The Piazza Navona Obelisk

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Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16.2 (2003) 193-215 ISSN 0952-7648

Narrating Monumentality: The Piazza Navona Obelisk

Grant Parker

Department of Classical Studies, Duke University, 236 Allen Building, PO Box 90103, Durham, NC 27708-0103, USA. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The Egyptian obelisks at Rome are monuments par excellence: as sites of memory they have been distinctive, but over time also prone to appropriation and recontextualization. Owing to their bulk, ancient (and modern) attempts to transport them have attracted much attention. This paper begins with a biography of the obelisk now at Piazza Navona and proceeds to a broader consideration of the qualities that constitute a monument. In particular, its physical transportation is examined in relation to transmuta- tions of context and audience in time and space. The social processes within which they have been implicated suggest reconsideration of the nature, and indeed direction, of biographic narrative. To what extent can narrative, in this biographic form, adequately represent monumentality?

in such a life-story by critically examining its Introduction workings and assumptions. One issue that the The obelisk now standing at the center of obelisk brings to the forefront is that of mon- Piazza Navona in Rome (Figure 1) has had an umentality: If we make the working assump- eventful life: quarried in Egypt, inscribed and tion that this is a monument, what are the shipped to the heart of Rome in the ﬁrst cen- distinctive features of a monument? What are tury AD; moved to a new location outside the we to make of the fact that this obelisk has city walls some two centuries later; excavated, occupied different locations in the city of repaired from its broken state and magniﬁ- Rome and elsewhere? In our consideration of cently reinstalled in the mid-17th century; this obelisk, what is the relation between its studied for its hieroglyphic inscription from mobility and its monumental qualities? These that point up to the decipherment in the are questions that will be addressed in the dif- early 19th century and beyond. These are ferent social contexts that emerge in the life some of the points that occur in any rendition of this obelisk. of its life story. To these ends, we will begin by recounting It is one thing to rehearse this life-story in the life of the obelisk and then step back from its own right, following the lead of several that biography to a more abstract considera- earlier scholars of Roman topography (e.g. tion of the issues raised in that account. To Platner and Ashby 1929: 368-70; Nash 1968: ensure that the initial biography retains an II, 159; Richardson 1992: 275; Steinby 1997: episodic quality (thus making a virtue out of 355-59) or of Egyptian obelisks (e.g. Maruc- necessity), and with a view to these later con- chi 1917: 125-31; Iversen 1968: 76-92; siderations, this biography will proceed not in Habachi 1978: 141-44; D’Onofrio 1992: 288- the usual chronological order, but in reverse. 301). It is another to question what is at stake In this way we shall begin in the present time

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Figure 1. Engraving of the Fountain of Four Rivers, Piazza Navona, Rome (Falda 1665).

and venture ever further, in unequal measure, 2001: 416). If, within Italy, Rome is a major into the past. attraction, then Piazza Navona is certainly a major landmark for visitors. While detailed Part 1: Scenes from a Life statistics are hard to come by, there can be no doubt that the square is one of Rome’s public Tourist at a Landmark (2003) spaces par excellence. The same square that is Italy, as a country, was the world’s fourth most now such a tourist attraction once housed a popular tourist destination in 2000, attracting stadium built by the emperor Domitian; in 41.2 million overseas visitors; only France, the between it has had various roles, whether for US and Spain surpassed it (World Tourism public spectacles or for regular markets. This Organization statistics, quoted in Wright single place contains a thick texture of mem-

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ory, evoking different periods of modern and Among the many scholars who had studied premodern history. Egyptian writing, it was the work of Jean- A contemporary tourist will be drawn, at François Champollion (1790–1832) that some point during a visit to the square, to proved decisive. Following Napoleon’s expedi- inspect the obelisk standing at its center. tion there was a profusion of scholarship on Poised miraculously at a height of some six Egypt within the borders of France and meters above the ground, the obelisk itself is beyond; this included the detailed study of the 16.54 m tall. It has inscriptions in hieroglyph- Egyptian languages (Said 1978: 80-88). Fore- ics on all four sides. In this respect it differs most among the scholars, from the point of from the taller obelisk at the center of the Vat- view of hieroglyphics, was Sylvestre de Sacy ican’s Piazza San Pietro, which is part of (1758–1838), professor of Oriental languages another major landmark. It stands on a rectan- in Paris at the time of the Revolution. Sacy’s gular base, which is inscribed in Latin on two work, together with that of the Swede J.D. of its sides. Åkerblad and the Englishman Thomas Young, The obelisk and the fountain stand in the went a long way towards questioning the then middle of the square, dominating the sur- still widespread notion that hieroglyphs repre- rounding space. It forms an axis together with sented a ‘natural’ language, based purely on two smaller fountains. The fountain support- ideograms. Champollion’s contribution was to ing the obelisk features four world rivers, rep- develop this hypothesis further, culminating resented by their male personifications, with the decipherment (Pope 1999: 68-84). In namely the Plata, Ganges, Nile and Danube. this process, as we shall see, the Piazza Navona Details about its construction by Bernini played a small but discernible part. around 1650, as well as information about its Growing up in Figeac in southern France, pre-modern pasts, both Roman and medieval, Jean-François took early to the study of west- are available in the Blue Guide to Rome and ern Asian languages, having mastered Greek other guidebooks—guidebooks that may be and Latin at a young age. His early work concerned with monuments and the past, or on Egypt received detailed expression in his more concerned with the culinary, shopping L’Egypte sous les Pharaons (1814). Though this and entertainment offerings of the piazza and reveals nothing of the linguistic insights that its surrounds (e.g. Fodor’s or the Rough Guide), later led to the decipherment, it did indicate or many that aim at single-volume utility. his general mastery of Egyptian antiquities. The work is a detailed topography of Egypt, in Champollion and the Decipherment (1821–24) which he links contemporary sites and their Not even the Blue Guide provides a transla- Arabic names with those in ancient Greek, tion of the hieroglyphic inscription (for Latin and Coptic texts. which, see Erman 1917: 4-10, 18-28). It was Champollion’s subsequent researches on the only after 1822 that the obelisk became read- Egyptian languages were sustained by the able in the modern sense, during the deci- stream of epigraphic texts, copies of which pherment of hieroglyphics. For the first time were still coming to France from Egypt in the it became clear that the inscriptions on its aftermath of Napoleon’s invasion. He paid par- flanks date back to the reign of the emperor ticular attention to texts written in different Domitian (81–96 AD) and no further. This scripts, but which contained identical illustra- episode in the life of the obelisk applies to the tions—suggesting that they were in fact the study of the object rather than to a change of same text in different scripts. Close compari- its physical status. son led him to the conclusion that ancient

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Egyptian epigraphy produced as many as four Vespasian’ and ‘his brother Titus’—the posses- different systems of writing: hieroglyphics sive adjectives adding important evidence, as proper, cursive or linear hieroglyphics, hieratic Champollion shows in the fourth chapter of and demotic. Initially, Champollion believed his Précis (1827–28: 78). The use of this that the hieratic and demotic scripts were inscription by Champollion reflects not so ideographic (1821–22), but later he changed much the nature of the obelisk but the his view. At the same time, he worked on the scarcity of texts, certainly up to the time of premise that the hieroglyphic script is pho- Napoleon’s expedition and even after. netic in character rather than ideographic. He When Champollion died in 1832 at the age concluded, after several years’ study of putative of 42, his grave in the Père-Lachaise Ceme- homophones, that the phonetic character of tery, Paris, was marked by a tombstone in the hieroglyphics was not ancillary but central. His shape of an obelisk. This is in a sense unre- examination of Roman and Greek proper markable, given the frequent use of obelisks to names showed that phonetic and ideographic mark graves in the 19th century and before. signs were used together. This realization, But the form is significant here in view of the more than anything, was crucial to the deci- role of obelisks—more substantially that at pherment and was applied not only to proper Kingston Lacy, but more visibly that at Piazza names but later also to other words. Champol- Navona—in his life’s work, the study of hiero- lion did not initially realize the implications of glyphics. his conclusions regarding the proper names. His Précis du système hieroglyphique (1827–28) Zoega: Antiquarianism to Archaeology (1797) conveys a lengthy exposition of his findings, in Champollion’s study of the inscription on the some 400 pages. Beyond this, much of his work obelisk was part of a lengthy scholarly tradi- was published posthumously by his elder tion. The appearance in 1797 of a volume brother Jacques-Joseph Champollion-Figeac. nominally devoted to the obelisks of Rome It was the obelisk at Kingston Lacy in constitutes the next landmark as we examine Dorset, England, that provided the younger this tradition. The Piazza Navona obelisk Champollion with the crucial text against receives only brief discussion (1797: 74-75). which to read the Rosetta Stone. The impor- Despite its title, De origine et usu obeliscorum tant overlap came in the name of Ptolemy, was not devoted narrowly to obelisks, but which occurs six times within six cartouches more generally to Egyptian antiquities and to (oval shapes) on the Rosetta Stone. Now, the the study of hieroglyphics. Central to the pre- Bankes obelisk had come from the island of sent discussion is the extent to which Zoega’s Philae to the private estate of Sir William scholarly work set obelisks in a context of Bankes, acquired with the help of the adven- archaeology generally, and Egyptology partic- turer and large-scale pillager, Giovanni Bat- ularly (Iversen 1993: 117-21). tista Belzoni (1778–1823, on whose exploits, Georg Zoega was born in 1755 in the town see Fagan 1975: 214-22). That obelisk also of Dahler in Jutland, Denmark, to a Protestant offered the name of Cleopatra for comparison. family of Italian origin. At an early age he It would be stretching a point to suggest began the study of Greek, Latin and Hebrew, that the Piazza Navona obelisk was central to first in his home town, later at Altona and the decipherment. Rather, its biography finally at the university of Göttingen under the intersected with the labours of Champollion distinguished classicist C.G. Heyne (1729– and others: the obelisk presented the personal 1812). After two brief visits to Rome (in 1776 names of Domitian and those of ‘his father and 1780) he moved to the city in 1780, never

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to leave again for the remaining 26 years of his nation with Rome, even a sense of personal life. destiny linked to the city. In particular, Zoega’s Zoega’s first significant work with antiqui- researches destabilized the idea that hiero- ties involved cataloging the royal numismatic glyphs were a natural language: this conclusion collection in Copenhagen, which appeared proceeded, among others, from his hypothesis between July 1781 and May 1782. But his that a combination of signs (not merely a sin- major works were the ones completed during gle sign) was required to represent a single his Roman sojourn. First came a catalogue of object. Zoega’s catalogue of separate signs on Egyptian coins in the possession of the cardi- the obelisks reached 270 in number; even nal Borgia (1787), followed ten years later by adding other signs from other inscriptions the work on obelisks. Most famous, however, housed in the European museums, such a num- is his two-volume work on Roman reliefs, ber could not embrace all objects represented published as Li bassirilievi di Roma (1808). The in the Egyptian language, he assumed (Pope last was a catalogue of Coptic manuscripts in 1999: 57-58). In light of his work, Egyptian Borgian hands (1810). hieroglyphics took on a very different aspect to Zoega gave a sounder scholarly framework that of 150 years earlier. to the study of Roman art, beyond the nar- rower enthusiasms evidenced by many of his Pope Innocent X, Bernini, Kircher: A Fountain predecessors (see Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and a Treatise (1650–52) 1982: 101-102; Pfeiffer 1976: 179). Certainly The next episode to consider in the life of the his descriptions of ancient artifacts read more obelisk is a complex one involving not only like modern scholarship than do those of its study, but also modifications to its physical Winckelmann, with their overwhelmingly form and location. It takes us not quite as far aesthetic vision of classical antiquity. Three as the papacy of Sixtus V (1585–90). Though features of Zoega’s work, and indeed of De orig- merely five years in duration, that papacy saw ine et usu obeliscorum, mark him out from his the moving of no fewer than five obelisks: contemporaries: his insistence on systematic those he had moved to the squares of San typology in the study of ancient artifacts, the Pietro, Santa Maria Maggiore, San Giovanni importance of using Greek and Latin texts in Laterano, the Piazza del Esquilino and the that exercise, and finally a holistic approach to Piazza del Popolo (Grafton 2002). Sixtus was the study of ancient societies. In this third made aware, by the scholar Michele Mercati respect, particularly, he is an important figure if not earlier, of the broken obelisk lying in in what was soon to be known as Altertums- what was then known as the Circus of Cara- wissenschaft, to use a term coined by another calla (namely the Circus of Maxentius), but of Heyne’s pupils, F.A. Wolf (1759–1824). It is by the time of his death the pope had taken characteristic of Zoega’s sober approach that no steps to excavate it (Mercati 1981 [1589]: he even denied that the shape of the pyramids 233). This task was to wait more than half a embodied any esoteric secrets. century for Innocent X; it was to involve two The significance of all this for the Piazza of the most colourful characters of Baroque Navona obelisk lies in the new scholarly con- Rome: Bernini and Kircher. texts it acquired: within the antiquities of Piazza Navona had been the site of Inno- Rome, particularly its Egyptian antiquities, cent’s mansion while still a cardinal; directly and more generally in scholarship that after his enthronement he set about adding involved texts alongside artifacts. In more per- luster to his residence, and also to the piazza as sonal terms, the book was part of Zoega’s fasci- a whole. It had long connections with the

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Pamphili family, to which Innocent belonged. Some of the fragments were in any case mis- To this end, Innocent had two fountains built; placed, after being copied. (The accuracy of soon afterwards, in 1647, he decided to this copying of the hieroglyphs continues to replace the unglamorous horse-pond at its pose difficulties for the modern study of the center with a third fountain, this one on a obelisk, in cases where only the copy and not monumental scale. Several prominent archi- the original fragment remains.) tects were invited to submit proposals for this By the middle of 1648 the two parts of the fountain; that by Francesco Borromini was project were in their advanced stages: the successful. Excluded from these architects was foundations of the new fountain were nearly Bernini, who at the time was out of favor at complete, and the obelisk was ready to be the papal court, linked as he was with Inno- transported across the city. It was not until cent’s despised Barberini predecessor, Urban August 1649 that the last fragment of the VIII (1623–44). obelisk was installed, the end of an exacting Though the commission to build the foun- process. Meanwhile, work on the fountain’s tain had already gone Borromini’s way, stonework was to continue a further two years. Bernini’s elaborate design prevailed by under- In the late spring of 1651 Latin inscriptions hand means. It caught Innocent’s attention were added above the stone base. through the intervention of the pope’s advi- Innocent made sure that the inscriptions sor, Prince Nicolò Ludovisi, and the prince’s commemorated his act of beneficence. He mother-in-law, Donna Olympia Maidalchini. eschewed the crosses and epigraphic language As part of a well-planned ruse, Innocent that made Sixtus’ four obelisks into objects of caught sight of and became fascinated with a divine reverence, choosing instead to make model of the fountain during a visit to this obelisk a secular monument to himself Olympia’s palace at Piazza Navona on 25 and his family. No attempt was made to align March 1647. He soon retracted his earlier the obelisk with Sant’ Agnese, or to mention commission to Borromini in favor of Bernini. that church in the inscription. Borromini was nonetheless to design the This obelisk was the subject of Kircher’s façade to Sant’ Agnese, immediately adjacent treatise Obeliscus Pamphilius, published at to the fountain. (This reached completion in Rome in 1650 (Figure 2). Subsequently, much 1657, and hence postdates the fountain by six of his voluminous Egyptological work ostensi- years or more—a sequence of events that bly on obelisks, for example the multi-volume belies the popular story that the river Nile’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–54) and Obelisci gesture of shock represents Bernini’s response Aegyptiaci (1666), constitutes expansion and to Borromini’s façade of that church.) development of the semiotic theories ex- Meanwhile, the Jesuit polymath Athana- pounded in Obeliscus Pamphilius. For Kircher, sius Kircher supervised the process of exhum- the obelisks and their hieroglyphic inscrip- ing the obelisk from the Circus of Romulus, tions were the source of hermetic wisdom which took place under the direction of the beyond conventional historical time, namely archbishop of Ravenna, Lucas Torregiano. prisca sapientia. This timeless divine wisdom Before it was transported, Innocent inspected expressed in the hieroglyphs was, for Kircher, the excavated obelisk for himself. The process continuous with Christian revelation. ‘His was a difficult one, leaving some pieces of the interest in Egyptology was… based on the obelisk missing. Most fragments eventually conviction that the Egyptians were the first to came to light, but several were too fractured have understood [the] fundamental truth [of to be reincorporated into the broken obelisk. harmonious cosmic unity], over which the

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Figure 2. Engraving of the Piazza Navona obelisk and its hieroglyphic inscriptions (Kircher 1650).

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whole of their religion and their philosophy train, Bernini is here experimenting with bal- had been formed’ (Iversen 1993: 95; cf. Eco ance, using a design that ostensibly defies grav- 1995: 156-57). In such work Kircher drew ity. Bernini’s working sketches, which include heavily on, and considerably developed, ideas one that made Hercules hold the obelisk at an expressed in ancient texts: thus, for example, angle, make it clear that virtuosity was part of the ancient Greek authors Herodotus, Plato, his thinking (Schama 1995: 289-306). Diodorus and Plutarch all had much to say about the antiquity of Egypt, its monuments Maxentius and the Memory of Romulus (311– and its religious specialists (Vasunia 2001). In 12 AD) the case of one philosopher, the Egyptian- The sojourn of the obelisk at the location born Plotinus (c. 205–69 AD), there are special from which Innocent X had it excavated was claims for the ‘natural’ quality of the hiero- in itself something of a feat. The emperor glyphic script, constituting a system of signifi- Maxentius had it moved from within the city cation that linked it directly to reality, and not walls to the Circus of Romulus, his new pub- requiring acts of interpretation (Enneads lic complex on the Via Appia. This Circus 5.8.6). The translation of Plotinus into Latin was built in order to memorialize his son, by Marsilio Ficino in 1492 did much to spread Valerius Romulus, who died in 309 (Jones et Platonic philosophy in Renaissance western al. 1971: I 571). Romulus’ death put paid to Europe and Kircher’s Egyptological studies any dynastic ambitions Maxentius might owe much to Renaissance Platonism (Yates have harbored. 1964; Eco 1995: 144-45; Rowland 2000). Maxentius’ action should be seen in light of Kircher associated the obelisk not with the volatile politics and shifting constella- Domitian, but with Caracalla (211–17 AD, tions that followed on the retirement of Dio- 1650: 83): the Circus of Maxentius was then cletian in 305 AD (Barnes 1981: 29-43; 1982: known as the Hippodrome of Caracalla. In 12-14, 34-35). Diocletian’s invention of the the chronological chart (chronologia) of Tetrarchy ultimately backfired—that is, his obelisks that Kircher includes immediately policy of dividing up the eastern and western after the dedication of Obeliscus Pamphilius, parts of the empire, under one senior and one there is in fact no reference to Domitian. The junior emperor each, known as Augustus and same is true of the chronological section in Caesar respectively. The rivalry between his later work, Obelisci Aegyptiaci (1666). claimants to supreme command had in fact Bernini’s fountain was to prove one of his magnified since Diocletian’s time, whereas sculptural masterpieces. Its virtuoso design the division of the imperial office was placed the obelisk amidst the four world rivers. intended to avoid such competition. The The river-gods recoil from the obelisk as if in youthful Maxentius had neither the consul- awe. The most daring part of Bernini’s design ship nor a military command on which to was to elevate the obelisk by some six metres stake his claim. His own father Maximian was above ground level (and a further distance at one point among his rivals. counting the elevation of the overall struc- And so a need for support within the city of ture), thus making it possible for a viewer to Rome appears to be the spur for Maxentius’ look from one side of the grotto to the other. decision to build the circus and move the The effect is to give the impression that the obelisk. For it was in Britain that his rival Con- obelisk is suspended in the air. Like his statue stantine was proclaimed emperor by the army. of Apollo and Daphne, where the laurel Maxentius’ own elevation to imperial office on branches counterweigh Apollo’s considerable 28 October 306 was an act of retaliation on the

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part of the city-based praetorian guard, with pharaoh. It is in the city of Rome that discus- the support of the urban plebs and presumably sion of this phenomenon will begin. also the senate. It was only in the summer of Among Domitian’s many building projects 307 that Maxentius began to use the title two will concern us here, both located on the Augustus. Once having assumed the imperial Campus Martius: his Stadium and his temple title, Maxentius’ policy of religious toleration to Isis (Iseum Campense, on which see Lembke was one method by which he continued to 1994). Firstly, the Stadium was the site at court popular support; another was an active which the obelisk has stood subsequently, building program in the city. He was intensely since 1650. In Domitian’s time it could seat aware of his public image (Cullhed 1984). 15,000 spectators (Suetonius, Domitian 5; But all was to no avail: his resources were Eutropius 7.23) and measured all of 250 m in too limited, the demands on them too great for length. It was located on the site of the Piazza him to withstand the pressures that Constan- Navona, which today retains the size and tine and others brought to bear. He was killed shape of the original. In fact, the Italian name at the battle of the Milvian Bridge on 27 Octo- Navona derives from the Latin agonalis, refer- ber 312, when Constantine entered the city of ring to the athletic competitions it hosted. Rome, along with his ally Maximin Daia. The Nonetheless, Domitian’s ambitious building posthumous reputation of Maxentius as a plans for the city get short shrift from his biog- tyrant is very much the product of Constan- rapher Suetonius, who mentions Domitian’s tinian propaganda and one that largely con- massive palace complex merely in passing. tinues to prevail (Barnes 1981: 37). The battle Such neglect may stem from Suetonius’ nega- of the Milvian Bridge is well known in ecclesi- tive attitude to his subject. In fact, such was astical history beginning with Eusebius, and in the scale of Domitian’s building policy that we monumental form on the triumphal Arch of can compare the goal attributed to his succes- Constantine, built in 315 to commemorate it. sor, Trajan: to make Rome a ‘habitation wor- Rome under Maxentius was no longer the thy of a people that had conquered [foreign] center of power it had been in the age of nations’, digna populo uictore gentium sedes Augustus, that earlier, paradigmatic monarch (Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus 51.3). and mover of obelisks (Bowersock 1990). The Secondly, the Iseum built by Domitian was Circus of Romulus and Maxentius’ other pub- its likely first location (Roullet 1972: 72; lic works in the city may be seen in this light as though Grenier 1997: 357 argues instead for a kind of rearguard action: they reveal the need an original location on the Quirinal, cf. to assert power within the city and thus win Richardson 1992: 275). This complex is today popular urban support and even legitimacy. more familiar from a rich cache of artifacts that appears to have originated there, many of Domitian the Pharaoh (81–96 AD) which now reside in the Egyptian Museum of Champollion’s decipherment of hieroglyphics the Vatican and in the Capitoline Museums. in 1822 revealed the name of an earlier Among them are two crouching lions of black emperor, Domitian (Grenier 1987). This came granite (Roullet 1972: 130-31 with figs. 274- as a surprise for the obvious reason that it is 78). This temple complex of Isis and Serapis the name of a Roman emperor rather than an now lies underneath one side of Santa Maria Egyptian pharaoh. Yet, to describe this earliest sopra Minerva (Coarelli 1997: 107-109). It is phase in the life of the obelisk is to reveal the part of a massive building program following Egyptianizing habit of Domitian, what we the fire of 80 AD. Presumably this temple might almost call his self-presentation as a complex was the original site of the Piazza

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Navona obelisk, as well as of three others, have put up two obelisks in Benevento, one of namely those now at the Pantheon, the Piazza which stands today in Piazza Papiniano, the della Minerva and the Viale delle Terme di other now in fragmentary remains housed in Diocleziano. the Museo del Sannio. The standing obelisk, The link between the Piazza Navona obelisk some 2.75 m in height, carries cartouches with and Domitian’s cult-center of Isis is not so the name of Domitian (Müller 1969). much proven as assumed to be probable (cf. Among the artifacts in the Museo del San- Marucchi 1917: 120). Certainly, whatever the nio are a statue head and a statue, both of topographic questions that remain, the Domi- which have been identified with Domitian. If tianic origins of the obelisk are established these identifications are correct, they cer- beyond doubt by the inscription, and the tainly give a striking image of the emperor as Iseum Campense may have been its original pharaoh—that is, on the elements by which location. But nonetheless, this is circumstan- an Egyptian king would have presented him- tial evidence and nothing more conclusive. self. Against this background, Domitian’s Domitian’s decision to build the Iseum on decision to inscribe his own name on the the Campus Martius is in keeping with his Piazza Navona obelisk points to a pharaonic concern for Isis, which is variously attested aspect of his imperial identity—the appropri- (Takács 1995: 98-104). It had considerable ation of Egyptian royal tradition to articulate precedent, especially from the reign of Augus- his own power, at Rome just as he also did tus. Already by the late second century BC, elsewhere in Italy (Benevento) and in Egypt cult-centers to Alexandrian divinities had itself. If the historical circumstances of arisen at Puteoli and more widely in Campa- empire have often been analyzed in terms of nia, for example, Herculaneum and Pompeii cultural encounter, then Domitian’s assump- (Tran Tam Tinh 1964). The cult of Isis at tion or appropriation of an Egyptian identity Rome underwent various changing degrees of is fascinating: it occurs not only in Egypt but enthusiasm, but from the time of Gaius in Italy and even in Rome, even though its (Caligula, 37–41 AD) was permanently estab- metropolitan articulation, in the form of his lished and received imperial support (Roullet hieroglyphic inscription, does not seem to 1972: 1-5; Arslan 1997). Despite substantial have been readily understood by contempo- archaeological evidence for Domitian’s Egyp- rary viewers, nor indeed to later ones up to tomania, this is a topic on which Suetonius’ the time of Champollion and even beyond. biography of him provides few clues (for one brief anecdote involving priests of Isis, see Part 2: Themes from a Life Domitian 2). The picture of his Egyptianizing tastes is complicated by a brief glance at his The foregoing narrative is a basis for the more building initiatives elsewhere. Whereas the detailed consideration of particular topics. Circus of Romulus is a short distance beyond These will begin with a reflection on the nar- the walls of Rome, it is farther down the rative itself before proceeding to the related Appian Way that we see evidence of Domit- questions of monumentality, temporality and ian’s Egyptian tastes, namely in the city of meaning. Benevento. This city shows very considerable evidence for Italian interest in religions from Narrative Egypt, particularly the worship of Isis, dating To begin with the most obvious: the foregoing back to the first century BC. According to narrative is divided into segments, arranged in archaeological remains, Domitian appears to reverse chronological order. Whereas the biog-

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raphy of objects is by now a familiar aspect of tion; and they are linked to a high degree with archaeology and anthropology (Gosden and particular persons (Appadurai 1986: 38). But Marshall 1999; cf. Kopytoff 1986; Appadurai equally, it must be emphasized, obelisks are 1986), such biographies usually proceed in commodities not by destination, as in the clas- diachronic fashion, if indeed they are spelled sic deﬁnition of Marx, for whom commodities out rather than merely alluded to. are objects intended for exchange; rather, they To take some recent instances in Classical may be considered commodities by metamor- archaeology, this approach has been used to phosis, in that their physical appropriation is emphasize the role of objects in early Greek secondary to their original use in pharaonic society (Langdon 2001), and to point to the Egypt (Appadurai 1986: 16). presence in Athens of resident aliens at an ear- To reverse the order of the narrative is to give lier period than had been supposed (Papa- the social processes of appropriation priority dopoulos and Smithson 2002; cf. also Whitley over original intentions—metamorphosis over 2002). The biographical conceit is apposite in destination, in Appadurai’s terms. In this case, the case of obelisks both because they are sub- the Piazza Navona obelisk does not have a ject to being moved and because their pharaonic pedigree, in the manner of the Lat- integrity—that is, avoidance of breakage—is eran obelisk, for example (Roullet 1972: 70- crucial. Indeed, narrative per se does not play 71). The unorthodox direction of the current an important part in the landmark collection narrative defaces such a distinction by giving of essays on the biography of objects (Appadu- greater prominence to similarities exhibited rai 1986). Here, the reversal of the usual nar- within the contemporary or modern world, in- rative pattern is part of an experiment in volving popes and tourists, than to differences method. In the case of this obelisk, such an in antiquity, involving emperors and pharaohs. approach brings to light various aspects of its It lends greater value to the present as a point material existence, and in the process defamil- of a departure—from which explorations can iarizes the standard narrative of objects. be made into distant times, and indeed places; On the face of it, obelisks qualify hand- it makes the origin of the artifact seem less like somely to be considered commodities, particu- the moment at which its transcendent mean- larly in the special, luxurious ‘register’ of ing is determined for all time. Domitian’s act of consumption. Such luxury goods should not be inscribing thus emerges in this account as one seen in contrast to everyday necessities, but as moment among many, rather than the making ‘goods whose principal use is rhetorical and of a puzzle that various later people tried to social, goods that are simply incarnated signs. solve, as it might otherwise have seemed in a The necessity to which they respond is funda- more conventional rendition. This is, admit- mentally political’ (Appadurai 1986: 38). The tedly, a difference of emphasis rather than in narrative above easily shows the Piazza absolute terms. But, in preferring the counter- Navona obelisk to be an ‘incarnated sign’, diachronic over the diachronic, the narrative whose manipulations respond to ‘fundamen- replicates the direction of contemporary in- tally political’ needs. Indeed, obelisks fulﬁll all quiry into its past, rather than the shape of its the criteria of luxury goods: restricted access life. This choice may be taken as a response to and complex acquisition (Figure 3), which Edward Said’s comment that ‘beginning im- guarantee their scarcity; ‘semiotic virtuosity, plies return and repetition rather than simple that is, the capacity to signal fairly complex linear progression’ (1975: xiii). social messages’; they require specialized One result of the biographical approach is to knowledge for their ‘appropriate’ consump- provide a variety of contexts for the obelisk,

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Figure 3. Engravings showing the transport of two obelisks from Egypt to Italy (Kircher 1650: 90).

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both its physical being and interpretations of it. Piazza San Pietro in the Vatican had a lengthy Another is to emphasize the uniqueness of the spell in pharaonic Egypt (Roullet 1972: 67- obelisk, that is to say, that the obelisk stands as 69), something apparently unmatched by the one object on its own. It is thus a highly ‘sin- much less ancient Piazza Navona obelisk. Fur- gular’ object, apparently resistant to exchange ther, this does not match other major obelisks or duplication (to use, in an adapted context, a of the city in that it was not part of Pope term from Kopytoff 1986: 68). In this respect, Nicholas V’s grand plan for Rome (1447–55), the obelisks at Rome differ from their original nor was it part of the considerable urban contexts in pharaonic Egypt. It is clear that in designing of Pope Sixtus V and Domenico Egypt obelisks were usually erected in pairs, Fontana. outside temples, whereas in Rome (and subse- A crystallization of specific moments in the quently other major capital cities, including life of the obelisk emerges from the segmen- Constantinople, Paris, Munich, London and tary structure of the narrative. In each case, New York) they were imported and erected on human intervention has specific effects on its an individual basis (Iversen 1968; 1972). Their existence, bringing about what are essentially Roman use at the centers of public spaces usu- changes in its status. In particular, the erec- ally involves individuals rather than pairs, and tion of the obelisk by Domitian and the mov- the same is true of their placing in that city’s ing of it by Maxentius and Innocent are the piazzas since the Renaissance. The one excep- results of human agency. What these seg- tion may be the pair erected in front of the ments do not specifically reveal is the ongoing Mausoleum of Augustus (Iversen 1968: 256-67; existence of the obelisks. While such a point Grenier 1997: 359). While many accounts of might seem sophistic, it is worth insisting obelisks examine the kinds of use to which they upon it because this ongoing existence seems were put, the biographic approach most readily central to its role as a monument. This brings out particular obelisks on an individual longevity is something that does not emerge basis. It also stresses their unitary nature, which explicitly from narratives, though it is some- we can contrast, for example, with other arti- times the theme of artistic evocations, such as facts that have been broken up. One example Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ or Du Pérac’s 16th- is the Paris-Munich relief, a Roman sarcopha- century engraving of the Circus of Maxentius gus from the late Republic whose thematically (1575: folio 40). In both cases, we may note, different parts now reside in two different these are ruined, truly fragmented objects. museums. Ruined or whole, what we witness here is a The segments constituting the narrative cor- phenomenon we can call quiddity—the brute respond to periods, and their compartmental- fact of existence, something that has else- ization is more evident than would usually be where been labeled ‘thingness’ (Thomas the case. (For the purposes of this analysis I 1996: 79). Any overall evaluation of the lives prefer the term ‘segment’ to the very widely of obelisks must balance this fact of survival used ‘fragment’, to convey much the same with the episodes of change, irregular and idea, but without as pointed a connotation of haphazard episodes at that. breakage.) In this sense they reveal a specific Finally, we return to the reversal of chrono- morphology of the narrative. The segmentary logical ordering: what, if anything, does it periods result from known episodes in the life achieve? To disrupt the conventional order- of the Piazza Navona obelisk. In the case of ing of academic discourse is a well-known tac- another obelisk a different periodization would tic, especially when the resultant critique of emerge. For example, the obelisk now at the methodology has a reflexive element (e.g.

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Hodder 1989). In this case, the reversed nar- tourist is merely one viewer among many in rative accentuates, ﬁrstly, the segmentary the present day, and not necessarily represen- quality of the biography of objects. Episodes tative of his or her time. In the present are less liable to blend with each other by this account, we have circumvented the fallacy by approach. This is true even though these choosing to reverse the direction of the nar- episodes are not always clearly divisible, as we rative. We might even point to a paradox see for example in the link between the deci- here: a key feature of any interpretation of the pherment and Domitian’s initial epigraphic obelisk is its long-term existence, its quiddity, act. It is obvious that this episodic quality is, which focuses on a state and is even resistant in part, the result of surviving textual records to narrative; on the other hand, the narrative associated with the obelisk. Secondly, this of its existence is expressed in segmentary approach indicates where the present inquiry episodes, implying change over time. This is a starts by beginning with its most recent his- contradiction, within the physical being of tory as a window into the more distant past. the obelisk, between continuity and change. Beyond that chronological point of departure The unorthodox approach here will have it even suggests a point of view. A more con- served a purpose if it has shown both the pos- ventional alternative might begin with the sibilities and especially the limitations of the most distant past possible, giving it a narra- biography of objects. tive prominence that its greater degree of obscurity does not necessarily merit. One Monumentality and Time danger implicit in a more conventional Another feature of the Piazza Navona obelisk choice of beginning is that it would have nat- seems obvious from a modern point of view, uralized the narrative beginning as an origin, but is striking when compared with the history rather than revealing the degree to which any of medieval and early modern antiquarianism, narrative beginning is the result of choice namely its verticality. In the most immediate (Said 1975). Thirdly, the reversal is an initial sense, the fact that an ancient object today gesture towards the destabilizing of linear nar- stands upright is the issue at stake. In the case rative tout court. Now, the post hoc, ergo of the obelisk, this is because of the building propter hoc fallacy is a feature of many narra- program of Pope Innocent, without whose ini- tives; that is, the implication that when X tiative it might have remained, for some time happened after Y, it happened because of Y. In at least, buried and fragmented at the Circus some cases, the connection between X and Y of Maxentius. At many archaeological sites, may indeed be causal (e.g. Kircher’s use of the choice of whether to rebuild a fallen struc- Pliny and other ancient texts to describe the ture or whether to leave it lying brings the obelisk), but the problem comes when causa- interests of scholars into conﬂict with those of tion is speciously implied. It would be wrong tourists (cf. Zanker 1998: 1-2). Tastes have to assume, for example, that the tourist’s changed over time, and today there is greater appreciation of the obelisk is necessarily hesitancy to reconstruct than there was, say, determined by Kircher, Zoega and Champol- around the turn of the previous century, when lion—at least any more than it is today part of Sir Arthur Evans excavated at Knossos on a single piazza, offering any visitor an appar- Crete. The Piazza Navona obelisk has been ent spatial unity. In this sense, time does not standing since the 17th century, and thus is accumulate. Rather, the contemporary tourist not subject to exactly the same considerations. is one viewer among many, considered over To focus on the verticality of obelisks is to time. One many extrapolate, further, that the give them a place between artifact and archi-

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tecture. On the one hand, the most obvious this sense it is as well to invoke an important comparanda for obelisks, in terms of their ver- study of the ‘entangled objects’ involved in tical aspect, are columns that are part of build- colonial encounters of the Pacific (Thomas ings. Or not part of buildings, to take the case 1991), itself taking inspiration from Edward of the so-called Pillar of Pompey in Alexan- Said’s concept of Orientialism (Said 1978). dria: the frontispiece to the Déscription de There is also a more abstract sense in which l’Egypte is a reminder that obelisk and column the verticality of the obelisk relates to tempo- are part of the same grammar of public archi- rality: we might say that an obelisk provides a tecture. In a few cases, the destruction of the kind of cross-section of time. It provides an building complex has left behind individual entrée into the periods covered on the basis of columns—for example, the three Corinthian historical accident, rather than any systematic pillars supporting part of the architrave of coverage of successive periods of historical Tiberius’ temple of Castor and Pollux (dedi- time. The very idea of a cross-section is a spa- cated 6 AD) in the Forum Romanum. Some- tial metaphor and comes easily from the fore- times columns stand because of restoration going discussion of biographical narrative. On programs. Clearly, therefore, the obelisks merit this note we must consider monumental time, architectural comparison to a limited degree a concept that has already received detailed only. On the other hand, they are artifacts and study with regard to the classical Greek world commodities, something that emerges most (Foxhall 1995). obviously from the fact of their transportation. It is thus with time in mind that we can pose Thus they are, or can be in practice, mobile in the question: What are the features that make ways that architectural structures are not, the obelisk a monument? What are the tem- except in a handful of rare instances. The poralities in which it is implicated? The first Elgin marbles are perhaps a comparable case, question is easily addressed in relation to the but one that merely instances the moving of usual, etymological definition of a monument, artifacts that are detachable from their origi- namely as a spur to memory. The classic ex- nal structures. Larger-scale instances such as pression of this is Horace’s well-known poem, the Pergamon altar in Berlin may be consid- Exegi monumentum aere perennius (‘I have pro- ered exceptions that prove the rule; they are in duced a monument more lasting than bronze’, any case the result of 19th-century industrial- Odes 3.30.1). Here Horace writes about his age technology. In each such case of mobility, poetic creation as the monumentum, using the there arise questions of legitimate ownership. more material kinds of monumentum (e.g. In the case of antiquities at Rome, this has bronze, the pyramids) as the referent of a been an issue more with the so-called Axu- metaphor. The material nature of a monu- mite obelisk, which has been at the center of ment emerges here, and so does the phenom- dispute between Ethiopia and Italy since the enon of intentionality: a monument by this end of World War II. Brought to the Piazza account exists only once someone has in- della Porta Capena in 1937 at Mussolini’s vested it with the power to evoke the past, and behest, this fourth-century artifact sustained intentionally so. By this reckoning Horace’s severe damage during a storm in mid-2002, claim, coming as a seal (sphragis) at the end of after which its fragile state merely intensified his collection, is a performative speech-act: debate (Corriere della Serra 2002). In each of the collection becomes a monumentum by vir- the cases mentioned, there is a significant tue of Horace’s explicitly stated intention to power differential between the source of the that effect. Horace’s literary monumentum is object and the locus of its appropriation. In not a material object in the first instance, but

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is metaphorically deﬁned with reference to the isk represents a process whereby the strange more usual, tangible kind. His intentionality time of Egypt was modernized, assimilated into underlies the extended simile of poetry with the Rome of Augustus. It did so as a dominat- object; one might say that Horace’s use of ing place of memory (lieu de memoire), in the metaphor serves to connect poetry-as-perfor- familiar terms of Pierre Nora (e.g. 1989). Such mance with monumental quiddity. was its relation to the space around it that it It is this sense of the monumental, more connoted, or even denoted, imperial power, than anything, that imbued Egypt, in ancient not least dominion over the Egyptians con- Greek and Roman minds, with a sense of quered when Octavian (later Augustus) ‘strange time’, to adapt an evocative term from defeated the combined forces of Cleopatra VII Hughes (1995: 1). By this I mean a mystical and his rival Marcus Antonius at the battle of sense of time as distant, even irretrievable, Actium in 31 BC. There is no overlooking the antiquity. As we have seen with regard to Plot- politics of appropriation. inus and other ancient authors, this is some- Finally, there is the matter of what Marx thing often connected with Egypt (cf. Fowden called the economic base. It is worth remem- 1993: 14-16; Vasunia 2001: 110-35). Monu- bering that, at the time obelisks were being ments were thus central to the exotic fantasy erected in Rome, Egypt was one of the city’s of Egypt as a land of ancient wisdom. major suppliers of grain. Whereas Rome of the The most obvious sense of monumental mid-Republic could still feed itself from the time, then, is the linear one pointing inﬁnitely Italian hinterland, it was by now so large that towards the antiquity of Egypt. But in the case it relied heavily on the grain-supply (annona) of another obelisk there is a further temporal- from Egypt, and also from North Africa, Sar- ity as well, a cyclical one. When Augustus dinia and Sicily (Rickman 1980: 67-71). This erected an obelisk in the Campus Martius, its superstructure of artistic expression is themati- placing was designed to make it an instrument cally related to its economic base, to use Marx- of time-reckoning, a kind of sundial (gnomon: ian terms. The importation of obelisks thus Grenier 1997: 355-56; cf. Bowersock 1990). appears as a displacement of concerns with the As Pliny the Elder remarks, its alignment was supply of wheat—a less imposing commodity such that this did not remain accurate for long: but one central to the everyday life of the city it had been inaccurate for 30 years already, of Rome. The grain supply of Rome is the sub- either because it had sunk in the soft soil or ject of various kinds of artistic representation else because of the changing alignment of the including the Torlonia relief at Ostia Antica, heavenly bodies (Natural History 36.73). Its but none of these compares with an obelisk’s present location at the Piazza di Montecitorio, monumental scale. What obelisks shared with determined by Pope Pius VI in 1792, places it the corn supply is that both were commodities, amidst markings that recreate its imperial brought from Egypt to Rome, from province to Roman role as a sundial. metropolis; the obelisks differ in the much There is a coexistence of two different tem- greater public visibility they enjoyed. poralities here for ancient Romans: on the one hand, the long-range, linear, strange time of Meaning Egyptian antiquity, and on the other a scheme How can we go about trying to understand the of time-reckoning that articulates the cycle of meaning of the Piazza Navona obelisk? Should the year—one that is in keeping with Julius we imagine that it emerges principally from Caesar’s calendrical reforms and thus more the artifact itself, or from the inscription on it? modern. By virtue of this coexistence, the obel- Given the episodic nature of the narrative,

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this is something that we must approach with there is a direct connection between name regard to specific contexts, that is, different and meaning, between signifier and signified. communities of interpretation (cf. Davis 1997, This suggests an essentializing notion of drawing on the reception theory of literature). meaning, according to which an original (and Our analysis proceeds from the assumption true) meaning of obelisks preexisted all possi- that we are talking here about historically ble later contexts. (As we shall see below, specific social contexts for the creation of when Ammianus interprets the inscription on meaning, rather than transcendent meanings the Lateran obelisk he responds in different for all time, meanings that are supposedly ways to the idea that language is the key to its inherent in the object itself. It is as well here meaning.) to take note of a recent attempt to determine Yet for Pliny, the marvel of obelisks emerges the meaning of ancient Roman interests in as much from the circumstances of their trans- Egypt and its objects, in light of contexts that portation as from the objects themselves: this are religious, decorative or political; but it may is a major theme of his passage on obelisks. be asked to what extent these contexts can be Their journey to Rome required nothing short separated from each other (Versluys 2002). of an engineering feat, merely one of many in In the search for ancient meanings, there the lives of obelisks. There are in fact four dif- are two ancient texts concerning obelisks that ferent phases in Pliny’s narrative, which moves are of great significance, the elder Pliny’s Nat- between the various obelisks known to him ural History and Ammianus Marcellinus’ Res rather than focusing on any one in particular: gestae. Neither mentions this specific obelisk, erection at Thebes (involving Ramses II and and indeed Pliny died two years before his son); the move downstream to Alexandria Domitian came to power. But both provide (Ptolemy II Philadephus); the move across the points of entry into the question of the mean- Mediterranean to Italy (Augustus); and, ing of obelisks in the Roman world. Pliny’s finally, recontextualization in the city of Rome account of marble in book 36 includes a sec- (again Augustus). Significantly, for Pliny, it tion in which he considers obelisks, the prod- was a greater accomplishment (maius opus) to uct of a special kind of colored marble. In fact move and erect than to quarry it (36.67). Thus marble provides the subject of that entire Pliny views obelisks both as product (that is, as book of Pliny’s encyclopedia. Obelisks, seen objects made from marble) and as process (its in this context, are interesting as objects in transportation). There is a further clue to sug- their own right, that is, as products made of gest that this sense of process was not limited marble. Pliny’s larger context for the discus- to Pliny’s thought. Both the emperors Augus- sion of marble is thus marked by his overrid- tus and Gaius made sure that the ships that ing concern with luxury and the moral had transported obelisks were sunk and then problems it raises (cf. Beagon 1992: 190-94). displayed in dry dock in order to celebrate the Pliny’s second sentence about obelisks fact of their transportation. Until they sank, addresses the question of their meaning: radio- these ships became tourist attractions in their rum eius [sc. solis] argumentum in effigie est, et own right, says Pliny (spectatis admodum ita significatur nomine Aegyptio (‘it symbolically nauibus, ‘the ships having been much gazed represents the sun’s rays, and is named accord- upon’, Natural History 36.70). ingly in Egyptian’, 36.64). From this we can This is not the only obelisk to inspire fasci- conclude that the issue of meaning did engage nation for its transportation. By way of a mod- Pliny, and that he considered this meaning to ern comparison for this sense of process, there be linked with the Egyptian language. For him are the articles in Blackwood’s Magazine and

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the London Illustrated News, focusing even Ammianus shares with Pliny a concern for more exclusively on the process whereby the the ways in which obelisks become part of a Cleopatra’s Needle obelisks traveled from process. But there is also a distinctive feature of Alexandria to London and New York (Hay- his account: the longevity of the obelisk ward 1978). is at odds with the mortality of the humans Closer to Pliny’s time, there is the base of the that interacted with it. In fact, in Ammianus’ Hippodrome obelisk in Istanbul (Bruns 1935; account mortality and hubris together are Safran 1993). Moved by Constantius II, this aspects of human interactions with the obel- artifact is a monument not only to the mon- isks. Ammianus’ biography of the obelisk is archs linked with it, but in particular to the centered on a series of episodes, which involve process by which they were moved. The text significant individuals. If his discussion of the on the base begins, ‘I have been instructed to obelisk is itself a digression in his account of heed the serene masters and to carry the palm Constantius’ reign, then there is further a sub- [of victory] from deceased despots—a hard digression on the original location of that obel- task, once upon a time’ (difficilis quondam, isk. Thebes was where the Persian emperor dominis parere serenis | iussus et extinctis palmam Cambyses nearly lost his life while besieging portare tyrannis). Difficilis here is a transferred the city in a freak accident involving his dag- epithet: syntactically it refers to the obelisk ger; that is where the Roman governor Gallus itself, but in context it obviously denotes the took his own life during the reign of Augustus. effort involved in erecting or moving it. On While these two episodes seem merely to add these lines, a new study of exceptional building incidental detail to the description of Egyptian in the Roman world goes as far as to suggest Thebes, they underline a context of hubris. that ‘[s]ome of the value of ingenuity lay in the It is thus clear that both of the two ancient temporary, constructional aspects that left no texts about obelisks are concerned with their obvious signs in the finished structure, but meaning; and that in both cases their meaning were an essential part of the achievement and is conceived through a moralizing lens. wonder for contemporaries who watched the Beyond that, what can we conclude about the process of construction’ (DeLaine 2002: 213). meaning of obelisks with regard to the emperor To focus in this way on obelisks as process is Domitian himself? This is much harder to to follow the lead of a major new study of the answer, since we have no source directly com- premodern Mediterranean, focusing as it does posed by the emperor, or indeed one that is on connectivities within Mediterranean space sympathetic to him. But we do know that he (Horden and Purcell 2000: 123-72). This had a strong interest in things Egyptian, as examination of links between different parts emerges not only from Rome but also from of the fragmented Mediterranean landscape— smaller cities such as Benevento. We also underlined with a view to food production in know that Domitian’s Egyptianizing interests the first instance—pertains in surprising ways had considerable precedent, not least in the to this very different kind of commodity. The emperor Augustus (Roullet 1972: 42-45). mobility of obelisks served as emblematic for The strangeness of his decision to have the Rome’s power to move commodities within obelisk inscribed in hieroglyphics deserves the Mediterranean, particularly to its imperial attention, especially when it goes against a center. If the corn supply was the kind of com- common-sensical notion of comprehensibility. modity that kept the inhabitants of the city A recent survey of inscriptions under the alive, it was the obelisks that answered their Roman empire reaches the following conclu- rulers’ desire and need to assert their power. sion:

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Writing contributed to the monument outline an entire system of linguistic signi- through its capacity to communicate things fication centered on obelisks. Many aspects of that could not be portrayed in a single pic- this work indicate its importance to Kircher: torial image, a sequence of offices held, for its sheer length, his readiness to extrapolate example, a military as well as a civic career, from the single artifact to a generalized system priesthoods as well as magistracies and per- of language, and from that to the wisdom of all haps a notable benefaction. It also con- ages. For Kircher, the Piazza Navona obelisk tributed a name (Woolf 1996: 28). possessed, above all else, ‘semiotic virtuosity’ This view is persuasive enough with regard (Appadurai 1986: 38). to the kinds of writing Woolf has in mind. But Finally, then, to what extent is it possible or the obelisk evidences a different kind of writ- even desirable to be seeking after the meaning, one that did not communicate informa- ing(s) of an obelisk? Firstly, the changes of tion in the same way as those discussed by the context, centered on their physical move- author. Thus the quotation also serves to ment, are one way of deflecting the conversa- emphasize the unusual character of Domitian’s tion from the idea that meaning is something speech-act. This choice points to an emperor specific, something that can be articulated that sought to present himself in the image of and described. The brute fact of existence is one of his subject nations. The statuette of itself a kind of answer to the meanings of an him in pharaonic garb at Benevento bears this obelisk, and indeed it is something that over- out. While the principle is thus familiar, what arches the historical particularities of the dif- marks out Domitian’s use of hieroglyphs is its ferent episodes discussed above. Quiddity metropolitan setting: the obelisk is something emerges as a kind of radical state of being, of displayed in the city of Rome, not in the existing through time. It is not the same thing provinces. It is likely that there is an earlier as essentialism, since it transcends rather instance of the copying of a Middle Egyptian than ignores multiplicities of context. Rather, inscription being done at Rome, namely that the intransitiveness of meaning is what we of Augustus’ inscription in the Circus Max- find at different points in the life of the imus, which was clumsily repeated on that obelisk—less a sense of what the obelisk and now at Trinità dei Monti (Roullet 1972: 71; its writing mean, than the fact that they mean Grenier 1997: 358). But the Piazza Navona something. By this reckoning, meaning is obelisk differs in Domitian’s use of his own something that remains just beyond grasp. name, together with those of his relatives, The scorn Kircher’s work has attracted before however clichéd the form of the inscription his rehabilitation of recent years may come thus added. from his insistence on having cracked the It appears from this discussion that nobody code, of having solved the puzzle of meaning was more concerned with the meaning of the (e.g. Pope 1999: 30-33; contrast Iversen 1993: obelisk as Kircher. Whereas Pliny was content 97 and Brauen 1982 for more sympathetic with a brief statement on their relation to the treatments). Even if Kircher’s attempts to sun, a statement prominently placed in his dis- interpret the hieroglyphs bear little resem- cussion of obelisks, for Kircher obelisks gener- blance to modern readings, they suggest, in ally and the Piazza Navona obelisk in their lofty metaphysical abstractions, a sense particular become nothing short of an obses- of this intransitiveness of meaning. sion. The thrust of Obeliscus Pamphilius is to

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Conclusion which to gain access to the meanings of the The most important point to stress, by way of obelisk. Narrative here is a conglomeration of conclusion, is that monumentality, the quali- micronarratives. The advantage of segmenting ties that define a monument, should and can be the narrative of the object’s life into micronar- examined with regard to meaning. By this ratives is that is explicitly allows for both continuity and rupture; it avoids a sense of reckoning, meaning is not something transcen- causality between them, though without fore- dent, but relative to particular communities of closing the possibility that there might indeed interpretation. A major concern of this paper be links. Indeed, (perceived) past meanings has been to open up the question of meaning can influence a reinterpretation, but equally it in relation both to physical amendment and to would be wrong to assume that they must do so. other changes of context—without deciding it If there is one pervasive meaning that applies dogmatically. By this reckoning, context to various episodes, and comes as close as we emerges as both the historical contingency can to a definition of monumentality, it is quid- informing its communities of interpretation dity. This quality, that which makes an object and the chance survival of clues that make it keep on keeping on, is a phenomenon that possible to recover those contingencies. Cer- both underlies and defies narrative. When tainly monumentality can be examined with social process has become so central to the regard to original intentions and it is clear that biography of objects (esp. Kopytoff 1986; cf. the conscious act of memorializing is one part Baudrillard 1994), this concept offers an impor- of monumentality; but that is by no means tant corrective. where the story ends. In the case of the Piazza Navona obelisk, movement across the Medi- terranean and within the city of Rome has Acknowledgments been emblematic of changes of social setting, My thanks to JMA’s anonymous referees, who, recontextualizations that bear analysis as much however varied their responses, offered many on temporal as on a spatial axes. suggestions and points to ponder; and espe- The episodes are not exhaustive, as it would cially to John Cherry. The initial stimulus to have been possible to narrate other moments think about obelisks was provided by Kathleen in the life of the obelisk, for example, refer- Coleman’s invitation to lead a Harvard Uni- ences to it in late medieval and later texts and versity Classics seminar, ‘Monuments and illustrations (Roullet 1972: 72-73). Further, Memory’. I learned much from that audience, the fact that these episodes are distinguished in as well as later ones at Greenville, NC (East time should by no means be taken to indicate Carolina University), Oxford (Corpus Christi that all people at a particular time thought the College) and Stellenbosch (Pacific Rim Roman same thing. It is by no means likely, for one, Literature Seminar); and from colleagues in that Kircher’s views were widely held by his Duke’s Mediterranean Studies Initiative and contemporaries. Rather, texts such as his give Classical Studies department. The standard the opportunity, however limited, of exploring disclaimer applies. the question of meaning in different contexts. Each episode could bear expansion; indeed, each context is infinitely expandable. But they About the Author do serve to make an important, if obvious, Grant Parker’s interest in Roman exotica and point: that narrative is an important means by orientalism has thus far related mostly to

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