• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

BaBesch 69 (1994) Castor, Caracalla, and the so-called Statue of Sol in the North Carolina Museum of Art Steven E. Hijmans INTRODUCTION by Aurelian (270-275) as Dominus et Deus Imperii Romani. Many believe that for the next 50 years he Ten years ago, the North Carolina Museum of Art was one of the most important gods of Rome, until acquired a Roman statue which Cornelius C. his cult, like that of all pagan gods, was supplanted Vermeule has identified as Caracalla in the guise of by Christianity2. Helios-Sol, and has dated to 205 A.D. (Vermeule This interpretation of the Roman sun-god or 1990). According to Vermeule, the statue not only sun-gods, still the most common one in modern represents Caracalla as Sol, but also links him scholarship, is not shared by Vermeule. He quite closely to Alexander the Great, for in many rightly stresses the fact that archaeological respects its features closely echo portraits of the evidence (hitherto usually ignored), shows that the Macedonian ruler. Vermeule believes that the cult of the sun-god never disappeared from Rome, Roman sun-god Sol was ultimately derived from a but was present throughout the first, second and syncretism of Alexander and Helios, which would third centuries A.D. It was this continuous Roman explain how this linkage of Caracalla, Alexander, cult of the sun, he feels, that inspired the statue in and Sol/Helios came about (Figs. 1-2). I disagree Raleigh, and not some new Syrian cult. with his conclusions, however. As I shall argue in Ultimately, Vermeule traces the origins of the cult this article, Vermeule exaggerates both the links of Sol in Rome to Hellenistic Egypt, and claims between the Roman Sol and the Greek Helios, as that it represents a fusion of Alexander the Great well as those between Helios and Alexander. In and the sun-god. In his words, “the Hellenistic fact, I do not believe that the statue represents Sol Greeks saw the rising sun as a personified symbol (in any guise) at all, and I shall present an alterna- of Alexander the Great’s conquests of the East, and tive interpretation of the statue in this article1. I would like to thank Dr. E. Ivison, Prof. Dr. M. Maaskant- Kleibrink, and Dr. E.M. Moormann for their helpful comments SOL INVICTUS and advice, and Dr. M.E. Soles, curator of Ancient Art in the North Carolina Museum of Art, for her assistance and interest. The Roman sun-god is an enigmatic figure. Fig. 1-2, 8-9 Photographs courtesy of the North Carolina Usually it is suggested that there were actually two Museum of Art. Fig. 3 L’Orange 1935, 91 fig. 4e, photograph DAIR 1935.545. Fig. 4 Photograph DAIR 4713 detail. Fig. 5 subsequent sun-gods in Rome. The first, Sol Photograph DAIR 57.319. Fig. 10 L’Orange 1935, 91 fig. 4k, Indiges, was a god whose origins should be traced photograph DAIR 1935.551. Fig. 11 Photograph DAIR to the earliest existence of Rome. He is considered 61.1950. Fig. 12 Photograph DAIR 68.4972. to have been a minor god, and it is said that his cult 1 I am currently involved in the study of the Imperial Roman sun-god, Sol Invictus, and therefore became interested in this had disappeared completely before the second cen- statue; it was the first time I came across a surviving full-length tury A.D. Rome, it is claimed, then lacked an statue, identified as an emperor represented as Sol. active cult of the sun-god for almost a century until 2 Literary sources for the Republican Sol Indiges are scant; the totally different, Imperial sun-god Sol Invictus cf.: Var. l. 5,74, Dion. Hal. Ant. 2,50,3, Aug. C.D. 4,23, Paul. Fest. 22,5 ff L. A vetus aedes apud circum for Sol (Indiges?) is came to the fore in Rome under the Severi, and mentioned by Tacitus (Ann. 15,74,1); cf. Tert. Spect. 8,1. most notably under Heliogabulus (218-222). This Quintilian (Inst. 1,7,12) mentions another temple on the sun-god, most scholars believe, was not Roman at Quirinal and Sol Indiges also had a temple in Lavinium (Dion all, but one of the Syrian Ba’alim. The cult prac- Hal. Ant. 1,55,2; Plin., NH 3,56). For feast-days dedicated to Sol (August 8th & 9th, December 11th) cf. Fast. Vall. CIL I2 p. tices associated with him, which were said to 240, Allif. loc. cit. p. 217, Amit. loc. cit. p. 244; Lyd. Mens. 4, include self-castration, ritual prostitution, and even 155. Little has been written on Sol Indiges; cf. Koch 1933; child sacrifices, are thought to have been so offen- Richard 1976. For the common position that Sol Invictus was a sive to the Romans that the cult did not win many Syrian god, formulated in the 19th century, cf. Halsberghe 1972 & 1984. Although doubts have been voiced by Seyrig adherents in Rome at first. After the death of 1971, 1972 and Chirassi Colombo 1979, this position is still Heliogabulus it is thought that Sol Invictus virtu- generally adhered to. I am currently preparing an article revis- ally disappeared from view until he was reinstated ing this point of view. On Heliogabulus cf. Frey 1989. 165 Fig. 1. Marble statue, identified as Emperor Caracalla in the guise of Helios/Sol; Roman, early 3rd century A.D. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, purchased with funds from the North Carolina Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest). 166 Fig. 2. Marble statue, identified as Emperor Caracalla in the guise of Helios/Sol; Roman, early 3rd century A.D. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, purchased with funds from the North Carolina Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest). 167 infra), nor is there any indication of a significant expansion of Solar worship in the Hellenistic world. Vermeule mentions the colossus of Rhodes, but this statue should be seen in its context. As early as the fifth century B.C. coin-types on Rhodes were dominated by Helios, and this role of Helios as patron deity culminated in the erection of the famous Colossus of that god4. There is no rea- son to suppose any specific influence of Alexander on either the Colossus itself or on the Rhodian cult of Helios. In my view, Sol, whether Indiges or Invictus, was a Roman sun-god, worshipped in Rome continuously from its earliest history to the time of Constantine (and beyond). Links between this Roman Sol and the Greek Helios were no closer than between, for instance, Jupiter and Zeus. Thus if we accept that there was no overriding influence of Alexander on Helios, and no specific link between Helios and Sol, then even if a reference to Alexander was intended in the Roman statue in the North Carolina Fig. 3. Follis, reverse; Sol Invictus; Constantinian period. Museum of Art, such a reference has no direct rel- evance for the suggestion that the statue also repre- sents Sol, or Caracalla as Sol. STATUES OF SOL the young, athletic god with long locks and radiate hair came to take on the divine Macedonian’s fea- The LIMC does not list any surviving full-length tures” (Vermeule 1990, 32). Roman statue securely identified as either Helios or I agree with Vermeule’s implicit rejection of the Sol. Vermeule (1990, 48) does mention two paral- common view that under the Severi a new, Syrian lels, but these statues, though once identified as the sun-god was introduced into Rome. However, sun-god, are now interpreted differently.5 The Vermeule’s own reconstruction of the cult of Sol, statue in North Carolina, if it truly represents Sol, and notably his contention that it derives from would therefore be virtually unique. Egypt and the Hellenistic fusion of Alexander and There can be no doubt, however, that full-length Helios, is not satisfactory either. On the one hand, statues of Sol existed in antiquity. According to his line of argument derives from the presumption that many Hellenistically inspired representations 3 On the deified Alexander, notably as thirteenth god (next to of Sol take on the features of Alexander the Great. the dodekatheoi), cf. Kreikenbom 1992, 13. On the problems in He seems to tend to overstress his case, however, general concerning the assimilation or identification of for Smith (1988, 59, 111) rightly warns against the Hellenistic rulers with gods, cf. Smith 1988, 44-45. 4 This prominence of Helios on coins coincides with the found- common confusion of style and content in studies ing of the city of Rhodes in 411 B.C., after the synoikismos of of Hellenistic sculpture. I believe that the majority Ialysos, Kaminos and Lindos; cf. Kreikenbom 1992, 20-21. of the traits that Alexander and Sol have in com- 5 The statue in Paris would sooner be a Lar than Sol (S. mon – in the cases Vermeule refers to – are simply Reinach, Répertoire de la statuaire 1, Paris 1897, 169 nr. 7). The one in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen (F. elements of Hellenistic style in the portrayal of an Poulsen, Catalogue of Ancient Sculpture, Copenhagen 1951, idealized youth. 366 nr. 525, pl. XXXIX) forms part of a group of dubiously Furthermore, there is little firm evidence for a reconstructed statues. The LIMC s.v. Helios (342) mentions it strong link between Alexander and Helios, and cer- under the heading Deutung Unsicher, but it is, in fact, doubtful whether it ever existed in its present form. According to tainly not in Egypt, where he devoted most of his Squarciapino (1943, 38), the fragments of at least five statues attention to Zeus Ammon.

Load more

  10

Copy Link