Chapter 5 Art Offers a Glimpse at a Different World Than That Which The

chapter 5 Art Art offers a glimpse at a different world than that which the written narratives of early Rome provide. Although the producers (or rather, the patrons) of both types of work may fall into the same class, the educated elite, the audience of the two is not the same. Written histories and antiquarian works were produced for the consumption of the educated; monuments, provided that they were public, were to be viewed by all. The narrative changes required by dyadic rivalry are rarely depicted through visual language.1 This absence suggests that the visual narratives had a different purpose than written accounts. To avoid confusion between dyadic rivals and other types of doubles, I con- fine myself to depictions of known stories, which in practice limits my investigation to Romulus and Remus.2 Most artistic material depicting the twins comes from the Augustan era, and is more complimentary than the literary narratives. In this chapter, I examine mainly public imagery, commissioned by the same elite who read the histories of the city. As a result, there can be no question of ignorance of this narrative trope; however, Roman monuments are aimed at a different and wider audience. They stress the miraculous salvation of the twins, rather than their later adventures. The pictorial language of the Republic was more interested in the promo- tion of the city and its elite members than problematizing their competition. The differentiation between artistic versions produced for an external audience and the written narratives for an internal audience is similar to the dis- tinction made in Propertius between the inhabitants’ knowledge of the Parilia and the archaizing gloss shown to visitors. Similarly, Augustan imagery, with its focus on the virtues of the founder, avoided less positive depictions. I sug- gest that this omission may be due to the expected foreign—if not necessarily to Rome, certainly to the political elite—audience of these monuments. But the emphasis on the she-wolf and twins implies that Romulus and Remus, in 1 See e.g. Zanker 2002:116–19. For a semantic perspective on art historical interpretation, see e.g. Hölscher 2004b; particularly germane to the topic at hand are pp. 77–97. 2 Augustus used doubles liberally, particularly in the depiction of his successors. But his primary model was the Dioskouroi (see e.g. La Rocca 1994:79; Sihvola 1989:88). As I explained above (pp. 15–16), the Dioskouroi are not dyadic rivals; I will examine Augustus’ use of these twins as part of the changed atmosphere of the Principate at the end of this chapter. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004�8�85�_�07 120 chapter 5 these depictions at least, remained interchangeable; the equality that I argued existed in the literary material seems to be present here as well. Republican Depictions The exiguous remains of Republican art provide only limited space for analy- sis. It seems from what survives from this period that the primary image of the founders was the she-wolf nursing the twins. One of the earliest (and argu- ably the most famous) depictions of Romulus and Remus is the third-century she-wolf sculpture that was supposedly dedicated by the Ogulnii. This statue has probably been lost, but its dedication in 296 BCE is described by Livy.3 As one of the earliest examples of public monuments in Rome, this statue has received a great deal of scholarly attention.4 Wiseman makes it an important piece of his argument for the consolidation of the twins’ story in the fourth century BCE. Because the Ogulnii were plebeian aediles, their dedication of the statue to both twins as founders—with emphasis on the plural—offers strong support for Wiseman’s argument that the twins are related to the patrician-plebeian divide and reconciliation. It also supports my argument for the continuing balance of the twins during the Republic. Several copies of the wolf statue were known in ancient Rome.5 They were located in various central positions around the city, such as the Comitium and Capitoline Hill. These locations would encourage a viewer to connect the activities of the location (such as political speech or public sacrifice) with the imagery of the wolf and twins. It was thus important to keep this message positive and powerful, not only for Romans of all social rank, but also for foreign visitors to the city. One copy was long identified with the she-wolf in the Capitoline Museum. This wolf has the characteristic spiky fur and canine muzzle that appears on numismatic depictions of the suckling twins. Unlike those depictions, however, the Capitoline wolf does not face backwards to the babies suckling her teats. Although her head does turn sideways to face the viewer, the statue is mostly frontal. Art historians have long known that the twins suckling the lupa Romana were Renaissance additions; recent investigation of the bronze alloys used in the sculpture have raised the question of whether the wolf, too, is a 3 Livy 10.23.11–12. 4 See e.g. Evans 1992:79–81, with further bibliography; Wiseman 1995a:72–4; Oakley 2005 ad loc. 5 See e.g. DH 1.79.10; Livy 10.23.11–12; Pliny NH 15.77; Evans 1991..

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