Sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, early to mid 3rd cent. B.C., Tuff
The Vatican Museums, Rome
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Unknown Sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, early to mid 3rd cent. B.C., Tuff The Vatican Museums, Rome As we move into the 3rd century BCE we turn briefly from Greece to Italy, where Rome was engaged in the third of a series of Samnite Wars (we saw the First Samnite War possibly depicted in no. 37 of this series). This sarcophagus, or coffin, belonged – as the inscription tells us – to Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, who held the shared post of head of the Roman state ("consul") in 298 BCE. During the third of the Samnite Wars, fought between Rome and neighbouring populations in Italy, Scipio Barbatus led the Roman troops to victory against the Etruscans (whose funerary urns and sarcophagi we saw earlier in the series) at Volterra. Scipio Barbatus stands at the beginning of what would be a century of Roman conquest across the Mediterranean, building the foundations of the vast Roman empire.
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Before we leave the late classical period to move to the Hellenistic period proper, I wanted to visit one last artefact, and perhaps one of my favourites from the ancient world – this gorgeous gold-sheet myrtle wreath, found in the antechamber to the tomb of Philip II of Macedon in Vergina, Greece. Thought to have belonged to Meda of Odessus (d. 336 BCE), Philip's fifth (or sixth – the order is contested) wife, it is a stunning example of late classical/early Hellenistic craftsmanship. Myrtle blossoms – a symbol of Aphrodite, goddess of love, in the ancient world – and leaves are formed from hammered sheets of gold, embossed and incised with details, and then attached to the crown itself with gold wire. It forms the counterpart to an equally famous gold oak wreath found at Vergina, thought perhaps to have been Philip's own: just as the myrtle was associated with Aphrodite, the oak was the symbol of Zeus, king of the gods, and thus a particularly appropriate match for the king of Macedon. Whichever of the royal queens of the Macedonian house this myrtle wreath was created to commemorate, its lifelike appearance and detailed treatment is a real testament to the achievement of Macedonian goldsmiths and jewellers.
This mosaic, featuring the clash between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia at the Battle of Issus in 333 BCE, ranks among some of the most famous works of art from the ancient world. It is made up – as the close-up image of Alexander shows – of millions of tiny tesserae, tiny coloured tiled arranged together to form the scene. It was originally set in the floor of the tablinum or 'receiving room' of the House of the Faun in Pompeii, but now resides in the Archaeological Museum at Naples (a modern copy stands in its place in Pompeii). Although it is dated to around 100 BCE, it is likely that it was a copy of an earlier Hellenistic painting dating to the early 3rd century BCE, not long after Alexander's death in 323 BCE. It's fascinating to compare the depiction of Alexander here with his image on contemporary coins like the one minted by Lysimachus.
#HOCW41: Coin with portrait of Alexander. From Lampsecus (Lapseki), Turkey. Circa 305–281 BCE.1/3/2017 Unknown Silver tetradrachm of Lysimachus, c.305-281 B.C., Silver Weight: 17.25g The British Museum, London With this coin, we come at last to Alexander III of Macedon, or, as he is more commonly known, Alexander the Great: one of the most famous figures of classical antiquity, whose conquests in the east both changed the face of the Greek world and shaped the later Roman empire. This coin in fact comes from after his time – Alexander died in 323 BCE in Babylon, a date which is often heralded (quite artificially) as the end of the classical period in Greece and the start of what we now call the 'Hellenistic age' – and was minted between 305 and 281 BCE; but its obverse (the top image) quite clearly shows a portrait of Alexander. He is depicted, as he often is in both sculpture and on coins, with a limpid, upwards turning gaze, full mouth and tousled hair; the horns of Zeus Ammon on his head indicate both his divine lineage (his mother Olympias was said to have slept with Zeus) and his status as chosen ruler of the gods. It was minted by one of Alexander's successors in the kingdoms into which his conquests were subsequently split, Lysimachus: we can see his name stamped across the reverse, Lysimachou basileōs, "[the coin of] Lysimachus the king". This was a trend which was to continue through the Hellenistic period and across the newly founded Greek kingdoms from Greece all the way across Turkey through Iran into Afghanistan, and which marked the period of the Diadochoi or "successors" of Alexander. The branding of their coins both with images of Alexander, and with the likenesses of the "successors" themselves, was a key propaganda strategy and was one of their central legacies to the later Roman emperors, who employed the same method to spread their images across the empire.
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AuthorEmily Hauser is a classicist and researcher at Harvard and author of historical fiction recovering the lost women of the ancient world, including FOR THE MOST BEAUTIFUL and FOR THE WINNER. Archives
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