore di Aristide Calderini e Roberto Paribeni, vol. 3 (Milan 1956),
199–210; J. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the
History of Art (London 1991), 163–7; A. Bounia, The Nature of Classical
Collecting. Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE–100 CE (Ashgate 2004), 188–90;
Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 5), 238–40.

(12) Purcell, ‘Atrium Libertatis’ (n. 11), 144 argues that what has traditionally
been identified as Sulla’s Tabularium is in fact the Atrium Libertatis. He also
discusses its function as Rome’s first library (citing Ovid, Tristia 3.1.70–2); also
see L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven 2001), 79–81 for a
related discussion.

Page 48 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(13) One could, for example, read the space as reflecting Asinius’ republican
sentiments noted in our sources; was it coincidence that he had devoted himself
to the Atrium Libertatis, and was associated with the essential quality of the
republic, especially given Pliny’s remark at HN 36.33, Pollio Asinius, ut fuit acris
vehementiae, sic quoque spectari monumenta sua voluit? If so, it evidently did
not matter to Augustus. For Asinius’ associations with libertas and
republicanism, see Horace, Carmina 2.1; Pliny, HN 36.33; Suet. Aug. 43.2; cf.
Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.4.21; see R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford 1939),
5–7 for discussion; for his relationship to Augustus see A. B. Bosworth, ‘Asinius
Pollio and Augustus’, Historia, 21 (1972), 441–73; L. Morgan, ‘The Autopsy of C.
Asinius Pollio’, JRS 90 (2000), 65–68.

(14) Other buildings independent of imperial patronage included those of

Statilius Taurus, and Marcius Philippus, Tac. Ann. 3.72; for discussion see D.
Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), 122–3; A.
Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 147–8, who
notes that Vitruvius remarked (1 praefatio 2) that ‘the majesty of empire is
augmented by architecture’, and that he arguably viewed such building as a
central aspect of Augustus’ auctoritas.

(15) Also see p. 58; see F. de Oliveira, Les Idées politiques et morales de Pline
l’Ancien (Coimbra 1992), 177–9 for discussion of Agrippa’s speech in the context
of Pliny’s political thought.

(16) For general discussion of the forum see C. Ricci, ‘Il Foro di Cesare’,
Capitolium, 8 (1933), 157–72, 365–90; R. Thomsen, ‘Studien über den
ursprünglichen Bau des Caesarsforums’, OpArch 5 (1941), 195–218; G. Fiorani,
‘Problemi architettonici del Foro di Cesare’, Studi topografia romana, 5 (1968),
91–104; J. C. Anderson, Jr. The Historical Topography of the Imperial Fora.
Collection Latomus 182 (Brussels 1984), 9–63; R. B. Ulrich, The Temple of Venus
Genetrix in the Forum of Caesar in Rome. The Topography, History, Architecture,
and Sculptural Program of the Monument (New Haven 1984); C. Amici, Il Foro di
Cesare (Florence 1991); R. B. Ulrich, ‘Iulius Caesar and the Creation of the
Forum Iulium’, AJA 97 (1993), 49–80; R. Westall, ‘The Forum Iulium as
Representation of Imperator Caesar’, RhM 103 (1996), 83–118; for the forum’s
larger urban context see Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 67–73; for Caesar’s
specific associations here with Venus Genetrix see S. Weinstock, Divus Julius
(Oxford 1971), 80–7.

(17) App. B Civ. 2.68; the name change was possibly due to Pompey’s use of the
same name; for Venus Victrix and Pompey see Kuttner, ‘Pompey’s Museum’ (n.
5), 345–7; for the transition from Victrix to Genetrix see G. F. Koch, Die
Kunstaustellung (Berlin 1967), 82–5; K, Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome
(Princeton 1969), 186–8.

Page 49 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(18) Pliny, HN 34.18 says the temple contained a loricate statue of Caesar too;
Augustus dedicated the same or another, crowned with the Iulium Sidus, Cass.
Dio 45.7.1; also see Pliny, HN 2.93–4.

(19) For the corselet see Pliny, HN 9.116; cf. Suet. Iul. 47; for the earrings see
Pliny, HN 9.119–21; Cass. Dio 51.22.3; also see App. B Civ. 2.102 for Cleopatra’s
statues; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 106–8 for discussion.

(20) They could also later be illustrative of Augustus’ aversion to luxury, as M. B.

Flory, ‘Pearls for Venus’, Historia, 38 (1988), 498–504, has argued. For
Cleopatra’s pearls and Augustus’ use of them see Pliny, HN 9.119–21;
Macrobius, Saturnalia 3.17.18 (adorning a statue of Venus in the Pantheon); for
discussion see B. L. Ullman, ‘Cleopatra’s Pearls’, CJ 52 (1957), 193–201.

(21) Perhaps most vividly exemplified in the episode of Dido and Aeneas, but also
in Catullus’ invective against Lesbia in poem 11; for the nexus in Catullus
between Caesar, Lesbia, and geography see M. C. J. Putnam, Essays on Latin
Lyric, Elegy, and Epic (Princeton 1982), 15–19; for the connections between
sexual, geographic, and imperial conquest see Ov. Ars Am. 1.217–28 and the
attempt of the sexual predator to seduce a young girl through his knowledge of
geography at a triumph; see p. 119 for discussion.

(22) See p. 70 n. 140.

(23) See pp. 182–4; for an excellent discussion of the statue and its significance
see D. E. E. Kleiner, Cleopatra and Rome (Cambridge Mass. 2005), 150–6.

(24) For Venus’ associations with Aeneas and the Julian line see Galinsky, Aeneas,
Sicily, and Rome (n. 17), 187, 219, 221; cf. p. 161 n. 7 for the connections
between Caesar and Troy.

(25) Cass. Dio 43.14.6; see M. Gelzer, Caesar (n. 2), 278; Weinstock, Divus Julius
(n. 16), 80–90; P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. translator
by Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor 1988), 40–1; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 64–5; I.
Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford 2002), 69–72.

(26) For the association between the gens Julia and their ties to Venus and Mars,
see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 2), 193–201; for the conjecture that there was a
physical connection between the two fora, in which the supposedly phallic shape
of Augustus’ forum literally forms a conjugal relationship with Caesar’s, see B.
Kellum, ‘The Phallus as Signifier: The Forum of Augustus and the Rituals of
Masculinity’, in N. B. Kampen (ed.), Sexuality in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1996),
170–83.

(27) See Pliny, HN 8.155; Statius, Silvae 1.1.84–6; Suet. Iul. 61; see R. Garland,
The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World
(Ithaca 1995), 50 for discussion.
Page 50 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(28) For Caesar’s associations with Alexander see Suet. Iul. 7.1; Plut. Caes. 11.5–
6; Plutarch’s pairing of their biographies is itself indicative of the evident
connections between the two in antiquity. Pompey attempted to create similar
connections with Alexander; see e.g. Pliny, HN 35.131–2 for Nicias’ portrait of
Alexander in the Portico of Pompey; for Pompey’s associations see Plut. Pomp.
2.2, 46.1. Other Romans were also variously associated with Alexander; see R.
Syme, Tacitus (Oxford 1958), 470–1 for Germanicus’ (Tac. Ann. 2.73) and
Trajan’s (Cass. Dio 68.29.1, 68.30.1) associations with Alexander. Scipio
Aemilianus may have similarly connected himself with Alexander, see Miles, Art
as Plunder (n. 5), 98–9.

(29) See above p. 226; also see Pliny, HN 7.126, 35.136.

(30) Pacuvius and Accius both left plays entitled the Armorum Iudicium; Ennius
wrote an Aiax Mastigophorus; Augustus also made an unsuccessful attempt on
the subject, Suet. Aug. 85.2.

(31) For a similar association see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of
Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge
2003), 60–2; cf. A. Stewart, Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece
(Cambridge 1997), 217–20 for a different view. For Timomachus’ Ajax see Ov. Tr.
2.528; Anthologia Planudea 83 (anonymous); Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 2.22.

(32) A duplicity succinctly encapsulated in Sallust’s dig at Caesar when

comparing Cato to him, ‘[Cato] preferred to be than to seem good’, esse quam
videri bonus malebat, Bellum Catilinae 54.6.

(33) For ‘resistant’ reading see p. 181 n. 70.

(34) Consider how Cicero attacked Clodia in Cael. 18, using Medea as a
comparison; Romans could and did make immediate associations between myth
and current affairs.

(35) For reactions to the painting (or to copies) see Anthologia Planudea 135, 140
(anonymous); 136 (Antiphilus); 137, 141 (Philippus); 138 (anonymous); 139
(Julianus); 143 (Antipater); see Plut. Mor.18A for a description; for a detailed
discussion of the history of the painting and reaction to it see K. Gutzwiller,
‘Seeing Thought: Timomachus’ Medea and Ecphrastic Epigram’, AJP 125 (2004),
339–86.

(36) For Caesar as god see Weinstock, Divus Julius (n. 16), passim; Gradel,
Emperor Worship (n. 25), 54–72; for Caesar as king see Gelzer, Caesar (n. 2),
316–21; for his statue among those of the kings see p. 153; for the statues
themselves see LTUR 4.223–8; for Caesar as high priest see e.g. Suet. Iul. 13, 46;
Plut. Caes. 7.1, 42.2.

Page 51 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(37) For the title see e.g. Suet. Iul. 76.1; see 53 for Caesar as the destroyer of the
Republic.

(38) Cass. Dio 56.29.1 says that during the Augustalia a lunatic sat in Caesar’s
chair and donned his crown, indicating the objects might have been readily
accessible.

(39) Cass. Dio 44.7.1; on the connections between Caesar and Romulus as well as
Quirinus see Cic. Att. 12.45.2, 13.28.3; Cass. Dio 43.42, 43.45; see W. Burkert,
‘Caesar und Romulus-Quirinus’, Historia, 11 (1962), 356–76; Favro, Augustan
Rome (n. 14), 66, who notes that his ties to particular parts of the city were
designed to associate himself with the city’s founder.

(40) For a description of the Temple of Divus Julius, the cult statue and the Iulium
sidus, based on the numismatic evidence see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25),
34–6.

(41) And Caesar exceeded even those; see Gradel, Emperor Worship (n. 25), 265
for discussion.

(42) Suet. Iul. 79; Plut. Caes. 61.4–9; Cass. Dio 44.6.1; for Augustus’ association
with Romulus see K. Scott, ‘The Identification of Augustus with Romulus–
Quirinus’, TAPA 56 (1925), 82–105; J. Gagé, ‘Romulus–Augustus’, MÉFR 47
(1930), 138–81; also see above p. 166.

(43) Ov. Ars Am. 3.401–2; Propertius 3.9.11; Pliny, HN 35.27, 91, 93; for ancient
responses see Anthologia Planudea 178 (Antipater); 179 (Archias); 180
(Democritus); 181 (Julianus); 182 (Leonidas of Tarentum). It was no longer in the
temple in Pliny’s time. For discussion see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 11),
121; K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture. An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton
1996) 349; for Caesar’s connection with Venus and his Trojan ancestry see p.
161 n. 7.

(44) On Augustus’ exploitation of his Trojan connections and Trojan myth see A.
Erskine, Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Rome
(Oxford 2001), 15–30, 198, 234–5, 244, 255–6.

(45) For Julius Caesar’s place in Augustan Rome see J. J. Pollitt, ‘The Impact of
Greek Art on Rome’, TAPA 108 (1978), 167; P. White, ‘Julius Caesar in Augustan
Rome’, Phoenix, 42 (1988), 334–56; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 95–8. For the
return of the ‘Golden Age’ in Augustan art and literature see I. S. Ryberg,
‘Vergil’s Golden Age’, TAPA 89 (1958), 112–31; Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n.
43), 90–121; for a general discussion of notions of the ‘Golden Age’ in classical
antiquity see H. C. Baldry, ‘Who invented the Golden Age?’, CQ 4 (1952), 83–92.

Page 52 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(46) Strabo 14.1.14. Other works Augustus commissioned on the Capitoline

include the Temple of Jupiter Tonans with a cult statue by the fourth century
sculptor Leochares; see Pliny, HN 34.79; statues by Hegias of Castor and Pollux
adorned its front and there were bells on its eaves (Suet. Aug. 91.2); for the
temple, its dedication and adornment see Augustus, Res Gestae 19; Ov. Fast.
2.69; Pliny, HN 36.50; Suet. Aug. 29.3; Cass. Dio 54.4.2; CIL 6.432 = ILS 3046;
CIL 6.2241; for a general discussion see LTUR 3.159–60.

(47) See e.g. M. K. Jaeger, The Poetics of Place: The Augustan Writers and the
Urban Landscape of Rome, PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley (1990)
for a good general study of the city and the literary tradition from the late
republic through the Augustan era; also see F. W. Shipley, ‘Building Operations in
Rome from the Death of Caesar to the Death of Augustus’, MAAR 9 (1931), 7–60;
P. Gros, Aurea templa: recherches sur l’architecture religieuse de Rome à
l’époque d’Auguste (Rome 1976), 18–19 on Augustus’ restoration of religious
buildings; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14).

(48) See Pliny, HN 35.27–8. The works included Nicias’ painting of Nemea
personified, seated on a lion holding a palm branch (with the artist’s signature
on it); Pliny also tells us that there was a noteworthy painting by Philochares
depicting an elderly father with his son.

(49) We give less attention to the Saepta Julia, a project of Agrippa’s. Dedicated
in 26 bc, its west portico was known as the Porticus Argonautarum, named from
a painting of the Argonauts, and was related to the Porticus Meleagri which
depicted the hunt of the Calydonian boar; see Cass. Dio 53.23.1–2, 53.27.1,
66.24.2; cf. Mart. 2.14.5–6 (for the representation of Jason), 2.14.16, 3.20,
11.1.12; scholia ad Juvenalem 6.154; LTUR 4.118–19. The Argonauts were an
appropriate commemorative for Agrippa’s naval victory at Actium, see Jaeger,
Poetics of Place (n. 47), 14. There were two statue groups in the Saepta, both by
unknown artists: Chiron teaching Achilles, and Pan teaching Olympus how to
play the pipes (Pliny, HN 36.29); see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 142–3 for
discussion; for a detailed study of Agrippa’s building activities see F. W. Shipley,
Agrippa’s Building Activities in Rome (St. Louis 1933).

(50) Suet. Aug. 70.1; for the link between Augustus and Apollo see Galinsky,
Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (n. 17), 209–10, and, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 215–16.

(51) For general discussions of the complex see J. Gagé, ‘Apollon impérial, Garant
des «Fata Romana»’, ANRW 2.17.2 (1981), 566–9; B. Kellum, ‘Sculptural
Programs and Propaganda in Augustan Rome: The Temple of Apollo on the
Palatine’, in R. Winkes (ed.), The Age of Augustus (Interdisciplinary Conference
held at Brown University April 30 – May 2, 1982) (Louvain-la-Neuve 1982), 169–
76; P. Zanker, ‘Der Apollotempel auf dem Palatin. Ausstuttung und politische
Sinnbezüge nach der Schlacht von Actium’, in K. de Fine Licht (ed.), Città e

Page 53 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

architettura nella Roma Imperiale. Atti del seminario del 27 ottobre 1981, Anal-
Rom Suppl. 10 (Odense 1983), 21–40; E. Léfevre, Das Bild-Programm des Apollo-
Tempels auf dem Palatin (Xenia 24, Konstanz 1989); Galinsky, Augustan Culture
(n. 43), 215–19; LTUR 1.54–7.

(52) See Propertius 2.31.3–4; Ov. Tr. 3.1.61; see Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n.
43), 220–2 for the links between the Danaids and the conflicts Augustus faced in
his early career. Cf. Kellum, ‘Sculptural Programs’ (n. 51), 173–5, who observes
that the Danaids were of ‘giallo antico, yellow marble splotched with bloodred’,
a suitable colour variation, she notes, for those who murdered their husbands.
For a discussion of the ambiguity the Danaids posed for the viewer (as dutiful
daughters and slayers of their husbands) see K. Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and
the Age of Augustus: Inventing Private Life (Oxford 2005), 51–2, 64–6.

(53) Pliny, HN 36.32; for Avianius Evander’s work in metals see Horace,
Sermones 1.3.90–1; cf. Porphyrio’s scholion to this passage.

(54) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 216–17; similarly, the three have a
place on one of the terracotta plaques taken from the precinct, see Zanker,
Power of Images (n. 25), 63–5; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 148; for a detailed
discussion of the Sorrento Base see L. J. Roccos, ‘Apollo Palatinus: The Augustan
Apollo on the Sorrento Base’, AJA 93 (1989), 571–88.

(55) Pliny, HN 37.11; Pliny in the same passage says that Scaurus, Sulla’s step-
son, was the first to own such a collection of gems; Pliny 37.13–14 also reports
that Pompey dedicated a dactyliotheca belonging to Mithradates on the
Capitoline; according to Pliny, Varro said Pompey’s was inferior to Scaurus’
collection. See p. 229 for Caesar’s collection; for the discussion of such jewels in
a triumphal context see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 105–8.

(56) The sons of Archermos, fl. 540 BC, whose work was quite popular and
favoured by Augustus, Pliny, HN 36.11–13.

(57) Pliny, HN 36.36; see F. Kleiner, ‘The Arch of C. Octavius and the Fathers of
Augustus’, Historia, 37 (1988), 347–57; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 100.

(58) On the literary response to the theme of revenge in Augustus’ forum and
building programme in general see Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 211.

(59) Kellum, ‘Sculptural Programs’ (n. 51), 173 notes that the sons of Aegyptus
may have been represented by fifty equestrian statues, citing Scholia ad Persium
2.56, though given the late nature of the source these may have been a post
Augustan addition.

(60) Propertius 2.31.12–16; see A. Laird, ‘Ut figura poesis: Writing Art and the
Art of Writing Augustan Poetry’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture
(Cambridge 1996), 83–5 for discussion of the Propertius passage and its
Page 54 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

intersection with Roman visual culture and Augustan ideology; see Galinsky,
Augustan Culture (n. 43), 219 for discussion of the doors. In addition to the tale
of Niobe, both Apollo and Artemis were associated with other famous tales of
retribution, such as (for Apollo) the stories of Marsyas and Corinna, and (for
Artemis) Acteon.

(61) And the Temple of Apollo was an appropriate place for such interplay of
boundaries, reflected in the deity itself: Apollo, Greek or Roman?

(62) For Antony as Hercules and Bacchus see Plut. Ant. 4.1–2, 24.3–4, 60.2–3;
App. B Civ. 3.16; see Kellum, ‘Sculptural Programs’ (n. 51), 172–3; Zanker, Power
of Images (n. 25), 44–7, 61–3, 245; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 98–100.
Antony made no secret about his bibulous devotion to Bacchus, writing a treatise
entitled De Ebrietate Sua, Pliny, HN 14.148.

(63) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 219; Sol also has a place on the
breast plate of the Prima Porta Augustus, as do Apollo and Diana, underscoring
his interests here, see J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation
of Art from the Pagan to the Christian World (Cambridge 1995), 162–4.

(64) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 118–22, who notes that the ‘Golden
Age’ of Augustus is not a utopian vision, but one grounded in the reality of toil,
even lurking danger. On the relationship of imperial architecture to the cosmic
see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 6), 16; the relationship is particularly apt for
Vespasian’s Forum of Peace, see pp. 280–3. On the prominent role given to
Artemis/Diana by Augustus and its theological significance see C. M. C. Green,
Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia (Cambridge 2007), 34–54.

(65) See e.g. D. Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism,
Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham NC 1993), 109–24 for a
good theoretical discussion of this process.

(66) See Gros, Aurea templa (n. 47); M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of
Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge 1998), 198–99. It was vowed due to a
plague (hence Medicus) and dedicated in 431 BC, see Livy 4.25.3, 4.29.7. For
the temple’s association with victory see F. Hinard, ‘C. Sosius et le temple
d’Apollon’, Kentron, 8 (1992), 57–72; Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 383–4;
for the precedence that the Palatine temple eventually took over this one see
Gagé, ‘Romulus–Augustus’ (n. 42), 564–6; for its sculpture see E. La Rocca,
Amazzonomachia: le sculture frontale del tempio di Apollo Sosiano (Rome 1985);
for the temple in general see LTUR 1.49–54.

(67) In addition, an anonymous epigram celebrates a Niobe by Praxiteles; see

Anthologia Planudea 129.

(68) See Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 91 for discussion.

Page 55 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(69) See La Rocca, Amazzonomachia (n. 66), 71.

(70) For discussion see D. E. E. Kleiner, Roman Sculpture (New Haven 1992), 86;
cf. Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 346–8; on the notions of Augustan peace
as embodied on the Ara Pacis see H. Kähler, ‘Die Ara Pacis und die augusteische
Friedensidee’, JdI 69 (1954), 67–100.

(71) For the larger context of which see in general M. Fullerton, The Archaistic
Style in Roman Statuary (Leiden 1990); also see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25),
102–10; see 243–5 for Augustus’ predilection towards the archaic; also see
Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 342–4; for Augustus’ attitude towards
religion in general see W. Speyer, ‘Das Verhältnis des Augustus zur Religion’,
ANRW 2.16.3 (1986), 1777–1805.

(72) On the diverse roles of Artemis/Diana in Roman religious thought and

practice see Green, Cult of Diana (n. 64), 112–46.

(73) Cf. S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments,

and Memories (Cambridge 2002), 91, who notes a similar cosmological
significance in the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias; also see p. 202 n. 30.

(74) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 218, who suggests that Apollo as
citharode indicates Augustus’ desire to emphasize the arts of peace.

(75) For discussion of the lamp stand and its history see S. Carey, Pliny’s
Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford 2003), 83–
4, who notes that its display in the temple ‘mirrors its earlier history’: as it was
war spoil from Alexander’s capture of Thebes, and dedicated by him in Apollo’s
temple at Cyme, so now it stands under Augustus in Apollo’s temple on the
Palatine.

(76) The most thorough study of the forum is P. Zanker, Forum Augustum: Das
Bildprogramm (Tübingen 1968); also see J. Ganzert, ‘Der Mars Ultor Tempel auf
dem Augustusforum in Rom’, RhM 92 (1985), 201–19; Zanker, Power of Images
(n. 25), 210–15; T. J. Luce, ‘Livy, Augustus and the Forum Augustum’, in M. Toher
and K. Raaflaub (eds.), Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of
Augustus and his Principate (Berkeley 1990), 123–38, with emphasis on the
relationship between the forum and Livy’s text; Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n.
43), 199; see 197–213 for general discussion; J. Rich, ‘Augustus’ Parthian
Honours, the Temple of Mars Ultor and the Arch in the Forum Romanum?, PBSR
66 (1998), 79–97; cf. Leach, The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic
Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome (Princeton
1988), 205–6.

(77) For the inscriptions that accompanied each of the summi viri and stated
their accomplishments see Pliny, HN 22.13; Suet. Aug. 31.5; Aulus Gellius

Page 56 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

9.11.10; Cass. Dio 55.10.3; S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 28.6 (who says the statues were of
marble). The collection may have offered later emperors, such as Alexander
Severus, a proto-type for similar collections, see S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 25.9, and 26.4,
8; for discussion see P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society: Representation and
Response (Oxford 2003), 152–3 with n. 137.

(78) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 196–7; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14),
127–8, 175.

(79) See above p. 210 n. 54.

(80) See pp. 132–3 with n. 27 for discussion. For the new temple’s celebration of
revenge against the Parthians see Ov. Fast. 5.579–96; see Rich, ‘Augustus’
Parthian Honours’ (n. 76), passim for discussion.

(81) HN 35.27–8; see R. Daut, ‘Belli facies et triumphus’, MDAI(R) 91 (1984),

115–23 for a conjectural discussion about the original composition of these
works.

(82) Pliny, HN 35.94; see P. Zanker, ‘In Search of the Roman Viewer’, in D.
Buitron-Oliver (ed.), The Interpretation of Architectural Sculpture in Greece and
Rome, Studies in the History of Art Vol. 49 (Washington DC 1997), 185 for
discussion; cf. Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 210; D. Kinney, ‘Spolia,
Damnatio, and Renovatio Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 136–7.

(83) Previously believed to have been of Alexander; see Galinsky, Augustan

Culture (n. 43), 203 for discussion; cf. above p. 217 with n. 84.

(84) Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 204 is right to note the Periclean
inspiration for the programme, but it is more than a purely historical or political
reference back to Athens, and arguably carries divine associations. Caryatids
were also a part of Agrippa’s construction of the Pantheon years before, and the
connection between Athens and Rome was also reinforced by the sculptures that
adorned it; see p. 102; also see B. Wesenberg, ‘Augustusforum und Akropolis’, JdI
99 (1984), 161–85 for the connections between Classical Athens (specifically the
Acropolis) and Augustus’ building programme.

(85) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 195–201 for discussion; the pediment,
which had Mars at the centre flanked by Venus and Fortuna, and the whole
flanked by Romulus and Roma, is represented in a number of sources, perhaps
most notably on a frieze now in the Villa Medici in Rome.

(86) For the connection between Alexander and Augustus see D. Kienast,
‘Augustus und Alexander’, Gymnasium, 76 (1969), 430–56; G. C. Marrone,
‘Imitatio Alexandri in età augustea’, A&R 25 (1980), 35–41; Isager, Pliny on Art
and Society (n. 11), 121 with n. 394.

Page 57 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(87) The forum was a repository for cultural objects celebrating vengeance at
least into Caligula’s reign, see p. 135.

(88) See esp. Luce, ‘Forum Augustum’ (n. 76), for discussion of the relationship
between the summi viri, virtus, and Livy’s history; see M. Bonnefond, ‘Transferts
de fonctions idéologique: le Capitole et le Forum d’Auguste’, L’urbs, (1987), 251–
78, for its connection with military affairs under Augustus.

(89) See P. Frisch, ‘Zu den Elogien des Augustusforums’, ZPE 39 (1980), 91–8;
Luce, ‘Forum Augustum’ (n. 76); Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 206.

(90) It was with similar military and diplomatic success in mind that Claudius’
successor, Nero, was voted the honour of a statue in the Temple of Mars Ultor
equal in size to that of the god after the Parthian evacuation of Armenia in ad 54,
Tac. Ann. 13.8.

(91) For discussion see B. Olinder, Porticus Octavia in Circo Flaminio.

Topographical Studies in the Campus Region of Rome. Svenska Institutet
Skriften 8.ii (Rome 1974); E. La Rocca, ‘Sul Circo Flaminio’, ArchLaz 12 (1995),
108–10; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 107; Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43),
384.

(92) See Livy, Periochae 140; Ov. Tr. 3.1.69–70; Pliny, HN 35.114, 36.22, 28–9;
Plut. Marc. 30.6; Festus 188L; CIL 6.2347–49, 6.4431–35, 6.5192. M. Aemilius
Lepidus originally vowed the Temple of Juno Regina in 187 BC at the end of his
Ligurian campaign (Livy 39.2.11) and dedicated it in 179 when censor (Livy
40.52.1); the Fasti Antiates Maiores gives 23 December as its dedication day; see
LTUR 3.126–8 for a general discussion of the temple. On the problems of the
existence of a curia here see L. R. Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary
of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and London 1992), 104. On the original portico’s
architects see Vitruvius 3.2.5; Pliny, HN 36.42–3; see P. Gros, ‘Les premières
générations d’architectes hellénistiques à Rome’, in Mélanges J. Huergon, L’Italie
préromaine et la Rome républicaine. Mélanges offerts à Jaques Huergon,
Collection de l’Ecole Françhise de Rome (Rome 1976), 394–7 for discussion of
the Metellan portico’s construction; see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 11),
160–2 for the collection of the Metellan and later portico; in general also see
LTUR 4.130–2 (for the Portico of Metellus) and 4.141–5 (for the Portico of
Octavia).

(93) App. Ill. 28; also see Suet. Tib. 16.

(94) There was in addition an Eros by Praxiteles that had been looted from
Thespiae by Caligula, returned by Claudius, and once more looted by Nero,
Pliny, HN 36.22; Pausanias 9.27.3; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 5), 254–5.

Page 58 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(95) Gros, Aurea templa (n. 47), 29 with n. 102 argues too that this was designed
to be a statement of imperial monopoly over triumphs.

(96) See Livy 1.12; it should be noted, however, that this was not the same
temple. This particular temple was vowed by Metellus during a moment of crisis
in his campaign in Macedonia in 146 BC and constructed immediately afterward;
see Val. Max. 7.5.4; Velleius Paterculus 1.11.3–5; Eutropius 4.14.2; see LTUR
3.157–9 for the temple within the Metellan portico; see LTUR 3.155–7 for the
older temple and the cult’s introduction into Rome and its development; for the
cult’s duration see Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 66), 260.

(97) See D. Fishwick, ‘On the Temple of Divus Augustus’, Phoenix, 46 (1992),
232–55 for discussion of the literary and numismatic evidence, which suggests
the temple was not fully completed and dedicated until Caligula’s reign; cf. LTUR
1.145–6 for its location between the Capitoline and Palatine hills. On the
deification of Roman emperors in general see L. R. Taylor, The Divinity of the
Roman Emperor, American Philological Association, Philological Monograph 1
(New York 1931, reprint 1975); Weinstock, Divus Julius (n. 16); Gradel, Emperor
Worship (n. 25); for a good succinct discussion see Beard, North, and Price,
Religons of Rome (n. 66), 140–9.

(98) See K. Lehmann, ‘A Roman Poet Visits a Museum’, Hesperia, 14 (1945), 269;
for discussion also see M. L. Thompson, ‘The Monumental and Literary Evidence
for Programmatic Painting in Antiquity’, Marsyas, 9 (1960–1), 60; Bounia,
Classical Collecting (n. 11), 233–6.

(99) See Pliny, HN 35.131; Lehmann, ‘A Roman Poet’ (n. 98), 264 notes that the
clay statue may be related to a famous Hercules fictilis noted in Pliny, HN 35.157
by the archaic Etruscan artist Vulca, concerning whom see A. Andrén, ‘In Quest
of Vulca’, RPAA 49 (1976–1977), 63–83.

(100) Lehmann, ‘A Roman Poet’ (n. 98), 261 argues that the Victory may relate to
Domitian’s triumph over the Germans, but also concedes that it could be earlier.

(101) B. Kellum, ‘The City Adorned: Programmatic Display at the Aedes

Concordiae Augustae’, in K. Raaflaub and M. Toher (eds.), Between Republic and
Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate (Berkeley 1990), 292–6;
on Tiberius and the cult of Concordia in the context of his principate see J. R.
Fears, ‘The Cult of the Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology’, ANRW 2.17.2
(1981), 889–93; on Concordia in general also see P. Jal, ‘Pax civilis–Concordia’,
RÉL 39 (1961), 210–31.

(102) Ov. Fast. 1.640–8; Cass. Dio 56.25; see Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101),
278 for discussion.

Page 59 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(103) For Tiberius’ reluctance to build see Tac. Ann. 3.72; Suet. Tib. 47.1; for
discussion of Tiberius’ building programmes in a larger imperial context see
Thomas, Monumentality (n. 6), 21.

(104) For the use of money from his German and Illyrian campaigns see Suet. Tib.
20. For a discussion of the history and contents of this temple in Tiberius’ day
see G. Becatti, ‘Opere d’arte nella Roma di Tiberio’, AC 25–6 (1973–4), 18–53
esp. 30–42 (with a discussion of the numismatic evidence for a conjectural
reconstruction of the statuary programme); cf. Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n.
101), 278–9 for a related discussion.

(105) Cass. Dio 55.9.6; see 55.8.2 for the date of Tiberius’ exile and return.

(106) Pliny, HN 34.73, 77, 80, 89, 90.

(107) Pliny, HN 35.66, 131, 144; Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 278–83
discusses the possible arrangement of the programme. For the collection in the
Temple of Concord in general also see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 11),
159–60.

(108) Pliny, HN 37.4 says that the ring was set in a golden horn and ranked last in
a collection of highly esteemed gems; cf. HN 37.8. For the elephants in obsidian
see HN 36.196; see Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 283–7 for discussion.

(109) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 111 for discussion of the temple’s
exterior based on the numismatic evidence.

(110) See Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 278–9, who argues (279 n. 14–15)
that the various deities symbolically represented cosmic harmony citing Manilius
1.7–10, 1.247–57, 2.60–83, 440, 442, 444–6, 3.48–55.

(111) For the initial vow of the temple under Camillus in 367 bc see Ov. Fast.
1.641–4; Plut. Cam. 42.4, 43.2; nothing was built, however, until an aedicula to
Concordia in 304 BC by Cn. Fulvius (as aedile, Livy 9.46.6; Pliny, HN 33.19); for
the cult of Concordia under Camillus and in the early republic see A. D.
Momigliano, ‘Camillus and Concord’, CQ 36 (1942), 111–20; Fears, ‘Cult of the
Virtues’ (n. 101), 833–4; for Opimius’ new structure in 121 bc see App. B Civ.
1.26; Plut. C. Gracch. 17.6. See Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 276–8 for
the historical background.

(112) See Tac. Ann. 1.33; Seut. Claud. 1.4.

(113) See A. J. Woodman, Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford 1998), 40–69.

(114) Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 294 believes the Ceres in the temple is
to be associated with Livia, citing CIL I2 p. 324; 10.7501; also see Dion. Hal. Ant.

Page 60 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

Rom. 10.31–2; Livy 3.31.1. For discussion of the Aventine’s plebeian associations
see p. 142 with n. 60.

(115) For the ‘Biberius’ moniker see Suet. Tib. 42.1; for a good discussion of
Marsyas’ and Liber’s plebeian associations see M. Torelli, Typology and
Structure of Roman Historical Reliefs (Ann Arbor 1992), 103–6.

(116) Cass. Dio 56.25.1 gives AD 10 as the date, Suet. Tib. 20 gives AD 12;
Suetonius also notes that this temple and that of Castor and Pollux were
dedicated in Tiberius’ name and in that of his late brother, Drusus.

(117) To drive home the point of familial (and state) harmony, Livia also had
constructed a Temple of Concordia in her eponymous portico, Ov. Fast. 6.637–8;
on the fears of discord between the two despite apparent harmonious relations
see Tac. Ann. 2.43.

(118) See Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), passim; the same was no doubt
true, however, for any number of buildings in the city. See e.g. Pliny, HN 36.42–3
on the architects of the Portico of Metellus; see Gros, Aurea templa (n. 47), 394–
7 for discussion.

(119) For the actual name of Vespasian’s forum see C. Noreña, ‘Medium and
Message in Vespasian’s Templum Pacis ’,MAAR 48 (2003), 25–6, who notes that
it was variously known as the templum (Pliny, HN 34.84; Suet. Vesp. 9.1), forum
(Ammianus Marcellinus 16.10.14; Symacchus, Epistulae 10.78), aedes (Aur. Vict.
Caes. 9.7,Ep. De Caes. 8.8), and temenos in Greek authors (Joseph. BJ 7.158;
Cass. Dio 65.15; Herodian 1.14.2), hieron in Pausanias (6.9.3) and additonally
Eireinaion in Cass. Dio 73.24.1.

(120) For a topographical and general description see C. De Ruyt, Macellum:

Marché alimentaire des Romains (Louvain 1983), 160–3; R. H. Darwall-Smith,
Emperors and Architecture: A Study of Flavian Rome (Brussels 1996), 55;
Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119); J. Packer, ‘Plurima et Amplissima
Opera: Parsing Flavian Rome’, in A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (eds.), Flavian
Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003), 170–2. For the complex as a museum
see Darwall-Smith (above), 65; for its possible administrative functions see
Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119).

(121) E.g. Zanker, ‘In Search of the Roman Viewer’ (n. 82), 187–8 argues that the
collection is a non-programmatic, incoherent assembly of objects; cf. Miles, Art
as Plunder (n. 5), 259–62.

(122) BJ 7.162; see C. Edwards and G. Woolf ‘Cosmopolis: Rome as World City’, in
C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 2 for
the forum qua cosmos. It is worth noting that the all-encompassing nature of
Vespasian’s collection is reflected in Pliny’s equally inclusive Natural History at

Page 61 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

this period. As S. Carey has pointed out, (‘The Problems of Totality: Collecting
Greek Art, Wonders and Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC, 12.1
(2000), 1–13), the text itself constitutes a reflection of the universal collection
and of the luxury of which Pliny was so critical.

(123) See E. Champlin, Nero (Cambridge Mass. 2003), 205–6 concerning the
public versus private nature of the Domus Aurea. Noreña, ‘Medium and
Message’ (n. 119), 29 accepts with qualification the general interpretation that
Vespasian sought to distance himself from Nero through the public rather than
private use of Greek art. On the possibility of a more public function for Nero’s
collection see K. E. Welch, The Roman Amphitheatre: From Its Origins to the
Colosseum (Cambridge 2007), 147–60.

(124) For discussion of these see Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n.
120), 58–65, with an especially fine discussion of the temple’s cult statue (see
esp. 61–3); cf. Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 27; also see L. S.
Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture (Cambridge 2010),
161–4 for the interplay here of ‘peace and violence, culture and conquering’.

(125) See Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 39–40 for a critical discussion
of the numismatic evidence for the statue, who argues that the Pax type in the
denarius issue of AD 75 is most likely representative of its appearance.

(126) There were in fact two, one in Argos, another in Olympia; that in the forum
was from Argos (Pausanias 6.9.3), possibly located in the library, concerning
which see Aulus Gellius 5.21.9, 16.8.2; S.H.A. Tyr. Trig. 31.10.

(127) See Procopius, De Bello Gothico 8.21.11–14 for his description of the
collection. For Myron’s work here see Zanker, ‘In Search of the Roman
Viewer’ (n. 82), 187–8. For discussion of the bull in the numismatic record see
Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n. 120), 61 noting that a heifer
appears on an aureus issue of 74, and in 76 on both aureii and denarii of
Vespasian and Titus (BMC 132, 176–8, 185–9), the later possibly intended to
commemorate the forum’s inauguration, although he notes that whether this
represents Myron’s calf as opposed to simply a sacrificial victim is problematic;
for related discussion see J. Isager, ‘The Composition of Pliny’s Chapters on the
History of Art’, AnalRom 6 (1971), 65.

(128) On Leochares’ Ganymede see Anthologia Palatina 12.221; Pliny, HN 34.79;

IG 16.1523; Juvenal 9.22–6 and its scholia; for the Polyclitus see EG III (1974),
419–21.

(129) Noreiña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 23; also see E. La Rocca, ‘La
nuova immagine dei fori imperiali: Appunti in margine agli scavi’, MDAI(R) 108
(2001), 197–201.

Page 62 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(130) On the portrayal of Gauls see B. S. Ridgway, ‘The Gauls in Sculpture’,

ArchNews 11 (1982), 85–104. Pliny may be referring to a single large statuary
group from Pergamum, which survives in copies; cf. Dio Chrysostomus,
Orationes 31.148 who notes Nero’s pillaging of Pergamum; for an excellent
discussion of the Pergameme school in Rome and its significance (esp. in regard
to the portrayal of the barbarian ‘Other’) see A. Stewart, Attalos, Athens, and the
Akropolis: The Pergameme ‘Little Barbarians’ and Their Roman and Renaissance
Legacy (Cambridge 2004), 136–80; see A. Kuttner, ‘Republican Rome Looks at
Pergamum’, HSCP 97 (1995), 157–78, for discussion of Rome’s first contact with
Pergameme sculpture in the context of its alliance with Attalus I and the
importation of the Magna Mater in 204 BC.

(131) Pliny, HN 36.58; see Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n. 120),
60–1 for discussion of the statue (and cf. 140–2), who suggests that the Egyptian
material in the forum was associated with Vespasian’s acclamation as princeps in
Alexandria; for his acclamation there see A. Henrichs, ‘Vespasian’s Visit to
Alexandria’, ZPE 3 (1968), 51–80. For the depiction of rivers in a triumphal
context see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 215–18, 230–45.

(132) Pliny, HN 35.102–3; cf. Aelian, Varia Historia 12.41 which says Protogenes
spent seven years working on the piece; for Protogenes in Pliny see Isager, Pliny
on Art and Society (n. 11), 130–1.

(133) For Helena’s painting see Photius, Bibliotheca, PG 103, 149.28–33.

(134) Concerning Titus’ sacking of the Temple and his involvement see T. D.
Barnes, ‘The Sack of the Temple in Josephus and Tacitus’, in J. Edmonson, S.
Mason, and J. Rives (eds.), Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (Oxford 2005),
133–7.

(135) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 111–19; cf. S. Weitzman, Surviving
Sacrilege: Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity (Cambridge Mass. 2005),
101–14 for discussion; for the destruction of the Temple and its larger
significance for the Roman elite see D. Sailor, Writing and Empire in Tacitus
(Cambridge 2009), 232–49.

(136) De Bello Gothico 5.12.42; Joseph. BJ 5.231–6 gives a more detailed

description.

(137) BJ 6.387–91; scepticism of Titus’ clemency is warranted due to Josephus’

close proximity to Titus and Vespasian, see G. M. Paul, ‘The Presentation of Titus
in the “Jewish War” of Josephus: Two Aspects’, Phoenix, 47 (1993), 56–66; for the
spoils as portrayed on the arch see L. Yarden’s monumental study, The Spoils of
Jerusalem on the Arch of Titus: A Re-Investigation (Stockholm 1991); also see F.

Page 63 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

Kleiner, ‘The Study of Roman Triumphal and Honorary Arches 50 Years after
Kähler’, JRA 2 (1989), 195–206.

(138) Whether these were the same sacred objects presented to the Temple by
Ptolemy Philadelphus is uncertain, but remains a possibility (see AJ 12.78–83).
For Josephus’ elaborate description of the table of shew-bread designed for the
Temple by Ptolemy Philadelphus and other gifts he sent, see AJ 12.60–84; see
12.40–2 for Ptolemy Philadelphus’ other elaborate gifts. Some of this material
may well have been plundered and taken by Antiochus Epiphanes (AJ 12.248–55;
see 12.318 on the refurbishing of the Temple with new implements).

(139) By late antiquity, if we can believe Procopius, much of the treasure in

Vespasian’s forum may have been removed to the Palatine for safe keeping.
Procopius, De Bello Gothico 4.9.5–8 says that when Geiseric looted the Palatine
there was royal treasure of silver weighing over one thousand talents, and that
among these were the treasures from the Temple plundered by Titus and
Vespasian; while not absolutely certain that this was the same material
contained in Vespasian’s forum, it is likely. The material was ultimately
repatriated to Jerusalem when Justinian had the treasures sent to the Christian
sanctuaries there.

(140) BJ 7.139–47; see T. Murphy, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in
the Encyclopedia (Oxford 2004), 114–15 for discussion; see p. 221 n. 2 for
Vespasian’s triumph; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 253–5 for the
suggestion that the pēgmata were possibly ‘multi-media’ representations.

(141) See Tac. Hist. 4.12–37, 54–79, 5.14–26 for the most detailed account of the
revolt.

(142) For Vespasian’s commentarii see Joseph. Vita 342; see Syme, Roman
Revolution (n. 13), 178 for discussion.

(143) See Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 28, who also notes Pax’s
prominence in Vespasian’s coinage; on the place of Pax among the imperial
virtues raised to cult status under Vespasian see Fears, ‘Cult of the Virtues’ (n.
101), 899–902, who also notes its significant connections to the Augustan
programme; the theme of Pax under Augustus is a well-trodden path; see e.g.
Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 172–83 for discussion.

(144) See Cic. Orat. 5; Strabo 14.2.5, who says that it was still in Rhodes in
Augustus’ day, and so may well have been looted by Nero; Pliny, HN 35.81–3;
Plut. Demetr. 22.2–4; Mor. 183B; it was destroyed in Plutarch’s lifetime by fire.

(145) For the natural wonders making up a part of the collection see p. 214, with
n. 75.

(146) For the Domus Aurea as the world in small see Champlin, Nero (n. 123) 132.
Page 64 of 65

 
Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

(147) Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n. 120), 67 notes that the ‘bluff
no-nonsense image’ we find of Vespasian in Suetonius (Vesp. 12), is offset by his
larger patronage of art and culture; also see M. St. A. Woodside, ‘Vespasian’s
Patronage of Education and the Arts’, TAPA 73 (1942), 123–9 for a more cultured
side to Vespasian.

(148) See Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n. 120), 67 for discussion.
It may have been for similar reasons that Vespasian undertook the restoration of
the Temple of Honos et Virtus, Pliny, HN 35.120; see Darwall-Smith, 69 for
discussion. In addition, triumphal arches were decreed to Vespasian and Titus
(Cass. Dio 65.7.2); see Aur. Vict. Ep. De Caes. 8.8 who notes in general
Vespasian’s building and restoration activities. For a general discussion of
Vespasian’s building programme see B. Levick, Vespasian (London 1999), 124–
34.

(149) Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 38 argues that the more dubious
aspects of Vespasian’s victories were irrelevant; the increased pomerium
advertised his military achievements all the same; for the importance of the
pomerium in the imperial period see M. Labrousse, ‘Le “pomerium” de la Rome
impéiale’, MÉFRA 54 (1937), 165–99; R. Syme, ‘The pomerium in the Historia
Augusta’, Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium, Antiquitas 4 series 13 (Bonn
1978), 217–31 = Historia Augusta Papers (Oxford 1983), 131–45.

(150) For Vespasian’s closing of the temple see Orosius 7.3.7; for Augustus’
closing see e.g. Augustus, Res Gestae 13; cf. Cass. Dio 51.20 (29 BC), 53.26 (25
BC); Orosius 6.22 (dated to 1 BC).

(151) The cult had been introduced under Elagabalus, see H. R. Baldus, ‘Zur
Aufnahme des Sol Elagabalus-Kultes in Rom, 219 n. Chr.’, Chiron, 21 (1991),
175–8; for the temple under Aurelian see H. Kähler, ‘Zum Sonnentempel
Aurelians’, MDAI(R) 52 (1937), 94–105; F. Coarelli, Roma (3rd edn., Rome 1983),
240–1; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 66), 259; for a general
discussion see LTUR 4.331–3.

(152) See Beard, The Roman Triumph (n. 1), 321 for discussion of Aurelian’s
triumph in 274, which she views as exaggerated, though not ‘sheer invention’;
also see G. Zecchini, ‘I cervi, le amazzoni e il trionfo <<gotico>> di Aureliano’,
in G. Bonamente, F. Heim, and J.-P. Callu (eds.), Historiae Augustae Colloquium
Argentoratense, Historiae Augustae Colloquia ns 6 (Bari 1996), 349–58 for a
detailed discussion of Aurelian’s victory.

Page 65 of 65

 
Access and Upkeep

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

Access and Upkeep

Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0008

Abstract and Keywords

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

Keywords:   Rome, cultural materials, artefacts, restoration, preservation

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

Page 1 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

impoverished, a desire abided among the city’s inhabitants for the preservation
of the reminders of Rome’s once glorious and now fading past. Perhaps as a
result of Rome’s growing loss of prestige as a political capital, which was
increasingly yielded to places such as Constantinople and Mediolanum, the
impetus to cling to reminders of imperial domination and its divine sanction
grew more intense. Procopius, for one (De Bello Gothico 8.22.5–16), reports that
as late as the sixth century, in the midst of the disasters of that period, the
Romans were eager to preserve and protect their valuable cultural treasures
‘that nothing of Rome’s ancient glory should be wiped out’. Even despite
barbarian sway, the Romans still conserved buildings and their adornments well
into the fifth and sixth centuries.

However such preservation required resources, as did the initial outlay for any
new project. The responsibility for this expenditure shifted between the state or
powerful individuals and families depending on the nature of the monument or
dedication. The imperative of preserving a monument or cultural artefact also
depended on whether or not the object had been consecrated (which many had)
or not. Because during the republic those charged with the various tasks
connected with the housing and conservation of cultural property were generally
the most powerful men in the state, construction often constituted an overtly
political act in which competition for prestige had a significant role.
Subsequently, during the (p.288) principate, the adornment of the city
occasionally created a field of contention between the senate and princeps,
where the tensions between emperors and senators sometimes played out. In
terms of upkeep and restoration, as Procopius notes above, and as we may
understand from Tacitus as well, much store was placed on cultural material
during the empire, and its restoration and preservation were a matter of civic
pride, and appear to have been a public trust. The case was similar with general
maintenance, security, and access; the civil infrastructure for such care appears
to have been extensive and the resources dedicated to it were by no means
slight.

Construction: Responsibility, Financing, and Oversight

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

 
Access and Upkeep

campaign, but that this assumption needs modification, since construction of

this nature was not exclusively religious and extended to other public buildings.4
In the republic, both private individuals and the state paid for the construction
of buildings and (p.289) monuments. In terms of public works, it appears that
the censors had charge of construction. Livy indicates (4.8.2) that the censors
(under the year 443 BC) took charge of both the outlay of construction contracts
and their expense (as well as of state revenue), which may indicate that, at least
early on, they were in charge of letting out contracts for both upkeep and
construction.5 There was, in addition, a two men commission, known as the
duumviri aedi locandae (‘for locating the temple’) who let out contracts for
temple construction, as well as a separate commission, the duumviri aedi
dedicandae (‘for dedicating the temple’).6 Much of the oversight for temple
construction seems to have been in the hands of these two commissions, since
normally censors do not appear to have disbursed funds for new temple
construction.7 Their authority may have extended to allocation of resources to
the senate in its voting of public honours. The bestowal of such public honours,
from the statue of Cloelia that stood at the head of the Via Sacra (Dion. Hal. Ant.
Rom. 5.35.2, see p. 180) to the silver images of Antoninus and Faustina that
stood in the Temple of Venus and Rome (Cass. Dio 72.31) was in the hands of the
senate. However the censors also appear to have had authority over the disposal
of gifts throughout temples and public buildings. Thus in 173 BC (according to
Livy 42.6.11), King Antiochus sent his belated tribute to Rome along with five
hundred pounds of gold vases; the censors were given the responsibility of
putting the vases in whatever temple they so decided.

Aediles as senatorial magistrates also had a place in the construction of new

temples, the dedication of statuary, and the adornment of the city.8 A brief
survey of the late third and early second century BC suffices to illustrate this
phenomenon. We are told that the curule aediles of 295 BC, Cn. and Q. Ogulnius,
put a number of faeneratores on trial and confiscated their property; they used
some of the proceeds to build a bronze threshold for the Capitol and to provide
silver vessels for three tables in the shrine of Jupiter. In addition, they erected a
statue of Jupiter in a quadriga on the roof, and at the ficus Ruminalis set up a
statue group of Romulus and Remus suckled by the wolf. In the same year the
plebeian aediles, L. Aelius Paetus and C. Fulvius Curvus, used money from the
fines of ‘grazers’ to furnish the Temple of Ceres with golden libation bowls (Livy
10.23.11–13).9 The (p.290) curule aediles of 192 BC, M. Tuccius and P. Junius
Brutus, prosecuted a number of people for usury and from the fines set up four
gilded horses on the Capitol and twelve gilded shields in the inner chapel of the
Temple of Jupiter.10 The collection of fines also allowed the two plebeian aediles
to set up three statues on the Capitoline, (Livy 30.39.8). The curule aediles
additionally funded the casting of five bronze statues set up in the aerarium (Livy
31.50.2) with fines, while the aediles of 193 BC, M. Aemilius Lepidus and L.
Aemilius Paullus, raised enough money through the prosecution of cattle

Page 3 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

breeders (on what charge we do not know) to place a set of gilded shields on the
pediment of the Temple of Jupiter (Livy 35.10.12). Similarly, Livy tells us (38.35)
that in 188 BC the curule aediles, P. Claudius Pulcher and Ser. Sulpicius Galba,
dedicated twelve gilded shields on the Capitol paid for by fines imposed on grain
merchants for hoarding; in addition a statue of Jupiter was set up in the temple
at the direction of the decemviri, and a six horse chariot overlaid with gold was
set up by P. Cornelius on the Capitol stating it was the gift of the consul. Such
measures, particularly on the part of lower magistrates just entering their
cursus honorum, will have been reminders to the lower orders of their popular
administration of justice and will have commemorated their services given on
behalf of the populus Romanus. Such consecrated gifts will have further recalled
the pietas of a particular official and (possibly) been intended by the official to
assure the future favour of the gods and continuity of political success.

It was not always smooth sailing though. Cicero’s Verrine orations indicate the
problems that could arise in the construction of such new dedications. There
Cicero tells us (Verr. 2.2.141 cf. 2.2.146) that the censors had given Verres two
million sesterces for towns in Sicily to erect his statue. Not surprisingly, Verres
appropriated the funds and forced a number of towns to set up statues to him
out of pocket. As if that were not enough, according to Cicero (Verr. 2.2.150),
Verres also exacted money from farmers in Sicily to set up a number of gilded
equestrian statues (presumably of Verres himself) near a Temple of Vulcan in
Rome; the inscription on one of them stated that it was a ‘gift’ from the farmers
of the province.

In terms of the sheer prominence of such dedications, Jupiter’s temple on the

Capitoline was prime real estate (see fig. 2.1), owing to the level of activity at
the cult site and its importance. The accumulation of material by decree was
extensive, and we have cited only a few examples for what is a copiously
documented phenomenon. The case is similar for the construction of temples,
monuments, and the various dedications that were frequently set up at an
individual’s (p.291) discretion in consultation with the senate and people. To
cite but one example, in 181 BC M’. Acilius Glabrio dedicated a temple to Pietas
in the Forum Holitorium when he was duovir and he placed within it a gilded
statue of his father Glabrio.11 How much the senate regulated the location, size,
and the type of construction materials is uncertain, though by Glabrio’s day
custom and convention likely played a part. Livy (9.46.7) indicates that the
people granted senatorial authority for regulation in the early period, stating
that in 304 BC the people passed a measure lest anyone build a temple or altar
without authorization of the senate or a majority of the tribunes of the plebs.
Involvement of the populus Romanus in such authorization is supported by a
passage in Cicero (Dom. 130) who says that Q. Marcius wanted to dedicate a
statue of Concordia in the senate house and to dedicate the senate to Concordia
itself. The statue was ultimately transferred to the senate house not by Marcius,
but by C. Cassius Longinus, censor in 154 BC, after consultation with the
Page 4 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

pontifical college, when the pontifex maximus (M. Aemilius Lepidus) gave his
opinion that he did not think the dedication could be properly carried out except
by the authority of the populus Romanus. As concerns the actual project itself, it
appears that senators could conceivably oversee the construction themselves, as
indicated by Cicero’s interest in the building of the Temple of Tellus, near which
he set up a statue of his brother, Quintus (Q Fr. 3.1.14).12

With the advent of the principate, the senate and individual members of the
aristocracy found it necessary either to work in conjunction with the emperor or
at his behest, though occasionally they competed to award such honours to the
princeps, helping to create what we might call a topography of adulatio
(‘flattery’) throughout the city. Temple construction, artistic programmes, and
the dedication of cultural artefacts had to be undertaken in cooperation with the
imperial house, and the privilege of such activity became for the most part the
exclusive province of the ruling family.13 The trend started with Julius Caesar.
Cassius Dio (43.45.3) says that the senate decreed that Caesar’s statue be set up
in the Temple of Quirinus with the inscription To the Invincible God and another
on the Capitol next to Rome’s ancient kings. Such a piecemeal approach did not
satisfy. Soon a senatus consultum decreed his statue be in every temple in the
city (Cass. Dio (p.292) 44.4.4), as well as on the rostra representing him as the
saviour of citizens.14 The senate, in fact, went so far as to grant Caesar the right
to locate his tomb inside the pomerium, and it continued to take the lead under
his successors in the decreeing of dedications designed to curry favour with the
princeps.15 Hence, after the battle of Philippi, the senate voted Octavian the
honour of a column topped with his statue cast in gold and wearing the garb he
wore upon entering the city after the campaign. The column was to be adorned
with the beaks of ships he had captured and it was to be erected in the Forum
(App. B Civ. 5.130; cf. fig. 4.4). Later, after Actium the senate decreed that the
foundation of the Temple of Divus Julius be decorated with the beaks of ships
taken from that battle (Cass. Dio 51.19.2). Augustus himself famously took
charge, often out of his own pocket, with beautifying the city, as did family
members, such as Octavia, who built her eponymous portico and her libraries
with the spoils of Augustus’ campaign against Dalmatia.16 However the burden
was frequently shared with prominent members of the senate, as was famously
the case with the Theatre of Balbus, the restoration of the Basilica Aemilia, and
the adornment of the Temple of Apollo Sosianus’ pediment with Greek sculpture
(see p. 224).

We know that prior to his acceptance of the title Augustus the senate voted
Octavian the honour of an equestrian statue on the rostrum in the Forum when
they were courting him to fight against Antony in 43 BC (Velleius Paterculus
2.61.3), but that later in his reign the excessive number of silver statues
dedicated to him by friends, flatterers, and well-wishers led him to melt them
down into coin.17 He subsequently used the money to present a gold offering in
the Temple of Apollo in his name and in the name of those who offered him the
Page 5 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

silver statues (Augustus, Res Gestae 24). Augustus, though, was not the first to
eschew such honours. Scipio Africanus was similarly loathe to accept these sorts
of privileges, and forbade statues from being set up to him in the Comitium, on
the rostrum, in the Curia, on the Capitol, and in the shrine of Jupiter; he further
opposed a decree allowing his likeness (imago) exiting the Temple of Jupiter
Optimus Maximus in triumphal dress.18 Such honours could become a nuisance,
or, as (p.293) Augustus seems to have viewed it, a useless or embarrassing
expenditure. The emperor Claudius was of like mind.19 Disapproving of
extravagant outlay on statues and votive offerings on the part of private citizens,
and realizing that public buildings had become full of them in general, in AD 45
Claudius had them removed ‘elsewhere’ and forbade private citizens from such
dedications except by permission of the senate or unless a public work was
constructed or repaired at his expense (Cass. Dio 60.25.2–3).20 In neither
instance do we know the fate of the statues and dedications that were removed.

That Augustus and Claudius could act with so free a hand against imagines,
many of which were presumably sacred, was no doubt due in part to their de
facto position as pontifex maximus, who in the republic will have had some
control over such matters, as in 180 BC when C. Servilius, as pontifex, was
ordered to inspect the Sibylline books due to plague; he in turn ordered the
consul to vow gilded statues to Apollo, Aesculapius, and Salus (Livy 40.37.2).21
Similarly, Livy (26.34.12) relates that when the aristocracies of several
communities (Capua, Atella, and Calatia) of Campania were broken up and
resettled in the Second Punic War and the property of its leading men
confiscated, bronze statues and busts captured from the enemy were sent to the
college of the pontifices for them to decide whether the material was sacred or
profane. The emperor’s position as arbiter of state religion and sacred law put
Augustus and Claudius in the unique position of determining the fate of certain
pieces of cultural property. The princeps’ authority likely remained unchanged in
this regard in the course of the empire. It was such authority that possibly
motivated Pliny’s missive to Trajan (Ep. 10.8), in which he requested permission
to move some imperial statues he had inherited from various bequests from his
estate to Tifernum. He notes that he had intended to add Nerva’s statue and
gained his permission before Nerva’s death, and asks in this letter to add a
statue of Trajan himself, presumably because the ultimate authority for such a
decision rested with the emperor. As was the case with consecrated statues, the
princeps also reserved the right to make personal decisions on images that were
banned or dubious. Titinius Capito, for example, had to obtain permission from
the emperor (either Nerva or Trajan) to set up a statue of L. Junius Silanus (one
of Nero’s victims) in the Forum.22

With this in mind we should be somewhat circumspect about the reported

criticism launched against the emperor Elagabalus for his desire to remove (p.
294) numerous sacred objects from their original precincts into his new temple
of Elagabalus; if true, the move may have had a legal basis (since Elagabalus
Page 6 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

surely had the right as pontifex to effect such removals). Objections to

Elagabalus’ relocation of the fire of Vesta, the Palladium, the shields of the Salii,
inter alia, if indeed they occurred, were quite possibly based on long-standing
tradition rather than on legal sanction.23 In times of stress, on the other hand, it
appears that the sacred nature of cultural objects was simply neglected, as was
the case after the Roman defeat at Cannae in 216 BC, when spoils consecrated
to the gods were removed to be used either for warfare or its financing.24

Yet the senate still had some say in the adornment of the city, though more often
than not, it was directed at honouring their patron, the princeps. The senate’s
willingness to grant such honours, if we can believe Tacitus, did not always
reflect well on that body. Senatorial competition could result in excess,
embarrassing an emperor such as Tiberius, who derided the senate for their
eagerness to honour Drusus, Tiberius’ son, for his holding of tribunicia potestas
with ‘images of the emperors, altars of the gods, temples, arches, and other
accustomed honours’ (Ann. 3.57). Tacitus saves his barbs in particular for M.
Junius Silanus, who proposed that all public and private monuments no longer
be dated with the consuls’ names, but by the names of those who held
tribunician authority. Later, in AD 41, Claudius tried initially to limit the number
of images dedicated to him, accepting only one each (in what context we are not
told) of silver, bronze, and marble (Cass. Dio 60.5.4). Claudius’ successor, at
least in the beginning, showed a similar modesty. In AD 55 Nero requested that
the senate allow the building of a statue of his father Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus
and his guardian, Asconius Labeo, though according to Tacitus (Ann. 13.10) he
refused offers of statues to himself in gold or silver. Yet another decree indicates
that the senate may have also had some say in the actual design of a dedication;
decreeing altars to Mercy and Friendship, the latter was stipulated that it have
statues of Sejanus and Tiberius on either side.25

In more ambitious endeavours, the princeps would even on occasion become

personally involved in construction projects as was the case with Vespasian, who
delegated the supervision of the Capitoline’s reconstruction (after its destruction
by fire in AD 69) to L. Vestinus, a well-respected equestrian who had served as
Praefect of Egypt from 59–62 (Tac. Hist. 4.53). Vespasian famously assisted in
breaking ground for the new construction (Suet. Vesp. 8.5). His son Domitian (p.
295) was notorious as the emperor with ‘the building sickness’ (Plut. Publ.
15.5), and also took something of a personal interest in construction: Tacitus
(Hist. 3.74) tells us Domitian built a sacellum to Jupiter Conservator and a
temple to Jupiter Custos for his salvation from the Capitoline fire of 69 and the
fighting that attended it. Well before the Flavians, however, as already discussed
in detail, Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius were personally involved in the design
of various monuments and the assemblage of their collections. A full century
after them similar involvement famously continued with the emperor Hadrian
who had a particular interest in such projects, though in general the emperor, as

Page 7 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

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

Restoration of Artefacts and Monuments

Statues, paintings, and other artefacts were all subject to deterioration, yet the
process by which they were restored or preserved is poorly documented.
Concerning the restoration of buildings with art collections and other material of
cultural value we are better informed. While we are concerned here with the
preservation of cultural artefacts per se, a short mention of the process of the
management of building restoration is instructive since the method of
management appears to reflect the process of the restoration of artefacts
contained in the structures themselves. Note that we here refer to the
management of restoration while we are somewhat less concerned with the
actual physical process of restoration. This is due to the simple fac that we have
very little information, especially in the area of painting, concerning how this
process worked.

If we can trust Livy, in the republican period the censors saw to the restoration
and repair of public buildings through the distribution of public contracts.27
There are numerous instances of this in both the literary and epigraphic record
and needs little elaboration here. However, Augustus’ Res Gestae indicate that
buildings could stand in disrepair and neglect for some time (especially if the
family in charge of the monument had fallen into poverty), though occasionally,
according to Cicero (Div. 1.99), divine intervention could compel the restoration
ofpublic monuments, as was the case with the Temple of Juno Sospes during the
Social War, restored due to a dream of Caecilia, daughter of Q. Caecilius (p.
296) Metellus.28 The restoration of public monuments was not without its
problems, and again, Cicero offers us a window into the difficulties that could
arise if a dishonest official got his hands on a project. It was with this in mind
that Cicero devoted much attention in one of his Verrines (2.1.130–54) to Verres’
corrupt and criminal conduct in the restoration of the columns in the Temple of
Castor and Pollux. In the republican and even extending into the imperial period,
buildings and monuments that had been set up as commemorations by
individuals were the responsibility of that individual’s family and their
descendants. This was still the case with the advent of Augustus, who as noted
(p. 224) allowed others to adorn the city. Yet, by the time of his successor,
imperial oversight had started to make itself felt. Thus, under Tiberius, Aemilius
Lepidus felt compelled to ask senatorial permission to restore the Basilica Paulli,
a monument his noble ancestors had built. On the other hand, major monuments
of extinct republican families in need of restoration became the princeps’
responsibility, as was the case for the Theatre of Pompey, restored by Tiberius in
AD 22 (Tac. Ann. 3.72). Tacitus deliberately notes that Tiberius allowed Pompey’s
name to remain after his restoration. This was not the case for the Temple of
Concord whose restoration Tiberius personally undertook (see p. 267), and
which he dedicated with his brother, Drusus’ name inscribed on it. Emperors
Page 8 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

generally took credit for repair and refurbishment depending on their own level
of vanity and the nature of the restoration; Hadrian, as with Tiberius and the
Theatre of Pompey, famously did not append his name to his restored version of
Marcus Agrippa’s Pantheon.

We are relatively well informed about the restoration of public buildings and
monuments, in no small part because they were durable and a substantial
number survive that tell us something about Roman techniques of construction
and restoration. Concerning the restoration and repair of cultural property we
are more in the dark. In the area of painting, outside of the literary record, we
have almost no information. One of the most obvious ways the Romans
apparently managed the deterioration of paintings was simple replacement. For
example, as noted in the previous chapter (p. 234), Augustus placed two famous
paintings by Apelles, the Dioscuri with Victory and the Venus Anadyomenē, in his
forum and the Temple of Divus Julius. By Nero’s day these had deteriorated to
such an extent that they were substituted with paintings (of unknown subjects)
by Dorotheus. Time was a natural destroyer for such works, although
incompetent attempts at restoration were also a potential hazard. A masterwork
by Aristides’ of Thebes in the Temple of Apollo (a tragic actor with a boy) was
ruined owing to a poor attempt at restoration when M. Junius as praetor
commissioned a painter who (p.297) was not very skilled to clean it for the
Ludi Apollinares.29 Cicero indicates for us what such restoration might have
entailed in an analogy he makes between a painting and the state (Rep. 5.1.2):

But our own age, although it accepted the state just as a renowned
painting, but now has neglected to restore it as it fades due to age
(evanescentem vetustate), not only has not cared to restore it with its
original colours (coloribus eisdem … renovare), but does not even care to
preserve its form (formam), and, as it were, its outlines (liniamenta
servaret).

The retouching of colour was possibly the central focus of restoration in

antiquity, and favoured paintings subject to deterioration could be restored
repeatedly. Protogenes’ Ialysus we know was restored on at least four occasions,
something reflected in its number of coats according to Pliny.30 That Cicero
makes a concession to form in addition to colour may—and only may—indicate
that restorers could take some liberties with the original painting. Some works
however, either through skilful restoration or luck, appear to have escaped
damage due to age. Thus Petronius (Satyricon 83) refers to an ancient work by
the painter Zeuxis as still relatively unharmed. Although a fictional account, it is
credible enough, given that some artists used methods to preserve their works
from the ravages of time and developed their own techniques, as was the case
with Apelles, who somehow protected his works pulvere ac sordidibus (‘from
dust and dirt’).31 Partial preservation was also an option if a painting had been
seriously damaged or had deteriorated, as was the case when the Temple of

Page 9 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

Ceres was restored in 27 BC (after a fire in 31): the embossed work on the wall
(by two renowned artists, Damophilus and Gorgasus) was cut out and put in
frames (Pliny, HN 35.154), while the remaining paintings on the walls were
impossible to salvage.32 The fate of the newly restored material is unknown.
Cornelius Pinus and Attius Priscus are praised as painters of Vespasian’s newly
restored Temple of Honos et Virtus; while it is not absolutely certain that this
constituted a restoration project as opposed to an entirely new one, Pliny’s
language implies the possibility of the former.33

Statues, though more durable than painting, were also subject to deterioration
and damage. Cicero noted in the Philippics (9.14) the forces that could take their
toll on statuary, including weather, violence (presumably vandalism), and old
age. It was with such deterioration in mind that Statius, for example, could
assert (p.298) that an equestrian statue of Domitian would never suffer from
the force of time as other statues do (Silvae 1.91–8). Some materials were
naturally more fragile than others. To preserve chryselephantine statues such as
that of Olympian Zeus, oil could be used to protect its ivory; similarly, water was
sometimes employed as a moisturizer to preserve the statue of Athena on
Athens’ Acropolis.34 An archaic ivory statue of Saturn in his temple in the Forum
was similarly treated with oil to conserve it (Pliny, HN 15.32). But in terms of the
actual process and methodology of restoration we know little. We do know,
however, that statuary with minor damage was occasionally retouched with
wax.35 The famous collector, Avianius Evander was a successful art dealer who
managed to restore a decapitated statue of Diana by Timotheus in the Temple of
Apollo on the Palatine (Pliny, HN 36.32), but we have no discussion, again, of
methodology. However, there are ample broken and restored statues that clearly
indicate the use of concrete along with other adhesives, and in the case of
bronze, welding, which will have been the means used to repair damaged
statuary. Such welding must have been used in the modification of the Colossus
when Nero’s head was replaced with Commodus’ (and where Commodus was
portrayed as Hercules, with the addition of a bronze club and lion at the feet of
the statue).36 Such restoration in and of itself could be deemed worthy of
recording, as was the case with a statue of Minerva, restored after it was
damaged by fire.37 It could also provide political and even historical or
commemorative ‘insurance’ for oneself, as Cicero’s remark to Caesar, that by
restoring Pompey’s statues he had made his own (i.e., Caesar’s) more secure,
indicates.38

As was the case with paintings, some attempts to modify statuary were quite
detrimental, as when some restorers tried unsuccessfully to remove the gilding
from a statue of Alexander; some gilding remained in the cavities, ruining the
work’s beauty.39 For skilled restorers, however, there was the possibility of social
(p.299) recognition. Vespasian, for one, was generous to artists and paid well

Page 10 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

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

General Upkeep, Access, and Security

There were several ways in which cultural material of a public nature was
monitored in ancient Rome. Censors had a general responsibility to care for
temples, but they usually delegated this to the aediles or to special commissions,
although the consuls were given the specific task of looking after the statue of
Jupiter Capitolinus, and their first action upon entering office annually was the
polishing of Jupiter’s cult statue and the care and feeding of the sacred geese.41
As noted above, individual families were in charge of specific monuments, but
they were also in charge of their contents. For Romans, the tradition of familial
maintenance was traced back to the mythical Nautius (Nautes in Vergil, Aeneid
5.704), the Trojan priest who arrived with Aeneas in Italy and was said to have
brought with him the wooden statue of the goddess Athena from Troy (and been
her priest); the Nautii, as a result, had the responsibility to guard the statue
afterwards (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 6.69.1). Similarly, when Fabius Maximus and T.
Otacilius Crassus asked the senate’s permission to dedicate temples to Venus
Eryx and to Mens in 215 BC (Livy 23.30.13), it appears that both were appointed
duoviri for dedicating their respective shrines and were to be responsible for
each (Livy 23.31.9). Cicero also indicates that upkeep may have depended on the
family, stating in the Verrines (2.4.79) that it was mos maiorum that every man
guards his ancestors’ monuments to stop further adornment by others.

Our sources indicate that the responsibility for the general oversight of the
contents of public buildings, at least during the republic, was widely distributed
through several offices. Such care, as Strong notes, was first and foremost in the
charge of the censors, whose role in caring for sacred objects both Pliny (HN
34.30) and Livy (42.6) note, and who also appear to have been in charge of
inventory or to have appointed a commission of tresviri for the task.42 In addition
to the tresviri, it also appears, if we can trust Dionysius, that some of the
responsibility for the general care of sacred places was delegated to the aediles
(Ant. Rom. 6.90.3), although the initiative invariably started with the higher (p.
300) magistracies. Livy tells us that M. Aemilius Lepidus, as princeps senatus
and censor in 179 BC, contracted for the cleaning of the Temple of Jupiter
Capitolinus and the columns around it as well; Livy also says that he took down
from the columns the shields and military insignia that had been affixed to
them.43 In addition, Aemilius, along with his colleague in the censorship, M.
Fulvius, opened up numerous shrines and public places (sacella publicaque loca)
to the people which had been occupied by private individuals (40.51.1–3, 8).
According to Cicero, the consuls had similar authority over the care and
maintenance of such buildings, and he gives us some idea of how the work could
be delegated (Verr. 2.1.130–2): in 75 BC the consuls, L. Octavius and C. Aurelius,
had let out various contracts for temple maintenance. They did not have time to
certify all the cases, nor did the two praetors, C. Sacerdos and M. Caesius, to
Page 11 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

whom the duty had been delegated. The senate decided that the new
contractors, C. Verres and P. Caelius, should be in charge of the oversight of the
completion of all the contracts (though as noted above (p. 296), according to
Cicero, Verres abused his power). The contractor for the Temple of Castor and
Pollux was P. Junius, who died during his tenure, having been in charge of
upkeep since 80 BC; the duty devolved to his son, who was still a minor. Verres
decided that the contract ought to be transferred to the boy’s guardian, L.
Habonius. According to Cicero, Habonius had to testify before Verres that he
was taking charge of the oversight with the temple in good condition, with no
statues or offerings missing.

The type of inventory Habonius submitted will not have been unusual, and the
keeping of such records in general will have been a necessary precursor for the
care and upkeep of buildings (sacred and non-sacred) and their contents. The
inventorying of goods taken in war ideally started at the source, with looted
material catalogued after a city’s capture (see p. 45). A similar process of
cataloguing in a civic context is indicated in Livy under the year 212 BC when
the senate and people had the praetor urbanus create a commission of five men
for examining ‘the sacred vessels’ and had another for making a record of
temple gifts, with yet another commission for temple repair (25.7); the inventory
may have been necessitated after monuments had been stripped of their
adornments after the Roman defeat at Cannae noted above. Varro (De Lingua
Latina 5.47) too clearly indicates that there were similar records of the city’s
monuments kept during the republic, including priestly accounts (ex Argeorum
Sacrificiis) which possibly listed a temple’s contents.44 A surviving papyrus
fragment from Egypt appears (p.301) to contain a similar itemized inventory of
statues, including their artists, and may even specifically mention the Farnese
Hercules.45

By the time of the principate, such inventories, and the offices attendant with
them, had become essential for the upkeep not merely of buildings but of their
contents as well. Suetonius indicates that the trend of establishing such offices
started with Augustus who created an office charged with the curam operum
publicorum or ‘care of public works’ (Aug. 37). The office is well attested in both
the literary and epigraphic record.46 The board of curatores, overseeing the care
of public buildings and shrines, continued with his successors. Hence, to cite but
one example, the future emperor Vitellius held a post as curator at one point, a
post at which Suetonius tells us he proved himself incompetent.47 In addition to
curatores there were sub-curatores known as procuratores operum publicorum
(ILS 1430). These various grades had their own individual functions and duties,
including, possibly, the cataloguing of individual buildings (sacred and public)
and their contents. Indeed, Strong conjectures that Vespasian’s censorship may
have included an attempt to account for works in Rome looted during Nero’s
tour of Greece in AD 67, a task undertaken by the curatores; the product of their
work may have furnished the basis for Pliny the Elder’s discussion of the various
Page 12 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

artists and their works in his encyclopaedia.48 Tacitus’ father-in-law Agricola was
among those appointed by Vespasian in the interest of undertaking just such an
account, (ad dona templorum recognoscenda, ‘for reviewing gifts to temples’,
Tac. Agr. 6.5). A similar ‘catalogue’ may have been at hand for Tacitus, or at any
rate, one of Tacitus’ sources, in rendering his abbreviated account of those
monuments and works destroyed in the great fire of AD 64 (Ann. 15.41).
Moreover Pausanias conceivably had in mind curatores and procuratores when
he made a general reference to the ‘keepers of the wonders’ (hoi epi tois
thaumasin) in the city (8.46.5).49

It is likely that later in the empire such curatores became more specialized. As
Strong notes, under Antoninus Pius there was an imperial freedman who was
procurator of statues and paintings, and, under Antoninus and Commodus, an
official called an adiutor rationis statuarum (‘assistant in charge of recording
statuary’) and a procurator a pinacothecis (‘the procurator in charge of painting
galleries’).50 (p.302) The office of a pinacothecis however, appears to have
predated Antoninus, going back at least to the time of Trajan, and one suspects
before, since, as noted in Beaujeu’s study, an inscription pertaining to the
Temple of Aesculapius and Hygia refers to Flavius Apollonius as procurator
Augusti, qui fuit a pinacothecis (‘the procurator of Augustus in charge of
paintings’).51 Beaujeu notes too that there are indications of similar offices in
the hands of slaves in the imperial house early in the empire.52 Under Augustus,
for example, there existed a slave known as the a tabuliis (CIL 6.3970) and
another known as the a statuis (CIL 6.4032).53 Tiberius may have had a similar
office specifically for looking after images of the imperial family, an office ad
imagines.54 We hear too that a certain Larensis was the pontifex minor and the
procurator patrimonii, and that he was placed in charge of all the temples and
sacrifices by Marcus Aurelius, (as well as in charge of all the Greek and
‘national’ rites in Rome, Athenaeus 1.2a).55 Presumably, this entailed delegating
the supervision of upkeep of the material inside the temples as well. By the late
empire (ad 335–7) a curator statuarum is attested as a subordinate to the
praefectus urbi.56 Nearly twenty years later (356–7), Ammianus Marcellinus
(16.6.2) refers to a certain Dorus as nitentium rerum centurionem sub
Magnentio, that is, serving as centurion in charge of works of art in Rome.

Yet despite the relatively meticulous care as indicated by the various offices
pertaining to cultural property and artefacts in Rome (and its cataloguing), we
also know that it could prove inefficient.57 The sheer quantity of material, sloppy
record-keeping, and the regrouping or reworking of material all contributed to
the confusion concerning the identification of objects deemed culturally
significant. Pliny despaired at the situation in his own day, citing the vast
amount of material as problematic for its identification (HN 36.27). The problem
of an over-population of statuary—and its care and restoration—was an old and
(p.303) endemic one.58 As early as 179 BC M. Aemilius Lepidus cleaned out
the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, removing the statues around the columns.59
Page 13 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

Twenty years later in 158 BC the censors, P. Cornelius Scipio and M. Popilius,
undertook a similar purge, removing all the statues of former magistrates except
those set up by decree of the people or senate.60 Cassius Dio remarked the vast
quantity of statuary that filled the city (60.25.2–3), referring to the ochlos (‘mob’)
of images in the early first century. Augustus also may have spruced up the
Capitoline of its clutter of statues, though his motive may have been to create a
programme more in keeping with his imperial forum, rather than simply to
neaten up the site.61

The result of this periodic cleaning and reassembling was that certain artworks
could no longer be attributed to their original, individual creators. Pliny notes
specifically the case of a statue of Venus that Vespasian had used to adorn his
new forum—an admirable work whose artist was unknown (HN 36.27). One of
the factors adding to the confusion was that statues could be brought to Rome
without their base and the identification of a given work could be lost in the
course of transport.62 Again, poor record keeping and importation methods
likely led to the confused identification over the artists and their works in the
Portico of Octavia, including a group of four satyrs, and another of two wind
goddesses spreading their robes like sails (Pliny, HN 36.29). It was equally
unknown who had sculpted the groups of Olympus and Pan and of Achilles and
Chiron that stood in the Saepta Julia, even though they were so esteemed that
those who guarded them put up surety of their lives for their safety (Pliny, HN
36.29). Pliny was equally uncertain whether Scopas or Praxiteles was the
sculptor of the dying children of Niobe in the Temple of Apollo Sosianus (HN
36.28). By late antiquity the bronze bull which may have been part of a fountain
in the Forum of Peace was identified variously as a work of Phidias, Lysippus, or
Myron.63 Such confusion was no doubt the result on occasion of reconfiguration.
Mummius, for example, inscribed statues of Philip II with the title of Zeus, and
(p.304) the titles Nestor and Priam on the statues of two Arcadian youths,
likely with the intent of reusing the statues in a new context64

Yet even in the waning days of the empire, there still was a concern to look after
Rome’s cultural and artistic heritage despite Constantine’s despoliation of the
city. Ammianus tells us (29.6.19) that Claudius Hermogenianus Caesarius, the
praefect in 374, spent his time in office concerned with the restoration of
numerous buildings or their improvement, a phenomenon that accelerated in the
fourth century.65 The desire at this late date to maintain Rome’s cultural
patrimony could be read in a number of ways. Continued civic pride, concern for
the city’s waning prestige, nostalgia for the historical and spiritual centre of the
Empire, all of these were surely at work. Refurbishment of the antiquities and
protection of cultural heritage will have put Rome’s patrimony at the forefront;
the expenditure of money and energy on its protection at a time when other
priorities demanded urgent attention indicates the value placed on Rome’s
cultural legacy.66

Page 14 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

With so many cultural artefacts adorning Rome’s temples and public buildings,
how was access controlled and regulated, and how was such material protected?
Access to various areas in Rome could be opened or restricted, depending on the
nature of the site. Viewing access may have been relatively free, at least by day,
throughout much of the city, since Strabo says (5.3.8–9) in his description of the
Campus Martius that if one passed on to the Capitoline and saw the works of art
there, as well as those on the Palatine and Livia’s portico, that one would
become oblivious of all else outside. As concerns the Capitoline, there is reason
to believe that access here was at least occasionally restricted, or that at the
very least the place was closely guarded. Horace’s scholiast indicates that there
was a general keeper of the Capitoline’s temples, and Pliny mentions the suicide
of an aedituus on the Capitoline.67 Suetonius (Ner. 46.2) tells us of an occasion
in which Nero, wishing to fulfill some vows on the Capitol, was delayed until the
keys (Capitolii claves) could be found. Concerning access to Rome’s porticoes,
we are (p.305) not very well informed, though an inscription, the Tabula
Heracleensis indicates that the aediles and other magistrates (aedilium
[e]orumve mag(istratuom)) maintained control over access to and activities in
porticoes.68 These were no doubt duties aediles would delegate to lesser officers
(such as those noted in the inscription).69

Despite the general protection of the city’s myriad of statues and monuments,
their complete protection appears nearly impossible. Simply recall the graffiti on
the Temple of Concord after the death of C. Gracchus, the filets and diadem
placed on Caesar’s statues, the graffiti scrawled on the statues of M. Brutus’
eponymous ancestor, or that scribbled on statues against Nero for his
matricide.70 One of the rare though perhaps unsurprising exceptions to this rule
was when the senate voted that Caligula’s statues be guarded (Cass. Dio
59.26.3). We have no details on how this was to be put into effect, but it is likely
that the vigiles or night watch would have had responsibility for this task. Late in
the empire, we hear of an office called the comes Romanus, in charge of
protecting artworks from theft or defacement, but it is difficult to imagine that
something similar did not exist before then.71 We do know that vandalism was a
sufficiently serious matter that it fell under a charge of iniuria.72

The main caretakers for temples and their contents were officials known as
aeditui, who in general were probably public slaves and freedmen. While some
appear to have been in charge simply of opening and closing the doors, others
will have had more specific duties.73 Tertullian, for one, tells us that by law the
aedituus was responsible for sanctifying and purifying temples (De Pudicitia 16),
and this would accord with other sources which indicate the aedituus’ more
general duties elsewhere, such as Varro (De Lingua Latina 7.12), who simply
notes in vague terms that the word aedituus referred to one who was in general
charge of a sacred building. Elsewhere an aedituus (who prior to Cicero’s time
was called an aeditumus) was synonymous with the custos or ianitor templi, in
his capacity as the gatekeeper.74 Under Augustus and the empire, these officials
Page 15 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

came from the rank of imperial freedmen, such as T. Flavius, the aedituus of the
Temple of Mars Ultor, known to us from a funerary inscription.75 According to a
(p.306) scholiast of Horace’s Satires, sometime in the reign of Augustus a
certain Petillius was given charge of looking after the Capitoline and its
treasures. Under his watch a crown was reportedly stolen; he was accused but
acquitted of the theft through Augustus’ intervention.76 It is entirely plausible
that Petillius will have been a freedman of the imperial house as was T. Flavius.
Not long after we hear of a certain Bathyllus, also an imperial freedman and the
aedituus of the Temple of Divus Augustus and Augusta on the Palatine.77 A
freedman of Claudia Antonia’s, Philippus Rusticus, apparently held an office
known as the a sacrario, an office to which we also have reference in an epitaph
to Successus Valerianus who held the identical title (a sacrario divi Aug[ugsti])
in addition to the title of aedituus.78 In addition to freedmen, it appears that
servi publici could still fulfill the duties of aeditui. Thus Strabo refers to
hierodouloi, and later Tacitus at least implies that a servuspublicus controlled
access to the Temple of Vesta.79 On the whole, however, based on the epigraphic
record, it seems reasonable to assume that most aeditui were freedmen; indeed,
Tacitus notes (Ann. 13.27) that numerous assistants to the priests and
magistrates, doubtless among them aeditui and the like, were recruited from
among the city’s liberti. In addition to servi publici and aeditui, there existed, at
least on a local level, palaestritae (‘managers of gymnasia’) who could also have
responsibility for access and daily upkeep, as well as general accounts of
statuary.80

On the whole, the aedituus who held the keys to the place was in charge of a
relatively secure, though by no means impregnable structure, and theft was a
problem, even though temples and public buildings were protected with
formidable locks. One of the more detailed episodes of theft from a public
temple occurred when Verres broke into the Temple of Hercules at Akragas.
Cicero asserts that Verres’ men (a group of armed slaves led by Timarchides)
had to use a great deal of force in breaking into the temple, actually wrenching
the bolt then tearing the statue from off of its base.81 Nor was their task always
tranquil: Verres tried to appropriate a much revered and remarkable statue from
the people of Assorus from their temple dedicated to the river Chrysas which
flowed through (p.307) their territory. Reportedly Verres dared not touch it but
sent two minions, Tlepolemus and Hiero, to take the statue by force with a band
of armed men. Unfortunately for them, the aeditumi custodesque raised the
alarm, having apparently been alerted to Verres’ scheme. In addition, Juvenal
indicates that the theft of gilding off of statues was problematic (14.256–62), and
also refers to a theft of the helmet of Mars Ultor.82 Aulus Gellius also tells us
that guard dogs were in use for the protection of the Temple of Capitoline
Jupiter, along with an unspecified number of aeditumi.83 No doubt these were
particularly diligent in their duties, that is, if we can trust Pliny, who tells us that
there was a particularly fine statue of a dog licking its wounds in the cella of

Page 16 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

Juno on the Capitoline and, since invaluable and irreplaceable, the guards were
threatened with penalty of death if anything untoward should happen to it.84 As
concerns the hours that aeditui, custodes, and other such officials worked, it
appears unlikely that every temple had unrestricted access every day, at least in
the republic. Plutarch tells us that when Aemilius Paullus held his triumph ‘every
temple was open’ (Aem. 32.3) which would imply limited hours, possibly even
days for access (a situation still familiar to anyone who tries to visit sites in
Rome today).

In addition to public spaces, there was also the matter of access to houses of the
great, an area that arguably straddled the space between public and private (see
above, p. 186). The level of access granted to homes with particular artefacts
and collections is problematic, but it was certainly there. Holliday has argued
that, at least during the republic, the houses of nobiles were open to all except in
periods of mourning.85 The record however is not entirely consistent. Cicero, for
one, criticizes Verres’ appropriation of art for private use in a domestic setting,
rather than public display, and notes over and over in his prosecution that this
was a central difference between Verres as opposed to M. Marcellus, Scipio
Africanus, and Aemilius Paullus, who did not keep treasure for private enjoyment
but distributed it for public benefaction (see pp. 36–50). However, Velleius
Paterculus’ statement (2.14.3) that Livius Drusus sought to make his house as
public as possible implies as well that this was not a universal principle, and that
Livius had counterparts who tried to maintain a more private residence. We
know the case of some in the republic—at least outside of Rome in a Greek
setting—who did have cultural artefacts to which there was general access, as
was (p.308) the case with Heius, a wealthy citizen of Messana to whose house
a chapel was attached containing an Eros by Praxiteles, a fine statue of Hercules
in bronze by Myron, and two canephoroi type statues in the front by Polyclitus.
Romans apparently visited the place which was open daily to see these fine
works, at least according to Cicero (Verr. 2.4.4–5). Elsewhere there is ample
indication that the houses of the great during the empire were generally
accessible as places that housed artworks and curiosities (see pp. 186–92). In
such instances it is reasonable to suppose that access was regulated by the
presence of a ianitor.

Conclusion: Expenditure and Values

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

 
Access and Upkeep

buildings and temples and put in charge many of the equestrian order so that
everything might be quickly completed’. Such commitment and effort devoted to
ornamenta, in addition to infrastructure, is telling.87 A similar devotion to
Rome’s patrimony was shown by his father’s commitment to the replacement of
inscriptions of historical significance that perished in the destruction of the
Capitoline temple in 69 (see p. 147).

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

Notes:
(1) There have been numerous studies on the nature of construction in ancient
Rome; see e.g. D. E. Strong, ‘The Administration of Public Building in Rome
during the Later Republic and Early Empire’, BICS 15 (1968), 97–109; F.
Coarelli, ‘Public Building in Rome between the Second Punic War and Sulla’,
PBSR 45 (1977), 1–23; also see J. C. Anderson Jr., Roman Architecture and
Society (Baltimore 1997), esp. pp. 68–118 on the organization of public building.

(2) As was the case with the statues of Pythagoras and Alcibiades in the
Comitium, set up by order of the Pythian Apollo, Pliny, HN 34.26; on the social
background of the construction and finance of religious buildings of a public
nature see J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans. Translated and edited by R. Gordon
(Cambridge and Malden Mass. 2007), 21–2, 27–8.

Page 18 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

(3) See E. M. Orlin, Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic
(Leiden 1997), 116–17.

(4) See Orlin, Temples (n. 3), 124–6; for temples constructed from manubiae (so-
called manubial buildings) see 127–39; cf. D. Favro, The Urban Image of
Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), 82–6 for a list of manubial buildings dating
between 44 BC and AD 14.

(5) Livy 36.36 indicates that censors would farm out construction of new
temples, but that the senate granted them their authority. For the censors’ role
in new construction see Orlin, Temples (n. 3), 140–1. That Livy’s narrative at
least for his very early history is only an indication of actual practices needs
emphasis, since he may well be anachronistic, looking to practices in his own
day.

(6) See Orlin, Temples (n. 3), 147–58 for the creation and responsibilities of the
two commissions; see 162–89 on the dedication of temples in general.

(7) Ibid., 142.

(8) For the aediles’ role in construction see Orlin, Temples (n. 3), 141, 143–4.

(9) See J. Briscoe, A Commentary on Livy Books XXXI – XXXIII (Oxford 1973), 163
for the use of fines by aediles in the construction of public works; cf. J. Briscoe, A
Commentary on Livy Books XXXIV – XXXVII (Oxford 1981), 160; for the religious
and moral sentiment behind such fines see Rüpke, Religion (n. 2), 15.

(10) A decade earlier, in 203 BC, the curule aediles C. Livius and M. Servilius
Geminus dedicated a gilded four horse chariot on the Capitol, Livy 29.38.8.

(11) See p. 151. n. 79 for discussion.

(12) The maintenance and repair of buildings on the local level will have come
out of the personal fortunes of local grandees or Roman patrons, as Cicero notes
was the case for Arpinum, where wealthy individuals used income from estates
in Gaul for the maintenance of sacred and public buildings (Fam. 13.11.1). For
local patronage of a similar nature see Pliny, Ep. 3.6, 9.39, 10.8.

(13) For the restructuring of this aspect of Roman religious life see M. Beard, J.
North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge 1998),
196–201; for imperial financing of public buildings see E. Thomas,
Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford
2007), 38.

(14) For a detailed discussion concerning the decrees that placed Caesar’s
statues throughout a number of temples in Rome and the larger context of the
dedication Invicto Deo, see S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford 1971), 186–8, who

Page 19 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

is dubious concerning to what extent the decree even constituted an

extraordinary honour.

(15) See p. 233.

(16) Cass. Dio 49.43.8; cf. Res Gestae 19–21 where Augustus boasts of adorning
the city with new and restored buildings at his own expense.

(17) Cass. Dio 53.22.3; cf. 54.35.2 where Augustus refused statues at public
expense to himself, instead setting them up to Salus Publica (‘The Preservation
of the Public Welfare’), Peace, and Concord.

(18) Livy 38.56; triumphal vestments were particularly evocative; see Plut. Mar.
12.5: Marius elicited comment when he attended a senate meeting in such garb,
the special preserve of privilege for triumphatores of exceptional note.
Ultimately Scipio’s image was set up in Jupiter’s temple, see p. 108.

(19) Cass. Dio 60.5.5; see P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation
and Response (Oxford 2003), 133 for discussion.

(20) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 133 for discussion.

(21) On the legal authority of the pontifex and some of the difficulties in our
understanding of them see Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 13),
23–6, 29.

(22) Pliny, Ep. 1.17; on Silanus’ execution in AD 65 see Tac. Ann. 16.7–9; for
discussion see A. N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny: A Social and Historical
Commentary (Oxford 1966), 124–6.

(23) Herodian 5.6.3–4; S.H.A. Heliogab. 3.4; cf. 6.6–9.

(24) See Livy 22.57.10; cf. Val. Max. 7.6.1b; Florus 1.22.23.

(25) Tac. Ann. 4.74; Ann. 13.8 indicates that the senate could oversee the
construction of statuary with specific detailed attention to its appearance; hence
a decree after some successes in the East in 55 that a new statue of Nero equal
in size to the cult statue be dedicated in the Temple of Mars Ultor.

(26) For a good detailed discussion of personal imperial involvement in such

projects see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 13), 29–52.

(27) Livy 29.37.2; at 34.44.5 he states that the Atrium Libertatis and the Villa
Publica were restored and extended by the censors in 194 BC. Cicero (Leg. 3.7)
says that (ideally) censors should have charge of temples, streets, and aqueducts
within the city; it is a fair presumption that this also included the contents of
temples as well.

Page 20 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

(28) There were similar instances of divine warning for repair and restoration.
See e.g. Cic. Div. 1.101, where a warning comes from a voice in Vesta’s sacred
grove that walls and gates must be repaired or the city would be captured (by
whom Cicero does not state).

(29) Pliny, HN 35.100; see D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.),

Archaeological Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William
Francis Grimes (London 1973), 261 for discussion.

(30) HN 35.102; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 262.

(31) Pliny, HN 35.97; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 261 for discussion.

(32) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 262 for discussion.

(33) Pliny, HN 35.120: Honoris et Virtutis aedes Imperatori Vespasiano Augusto

restituenti pinxerunt, ‘They painted the Temple of Honos et Virtus for the
emperor Vespasian Augustus who was restoring it’.

(34) Pausanias 5.11.10–11; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 261 for
discussion; for a detailed study on chryselephantine statuary see now K. D. S.
Lapatin, Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford
2002).

(35) See e.g. Juvenal 12.87; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 262 for
discussion.

(36) Cass. Dio 72.22.3 also says that he inscribed it with his titles with the
following inscription: ‘Champion of the secutores; only left-handed fighter to
conquer twelve thousand men’. Cf. Herodian 1.15.9; S.H.A. Comm. 17.9–10.

(37) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 263 for discussion; ILS 3132 (dated to
AD 483).

(38) Plut. Mor. 91A; cf. Mor. 205E.

(39) Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 262 remarks the ‘mania’ for this process
in the late empire. He also notes that this activity could become quite
specialized, as is the case with M. Rapilius Serapio, who made a living putting
the eyes back into statues, citing CIL 6.9403. Plut. Mor. 348E also refers to
dyers, gilders, and painters of statues. See Pliny, HN 35.133 for artists who
specialized in painting statuary. For a detailed study see V. Brinkman and R.
Wünsche, (eds.), Die Bunte Götter. Die Farbigkeit antiker Skulptur. Eine
Ausstellung der Staatlichen Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München in
Zussamenarbeit mit der Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek Kopenhagen und der

Page 21 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

Vatikanischen Museen, Rom (Munich 2004) on the painting of statuary in

antiquity.

(40) Suet. Vesp. 18; for the Colossus’ removal to the head of the Via Sacra see
Cass. Dio 66.15.1; the Colossus was again moved by Hadrian (S.H.A. Hadr.
19.12–13).

(41) For delegation to the aediles see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 251–2;
for censors and their duties concerning the cult statue see Plut. Mor. 287B–C; cf.
Pliny, HN 33.112.

(42) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 250–1 for discussion.

(43) Such items according to Macrobius, Saturnalia 3.11.6, were classified as

ornaments since they were not consecrated at the same time as the temple itself.

(44) See A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 260–4

for discussion of the Sacra Argeorum; cf. 290–301 for a similar cataloguing of
the city’s inhabitants and building types.

(45) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 153–4 for discussion.

(46) See J. M. Beaujeu, ‘A-t-il éxisté une direction des musées dans la Rome
impériale?’, in Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres,
Nov.–Dec. (1982), 681 for extended discussion; cf. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n.
29), 252–4; O. F. Robinson, Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration
(London 1992), 54.

(47) Vit. 5; on curatores see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 252. See e.g. CIL
6.1585 on the curator of the column of Antoninus Pius.

(48) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 254.

(49) For curatores and their status see Robinson, Ancient Rome (n. 46), 53.

(50) See CIL 6.9007, 31053, 1708 (= ILS 1222); for discussion see Strong,
‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 253; Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46),
672–3 n. 2.

(51) CIL 6.10324 = ILS 7213; see Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46),
671–2, who conjectures that his rank will have been equestrian; see 672 with n.
2.

(52) See Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 672–3 with n. 4.

(53) Ibid., 672 n. 4.

Page 22 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

(54) CIL 6.3972; see Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 672 n. 4 for
discussion.

(55) There was, similarly, a procurator Mausolei, see Thomas, Monumentality (n.
13), 196 for discussion.

(56) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 253 on this reorganization; Strong
remarks that ‘it has been suggested (Chastagnol, 1960) that this office was
created in 331 when the office of curator aedium sacrarum was suppressed by
Constantine’. The curator statuarum would from henceforth be responsible for
inventory of the national collections. Strong further notes (p. 254) that in ad 365
the Baths of Caracalla were beautified with a large number of statues by order
of the princeps, with the praefect of the city overseeing the project (citing CIL 14
suppl. 4721 [Ostia]); ILS 5482, 5477, 5478; CIL 6.794, 1170–73a. Also see A.
Chastagnol, Le préfecture urbaine à Rome sous le Bas-Empire (Paris 1960), 469
citing CIL 6.1708, 6.1159; Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 683;
Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 155 with n. 148.

(57) See p. 120; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 250–1, who notes that
inefficient inventory contributed to the problem.

(58) On the occasional over-population of Rome with statuary and its need to be
cleaned up, see Cic. Phil. 9.14; also see Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes 31 (for the
over-population of Roman statuary on Rhodes) and Pliny, HN 35.4–5 (for the
recycling of statuary); for discussion see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n.
19), 128–30, esp. 129 n. 40; L. S. Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art
and Architecture (Cambridge 2010), 4–5.

(59) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 129 for discussion.

(60) Pliny, HN 34.30; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 129 for
discussion.

(61) Augustus’ clean-up is questioned by G. Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur

Ehrenstatue in Rom: literarische und epigraphische Zeugnisse (Rome 1983), 11;
see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 132 for the suggestion that
Augustus was attempting to create a unified programme with his other projects.

(62) Pliny, HN 36.28–9; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 260–1; see above
p. 47.

(63) Procopius, De Bello Gothico 8.21.12–15; the same passage states the reason
for the confusion: ‘Because there are numerous statues in this area which were
the works of these two [i.e., Phidias and Lysippus]’. Concerning Myron’s bull see
too Anthologia Palatina 9.713–42, 793–8.

Page 23 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

(64) Dio Chrysostomus (= Favorinus), Orationes 37.42; see Strong, ‘Roman

Museums’ (n. 29), 255 for discussion.

(65) For discussion see D. Kinney, ‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio Memoriae’,
MAAR 42 (1997), 121, who notes that laws increasingly addressed the city’s
despoliation in the fourth century; for a related discussion see J. Alchermes,
‘Spolia in the Roman Cities of the Late Empire: Legislative Rationales and
Architectural Reuse’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 48 (1994), 167–8.

(66) For the subsequent reaction to the city’s decline in this regard see
Cassiodorus, Variae 7.13, 15; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 119,
for discussion of Cassiodorus’ ‘pleas for the preservation of Rome’s sculptural
heritage’, which he argues was problematic, ‘Divorced from the social and
religious circumstances of their creation … the balance between intrinsic and
symbolic value had tipped in favour of the lime-kilns and furnaces’. As Stewart
notes, the underlying assumption of Cassiodorus (and his audience) is that the
statues ‘deserve reverence on account of their aesthetic value, as works of art’,
and that ‘they are valuable property of the community and the product of the
whole world’.

(67) HN 33.15; cf. Ov. Fast. 1.261–2 with his dubious reference to Tarpeia as
keeper of the Capitoline.

(68) See ILS 6085 = M. H. Crawford (ed.), Roman Statues (London 1996), i. no.
24, lines 68–72.

(69) See Beaujeu ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 672–3 n. 4 for discussion.

(70) For Gracchus see Plut. C. Gracch. 17.6; for Caesar see Suet. Iul. 79.1; Plut.
Caes. 61.8; App. B Civ. 2.108; Cass. Dio 44.9.1–3; for Brutus see Suet. Iul. 80.3;
Plut. Brut. 9.6–7; for Nero see Suet. Ner. 45.

(71) Cassiodorus, Variae 7.13; see Robinson, Ancient Rome (n. 46), 58.

(72) Digesta 47.10.27; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 264 for
discussion.

(73) Such as cleaning temples; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 251.

(74) Or the templi vel aedis minister and ostarii similia (see TLL p. 934); cf. Aulus
Gellius 12.10 who quotes both Varro and Cicero for the association between the
custos and the aedituus; also see Servius, In Aeneidem 9.645 (cf.1.726), who
simply says that the aedituus was ‘a loyal guardian of the threshold’ (fidusque ad
limina custos), a post ‘of great honour among our forebears’ (in ingenti honore
apud maiores fuit).

(75) See CIL 6.8709 = ILS 4996.

Page 24 of 25

 
Access and Upkeep

(76) See Pseudo-Acro on Horace, Sermones 1.4.94, and cf. 1.10.25. Worse than
the light-fingered aeditui were the pyromaniacs. See Obsequens (57, 83 BC) who
asserts that the fire in that year on the Capitoline was ‘due to the treachery of
the gatekeeper’ (Fraude aeditui).

(77) See CIL 6.4222 = ILS 4995.

(78) For Rusticus see CIL 6.2329 = ILS 4992. For Valerianus see CIL 6.2330a =
ILS 4993; cf. CIL 6.2330b = ILS 4993a.

(79) Strabo 12.3.37; cf. 12.3.34; Tac. Hist. 1.43.

(80) See e.g. Cic. Verr. 2.2.35–7: a certain Heraclius of Syracuse had been left a
legacy, one of the terms of which was that he set up certain statues (presumably
of the deceased) in a palaestrum. One of Verres’ minions accused Heraclius of
not erecting the statues, and the property was declared forfeit.

(81) Cic. Verr. 2.4.94–6. Cicero says that the vigiles and custodes raised a cry–
which indicates that the city had some level of policing. See Strong, ‘Roman
Museums’ (n. 29), 259 for discussion.

(82) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 259 for discussion. Juvenal’s tale of
theft is plausible enough though not (given the satirical nature of the passage)
without its difficulties.

(83) Aulus Gellius 6.1.6; cf. Pliny, HN 29.57; Livy 5.47.3.

(84) Pliny, HN 34.38; see Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 672–3 n. 4
for discussion, who thinks these were also the ‘keepers of the wonders’ referred
to in Pausanias.

(85) See e.g. Seneca the Younger, Dialog 7.28.1,10.20.3,11.14.2; Lucan 2.22; Tac.
Hist. 1.82; Ann. 2.82; see P. J. Holliday, The Origins of Roman Historical
Commemoration in the Visual Arts (Cambridge 2002), 227 n. 98 for discussion.

(86) Suet. Tit. 8.4; for discussion see Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n.
46), 684.

(87) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 145–6 for the definition of
ornamenta: ‘Digest 33.7.12.16 draws a distinction between the ornamenta and
instrumenta (‘equipment’) of a house, defining ornamenta in manifestly aesthetic
terms as “ quae ad voluptatem [pertinent], sicut tabulas pictas”’.

Page 25 of 25

 
Epilogue

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

Epilogue
Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0009

Abstract and Keywords

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

Keywords:   ancient Rome, Roman identity, cultural materials, artefacts

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

Page 1 of 5

 
Epilogue

enormous stress Roman society confronted in late antiquity, also needs to be

understood in the context of the cultural sea-change in the late empire, which
fundamentally altered Roman identity and the centres of social power within
Roman society. The focus had shifted from an aristocratic and pagan centre of
power to one that was now Judeo-Christian, and the shape the city took and the
cultural values that material culture expressed took on new shapes and new
forms.3 In addition, political power had drifted away from Rome, in no small part
as a consequence of external pressures in the eastern and on the northern
frontiers, which necessitated long absences of any imperial presence away from
the city. Consequently, over time even the most basic knowledge of the ancient
(p.312) city was lost, as values were resituated during the processes of major
political and cultural revolutions.

It was in the process of this cultural shift, coupled with the enormous stresses of
invasion, economic malaise, and periodic plague, during which knowledge of
Rome’s ancient pagan patrimony was lost, leading to a general ignorance of the
city’s past. Hence, the writer of the Graphia Aureae Urbis (26) located the tomb
of Romulus in the naumachia across the Tiber, instead of its traditionally attested
location in the Forum. Similarly, it led Magister Gregorius in his Mirabilia (6) to
identify the colossal bronze head of Constantine and his right hand holding an
orb (both now in the Capitoline collection) as portions of the Colossus of Nero.
At the same time, however, the author of the Graphia Aureae Urbis asserts an
intimate knowledge (of dubious accuracy) of Rome’s Judeo-Christian patrimony
and the cultural objects reflective of it. The author therefore asserts that the ark
of the covenant was to be found in the templum Pacis iuxta Lateranum (20),
which allegedly contained (to name just a few of the more striking objects), the
tablets of the covenant (tabulae Testamenti), the staff of Aaron, a golden urn
containing mana, Aaron’s vestes et ornamenta, a gold candelabra with seven
lamps, a tabernaculum, seven candelabra, seven silver chairs (cathedrae),
Moses’ staff which he used to part the Red Sea, the vestments of John the
Baptist, and the scissors used to cut the hair of John the Evangelist. Yet it is
worth noting that here too, as was the case with the ancient Romans’ knowledge
of their heritage and past, it is not the historical accuracy of the account, but
what the account tells us about the Roman sense of self, and sense of the city in
general. The Mirabilia, as is the case with the Graphia Aureae Urbis, is a work
that focuses on the fantastic and on the marvellous, and both appear to attempt
to set Medieval Rome within the context of Rome’s virtually mythic (and more
authoritative) ancient past, in a sense reflecting Rome’s growing place as a
spiritual centre, through a discussion of material culture that set that culture in
a new historical, theological, and cosmic context.

The city was no longer a repository expressing earthly triumph, no longer one
with imperial collections attempting to impress or intimidate provincials or to
assert legitimacy of rule or rights of governance. Rather the city came to reflect
the divine mission and heritage of the Church, an institution that, over time,
Page 2 of 5

 
Epilogue

itself became a collector and recycler of the ruins of the ancient city.4 Over time,
however, the Church came to leave a mark that in visual terms also sought to
express a triumphalism both human and divine, that itself collected the world in
(p.313) miniature, whose exhibitions and displays came to serve functions very
similar to those of ancient imperial collections.5 It was also a theological
repository of heaven collected and gathered by the rulers of the City of God, who
—like their ancient predecessors—amassed the material cultures of the peoples
of the world to whom it sought to spread its faith.6 Only now Apelles’ paintings,
Praxiteles’ marbles, and German war masks were supplanted by such relics as
the scalae Christi, the bones of St. Bartholomew, the manger in which Jesus
slept, pieces of the true cross, and the myriad fragments of Rome’s ancient past,
through which the city both in a literal and mnemonic sense ‘recollected’ itself.

In the course of this study, we have considered the ways in which material
arrived in Rome, how it was cared for, and, through a series of admittedly
artificial categories, tried to excavate to a limited extent how a variety of
cultural property was expressive of Roman values and identity. To stop at the
sixth century AD is, in a sense, also artificial. The re-emergence of Rome as the
centre of another world empire, that of the Church, has arguably had the result
that the modern city now reflects, in a living sense, the ancient. This is true not
simply in the crude reuse of spolia from ancient buildings in the subsequent
construction of new ones, but in the accruing over time of a unique cultural
heritage that has created, yet again, a museum city reflecting its ancient
identity. Its churches, like its ancient temples, continue to function as significant
repositories of cultural material in their own right. The church of Santa Maria
Sopra Minerva is perhaps the finest example of such a site. Gothic in style (an
oddity in Rome due to a regrettable nineteenth century restoration), it contains a
splendid fifteenth century chapel (the Capella Carafa) frescoed by Filippino
Lippi, a sculpture of Christ Triumphant by a young Michelangelo, a cloister
where Galileo was put on trial, the tomb of Saint Catherine of Siena, who still
today receives numerous pilgrims in her capacity as a healing saint, and boasts a
delightful but diminutive elephant outside in front of the church sculpted by
Bernini and carrying a small obelisk on its back (one of many imported from
Egypt to Rome in antiquity). A number of popes are entombed here as well, and
we could go on with the names of great artists whose works grace the church or
who chose the church as their final place ofrest–Sangallo, Barocci, Fra Angelico,
the list is no less impressive than that of Verres’ thefts. As Vespasian’s Forum of
Peace represented a world in miniature, so too is the church a microcosm of
Rome’s palimpsest cultural, intellectual, religious, and artistic history, spanning
from its ancient past and embracing masterworks from the Renaissance and
Baroque periods. The cultural property (p.314) (and history) that has accrued
within Santa Maria Sopra Minerva and throughout the city in general is
reflective today of contemporary Roman civic identity, with its layer of ancient,
Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and modern architecture, and the myriad

Page 3 of 5

 
Epilogue

masterworks those epochs encompass. Much of the material within the city is, in
addition, reflective of the once great power of the Church and of the potency of
the aristocratic families that competed for power during the Medieval,
Renaissance, and Baroque periods.

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

Notes:
(1) See R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City 312–1308 (Princeton 1980), 3–20
for a survey of the city in Constantine’s day; see 20–31 for the changes
Constantine effected in the city; see 36 for his discussion of Ammianus’ passage
on Constantius’ tour of the city.

(2) For the looting of the temple and Palatine see Procopius, De Bello Gothico
3.5.3–4; for Domitian’s expenditure see Plut. Publ. 15.3–5. See Krautheimer
Rome (n. 1), 35–7 for discussion of Procopius’ impression of the city in late
antiquity.

(3) On the survival of Roman antiquities into the Middle Ages and Renaissance
see T. J. Greene, ‘Resurrecting Rome: The Double Task of the Humanist
Imagination’, in P. A. Ramsey (ed.), Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the
Myth (Binghamton 1982), 41–54; M. Greenhalgh, The Survival of Roman
Antiquities in the Middle Ages (London 1989).

(4) As when in 1606 Pope Paul V pulled down the temple of Minerva in the
Forum of Nerva and used it in construction of the acqua Paola on the modern
Gianiculo. On the gradual despoliation of the city and the reuse of architectural
elements and sculpted relief see D. Kinney, ‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio
Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 117–48.

Page 4 of 5

 
Epilogue

(5) One thinks here, for example, of the use of some of the first gold from the
New World that adorns the ceiling of Santa Maria Maggiore.

(6) See Krautheimer, Rome (n. 1), 7–40 for a good discussion of this
transformation; for its complete transformation from a pagan to a Christian
capital see 33–58.

Page 5 of 5

 
Bibliography

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

(p.315) Bibliography
Bibliography references:

Abbreviations follow those cited in the American Journal of Archaeology: <http://

www.ajaonline.org>

Afzelius, A., ‘Zur Definition der römischen Nobilität in der Zeit Ciceros’, ClMed 2
(1938), 40–94.

—— ‘Zur Definition der römischen Nobilität vor der Zeit Ciceros’, ClMed 7
(1945), 150–200.

Alchermes, J., ‘Spolia in the Roman Cities of the Late Empire: Legislative
Rationales and Architectural Reuse’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 48 (1994), 167–
78.

Alcock, S. E., ‘The Reconfiguration of Memory in the Eastern Roman Empire’, in

S. E. Alcock, T. N. D’Altroy, K. D. Morrison, and C. M. Sinopoli (eds.), Empires:
Perspectives from Archaeology and History (Cambridge 2001), 323–50.

—— Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories

(Cambridge 2002).

Alföldi, A., Early Rome and the Latins (Ann Arbor 1960).

Alsop, J., The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and its Linked
Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared (New York 1982).

Amici, C., Il Foro di Cesare (Florence 1991).

Ampolo, C., ‘L’Artemide di Marsiglia e la Diana dell’Aventino’, PP 25 (1970), 200–

10.

Page 1 of 35

 
Bibliography

Anderson, J. C. Jr., The Historical Topography of the Imperial Fora. Collection

Latomus 182 (Brussels 1984).

—— Roman Architecture and Society (Baltimore 1997).

Andó, V., Luciano critico D’Arte (Palermo 1975).

Andrén, A., ‘In Quest of Vulca’, RPAA 49 (1976–1977), 63–83.

Appadurai, A., ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in A.

Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective
(Cambridge 1986), 3–63.

Arafat, K. W., Pausanias’ Greece: Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers (Cambridge
1996).

Arendt, H., The Human Condition (Chicago 1958).

Arnaud-Lindet, M. P., ‘Le Liber Memorialis de L. Ampélius’, ANRW 2.34.3 (1997),

2301–12.

Baekeland, F., ‘Psychological Aspects of Art Collecting’, Psychiatry, 44 (1981),

45–59.

Bal, M., and Bryson, N., ‘Semiotics and Art History’, ArtB 73 (1991), 174–208.

Baldry, H. C., ‘Who Invented the Golden Age?’, CQ 4 (1952), 83–92.

Baldus, H. R., ‘Zur Aufnahme des Sol Elagabalus-Kultes in Rom, 219 n. Chr.’,
Chiron, 21 (1991), 175–8.

Baldwin, B., ‘Trimalchio’s Corinthian Plate’, CP 68 (1973), 46–7.

—— ‘Pliny the Elder and Mucianus’, Emerita, 63.2 (1995), 291–301.

Balland, A., ‘La Casa Romuli au Palatin et au Capitole’, RÉL 62 (1984), 57–80.

Bandinelli, R. B., ‘Arte Plebea’, DialArch 1 (1967), 7–19.

(p.316) Bardon, H., ‘Le concept de similitude à Rome’, ANRW 1.2 (1972), 857–
68.

Barkan, L., Transuming Passion: Ganymede and the Erotics of Humanism

(Stanford 1991).

Barnes, R., ‘Cloistered Bookworms in the Chicken-Coop of the Muses: The

Ancient Library of Alexandria’, in R. MacLeod (ed.), The Library of Alexandria.
Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (London and New York 2000), 61–78.

Page 2 of 35

 
Bibliography

Barnes, T. D., ‘The Sack of the Temple in Josephus and Tacitus’, in J. Edmonson,
S. Mason, and J. Rives (eds.), Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (Oxford 2005),
129–45.

Bartman, E., ‘Lysippos’ Huge God in Small Shape’, Bulletin of the Cleveland
Museum of Art, 73 (1986), 298–311.

—— ‘Sculpture Collecting and Display in the Private Realm’, in E. Gazda (ed.),

Roman Art in the Private Sphere (Ann Arbor 1991), 71–88.

Barton, C. A., The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the
Monster (Princeton 1993).

Basanoff, Y., Evocatio: étude d’un rituel militaire romain (Paris 1947).

Bassett, S., The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge 2004).

Baudrillard, J., The System of Objects (London 1996).

Beagon, M., Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder (Oxford 1992).

—— ‘Burning the Brambles: Rhetoric and Ideology in Pliny, Natural History 18

(1–24)’, in D. Innes, H. Hine, and C. Pelling (eds.), Ethics and Rhetoric: Classical
Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford 1995), 117–32.

Beard, M., ‘Acca Larentia Gains a Son: Myth and Priesthood at Rome’, in M. M.
MacKenzie and C. Rouech (eds.), Images of Authority (Cambridge 1989), 41–61.

—— ‘The Triumph of Flavius Josephus’, in A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (eds.),

Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003), 543–58.

—— The Roman Triumph (Cambridge Mass. 2007).

Beard, M., North, J. and Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History
(Cambridge 1998).

Beaujeu, J. M., ‘A-t-il éxisté une direction des musées dans la Rome impériale?’,
in Comptes Rendus de L’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Nov.–Dec.
(1982), 671–88.

Becatti, G., Arte e gusto negli scrittori Latini (Florence 1950).

—— ‘Letture Pliniane: Le opera d’Arte nei monumenta Asini Pollionis e negli

Horti Serviliani’, in Studi in Onore di Aristide Calderini e Roberto Paribeni, vol. 3
(Milan 1956), 199–210.

—— ‘Opere d’Arte nella Roma di Tiberio’, AC 25–6 (1973–4), 18–53.

Page 3 of 35

 
Bibliography

Belk, R., Wallendorf, M., Sherry, J., Holbrook, M., and Roberts, S., ‘Collectors and
Collecting’, Advances in Consumer Research, 15 (1988), 548–52.

Bennett, T., The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (New York 1995).

Berg, B., ‘Cicero’s Palatine Home and Clodius’ Shrine of Liberty: Alternative
Emblems of the Republic in Cicero’s De Domo sua’, in Studies in Latin Literature
and Roman History, 8 (1997), 122–43.

Berger, J., Ways of Seeing (London 1972).

Bergmann, B., ‘Greek Masterpieces and Roman Recreative Fictions’, HSCP 97

(1995), 79–120.

(p.317) —— ‘A Painted Garland: Weaving Words and Images in the House of

the Epigrams in Pompeii’, in Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds.), Art and
Inscription in the Ancient World (Cambridge 2007), 60–101.

Bergmann, M., Die Strahlen der Herrscher: Theomorphes Herrschbild und

Politische Symbolik in Hellenismus und der Römischen Kaiserzeit (Mainz 1998).

Berlo, J. C., and Phillips, R. B., ‘The Problematics of Collecting and Display, Part
1’, ArtB 77 (1995), 6–24.

Bettini, M., ‘Ghosts of Exile: Doubles and Nostalgia in Virgil’s Parva Troia
(Aeneid 3.294ff.)’, ClAnt 16.1 (1997), 8–33.

Blomart, A., ‘Die evocatio und der Transfer « fremder » Götter von der
Peripherie nach Rom’, in H. Cancik und J. Rüpke (eds.), Römische Reichsreligion
und Provinzialreligion (Tübingen 1997), 99–111.

Boardman, J., ‘“Very Like a Whale” – Classical Sea Monsters’, in A. Farkas (ed.),
Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval World (Mainz 1987), 73–84.

Bodel, J., ‘Trimalchio’s Underworld’, in J. Tatum (ed.), The Search for the Ancient
Novel (Baltimore 1993), 237–59.

—— ‘Death on Display: Looking at Roman Funerals’, in B. Bergmann and C.

Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of Ancient Spectacle (New Haven 1999), 259–81.

—— ‘Epigraphy and the Ancient Historians’, in J. Bodel (ed.), Epigraphic

Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions (London 2001), 1–56.

Bodson, L., ‘La zoologie romaine d’après la NH de Pline’, in J. Pigeaud and J.

Oroz (eds.), Pline L’Ancien: témoin de son temps (Salamanca and Nantes 1987),
107–116.

Bömer, F., ‘Kybele in Rom’, MDAI(R) 71 (1964), 130–51.

Page 4 of 35

 
Bibliography

Bonaffé, E., Les Collectioneurs de l’ancienne Rome: Notes d’un amateur (Paris
1867).

Bonfante, L., ‘Roman Triumphs and Etruscan Kings: The Changing Face of the
Triumph’, JRS 60 (1970), 49–66.

Bonnefond, M., ‘Transferts de fonctions idéologique: le Capitole et le Forum

d’Auguste’, L’urbs (1987), 251–78.

Bosworth, A. B., ‘Asinius Pollio and Augustus’, Historia, 21 (1972), 441–73.

Bounia, A., The Nature of Classical Collecting: Collectors and Collections, 100
BCE–100 CE (Ashgate 2004).

Bourdieu, P., Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge

Mass. 1984).

Bowman, A. K., and Woolf, G. (eds.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World
(Cambridge 1994).

Boyd, B. W., ‘Tarpeia’s Tomb. A Note on Propertius 4.4’, AJP 105 (1984), 85–6.

Bradley, R., ‘The Translation of Time’, in R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock (eds.),
Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003), 221–27.

Brauer, C., Jnr. Taras: Its History and Coinage (New York 1986).

Brelich, A., ‘Quirinus. Una divinità romana alla luce della comparazione storica’,
Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 31 (1960), 63–119.

Brendel, O. J., Prolegomena to the Study of Roman Art (New Haven 1979).

Brilliant, R., My Laocoön. Alternative Claims in the Interpretation of Artworks

(Berkeley 2000).

(p.318) Brinkmann, V., and Wünsche, R. (eds.), Die Bunte Götter: die Farbigkeit
antiker Skulptur. Eine Ausstellung der Staatlichen Antikensammlungen und
Glyptothek München in Zussamenarbeit mit der Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek
Kopenhagen und der Vatikanischen Museen, Rom (Munich 2004).

—— A Commentary on Livy Books XXXI–XXXIII (Oxford 1973).

Briscoe, J., A Commentary on Livy Books XXXIV–XXXVII (Oxford 1981).

Brodersen, K., ‘Terra Cognita: Studien zur römischen Raumerfassung’,

Spudasmata, 59 (1995), 268–87.

Page 5 of 35

 
Bibliography

Bruun, P., ‘Evocatio deorum: Some Notes on the Romanization of Etruria’, in H.

Biezais (ed.), The Myth of the State; based on papers read at the Symposium on
the Myth of the State held at Åbo, 6th–8th of September 1971, Scripti Instituti
Donneriani Aboensis, 6 (Stockholm 1972), 109–20.

Bryson, N., ‘Philostratus and the Imaginary Museum’, in S. Goldhill and R.

Osborne (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge 1994), 255–
83.

Burkert, W., ‘Caesar und Romulus-Quirinus’, Historia, 11 (1962), 356–76.

Buzard, J., The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the Ways to
Culture 1800 – 1918 (Oxford 1993).

Cambi, N., ‘The Athlete Cleaning a Strigil’, in M. Michelucci (ed.), Apoxyomenos:

The Athlete of Croatia (Milan 2006), 20–33.

Camp, J., The Athenian Agora: Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens
(London 1986).

Cancik, H., ‘Rome as Sacred Landscape and the End of Republican Religion in
Rome’, Visible Religion: Annual for Religious Iconography, 4 (1985), 250–65.

—— ‘Die “Repraesentation” von “Provinz” (nationes, gentes) in Rom’, in H.

Cancik and J. Rüpke (eds.), Römische Reichsreligion und Provinzialreligion
(Tübingen 1997), 129–43.

Canfora, L., The Vanished Library. A Wonder of the Ancient World (Berkeley
1987).

Canizzo, J., ‘How Sweet It Is: Culture Politics in Barbados’, Muse, Winter (1987),
22–7.

Carey, S., ‘The Problems of Totality: Collecting Greek Art, Wonders and Luxury
in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC 12.1 (2000), 1–13.

—— Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford
2003).

Carnegie, E., ‘Trying to Be an Honest Woman: Making Women’s Histories’, in G.

Kavanagh (ed.), Making Histories in Museums (London 1996), 54–65.

Casson, L., Travel in the Ancient World (Toronto 1974).

—— Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven 2001).

Castagnoli, F., ‘Il culto della Mater Matuta e della Fortuna nel Foro Boario’,
StRom 27 (1979), 145–52.

Page 6 of 35

 
Bibliography

Castriota, D. (ed.), Artistic Strategy and the Rhetoric of Power: Political Uses of
Art from Antiquity to the Present (Carbondale 1986).

Celani, A., Opere d’arte greche nella Roma di Augusto (Naples 1998).

Cerutti, S. M., ‘The Location of the Houses of Cicero and Clodius and the
Porticus Catuli on the Palatine Hill in Rome’, AJP 118 (1997), 417–26.

Champeaux, J., Fortuna. Recherches sur le culte de la Fortune à Rome et dans le

monde romain des origines à la mort de César, 2 vols. Collection de l’Ecole
Française de Rome, 64 (Rome 1982–7).

(p.319) —— ‘“Pietas”: piété personelle et piété collective à Rome’, Bulletin de

L’Association G. Budé, 48 (1989), 263–79.

Champlin, E., Nero (Cambridge Mass. 2003).

Chastagnol, A., Le préfecture urbaine à Rome sous le Bas-Empire (Paris 1960).

Chevallier, R., ‘Le bois, l’arbre et la forêt chez Pline’, in J. Pigeaud and J. Oroz
(eds.), Pline L’Ancien: témoin de son temps (Salamanca and Nantes 1987), 147–
72.

—— L’Artiste, le collectionneur et le faussaire: Pour une sociologie de L’Art

romain (Paris 1991).

Churchill, J. B., ‘Ex qua quod vellent facerent: Roman Magistrates’ Authority
over Praeda and Manubiae’, TAPA 129 (1999), 85–116.

Clarke, J. R., ‘The Warren Cup and the Context for the Representations of Male-
to-Male Lovemaking in Augustan and Early Julio-Claudian Art’, ArtB 75 (1993),
275–94.

—— Looking at Lovemaking: Construction of Sexuality in Roman Art 100 B.C. –

A.D. 250 (Berkeley 1998).

—— Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: Visual Representations and Non-Elite

Viewers in Italy, 100 B.C. – A.D. 315 (Berkeley 2003).

Clarke, K., ‘An Island Nation: Re-Reading Tacitus’ Agricola’, JRS 91 (2001), 94–
112.

Clerc, C., ‘Plutarche et la culte des images’, Revue de l’histoire des religions, 70
(1914), 107–24.

Clifford, J., ‘Objects and Selves — an Afterword’, in G. Stocking (ed.), Objects

and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture, History of Anthropology,
3 (Madison Wis. 1985), 236–46.

Page 7 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature,

and Art (Cambridge Mass. 1988).

Coarelli, F., ‘Il complesso pompeiano del Campo Marzio e la sua decorazione
scultorea’, RendPontAcc 45 (1971/72), 99–122.

—— ‘Sperlonga e Tiberio’, DialArch 7 (1973), 97–122.

—— ‘Public Building in Rome between the Second Punic War and Sulla’, PBSR
45 (1977), 1–23.

—— Il Foro Romano I: periodo arcaico (Rome 1983).

—— Roma (3rd edn., Rome 1983).

—— Il Foro Boario: dalle Origini alla Fine della Republica (Rome 1988).

—— Il Campo Marzio: dalle Origini alla Fine della Republica (Rome 1997).

Colonna G., ‘Tarquinio Prisco e il tempio di Giove Capitolino’, PP 36 (1981), 41–

59.

Conan, M., ‘The Imagines of Philostratus’, Word and Image, 3 (1987), 162–71.

Connerton, P., How Societies Remember (Cambridge 1989).

Conticello, B., and Andreae, B., Die Skulpturen von Sperlonga, Antike Plastik
Vol. 14 (Berlin 1974).

Coombs, A. E., ‘Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities’,
Oxford Art Journal, 11 (1988), 57–68.

—— Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture, and Popular Imagination in

Late Victorian and Edwardian England (New Haven 1994).

Cornell, T. J., ‘The Value of the Literary Tradition Concerning Archaic Rome’, in
K. A. Raaflaub (ed.), Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the
Conflict of the Orders (Berkeley 1986), 52–76.

(p.320) —— ‘Rome and Latium to 390 B.C.’, in The Cambridge Ancient History2
7.2: The Rise of Rome to 220 B.C. (Cambridge 1989), 243–308.

—— The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic
Wars (c. 1000–264 B.C.) (London 1995).

Coulson, W. D., ‘The Nature of Pliny’s Remarks on Euphranor’, CJ 67 (1972),

323–6.

Page 8 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— ‘The Reliability of Pliny’s Chapters on Greek and Roman Sculpture’, CW 69

(1976), 361–72.

Cowles, F. H., Gaius Verres: A Historical Study. Cornell Studies in Classical

Philology, 20 (Ithaca 1917).

Crawford, M. H., Roman Republican Coinage (London 1974).

—— (ed.), Roman Statues (London 1996).

Crimp, D., On the Museum’s Ruins (Cambridge Mass. 1993).

Cuno, J., Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient
Heritage (Princeton 2008).

—— (ed.), Whose Culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate Over
Antiquities (Princeton 2009).

D’Ambra, E., Private Lives, Imperial Virtues: The Frieze of the Forum
Transitorium in Rome (Princeton 1993).

—— Art and Identity in the Roman World (London 1998).

D’Arms, J. H., ‘CIL X, 1792. A Municiple Notable of the Augustan Age’, HSCP 76
(1972), 207–16.

—— Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge Mass. 1981).

Darwall-Smith, R. H., Emperors and Architecture: A Study of Flavian Rome

(Brussels 1996).

Daut, R., ‘Belli facies et triumphus’, MDAI(R) 91 (1984), 115–23.

Davies, P. J. E., ‘“What Worse Than Nero, What Better Than His Baths?”:
“Damnatio Memoriae” and Roman Architecture’, in E. Varner (ed.), From
Caligula to Constantine (Atlanta 2000), 27–44.

Deetz, J., In Small Things Forgotten (New York 1977).

Demouliez, A., Cicèron et son goût: Essai sur une definition d’une aesthétique
romaine à la fin de la République (Brussels 1976).

De Ruyt, C., Macellum: Marché alimentaire des Romains (Louvain 1983).

Dihle, A., ‘Plinius und die geographischen Wissenschaft in der Römischen

Kaiserzeit’, in Tecnologia, economia e società nel mondo romano (Como 1980),
121–37.

Dixon, S., The Roman Family (Baltimore 1992).

Page 9 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi (London 2007).

Downey, G., ‘Ekphrasis’, RAC 4 (1959), 921–44.

Dubourdieu, A., Les origines et le développement du culte des Pénates à Rome.

Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome, 118 (Rome 1989).

Dueck, D., Lindsay, H., and Pothecary, S. (eds.), Strabo’s Cultural Geography:
The Making of a Kolossourgia (Cambridge 2005).

Dumézil, G., Archaic Roman Religion, 2 vols. (Chicago 1970).

Duncan, C., ‘Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship’, in I. Karp and S. D.
Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display
(Washington DC 1991), 88–103.

(p.321) —— Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (New York 1995).

—— ‘The Art Museum as Ritual’, in J. C. Berlo and R. B. Phillips (eds.), ‘The

Problematics of Collecting and Display, Part 1’, ArtB 77 (1995), 6–24.

Dupont, F., ‘Les morts et la mémoire: Le masque funèbre’, in F. Hinard (ed.), La

mort, les morts et l’au-delà dans le monde romain (Caen 1987), 167–72.

Duret, L., and Néraudau, J. P., Urbanisme et métamorphoses de la Rome antique

(Paris 1983).

Edmundson, J. C., ‘The Cultural Politics of Public Spectacle in Rome and the
Greek East, 167–166 B.C.E.’, in B. Bergmann and C. Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of
Ancient Spectacle (Studies in the History of Art, 56) (New Haven and London
1999), 77–95.

Edwards, C., Writing Rome: Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996).

—— ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf

(eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 44–70.

Edwards, C., and Woolf, G., ‘Cosmopolis: Rome as a World City’, in C. Edwards
and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 1–20.

El-Abbadi, M. (1992), Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, 2nd ed.
(Paris 1992).

Elder, C. D., and Cobb, R. W., The Political Use of Symbols (New York and London
1983).

Elsner, J., ‘Seductions of Art: Encolpius and Eumolpus in a Neronian Picture

Gallery’, PCPS 39 (1993), 30–47.

Page 10 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— ‘From Pyramids to Pausanias and Piglet: Monuments, Travel, and Writing’,

in R. Osborne and S. Goldhill (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture
(Cambridge 1994), 224–54.

—— Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan to the
Christian World (Cambridge 1995).

—— (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996).

—— ‘Image and Ritual: Reflections on the Graeco-Roman Appreciation of Art’,

CQ 46 (1996), 515–31.

—— ‘Naturalism and the Erotics of the Gaze: Intimations of Narcissus’, in N. B.

Kampen (ed.), Sexuality in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1996), 247–61.

—— Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (Oxford 1998).

—— ‘Between Mimesis and Divine Power: Visuality in the Graeco-Roman World’,

in R. S. Nelson (ed.), Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance (Cambridge
2000), 45–69.

—— ‘Making Myth Visual: The Horae of Philostratus and the Dance of the Text’,
MDAI (R) 207 (2000), 253–76.

—— ‘Seeing and Saying: A Psychoanalytic Account of Ekphrasis’, Helios, 31

(2004), 157–85.

—— Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton 2007).

Elsner J., and Cardinal, R. (eds.), The Culture of Collecting (Cambridge Mass.
1994).

Elsner, J., and Sharrock, A., ‘Ovid’s Mimesis and the Myth of the Real: Ovid’s
Pygmalion as Viewer’, Ramus, 20 (1991), 149–82.

Emanuele, D., ‘Aes Corinthium: Fact, Fiction, and Fake’, Phoenix, 43 (1989),
347–58.

Erskine, A., Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Rome
(Oxford 2001).

(p.322) Faraone, C. A., Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in

Greek Myth and Ritual (Oxford 1992).

Farrell, J., ‘The Phenomenology of Memory in Roman Culture’, CJ 92 (1997), 373–

83.

Favro, D., ‘Reading the Augustan City’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event
in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1993), 230–57.
Page 11 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996).

Fears, J. R., ‘The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology’, ANRW 2.17.1
(1981), 3–141.

—— ‘The Theology of Victory at Rome: Approaches and Problems’, ANRW 2.17.2

(1981), 736–826.

—— ‘The Cult of the Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology’, ANRW 2.17.2 (1981),
827–948.

Feeney, D., The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition (Oxford
1991).

—— Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs

(Cambridge 1998).

Feldherr, A., Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History (Berkeley 1998).

Fentress, J., and Wickham, C., Social Memory (Oxford and Cambridge Mass.
1992).

Ferguson, J., Juvenal: The Satires (New York 1979).

Ferris, I. M., Enemies of Rome: Barbarians through Roman Eyes (Stroud 2000).

Findlen, P., Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in

Early Modern Italy (Berkeley 1994).

Fiorani, G., ‘Problemi architettonici del Foro di Cesare’, Studi topografia

romana, 5 (1968), 91–104.

Fishwick, D., ‘On the Temple of Divus Augustus’, Phoenix, 46 (1992), 232–55.

Fitz Gibbon, K., ‘Chronology of Cultural Property Legislation’, in K. Fitz Gibbon

(ed.), Who Owns the Past?: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (New
Brunswick NJ 2005), 3–7.

—— ‘The Elgin Marbles: A Summary’, in K. Fitz Gibbon (ed.), Who Owns the
Past?: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (New Brunswick NJ 2005),
109–21.

Flaming, D., ‘Making City Histories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.), Making Histories in

Museums (London 1996), 131–41.

Flory, M. B., ‘Pearls for Venus’, Historia, 38 (1988), 498–504.

—— ‘Livia, and the History of Public Honorific Statues for Women in Rome’,
TAPA 123 (1993), 287–308.

Page 12 of 35

 
Bibliography

Flower, H. I., Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford
1996).

—— ‘The Tradition of the spolia opima: M. Claudius Marcellus and Augustus’,

ClAnt 19 (2000), 34–64.

—— The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture

(Chapel Hill 2006).

Forrester, J., ‘“Mille e tre”: Freud and Collecting’, in J. Elsner and R. Cardinal
(eds.), The Culture of Collecting (Cambridge Mass. 1994), 224–51.

Foucault, M., The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New
York 1970).

—— The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. Translated

by A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York and London 1972).

(p.323) Fowler, D., ‘Even Better than the Real Thing: A Tale of Two Cities’, in J.
Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 57–74.

Fraschetti, A., Roma e il principe (Rome and Bari 1990).

Freedberg, D., The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of
Response (Chicago 1989).

French, R., Ancient Natural History (London 1994).

Frisch, P., ‘Zu den Elogien des Augustusforums’, ZPE 39 (1980), 91–8.

Fullerton, M., The Archaistic Style in Roman Statuary (Leiden 1990).

Gabba, E., ‘Studi su Dionigi d’Alicarnasso: La proposta di legge agraria di Spurio

Cassio’, Athenaeum, 42 (1964), 29–41.

—— ‘Dionigi d’Alicarnasso sul processo di Spurio Cassio’, in Atti del primo

Congresso internazionale della Società italiana di Storia del diritto (Florence
1966), 143–53.

Gage, J., Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction
(London 1993).

Gagé, J., ‘Romulus–Augustus’, MÉFR 47 (1930), 138–81.

—— Apollon romain. Essai sur le culte d’Apollon et le développement du ‘ritus

Graecus’ à Rome des origines à Auguste. Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises
d’Athènes et de Rome, 152 (Paris 1955).

Page 13 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— ‘Apollon impérial, Garant des «Fata Romana»’, ANRW 2.17.2 (1981), 561–
630.

Galinsky, K., Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (Princeton 1969).

—— Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton 1996).

Galsterer, H., ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel im republikanischen Rom’, in G.

Hellenkemper Salies (ed.), Das Wrack: Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia
(Cologne 1994), 857–66.

Gantz, T. N., ‘Terracotta Figured Friezes from the Workshop of Vulca’, OpRom 10
(1974–5), 1–22.

Ganzert, J., ‘Der Mars Ultor Tempel auf dem Augustusforum in Rom’, RhM 92
(1985), 201–19.

Garland, R., The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-
Roman World (Ithaca 1995).

Gazda, E. K. (ed.), The Ancient Art of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality

from the Present to Classical Antiquity (Ann Arbor 2002).

Geertz, C., ‘Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight’, Daedalus, Winter (1972),
1–38.

Gelzer, M., Caesar. Politician and Statesman (Cambridge Mass. 1968).

Gérard, J., ‘Légende et politique autour de la mère des dieux’, RÉL 58 (1980),
153–75.

Gieryn, T. F., ‘Balancing Acts: Science, Enola Gay and History Wars at the
Smithsonian’, in S. MacDonald (ed.), The Politics of Display: Museums, Science,
Culture (London 1998), 197–228.

Gjerstad, E., ‘The Origins of the Roman Republic’, in Les origines de la

République Romaine, Fondation Hardt, Entretiens, 13 (Geneva 1967), 3–43.

Goldmann, F., ‘Nobilitas als Status und Gruppe – Überlegungen zum

Nobilitätsbegriff der römischen Republik’, in J. Spielvogel (ed.), Res publica
reperta: Zur Verfassung und Gesellschaft der römischen Republik und des
frühen Prinzipats (Festschrift Jochen Blecken) (Stuttgart 2002), 45–66.

(p.324) Goodyear, F. R. D., The Annals of Tacitus. Volume II (Annals 1.55–81

and Annales 2) (Cambridge 1981).

Gordon, R. L., ‘The Real and the Imaginary: Production and Religion in the
Graeco-Roman World’, in R. L. Gordon (ed.), Image and Value in the Graeco-

Page 14 of 35

 
Bibliography

Roman World: Studies in Mithraism and Religious Art (Brookfield Vt. 1996), 5–
34.

Gowers, E. J., ‘The Anatomy of Rome from Capitol to Cloaca’, JRS 85 (1995), 23–
32.

Gradel, I., Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford 2002).

Grandazzi, A., ‘La Roma quadrata: mythe ou réalité’, MÉFRA 105 (1993), 493–
545.

Gras, M., ‘Le temple de Diane sur l’Aventin’, RÉA 89 (1987), 47–61.

Green, C. M. C., Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia (Cambridge
2007).

Greenblatt, S., ‘Resonance and Wonder’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.),

Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington DC
1991), 42–56.

Greene, T. J., ‘Resurrecting Rome: The Double Task of the Humanist

Imagination’, in P. A. Ramsey (ed.), Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the
Myth (Binghamton 1982), 41–54.

Greenhalgh, M., The Survival of Roman Antiquities in the Middle Ages (London
1989).

Gregory, A. P., ‘“Powerful Images”: Responses to Portraits and the Political Uses
of Images in Rome’, JRA 7 (1994), 80–99.

Grimal, P., ‘Encyclopédies antiques’, CHM 9 (1965), 459–82.

Gros, P., Aurea templa: recherches sur l’architecture religieuse de Rome à

l’époque d’Auguste (Rome 1976).

—— ‘Les premières générations d’architectes hellénistiques à Rome’, in L’Italie

préromaine et la Rome républicaine: Mélanges offerts à Jaques Huergon,
Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome (Rome 1976), 387–410.

—— ‘Les statues de Syracuse et les “dieux” de Tarente’, RÉL 57 (1979), 85–114.

Gruen, E. S., Culture and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992).

Gualandi, G., ‘Plinio e il collezionismo d’arte’, in Plinio il Vecchio sotto il profilo

storico e letterario. Atti del Convegno di Como 1979 (Como 1982), 259–98.

Gustafsson, G., Evocatio deorum: Historical and Mythical Interpretations of

Ritualised Conquests in the Expansion of Ancient Rome. Acta universitatis
Upsaliensis, Historia Religionum, 16 (Uppsala 2000).
Page 15 of 35

 
Bibliography

Gutzwiller, K., ‘Gender and Inscribed Epigram: Herennia Procula and the
Thespian Eros’, TAPA 134 (2004), 383–418.

—— ‘Seeing Thought: Timomachus’ Medea and Ecphrastic Epigram’, AJP 125

(2004), 339–86.

Hales, S., ‘At Home with Cicero’, GaR 47 (2000), 44–55.

—— The Roman House and Social Identity (Cambridge 2003).

Hallett, C., ‘Emulation versus Replication: Redefining Roman Copying’, JRA 18

(2005), 419–35.

Hannestad, N., Roman Art and Imperial Policy (Aarhus 1986).

Hartswick, K. J., The Gardens of Sallust: A Changing Landscape (Austin 2004).

Healy, J. F., ‘Pliny on Mineralogy and Metals’, in R. French and F. Greenaway

(eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His Sources and
Influence (Totowa NJ and London 1986), 111–46.

(p.325) —— Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology (Oxford 1999).

Heffernan, J. A., Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to

Ashbery (Chicago 1993).

—— ‘Looking at the Monster: “Frankenstein” and Film’, Critical Inquiry, 24.1

(1997), 133–58.

Henrichs, A., ‘Vespasian’s Visit to Alexandria’, ZPE 3 (1968), 51–80.

Hinard, F., ‘C. Sosius et le temple d’Apollon’, Kentron, 8 (1992), 57–72.

Holliday, P. J., ‘Time, History, and Ritual on the Ara Pacis Augustae’, ArtB 72
(1990), 542–57.

—— ‘Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and Reception’,

ArtB 79 (1997), 130–47.

—— The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts

(Cambridge 2002).

Hölscher, T., Victoria Romana. Archäologische Untersuchungen zur Geschichte

und Wesensart der römischen Siegesgöttin (Mainz 1967).

—— ‘Hellenistische Kunst und römische Aristokratie’, in G. Hellenkemper Salies

(ed.), Das Wrack: Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia (Cologne 1994), 875–88.

—— The Language of Images in Roman Art (Cambridge 2004).

Page 16 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— ‘The Transformation of Victory into Power: From Event to Structure’, in S.

Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient Rome
(Cambridge 2006), 27–48.

Hooper-Greenhill, E., Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London 1992).

Houghtalin, L., ‘The Represenation of the Roman Provinces’, dissertation. Bryn

Mawr College (1993).

Houston, G., ‘Tiberius on Capri’, GaR 32 (1985), 179–96.

Howell, P., ‘The Colossus of Nero’, Athenaeum, 46 (1968), 292–9.

Huet, V., ‘Stories One Might Tell of Roman Art: Reading Trajan’s Column and the
Tiberius Cup’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge
1996), 9–31.

Humphrey, N., ‘The Illusion of Beauty’, in N. Humphrey (ed.), Consciousness

Regained (Oxford 1984), 121–37.

Huskinson, J., ‘Looking for Culture, Identity, and Power’, in J. Huskinson (ed.),
Experiencing Rome: Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman Empire (London
2000), 3–28.

—— ‘Elite Culture and the Identity of Empire’, in J. Huskinson (ed.),

Experiencing Rome: Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman Empire (London
2000), 95–124.

Isager, J., ‘The Composition of Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art’, AnalRom 6
(1971), 49–62.

—— Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art
(London 1991).

Jackson, D., ‘Verism and the Ancestral Portrait’, GaR 34 (1987), 32–47.

Jacob, C. and Polignac, F. (eds.), Alexandria, Third Century BC: The Knowledge
of the World in a Single City (Alexandria 2000).

Jaeger, M. K., The Poetics of Place: The Augustan Writers and the Urban
Landscape of Rome, PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley (1990).

—— Livy’s Written Rome (Ann Arbor 1997).

(p.326) Jal, P., ‘Pax civilis–Concordia’, RÉL 39 (1961), 210–31.

Jatta, M., Le rappresentazione figurate delle provincie romane (Rome 1908).

Page 17 of 35

 
Bibliography

Jex-Blake, K. and Sellers, E. (eds.), The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of
Art (translated by K. Jex-Blake with commentary and historical introduction by K.
Sellars with additional notes by Dr. Henrich Ludwig Ulrichs) (reproduced,
Chicago 1968 and 1977 with prefaces and select bibliographies by Raymond V.
Schroder, SJ) (London and New York 1896).

Johnson, L. R., Aviaries and Aviculture in Ancient Rome, PhD thesis, University of
Maryland, College Park (1968).

Jones, C. P., ‘Pausanias and his Guides’, in S. E. Alcock, J. F. Cherry, and J. Elsner
(eds.), Pausanias. Travel and Memory in Ancient Greece (Oxford 2001), 33–9.

Jones, F. M., ‘Realism in Petronius’, in H. Hoffman (ed.), Groningen Colloquia on

the Novel, 4 (1991), 105–20.

Jordanova, L., ‘Objects of Knowledge: A Historical Perspective on Museums’, in

P. Vergo (ed.), The New Museology (London 1989), 22–40.

Kähler, H., ‘Zum Sonnentempel Aurelians’, MDAI(R) 52 (1937), 94–105.

—— ‘Die Ara Pacis und die augusteische Friedensidee’, JdI 69 (1954), 67–100.

Kampen, N. B., ‘Social Status and Gender in Roman Art: The Case of the
Saleswoman’, in E. D’Ambra (ed.), Roman Art in Context: An Anthology (New
York 1993), 115–32.

—— ‘Omphale and the Instability of Gender’, in N. B. Kampen (ed.), Sexuality in

Ancient Art (Cambridge 1996), 233–46.

Kaplan, F. E. S. (ed.), Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselves’ (London 1994).

Kavanagh, G., ‘Making Histories, Making Memories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.),

Making Histories in Museums (London 1996), 1–14.

Keitel, E., ‘The Non-Appearance of the Phoenix at Tacitus Annals 6.28’, AJP 120
(1999), 429–42.

Kellum, B., ‘Sculptural Programs and Propaganda in Augustan Rome: The

Temple of Apollo on the Palatine’, in R. Winkes (ed.), The Age of Augustus
(Interdisciplinary Conference held at Brown University April 30 – May 2, 1982)
(Louvain-la-Neuve 1982), 169–76.

—— ‘The City Adorned: Programmatic Display at the Aedes Concordiae

Augustas’, in K. Raaflaub and M. Toher (eds.), Between Republic and Empire:
Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate (Berkeley 1990), 276–307.

Page 18 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— ‘The Phallus as Signifier: The Forum of Augustus and the Rituals of

Masculinity’, in N. B. Kampen (ed.), Sexuality in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1996),
170–83.

Kienast, D., ‘Augustus und Alexander’, Gymnasium, 76 (1969), 430–56.

Kinney, D., ‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 117–
48.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B., ‘Objects of Ethnography’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine

(eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display
(Washington DC 1991), 386–443.

Kleiner, D. E. E., Roman Sculpture (New Haven 1992).

—— Cleopatra and Rome (Cambridge Mass. 2005).

Kleiner, F., ‘The Arch of C. Octavius and the Fathers of Augustus’, Historia, 37
(1988), 347–57.

(p.327) —— ‘The Study of Roman Triumphal and Honorary Arches 50 Years

after Kähler’, JRA 2 (1989), 195–206.

Koch, G. F., Die Kunstaustellung (Berlin 1967).

Krautheimer, R., Rome: Profile of a City 312–1308 (Princeton 1980).

Künzl, E., Der römische Triumph: Siegesfeiern im antiken Rom (Munich 1988).

Kuttner, A., ‘Some New Grounds for Narrative: Marcus Antonius’ Base (the Ara
Domitii Ahenobarbi) and Republican Biographies’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.),
Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1993), 198–229.

—— ‘Republican Rome Looks at Pergamum’, HSCP 97 (1995), 157–78.

—— ‘Culture and History at Pompey’s Museum’, TAPA 129 (1999), 343–73.

Labrousse, M. ‘Le “pomerium” de la Rome impériale’, MÉFRA 54 (1937), 165–

99.

Lafon, X., ‘A propos des ‘villae’ républicaines: quelques notes sur les
programmes décoratifs et les commanditaires’, in X. Lafon (ed.), L’art décoratif à
Rome à la fin de la République et au début du Principat (Rome 1981), 151–72.

Lahusen, G., Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue in Rom: literarische und

epigraphische Zeugnisse (Rome 1983).

Laird, A., ‘Ut figura poesis: Writing Art and the Art of Writing Augustan Poetry’,
in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 75–102.

Page 19 of 35

 
Bibliography

Lapatin, K. D. S., Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World

(Oxford 2002).

La Rocca, E., Amazzommachia: Le sculpture frontale del tempio di Apollo

Sosiano (Rome 1985).

—— ‘Sul Circo Flaminio’, ArchLaz 12 (1995), 108–10.

—— ‘La nuova immagine dei fori imperiali: Appunti in margine agli scavi’,
MDAI(R) 108 (2001), 171–213.

Latte, K., Römische Religionsgeschichte, Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft

vol. 4 (Munich 1960).

Leach, E. W., The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic Representations of

Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome (Princeton 1988).

Le Bonniec, H., ‘Le culte de Cérès à Rome des origines à la fin de la république’.
Études et Commentaries, 72 (Paris 1958).

Leen, A., ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’, AJP 112 (1991), 229–45.

Léfevre, E., Das Bild-Programm des Apollo-Tempels auf dem Palatin, Xenia, 24
(Konstanz 1989).

Lega, C., ‘Il Colosso di Nerone’, BullCom 93.2 (1989–90), 339–78.

Le Gall, J., ‘Evocatio’, in L’Italie préromaine et la Rome républicaine. Mélanges

offerts à Jaques Huergon, Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome (Rome 1976),
519–24.

Lehmann, K., ‘The Imagines of the Elder Philostratus’, ArtB 23 (1941), 16–44.

—— ‘A Roman Poet Visits a Museum’, Hesperia, 14 (1945), 259–69.

Levick, B., Tiberius the Politician (London 1976).

—— Vespasian (London 1999).

Lindsay, H., ‘Strabo on Apellicon’s Library’, RhM 140 (1997), 290–8.

Ling, R., Roman Painting (Cambridge 1991).

(p.328) Lintott, A., ‘The Tradition of Violence in the Annals of Early Rome’,
Historia, 19 (1970), 12–29.

Liou-Gille, B., Cultes ‘héroique’ romains: Les fondateurs (Paris 1980).

Page 20 of 35

 
Bibliography

Lisdorf, A., ‘The Conflict over Cicero’s House: An Analysis of the Ritual Element
in Cicero’s De Domo Sua’, Numen, 52 (2005), 445–64.

Liveriani, P., ‘“Nationes” e “civitates”, nella propaganda imperiale’, RhM 102

(1995), 219–49.

Locher, A., ‘The Structure of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, in R. French and
F. Greenaway (eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His
Sources and Influence (Totowa NJ and London 1986), 20–9.

Lorenz, S., ‘Martial, Herkules und Domitian: Büsten, Statuetten und Statuen im
Epigrammaton liber nonus’, Mnemosyne, 56.5 (2003), 566–84.

Luce, T. J., ‘Livy, Augustus and the Forum Augustum’, in M. Toher and K.
Raaflaub (eds.), Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and
his Principate (Berkeley 1990), 123–38.

MacCormack, S., Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 1981).

MacDonald, S., ‘Introduction’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.), Theorizing

Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World (Cambridge
1996), 1–18.

—— ‘An Introduction to the Politics of Display’, in S. MacDonald (ed.), The

Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture (London 1998), 1–24.

MacLeod, R., ‘Introduction: Alexandria in History and Myth’, in R. MacLeod

(ed.), The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World
(London and New York 2000) 1–15.

MacMillan, M., Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (London
2009).

Maffei, S., Luciano di Samosata: Descrizioni di Opere d’Arte (Turin 1994).

Mansuelli, G. A., ‘Γραϕαì καì σχήματα τω̑ν γϵγονότων (App. Punic. 66)’, RdA 3
(1979), 45–58.

Marrone, G. C., ‘Imitatio Alexandri in età augustea’, A&R 25 (1980), 35–41.

Martina, M., ‘Aedes Herculis Musarum’, DialArch (1981), 49–68.

Marvin, M., The Language of the Muses. The Dialogue between Greek and
Roman Sculpture (Los Angeles 2008).

Mattern, S., Rome and the Enemy. Imperial Strategy in the Principate (Berkeley
1999).

Page 21 of 35

 
Bibliography

Mattingly, H., ‘The Roman virtues’, Harvard Theological Review, 30 (1937), 103–
17.

Mattusch, C. C., Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman
Statuary (Ithaca 1996).

Mayor, A., The First Fossil Hunters. Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times
(Princeton 2000).

McDonnell, M., ‘Roman Aesthetics and the Spoils of Syracuse’, in S. Dillon and
K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2006),
68–90.

McGinn, T., The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Study of Social
History and the Brothel (Ann Arbor 2004).

McNelis, C., ‘Ut Sculptura Poesis: Statius, Martial, and the Hercules
Epitrapezios of Novius Vindex’, AJP 129 (2008), 255–76.

Melchionne, K., ‘Collecting as an Art’, Philosophy and Literature, 23.1 (1999),

148–56.

(p.329) Merriman, N., and Poovaya-Smith, N., ‘Making Culturally Diverse

Histories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.), Making Histories in Museums (London 1996),
176–87.

Meyboom, P. G. P., The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina: Early Evidence of Egyptian

Religion in Italy (Leiden 1995).

Miles, M., Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property
(Cambridge 2008).

Miles, R., ‘Communicating Culture, Identity and Power’, in J. Huskinson (ed.),

Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman Empire (London
2000), 29–62.

Millar, F., ‘Last Year in Jerusalem: Monuments of the Jewish War in Rome’, in J.
Edmonson, S. Mason, and J. Rives (eds.), Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome
(Oxford 2005), 101–29.

Millon, H. A., and Nochlin, L. (eds.), Art and Architecture in the Service of
Politics (Cambridge Mass. 1978).

Milnor, K., Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus: Inventing Private Life
(Oxford 2005).

Momigliano, A. D., ‘Camillus and Concord’, CQ 36 (1942), 111–20.

Page 22 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— ‘An interim report on the origins of Rome’, JRS 53 (1963), 95–121.

Morales, H., ‘The Torturer’s Apprentice: Parrhasius and the Limits of Art’, in J.
Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 182–209.

Morgan, L., ‘The Autopsy of C. Asinius Pollio’, JRS 90 (2000), 51–69.

Motto, A. L., and Clark, J. R., ‘The Monster in Seneca’s Hercules Furens 926–
939’, CP 89 (1994), 269–72.

Moynihan, R., ‘Geographic Mythology and Roman Imperial Ideology’, in R.

Winkes (ed.), The Age of Augustus (Interdisciplinary Conference held at Brown
University April 30–May 2, 1982) (Louvain-la-Neuve 1982), 149–62.

Murphy, T., ‘Pliny’s Naturalis Historia: The Prodigal Text’, in A. J. Boyle and W. J.
Dominik (eds.), Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003), 301–22.

—— Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia (Oxford
2004).

Murray, W. M., and Petsas, P. M., ‘Octavian’s Campsite Memorial for the Actian
War’, TAPS 79 (1989), 1–172.

Mustakallio, K., Death and Disgrace. Capital Penalties with Post Mortem
Sanctions in Early Roman Historiography (Helsinki 1994).

Naas, V., ‘L’art grec dans l’ Histoire naturelle de Pline L’Ancien’, Histoire de l’art,
35–6 (1996), 15–26.

Nasrallah, L. S., Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture (Cambridge

2010).

Newby, Z., and Leader-Newby, R. (eds.), Art and Inscription in the Ancient World
(Cambridge 2007).

Nicolet, C., Space, Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann
Arbor 1991).

—— ‘Rome dans la carte: Cartes de Rome’, in F. Hinard and M. Royo (eds.),

Rome. L’espace urbain et ses représentations (Paris 1991), 9–16.

Noreña, C., ‘Medium and Message in Vespasian’s Templum Pacis’, MAAR 48

(2003), 25–43.

Oakley, S. P., A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X (Oxford 1997).

(p.330) —— A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X, Vol. 2 (Oxford 1998).

Ogilvie, R. M., A Commentary on Livy Books I–V (Oxford 1965).

Page 23 of 35

 
Bibliography

Olinder, B., Porticus Octavia in Circo Flaminio. Topographical Studies in the

Campus Region of Rome. Svenska Institutet Skriften 8.ii (Rome 1974).

Oliveira, F. De, Les Idées politiques et morales de Pline l’Ancien (Coimbra 1992).

Onians, J., ‘Quintilian and the Idea of Roman Art’, in M. Henig (ed.), Architecture
and Architectural Sculpture in the Roman Empire (Oxford 1990), 1–9.

—— Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and Rome (New Haven 1999).

Orlin, E. M., Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic (Leiden
1997).

Östenberg, I., Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representation in the
Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009).

Packer, J., ‘Plurima et Amplissima Opera: Parsing Flavian Rome’, in A. J. Boyle

and W. J. Dominik (eds.), Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003), 167–
98.

Pape, M., Griechische Kunstwerke aus Kriegsbeute und irhe öffentliche

Aufstellung in Rom (Hamburg 1975).

Parisi Presicce, C., ‘Le rappresentazioni allegoriche di populi e province nell’arte

romana imperiale’, in M. Sapelli (ed.), Provinciae fideles: Il fregio del tempio di
Adriano in Campo Marzio (Rome 1999), 83–105.

Parke, H. W., Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity (London 1988).

Passerini, A., ‘Il concetto antico di Fortuna’, Philologus, 90 (1935), 90–7.

Paul, G. M., ‘The Presentation of Titus in the “Jewish War” of Josephus: Two
Aspects’, Phoenix, 47 (1993), 56–66.

Pearce, S. M., On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the European

Tradition (London 1995).

Pearlstein, W. G., ‘Cultural Property, Congress, the Courts, and Customs: The
Decline and Fall of the Antiquities Market?’, in K. Fitz Gibbon (ed.), Who Owns
the Past?: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (New Brunswick NJ
2005), 9–31.

Pelikan Pittenger, M. R., Contested Triumphs. Politics, Pageantry, and

Performance in Livy’s Republican Rome (Berkeley 2008).

Pelling, C., ‘Plutarch: Roman Heroes and Greek Culture’, in M. Griffin and J.
Barnes (eds.), Philosophia Togata. Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society
(Oxford 1989), 199–208.

Page 24 of 35

 
Bibliography

Pensabene, P., ‘L’area sud-ouest del Palatino’, in M. Cristofani (ed.), La grande

Roma dei Tarquini (Rome 1990), 86–90.

Pernice, E., and Gross, W. H., ‘Die griechischen und römischen literarischen
Zeugnisse’, in U. Hausmann (ed.), Handbuch der Archäologie: Allgemeine
Grundlagen der Archäologie (Munich 1969), 395–496.

Perry, E., The Aesthetics of Emulation in the Visual Arts of Ancient Rome
(Cambridge 2005).

Picard, G. Ch., Les Trophées romains (Paris 1957).

Piccaluga, G., ‘Attus Naevius’, Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 40

(1969), 151–208.

Pietilä-Castrén, L., ‘New Men and the Greek War Booty in the 2nd century B.C.’,
Arctos, 16 (1982), 121–44.

Pollini, J., ‘The Warren Cup: Homoerotic Love and Symposial Rhetoric in Silver’,
ArtB 81 (1999), 21–52.

(p.331) Pollitt, J. J., The Art of Rome. BC 753–AD 337: Sources and Documents
(Edgewood NJ 1966).

—— The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology (New
Haven and London 1974).

—— ‘The Impact of Greek Art on Rome’, TAPA 108 (1978), 155–74.

Porter, G., ‘Seeing through Solidity: A Feminist Perspective on Museums’, in S.

MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.), Theorizing Museums. Representing Identity and
Diversity in a Changing World (Cambridge 1996), 103–26.

Pothecary, S., ‘Kolossourgia. “A Colossal Statue of a Work” ’, in D. Dueck, H.

Lindsay, and S. Pothecary (eds.), Strabo’s Cultural Geography. The Making of a
Kolossourgia (Cambridge 2005), 5–26.

Preziosi, D., ‘Museology and Museography’, ArtB 77 (1995), 13–15.

Price, S. ‘Memory in Ancient Greece’, in A. H. Rasmussen and S. W. Rasmussen

(eds.), Religion and Society. Rituals, Resources and Identity in the Ancient
Graeco-Roman World. The BOMOS-Conferences 2002–2005 (Analecta Romana
Instituti Danici, Supplementum 40) (Rome 2008), 165–76.

Pritchett, W. K., The Greek State at War, 5 (Berkeley 1991).

Purcell, N., ‘The City of Rome’, in R. Jenkyns (ed.), The Legacy of Rome: A New
Appraisal (Oxford 1992), 421–53.

Page 25 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— ‘Atrium Libertatis’, PBSR 61 (1993), 125–55.

—— ‘On the Sacking of Carthage and Corinth’, in D. Innes, H. Hine, and C.

Pelling (eds.), Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his
Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford 1995), 133–48.

Putnam, M. C. J., ‘The Shrine of Vortumnus’, AJA 71 (1967), 177–9.

—— Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy, and Epic (Princeton 1982).

Raditsa, L. F., ‘Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage, Procreation, Love

Affairs and Adultery’, ANRW 2.13 (1980), 278–339.

Radke, G., ‘Quindecimviri’, RE 24 (1963), 114–48.

—— ‘Die dei Penates und Vesta in Rom’, ANRW 2.17.1 (1981), 343–73.

Ramage, E. S., ‘Sulla’s Propaganda’, Klio, 73 (1991), 93–121.

Reynolds, J., ‘The Elder Pliny and His Times’, in R. French and F. Greenaway
(eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His Sources and
Influence (London 1986), 1–11.

Ricci, C., ‘Il Foro di Cesare’, Capitolium, 8 (1933), 157–72, 365–90.

Rich, J., ‘Augustus and the spolia opima’, Chiron, 26 (1996), 85–127.

—— ‘Augustus’ Parthian Honours, the Temple of Mars Ultor and the Arch in the
Forum Romanum’, PBSR 66 (1998), 71–128.

Richardson, L. R., ‘Hercules Musarum and Porticus Philippi in Rome’, AJA 81

(1977), 355–61.

—— A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and London

1992).

Richter, G. M. A., ‘The Origin of Verism in Roman Portraits’, JRS 45 (1955), 39–
46.

Ridgway, B. S., ‘The Gauls in Sculpture’, ArchNews 11 (1982), 85–104.

—— ‘The Wreck of Mahdia, Tunisia, and the Art Market in the Early First
Century BC’, JRA 8 (1995), 340–7.

(p.332) —— ‘The Sperlonga Sculptures. The Current State of Research’, in N.

T. De Grummond and B. S. Ridgway (eds.), From Pergamum to Sperlonga.
Culture and Context (Berkeley 2000), 78–91.

Page 26 of 35

 
Bibliography

Riggsby, A. M., ‘“Public” and “Private” in Roman Culture: The Case of the
cubiculum’, JRA 10 (1997), 36–56.

Robinson, O. F., Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration (London 1992).

Roccos, L. J., ‘Apollo Palatinus: The Augustan Apollo on the Sorrento Base’, AJA
93 (1989), 571–88.

Roller, M. B., ‘Exemplarity in Roman Culture: The Cases of Horatius Cocles and
Cloelia’, CP 99 (2004), 1–56.

Romm, J. S., The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought (Princeton 1992).

Roncoroni, A., ‘Plinio enciclopedista’, in A. Roncoroni (ed.), Plinio e la natura

(Como 1982), 9–13.

Rosivach, V. J., ‘Cicero’s Statues’, New England Classical Journal, 41.4 (2004),
387–95.

Rotberg, R. I., and Rabb, T. K. (eds.), Art and History. Images and Their Meaning
(Cambridge 1988).

Rouveret, A., ‘Toute la mémoire du monde: La notion de collection dans la NH de

Pline’, in J. Pigeaud and J. Oroz (eds.), Pline L’Ancien: témoin de son temps
(Salamanca and Nantes 1987), 431–49.

—— ‘Tacite et les monuments’, ANRW 2.33.4 (1991), 3051–99.

—— ‘Artistes, collectionneurs et antiquaries: l’histoire de l’art dans

l’encyclopédie plinienne’, in E. Pommier (ed.), L’Histoire de l’histoire de l’art de
l’antiquité au XVIIIe siècle (Paris 1995), 49–64.

Rüpke, J., Domi militiaeque: Die religiöse Konstruktion des Krieges in Rom
(Stuttgart 1990).

—— Religion of the Romans. Translated and edited by R. Gordon (Cambridge

and Malden Mass. 2007).

Rutledge, S., ‘Tacitus in Tartan: Textual Colonization in Tacitus’ Agricola’, Helios,

27 (2000), 75–95.

—— ‘Tiberius’ Philhellenism’, CW 101 (2008), 453–67.

Ryberg, I. S., ‘Vergil’s Golden Age’, TAPA 89 (1958), 112–31.

Sailor, D., Writing and Empire in Tacitus (Cambridge 2009).

Page 27 of 35

 
Bibliography

Salomon, N., ‘Making a World of Difference: Gender, Asymmetry and the Greek
Nude’, in A. O. Koloski-Ostrow and C. L. Lyons (eds.), Naked Truths: Women,
Sexuality, and Gender in Classical Art and Archaeology (London 1997), 197–219.

Sandage, S., ‘A Marble House Divided: The Lincoln Memorial, the Civil Rights
Movement, and the Politics of Memory, 1939–1963’, The Journal of American
History, 80 (1993), 135–67.

Sauron, G., Quis deum?: l’expression plastique des idéologies politiques et

religieuses à Rome à la fin de la République et au début du Principat (Rome
1994).

Scarsi, M., ‘Neque Atti Navii nomen memoria floreret tam diu’, BStudLat 35.2
(2005), 401–39.

Schäfer, T., ‘Zur Ikonographie der Salier’, JdI 95 (1980), 342–73.

Scheer, T. S., ‘Res Gestae Divi Augusti 24: die Restituierung göttlichen
Eigentums in Kleinasien durch Augustus’, in C. Schubert and K. Brodersen
(eds.), Rom und der (p.333) griechische Osten: Festschrift für Hatto H. Schmitt
zum 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart 1995), 209–23.

Schefold, K., Pompejanische Malerei. Sinn und Ideengeschichte (Basel 1952).

Scheid, J., ‘Le flamine de Jupiter, les Vestales et le général triomphant’, in C.

Malamud and J.-P. Vernant (eds.), Corps de dieux, Le temps de la réflexion 7
(Paris 1986), 213–30.

Schneider, W. J., ‘Phidiae Putavi. Martial und der Hercules Epitrapezios des
Novius Vindex’, Memnosyne, 54 (2001), 697–720.

Schönberger, O., ‘Die “Bilder” des Philostratus’, in G. Boehm and H. Pfotenhauer

(eds.), Beschreibungskunst-Kunstbeschreibung: Ekphrasis von der antiker bis
zur Gegenwart (Munich 1995), 157–73.

Schulz, E., ‘Notes on the History of Collecting and Museums’, JHC 2.2 (1990),
205–18.

Scott, K., ‘The Identification of Augustus with Romulus–Quirinus’, TAPA 56

(1925), 82–105.

Settis, S., ‘Did the Ancients Have an Antiquity? The Idea of Renaissance in the
History of Classical Art’, in A. Brown (ed.), Language and Images of Renaissance
Italy (Oxford 1995), 27–50.

Shatzman, I., ‘The Roman General’s Authority Over Booty’, Historia, 21 (1972),
177–205.

Page 28 of 35

 
Bibliography

Sherman, D. J., and Rogoff, I. (eds.), Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses,

Spectacles (Minneapolis 1994).

Sherwin-White, A. N., The Letters of Pliny: A Social and Historical Commentary

(Oxford 1966).

Shipley, F. W., ‘Building Operations in Rome from the Death of Caesar to the
Death of Augustus’, MAAR 9 (1931), 7–60.

—— Agrippa’s Building Activities in Rome (St. Louis 1933).

Showerman, G., ‘Cicero’s Appreciation of Greek Art’, AJP 25 (1904), 306–14.

Sihler, E. G., ‘The Collegium Poetarum at Rome’, AJP 26 (1905), 1–21.

Slater, N., ‘“Against Interpretation”: Petronius and Art Criticism’, Ramus, 16

(1987), 165–76.

Smith, R. R. R., ‘The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias’, JRS 77
(1987), 88–138.

—— ‘Simulacra gentium: The ethne from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias’, JRS 78

(1988), 50–77.

—— ‘Nero and the Sun-God: Divine Accessories and Political Symbols in Roman
Imperial Images’, JRA 13 (2000), 532–42.

Spaeth, B., The Roman Goddess Ceres (Austin 1996).

Speyer, W., ‘Das Verhältnis des Augustus zur Religion’, ANRW 2.16.3 (1986),
1777–1805.

Spurr, D., The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel

Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham NC 1993).

Squire, M., ‘The Motto in the Grotto: Inscribing Illustration and Illustrating
Inscription at Sperlonga’, in Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds.), Art and
Inscription in the Ancient World (Cambridge 2007), 102–27.

Stambaugh, J. E., The Ancient Roman City (Baltimore 1988).

Steiner, W., The Colors of Rhetoric: Problems in the Relation Between Modern
Literature and Painting (Chicago 1982).

(p.334) Stewart, A., ‘To Entertain an Emperor: Sperlonga, Laokoön and

Tiberius at the Dinner-Table’, JRS 67 (1977), 76–90.

—— Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1997).

Page 29 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— Attalos, Athens, and the Akropolis: The Pergameme ‘Little Barbarians’ and
Their Roman and Renaissance Legacy (Cambridge 2004).

Stewart, P., Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford

2003).

—— The Social History of Roman Art (Cambridge 2008).

Stewart, S., On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir,
the Collection (Baltimore 1984).

Stirling, L., The Learned Collector. Mythological Statuettes and Classical Taste
in Late Antique Gaul (Ann Arbor 2005).

Stocking, G. W. (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material

Culture, History of Anthropology, 3 (Madison Wis. 1985).

Storchi, M., Numa e Pitagora: sapientia constituendae civitatis (Naples 1999).

Strong, D.E., ‘The Administration of Public Building in Rome during the Later
Republic and Early Empire’, BICS 15 (1968), 97–109.

—— ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological Theory and

Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes (London 1973),
247–64.

—— Roman Museums (London 1994).

Swain, S. C. R., ‘Hellenic Culture and the Roman Heroes of Plutarch’, in B.

Scardigli (ed.), Essays on Plutarch’s Lives (Oxford 1995), 229–64.

Syme, R., The Roman Revolution (Oxford 1939).

—— Tacitus (Oxford 1958).

—— ‘The pomerium in the Historia Augusta’, Bonner Historia-Augusta-

Colloquium, Antiquitas 4th series 13 (Bonn 1978), 217–31 = Historia Augusta
Papers (Oxford 1983), 131–45.

—— ‘The Dating of Pliny’s Latest Letters’, CQ 35 (1985), 176–85.

—— Roman Papers Vol. VII (Oxford 1991).

Taylor, L. R., The Divinity of the Roman Emperor, American Philological

Association, Philological Monograph 1 (New York 1931, reprint 1975).

Teyssier, M.-L., ‘Cicéron et les arts plastiques, peinture et sculpture’, in R.

Chevallier (ed.), Présence de Cicéron (Paris 1984), 67–76.

Page 30 of 35

 
Bibliography

Thébert, Y., ‘Private Life and Domestic Architecture in Roman Africa’, in P. Veyne
(ed.), A History of Private Life from Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge Mass.
1987), 353–82.

—— ‘Private and Public Spaces: The Components of the domus’, in E. D’Ambra

(ed.), Roman Art in Context. An Anthology (New York 1993), 213–37.

Thomas, E., Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine
Age (Oxford 2007).

Thomas, R., ‘Vergil’s Ekphrastic Centrepieces’, HSCP 87 (1983), 175–84.

Thompson, M. L., ‘The Monumental and Literary Evidence for Programmatic

Painting in Antiquity’, Marsyas, 9 (1960–1), 36–77.

Thomsen, R., ‘Studien über den ursprünglichen Bau des Caesarsforums’, OpArch
5 (1941), 195–218.

(p.335) Torelli, M., ‘Il donario di M. Fulvio nell’area di S. Ombono’, Studi di

topographia romana, Quaderni dell’Instituto di topografia romana, 5 (Rome
1968), 71–5.

—— Typology and Structure of Roman Historical Reliefs (Ann Arbor 1992).

Treggiari, S. M., Roman Marriage (Oxford 1991).

—— ‘Home and Forum: Cicero between “Public” and “Private”’, TAPA 128
(1998), 1–23.

—— ‘The Upper-Class House as Symbol and Focus of Emotion in Cicero’, JRA 12

(1999), 33–56.

Trimble, J., ‘Replicating the Body Politic: The Herculaneum Women Statue Types
in Early Imperial Italy’, JRA 13 (2000), 41–69.

—— ‘Visibility and Viewing on the Severan Marble Plan’, in S. Swain, S.

Harrison, and J. Elsner (eds.), Severan Culture (Cambridge 2007), 368–84.

Ullman, B. L., ‘Cleopatra’s Pearls’, CJ 52 (1957), 193–201.

Ulrich, R. B., The Temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum of Caesar in Rome. The
Topography, History, Architecture, and Sculptural Program of the Monument
(New Haven 1984).

—— ‘Iulius Caesar and the Creation of the Forum Iulium’, AJA 97 (1993), 49–80.

Urry, J., ‘How Societies Remember the Past’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.),
Theorizing Museums. Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World
(Cambridge 1996), 45–65.
Page 31 of 35

 
Bibliography

Van Dyke, R. M, and Alcock, S. E. (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford

2003).

Varner, E., Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman

Imperial Portraiture (Leiden 2004).

Vasaly, A., Representation: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley

1993).

Vegetti, M., ‘Lo spettacolo della natura. Circo, teatro e potere in Plinio’, Aut Aut,
184–5 (1981), 111–25.

—— ‘Zoologia e antropologia in Plinio’, in Plinio il Vecchio sotto il profilo storico

e letterario. Atti del Convegno di Como 1979 (Como 1982), 117–31.

Vermaseren, M. J., Cybele and Attis; the Myth and the Cult (London 1977).

Versnel, H. S., Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning
of the Roman Triumph (Leiden 1970).

—— ‘Religious Mentality in Ancient Prayer’, in H. S. Versnel (ed.), Faith, Hope,

and Worship (Leiden 1981), 1–64.

Vleeschauwer, H. J. De, ‘Afterword: The Museion’, in H. C. Wright, The Oral

Antecedents of Greek Librarianship (Provo UT 1977) 176–80.

Von Holst, N., Creators, Collectors, and Connoisseurs: The Anatomy of Artistic
Taste from Antiquity to the Present Day (London 1967).

Vout, C., Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome (Cambridge 2007).

Wace, A. J. B., ‘The Greeks and Romans as Archaeologists’, Bulletin de la Société

Royale d’Archéologie d’Alexandrie, 38 (1949), 21–35.

Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘The Social Structure of the Roman House’, PBSR 56 (1988),
43–97.

—— ‘Pliny the Elder and Man’s Unnatural History’, GaR 37.1 (1990), 80–96.

—— Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton 1994).

—— Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008).

Warden, P. G., ‘The Sculptural Program of the Villa of the Papyri’, JRA 4 (1991),
257–64.

(p.336) Warden, P. G., and Romano, D. G., ‘The Course of Glory: Greek Art in a
Roman Context at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum’, Art History, 17
(1994), 228–54.

Page 32 of 35

 
Bibliography

Weinstock, S., ‘Victoria’, RE 2, Reihe 8 (1955), 2501–42.

—— Divus Julius (Oxford 1971).

Weis, A., ‘Gaius Verres and the Roman Art Market: Consumption and
Connoisseurship in Verrine II.4’, in A. Haltenhoff, A. Heil, and F. H. Mutschler
(eds.), O tempora, o mores! Römische Werte und römische Literatur in den
letzen Jahrzehnten der Republik (Munich 2003), 359–65.

Weitzman, S., Surviving Sacrilege. Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity

(Cambridge Mass. 2005).

Welch, K. E., ‘Domi militiaeque: Roman Domestic Aesthetics and War Booty in
the Republic’, in S. Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in
Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2006), 91–161.

—— The Roman Amphitheatre: From Its Origins to the Colosseum (Cambridge

2007).

Wesenberg, B., ‘Augustusforum und Akropolis’, JdI 99 (1984), 161–85.

Westall, R., ‘The Forum Iulium as Representation of Imperator Caesar’, RhM 103
(1996), 83–118.

White, P., ‘Julius Caesar in Augustan Rome’, Phoenix, 42 (1988), 334–56.

Williams, R., ‘The Pictures on Dido’s Temple’, CQ 10 (1960), 145–51.

Winkes, R., ‘Pliny’s Chapter on Roman Funeral Customs in the Light of clipeatae
imagines’, AJA 83 (1979), 481–4.

Winkler, J., Auctor & Actor. A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’ Golden Ass
(Berkeley 1985).

Wiseman, T. P., ‘Topography and Rhetoric: The Trial of Manlius’, Historia, 28

(1979), 32–50.

—— Clio’s Cosmetics: Three Studies in Greco-Roman Literature (Leicester 1979).

—— ‘Monuments and the Roman Annalists’, in I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J.

Woodman (eds.), Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical
Writing (Cambridge 1986), 87–100.

—— ‘Conspicui postes tectaque digna deo: The Public Image of Aristocratic and
Imperial Houses in the Late Republic and Early Empire’, in l’Urbs: espace urbain
et histoire. Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome, 98 (Rome 1987), 393–413.

—— Remus. A Roman Myth (Cambridge 1995).

Page 33 of 35

 
Bibliography

—— ‘The Cult Site of Anna Perenna: Documentation, Visualization, Imagination’,

in L. Haselberger and J. Humphrey (eds.), Imagining Ancient Rome:
Documentation–Visualization–Imagination, JRA Supplement 61 (Portsmouth RI
2006), 51–61.

—— Unwritten Rome (Exeter 2008).

Woodman, A. J., Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford 1998).

Woodside, M. St. A., ‘Vespasian’s Patronage of Education and the Arts’, TAPA 73
(1942), 123–9.

Yarden, L., The Spoils of Jerusalem on the Arch of Titus: A Re-Investigation

(Stockholm 1991).

Yarrow, L., ‘Lucius Mummius and the Spoils of Corinth’, SCI 25 (2006), 57–70.

Yates, F., The Art of Memory (London 1966).

Zanker, P., Forum Augustum. Das Bildprogramm (Tübingen 1968).

(p.337) —— ‘Der Apollotempel auf dem Palatin. Ausstuttung und politische

Sinnbezüge nach der Schlacht von Actium’, in K. De Fine Licht (ed.), Città e
architettura nella Roma Imperiale. Atti del seminario del 27 ottobre 1981, Anal-
Rom Suppl. 10 (Odense 1983), 21–40.

—— The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Translated by Alan Shapiro

(Ann Arbor 1988).

—— ‘In Search of the Roman Viewer’, in D. Buitron-Oliver (ed.), The

Interpretation of Architectural Sculpture in Greece and Rome, Studies in the
History of Art Vol. 49 (Washington DC 1997), 179–92.

Zecchini, G., ‘I cervi, le amazzoni e il trionfo <<gotico>> di Aureliano’, in G.

Bonamente, F. Heim, and J.-P. Callu (eds.), Historiae Augustae Colloquium
Argentoratense, Historiae Augustae Colloquia NS 6 (Bari 1996), 349–58.

Zimmer, G., ‘Das Sacrarium des C. Heius. Kunstraub und Kunstgeschmack in der
späten Republik’, Gymnasium, 96 (1989), 493–531.

—— ‘Republikanisches Kunstverständnis: Cicero gegen Verres’, in G.

Hellenkemper Salies (ed.), Das Wrack. Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia
(Cologne 1994), 867–74.

Zinserling, G., ‘Studien zu den Historiendarstellungen des römischen Republik’,

Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, 9 (1960),
403–48.

Page 34 of 35

 
Bibliography

Ziolkowski, A., The Temples of Mid-Republican Rome and Their Historical and
Topographical Context (Rome 1992).

—— ‘Urbs direpta or How the Romans Sacked Cities’, in J. Rich and G. Shipley
(eds.), War and Society in the Roman World (London 1993), 69–91.

Zolberg, V., ‘“An Elite Experience for Everyone”: Art Museums, the Public, and
Cultural Literacy’, in D. J. Sherman and I. Rogoff (eds.), Museum Culture.
Histories, Discourses, Spectacles (Minneapolis 1994), 49–65.

—— ‘Museums as Contested Sites of Remembrance: The Enola Gay Affair’, in S.

MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.), Theorizing Museums. Representing Identity and
Diversity in a Changing World (Cambridge 1996), 69–82. (p.338)

Page 35 of 35

 
Index Locorum

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and

the Culture of Collecting
Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012

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

(p.339) Index Locorum

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

Page 1 of 35

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

12.212: 112 n. 108

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

(p.348) 1.247–57: 268 n. 110

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

35.144: 268 n. 107

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

42.4: 269 n. 111

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

8.721: 206 n. 40, 207

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

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

 
Index Locorum

5.159: 197, 198 n. 23

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

 
Index Locorum

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

Page 35 of 35