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An Inquiry Into the Origins of Two Campidoglio Statues Edith Balas and Faye Levine

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An Inquiry Into the Origins of Two Campidoglio Statues Edith Balas and Faye Levine BaBesch 72 (1997) An Inquiry into the Origins of Two Campidoglio Statues Edith Balas and Faye Levine In Rome, in the piazza di Campidoglio, stand two The trail of information regarding the river gods’ ancient statues of river gods called the “Tiber” and origins quickly fades when one delves into eras the “Nile”, whose origins are mysterious. They stand prior to the Middle Ages. What did they represent facing each other before the Senators’ Staircase on in antiquity? What did their symbolism signify? the Piazza. Each is in repose, naked to the waist, Who made them? leaning on one arm and with the other outstretched. There are some indications that the sculptures may Each is of near-colossal proportions, resting on have been commissioned by the emperor Hadrian, bases measuring five by three meters1. The Nile may have had a connection with the cult of Mithras, reclines on a sphinx and cradles in his arm a cor- and/or were an attempt to promote the spread of the nucopia; the Tiber also holds a cornucopia, and rests cults of Isis and Antinous-Osiris. Though many on the image of the She-Wolf suckling Romulus and doubts and contradictions remain, the possibilities Remus (figures 1 and 2). Dating from the second should be explored. century A.D., they have survived above ground in Before we discuss these new hypotheses, the sym- Rome since antiquity; that is, they were never exca- bolism and meaning of river gods and water as used vated2. In the Middle Ages, they stood on the Monte in Mithraism should be explored. Cavallo, along with the Horse-Tamers (Dioscuri), Mithraism originated on the central Iranian Plateau, which are also on the Campidoglio. During most of and from there spread to India. As a religion, it the Quattrocento they were believed to represent covered both continents and centuries, surviving Saturn and Bacchus3. In 1480 they were identified from approximately 1300 B.C. to 400 A.D. The cult as River Gods by Pomponio Leto, known to be came to Europe by way of Asia Minor in the first a student of ancient spring and water worship4, century B.C., when the Romans learned of it from “a learned collector of antique sculptures” and a Cilician pirates13, and was officially received in secretary to Pope Leo X5. In 1510 they were thought Rome around 80 A.D.14 to be “Neptunes” by Albertini6. In 1513 Andrea Mithras was described as the god of mercy, light and Fulvio identified them as the Lester (Danube) and the sun, the avenger of injustice, and the conqueror Achelous (the longest river in Greece), but changed of evil. He was all-knowing, all seeing15. Water, his opinion and in 1527 recorded them the Nile and springs, fountains, and rivers played a integral role the Tigris, in his guidebook7. in his cult. Cumont writes: In 1517, the sculptures were moved to the Capitol’s Palazzo di Conservatori, and by 1552 Pope Leo X [The followers of Mithras] worshipped alike the had acquired them for Michelangelo, who had them saline floods which filled the deep seas and placed in the Piazza di Campidoglio as part of the which were termed indifferently Neptune and renovation plan8. From whom Pope Leo acquired Oceanus, the springs that gurgled from the them is unknown. It is possible that he simply recesses of the earth, the rivers that flowed over ordered the statues moved from Monte Cavallo; its surface, and the placid lakes... A perpetual it is also possible that they were, at some point, in spring bubbled in the vicinity of the temples, and private collections. The river gods had been moved to the Palazzo di Conservatori by 1517. Both river gods required some renovations. The 1 Bober and Rubenstein, 101. 2 Ibid., 99. statue called “Tigris” was the more damaged of the 3 Ibid., 101. two: it is not certain what creature it originally 4 Bober, 229. leaned on – possibly a tiger or a crocodile9, but there 5 Ibid., 226, 229, n. 3. is no way of knowing for certain. At Michelangelo’s 6 Bober and Rubenstein, 101. 7 Rubenstein, 259. suggestion, the damaged area was recarved into the 8 Bober and Rubenstein, 102. shape of Romulus and Remus with the She-Wolf, in 9 Bober and Rubenstein, 101. order, as Ackerman writes, “to suggest the scope of 10 Ackerman, 161. Roman culture by linking great rivers at home and 11 Ibid., p. 161. 10 12 Bober and Rubenstein, 102. abroad” . The decision to alter the statue’s mean- 13 11 Vermaseren, Mithras, 11, 13, 17. ing was criticized , but the work was done, and by 14 The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 9, 580. 1568 it was being called the “Tiber” by Vasari12. 15 Vermaseren, Mithras, 14-16. 125 Fig. 1. The Campidoglio Nile, Photo Alinari/Art Resource, New York Fig. 2. The Campidoglio Tigris-Tiber, Photo Alinari/Art Resource, New York 126 Fig. 3. The Walbrook Oceanus, E.J. Brill, 1965, The Fig. 4. The Santa Prisca Oceanus, Vermaseren, M.J., Mithras, Roman Art Treasures and the Temple of Mithras (Special the Secret God, Chatto and Windus, 1963. Paper No. 7). London and Middlesex Archeological Society, 1986. was the recipient of the homage and offerings of trine concerning life after death, in which water also its visitors. The font perennial (fons perennis) played a role. Just as water was the giver of life and was alike the symbol of the material and moral souls, it was also a border to be crossed at death21. bonds that the inexhaustible generosity of Infinite Graeco-Roman gods of water were incorporated into Time scattered throughout the universe, that of the cult and its art after its import to Rome. The the spiritual rejuvenation accorded to wearied water deity most often represented in Mithraic art is souls in the eternity of felicity.16 Oceanus22. Despite his name, Oceanus was in fact a river god, the son of Earth and Heaven, who gov- Water therefore had a prominent place in Mithraic erned the Oceanids, spirits of rivers and streams, ritual and myth, the Mithraists were known to prac- akin to Nereids. He was said to be a river himself, tice a ritual cleansing of sin and guilt akin to bap- one which encircled the world at its edges. He had tism, especially among those who had been initiated into the third order of the religion, the rank of Miles 17 16 Cumont, 115. (soldier) . To them, water was not only the medium 17 18 Ibid., 145-157, 172-173. of purification but also the very source of souls . 18 Proculus Diadochus, Commentary on Timaeus, 315. Quoted Mithraism had a flood legend paralleling the story in Geden, 70. of Noah19, and one of Mithras’ greatest deeds was 19 Cumont, 138. producing water from a rock after Ahriman, the 20 Cumont, 78. 21 Toynbee, 26. spirit of Darkness had sought to destroy mankind 22 For an excellent history of the spread of Mithraism, see Cumont. with a drought20. The cult’s ideology included a doc- There is a revolutionary theory on Mithraism: D. Ulansey. 127 Fig. 5. The Jurakalk Oceanus (Germany), Schwertheim, Elmer. Die Denkmäler Orientalischen Gottheiten im römischen Deutschland no specific cult of his own23, but his position as the Aventine Mithraeum, located under the fifth-century father of all the springs and rivers and relative of the basilica of Santa Prisca, very likely dates from the supernatural Underworld rivers (i.e., the Styx) was reign of Trajan, and received an addition from Sep- important24. All of these factors made Oceanus easy timius Severus in 202 A.D. It was again renovated to assimilate into Mithraism. He is most often seen in 220. At this time a statue was added, a reclining in Mithraic art as an attendant at Mithras’ birth, an figure of Oceanus-Caelus, with long, wavy locks event at which he and the other deities of water were and draped legs (figure 4)29. Ferrua, an archeologist, said to have pledged their support to the newborn suggests that a tube was connected with a water god25. In these scenes Oceanus is presented in the reservoir, and the left hand of the Oceanus held an same way as the Campidoglio statues: a massive, amphora from which the water spouted like a foun- bearded figure, reclining and naked to the waste. tain into the basin in front of the niche30. In Merida, The London Mithraeum at Walbrook yielded a fine Spain, a statue of Oceanus reclining on a dolphin example of a marble bust of a river god in repose, dating in the later second century A.D.26. The bust was 23 Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 11, 53-54. apparently made to fit into a less expensive, plaster 24 27 Ibid., 53-54. body, of which nothing remains . Although the bust 25 Vermaseren, Mithras, 78. is generally labelled “Oceanus”, J.M.C. Toynbee 26 Harris, 3, f. 3. speculated that it might represent the Thames28. It 27 Ibid., 9, n. 5. 28 Toynbee, 26. sports the same beard, wavy hair, and general facial 29 Vermaseren, Mithras, 44-46. type as the Campidoglio figures, and rushes or some 30 Ferrua, quoted in M.J. Vermaseren and C.C. Van Essen other river plant rest on its shoulder (figure 3). The 131. 128 connected with the Mithraic cult) reclining on the head of a river god (figure 7)38. There is a Mithraic oil lamp from the Roman period with the Oceanus- River present (figure 8). With all the information and examples concerning figures of river gods in the cult of Mithras, the pos- sibility of a connection between the Campidoglio statues and the cult is strong.
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