Vacuna Author(s): A. W. van Buren Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 6 (1916), pp. 202-204 Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/296273 . Accessed: 09/05/2014 07:23
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Roman Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 62.122.79.22 on Fri, 9 May 2014 07:23:16 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions VACUNA.
By A. W. VAN BUREN.
Probably no individual subject in the whole field of the topography of ancient Italy has attracted the attention of scholars to a greater degree than the quest for Horace's Sabine farm. 1 The appeal which any contribution to the discussion of this question is sure to make to the historical and the literary student alike, and the special interest which the recent excavations at the probable site of the villa 2 have aroused, encourage me to publish a monument, hithlerto, I believe, unnoticed, which appears to deserve serious consideration in this connexion. This monunment (fig. 14) is a bas-relief of a good quality of limestone, height I ft. io ins. (o58 m.), width I ft. (o030 m.), built into the wall of the palace of the Marchese di Roccagiovine at the town of that name, not far from the well-known inscription (fig. I5) 3 commemorating the restoration by Vespasian of a temple of Victoria. The relief represents a female figure, clad in chiton and himation, facing to front; the head is much worn; the right hand clasps the forelegs of a deer ; the left hand is badly damaged, so that its action is no longer intelligible. In the search for Horace's farm, as the reader is aware, one of the points which it is desirable to identify is the shrine of Vacuna to which the poet alludes, Epist. i, 10, 49:
Haec tibi dictabam post fanum putre Vacunae.
1 ' On pourrait former toute une bibliotheque Sabine Farm, a Poem: into which is interwoven avec les livres ecrits sur la villa' (Jullian, in Melanges a Series of Translations, chiefly descriptive of the des Ecoles IranCaises, 3 (I883), p. 8Z; the chief Villa and Life of Horace, occasioned by an excursion authorities, however, are: from Rome to Licenza, by Robert Bradstreet, Domenico De Sanctis, Dissertazione sopra la London, printed for J. Mawman, in the Poultry, Villa di Orazio Flacco, znd ed. Roma, I768 (first i8io; and the sympathetic essay by Webster edition, Rome, I76I, which I have not seen). Merrifield, A Visit to Horace's Sabine Farm, in Capmartin de Chaupy, Decouverte de la maison Classical Journal, 8 (I9I2-I9I3), pp. 25-36. de campagne d'Ilorace, 3 vols, Rome, I767-I769. 2 cf. Bollettino d'Arte, v (I91I), p. 324; Gaston Boissier, Nouvelles promzenadesarcheo- Bollettino dell' Associazione Archeolouica Romana, logiques, Paris, i886, pp. i-6Z. i (19ii), pp. I69, 239; Cronaca delle belle Arti, N. Fritsch, in Neue 7ahrbiicher, I5I (I895), iii (19I6), pp. I I f. pp. 57-78- 3 C.I.L. xiv, 3485. As I am not aware that Sellin, Das Sabinische Landgut des Horaz, photographs of this inscription are in circulation, Programm, Schwerin i. M. I896. I ptublish one which, together with that of the See the fuller bibliography in Mau and von relief, I owe to the kindness of Dr. Eugene S. Mercklin, Katalog der Bibliothek des k. d. archaol. McCartney of the American Academy in Rome: Inst. in Rom, znd ed. i, (Rome, I913), p. 577; the material is Italian marble ; dimensions to which I may add a quaint little volume, The 4 ft. I i4 ins. xI ft. IO1 ins. (I-5I m. x o-58 m.).
This content downloaded from 62.122.79.22 on Fri, 9 May 2014 07:23:16 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions VACUNA. 2703
FIG. 14. RELIEF OF VACUNA AT ROCCAGIOVINE.
FIG. I5. INSCRIPTION AT ROCCAGIOVINE.
This content downloaded from 62.122.79.22 on Fri, 9 May 2014 07:23:16 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 204 VACU NA.
Our knowledge of this divinity is summarised by Wissowa. She was a Sabine goddess, by some authorities identified with Minerva, by others with Bellona, Ceres, Venus or Diana, or interpreted as the ' dea vacationis,' but by Varro explained as the Sabine Victoria. Holstenius's suggestion2 that the inscription at Roccagiovine commemorates a restoration of the ' fanum Vacunae,' and therefore may be used for locating the poet's villa, is attractive, and has generally been accepted, although there have not been wanting those wlio have felt a certain lack of cogency in the reasoning.3 The likelihood, however, that we really have to do with the remains of the 'fanum Vacunae' is greatly increased by the presence both of several unimportant architectural fragments and also of our relief in the immediate neighbourhood of the inscription; for in the absence of contrary evidence we are justified in assuming that all these remains came from the same source, presumably not far from their present situation.4 And if one is justified in interpreting the relief as a representation of Vacuna in her aspect resembling Diana, i.e. as Mistress of the Wild Things, then the supposition gains in probability that the inscription refers to her under the name Victoria; these two monuments thus reflecting the uncertainty as to her characteristics which appears in the accounts given by the scholiasts.
1 Religion und Kul'tus der Rilmer, znd ed. p. 49, (votive inscription in Vallis Canera); 4752 n. 5. The most important sources are the scholia (similar); C.I.L. ix, 4636 (similar, from Vallis on the passage in Horace above cited, namely, Velini stiperior); and inscription at Posta in the Porphyrio (ed. Holder, I894): ' Vacuna in Sabinis same valley, Not. d. Scavi, i106, 465 ff. (Persichetti; dea, quae sub incerta specie est formata. Hanc cf. his discussion also in Rom. Mitth. 24 (1909), quidam Bellonam, alii Minervam, alii Dianam p. 244)-
This content downloaded from 62.122.79.22 on Fri, 9 May 2014 07:23:16 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions