Fashion in the Graves a Study of the Motifs Used to Decorate the Grave Altars, Ash Chests and Sarcophagi Made in Rome in the Early Pire (To the Mid Second
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Fashion in the graves a study of the motifs used to decorate the grave altars, ash chests and sarcophagi made in Rome in the early pire (to the mid second century A.D.), Glenys Mary Davies Presented for the degree of Ph.D., Institute of Archaeology, University of London. August 1978. Summary The purpose of this study is to explain why cremation was re- placed by inhumation and cinerary monuments by sarcophagi in Rome during the second century A.D. by looking at the decoration of the monuments from Tiberius to the mid second century.Part one examines briefly the treatment of Boman funerary symbolism by previous scholars, the literary and epigraphic evidence for Roman eschatological belief In the period, and the nature of the contemporary decorative reper- toire used in non—funerary contexts. These studies suggest that Roman eschatological ideas were somewhat vague, and that most of the motifs used on the funerary monuments were in common use in other decorative arts: one should not, therefore, expect the decoration of the funerary monuments to contain allusions to a deep or coherent eschatology. The final chapter of Part one deals with the evidence for the chronology of the monuments. Part two looks at the decoration of the cinerary monuments motif by motif, considering in particular their possible symbolic interpretations. The conclusion is that there is little evidence to suggest that this decoration was designed to convey complex or deeply held eschatological beliefs, but only the vaguest ideas about heroisation and survival after death. Part three deals with the decoration of the garland sarcophagi. The decorative repertoire, though reduced, is not radically different from that used on the cinerary monuments,the predominance of myth- ological (mainly non—bacchic) scenes being its major feature. These, however, do not seem to express any coherent philosophical or religious concept of death and the afterlife which might explain the change in burial rite. The conclusion is that a group of educated, probably noble, families were responsible for introducing sarcophagi to Roman society, but that this does not reflect a radical change in eschatological ideas, only a change in fashion. Contents. Volume I: Part I: The Religious and Artistic Background. pp. 1-120. Chapter 1: The Nature of Ronan ftnerary Symbolism. p. 1. Chapter 2s Afterlife Beliefs: the Evidence of Literature and the Inscriptions. p. 15. Chapter 3: Funerary Sculpture and the Decorative Arts of the Early Ethpire. P. 37. Chapter 4: Cremation and Inhumation. p. 67. Chapter 5: The Chronological Basis. P. 77. Part II: The Decoration of the Cinerary Monuments. pp. 121-327. Chapter 6: Representations of the Dead and Images of Life and Death. p. 121. Door motif, p. 122; Reclining figures, p. 155; People at work and scenes of everyday life, p. 175; Portraits, p. 181. Chapter 7: Mythological Scenes and Figures. p. 192. The rape of Proserpina, p. 192; Other myth- ological scenes, p. 195; Gods and divinities, p. 200; Bacchic scenes, p. 207; Animals suck- ling children, p. 214; Nereids and Tritons, p. 221; Victories, p. 227; Cupids, p. 229; Griffins, p. 239; Sphinxes, p. 246. Chapter 8: The Animal Kingdom. p. 250. Animals, p. 252; Birds, p. 264; Cock fight, p. 287; Dolphins, p. 293. Chapter 9: The Minor Motifs. p. 298. Plants, p. 298; Cult objects, p. 308 Heads and masks, p. 315; conclusion, p. 324. Part III: The Garland Sarcophagi. pp. 328-372. Chapter 10: The Decoration of the Garland Sarcophagi. p. 328. Mythological scenes, p. 330; Bacchic scenes, p. 347; Rural sacrifice scenes, p. 352; Nereid and cupid scenes, p. 356; Masks, p. 360; Griffin sarcophagi, p. 363; Conclusion, p. 367. Appendix of inscriptions. P. 373. Bibliography. p. 378. Tables and Figures. 1. Comparison between the motifs used in the decoration of the cinerary monuments and those in other decorative arts. p. 63. 2. Diagram showing the development of the garland styles on the cinerary monuments. p. 86. 3. Diagram showing the stylistic development of the garland sarcophagi. p. 112. 4. Table showing the use of dolphins on the cinerary monuments. p. 296. Volume II. Catalogue — Index of the monuments — List of Plates — Plates. Part I: The Religious and Artistic Background. Part I: The Religions and Artistic Background. Chapter 1. The Nature of Roman Funerary Symbolism. It is perhaps natural that the religious scepticism of the twentieth century should create a lively interest in the eschatological beliefs of imperial Rome, for they sometimes seem to display a complexity unparalleled in modern thought and yet sometimes seen as sceptical as our own. It is also inevitable that each generation's and each person's interpretation of Ronan funerary symbolism should reflect their religious prejudices: it is a subject on which it is difficult to be totally objective. Nevertheless, the twentieth century, because of its scepticism, has produced attempts both to define the criteria by which the symbols are interpreted, and to reconsider the basis for old evaluations. Research in recent years has produced rigorous and exhaustive examinations of some of the funerary motifs, a certain amount of iconoclasm directed against hitherto well-established interpretations, and a few new speculative ideas. However, such work centres around the richly decorated sarcophagi of the third and fourth centuries A.D.: the decoration of the earlier monuments - the ash chests and altars associated with cremation and the earliest sarcophagi - has attracted less attention. Walter Altmann's monograph, Die a a romischen Grabaltare der Kaiserzeit, published in 1905, remains today the only general study devoted to the cinerary monuments (1). Altmann's work was designed to draw attention to a type of monument which, although found in most eighteenth and nineteenth century collections of antiquities, had always been relegated to 2. the ranks of lesser sculpture in the various catalogues (2). His approach was mainly typological, his aim to describe and catalogue the major and most representative pieces: his book remains today an adequate introduction to the monuments, although many have since been discovered, moved, or lost. Altmann's efforts did inspire one study of the symbolism of the monuments — Vittorio Macchioro's Ii simbolismo nelle figurazioni sepolcrali romane (3). Macchioro attempted a comparison of the motifs used on a variety of Roman funerary monuments, especially cinerary monuments, with parallels drawn mainly from the vases of Magna Graecia, coinage and terracotta plaques. Although such a work might seem to anticipate much of the subject of the present thesis, it is inadequate in its analysis, and, as will be seen, I can agree with very few of Macchioro's conclusions, methods or premises. Nonetheless, this book remains the only examination of this group of monuments as a whole with a view to elucidating the symbolism of their decoration — more recent studies have been concerned with cinerary monuments only in passing. Franz Cumont's seminal work on funerary symbolism (4), for example, deals specifically with a few pieces, but on the whole he is concerned with monuments made at a later date and in more distant parts of the Empire than these altars. Other studies have dealt with stylistic aspects of the monuments, problems of dating, or individual motifs, but not with the whole range of decoration and its symbolic content as a whole. This is all the more surprising in that these monuments belong at the beginning of a sequence,to the period of the birth of Roman funerary symbolism when motifs might but did not always have a symbolic meaning, and were often ambiguous. One of my aims is to consider whether the sculptors and their patrons intended the decoration of the funerary monuments of the early Empire to have a hidden meaning and cohesive symbolism. In this first chapter, therefore, I propose a critical examination of the ideas which have already been expressed by scholars on the nature of Roman funerary symbolism. A question which must be answered before all others is whether we are justified in assuming that the motifs used on the monuments were designed to express specifically eschatological ideas. Macchioro believed (and others have implied a similar belief) that the funerary use of a motif caused it to become symbolic of death and the afterlife even if the same motif was in common decorative use in non—funerary contexts. This is not an assumption to be made lightly. It appears to be based on the hypothesis that as the motifs used in Roman funerary art formed the basis of early Christian symbolism the religious and funerary art of the early Empire can be treated as if it were simply a pagan, pre—Christian, equivalent of Christian symbolism: thus each individual motif would have a specific symbolic meaning as the anchor, fish or good shepherd did in early Christianissomegraphy. This kind of interpretation has been succinctly expressed by Jocelyn Toynbee, who suggests that in the funerary art of the Romans there was a 'pictorial language', which has a vocabulary and a grammar, and for which a dictionary could be compiled. Thus, once the key is known, grave altars could be read like books, and 'all sarcophagus—designs are, in fact, allegories, symbols, or personifications 'within the orbit of sepulchral imagery' (5). She suggests that garlands represent the tomb offerings, cupids are the souls of the dead (and if vintaging allude to the bliss of paradise), protomes of ravening lions represent death's destructiveness, vigilant griffins guarding the tomb allude to the inviolability of the dead, marriage scenes to unending love and harmony, rape scenes (as of Proserpina) to the 'rape of the soul from the body at death, and Oceanus, Tritons and Nereids to the journey to the Isles of the Blessed.