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.
We can't talk about the 4th century BCE without mentioning Alexander – but we can't mention Alexander without talking about his father, Philip II of Macedon. Philip was the king of the kingdom of Macedon, to the north of Greece, from 359 until 336 BCE, and it was Philip's vision of Macedonian expansion through Greece which was said to have developed the ambitions of his son, Alexander the Great. This small ivory head was discovered in the tomb of Philip II at Vergina in northern Greece, a fantastic archaeological discovery which we'll be exploring more in the next few days. It bears many of the traits which Alexander the Great's portraiture would later take on: the limpid upward gaze, suggesting intercourse with the divine; the slightly turned head; the full, sensuous mouth. When Philip was assassinated in 336 BCE, having placed most of the Greek city-states under Macedonian rule and turning his mind to a planned conquest of Persia, it was his son, Alexander, who would have to take up the mantle.
Unknown Votive Relief to Achilles and Thetis, about 350 B.C., Marble 78.1 × 132.1 × 7.6 cm (30 3/4 × 52 × 3 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles So far in our History of the Classical World in 100 Objects we've come across the heroes of ancient Greek myth and literature – Agamemnon, legendary king of Mycenae, was an early example. But we haven't yet seen a conspicuous feature of ancient Greek culture: hero cults.
The relief above, discovered in Thessaly, gives an example of the cult of a particular (and particularly popular) hero: Achilles. Achilles is pictured on the right, riding in a four-horse chariot with his mother, the goddess Thetis. On the left we see a line of worshippers waiting to greet the hero, wearing the wide-brimmed hats of travellers and accompanied by rams for sacrifice. The inscription beneath the relief gives us some idea of who might have dedicated this object – likely a votive relief in a sanctuary to Achilles, who was born and raised in Thessaly. We can make out the names Lakrates and Gephes – probably the dedicators – as well as a reference to the Achilleides, a religious group and cultic association who claimed descent from Achilles. (A similar group, the Homeridae, said that they were descended from the poet Homer himself.)
This sarcophagus lid is one of my favourite artefacts in the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston. It's in fact one of many similarly executed sarcophagi from the Etruscan civilisation, showing husbands and wives embracing upon the lid of the tomb. The description on the MFA website tells us:
What this description – as useful as it is – doesn't capture, however, is both the incredible skill of the sculpting, and the emotional effect of the two figures represented here. To achieve the illusion of such a fine sheet draped over the couple, including the folded material and the subtle suggestion of their limbs beneath, is a real skill and a testament to the achievements of Etruscan art. At the same time, the locked gaze of the couple, and the way in which their arms knot around each other – hers on the back of his neck, his on her left shoulder – hints at something more than simply a stock representation of a deceased husband and wife. For me, it's one of those uncanny instances which I discussed during the podcast on the Doryphoros, where we're both made aware of the situated culture of the work of art, and, at the same time, find it speaking to us on a direct, emotional level that seems to transcend time and place.
As we move into the late Classical period with the 4th century BCE, we begin with a small marble figurine of Socrates. Although this figurine was probably sculpted well over 200 years after Socrates' death (and maybe more), I've chosen it because we need in our History of the Classical World to mention the death of Socrates in 399 BCE. Socrates was one of the most important philosophical figures of classical Athens – and indeed, one of the most important philosophers to have ever lived, thanks in large part to the writings of his student Plato. His trial on the charge of 'corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods of the state', and subsequent death sentence in 399 BCE, have often been seen to mark the end of the Athenian golden age (along, of course, with the surrender of Athens to Sparta at the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE).
Socrates is described as being notoriously ugly, and the portraits of him that survive from the ancient world show him in a similar manner to the statuette above: pot-bellied, with a broad flat nose and balding head. To what extent this was an accurate representation — and whether or not Socrates was in fact as ugly as he was said to be, or if this was an early example of the classic opposition between brains and beauty — we will unfortunately never know. Original attributed to Kresilas Portrait bust of Pericles, 2nd century CE Roman copy of a 5th century BCE Greek original, Marble Height: 58.42 cm The British Museum, London Today is our last day in the classical period of the 5th century BCE, and I thought there couldn't be a more fitting epitaph to the classical age of Athenian democracy than this bust of the statesman Pericles, under whose leadership the final form of the democratic state took shape, the Delian League was created (a tribute alliance which he effectively transformed into an Athenian empire), and the Parthenon was built.
As we saw with the statue of the Doryphoros earlier in this series, Greek bronze statues rarely survive, and are often only known to us because of Roman marble copies – like this one, a copy of a late 5th century BC bronze statue of Pericles attributed to the sculptor Kresilas. We can identify it as Pericles because of the Greek word inscribed beneath the bust: ΠΕΡΙΚΛΗΣ (Pericles). It was found at the Roman emperor Hadrian's villa in Tivoli, Italy. Hadrian was a notorious Hellenophile, and the presence of a bust of the most famous Athenian statesman in his country villa attests to his interest in modelling himself on his Greek forebears. |
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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