Silberberg Peirce (1980) - POLITICS AND PRIVATE IMAGERY The Sacral Idyllic Landscapes in Augustan

POLITICS AND PRIVATE
IMAGERY:
The sacral-idyllic landscapes in
Augustan art
SUSAN SILBERBERG-PEIRCE
A body of wall paintings often referred to as the sacral-idyllic landscapes, dis

tinguished by the repeated use of a vocabulary of sacred, pastoral and architectural
elements, is among the more neglected objects of Roman art-historical study.1 The
landscapes depict man-made structures, many with sacred implications, situated in
spacious, semi-rural surroundings. When frequented, they are peopled by a mixture
of peasant-rural folk, who seemingly carry out their daily routines or perform an
offering to an undefinable deity.2 These paintings were commissioned by the imperial
family and upper classes of Augustan Rome and Campania. Their locations in
imperial residences and the choice of their subject-matter reveal their class character.
Scholars generally discuss these paintings in terms of their 'impressionistic' style
relegating them to the status of'decorative art'. 3 Even if, in fact, they were intended
only for decorative purposes, further historical analysis together with an examination
of the imagery is necessary to answer the questions: what did the sacral-idyllic paint
ings signify to their patrons and what conditioned their proliferation at this par
ticular moment in time?
Archaeological evidence indicates that the earliest extant sacral-idyllic Roman
wall paintings date to c. 40 B.C. These modest early examples were discovered on
die upper wall of the Cubiculum diurnum and rear-wall parapet of the Cubiculum at
Boscoreale (plate 1) and in the Atrium of the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii.4 Maiuri
believes that Livia, the wife of Augustus, resided in the Villa of the Mysteries at an early
date.5 It is significant that she may have seen the painting in question, for by 30B.C.,
after her stay at the villa, subject-matter similar to that painted in the Atrium became
popular in Rome itself. The most notable examples are to be found on the Palatine :
the Yellow Frieze (plate 2), from the House of Livia, probably from a reception room
dated c. 30-25 B.C. ; the prospect panels from the same house; and, in addition, those
from the Room of the Masks dated c. 30 B.C. in the so-called House of Augustus.6 Sacral-
idyllic subject-matter was also extensively used in the paintings and stuccos of the Villa
under the Farnesina in Rome (plates 3, 4) which has been identified as Agrippa and
Art History Vol. 3 No. 3 September 1980

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POLITICS AND PRIVATE IMAGERY: THE SACRAL-IDYLLIC LANDSCAPES
Julia's suburban villa, decorated in 19 B.C. after Agrippa, Augustus' son-in-law and
co-regent, returned to the capital.7
The sacral-idyllic paintings gained popularity so rapidly throughout Rome and
Campania that by the end of the first century B.C. , many villas at Pompeii, Stabiae and
Herculaneum were being decorated with the motives.8 If von Blanckenhagen's
analysis in his monograph on the Villa of Agrippa Postumus at Boscotrecase near Pompeii
is correct, the painter who executed the Boscotrecase paintings trained and first worked
in Rome at the Farnesina atelier.9 Thus Boscotrecase's painted decoration (plates 5 to 7)
introduced the new motives which were in turn copied by painters working in
residences throughout Campania. Although the villa was built by Agrippa, the
Cubiculum paintings in question were apparently finished after his death in 11 B.C.,
when the villa was under the supervision of his son.10
Von Blankenhagen postulates the existence of an atelier of court painters
working specifically on the Villa under the Farnesina in Rome and subsequently at
Boscotrecase (compare plates 3 and 5). ' ' One assumes that a similar situation existed for
the earlier Palatine Houses of Livia and Augustus. These four villa-palaces were related
by virtue of their imperial affiliations. A strong system of literary patronage prevailed
under Augustus and his ministers; undoubtedly a similar system of patronage sup
ported the architects, sculptors and painters who carried out the new Augustan
programmes.
To understand what these paintings might have signified to this powerful and in
fluential segment of Roman society, it is first of all necessary to consider what images
are most often represented. The visual imagery can be separated into four basic com
ponents: (1) the architecture, (2) the sacred implements and sculpture, (3) the figures,
and (4) the handling of landscape and nature.
The architectural features of the scenes (plates 1 to 7), discussed and debated
numerous times, have been variously identified as villas, farms, Egyptian buildings,
pleasure-gardens, harbour structures, sacred structures and precincts, tombs, stage
skënês, or simply dismissed as imaginary architecture.12 In all probability, the specific
functions of all these elements cannot be determined. Taken individually, many
possibilities could be correct, but taken en masse, it is difficult to reconcile such a
variety of buildings, especially when they occur in the same scene (plate 2). Yet if the
literal context of these structures is not accessible, another level of interpretation is
justified. The mass of architectural structures can be recognized as the introduction of
man-made, that is, 'civilizing' elements into nature. 13 Of the more than 125 paintings
which I have examined, almost all include some man-made feature. Furthermore, in
circumstances where only one structure is present, it is usually of sacred significance.14
This second, subsidiary, set of images, the sacred category, includes altars, small
shrines, columns, votive plaques, vessels, fillets, tables with offerings, sacred fires,
trees in conjunction with a sanctuary, and statues and herms, presumably of divinities
(plates 4 to 6). The sacred character of the scenes and their relation to nature are im
plicit in the various images, but die specific ritual or presiding deity cannot always be
identified.15 In the case of nature, however, the elder Pliny wrote that 'trees were the
242
temples of the spirits . . . we worship groves and their very silences'. 16 Thus the format
of isolated clusters of trees or a single tree in conjunction with a structure also
supports the overall sacred character of the scenes (plates 4 to 7).
A multitude of figures are repeated throughout the paintings. These can be
grouped by their activities: work, religious, and unspecified. Among the most fre
quently represented work-images are: shepherds and goatherds with their flocks
(plate 6); men with grazing cattle; men with donkeys often burdened with packs ; men
with short garments carrying wood or other gear on their backs (plates 2 and 7); and
fishermen, often pulling boats or nets ashore (plates 1 and 2). Images of religious
activity include men and women standing or bending over altars or statues (plates 2 to
5); women in long robes standing near sacred structures (plates 2 to 5), sometimes
with fillets raised towards them (plate 6), often accompanied by a smaller female
figure with a vessel on her head (plates 4 and 6) or carrying a basket. Old men seated
with staffs and figures crossing bridges (plates 1 to 7 ) are among the images of un
specified activity. The majority of figures represented give the impression of being in
habitants of the country; shepherds, farmers and fishermen. Men with staffs or
women in long robes cannot be specifically identified as urban or rural, but when ac
companied by women with vessels or holding fillets, their sacred connotation is clear.
The spatial organization of the landscapes is ambiguous. 1 7 The ambiguity is in
creased by the hazy and indistinct backgrounds and by the ambivalent relationships of
images to each other. Furthermore, the sketchy painting-technique and the colour
ing, either monochrome or polychrome, serve to link the individual objects ar
bitrarily, but never to clarify their relationship.
The conception of nature revealed in the landscapes is equally vague. The type
of refined nature in these scenes is not that of a naturally foliated countryside or
forest, nor does its openness suggest an urban context. The closest literary parallel to
this is the locus amoenus, one of four landscape types found in Virgil and defined by
E. W. Leach as a charming, pleasant place, neither urban nor completely rural, jux
taposing pastoral and civilized elements. 18 Indeed, like the locus amoenus, the
landscape depicted in the painted scenes conjures up an elusive, dreamlike setting in
which both the man-made and natural features are left deliberately vague.
In the sacral-idyllic landscapes, then, the images are recognizable, but difficult to
interpret solely on the basis of the visual material. The questions are still unanswered
What did the paintings signify to their patrons? What conditioned their proliferation
at this particular moment in time ? and why do these paintings look the way they do ?
The questions of rural policy, agrarian and land reform, the peasants, and the
state religion were crucial issues from 44 B.C. through A.D. 14, the period during which
Octavian-Augustus established and confirmed his rule. This period has been
characterized as one of violent transference of power and property, 19 a state of affairs
that had begun long before Octavian's appearance at Rome. In the course of the
previous two centuries, the economy and military policy of Italy had been
transformed.
243
The status of the peasant-farmer, once the military and economic backbone of
the State, was in complete disintegration. Various wars and the hunger for land of
wealthy investors, who considered property ownership a sign of prestige, and
veterans, who had been promised the land, had a profound and dismal effect on sub
sistence husbandry by the smallholding peasant-farmer.20 The various laws enacted
to curb the massive abuses against the small-holder, were, however, essentially in
consequential, since those entrusted with enforcing the laws were to some extent the
same as those who were desirous of more property. By the first century B.C., in fact,
agrarian legislation was no longer directed towards the restoration of an independent
peasantry, but was chiefly concerned with satisfying the demands of veterans.21
Confiscation was the government's recourse to fulfilling this demand, an option also
taken by Octavian, who instituted no measures for the protection of the Italian
agriculturalists or small land owners.22 Commercial farming on large estates
operated by absentee landlords, usually with slave labour, had by now become the
status quo.23
The efficacy of the traditional state religion which originally focused on agrarian
rites had also suffered under the impact of civil strife. Rapid economic and social
developments, extremes of wealth and poverty, broke its hold on the Roman
citizenry. As Lewis and Reinhold suggest, 'The agricultural gods of the traditional
religion were largely meaningless in urban life, especially for landless persons.'24 The
oldest priesthoods had given way to semi-political colleges of pontifices and augurs
and the simple apparatus and detailed ceremony of the old Italian ritual gave way to
showy ceremonials.25
From the time he assumed power until his death in A.D. 14, Augustus attempted
to come to terms with much of the disorder. It was his ambition, in his guise of
reformer and especially of restorer, to reconstruct the legendary glory of Rome's past.
Since he could not accomplish this physically, he attempted to do it spiritually by
returning to the earlier traditions of Roman religion.26 Likewise, since he chose not to
reform the land policies which had contributed to the dispossession of the peasant-
farmers, he chose instead to restore and elevate their lot by cultivating the heroic
image of the patriotic peasant-farmer leading a peaceful and productive life, an ideal
so often echoed in the passages of contemporary writers such as Virgil, Horace, Ovid,
Tibullus and Propertius.27 The literary reconstructions of an idealized 'Golden Age',
a theme already current in the works of the late Republic and very popular among
Augustan writers, often linked the 'great age of Roman agriculture' with the 'great age
of civic virtue'. This concept was most certainly sanctioned by Augustus, even if in
directly, through his literary agent Maecenas.28 In Virgil's Georgics, Ovid's Fasti, and
Horace's Odes, for example, the peasant is presented as an individual free farmer,
highly dignified in noble pursuit of his work and its rewards, and above all, unfailing
in his devotion to the State.29 These sentiments are clearly expressed in the Georgics,
Virgil's treatise on farming:
244
Blessed is he who masters nature's laws,

Tramples on fear and unrelenting fate . . .
But happy too is he who knows the gods of nature . . .
Others are keen to drench themselves in blood,

Their brothers' blood, and, exiled, change their homes
And winsome hearths, to range abroad for room
To live in, underneath a foreign sun.
The farmer drives his curved plough through the earth :
His year's work lies in this; thus he sustains
His homeland, his diminutive descendants,
His herds of stock, his much-deserving bullocks.
Without repose, the overflowing seasons
Bring in apples, and increase the flock;
Meanwhile, sweet children hang on the Farmer's kisses,

His decent home preserves its purity;
Cows' udders bulge with milk, and the rotund kids
Lock horns in combat waged on luxuriant lawns.
Such a life the Sabines once embraced,

And Romulus and Remus; in this way
Etruria grew strong; thus Rome was formed . . .30
Virgil's sentiments have a visual conterpart in the sacral-idyllic paintings (plate 6).
The complex issues of the peasant and the land were intimately linked with
traditional state religion. Numerous agrarian festivals still celebrated in Augustan
Rome were described in Ovid's Fasti, a chronicle of the annual religious calendar
dedicated to Augustus which presumably reflected the Emperor's religious policy.31
This and the other surviving religious calendars included the same rites or descen
dants of those rites celebrated by the archaic Italians who had originally performed
them to ward off potential perils and insure the productivity of pastoral and
agricultural industry.32 The Terminalia, for example, still observed during Augustus'
reign, was dedicated to the deity who marked the boundaries of tilled lands. The
rationale for observing it, however, must have been totally alien to an urban inhabi
tant of Rome. Ovid's description of the ceremony of VII KAL 23 (23 February) also
finds a parallel in the sacral-idyllic paintings (plate 5):
O Terminus, whether thou art a stone or a stump buried in the field, thou too
hast been deified from days ofyore. Thou are crowned by two owners on opposite
sides; they bring thee two garlands and two cakes. An altar is built. Hither the
husbandman's rustic wife brings with her own hands on a potsherd the fire which
she has taken from the warm hearth. The old man chops wood, and deftly piles
up the billets . . . the boy stands by and holds the broad basket in his hands.
245
When from the basket he has thrice thrown corn into the midst of the fire, the
little daughter presents the cut honeycombs. Others hold vessels of wine. A
portion of each is cast into the flames. The company dressed in white look on and
hold their peace. 33
References made to religious and agricultural practices in this passage are in
separable. The mood is blatantly more rural than urban. 3 4
There is also a moral message in the writings of this period. Throughout the
Fasti, Ovid made deliberate juxtapositions between past rural and present urban
religious practices always emphasizing the role of the principled Roman of the past:
[In those days] the senator himself fed his own sheep. It was no shame to take
one's peaceful rest on straw and to pillow the head on hay. The praetor put aside
the plough to judge the people and to own a light piece of silver plate was a
crime. Now there is a frantic lust of wealth . . . now fortune brings honours,
friendships . . . the poor man everywhere lies low.
Why is a New Year's gift of cash now offered during the festival ofJanus when
in the past incense, wine, dates, sprinkled figs and honey in a white jar were
sufficient? The purpose of the offering was to insure a sweet course of events for
the New Year. Now wealth is considered sweet. . . . 35
The juxtaposition of pious rural life, past and present, with late Republican and
contemporary urban impiety was also a favourite theme, expressed, for example, by
Horace in one of his 'Roman' Odes dedicated to Augustus:
Thy fathers' sins, O Roman, thou, though guiltless, shall expiate, till thou dost
restore the crumbling temples and shrines of the gods and their statues soiled
with grimy smoke. 36
In the same passage he refers to Rome's earlier, more noble ancestors as 'a manly
brood of peasant soldiers, taught to turn the clods with Sabine hoe. . . .' 37 But
Horace, like the other Augustan writers, was also careful to praise the present times -
the restoration of peace and the fruits of Augustus' reign. The closing lines of the
Secular Hymn, commissioned by Augustus for public performance in 17 B.C., welcome
the return of the long-awaited 'Golden Age':
Already Faith and Peace and H o n o u r and ancient Shame and neglected Virtue
are venturing to return, and blessed Abundance with her cornucopia manifests
herself.38
To whom would poems such as the Odes, the Fasti, and the Georgics have
appealed? Why the shuttling back and forth between the rural past and present? In
terms of a reading audience, it has been convincingly argued that the small farmer,
with inherited practical experience, had no need of a manual such as the Georgics.39
The style and sentiments of the Odes or the Fasti would have been more appealing to
246
the cultured classes. As property owners, they would welcome any proposal which
drew a curtain of renewed prosperity over a questionable past, and they would
'applaud the subtle grace with which Virgil glorified the duty and profit of personal
labour'. 40 In truth, of course, by the time of Augustus, neither the peasant-farmer nor
the wealthy landowner laboured personally on his own land. The system of slave
labour was by then firmly instituted.41
The heroic, rural past, the traditional religion and the renewed fertility of the land:
those glorified days of the peasant-farmer-soldier were important parts of Augustan
propaganda. Historical evidence, literary sources and Augustus' own Res Gestae, an
autobiographical account of his accomplishments, confirm this policy. I believe that,
on a private level, the sacral-idyllic landscape paintings served the same purpose.
There is a profound similarity between the visual components in this body of
paintings and the literary descriptions of idealized rural life and religious practice in
the verses of Virgil, Ovid and Horace. There appears to be a similar shifting between
past and present; urban and rural; contemporary Roman and historical peasant. The
poems and paintings share a refusal to deal with the full realities of the present: a
penchant to mix ideal reconstructions of the past.
But whereas both the poems and paintings are saturated with sacred evocations,
the poems alone introduce an ideal work ethic. The scenario presents an ever-
increasing fertility of the soil and abundance of crops and herds, the direct result of
physical labour on one's own land. The fact that scenes of physical work are not
depicted in the paintings could be because there was no such visual tradition in earlier
Roman art. However, it is more likely that the visual portrayal of men sweating and
toiling would have been offensive to the patrons in the first place and in the second
place it would have been contrary to the rather idealized physical activity described in
the poems. This, because the nature of visual imagery dictates a more explicit descrip
tion unlike written passages in which mundane events are mediated by flowery
phrases. Neither the literature nor the paintings were designed to be explicit. The
language in both forms is ambivalent; reality is couched in idyllic terms. The settings
of both testify to this; the locus amoenus is the ideal landscape for this shifting scene.
The landscape painters could not afford to depict the present condition of the
rural peasantry nor the state of the land which had once been owned and worked by
them. They concentrated instead on an idyllic landscape, deliberately vague and un
defined : peopled by a fictitious rural population, worshippers of a religion no longer
viable in Augustan society.
One might argue that from an urban context, any rural landscape might be in
terpreted as deliberately unreal and not necessarily related to imperial policy. But the
fact remains that from their earliest production, these paintings were located in the
imperial houses and villas of the wealthy citizens and land-owners, the upper levels of
Augustan society.42 I am not suggesting that Augustus or Livia deliberately chose
specific motives to reinforce political strategy, nor that they believed the scenes
described in the paintings and poems to be reality. Rather, taken as a whole, I believe
247
that these literary and visual motives are subtle expressions of Augustan ideology. As
part of Augustus' goal of creating a stable government, he commissioned numerous
public monuments which served to spread his policies and ideals. But more abstruse
manifestations of this ideology were also visible in the private imagery commissioned
by the imperial family to decorate both public and private sectors of their houses and
villas.
The example of the estate of Agrippa Postumus at Boscotrecase whose Cubicula
paintings have already been referred to (plates 5 to 7), can be used as a test-case. The
villa was divided into two sections : the elegantly appointed'occasional residence of
Agrippa and his son, and the real villa rustica, the agricultural wing, with 'rooms ap
propriated for the agricultural exploitation of a rather large estate'.43 Had the Cubicula
paintings simply been pleasant rustic-rural scenes, the painter could have chosen
motives from his immediate surroundings. But instead, as von Blanckenhagen has
demonstrated, the motives are clearly derived from those earlier examples executed
in Rome.44 Why was it significant that the painter would follow the earlier Roman
motives rather than taking them from his surroundings? Because, had the painter
looked round the villa at Boscotrecase for such motives, he would not have found the
cheerful peasant-farmer performing rural chores or sacred rites as portrayed in the
paintings. The reality of the situation was, in fact, that the agricultural activity at
Boscotrecase was wholly dependent on slave labour. Adjacent to the large horse stables
in the backyard, were located the eighteen small rooms of the slave-barracks, and the
ergastulum, the prison-house for slaves, complete with iron stocks.45 Agrippa's villa
was no exception; slave accommodations with similar features were found in villas
throughout Campania.46
As in the paintings discovered in Rome, the scenes depicted in the Boscotrecase
Cubiculum contradict the surrounding reality. The private nature of these paintings'
locations indicates that we are not dealing with a body of paintings deliberately set up
as public propaganda. On the contrary, the sacral-idyllic landscapes serve as
examples of how political contrivances can subtly take hold of the private side of
peoples' experience. The days of the peasant-farmer who owned a small plot of land,
who lived faithfully by the religious calendar, who devoted his energies not only to his
own benefit but to the State - those days were long past, if, indeed, they had ever
existed. But their glorified image, the sanctified memory ofthat idyllic existence, was
kept alive by the poets and painters of the Augustan court:
O happy beyond measure the tillers of the soil,

if they but knew their blessings, on whom,
far from the clash of arms, the earth most justly
showers an easy livelihood from her soil.
. . . they enjoy sleep without worry,

and a life that cannot bring disillusionment,
but rather one that is rich in varied treasures,
248
and peace in their broad farms, and grottoes,

natural lakes, cool valleys, the lowing of cattle,
and gentle slumber beneath a tree.
Pastures are there and the haunts of wild game,
and youth is hardy in toil
and accustomed to simple fare;
there the rites of the gods are observed
and reverence for age survives. . . ,47
Like this verse from Virgil, the rural sacral-idyllic landscape scenes on Roman and
Campanian palace and villa walls do not depict contemporary reality. They do,
however, conform to the reality of the ruling-class ideology.
Susan Silberberg-Peirce
University of California, Los Angeles
NOTES
I refer to the sacral-idyllic landscapes des deutschen archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische
collectively as a body of paintings on the basis Abteilung, XLII, 1927, 66; E. Aletti, Lo stile de
of recurrent subject matter and similar Ludio e l'impressionismo ellenistico-romano, 1948;
characteristics of style, although I am aware of M. Swindler, Ancient Painting, New Haven,
Phyllis Lehmann's suggestion {Boscoreale, p. 1929, p. 340; and Dawson, pp. 78, 118, 121 f.,
163, n. 109) that the sacral-idyllic category 124, et passim.
should be abandoned. I think one can safely Another favourite theme pursued by scholars
categorize them if one keeps in mind the is the search for their origins or prototypes.
definition of 'generic' types as understood by For a discussion of the possible origins, see, for
Otto Brendel in 'Prolegomena to a Book on example: Peters, p. 194; K. Schefold, 'Vorbilder
Roman Art', in Memoirs of the American Academy Roemischer Landschaftsmalerei', Mitteilungen
in Rome, XXI, 1953, 77; rpt. New Haven, 1979. des deutschen archaeologischen Instituts, Athenische
For a thorough discussion of the subject Abteilung, LXXI, 2, 1956, 211—31 ; A. M. G.
matter, see the only article dealing exclusively Little, 'The Formation of a Roman Style in
with these paintings, M. Rostovtzeff, Roemische Wall Painting', American Journal of Archaeology,
Mitteilungen, 1911. XLIX, 2, April-June 1945, 134-42; B. Brown,
On the basis of an often cited passage in Pliny, Ptolemaic Paintings and Mosaics and the Alexandrian
Natural History, Book XXXV, 116—17, these Style, Cambridge, 1957, p. 1; R. P. Hinks,
paintings or at least the distinctive subject Catalogue of the Greek, Etruscan and Roman
matter of these paintings have often been Paintings in the British Museum, London, 1933,
attributed to a certain Spurius Tadius or pp. xxxiii—xxxv; and Dawson, pp. 75, 172.
Ludius-Studius, an Augustan painter who may Lehmann, pp. 15-16, 161-2, figs 12, 13, plate
have either invented the genre or adapted and XXV; Maiuri, pp. 202 ff., fig. 83.
transformed the prototypes. For further Maiuri, pp. 235 f.
discussion, see especially: R. Ling, 'Studius G. E. Rizzo, 'Le pitture della "Casa di Livia"',
and the Beginnings of Roman Landscape Monumenti della pittura antica scoperti in Italia,
Painting, 'Journal of Roman Studies, LXVII, III, 3, Rome, 1936; G. Carettoni, 'The House
1977, 1-16; J.J. Pollitt, The Art of Rome e, 75J of Augustus', Illustrated London News, 255,
B.C. —JJ7 A.D.: Sources and Documents, New 1969, n. 6790, 6792, pp. 24 ff.
Jersey, 1966, pp. 115-16; F. Wirth, 'Der Stil E. L. Wadsworth, 'Stucco reliefs of the first and
der Kampanischen Wandgemaeide im second centuries still extant in Rome', Memoirs
Verhältnis zur Wanddekoration', Mitteilungen of the American Academy in Rome, IV, 1929;
249
Monumenti Inediti Pubblicati dall' Instituto di RostovtzefF, Social and Economic History, I, 59,
Corrispondenza Archaeologica, XI, 1882, piate 44; 63-6.
XII, 1885, plates 23, 28; Peters, p p . 53 f.; 21 Lewis and Reinhold, Sourcebook I, p p . 274,
McKay, p. 130, n. 224; von Blanckenhagen, 441.
p p . 59-60. 22 Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, n o . 16, Loeb
8 The cultural tastes of the capital probably ed., London, 1967, p . 371 concerning his
conditioned the spread of the new m o d e settlement oF veterans.
throughout the country. For this idea, see 23 RostovtzefF, Social and Economic History, I, 59,
McKay, p. 154. 74-5 ; Lewis and Reinhold, Sourcebook I, p. 441 ;
9 von Blanckenhagen, p p . 59—60. Syme, p p . 451-2.
10 von Blanckenhagen, p . 11; RostovtzefF, Sodai 24 Lewis and Reinhold, Sourcebook I, p. 477.
and Economic History, II, 552-53, n. 31. 25 Fowler, p . 340.
11 von Blanckenhagen, p p . 59-60. 26 J. Bayet, Histoire Politique et Psychologique de la
12 For various identifications, see especially Religion Romaine, 2nd ed., Paris, 1969, p p .
RostovtzefF, Roemische Mitteilungen, 1911. 169-94; Λ« Gestae, n o . 7, 19, 20, 21, 24.
13 For this idea, see Leach, p p . 60, 90. 27 Horace, Odes I.IV, XVII: II.XV: III.IV, XIII,
14 G o o d sources of illustrations include: von XVIII, XXII, XXIII: IV.V, XII, XV; Carmen
Blanckenhagen; Peters; RostovtzefF, Roemische Saeculare; Epodes, II; Virgil, Georgics; Aeneid
Mitteilungen, 1911 ; O. Elia, Pitture Murali e Book VIII; Propertius 2, 25: 2, 32, 4 7 - 5 7 ;
Mosiaci nel Museo Nazionale di Napoli, Rome, Tibullus I, 3, 35-50; Ovid, Fasti; Varrò, de re
1932 ; Monumenti della pittura antica scoperti in Rustica.
Italia; G. E. Rizzo, La pittura ellenistico-romana, 28 Leach, p . 63; Heitland, p p . 200-1 ; H. J. Rose,
Milan, 1929; and F. Wirth, Roemische A Handbook of Latin Literature, New York, i960,
Wandmalerei vom Untergangs Pompejis bis ans p p . 234-5; cf- Virgil, Georgics, Book III, 11.
Ende des dritten Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1934. K. 37-57, trans. S. P. Bovie, Chicago, 1956; rpt.
Schefold, Die Waende Pompejis: Topographisches Chicago, 1966, p . 59: 'Through woods and
Verzeichnis der Wanddekorationen, Berlin, 1957 is virgin forests, following / Your firm requests,
also very useful. Maecenas: without you, / My mind could not
15 T h e presiding deity has been variously conceive a lofty theme.'
identified as Bacchus, Isis, Priapus and 29 Virgil, Georgics, trans. Bovie, p p . xix,
Fortuna. See von Blanckenhagen, p. 61, n. xxiii-xxiv; Heitland, p p . 10-12, 218-25;
116; and K. Schefold, O r i g i n s of R o m a n Leach, p. 61.
Landscape Painting', Art Bulletin, XLII, J u n e 30 Virgil, Georgics, Book II, 11. 489-92, 507-17,
i960, 87-96. 524-7. 534-6, trans. S. P. Bovie, p p . 5 1 - 3 .
16 Pliny the Elder quoted in R. M. Ogilvie, The 31 Ovid, Fasti, trans. J . G. Frazer, Cambridge,
Romans and Their Gods in the Age ofAugustus, New !959. pp. xvii-xiv.
York, 1969, p . 14. 32 Fowler, p p . 2-4; Leach, p . 58.
17 The concept of landscape and the 33 Ovid, Fasti, II, 639-52, trans. Lewis and
corresponding notion of space in R o m a n wall Reinhold, Sourcebook I, p p . 4 8 0 - 1 .
painting have been a long-standing point of 34 It is, in fact, reminiscent of a rural festival
contention a m o n g scholars. See von described by Virgil in the Georgics, II, 11.
Blanckenhagen's discussion of the spatial 393-412, trans. Bovie, p . 47:
disposition of the elements in the landscapes We shall, then, sing in native songs, our debt
and the question of Demetrios the Of praise to Bacchus, bring o n cakes and plates
Topographos, p p . 54-7. See also E. H. And lead in by the horns a sacred goat
Gombrich's stimulating discussion of the T o stand beside the altar, and proceed
conditions of illusion and the mechanism of To roast his fertile flesh o n hazel spits.
projection in Art and Illusion, Princeton, 1956, 35 Ovid, Fasti, I, 204-18, 185-92, trans. Frazer,
p. 208. p p . 13 fF.; Fowler, p p . 277-8.
18 In her book o n the Eclogues, E. W. Leach 36 Horace, so-called ' R o m a n ' Ode, III, 6.1-4,
introduces the four general types of landscape trans. C. E. Bennett, Loeb ed., London, 1921,
found in Virgil's work: (1) farm, (2) rustic p p . 200-1.
countryside, (3) wilderness, (4) locus amoenus. 37 Horace, Odes, III, 6.37-8, trans. Bennett, p p .
See p p . 96 and also 81, 9 0 - 1 , 186-7, n - 1 1 · 202-3.
19 Syme, p p . vii-viii. 38 Horace, Carmen Saeculare, trans. G. H. Moore,
20 Heitland, p p . 10, 154, 177; Syme, p p . 4 5 0 - 2 ; New York, 1929; rpt. London, 1970, p p .
250
388—97; Fowler, p. 344, n. 1; F. C. Grant et al., 564-5, n. 23; K. D. White, Roman Farming,
Ancient Roman Religion, New York, 1957, 183-4. London, 1970, p. 444, no. 31.
39 Heitland, pp. 223-4. 44 von Blanckenhagen, pp. 58-60.
40 Heitland, pp. 223-4; Syme, pp. 450 f. 45 Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, II,
41 Heitland, pp. 224 f.; Rostovtzeff, Social and 564-5, n. 23.
Economic History, I, 59; Lewis and Reinhold, 46 Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, II,
Sourcebook /, p. 441. 564-5, n. 23 ; White, Roman Farming, chapter
42 Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, II, XIII; Heitland, pp. 214 ff.
564-5, n. 23; McKay, p. 102. 47 Virgil, Georgics, Book II, 11. 458-74, trans.
43 Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, II, Lewis and Reinhold, Sourcebook II, p. 21.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
von Blanckenhagen, P. H. and C. Alexander, 'The Paintings from Boscotrecase', Mitteilungen
des deutschen archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung, Supplement 6, 1962.
Dawson, C. H.,'Romano-Campanian Mythological Landscape Painting', Yale Classical Studies,
IX, 1944; rpt. Rome, 1965.
Fowler, W. W., The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, London, 1916.
Heitland, W. E., Agricola: A Study of Agriculture and Rustic Life in the Greco-Roman World from the
Point of View of Labour, Cambridge, 1921.
Leach, E. W., Vergil's Eclogues: Landscapes of Experience, Ithaca, 1974.
Lehmann, P. W., Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale, Cambridge, 1953.
Lewis, N. and M. Reinhold, Roman Civilization, Sourcebook I: The Republic, New York, 1966.
Lewis, N . a n d M . Reinhold, Roman Civilization, Sourcebook II: The Empire, New York, 1966.
Maiuri, A., La Villa dei Misteri, Rome, 1947.
McKay, A. G., Houses, Villas, and Palaces in the Roman World,New York, 1975.
Peters, W. J. T., Landscape in Romano-Campanian Mural Painting, Groningen, 1963.
Rostovtzeff, M., 'Die hellenistisch-roemische Architekturlandschaft', Mitteilungen des deutschen
archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung, XXVI, 1911, 1-185.
Rostovtzeff, M., Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 2 vols, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1957.
Syme, R., The Roman Revolution, Oxford, 1939; rpt. Oxford, 1966.
251
i Boscoreale, Villa of P. Fannius
Synistor: monochrome in Cubiculum.
Now in Metropolitan Museum, New
York. (Photo: Metropolitan Museum
of Art, Rogers Fund, 1903)
2 Palatine, Rome, 'House of Livia' :

detail of decoration of 'right ala' showing
îf
1 part of the Yellow Frieze. In situ
f ~t »
i&V·^"
* - " " ^ A L ^ - Μ A -ξtbΞL-Ξ
3 Rome, Farnesina House : black wall
.SΜEIKB KKlClifitςff*iB landscape. Now in National Museum.
After Mon. Inst. 11, 1882, plate 44
91
.«V'JLAsWSS^
.-«f " 1
* . \ · . /
4 Rome, Farnesina House: stucco"

landscape from vault of Room B. Now
in Museo delle Terme. (Photo: author)
5 Boscotrecase, Villa of Agrippa Postumus : wall painting on black ground. Now in Metropolitan Museum,
New York. (Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1920)
6 Boscotrecase, Villa of Agrippa Postumus : 7 Boscotrecase, Villa of Agrippa Postumus : landscape

painted landscape from north wall of Red Room. from east wall of Red Room. Now in National
Now in National Museum, Naples Museum, Naples

Silberberg Peirce (1980) - POLITICS AND PRIVATE IMAGERY The Sacral Idyllic Landscapes in Augustan

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Silberberg Peirce (1980) - POLITICS AND PRIVATE IMAGERY The Sacral Idyllic Landscapes in Augustan

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POLITICS AND PRIVATE

A body of wall paintings often referred to as the sacral-idyllic landscapes, dis

Art History Vol. 3 No. 3 September 1980

Blessed is he who masters nature's laws,

Others are keen to drench themselves in blood,

Meanwhile, sweet children hang on the Farmer's kisses,

Such a life the Sabines once embraced,

O happy beyond measure the tillers of the soil,

. . . they enjoy sleep without worry,

and peace in their broad farms, and grottoes,

2 Palatine, Rome, 'House of Livia' :

4 Rome, Farnesina House: stucco"

6 Boscotrecase, Villa of Agrippa Postumus : 7 Boscotrecase, Villa of Agrippa Postumus : landscape

You might also like

Silberberg Peirce (1980) - POLITICS AND PRIVATE IMAGERY The Sacral Idyllic Landscapes in Augustan

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

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Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

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Silberberg Peirce (1980) - POLITICS AND PRIVATE IMAGERY The Sacral Idyllic Landscapes in Augustan

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

POLITICS AND PRIVATE

A body of wall paintings often referred to as the sacral-idyllic landscapes, dis­

Art History Vol. 3 No. 3 September 1980

Blessed is he who masters nature's laws,

Others are keen to drench themselves in blood,

Meanwhile, sweet children hang on the Farmer's kisses,

Such a life the Sabines once embraced,

O happy beyond measure the tillers of the soil,

. . . they enjoy sleep without worry,

and peace in their broad farms, and grottoes,

2 Palatine, Rome, 'House of Livia' :

4 Rome, Farnesina House: stucco"

6 Boscotrecase, Villa of Agrippa Postumus : 7 Boscotrecase, Villa of Agrippa Postumus : landscape

You might also like

A body of wall paintings often referred to as the sacral-idyllic landscapes, dis