THE EQUINE CUCKOO: STATIUS’ ECUS MAXIMUS DOMITIANI IMPERATORIS AND THE FLAVIAN FORUM

Michael Dewar

Most contemporary visitors to the Roman Forum not unnaturally con- ceive of it as stretching from the Arch of Septimius Severus and the foot of the Tabularium in the west all the way to the Arch of Titus and the foreground of the Colosseum in the east. They are encouraged to do so not least by the fact that this is the area bounded by the gates set up by the modern authorities, and marked by the old ticket booths where, for a few thousand lire, it used to be possible to gain entrance to the official archaeological park. Although the lira and the entrance fee have both gone the way of Nineveh and Tyre, they thus continue to exercise a mildly pernicious influence on visitors’ perceptions. For in truth, the area so enclosed falls into two distinct parts. To the east there is the upper Via Sacra area, where the road snakes between the Velia to the north and the lower slopes of the Palatine to the south, and then there is the Forum Romanum proper in the west. It is in this western area that we find the open space in front of the Comitium, framed by the Julian basilica on the south, the temples of the Deified Julius and of Castor and Pollux to the east and the south-east respec- tively, the Basilica Aemilia and the Senate House to the north, and the temples of Concord and Saturn and the Rostra filling in the western end. In antiquity, with the various buildings pressing in and cutting off one’s view, all this will have been more obvious to the eye and the Forum more clearly marked off, or at least so it must have been before Hadrian had Apollodorus of Damascus slice off the top of the Velia in order to make the platform for his immense temple of Venus and Rome. The area of the upper Via Sacra, leading on to the Colosseum, pro- vides a clear example of Flavian propaganda, of a kind that is well attested in literature. Critics are unanimous in agreeing that Nero’s Golden House is presented in Flavian and Trajanic authors as the grandiose folly of an egotistical tyrant, the shameful confiscation of land that belonged to the Roman People in order to make it serve the

66 MICHAEL DEWAR demands of the most outrageous private luxury.1 The lake that adorned the pleasure gardens of Nero’s palace was filled in by the Flavians to form the site for their mammoth amphitheatre, a building which served both as a locus for public entertainment rather than private debaucheries and also as a locus for the public execution and humilia- tion of the enemies of the state. The theme of public rather than pri- vate luxury continues with the Baths of Titus built just to the north of the amphitheatre. In addition, the new Flavian dynasty is said to shame the old and degenerate one by surpassing it in pietas: Nero had left incomplete the precinct and temple of the Deified Claudius on the Caelian hill to the east, but this lamentable disrespect towards his adoptive father is rectified by Vespasian, who, having been raised to prominence by Claudius as one of his favoured generals, now fulfills the obligations of pietas as they apply to himself and finishes the con- struction.2 As Martial puts it in the best-known formulation of the theme, Rome has been restored to herself: hic ubi sidereus propius uidet astra colossus et crescunt media pegmata celsa uia, inuidiosa feri radiabant atria regis unaque iam tota stabat in urbe domus. hic ubi conspicui uenerabilis Amphitheatri erigitur moles, stagna Neronis erant. hic ubi miramur uelocia munera thermas, abstulerat miseris tecta superbus ager. Claudia diffusas ubi porticus explicat umbras, ultima pars aulae deficientis erat. reddita Roma sibi est et sunt te praeside, Caesar, deliciae populi, quae fuerant domini. (Mart. Sp. 2.1–12) Here where the starry colossus looks upon the constellations from a closer vantage-point and the lofty scaffolding rises in the middle of the road, once there shone the hated halls of a savage tyrant, and now in the whole City there stood a single house. Here where there rises the vener- able mass of the Amphitheatre, was once Nero’s lake. Here where we gaze in wonder at the hot baths, a speedy gift, an arrogant stretch of land had deprived poor men of their homes. Where the Claudian colon- nade unfolds its far-spreading shade, was the furthest wing where the

1 See in general Griffin 1984, 133–42. The most significant ancient sources are Tacitus (Ann. 15.42), Suetonius (Nero 31, 39.2) and Mart. Sp. 2 (quoted on this page). 2 See Suet. Ves. 9.1 fecit ... templum ... Diui ... Claudi in Caelio monte coeptum quidem ab Agrippina sed a Nerone prope funditus destructum.