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Paving the Past: Late Republican Recollections in the Forum Romanum

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Paving the Past: Late Republican Recollections in the Forum Romanum Copyright by Aaron David Bartels 2009 Paving the Past: Late Republican Recollections in the Forum Romanum by Aaron David Bartels, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May, 2009 Paving the Past: Late Republican Recollections in the Forum Romanum Approved by Supervising Committee: Penelope J. E. Davies Andrew M. Riggsby John R. Clarke DEDICATION – pro mea domina – Tracy Lea Hensley ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS No thanks can adequately express the gratitude I have for those who have supported this thesis. My advisor, Penelope J. E. Davies has provided unflinching guidance. The advice from my second reader, Andrew M. Riggsby, also deserves endless praise. The insights of my other colloquium committee members, John R. Clarke, Glenn Peers and Janice Leoshko continue to challenge my approach. Other scholars who offered their wisdom include Ingrid Edlund-Berry, Amy and Nassos Papalexandrou, John Pollini, P. Gregory Warden, Michael Thomas, Ann Steiner, Gretchen Meyers, Thomas Palaima, Matthew Roller and many others. Friends and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin that deserve thanks for their ongoing support include, Erik McRae, Sebastian Bentkowski, Leticia Rodriguez, Kristin Ware, Joelle Lardi, Sheila Winchester and Gina Giovannone. I am also indebted to discussions with my fellow staff members and students at the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project. Robert Vander Poppen, Ivo van der Graaff, Sara Bon-Harper, Lynn Makowsky, Allison Lewis and Jess Galloway all provided sound advice. Any accurate or worthwhile conclusions in the following pages have filtered solely from those mentioned above. All mistakes are my own. I am nothing without the support of others. Special thanks belongs to my mother for bringing me here May 2009 v ABSTRACT Paving the Past: Late Republican Recollections in the Forum Romanum Aaron David Bartels, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2009 Supervisor: Penelope J. E. Davies The Forum was the center of Roman life. It witnessed a barrage of building, destruction and reuse from the seventh century BCE onwards. By around 80 BCE, patrons chose to renovate the Senate House and Comitium with a fresh paving of tufa blocks. Masons leveled many ruined altars and memorials beneath the flooring. Yet paving also provided a means of saving some of Rome’s past. They isolated the Lapis Niger with black blocks, to keep the city’s sinking history in their present. Paving therefore became a technology of memory for recording past events and people. Yet how effective was the Lapis Niger as a memorial? Many modern scholars have romanced the site’s cultural continuity. However, in fifty years and after two Lapis Nigers, the Comitium had borne a disparity of monuments and functions. Rome’s historians could not agree on what lay beneath. Verrius Flaccus reports that the Lapis vi Niger ‘according to others’ might mark the site of Romulus’s apotheosis, his burial, the burial of his foster father Faustulus, or even his soldier, Hostius Hostilius (50.177). Nevertheless, modern archaeologists have found no tombs. Instead of trying to comprehend these legends, most scholars use them selectively to isolate a dictator, deity or date. We must instead understand why so many views of the Lapis Niger emerged in antiquity. Otherwise, like ancient antiquarians, we will re- identify sites without end. Recreating how these material and mental landscapes interacted and spawned new pasts tells us more about the Lapis Niger than any new attribution. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures..................................................................................................... x Introduction......................................................................................................... 1 Excavation History ..................................................................................... 3 Scholarly Progress and Pitfalls.................................................................... 6 Research on Roman Thinking .................................................................... 8 Planners.................................................................................................... 11 Pluralizing Perspectives............................................................................ 14 Chapter One: Thinking About the Past in the Late Republic .............................. 17 Chapter Two: Paving Revolution in the Comitium............................................. 26 The Comitium Before the Lapis Niger...................................................... 27 Clearing the Comitium ............................................................................. 35 The Planners and Priests of the First Lapis Niger...................................... 35 Sacrificing the Altar.................................................................................. 42 Paving the Lapis Niger and Comitium ...................................................... 50 Completing the Comitium......................................................................... 57 Chapter Three: Reinventing the Comitium & Lapis Niger ................................. 62 Sacrificing Sulla's Senate.......................................................................... 62 The Lapis Niger's New Planners ............................................................... 64 Reusing the Lapis Niger............................................................................ 72 Ritual for Repaving the Rest of the Comitium........................................... 73 Chapter Four: Remembering & Forgetting the Lapis Niger................................ 78 The Plurality of Memories & Associations................................................ 79 Varro........................................................................................................ 82 Dionysius of Halicarnassus....................................................................... 85 Flaccus & Festus ...................................................................................... 88 viii Collapsing the Comitium's Cults............................................................... 90 The Limits of Memory and Each Lapis Niger ........................................... 92 Conclusions....................................................................................................... 94 Figures .............................................................................................................. 99 Bibliography ....................................................................................................121 Vita ...... ...........................................................................................................135 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Schematic plan of the northwestern end of the Forum and the Comitium around 200 BCE. The first Senate, the Curia Hostilia, later expanded into the Curia Cornelia by Sulla, faces south onto Altar G-H, here the “Volcanal” and “Rostra”. The Curia Iulia (Right) and the southeastern porticus of the Forum Iulia (Top) of the 40s BCE are superimposed (Coarelli, 1983, 139, fig. 39)............... 99 Figure 2: Photograph of Boni’s excavations beneath the Lapis Niger (supported on crossbars), facing the Arch of Septemius Severus (Gnoli, 1989, fig. 194)..................................................................100 Figure 3: Gjerstad’s schematic drawing of the Comitium’s monuments beneath the Lapis Niger and the 80s BCE paving (Gjerstad, 1941, 98, fig. 1). .....................................................................................................101 Figure 4: Gjerstad’s hypothetical recreation of Altar G-H with Dionysius’s lion(s) upon the surviving plinths (G) and an aedicula upon the platform (H) behind. Platform/rostra J (Left), platform E (Right) (Gjerstad, 1941, 136, fig. 8)..........................................................102 Figure 5: Gjerstad’s cross-section of Boni’s stratigraphy in the Comitium. The Lapis Niger is on the Left (Exploration IX) with the other soundings running east (Explorations X-XII) (Gjerstad, 1941, tav. 3). ..........103 Figure 6: Detail of the strata including and beneath the Lapis Niger from Boni’s Exploration XI (Gjerstad, 1941, tav. 3)..............................104 x Figure 7: Section “a-a” of stratigraphy (Top) runs West to East from the front edge of Altar G-H. Section b-b (Bottom) also runs west to East in front of Podium C/J (Gjerstad, 1941, tav. 3). ...............................105 Figure 8: Schematic cross-section facing South onto Altar G-H (Left), with Column K (Center), Podium E (Right) and Lapis Niger (Above Center) (Gjerstad, 1941, fig. 5.1). ................................................106 Figure 9: Altars at Lavinium (Edlund-Berry, 1994, 24, fig. 3.9). .................107 Figure 10: Foundation remains of Temple A at Pyrgi (Edlund-Berry, 1994, fig. 3.11). ...........................................................................................108 Figure 11: Pit filled with rooftop terracottas (Left) and main complex (Right) (Edlund-Berry, 1994, fig. 3.1). ....................................................109 Figure 12: Altar G-H (Top), with the original Lapis Niger superimposed on top. Block “a” on Platform L (Bottom Left) has a canted edge (dotted line) that may form a stone frame for the Lapis Niger (Gjerstad, 1941, 110, fig. 3)..........................................................................110
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