SEAN P. BURRUS

A JEWISH CHILD’S PORTRAIT? THE KLINE SARCOPHAGUS OF MONTEVERDE AND ­JEWISH FUNERARY PORTRAITURE IN ROME

Abstract ect of reconstructing Jewish attitudes towards visual This article examines the evidence for the use of portrait culture in the Roman world.1 This category of ancient sculpture on sarcophagi belonging to members of the Jewish visual culture has received scant attention compared community of Rome. The use of the “learned figure” motif, to other types of figural imagery discovered in Jewish commonly employed in Roman sarcophagus portraiture contexts. Evidence of Jewish portraiture has most often and by Jewish patrons, is highlighted, and possible creative been dismissed as intrusive, mentioned only in passing, appropriations of the trope in Jewish contexts are raised. It or otherwise swept under the rug.2 The field has typi- is further argued that, among Jewish sarcophagus patrons, cally been preoccupied with the more overt examples the decision to include funerary portraiture went hand in of acculturation, especially Jewish uses of “pagan” sym- hand with the decision to adopt popular and conventional bols and motifs. While a tombstone reused by Jewish Roman styles and motifs, and to engage Roman cultural and visual resources. In other words, Jewish patrons who chose patrons and bearing a couple’s portrait and an incised sarcophagi with portraits also seem to have been the readiest menorah from Pannonia has received some welcome to make use of the visual resources of Roman funerary culture attention, the evidence of portrait sculpture on the to orchestrate self-narratives on their sarcophagi. Finally, it sarcophagi belonging to Jewish patrons of Rome has is cautioned that while the limited examples ( five) suggest a yet to be brought into the conversation about Jewish mastery of Roman culture and a correspondingly high degree attitudes towards visual culture in the Roman world.3 of acculturation among certain Jewish patrons, we should be In this article therefore, I examine five fragmentary wary of reading such sarcophagi as evidence of certain Jews sarcophagi with portrait sculpture discovered in the abandoning a Jewish identity in favor of a Roman one—or Jewish catacombs of Rome. the Jewish community in favor of the Roman polis and its civic In the city of Rome portraiture was created in a structures—as narratives of funerary art never capture the variety of media and contexts both public and private totality of the deceased’s identity. since at least the fourth century B.C.E.4 Whether used on sarcophagi, or in other civic or private contexts, Introduction portraits were “intended to promulgate the stature and merits of their subjects.”5 In other words, portraits were An analysis of Jewish portrait sculpture in Late Antiq- used as a way of emphasizing both the social stand- uity has an important role to play in the ongoing proj- ing and the character of the individual. They were a

1 Important contributions to this evaluation include especially: Facts in the Third Century,” Eretz-Israel 5 (1958): 189–205 (in J. M. Baumgarten, “Art in the Synagogue: Some Talmudic Views,” Hebrew); Zeev Weiss, “Images and Figural Representations in the in The Synagogue: Studies in Origins, Archaeology and Architecture, Urban Galilee: Defining Limits in Times of Shifting Borders,” in ed. J Gutmann (New York: KTAV, 1975); Yaron Eliav, “Viewing the The Image and Its Prohibition in Jewish Antiquity ed. Sarah Pearce Sculptural Environment: Shaping the Second Commandment,” (Oxford: Journal Of Jewish Studies, 2013). in The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture, vol. 3, ed. 2 Levine, Visual Judaism, 152. Peter Schäfer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002); Steven Fine, Art 3 Steven Fine, “How Do You Know a Jew When You See One? and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Reflections on Jewish Costume in the Roman World,” in Fashioning Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Lee Jews: Clothing, Culture, and Commerce, ed. L. Greenspoon (West I. Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 2013). Jewish Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013); Sarah Pearce, 4 Paul Zanker, Roman Portraits: Sculptures in Stone and Bronze The Image and Its Prohibition in Jewish Antiquity, Journal of Jewish (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016), 9. The tradition Studies Supplement Series (Oxford: Journal Of Jewish Studies, 2013); of Roman portrait sculpture probably emerged out of sustained Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E cross-cultural contact with Greeks in the late 4th century B.C.E. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); E. E. Urbach, “The 5 Zanker, Roman Portraits, 1. Laws of Idolatry in the Light of the Historical and Archaeological

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2017 IMAGES Also available online—brill.com/ima DOI: 10.1163/18718000-12340077 Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 02:08:59AM via free access 4 Sean P. Burrus means of elite display that could be paired with the “an image of a portrait.”12 For this reason, portraits sarcophagus form—itself a powerful vehicle for the on Roman sarcophagi reveal much more about the display of status and self—to create a particularly cultural identity and social status of the patron than potent (re)presentation of the individual. they do their individual personality, tastes or beliefs. In fact, Roman sarcophagi were an especially fitting Elements such as facial expressions, hairstyles and medium for portrait sculpture, as they were overwhelm- clothing in Roman funerary portraits serve more to ingly utilized as spaces for visually expressing identity connect the individual to Roman society and culture and commemorating the deceased; for presenting “nar- than to individuate them. In short, Roman funerary art ratives of the self.”6 One of the characteristic features served first and foremost as a way of commemorating of sarcophagi produced in Rome is the inclusion of a and immortalizing the social identity of the deceased, portrait, especially from the third century C.E. on. In and to demonstrate that the interred individual was a this period, the sarcophagus industry experienced what successful Roman citizen as measured against popular has been referred to as a “portrait boom,” and portrait conceptions of social status and achievement. sculpture was featured on a wide variety of sarcophagus In light of this, the evidence for the use of portrait styles, from simple strigilar sarcophagi to narrative sculpture on Jewish sarcophagi examined below is mythological sarcophagi.7 On at least one level, the revealing not only for the study of the variety of Jew- faces of these Roman portraits were intended to reflect ish attitudes towards visual culture, but also for the the deceased individual.8 While the bodies and busts cultural experience of wealthy Jewish citizens and could be pre-carved, the faces were typically carved sarcophagus patrons in Rome. The portrait styles after the sale.9 At the same time, Roman portraits were and sarcophagi they chose reflected the latest in Roman rarely if ever conceived of as realistic likenesses of the funerary fashions. Jewish patrons who opted for por- deceased.10 Birk has argued that portraits on sarcophagi traiture also do not seem to have cared to mark their were intended as symbolic images meant to represent Jewish identity on their sarcophagi by means of Jewish the character and virtues of the deceased and to pre- symbols. Where Jewish ritual symbols appeared with serve their memory.11 This was accomplished by vari- little rhyme or reason on other sarcophagi and many ous means, such as through the inclusion of elements artifacts from the Jewish catacombs of Rome, the por- that indicated the deceased’s social identity (tools of trait sarcophagi examined here contain no such sym- the trade, hairstyle, dress, etc.) or via association with bols. Of course, not all Roman Jews opted to include mythological or allegorical motifs. portrait sculpture on their sarcophagi—it must have Rather than being a true portrait then, the symbolic been a considerably expensive customization—and nature of the sculptural program and its idealized rep- there is evidence in at least one example that portrait resentation of the individual renders it, in Birk’s words, sculpture was purposefully avoided.

6 Björn C. Ewald, “Myth and Visual Narrative in the Second and exquisitely carved figures but blank faces to prove the point; Sophistic: A Comparative Approach,” in Life, Death and Representa- Birk’s catalog counts 200 such examples. See Birk, Depicting the tion: Some New Work on Roman Sarcophagi, ed. Jaś Elsner and Janet Dead, 199. Moreover, as Birk explains, “the generic bust meant that Huskinson (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 261–307. the sarcophagus could be purchased for either a man or a woman,” 7 Stine Birk, Depicting the Dead: Self-Representation and it was typically “asexual.” Birk, Depicting the Dead, 17. Commemoration on Roman Sarcophagi with Portraits (Aarhus: 9 Zanker, Roman Portraits, 13–14. Zanker has suggested that in Aarhus University Press, 2013), 10–14. See also Zahra Newby, Roman portrait sculpture, the face was emphasized as a result “In the Guise of Gods and Heroes: Portrait Heads on Roman of a cultural disposition to “read the subject’s personalities and Mythological Sarcophagi,” in Elsner and Huskinson, Life, Death capabilities in faces.” Through the faces on portrait sculptures, and Representation, 192–193. Newby further suggests that this Zanker writes, ancient viewers could “get to know them personally” widespread appeal was concurrent across types, beginning in and “communicated with them.” the latter half of the second century C.E. 10 As indicated not only by the lack of individuality in the 8 The bodies or busts were typically carved in advance, one features and expressions of Roman funerary portraits, but also by aspect of the mass-market culture that came to prevail in the the reuse of some sarcophagi without recarving of the features. On sarcophagi economy of the third and fourth centuries. There are this last point, see Birk, Depicting the Dead, 15. more than enough examples of “unfinished” sarcophagi with fully 11 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 14–17. 12 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 15.

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Fig. 1. Kline Sarcophagus with a Young Boy and Pet Dog, 2nd c. CE, marble. Monteverde catacombs, Rome. Vatican Museums, Inv. No. 30776. (Photographed by the Author).

The Kline Monument of Monteverde The portrait and figural elements rest atop a plain and simply rendered couch with a raised back that In 1907, Nikolaus Müller discovered the lid a small kline encircles the child at his head, feet and back, leaving sarcophagus in his explorations of the Monteverde the front of the sarcophagus open to the viewer. These catacombs.13 Müller provided a rather lengthy and sculpted elements sit atop a narrow plinth or undeco- detailed description of the artifact in his excavation rated band. The child lies on his left side, propped up account.14 Sculpted in marble of unknown provenance, on his left elbow, gazing calmly towards his feet with the artifact measures 0.75 m long, 0.325 m wide and his head at a three-quarter turn to the viewer. Like the 0.24 m high and bears the reclining likeness of a young positioning of many other kline portraits, it is a pose child (fig. 1). This small and unassuming artifact is an that would be at home at a Roman banquet. The youth appropriate starting place for our discussion; its visual has short, smooth hair with just a hint of curls around program provides an excellent entry into the choices his ears, set atop a round face with exaggerated, doughy made by Jewish patrons of sarcophagus portraiture in cheeks. He wears a simple Roman toga draped over his Rome, while the scholarly history of this artifact mirrors left shoulder that collects gracefully in loose circular the larger debate over Jewish attitudes towards visual billows around his right knee and leg. His hands and culture. In fact, had this artifact not been found in a right foot emerge from the toga, while his left leg is Jewish catacomb, like many other sarcophagi belonging hidden beneath its folds. to Jewish patrons from Rome, it would never have been Near the child’s exposed right foot, at the extreme associated with a Jewish patron. The stylistic conven- forefront of the composition, a small bird sits facing tions and visual motifs deployed on the portrait bear all the opposite direction, mirroring the child’s gaze; a the hallmarks of Roman children’s portraits of the kline second bird rests at the head, beside the couch. Both type, with many direct parallels among kline portraits are clutching grapes in their beaks. A small dog of commissioned by non-Jewish patrons. Yet while this similar size sits playfully below the child’s right hand, kline portrait is entirely unexceptional in the larger which crosses his body to pet the animal. Under his left Roman corpus of portrait sculpture, it is remarkable hand is a cluster of grapes, which the child appears to among sarcophagi belonging to Jewish patrons. be plucking one by one with his thumb and forefinger.

13 Nikolaus Müller, Die jüdische Katakombe zm Monteverde zu 14 Müller, Die jüdische Katakombe, 39–41. Rom (Leipzig: Gustav Fock, 1912), 39–41.

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Though simply rendered, the technical execution of is so uncertain that confidence in either direction is the piece suggests a high degree of skill on the part hardly justified.”20 Only Konikoff, in his catalogue of of the sculptor or workshop. The folds of the garment the sarcophagi of Jewish patrons from Rome, concluded are deeply sculpted and artfully arranged, and the on the basis of the find spot that the artifact depicted features are proportionately and pleasingly rendered. a deceased Jewish child.21 However, he declined to Only the find spot indicates that this small portrait press this conclusion further, either by considering once belonged to a Jewish patron. In light of the ab- the implications for the broader study of Jewish visual sence of an epitaph or any visual markers of Jewish culture, or connecting it with general trends in portrait identity, the association of this artifact with a Jewish sculpture on Roman sarcophagi or other examples of patron has been a matter of debate since its discovery.15 portraiture in the Jewish catacombs of Rome. Müller, who discovered the artifact, was non-committal Such skeptical and cautious readings seem too on the matter, simultaneously using the artifact to convenient a way to excise from the corpus an artifact prove the existence of Jewish portrait sculpture, while that complicates or challenges our understanding of expressing the possibility that the object may have the Jewish encounter with Rome: another example been introduced into the catacomb as spolia, used to of the scholarly “sweeping under the rug” of evidence close a loculus.16 His later inclusion of the piece in the that contradicts received wisdom about the ambivalent Lateran Museum under the heading of “pagan monu- relationship between ancient Jews and visual culture. ments introduced into the Jewish catacomb,” indicates We have every reason to assume that our kline portrait that his view became more skeptical over time. Frey belonged to a Jewish patron and depicted a deceased followed in this assertion, and argued that the portrait Jewish child. Müller is clear in indicating its discovery was introduced into the catacomb from the nearby inside of the catacomb, and it seems unlikely that the non-Jewish catacomb of S. Ponziana. He especially piece could have been casually introduced to the site. pointed to the fact that the head was found removed As Goodenough put it simply “[p]eople do not just from the piece and the absence of the sarcophagus wander about with such a stone in their hands.”22 body.17 More recently, Rutgers omitted this artifact As to the notion that the piece was introduced from his discussion of the sarcophagi belonging to as spolia for reuse, aside from the fact that the head Jewish patrons from Rome because it failed his criteria had been dislodged (it was still discovered in the of containing either an inscription or iconography that vicinity), there are no indications that the piece was positively identified the deceased as Jewish.18 retrofitted for any purpose other than its original use. Others, like Goodenough accepted the Jewish as- Indeed, its odd and elliptical proportions would make sociation of the fragment, but resisted the idea that reuse difficult. The fact that no sarcophagus base was the piece was intended as a portrait of the deceased found presents no particular problem other than to (Jewish) child. Goodenough argued instead that the our interpretative ability, as sarcophagus bases were piece portrayed a generic, stock scene of a “Dionysiac a favorite quarry of tomb raiders and can be found eschatological banquet” and never intended to serve reused as planters and fountains throughout Rome. In as the likeness of the deceased.19 Taking in the scope fact, the body of a child’s sarcophagus may have been a of the debate, Leon concluded that “[t]he whole ­matter particularly attractive target: its small size would have

15 It is possible that such indicators (e.g. a menorah or an inscrip- 17 Jean Baptiste Frey, Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaicarum. Vol. 1. tion) could have been included on the body of the sarcophagus. Europa, 3 vols. (Rome: Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristians, However, children’s sarcophagi of the kline type most often featured 1936), CXXV–CXXVI. simple visual programs of playful cupids in different roles in the 18 Leonard Victor Rutgers, The Jews in Late Ancient Rome: Evi- frieze of the body, and this portrait is nothing if not typical among dence of cultural interaction in the Roman diaspora (Leiden: Brill, the larger Roman corpus. 1995), 78. 16 Introducing the artifact, Müller notes that this fragment 19 Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco- provides the only evidence that Jews of Rome did not exclude Roman Period. Vol. 2. The Archeological Evidence from the Diaspora, portraiture from their catacombs. Müller also includes a bust 12 vols., Bollingen Series 37 (New York: Bollingen, 1953), 11. described by Lanciani in 1878 as bearing secondary witness to the 20 Harry J. Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome (Philadelphia: Jewish practice of Jewish portraiture, however, the Jewishness of this bust Publication Society of America, 1960), 211. is tied only to the ambiguous inscription “[de]um meteuns.” Müller, 21 Adia Konikoff, Sarcophagi from the Jewish Catacombs of Ancient Die jüdische Katakombe, 39–40. On the object discussed as spolia, Rome: A Catalogue Raisonne (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1990), 53–56. see Müller, Die jüdische Katakombe, 40­–41. 22 Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, vol. 2, 11.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 02:08:59AM via free access A Jewish Child’s Portrait? 7 made it more manageable to remove, and the playful The positioning and rendering of the youth, the style images that commonly occupied the main frieze of of his dress, the grapes in his hand and the accompany- children’s sarcophagi may have made an attractive ing animals (especially the inclusion of a dog at play) sculptural program for later collectors.23 Indeed, the all suggest a workshop and patron closely following fact that the broken head of this example was found Roman sculptural conventions—not only for the kline nearby all but confirms that our sarcophagus fell victim portrait style, but for a child’s one at that. The age to the incursions of tomb raiders at some time prior to of a child on Roman sarcophagi typically cannot be the modern discovery of the catacomb. ascertained from the features carved on the portrait, Without any concrete evidence to cast suspicion which are idealized in order to convey a general sense on the origins of this artifact, it seems that previous of youth. The chubby cheeks, the smooth skin and taci- scholars have generally been influenced by biases turn expression, and short, ephemeral hair distinguish about Jewish visual culture and that we should assume our example as a young child’s sarcophagus, but do instead that our kline monument bears the portrait not serve to further distinguish the identity (or age) sculpture of a young Jewish boy. Though particularly of the deceased. well preserved, this example is certainly not the only One of the best parallels for our kline portrait from portrait sculpture of Jewish patrons from Rome (see Monteverde is the kline portrait of a young woman, below), a fact of which many earlier scholars may not now at the Getty Museum (fig. 2).24 On this example, have been aware. In either case, we should consider the youth is depicted in a manner remarkably consis- what such an artifact reveals about portrait sculpture tent with our Jewish example from Monteverde. The and Jewish patrons in Rome. reclined but alert pose of the young woman is ­identical,

Fig. 2. Kline Monument of a Young Girl with Pet and Toys, 2nd c. CE, marble. Rome. Getty Museum, Inv. No. 73.AA.11. (Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program).

23 The possibility has also been raised that there was no sar- possible my examination. On the distinction more generally, see cophagus body in the first place. Such kline portraits could be used especially Henning Wrede, “Stadtr.mische Monumente, Urnen und either as sarcophagus lids, or as freestanding monuments. They Sarkophage des Klinentypus in den beiden ersten Jarhhunderten appear in both forms contemporaneously, more or less following n.Chr.,” Archäologischer Anzeiger 3 (1977): 395–431. the same conventions and with the same functions. However, I 24 Henning Wrede, “Der Sarkophagdeckel eines Mädchens have recently examined this artifact in person and can confirm in Malibu und die frühen Klinensarkophage Roms, Athens und that it is in fact the lid of a lenos (tub shaped) sarcophagus. On Kleinasiens,” in Roman Funerary Monuments in the J. Paul Getty either short side two holes are for securing the lid to the body. My Museum, ed. Marion True and Guntram Koch (Malibu, Calif.: The thanks go to Dr. Umberto Utro of the Vatican Museums for making J. Paul Getty Museum, 1990), 15-46.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 02:08:59AM via free access 8 Sean P. Burrus and a small dog plays similarly underhand. At the foot adopted early on in Roman funerary portraiture. On a of the portrait are two dolls, elements that further first-century C.E. funerary altar from Rome, a young signify the youth of the deceased. The same soft, full boy is shown holding a scroll and accompanied by a facial features of our Monteverde example characterize playful dog to his right side (fig. 4). Similarly, in both this kline portrait, which likewise adopts a hairstyle our Roman kline portraits, pet dogs play under their appropriate to youth.25 A sleeping cupid is carved as owner’s hands. On our example from Monteverde, birds a secondary motif on the top of the couch. While this (possibly pets) are shown feeding on grapes, another example lacks the birds and grapes of the one from motif seen elsewhere on children’s sarcophagi.28 Such Monteverde, the pose, the facial features and the images of animals happily inhabiting the same visual use of hairstyles to establish age, as well as the pres- field as children can be viewed as indices of Roman ence of a dog are striking parallels and suggest that childhood, and while their meaning can be variously the kline portrait of our Jewish patron adhered closely parsed, their most important function was to connect to the conventions of Roman children’s portraiture the deceased with an appropriate(ly) Roman identity. and the kline style. The motifs that accompany children’s portraiture It was the inclusion of animals as pets, whether were undoubtedly chosen by the adult family of the birds or dogs, that most clearly served to distinguish child, and as such, they are filtered through an adult the youths of these portraits from the adults in similar perspective on childhood.29 Children’s portraiture may kline portraits.26 Such inclusions are exclusive to chil- have been viewed as a way for the grieving family to dren’s portraiture. Though birds (especially peacocks) “show the world the potential virtues which had been were a common motif in Roman funerary art, and were lost when death took a child.”30 As such, the motifs found frequently among the epitaphs and frescoes employed on children’s sarcophagi sometimes em- of the Jewish catacombs in Rome also, it is only in bodied virtues and associations more germane to the children’s portraiture that birds and dogs are shown world of Roman adults than of children.31 In contrast being held or fed as pets.27 The use of pets as a signifier to the use of youthful physical features, children are of childhood in portrait sculpture has forerunners in often represented on Roman sarcophagi engaged in Greek culture. For example, on a fifth-century B.C.E. the same activities as adults, and accompanied by the marble funerary stele of a young girl from Paros at the same secondary motifs. Objects like scrolls and musical Metropolitan Museum of Art, the youth is depicted instruments are common to portraits of adults and chil- holding two doves, clutching them to her chest and dren alike on kline monuments, and in Roman funerary gazing intently down at them (fig. 3). One of the doves portraiture more broadly.32 Indeed, children were often returns her gaze and seems almost to kiss her. Simi- portrayed as miniature adults—their accompanying lar depictions of children accompanied by pets were motifs miniaturized versions of adult counterparts.33

25 Wrede, “Der Sarkophagdeckel Eines Mädchens in Malibu,” 23. 32 As on one example in the Capitoline Museum (Inv. no. 917). 26 Janet Huskinson, Roman Children’s Sarcophagi: Their Items for adults may also have had a gendered aspect. We will Decoration and its Social Significance (Oxford: Oxford University explore objects like scrolls in particular, further below when we Press, 1996), 88; Birk, Depicting the Dead, 164. discuss the learned figure motif and its appearance on the sar- 27 See, for instance, Goodenough’s description of birds in the cophagi of Jewish patrons. Vigna Randanini catacomb. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, vol. 2, 33 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 161–165. Birk’s review of Roman 17–18, 24. Goodenough refers to the bird as a “Bacchic motif” but children’s sarcophagi indicates that their sculptural programs the reference need not be so specific. In fact, the popularity of the were generally governed by the same conventions that determined symbol argues for a much more neutral range of associations. See the visual programs of adult sarcophagi. Moreover, as Birk points Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, vol. 2, 11. out, children are never shown at play themselves on sarcophagi. 28 Huskinson, Roman Children’s Sarcophagi, 88. Instead, childhood games and play are conveyed by lively putti or 29 On this point, see Birk, Depicting the Dead, 157. This may in cavorting dogs. Indeed, the cupids on children’s sarcophagi, and fact be one explanation for the difference in age of representation even the seasons, often seem particularly playful and childlike, and reality seen on children’s sarcophagi, and is pointed to by and often it seems that cupids were used precisely so that “adult Goodenough as evidence that our Jewish example could not have motifs could be made childish.” Certain scenes, among them mythic been intended as a portrait. scenes, hunt scenes that conveyed male virtus as well as pastoral 30 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 180. scenes, and, for obvious reasons marriage motifs, do however seem 31 Huskinson, Roman Children’s Sarcophagi, 93–94. to have been considered inappropriate for children’s sarcophagi.

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FPO

Fig. 3. Marble Funerary Stele of Young Girl with Pet Doves, 5th c. BCE, marble. Paros. ­Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. No. 27.45. (Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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Fig. 4. Funerary Altar of a Young Boy Depicted in the Learned Figure Trope with Pet, 1st c. CE, marble. Found near Rome. On loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. No. L.2007.31.2. (Photographed by Author).

In our example, on the other hand, the deceased of Roman adulthood below. For the moment, it should child is not shown with the trappings of Roman be observed that at the most basic level, motifs such ­adulthood, though his posture and gaze otherwise as those included on the Monteverde portrait and the parallel adult examples. Lacking are evidence of the example from the Getty probably introduced a playful public life (oratorical poses), learning (scrolls) or ban- element appropriate for the remembrance of a child. queting and drinking of adults (wine and goblets).34 Huskinson has suggested that birds like those found We will return to the choice to avoid such signifiers on our example convey general feelings of “innocence,

See further Birk, Depicting the Dead, 161–166. On children’s sar- 34 The absence of a wine cup—a common element in kline cophagi and funerary monuments more generally, see Huskinson, monuments of adults—in the hand of either youth is one such Roman Children’s Sarcophagi; Janet Huskinson, “Constructing example of secondary motifs reserved for adult kline portraits. On Childhood on Roman Funerary Memorials,” in Constructions of the Monteverde monument, the child holds a bunch of grapes Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy. Hesperia Supplements 41 instead, perhaps an allusion to the same underlying theme. On (Princeton: ASCSA Publications, 2007), 323–338. another biographical frieze from a child’s sarcophagus the wine cup

Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 02:08:59AM via free access A Jewish Child’s Portrait? 11 tenderness, naturalness and elusiveness.” Perhaps her dogs—would have offered a familiar and conventional suggestion that they conjure up the “mutual affection expression of Roman childhood to any family, Jewish that often exists between small children and animals” is or not, takes on added significance. In its straightfor- a better explanation for their appearance on children’s ward adoption of the conventional models of Roman sarcophagi.35 Tropes such as the idealized and rounded children’s portraiture, the sculptural program of the facial features, the wispy hair, or the inclusion of toys kline monument from Monteverde makes a potent or playful cupids, could all operate in a similar fashion, statement that belies its miniature size. No markers of making reference to common Roman conceptions of Jewish difference are offered on this funerary portrait. childhood. Instead, any indication of a Jewish identity, practice or Whatever their precise valence, in privileging signs belief at odds with the dominant cultural values and and signifiers of a Roman childhood on the visual customs of Rome (and Roman childhood) is eclipsed program of any specific burial artifact, the ancient in favor of presenting a familiar narrative of Roman Jewish patron of the Monteverde kline portrait was childhood. The implication, if portrait sculptures on deploying visual resources drawn from the Roman sarcophagi can indeed be read as narratives of self, cultural world in order to represent an identity for is that the deceased—or in this case more likely the their deceased child. Through the use of these tropes, patrons—held the same ideas about childhood and the the Jewish patron of the Monteverde monument or- appropriate representation thereof that characterize chestrated a sculptural program using motifs with col- other Roman funerary portraits of children. lectively established meanings and discourses in order to “organize and narrate themselves in practice in the Jewish Patrons and Portrait Sculpture in Rome: name of an identity.”36 It is true that the circumstances Further Evidence surrounding the (unexpected) death of a child all but guarantee that children’s sarcophagi were selected Based on the limited evidence we have, it appears that from pre-fabricated options (and not commissioned the decision to include funerary portraiture by Jewish during life), meaning that the family was constrained patrons went hand in hand with the decision to adopt to choosing an appropriate sarcophagus from among familiar styles and motifs that were characteristic of the options available at one of a number of workshops and even conventional in sarcophagus sculpture in the in Rome.37 Yet, at any given time there must have still workshops of Rome. In other words, Jewish patrons been a number of choices available to patrons, even who chose to have the visual programs of sarcophagi among children’s sarcophagi, and selectivity is a key bear representations of themselves (or their loved ones) function of agency in the orchestration of identities, also seem to have been the readiest to make use of not to mention that there may have been some details Roman visual resources to orchestrate a self-narrative that could be customized by the patron (including on their sarcophagi. This conclusion is suggested by the epitaph and facial features).38 Even a largely or our child’s kline sarcophagus and confirmed in the few completely pre-fabricated sarcophagus can therefore and fragmentary sarcophagi remains from the Jewish reveal something of the cultural leanings of the family. catacombs that include portrait sculpture. Four other In light of this, the fact that the motifs and conven- fragments from the catacombs at Torlonia and Vigna tions found on our Jewish example from Monteverde— Randanini bear funerary portraiture.39 These examples the grapes, the leisurely pose, the birds and cavorting are all highly fragmentary, but taken as a group they

is similarly swapped for a garland in hand. See Huskinson, Roman resources is drawn from social-practice theory, and particularly Children’s Sarcophagi, 12–13. Such substitutions may indicate that the work of Dorothy Holland. See esp. Holland and Lachicotte, it was not considered appropriate to show children banqueting “Vygotsky, Mead”; Dorothy C. Holland, William Lachicotte, Jr., as (miniature) adults. Debra Skinner, and Carole Cain, Identity and Agency in Cultural 35 Huskinson, Roman Children’s Sarcophagi, 88. Worlds (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998). 36 Dorothy Holland and William Lachicotte, Jr., “Vygotsky, Mead 37 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 161. and the New Sociocultural Studies of Identity,” in The Cambridge 38 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 161. Companion to Vygotsky, ed. Harry Daniels, Michael Cole, and 39 Most were described by Fasola in his brief report on exca- James V. Wertsch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, vations, generally in passing and especially in a short list in the 2007), 134. This conception of the production of self-narratives notes. See Umberto M. Fasola, “Le due catacombe ebraiche di and construction of identity through the orchestration of cultural Villa Torlonia,” Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana LII (1976): 7–62.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 02:08:59AM via free access 12 Sean P. Burrus suggest that some Jewish patrons would not have ob- gender of the patron cannot be made out, though jected to portrait sculpture and furthermore, that they the left hand is prominent and seems to be holding would have made decisions about their visual programs something, likely a scroll. A further unpublished piece that mirrored those displayed on our kline sarcophagus. from the Vigna Randanini catacomb was discovered From Torlonia comes a fragment depicting the in 2001 by Jessica Dello Russo during a site visit toga-clad torso of a male holding a scroll (fig. 5).40 (fig. 8).49 Like the fragment discovered and published Behind the partial figure is the nude body of a winged by Goodenough, this fragment is sculpted with a clipeus putto. Like the posture, animals, grapes, and clothing containing a toga-clad bust. Only a small portion of of the kline sarcophagus, the toga-clad, scroll-bearing this fragment survives. Here also the right hand rests figure of this fragment is a well-known trope in Roman outside the toga but does not seem to have held a scroll. sarcophagus sculpture associated with the “learned These fragments have received little attention in figure” motif (see below). Furthermore, the putto’s scholarship, individually or as a group, but viewed familiar positioning and pose behind the portrait bust together with the kline sarcophagus they suggest that tie this example conclusively to central portrait busts some Jewish patrons in Rome were not only com- on metropolitan sarcophagi.41 fortable with sarcophagus portraiture, but were also From Vigna Randanini comes a sarcophagus sur- eager to emphasize their social status and identity in viving only in descriptions by Herzog and Garrucci, ways modeled on Roman conventions and modes of but which reportedly included figures at either end.42 representation. They did this not only by choosing or On the left, a man in Greek garb played a harp before commissioning sarcophagi with portraiture, but by a muse.43 On the right, two men in similar Greek engaging conventional Roman portrait sculpture and robes held scrolls, one seated, the other standing. The its tropes, from modes of dress to accoutrements like remainder of the sarcophagus was strigilated, with a cavorting dogs and scrolls. Moreover, nothing in the vase in the center.44 The visual program described sarcophagus fragments surveyed here suggests an effort by Garrucci is a familiar one. Surviving examples of to alter the visual programs to fit cultural sensitivities the type include a sarcophagus with almost identical different from Roman ones or to include evidence of end scenes (fig. 6). In this case, the portrait is of a Jewish difference. These sarcophagus fragments suggest husband and wife.45 These scenes are two of the more that Jewish patrons who employed portrait sculpture to common among the so-called learned figure portrait represent themselves or their loved ones on sarcophagi sculptures.46 cared little to explicitly mark their Jewishness. Quite In 1951 Goodenough visited Vigna Randanini and the opposite in fact: the sarcophagi with portraiture during his explorations discovered several unpublished that belonged to Jewish patrons draw deeply from the fragments.47 Among them was a fragment of a strigi- most popular styles in the metropolitan sarcophagus lated sarcophagus with a clipeus ringed by a wreath repertoire. They take full part in the “portrait boom” of and bearing a portrait (fig. 7). Beneath are cornucopiae the third century C.E., and engage the visual resources with fruit, common imagery for a funerary setting.48 of Roman sarcophagus sculpture.50 What’s more, at The portrait itself is poorly preserved, and even the least three of the Jewish examples employ the trope

Fasola followed the somewhat unusual practice of affixing the 44 Garrucci, Cimitero degli antichi ebrei scoperto recentemente in sarcophagi fragments he discovered to the walls of the catacomb Vigna Randanini, 20–21. where they were found. 45 Located in the Museo Castello Sforzesco, Milan. See Birk, 40 Hermann Wolfgang Beyer and Hans Lietzmann, Die Jüdische Depicting the Dead, 78, fig. 36. Katakombe Der Villa Torlonia in Rom (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 46 Birk, Depicting the Dead, graphs 3 and 5. 1930), Pl. 23b; Goodenough, Jewish Symbols Vol. 2, 41. 47 Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, vol. 2, 15, 28–30. 41 See Goodenough, Jewish Symbols vol. 2, 41. 48 A close parallel is found in a sarcophagus at the Villa Doria 42 Ephraim Herzog, “Le catacombe degli Ebrei in Vigna Pamphili. In this example, two putti with the trappings of the Rondanini,” Bulletin dell’ Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica seasons are positioned at either end, while a clipeus containing (1861): 98; Raffaele Garrucci, Cimitero Degli Antichi Ebrei Scoperto a female bust, holding a scroll, is set above two cornucopiae with Recentemente in Vigna Randanini (Rome: Civilta Cattolica, 1862), fruit. See Birk, Depicting the Dead, 80, fig. 38. 19–22. 49 Personal communication. See also Jessica Dello Russo, “ICS 43 Possibly Urania. See Garrucci, Cimitero degli antichi ebrei on Site in the Vigna Randanini Catacomb: Fall, 2001,” Roma Subter- scoperto recentemente in Vigna Randanini, 20. ranea Judaica 1 (2010). 50 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 14.

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Fig. 5. Sarcophagus Fragment with Portrait of Holding Scroll and Nude Putti, 2nd or 3rd c. CE, marble. Villa Torlonia Catacombs, Rome. Current location unknown. (Beyer and Lietzmann, Pl. 23b; 1930).

of the learned figure, by far the most popular motif on in this period, but corollary tropes and motifs from the Roman portrait sarcophagi.51 learned sphere were a very close third in the running for most popular secondary motifs on the sculptural The Learned Figure Motif and Jewish Sarcophagus programs of sarcophagi, behind only cupids and per- Patrons sonifications of the seasons.53 Indeed, in the third and fourth centuries, the learned figure motif was chosen The widespread popularity of the learned figure trope by an ever-expanding group of sarcophagus patrons coincided with the height of popularity of sarcophagus in the city of Rome. The trendy motif was used by burial and the portrait boom of the third century. It patrons of from wide ranging backgrounds and of all also corresponded with the emergence of the Second walks of life.54 Sophistic, a perfect storm of conditions that fostered In making use of this extremely popular type, Jewish the proliferation of this particular mode of self-repre- patrons passed over a number of other popular tropes, sentation.52 Not only were portraits with the learned including depictions of the deceased as mythological figure trope the most popular form of representation figures or hunters, or engaged in ritual.55 What’s more,

51 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 73, 94 n. 380, 122 graph 7. 54 Paul Zanker, The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellec- 52 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 75. tual in Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 53 Secondary motifs being defined as “scenes that add extra 82–84, 267. meaning to the primary motif (the portrait figure).” See Birk, 55 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 122, graph 7. Depicting the Dead, 128, graph 8.

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Fig. 6. Muse Sarcophagus with Learned Figure Motif, 3rd c. CE, marble. Rome. Basilica di San Saba, Rome. (Courtesy of Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Rom. D-DAI-ROM-33.1175).

Fig. 7. Sarcophagus Fragment with Portrait in Wreath and Cornucopias, 2nd or 3rd c. CE, marble. Vigna Randanini catacombs, Rome. Current location unknown. (Photo: Goodenough, 1953).

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Fig. 8. Sarcophagus Fragment with Togo Clad Portrait in Clipeus, 2nd or 3rd c. CE, marble. Vigna Randanini catacombs, Rome. (Photography by and courtesy of Jessica Dello Russo). the prevalence of the learned figure trope in portrait life,” and should not be read as a statement of a deeper sculpture of Jewish patrons is especially interesting, engagement in learned pursuits and activities on the since this trope represented the cultured status—and part of the deceased.58 In other words, the use of cultural literacy—of the individual in a very general the learned figure trope to represent the deceased did way, without drawing explicit references towards any not imply that they were serious philosophers or ac- one particular realm of Roman literature or learning.56 quainted with any specific Greek or Roman literature. Rather, the learned figure motif on sarcophagi from Employing the learned figure motif communicated the Rome emphasized more vague and general virtues patron’s upholding (and achievement) of the Roman associated with the intellectual world of the Roman ideal of the intellectual. This was an ideal that achieved empire—virtues that were harder to pin down but broad appeal in the culture of Rome—the motif is nevertheless related “more with individual qualities found on sarcophagi belonging to patrons of all ages and personal identity than with institutional norms.”57 and of both sexes—and continued into Christian Zanker suggests that the figure indicates only that art (and Christian sarcophagi) well after the third “the deceased had cultivated a philosophical way of century.­ 59 Much like the inclusion of pets on children’s

56 See Birk, Depicting the Dead, 76. Though Zanker suggests that 58 Zanker, Mask of Socrates, 272. it is literary learning in particular that is singled out, and further 59 On the broad appeal of these motifs to many ages and both that the learning depicted may have had some basis in real life sexes, see Birk, Depicting the Dead, 86, graph 4. For more on the experience(s). Zanker, Mask of Socrates, 268–272. continuation of these trends on Christian sarcophagi, see Zanker, 57 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 88-89. Mask of Socrates, 267ff; Anna McCann, Roman Sarcophagi in the

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Fig. 9. Sarcophagus of a Greek Physician Showing Deceased in the Guise of a Learned figure, 3rd c. CE, marble. Ostia. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. No. 48.76.1 (Photograph couertesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

sarcophagi, such motifs can be seen as signifiers, in this popular style of the strigilar sarcophagus. The front is case of a cultural world in which social standing and simple, with only a central frame interrupting a series character were achieved through learning. of well laid out, undulating strigils. Within the frame, In the category of portraits assuming the learned the deceased sits in a chair engrossed in a scroll. The figure style are depictions of the deceased in the guise pose, clothing—even the shape of the chair—are of philosophers, in the company of muses, and, most familiar from other sarcophagi of the type, including commonly, holding a symbolic scroll.60 The “Sarcopha- many more elaborate examples and fragments.64 The gus with a Greek Physician” in the collection of the beard and himation that the deceased wears are stan- Metropolitan Museum (fig. 9) is a good example of dard fare for the trope, and further establish the genre the motifs that define the group and narrate a learned by depicting the deceased in the familiar guise of the identity “through virtues and qualities mediated by Greek philosopher.65 The scroll is opened but has no the appearance of an individualized figure.”61 The markings or text on it anywhere. To the right sits an sarcophagus was discovered in Ostia, the port of Rome open scroll cabinet, containing a handful of other rolled at the mouth of the Tiber river.62 The sarcophagus scrolls. Atop the cabinet sits a case of surgical tools, should be dated stylistically to the third century C.E., some of which can be positively identified.66 around the time when the motif of the learned figure In keeping with the non-specificity of the learned was rising dramatically in popularity.63 Its sculptural figure trope, the scrolls held by such figures are al- program combines this popular motif with the equally most never identifiable on Roman sarcophagi.67 The

Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum In a similar way, according to Zanker, beards operated as an of Art, 1978), 139. ­“occupational identification” ever since Alexander the Great ap- 60 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 73 n. 299. peared beardless in his official portraiture to emphasize his youth 61 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 75. For more on fig. 9, see Inv. no. (and thereby set off a centuries-long fad of going beardless). While 48.76.1 earlier the beard had been associated more generally with adult 62 A lid, since lost, is reported to have recorded the name of the males, afterwards it became almost exclusively associated with deceased. See McCann, Roman Sarcophagi, 139. philosophers for several centuries, until the learned figure became 63 Though McCann attributes it to the early fourth on the a fashionable trope in Roman portrait sculpture. Even into the basis of bodily proportions in the figured panel. McCann, Roman later Roman periods, beards in portraiture were closely associated Sarcophagi, 140. with the tradition of philosopher portraits and evoked concepts of 64 An almost identical, strigilar example comes from Pisa. In the learning and paideia. See Zanker, Roman Portraits, 7. central frame, the seated “philosopher” is accompanied by his wife. 66 See McCann, Roman Sarcophagi, 138. It is possible that the See Birk, Depicting the Dead, 81 fig. 39. Also see, for example, the inclusion of the surgeon’s tools may mark this program as a tran- fragment of a “Poet-Philosopher sarcophagus” from Asia Minor in sitional form between earlier biographical sarcophagi and later the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Inv. no. 18.108). See also McCann, examples of the learned figure. Roman Sarcophagi, 130–132. 67 However, on the first-century funerary monument of Q. Sul- 65 The himation here should not be read as an indication of picius Maximus, discovered in Rome, a full body portrait depicts ethnicity, but as a more general marker of the philosopher type. the young deceased boy declaiming from an open scroll. On the

Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 02:08:59AM via free access A Jewish Child’s Portrait? 17 learning embodied within is left to the imagination of figure trope. They are, moreover, the same as the scrolls the viewer, as is the case on the “Sarcophagus with a that we encountered above in the hands of many of Greek Physician” above. The examples of the motif on the deceased depicted through portrait sculpture on the sarcophagi of Jewish patrons encountered above the sarcophagi belonging to Jewish patrons. follow the Roman model in this regard. This being the At the same time, it is this very imaginative space case, the scroll and the figure holding it could very well created by the lack of specificity in the motif of the be an excellent illustration of the imaginative space of- learned figure that makes it impossible to determine fered by images through their inherent ambiguity and the precise understanding of an ancient viewer, Jew- polyvalence.68 It is interesting to ponder whether an ish or not. We can identify the space only as open for ancient Jewish viewer may have seen a coded reference multiple and possibly contested meanings, and raise to the Torah scroll in these scroll-wielding portraits. If the possibility that Jewish patrons and the Jewish so, would they have interested them as a reflection of community of Rome may have taken advantage of the deceased’s wisdom in Jewish law and culture? Seen this space to create meaning specific to their beliefs in this light, the ambiguity of the scroll, as well as the and values. If they were indeed doing so, they were generic nature of the learned figure and the idealized following closely in the footsteps of Roman patrons, virtues it suggests, may have offered Jewish patrons who adopted (and adapted) the learned figure motif a way of simultaneously engaging Roman and Jewish from the Greek East.71 Moreover, the growing Christian conceptions of learning and literacy. community of Rome similarly adopted and adapted the Similar rolled scrolls commonly appear in depic- learned figure motif in the same period.72 In Christian tions of Torah Shrines elsewhere in the Jewish cata- visual culture from the same period, the learned figure combs of Rome, where they presumably allude to the motif was applied to figures from Christian biblical Torah scroll. They appear on gold glasses (fig. 10), on narratives.73 In funerary art, including on sarcophagi, loculus seals and on wall paintings (fig. 11). In all these representations of Jesus typically depict him in the cases, the doors of the Torah Shrine are thrown open guise of the learned figure: wearing a Greek pallium in to the viewer, and a variable number of rolled scrolls a frontal pose of authority and instruction.74 are visible to the viewer.69 In one case, a single scroll The child’s kline sarcophagus, our best-preserved even appears as the primary motif in one frame of a example of portrait sculpture belonging to a Jewish wall painting on the ceiling of a hypogeum at Villa patron in Rome, is unique among sarcophagi with ­Torlonia.70 In all these cases from the Jewish catacombs portraiture belonging to Jewish patrons in this respect. of Rome, the scrolls are rolled into a single cylinder, Its references are to playful pets and Roman childhood, and have the same form and appearance as those that and not to the learned sphere. However, children’s typically accompany representations of the learned sarcophagi formed a unique subgroup in Roman

scroll are Greek letters that can be deciphered as the end to a poem seems to have first reached Rome through the import of Attic composed by the child which won a contest, and was inscribed mythological and Asiatic columnar sarcophagi. The trope found on the front face of the monument. For an early, but thorough a ready home among the Roman populace where it was subject discussion of this monument see J. Raleigh Nelson, “The Boy Poet to “imaginative adaptation.” By the third century C.E., the learned Sulpicius: A Tragedy of Roman Education,” The School Review 11, figure motif as depicted in Rome showed significant differences no. 5 (1903). My thanks to Mary Boatwright for calling this example with its continued uses on Attic sarcophagi. In contrast to Attic to my attention. examples, where the (nude) body is the focus of paideia, Roman sar- 68 Jaś Elsner, “Cultural Resistance and the Visual Image: The Case cophagi with the learned figure motif typically depicted the learned of Dura Europos,” Classical Philology 96 (2001): 269. persons robed and holding scrolls, a shift towards philosophical 69 See further Eric M. Meyers and Sean Burrus, “Between Text learning as the ideal. See Zanker, Mask of Socrates, 269–271. See and Artifact: The Torah in Jewish Culture, 135–500 C.E.,” in The also Ewald, “Industry,” 279–282, 298. Reception of the Bible in (Late) Ancient Judaism and Christianity, ed. 72 Zanker, Mask of Socrates, 289–297. Andrea Colella and Armin Lange (Forthcoming: 2017); Steven Fine, 73 Zanker observes that “Christ himself, the apostles, prophets “The Open Torah Ark,” in Viewing Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeol- and saints are all depicted like pagan intellectuals.” Zanker, Mask ogy, ed. Ann E. Killebrew and Gabriele Faßbeck (Leiden: Brill, 2016). of Socrates, 290. 70 See Fine, “The Open Torah Ark,” 131, fig. 6.13. 74 Zanker, Mask of Socrates, 291–292. Zanker points out that 71 The practice of depicting patrons and deceased as philoso- these were familiar “pictorial formulas” that “had long enjoyed phers and Muses began already in the second century C.E., and such high status in the self-image of the ordinary Roman: learning was ­adopted from the eastern Mediterranean. See Birk, Depicting and a philosophical orientation in life.” He emphasizes that such the Dead, 74. Zanker has suggested that showing men and women depictions would have been familiar to non-Christians as well, and in Greek garb and engaged in reading and other learned pursuits positioned Christian figures as a “continuation of a long tradition…”

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Fig. 10. Gold Glass with Torah Shrine and Jewish Ritual Symbols, 3rd or 4th c. CE, glass and gold leaf. Rome. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. No. 18.145.1a, b (Photograph courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Fig. 11. Wall Painting with Menorahs and Open Torah Shrine in the Villa Torlonia Catacomb, 3rd or 4th century. Rome. (Photograph by Estelle Shohet Brettman, courtesy of the International Catacomb Society Digital Image Collections).

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­sarcophagus sculpture and, as we have just seen, our A Portrait Sarcophagus without a Portrait: Reticence Jewish example wholly subscribed to the conventions towards Portrait Sculpture among Jewish Patrons? of that group. It is curious though, that the Jewish patrons did not choose to represent the youth in the The picture emerging from the foregoing examples is guise of the “Learned Figure,” indicating the educa- one of broad adoption of the conventions and visual tion of the deceased child. Such motifs were the most language of Roman portrait sculpture. It may seem popular primary motif even on children’s sarcophagi.75 strange therefore to conclude with the following ex- A child’s kline sarcophagus in the Vatican Museum ample, which bears no portrait at all. But the insights illustrates this well. On the lid, a young boy reclines gleaned above need to be tempered with an under- on the couch with a rolled scroll in his right hand, standing that the question of how to engage with (or and a folded sheaf under his left (fig. 12). A codex lies even whether to engage) portrait sculpture may have open in front of the boy, while a dog scratches its ear been an active issue, one that confronted Jewish sar- and paws at the fold of the child’s tunic. The rest of cophagus patrons in Rome, and one that could elicit the composition, from the loose, pooling folds of the different responses. Thus, we conclude with the most garment to the cavorting dog and alert pose, closely well-known sarcophagus from the Jewish community parallels our kline portrait from Monteverde. On the of Rome, the Seasons sarcophagus with a menorah in body of the sarcophagus, the child is shown half- the clipeus (fig. 13). robed and seated in the same pose of authority and This sarcophagus is one example of an extremely instruction that would later be associated with Jesus popular type of the third and fourth centuries C.E. on metropolitan sarcophagi of Christian patrons. An Aside from departing in one prominent feature, this open scroll is held in his left hand as he declaims to a example is otherwise indistinguishable in work- group of youthful muses.76 manship, composition and content from its nearest According to Birk, the popularity of the learned Roman parallels. The clipeus is held aloft by two figure motif on such children’s sarcophagi can be winged victories who are flanked on either side explained by shifting models of status and social po- by two personified and nude Seasons; the left side sition in the third century C.E. that were founded on of the sarcophagus is missing, but can be reasonably the acquisition of learning and knowledge rather than deduced on the basis of many parallels.78 Putti are on military prowess.77 For children of this period, an interspersed in the remaining space of the composi- ideal childhood included preparation for a Roman tion, and a triplet of these characters can be found adulthood, and therefore learning—very much a case making wine below the clipeus. However, the depar- of childhood filtered through an adult perspective. Per- ture to which I referred is immediately evident to the haps the selection of a portrait without a scroll by our viewer: the clipeus, the space typically reserved for Jewish patron reveals, by its absence, something of the portraiture, is given over completely to a large and real practice of education and learning among Jewish skillfully rendered menorah. An ancient viewer must children and the gravity indicated by the inclusion of have immediately felt the weight of such an obvious scrolls on other sarcophagi belonging to Jewish patrons. departure, just as we do. If the scroll was commonly understood by contempo- Any attempt to explain why a menorah was sub- rary Jewish viewers to be a Torah scroll when included stituted here for portrait sculpture must account on the sarcophagus of an adult Jew, it may have been for the uniqueness and visibility of this departure a motif (and association) reserved for representations from convention. This was no effort at cost saving of Jewish adulthood. In other words, it may have been or efficiency. It makes little difference whether the seen as inaccurate, or even inappropriate to suggest sarcophagus was acquired secondhand and recarved that a child had attained Torah learning. with a menorah (erasing a preexisting portrait) as

75 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 162, 168. 78 See especially George M. A. Hanfmann, The Season Sar- 76 For discussion of this example, see: Huskinson, Roman cophagus in Dumbarton Oaks, 2 vols., Dumbarton Oaks Studies Children’s Sarcophagi, 38–39, cat. no. 5.5, pl. 10.2; Zanker, Mask (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951); Peter Kranz, Jahreszeit- of Socrates, 276. en-Sarkophage: Entwicklung und Ikonographie des Motivs der vier 77 Birk, Depicting the Dead, 179. Jahreszeiten auf kaiserzeitlichen Sarkophagen und Sarkophagedeck- eln, Die antiken Sarkophagreliefs 4 (Berlin, 1984).

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Fig. 12. Kline Sarcophagus of a Young Boy with Muses and Learned Figure tropes, 3rd c. CE, marble. Rome. Vatican Museum, Rome, Inv. No. 2422. (Photograh courtesy of Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, D-DAI-ROM-41.935).

some have speculated.79 The working (or reworking) Neither can this substitution be explained by a of the clipeus into a menorah must have been at least simple preference for the image of a menorah over as costly as carving a portrait blank with features to a portrait. This is a weak and tepid explanation for a symbolize the deceased. Furthermore, many examples choice in visual representation that assails the viewer exist of reworked portraits, belying any notion that with its difference. Indeed, the oddity of this choice for an original portrait could not be changed to suit a an immensely popular sarcophagus style that would second user.80 Moreover, the menorah motif must have been otherwise quite familiar to Roman viewers have been a relatively unfamiliar one to the work- is inescapable. The choice of a Seasons sarcophagus shop; it appears rarely in stone sculpture in Rome, in the first place illustrates that the preferences of the and in any case could not have been as familiar as the patron ran towards popular Roman modes of represen- highly idealized facial features of portraits carved with tation; they were, after all, purchasing a sarcophagus frequency. For these reasons, it may have been even style very much in vogue. Instead, the substitution of more time consuming and costly to have the clipeus the menorah in place of the portrait seems to me to be (re)carved with the image of a menorah than to have a best explained by a deeply felt discomfort or avoidance portrait sculpted. of portraiture for particular reasons.

79 There is no evidence for this in the stone, and it seems an 80 For several such examples, including extensive alterations, unlikely suggestion. see Maureen Carroll, Spirits of the Dead: Roman Funerary Com- memoration in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 113–125.

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Fig. 13. Seasons Sarcophagus with Menorah in the Clipeus, 3rd c. CE, marble. Vigna Randani catacombs, Rome. Musei Nazionale Romano, Terme di Diocleziano, Inv. No. 67611. (Photograph by Author).

However, the more we try to guess the reasons for that did not use portrait sculpture than those that this discomfort the further we get from solid ground. did. It may even be the case therefore that most Jew- Was it motivated by a conservative reading of the Sec- ish patrons in Rome felt uncomfortable with the use ond Commandment? By Jewish traditions and cultural of portrait sculpture, though, again, the limitations of tastes among certain segments of the community in the evidence and particularly the size of the corpus Rome? Or values particular to the patron’s specific must be reiterated. synagogue community? Or perhaps it came down simply to personal choice or religious observance? We Conclusions cannot know the answer to the question of why; we can only state with a fair degree of confidence Returning to our original proposition, we should con- based on the conspicuousness of the substitution that sider what the Jewish portrait sarcophagi surveyed this patron—who was otherwise happy to use Roman above reveal about the Jewish cultural experience of figural imagery—had strong views about the use of Rome, and about the Jewish engagement with visual portrait sculpture. culture in the Roman world. Certainly, the sculptural Indeed, the choice to substitute a menorah—the programs of these examples suggest the pinnacle of most recognizable symbol of Judaism in antiquity—for cultural coziness, and a significant degree of mastery a portrait seems most likely to have been highly vis- of Roman modes of self-representation and visual ible statement made by this particular Jewish patron koine. The portrait sculpture on sarcophagi belong- in favor of rejecting the common representational ing to Jewish patrons in Rome made full use not only practice of portrait sculpture on Roman sarcophagi. of the Roman medium, but of conventional motifs From this we can conclude that not all Jewish patrons and tropes as well. The self-representations they in Rome felt comfortable with the use of portraiture. contained—and the ideals that they upheld—were Our Seasons sarcophagus with a menorah is the most common and popular ones in Rome. In fact, one of the explicit example of this discomfort, but there were conclusions of this analysis is that the use of Roman many more sarcophagi belonging to Jewish patrons portrait sculpture and the attendant visual resources of

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Roman funerary culture was quite a bit more popular structures. Rather, a much more nuanced conclusion and extensive among Jewish sarcophagus patrons than is that portrait sculpture seems to have been a visual hitherto acknowledged. category that was approached with caution by the Jew- We have also suggested that it is possible that Jew- ish community, a site around which Jewish identity and ish patrons may have engaged Roman visual resources values were being actively negotiated, contested and especially through motifs such as the learned figure constructed in the context of Roman visual culture. in order to reflect virtues and values relevant to their The simple fact that the five (mostly fragmentary) practice of Judaism and conceptions of Jewish values. sarcophagi discussed here were found in Jewish cata- Unfortunately, such adaptive acculturation is ulti- combs should be enough to indicate that the patrons mately unrecoverable based on the limited evidence still identified as Jewish, and had not adopted pagan we have. Yet even if motifs such as the learned figure or Christian religion. took on new meaning in the context of a Jewish pa- It should also be remembered that narratives of tron or viewer, we should be wary of assuming that a funerary art never capture the totality of the patron’s Jewish patron was any less aware of the Roman con- identity. They reflect only what was considered ap- ventions and values that lent basic meaning to such propriate and important for the immediate environ- tropes. The overwhelming evidence from the Jewish ment of the funeral and the catacomb and make use catacombs points to a community comfortable with of visual and cultural resources specific to these social and engaged in the culture of Rome. Moreover, the environments. More to the point, it seems likely that picture painted by the sarcophagi just reviewed was the patrons of such examples felt no inherent tension one that prioritized the representation of self through between being Jewish and being Roman. In selecting Roman visual resources and in Roman modes. The use these sarcophagi, it is not necessary to imagine the of portraiture that straightforwardly adopts popular patrons consciously downplaying their Jewish identi- tropes and formulae reveals the receptiveness of certain ties in favor of being Roman. We need only imagine Jewish patrons to Roman cultural values pertaining to that they enjoyed the visual programs, found them social status and self-representation. suited to the self-narrative they wished to tell, and We should be equally wary of reading such sar- found nothing in them (or the values and meanings cophagi as evidence of certain Jews abandoning a they evoke) particularly objectionable, either to their Jewish identity in favor of a Roman one, or the Jewish sense of identity or their sense of Jewishness. community in favor of the Roman polis and its civic

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