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Die Frauen Des Römischen Kaiserhauses : Eine Untersuchung Ihrer Bildlichen Darstellung Von Livia Bis Iulia Domna. (The Women of the Roman Imperial House. A Study of Their Images from Livia to Iulia Domna)
No full textBased on a systematic study of all relevant coins, statues, inscriptions, honorary titles and funerary orations from the Julio-Claudian to the beginning of the Severan dynasties, the book investigates how female members of the Roman Imperial house were represented in public.Although effectually installing a monarchy (the principate), Octavian/Augustus promulgated his accession to power and rule as a restoration of the republic (res publica restituta) after the civil wars. In such a context, framing the prominent position of the imperial family’s female members proved to be a difficult task. Any evocation of a monarchic dynasty such as the one the Greco-Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII, Augustus’ major opponent, descended from, had to be avoided. Yet, the beginning of a new age asked for new forms of representation, including that of the imperial women. No political office could fully grasp the latter’s role. But the images defined their authority as role models of fecundity, chastity, piety, and/or beauty.The study pays particular attention to the iconography and semantics of apparel, of divine or metaphoric attributes, of statues and statue types, and to the various media of representation including their different audiences. Comparison between representations of imperial and non-imperial women reveals a complex web of responses, rather than a simple trickle-down effect exerted by the former. During Augustus’ and Tiberius’ reign, the emperors’ female relatives appear in republican tradition, yet with subtle hints at exclusivity. With the principate becoming progressively institutionalized, assimilations to deities in Hellenistic fashion find their way into portraits of rulers and their female relatives. In the second century, under the Antonines, the visual representation of imperial and non-imperial elite women can barely be told apart. The images vigorously promote concordia between imperial husband and wife. Effigies of Iulia Domna, finally, show her in realms that were connoted male: she appears at sacrifice next to the emperor or in the garb of military deities.The various visual and verbal sources thus attest to how traditional Roman republican and Hellenized appearance (especially the assimilation to deities) were balanced in different ways under each dynasty. In addition, all of the representations harked back in some way to the example set for Livia, wife of the first emperor. Despite all their differences, the images convey the same key concept: As parent of the emperor (parens Augusti, honorary title for Livia), an imperial woman is also a mother of the fatherland (mater patriae, honorary title for Iulia Domna)
Decolonizing the Archaeological Photograph: Photography of the Commission des Monuments Historiques de l'Algérie, 1880-1910
No full text58 pagesThis thesis is a sort of “excavation” of the archaeological photograph. Although increasingly research is being done on classical archaeology’s colonial history and its implications for the discipline, much less has been written on the role photography plays in creating, upholding, and perpetuating colonial beliefs. Using photographs of Timgad produced by the Commission des Monuments Historiques de l’Algérie approximately between 1880-1910, this thesis examines the historical and visual factors that contribute to the meaning of an archaeological photograph and our belief in its relative objectivity, as well as the resulting political and epistemological consequences. It argues that these photographs are instruments of imperial dominance which function to lay claim to the monuments they depict and the history that they represent. This thesis traces the transformation of these monuments from archaeological material into historic sites both physically, through their restoration, and categorically, through their inclusion in the Commission des Monuments Historiques archive
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE KOM EL-SHUQAFA CATACOMBS
Get PDFThe Catacombs of Kom el-Shuqafa are one of the best-preserved Alexandrian necropolis complexes from the Roman period. A modern tourist can descend into the catacombs much like an ancient visitor would have, allowing today’s visitor a shared experience with the past. Because Hypogeum I of the site is known primarily for its mixture of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman decorative elements, scholarship on the site is primarily descriptive, focusing on the visual components of the site that show evidence for cultural mixing or “hybridity”. A multi-sensorial approach, however, has yet to be taken. Due to its relatively well-preserved nature, as well as the lack of written evidence at this site, I argue that we can use a phenomenologically-oriented methodology to gain insight on ancient visitor experience, ultimately discovering that ancient visitors would have seen the descent into the catacombs as a descent into the underworld
An Invested Frontier: Reconsidering the Roles of Nicaean and Seljuk Building Programs in the Thirteenth Century
No full text53 pagesThe geographic, historic, and economic relationships between the Empire of Nicaea and the Sultanate of Rūm in the early thirteenth century are often portrayed through a polarizing lens. Despite territorial contestation after the Fourth Crusade (1204), the two states individually experienced brief periods of prosperity in the form of large-scale building. The Laskarid dynasty refortified urban centers as the Seljuks constructed caravanserais across Asia Minor. On account of the Mongol Invasion of 1243, an event that limited Seljuk independence, Nicaea sent provisions across the shared Lykos valley to the recovering state, which created a network of fixed points between the Hermos valley and Taurus mountains. This increase in traffic indirectly caused traveling and local groups to utilize fortified spaces in different ways, which drew the Laskarid and Seljuk-sponsored building programs even closer. The incorporation of historical data into geographical and archaeological analyses will help to better understand how structures participated in networks at a specific moment in history and encouraged cross-border trade
CULTIVATING EMPIRE IN ANCIENT ROMAN GARDENS: UNEARTHING THE TANGLED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLANTS AND THEIR GARDENERS
No full text393 pagesMy dissertation, Cultivating Empire in Ancient Roman Gardens: Unearthing the Tangled Relationship between Plants and their Gardeners, is focused on the rapid blossoming of a new cross-Mediterranean plant trade, burgeoning horticultural innovation, and rise of a new gardener class in the first centuries BCE and CE. Centered on questions of plant agency, I develop a new plant-centric approach for the study of ancient Roman gardens by identifying and exploring the entangled relationship between ornamental plants and their enslaved, freed, and free gardeners—a group of non-elites that has largely been ignored. To this end, the project is interdisciplinary, drawing on gardeners’ funerary inscriptions, textual descriptions of gardeners and plants, archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence from excavated gardens and garden representations. I also utilize comparative case studies, including interviews with contemporary Italian gardeners and designers, and documentation of pre-industrial free and enslaved garden labor in early modern Italian gardens and American Antebellum plantations. My work is directly informed by my experience as a garden archaeologist working in the Bay of Naples region, where my colleagues and I have developed and implemented some of the newest garden archaeology methodologies, such as plaster sampling for pollen (our team is the first to implement this method in Italy) and Lidar scanning of preserved garden contouring
Seeing Faces: Material Diversification and Identity Performance Through Romano-British Face Pots
Get PDFThis paper reviews Romano-British face pots, a ceramic type first discussed by Braithwaite (1984; 2007). By focusing on inter-provincial differences in depositional context and conducting a technical analysis of the pots’ functionality and practicality, this paper expands our understanding of not only how face pots might have been used, but also how such uses were informative of identity formation and performance in Roman Britain. Despite inherent methodological complications such as limited provenience records and a small sample size, it is argued in this paper that the Romano-British face pots display behaviors unique to the province and thus are productive material conduits for challenging antiquated cultural binaries, and for illustrating Romano-British ideas of identity and the body
Plaster Cast Collections In The Colonial World: Connections Between Classics And Racial Ideology
No full textThis paper investigates the connections between Classics and issues of race by examining the function and reception of plaster cast collections of Greek and Roman sculpture in the colonial world. The sculptures of the Greeks and Romans were associated with racial theories during the period of colonialism. Scholarship about Greece, particularly in regards to art, focused on its originality and its superiority over other ancient artistic traditions. As inheritors of this tradition, white Europeans viewed themselves as superior to the indigenous populations of the colonial world. By studying plaster cast collections in the British colonies and in the United States, racial ideologies and inequalities can be accessed. The collections can affirm the classical heritage for the white community, set up contrasts between Europeans and indigenous peoples, and be challenged from within the indigenous community. These functions and receptions provide insight into the controversial history of the classical education worldwide
BAD HORSES: HERAKLES AND THE MARES OF DIOMEDES IN GREEK ART OF THE SIXTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES BCE
No full text68 pagesThe often-fluid boundaries between human and animal is a common subject in Greek myth, with the hero frequently acting as a representative of humanity against some kind of animalistic force, though the hero can simultaneously embody the animal. Throughout the corpus of myth, animals can act as terrifying adversaries as well as helpers and even friends to heroic counterparts; and of all the heroes, there is none more associated with animals than Herakles. Most, if not all, of his labors, involve non-humanoid creatures in some way, and the hero himself can be identified by his lion skin, enabling him to pass in and out of the “civilized” Greek world and the “wild” world of animals and monsters. Herakles is one of the most, if not the most-depicted figures in Greek art, his exploits recognizable and famous for viewers across the realm of the Greeks and beyond. He is a suitably Panhellenic hero, with deeds to speak of ranging across Greece and the known world. While Herakles is perhaps the most popular human figure in Greek art, the horse is the most popular animal. One might expect the meeting of these two subjects in the Eighth Labor of Herakles, the capture of the man-eating Mares of Diomedes, to be equally ubiquitous. However, this is not the case. It is argued here that the rarity of depictions of Herakles with the Mares of Diomedes is due to the transgressive nature of the horses themselves, who invert established ideals of Greek horsemanship. As a result, the scene was largely avoided by creators as well as consumers of art. This unpopularity in the ancient past has likely contributed to the dearth of scholarship on the subject. I explore how these rare and transgressive images portray the complicated and diverse relationship between the Greeks and the animals that lived alongside them, a relationship that can itself be used to gain insight into how art, myth, and society are inextricably connected, with each equally affecting the other
I MODELLI DI VIRTU: MYTHOLOGICAL HEROES IN THE ART OF FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FLORENCE
Get PDFImages of mythological heroes, the half-mortal descendants of pagan deities, abounded in the visual culture of Florence. Whether wrought in stone, depicted on canvas, or articulated in numerous other mediums, depictions of valiant deeds and those who accomplished them were commissioned and collected in growing numbers. While the sixteenth century saw the production of large-scale painted narrative cycles depicting their various exploits as recounted in ancient texts, this interest in the representation of heroes had its iconographic roots in the previous century. My dissertation considers the role of mythological heroes in the visual construction of the heroic ideal in Quattrocento Florence. I argue that changing notions of virtue and a robust culture of exemplarity inherited from ancient and medieval traditions influenced the reception of mythological heroes and account for their reemergence in the visual arts of the city at this time. This type of hero, I maintain, served as a model of civic virtue at a moment when secular ideals began informing public identity.
Definitions of the hero changed over time. By examining the reception and resonances of the figures of Aeneas, Hercules, and Orpheus—three mythological heroes who enjoyed significant symbolic ties to the Republic of Florence in the fifteenth century—this study highlights and attempts to rebuild the nexus of literary and visual precedents that together provided the foundation for the mythological hero’s visual prominence in the expansive painted narratives and large sculptures of the next century. These three heroes were selected for closer study in this context in part due to their presence in greater numbers in the visual record than other mythological heroes at the time. In tracing a classical theme from its representational origins in material culture, often located within the domestic or private sphere, to its eventual imbrication within the monumental arts commissioned for public spaces, my research situates mythological heroes and their representation in the Quattrocento within the social fabric of Florence and moves beyond a Medicean-centric context that has frequently framed discussions of classical reception in Florentine culture
Preaching To The Masses: The Visual Presence Of The Dominican Order In Valencia, 1350-1500
Get PDFBy the late fourteenth century, Iberian Dominicans had established convents throughout the Peninsula from which they set forth to fulfill their mission to preach. The friars were particularly active in the region of Valencia, where they were lead by a native Valencian, Vicente Ferrer. Vicente and his fellow friars were a visible presence throughout Iberia and beyond, preaching to prepare believers and unbelievers alike for what they believed was the imminent end of the world. During the early years of the fifteenth century, the frairs' preaching and the texts they published brought the spiritual focus of the Dominican Order out of the convents and into the public eye. These w orks of art brought their words to life and the combination of words and images made the Domincans' message even more effective. This study is a comprehensive analysis of the friars' historical significance that brings historical, textual, and visual evidence together to reveal the ways in which the Dominicans, with Vicente Ferrer leading the way, made themselves and their ideas known in late medieval Valencia
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