biographical narration and roman funerary art

Biographical Narration and Roman Funerary ArtAuthor(s): Natalie Boymel KampenSource: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Jan., 1981), pp. 47-58Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/504965Accessed: 22/12/2008 12:17

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aia.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with thescholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform thatpromotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Archaeological Institute of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toAmerican Journal of Archaeology.

http://www.jstor.org

Biographical Narration and Roman Funerary Art NATALIE BOYMEL KAMPEN

(Pls. 7-I2)

Abstract Roman biographical funerary monuments are

shown to have developed from prototypes of the late Republic and Early Empire, in eulogy, written biography and visual images. From the earliest sculptured example, the Flavian/Trajanic Via Por- tuense monument, one sees a process of transformation toward an increasingly emblematic and non- narrative composition on sarcophagus facades; the evolution includes a new emphasis on abstract concepts of virtue as opposed to a chronological representation of mores maiorum. Analysis of composition and comparison of changing types show that the Republican concepts of virtue became less and less relevant to patrons of the later second and third centuries and were gradually replaced by a new and transcendent ideal of spiritual superiority.

Biographical sarcophagi, although studied often in the past, have rarely been analyzed in terms of program and evolution. Gerhard Rodenwaldt, whose discussion of the biographical monuments is among the few to deal with those issues, suggested that the type derived from lost representations on triumphal monuments and that the program of the sarcophagi was clearly linked in meaning to the traditional moral values associated with the emperor.1 Thus, an Antonine example such as the one

* Funding for this article was provided by a Summer Stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities. A brief version was presented at the I978 meetings of the College Art Association. All dates are A.C.

1 G. Rodenwaldt, "Ueber den Stilwandel in der antoninischen Kunst," AbhBerl 3 (I935)1-27, especially 8 and I6. Also of importance on the biographical program and its motifs are A. Rossbach, Romnische Hochzeits- und Ehedenkmaler (Leipzig 1871) passim; K. Wernicke, "Lebenslauf eines Kindes in Sar- kophagdarstellungen," AZ 43 (1885) cols. 209-22; P. Barrera, "Sarcofagi romani con scene della vita privata e militare," StRom 2 (1914) 93-120, especially IO8-20; H.-I. Marrou, Mousikos Aner (Grenoble 1938) I98-20I and 288; F. Cumont, Recherches sur le symbolisme funeraire des romains (Paris 1942) 34-50; P.G. Hamberg, Studies in Roman Imperial Art (Copenhagen 1945) 172-89; I.S. Ryberg, Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art, MAAR 22 (Rome 1955) I63-65; B. Andreae, Motivgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den romischen Schlachtsarkophagen (Berlin 1959) passim; G. Charles- Picard, Trophees romains (Bibliotheque de l'Ecole franfaise archeologique de Rome = BEFAR I87, Paris 1957) 442-48; L. Reekman's, "La dextrarum iunctio dans l'iconographie romaine et

in the Los Angeles County Museum (pl. 7, figs. 1-3) bears on its facade images which Rodenwaldt interpreted as symbolic of virtus, clementia, pietas and concordia-this on the basis of comparisons with imperial reliefs and coins.2

Rodenwaldt's analysis of the Antonine program still appears correct in its essentials, but a monument discovered after his death makes possible a re-evaluation of the sources and evolution of the biographical sarcophagus type. While the changes which appear over two centuries in structure and organization do not affect the most fundamental purpose of the program, the laudatory presentation of the individual to posterity, they do reveal significant transformations in meaning and patronage, and it is these which require attention.

At the time of Rodenwaldt's article, no pre-Anto- nine biographical programs were known. How- ever, in 1949 a funerary monument (now in the Museo Nazionale Romano) was found on the Via Portuense, just outside of Rome (pl. 7, figs. 4-5); it has been dated to the late first or very early second century and thus stands as the earliest known biographical cycle from infancy through adulthood in Roman sculpture.3 Its importance as a point of de-

paleochretienne," Bulletin de l'lnstitut historique Belge a Rome (BIBR) 31 (I958) 23-95; N. Himmelmann-Wildschiitz, "Sar- kophag eines gallienischen Konsuls," Festschrift Friedrich Matz (Mainz 1962) 119-24; R. Brilliant, Gesture and Rank in Roman Art (MemConnAc I4, New Haven 1963) 154-61; K. Fittschen, "Hochzeitssarkophag San Lorenzo," AA 1971, 117-19.

2 On the symbolic interpretations, see Rodenwaldt (supra n. I) 6; Reekmans (supra n. i) 32-36; and H. Oppermann, R6- mische Wertbegriffe (Darmstadt I967) 1-22, 173-208, 229-73, 274-322 and 370-401.

For the Los Angeles County Museum sarcophagus, formerly in Rome, Villa Bonaparte, see Barrera (supra n. i) 103-105; E. Feinblatt, "Un sarcofago romano inedito nel Museo di Los Angeles," BdA ser. 4, 37 (1952) 193-203: dated ca. 170; E. Loeffler, "A Famous Antique: A Roman Sarcophagus at the Los Angeles Museum," ArtB 39 (I957) I-17.

3 D. Faccenna, "Monumento funerario," BullComm 73:4 (1949-50) 215-33; Faccenna, "Monumento funerario," NSc (1951) 114-20; S. Aurigemma, Le Terme di Diocleziano e il Museo Nazionale Romano5 (Rome I963) no. 113; Helbig' III, no. 2165: dated by B. Andreae and E. Simon, here as elsewhere, early Trajanic; H. Wrede, "Stadtromische Monumente, Urnen

NATALIE BOYMEL KAMPEN

parture in helping to formulate an evolution for the type cannot be overestimated, since it allows us to see an example of a private biographical program with a more narrative, personal and chronological structure than the later sarcophagi.

The Via Portuense monument has the form of a funerary couch on which a man reclines with a seated woman near his shoulder; the heads of both figures are missing (pl. 7, fig. 4). Below the mattress of the couch, running continuously between the sculptured legs, is a frieze with some damage. What remains covers the front, half of the back, and a little of the left end with episodes from private life. The frieze narrates the life of a landed gentleman; from infancy he grows to adulthood and assumes the responsibilities and prerogatives of the gentry. Certain sections of his life, those most typical of later biographical cycles, are missing; there is no evidence of his marriage, his political or military career, if such there had been, or his death.

Beginning at the front left and reading continuously from left to right around the frieze, one sees first a woman and her servant watching the infant's bath. The servant's traditional gesture of comfort and the bathing of the infant by two nurse-maids indicate that the birth has occurred recently. In the second episode, the infant, now past his first year, learns to walk using a Roman toy with three wheels and handlebars. In the next vignette, the child appears with his class, probably as the one reading his lessons before his teacher, the latter modelled on Greek images of philoso- phers, while the other children listen.4

The next scenes are considerably harder to inter- pret accurately, having no known exact parallels in ancient art. To the right of the school scene, two older children seem to be playing with hoops, but the damage to the surface of the relief prevents us from being certain of their identity. Then, at the right side of the front, an even more puzzling

und Sarkophage des Klinentypus in den beiden ersten Jahr- hunderten n. Chr.," AA I977, 4Io and figs. 76-77: dated Flavian.

4 Marrou (supra n. i) passim; K. Schefold, Die Bildnisse der antiken Dichter, Redner und Denker (Basel 1943) 41-44. 5 These are the two suggestions which occur in all references to the monument; presented first by Faccenna (BullComm 73, supra n. 3) 226-27, they have neither been proven nor chal- lenged.

image presents a youth standing next to a pillar, his arms spread in what seems to be a gesture of declamation, while two seated people (their gender is unclear) sit and watch or converse with him. The youth's status is reflected in his voluminous toga, but the meaning of the scene can only tentatively be described as either a first public oration by the youth or his assumption of the toga virilis, the toga which signals his new manhood and corre- sponding responsibilities to the state.5

The right end of the frieze is so badly damaged that there can be no reconstruction of the subject matter. The same condition applies to the entire left half of the back, only a bit of which remains near the center to reveal a few tree tops (pl. 7, fig. 5). The rear center, however, shows a rather abraded scene of rural life. Facing a lattice fence or cage stands a tunic-clad male, his costume typical of the rural worker. He may be catching ani- mals as part of a now-destroyed hunting scene, a favorite subject for state and funerary reliefs since it indicated the manliness and bravery of the protagonist-an analog to the battlefield.6

Beyond this scene, another tunicate peasant with a long pole raps the branches of a tree; fruit or olives lie on the ground.7 To the right of this vignette, the final scene on the back shows a large seated man in a toga, one hand raised to indicate that he is greeting or addressing the four tunicate men who approach him. The four once held ob- jects which are now unrecognizable; nonetheless, they should be interpreted as gifts or produce of- fered as rents. Despite the damage to the back of the frieze, it seems safe to assume that this whole section dealt with life in the country, its labors and its pleasures.

This subject seems, from the fragments still leg- ible, to have occupied the end of the frieze as well as the back. All that remains between the turned legs of the couch is a large rectangular construc- tion made of laths and net and containing birds.

6 Rodenwaldt (supra n. I) 6; J. Aymard, Essai sutr les Chasses romains (BEFAR 171, Paris 195I) 551-58 and 569-81; Charles- Picard (supra n. I) 372-84; Brilliant (supra n. I) I86-88; E. Simon, "Ein spatgallienischer Kindersarkophag mit Eber- jagd," Idl 85 (1970) 215-20; and W. Eisenhut, Virtus Romana (Munich 1973) 23-I90.

7 This may also represent bird-catching, according to Eugene Dwver, whom I thank for the suggestion.

48 [AJA 85

BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATION

Beside the box stands a man in a tunic with a rod in his hand; he is probably a bird-catcher who works with lime-covered twigs or rods.8

The cycle of the Via Portuense monument thus shows infancy, youth and maturity, although it lacks, whether through intention or damage, any evidence of a military or civic career or of rituals such as the marriage ceremony. It appears to be a private commission, presenting in a regular life- cycle events which the patron considered important.9

The events selected by this earliest of biographical funerary cycles and the narrative method of arranging them preserve much of the character of republican and early imperial verbal biography.10 Both verbal and visual biography "bequeath to posterity a record of the deeds and characters of dis- tinguished men"" and enable them, like Agricola, to live forever.12 Even Polybius' description of the early Roman public funeral rites stresses a similar function: "In this way the good repute of noble men is constantly renewed; the fame of those who have achieved something grand is kept immortal, and the glory of benefactors of the country becomes familiar to the people and is handed on to posterity. .. ."13 Thus, the function of biography, like that of the Roman funeral, is to commemorate the dead man, to keep his memory alive, to offer glory to the family and to serve as a moral example to future generations.14 Eulogy, the laudatio funebris, like written biography and inscribed or written res gestae, fulfills the same human needs as do com- memorative monuments.

Although historians of ancient literature con- tinue the unfinished discussion of the sources and

8 Longus 3.5-6. 9 As Wrede points out (supra n. 3), the Flavian and Trajanic

kline monuments tended to be made for freedpeople and those of non-aristocratic status (404-405); they differ from the biographical literature and art of the upper classes in their per- sonalization of events as opposed to the latter's crystallization of experience into political and ritual events (409).

0 Polyb. 6.53-54; Nepos Epam. I5.I.3-4; Dion. Hal. 5.17. 2-6; Quintil. 3.7.I0-15; and see also F. Vollmer, "Laudationum funebrium romanorum historia et reliquiarum editio," IfClass- Phil I8. suppl. (1892) 445-528; D.R. Stuart, Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography (Berkeley 1928) passim; O.C. Crawford, "Laudatio Funebris," CJ 37 (1941-1942) 17-27; T.A. Dorey, ed., Latin Biography (London I967) passim; and L. Koenen, "Die laudatio ftnebris des Augustus fur Agrippa," APE 3 (1970) 217-83.

11Tac. Agric. I: Clarorum virorum facta moresque posteris tradere ....

categories of Roman biography, they agree that the major literary types do seem to share a common structure. The balance may shift from greater concern with chronological narration, as in res gestae, to a dominant typological or per specie interest in the virtues and character traits of the deceased; in the latter, chronological narrative may be somewhat disrupted, as in the biography of Alexander by Plutarch or the Panegyric for Trajan by Pliny the Elder.15 Nevertheless, Quintilian's description of the chronological pattern of the laudatio funebris seems applicable to most Roman biography before the late fourth century A.C. It begins with the origins and parentage of the subject, including omens accompanying his birth, then proceeds to a discussion of his early years and education, his career, exploits and private life in adulthood, and finally his death.16 To this list, Quintilian adds the necessity for a discussion of the subject's virtues and character; as I shall demonstrate, the biographical funerary monument tends first toward the chronological, then toward the typological position, until the latter eventually triumphs completely.

The Via Portuense monument gives a chronological view of the life of the deceased, selects among events, and arrives at some of the same moments preferred by verbal biography. It must be noted, however, that the events depicted on the monument, as will be seen below, are largely private in nature. They seem more akin to the idyllic world of letters, poems or women's eulogies with their stress on character and events in the quietude of home and countryside than to the public realm of conservative biography and men's laudationes.

The scenes of infancy on the Via Portuense mon-

12Tac. Agric. 46: Agricola posteritati narratus et traditus superstes erit.

13Polyb. 6.54.2. 14 On the function of eulogy, see Polyb. 6.53-54; Dion. Hal.

5.17.2-6; Livy 10.7.1I; Plin. NH 7.43.I39-40; and Tac. Ann. 3.5.

15 Precedents for the structure per specie exist both in literature and the visual arts well before the turning point is reached by biographical sarcophagi. The presence in panegyric and written biography of the tendency to categorize events according to their moral meaning appears with Suet. Titus 8, Plut. Alex. 1-2, and Nepos Epam. 15.1.304, among many others. See also F. Leo, Die griechisch-romische Biographie nach ihre litera- rischen Form (Leipzig I9go) 178-92; G.B. Townend, "Sue- tonius and his Influence," in Dorey (supra n. Io) 82-84; and P.G. Hamberg (supra n. I) 41-45 and 46-103, for parallel phenonlena in the visual arts of the Roman state.

16Quintil. Inst. Orat. 3.7. I-15.

49 1981]


ument reflect biographical conventions which may be seen in such literary passages as the childhood of Alexander by Quintus Curtius,17 of Augustus or Titus by Suetonius,18 and of Cicero by Plutarch.l9 Education is regularly discussed, as is childhood, with an interest in the character and exceptional ability of the youth; the Agricola of Tacitus20 and even the fourth century eulogy of Gregory Nazian- zenus on Caesarius21 present education as a fore- shadowing of adulthood. The first speech or assumption of the toga virilis are present less frequently, but these may be found, for example, in Suetonius' Augustus or Plutarch's Life of Cato the Younger.22 Rare in comparison to statecraft and warfare are the biographical references to private life, particularly the life of the country gentleman so well described in Cicero's letters or the Odes of Horace. This gentler world seems to have been re- garded as inappropriate to the aristocratic biographical genre, and its large place in the Via Por- tuense frieze again confirms the essentially private nature of that monument.23

Despite the variable occurrence of specific elements in written biography, all the motifs on the Via Portuense monument resemble biographical conventions in their underlying symbolism. Im- plicit in the scenes of the gentleman's life are references to the virtuous or heroic lives of such person- ages as Alexander, Achilles or Dionysos. Thus the bath scene is used in Roman art, and may well de- rive from Greek models for all three of the afore- mentioned figures; the scene itself, for example on the Capitoline sarcophagus with the infancy of Dionysos, carries heroizing import as an epiphany (pl. 8, fig. 6).24 Similarly, education and first public

17 Quint. Curt. 3.6.I-4 and 8.2.21; Plut. Alex. 2.4, 3.3, 3.5; and Aul. Gell. 13.4.2 and 17.21.28-29.

18 Suet. Aug. 94 and Titus I-III. 19 Plut Cic. II. 20 Tac. Agric. 4. 21 Greg. Naz. Caes. 6-7 (A.D. 370). 22 Suet. Aug. 94.Io and Plut. Cato Min. V. 23 Rural episodes in aristocratic biography: Cic. de Senect.

55-56 and Plut. Cato Maior 3.1-2, 21.5 and 25.1-3. 24 A. Hermann, "Das erste Bad des Heilands und des Hel-

den," lahrbuch fiir Antike und Christentum (IbAC) o0 (I967) 64-78 and 81.

25 S.G. Harrod, Latin Terms of Endearment and of Family Relationship (Princeton I909) 76-79; Marrou (supra n. I) 200- 206, with citations of important inscriptions; CIL IX.50I2 and VI.25808; E. Diehl, Inscriptiones latinae christianae veteres (Berlin I96I) nos. 742 and 233; ILS nos. 4976, 7759 and 7783.

appearances give evidence of wisdom and ability far beyond the tender years of the hero.25 The scenes of hunting qua virtus (so well known in later sarcophagi) or of the benevolence and good relations of the master to his workers testify further to the subtle references to virtue which are communicated through the rhetorical use of specific formal motifs on the Via Portuense monument.

The scenes chosen for the funerary monument and their underlying meaning are comparable to the eulogies and biographies of Rome, and so is the narrative method of presentation. The order of events is similar in both written and visual evidence and can be found frequently in non-biographical friezes of the early Empire. Whether we examine the Odyssey frieze or turn to the column of Trajan, we see a similar phenomenon: narration based on a predominantly linear time-structure which is expressed in a linear arrangement of scenes.26

The combination of biographical subjects and linear chronology on at least part of the Via Por- tuense monument may reflect lost models in the form of biographical banners, decorations for funerary pyres, painted friezes or decorated books.27 The linear narrative in a frieze is certainly common in ancient sculpture and painting, and the particular biographical motifs had accessible sources in ancient mythological and political as well as genre imagery.28 Given these two facts, it seems important to recognize that the Via Por- tuense monument need not depend on hypothetical lost models; the laudatio funebris, res gestae, panegyric and written biography made subjects and

26 P. von Blanckenhagen, "Narration in Hellenistic and Ro- man Art," AJA 6i (I957) 78-83; K. Weitzmann, Illustrations in Roll and Codex (Princeton 1970) 123-29; and Weitzmann, "Book Illustrations of the Fourth Century," in Studies in Classi- cal and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination (Chicago I97I) I20-25.

27 Ancient sources on possible prototypes: App. Pun. 66 or Bell. civ. 2.IOI; Varro de Ling. Lat. 7.57; Plin. NH 22.5 and 35-7; Livy 24.I6.I6 and 41.28.8; Cic. Pro Sest. 93. See also R. Bianchi-Bandinelli, Hellenistic-Byzantine Miniatures of the lliad (Olten 1955) 30 and 139 n. 2; Weitzmann (Illustrations, supra n. 26) I25 and I29; K. Schefold, "Bilderbiicher als Vor- lagen romischer Sarkophage," MEFRA 88 (1976) passim; and Wrede (supra n. 3) 400-402, for first century kline monuments on which dedicatory inscriptions appear along the mattress, a possible locational parallel to the frieze on the Via Portuense piece.

28 Infra n. 33.

50 [AJA 85


narrative method accessible to literate and illiterate alike and gave artists the structure into which to fit commonly known visual motifs. The source for the biographical monument is ultimately to be found in biography itself; whether spoken, written, acted, carved or painted, the conceptual method and themes were part of the cultural her- itage of Romans from the Republic on.

The biographical sarcophagi of the Antonine period and the third century which begin to appear thirty to sixty years after the Via Portuense monument should be seen as deriving from the unified biographical narratives of the later Republic and early Empire which have been discussed above. The later reliefs reveal crucial changes, however; the method of production, the patrons' needs and general social attitudes had altered enough to de- stroy the original cohesive biographical prototype. The same motifs used in new groups and compositions reveal new meanings which show that the very concept of biography underwent a major transformation in the third century.

The first significant change from a unified narrative biography attends the combination of sarcophagus and biography in the years after Ha- drian's death. Despite the preservation on the sarcophagi of some motifs found on the Via Portuense monument, the unity-thematic as well as narrative-of the earlier literary and visual type is broken. Two thematic branches seem to have grown out of the early prototypes: one, exemplified by a sarcophagus in the Los Angeles County Mu- seum (pl. 7, figs. I-3), deals with the life of an adult with a public career, whereas the second, separate in type and conventions, represents the life of a person who died too young for a career (pl. 8, fig. 7).

Scenes of an adult male's career are known in four fairly complete versions on sarcophagi of the second half of the second century in Los Angeles

29 Los Angeles County Museum sarcophagus: supra n. 2. 30 G. Mansuelli, Galleria degli Uffizi: Le Sculture I (Rome

I958) no. 253: early Antonine, and Reekmans (supra n. I) 40 n. 3, 42 and fig. I (both with earlier literature).

31 Paris, Louvre, from Frascati, Villa Taverna: Barrera (supra n. I) 98-Ioo, no. 3; Rodenwaldt (supra n. I) passim; F. Matz, Ein romisches Meisterwerk (Jdl-EH I9, Berlin 1958) I53: late Antonine; Reekmans (supra n. I) 40 n. 3; and 0. Pelikan, Von antiken Realismus zur spdtantiken Expressivitat (Prague I965)

(pl. 7, figs. I-3),29 the Uffizi (pl. 8, figs. 8-9),30 the Louvre (pl. 9, figs. Io-II),31 and the Palazzo Du- cale in Mantua (pl. 9, figs. 12-I3).32 The Los An- geles sarcophagus corresponds to the set of biographical themes found in verbal biography in that it possesses, on the facade, a narrow and com- pressed battle scene on the left, a submissio with a barbarian family, a large scene of a sacrifice, and, at the right, a dextrarum iunctio. On the left end, a military commander gazes at a supplicating barbarian as two soldiers look on, while on the right end an infant is being bathed as its mother watches. Although the sarcophagus has been damaged and reworked, the other three versions of this type are so similar that they give reliable evidence for reconstructing missing elements such as the barbarian child in the submissio.

The composition of the Los Angeles sarcophagus possesses a frieze-like character which is asserted by the balance between enclosure of individual scenes and the connection of adjoining ones. In the dextrarum iunctio, the pronuba/concordia figure draws the togate groom toward his heavily draped bride whose hesitant curving form closes the compositional parenthesis. Similarly, the ends of the sarcophagus contain figures who face in toward the center of each scene and contribute to the effect of enclosure. Yet each enclosed scene is carefully linked to those on either side by such devices as glances or turned bodies; the submissio is tied to the sacrifice by the winged victory who bridges the two scenes and the popa whose glance and lower body lead the viewer's eye to the center of the pietas as his gesture and upper body turn back to the submissive barbarians. The connection of individual elements even extends to the left end of the sarcophagus where one can see part of a figure from the battle on the front. Although individual motifs came from a variety of sources, as will be seen and further, although the chronological arrangement is not especially logical, the sense of a

51-52. 32 Mantua, Palazzo Ducale: Barrera (supra n. i) 93-96, no. i;

A. Levi, "Rilievi di sarcofagi del Palazzo ducale di Mantova," Dedalo 7 (I926) 222-29: Antonine; Levi, Sculture greche e romane del Palazzo ducale di Mantova (Rome 1931) 86-87, no. i86, pl. 95: ca. I50; Ryberg (supra n. i) I64-65; Matz (supra n. 31) 37 and I52: early Antonine; Reekmans (supra n. i) 40 n. 3; and Pelikan (supra n. 31) 5I.

1981] 51


narrative frieze has been preserved by the composition of the three sides of the Los Angeles sarcophagus.

That individual motifs come from diverse sources and possess a layered iconography may also be indicated by the Los Angeles sarcophagus. As Inez Scott Ryberg and Gerhard Rodenwaldt showed, the dextrarum iunctio and the sacrifice, like the battle and submissio, appear on public and private monuments and on coins before being com- bined on Antonine sarcophagi.33 Rodenwaldt's well founded theory, alluded to above, that the four motifs on the front of the sarcophagus present four cardinal virtues of the aristocratic Roman male remains acceptable, particularly because a logical chronology of events seems of less concern in the composition.34 The battle is an indication of virtus, the submission of clementia, the sacrifice of pietas and the dextrarum iunctio of concordia; inscriptions on coins justify the iconographic attribu- tions, as will other evidence from the sarcophagi themselves. Only the infant's bath comes from a different source, a private one of myth and legend. It is paralleled on sarcophagi showing the bath of the infant Dionysos (pl. 8, fig. 6) as well as in later reliefs of the first baths of Alexander or Achilles.35 The muse/fate figures and the old nurse with her typical costume also come from the world of mythological sarcophagi and their Hellenistic prototypes.36 The dextrarum iunctio, well known in Etruscan and early Roman funerary monuments,

33 Rodenwaldt (supra n. I) 6-I9; Ryberg (supra n. I) 163- 65; Reekmans (supra n. I) 3I-37; Mansuelli (supra n. 30) 171; Brilliant (supra n. i) I57 and I60; and B.M. Felletti Maj, La Tradizione italica nell'arte romana (Rome I977) 317-20, fig. 149, and 346-48, fig. I77.

34 Supra n. i. 35 Infancy of Dionysos: see especially the sarcophagus in the

Museo Capitolino, C. Robert ed., Antike Sarkophagreliels (Ber- lin I952-1966=A SR) 4.3, no. 200; Helbig4 II, no. I412 with literature. E. Simon, "Dionysischer Sarkophag in Princeton," RomMitt 69 (1962) I45-54; R. Turcan, "Du nouveau sur l'ini- tiation dionysiac," Latomus 24 (I965) IOI-I9 with literature.

Alexander cycles: D.J.A. Ross, "Olympias and the Serpent," lWarb 26 (I963) I2; L. Cracco Ruggini, "Sulla cristianizza- zione della cultura pagana," Athenaeum 43 (i965) 2 and I9.

Achilles cycles: L. Guerrini, "Infanzia di Achille e sua edu- cazione presso Chirone," StMisc 4 (1958-59) 43-53; M.A. Mana- corda, La Paideia di Achille (Rome I971) 46-62; D. Kemp- Lindemann, Darstellungen des Achilleus in griechischer und romischer Kunst (Bern and Frankfurt/M 1975) passim.

See also K. Weitzmann, Ancient Book Illumination (Cam- bridge, Mass. I959) 54-59 and 95-I07. Although Weitzmann argues for the existence of illustrated cycles of Achilles and

has parallels in myth too, as on Medea, Leucip- pidae or Alcestis sarcophagi.37

The combination of mythological and public sources on the Los Angeles sarcophagus demon- strates an interesting continuation of the biographical framework seen in literature and rhetoric, in the sense that the birth scene as a private event with heroic overtones dwells in a realm of portents and associations with mythology in both written and visual works. The dextrarum iunctio shares some of the same mythic character, with the torch- bearing nude Hymenaeus, but it has taken on, in addition, a public character. The Antonine coins of Concordia Augustorum reveal the propaganda value of marriage as a public, state event,38 and Pliny the Younger confirms this in saying to Trajan, "Your own wife contributes to your honor and glory as a supreme model of the ancient virtues. ..."39 Finally, the remaining scenes on the Los Angeles sarcophagus are fully public and political in nature and sources, just as they are in the laudatio or written biography. Thus, although the sources for specific episodes are varied, the relationship of the sarcophagus to biographical convention is consistent and close.

Like the Los Angeles County Museum sarcophagus, the other examples of the adult biographical type show the same scenes in the same order on the facade. On each the participants and their poses and arrangement as well as the overall style vary, but all maintain the same general configuration. The sacri-

other heroes, all the known illustrations of the childhoods of Achilles and Alexander postdate the biographical sarcophagi. 36 Muse/fate identifications: 0. Brendel, "Symbolik der Ku- gel," RomMitt 51 (1936) 92-95, as moirai rather than muses; M. Wegner, Die Musensarkophage (ASR 5.3, Berlin i966) 93- IIo; C. Panella, "Iconografia delle Muse sui sarcofagi romani," StMisc I2 (i966-67) II-43; Hermann (supra n. 24) 6I-8i. Nurses on Phaedra sarcophagi: ASR 3.2, I59-6I, I63, 165, I66-H. Sichtermann and G. Koch, Griechische Mythen auf romischen Sarkophagen (Tiibingen 1975) 28 (hereafter S-K), I67=S-K 27, I69 and I7I=S-K 29, S-K 27-29, and the Anus Ebria type in Hellenistic sculpture, e.g. M. Bieber, Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age (New York 1955) 141-42, figs. 284, 585-87, 590-9I.

37 Supra n. 33. Medea sarcophagi: ASR 2.194. Leucippidae: ASR 3.2.I80=S-K no. 34 with literature. Alcestis: ASR 3.I.26= S-K no. 8=S. Wood, "Alcestis on Roman Sarcophagi," A]A 82 (1978) 499-5Io. Laodamia: ASR 3.3.423=S-K no. 69.

38 Rodenwaldt (supra n. I) I3-I5; Hamberg (supra n. I) I8-26; Reekmans (supra n. I) 31-35.

3 Pliny Pan.83.5: tibi uxor in decus et gloriam cedit. Quid enim illa sanctius, quid antiquius? and also Tac. Agric. 6.I: idque matrimonium ad maiora nitenti decus ac robur fuit.

52 [AJA 85


fice scenes on the Mantua (pl. 9, fig. 12) and Uffizi (pl. 8, fig. 8) sarcophagi are closest (as are these two monuments in style and the composition of the other scenes), both with the unarmed general at the left, the tibicen in the center behind the altar and the popa and victimarius with the bull at the right.40 Their organization of the scene differs from the Los Angeles sarcophagus (pl. 7, fig. I) in reversing the position of the sacrificant and the bull, although their individual poses remain the same. The Louvre sarcophagus (pl. 9, fig. io) also offers a variation in putting a female figure behind the victimarius and so forcing the popa into the background at some distance from his victim. Comparable similarities exist in the dextrarum iunctio and clemency scenes; in the latter, the poses of the female barbarians and their children are so similar as to suggest that the sarcophagi of this group were prepared from a single model, changed or misunderstood here and there, but by no means specially commissioned or made to order.

The greatest variation among the four sarcophagi comes at the left corner and on the end panels. The left fronts of the Los Angeles and Paris examples contain battle scenes, both of which extend around the corner to the left end of the sarcophagus. The motif is treated in the same way in relation to the corner on the Uffizi sarcophagus, but here it is virtus as a boar-hunt rather than a battle. And the Mantua example most clearly demon- strates the association of virtus with this part of the monument as a winged Victoria flutters out to take the arm of the helmeted Virtus Romana. Thus, although the motif may change, iconography and location remain constant.

From more private moments at the right to more public and martial ones on the left, the four sarcophagi demonstrate the gradual breakdown of chronological narration and its replacement by conceptual and symmetrical ordering of events. The predella-like placement of supplementary elements on the ends of the sarcophagi indicating lit-

40 Although Mansuelli's catalogue entry (supra n. 30) for the Uffizi sarcophagus (no. 253) makes no reference to restoration in the background of the dementia episode, the tree and empty space there would be filled adequately by a bending male barbarian who would accompany the woman and child as in all the other versions of the scene. Further, the standing male behind the barbarian woman should, I think, be restored as elsewhere to his former military identity.

tle concern for their temporal order is typical of the process. Whereas meaning was implicit both in the rhetorical figures of earlier visual and verbal biography and equally in the narrative continuity, the Antonine adult sarcophagi separate meaning, in its sense of symbolic virtues, from chronology.

The sarcophagi with scenes of youth, like the adults' monuments, seem to have been made in Antonine and Severan Rome from a fairly stand- ardized pattern; they too show variations and sub- stitutions which do not fundamentally change the appearance of the sarcophagi.

A good example of the childhood sarcophagus, in the Museo Torlonia in Rome, is datable by its style to the last quarter of the second century; all that remains is the front (pl. 8, fig. 7).4 From the left, the scenes are the infant's bath, education, funeral and apotheosis. The bath, presented more simply than in the Via Portuense monument (pl. 7, fig. 4), includes the seated mother, the infant and one nurse. The education, on the other hand, has a rather different character from the earlier monument in that the child appears with his seated teacher and two women who stand in the background, one holding up the comic mask which is the attribute of the muse Thalia. The compres- sion of the scene, the clear imitation of Greek philosopher prototypes for the teacher and the presence of the muses reveal the idealized character of the whole episode. The funerary inscriptions of many children make it obvious that precocious learning was a favorite attribute to praise; lacking the career of adulthood, the child must be shown virtuous through his brief but remarkable accom- plishments in school.42

To the right of the scenes of childhood on the Torlonia sarcophagus front is a representation of the prothesis. The deceased appears as a bearded adult reclining on a couch flanked by two seated mourners; behind the couch stand three mourning women. The peculiarity of this episode comes from

41 Rome, Museo Torlonia, inv. 414, from Via Portuense: C.L. Visconti, I Monumenti del Museo Torlonia (Rome I885) no. 414; H.-I. Marrou, "Deux Sarcophages romains relatifs a la vie intellectuelle," RA ser. 6, i (1933) I68; Marrou (supra n. i) 3I, no. 4; Wegner (supra n. 42) 53, no. I32, pl. I46b: fourth quarter second century.

42 Supra n. 25.

1981] 53


the rendering of the deceased as a mature man, while no other scene gives any indication of his having lived to adulthood. This anomaly may be related to the conflation of two earlier models-a biographical frieze and a kline statue-like the Via Portuense monument. Even in the final scene, in which the deceased is borne to the other world in a chariot attended by deities such as Pluto, the protagonist is a child. The idealization of this scene, casting the child as semi-divine or heroic in nature through his association with the gods in an event appropriate to emperors and heroes, is comparable to the education and forces us to see the ambiguity of the prothesis as well. The representations of the sarcophagus, idealized and inconsistent in their chronology, suggest that this sequence de- rives from a more complete and biographically realistic monument.

Comparable childhood sarcophagi confirm the impression of the ideal and ahistorical sequence in the Torlonia piece. The sarcophagus front in the Villa Doria Pamphili (pl. 9, fig. 14) in Rome is very close to the Torlonia front in a number of its motifs, in some of its structure and, above all, in its assertive use of allegorical and divine person- ages.43 The Doria front adds muses or fates and moves the mask-bearing Thalia to the center of the composition behind a nursing woman, perhaps the mother, who here replaces the prothesis of the Torlonia sarcophagus. The education scene appears to the right of the nursing woman and brings Mercury and a muse with a tragic mask to super- vise. The apotheosis at the right side, like the one on the Torlonia front, uses comparable personifica- tions and psychopomps, although Pluto and Cupid are missing here, and an eagle has been added to support the child. Small variations in attendant figures and placement, as well as the absence of the prothesis, make the Doria sarcophagus front a more graceful but no less idealized composition than the Torlonia.

Two other sarcophagi with the same themes are 43 Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphili: F. Matz and F. von Duhn,

Antike Bildwerke in Rom 2 (Leipzig I881) 328-29, no. 3087; Wernicke (supra n. I) cols. 213-16; R. Calza et. al., Antichita di Villa Doria Pamphilj (Rome 1977) 241-42, no. 291, pl. CLX: dated- 175-200.

44Paris, Louvre, inv. MA 319, from the della Valle collection: Wernicke (supra n. I) 218-19, no. 13; Marrou (supra n. I) 32, no. 5; P. Grimal, La Civilisation romaine (Paris I960) 104-105, pl. 29. For general interpretation of the type, see

more obviously ahistorical in structure; the childhood sarcophagus in the Louvre (pl. Io, fig. I5),4 like the badly damaged example at Ostia (pl. Io, figs. I6-17),45 places the education at the left, prothesis in the center and infancy at the right. The teacher and pupil are joined, in the Louvre sarcophagus, by a paedagogus and a small gesticulat- ing figure in the background; the latter's pose is reminiscent of the mask-bearing muses of the two previous examples (pl. 8, fig. 7 and pl. 9, fig. I4). The major space of the Louvre front is given over to a larger and denser prothesis than is seen elsewhere. The deceased, as an adolescent (or a female?), reclines in eternal slumber as mourners gather around. In a chair at the left of the couch sits a woman whose pose is repeated exactly in the infancy scene at right, perhaps still more evidence for the mass-produced quality of this group of monuments. The final segment, at the right, offers the usual group of the passive mother, the infant and the nurse, although the bathing basin is missing and the four female attendants in the background include a woman with a towel or cloth as well as two fates.

What little remains of the Ostia sarcophagus (pl. io, figs. I6-I7)46 follows the arrangement of the Louvre example, the Ostia piece, however, having a much less crowded composition and a fuller, more classicizing style. Only the infancy scene, at the right, is truly atypical of the genre; there the mother and old nurse disappear and three young women take their place. Two dry the infant above the bathing basin while to the left stands another woman who holds a bundle which, like her upper body, is so damaged that one can only tentatively suggest that it was a swaddled infant. The whole character of the Ostia infancy scene differs from the other examples, including those on adult biographical sarcophagi.47

The virtues and the models by which they are expressed in sarcophagi of youths differ from those of adults in several ways. Although both use the Wernicke (supra n. i) passim, and Marrou (supra n. i) 28-51.

45 Ostia Scavi, inv. 1170, from the Via Ostiense: M. Guarducci, "Intorno ad un sarcofago ostiense," BullComm 53 (1925) I56- 60: third quarter second century; A. Grabar, Christian Iconog- raphy (Princeton I968) 103, fig. 264.

46 Supra n. 45. 47 For yet another variant, see the sarcophagus fragment in

the Vatican Museo Chiaramonti, inv. 1632: W. Amelung, Die

54 [AJA 85


bath and education, the adult sarcophagi consign these early episodes to one end of the case, as in the Los Angeles (pl. 7, fig. 3)48 or Uffizi versions,49 whereas in the childhood sarcophagi these moments occupy as much as two-thirds of the front of the monument. Further, the child's sarcophagus gives prominence to scenes of death and even apotheosis, scenes which do not appear at all on the Antonine adult sarcophagi. For the youth, virtue rests in moments devoid of public heroism, yet each episode seems chosen to glorify his short life. The apotheosis is the most obvious of such elements, but the bath, related to the epiphanic baths of gods and heroes and frequently accompanied by muses or fates, communicates virtue by visual association.50 The education too carries strong associations with heroes like Achilles; the importance of the scene is manifested as well in the many references in children's epitaphs to prodigious wisdom and maturity.51 Thus, lacking a career, the youth must be commemorated for his virtue through his portentous beginnings, his great wisdom, his stoic and much mourned death and his reward by the gods.

The two groups of sarcophagi just discussed con- stitute two related branches of biographical iconography. The child's monument differs from the adult's, of necessity, because the lives themselves were different and the virtues of the adult, virtus, dementia, pietas and concordia, reflect valued characteristics dependent on wider opportunities than those available or appropriate to the child. Because the child's life is potential, stress is placed on the numinous, the qualities exemplified by heroic and divine children, whereas the adult's heroic virtue can be couched in terms of those actualities visible also on the public monuments of rulers.

That the two sarcophagus types are intimately connected, despite certain crucial iconographic dif- ferences, becomes clear from a brief comparison of several points. First, certain motifs, the infancy and education scenes, are often shared, as are the allegorical figures and divine attendants. Second, the gods, muses and virtues underline the concern with abstract virtues in both monument types. The

Skttlpturen des Vaticanischen Museums (Berlin I903-I956) I, 59I, no. 424Ka, pl. 6I.

48 Supra n. 2. 49 Supra n. 30.

episodes chosen from the great range of possible events in even a short life point to a major interest in traditional Roman values and behavior, and the associations present in both types of sarcophagi indicate a preference for motifs which would accen- tuate and clarify just these notions of virtue.

Although both adults' and children's sarcophagi show the variations, misunderstandings and re- shufflings typical of mass-produced art, two formal characteristics appear clear from an analysis of composition. Both types retain some hints of a frieze- like structure; the adult sarcophagi frequently use the end panels as continuations of the frieze, and both types try, with varying degrees of success, to re- late individual groupings to one another by pose, gesture and pattern. Nonetheless, both show signifi- cantly less interest in coherent chronological narrative than in a conceptual ordering which empha- sizes particular events or values. The placement of the prothesis in the center of three of the children's monuments, the use of the end panels as predellae in some of the adult sarcophagi, the reversal of order for the infant's bath and the education on the Ostia (pl. io, figs. 16-17) and Louvre (pl. Io, fig. I5) sarcophagi and the conceptual placement of public moments at left and private ones at right on the adult caskets all indicate a general tendency to stress ideas rather than narrative continuity, a tendency which does serious damage to the frieze as a compositional structure.52

The relationship between adult and child biographical sarcophagi suggests that they represent two slightly different directions taken from a single point of departure. That point is a model-perhaps a Roman one derived from a Greek cycle such as a hero's or god's biography (pl. 8, fig. 6)-in the form of a narrative frieze based on a particular life and probably made for or about a recognizable individual. The data suggest that the prototype was closer to a narrative biography or eulogy than to per specie types and that, consequently, there was less structural concern with abstract but overtly presented notions of virtue. The Via Portuense monument is undoubtedly closer to the prototype than are the mass-produced and formulaic Anto- nine sarcophagi, but this is not due purely to a

50 Supra n. 42. 51 Supra n. 25. 52 Rodenwaldt, "Saulensarkophage," RdmMitt 38-39 (1923-

1924) 13-I4, and Brilliant (supra n. i) I60-6I.

1981] 55


change in production and patronage; the changes made visible by the Antonine sarcophagi are the result of a gradual and fundamental change in the attitudes of later second century patrons and artists.

Some of these changes become visible in the great battle sarcophagus in the Museo Nazionale Romano, the so-called Portonaccio or Via Tibur- tina sarcophagus, usually dated by its stylistic relationship with the Column of Marcus Aurelius to ca. I90-200 (pl. io, fig. I8 and pl. 11, fig. i9).53 The sarcophagus shows a wild and complicated battle in progress, one which owes a great deal in composition and figure type as well as style to the con- temporary column. On the lid are four biographical scenes in which the participants' faces are left blank; they indicate the unfinished state of the sculpture and the possibility that it was not, despite its magnificence, a special commission.

From the left on the Portonaccio lid, the infant's bath with the mother watching is followed by a scene composed like an education but with a young girl before two women. This is succeeded by a dextrarum iunctio, traditional in form if not in its location in the center of the lid, and the band of decoration is completed by an elaborate submission of barbarians. The many oddities about this piece include its reorganization of the biographical sequence; combination of childhood and maturity scenes on the front of a lid; the replacement of the boy's education with a scene involving women; the location of the marriage in the center of the lid; and the placement of the battle on a totally separate relief surface, the sarcophagus body.

The crucial changes visible here have to do with misunderstanding and reinterpretation of the proto-

53 Rome, Museo Nazionale, inv. 112327: Hamberg (supra n. i) 176-90; Matz (supra n. 31) I57-58, I66Ia: dated ca. 190-200, I88-90, pl. 38; Aurigemma5 (supra n. 3) no. 52; Andreae, "Imitazione ed originalita nei sarcofagi romani," RendPontAcc 41 (I968-69) 156-60; and Helbig4 III, no. 2I26: dated I80-93. 54 On the sarcophagus structure: Rodenwaldt (supra n. 52) passim; P. Krantz, "Zu den Anfangen der stadtr6mischen Saulensarkophage," RomMitt 84 (1977) 349-80, with literature.

55 Vatican wedding sarcophagus: G. Lippold, Die Skulpturen des Vaticanischen Museums 3.I (Berlin 1936) 79-82, no. 522, pl. 30; Helbig4 1.72: dated third quarter second century, but this seems to me to be rather early given the elongated propor- tions of the figures.

Leningrad wedding sarcophagus: Ryberg (supra n. i) 165-66, fig. 93; Himmelmann, Typologische Untersuchungen an romischen Sarkophagreliefs (Mainz 1973) 8 n. 52.

types of the motifs and reorganization of locations of motifs. The former has occurred in other sarcophagi discussed here, as has the latter, but the reorganization seems to be less dependent here than elsewhere on accident or misunderstanding. The tendency to place important motifs in the center of a space, to centralize the composition, goes hand in hand with the deterioration of the narrative frieze and the focus on one emblematic motif which can be separated physically from all others to achieve special, independent status. These two features, centralization and reduction, may be seen gaining strength and dominance in the art of third century Rome, and they play a determining role in the appearance of the later sarcophagi of the vita humana.54

Sarcophagi of the biographical type, like some mythological sarcophagi, show a centralized composition by the end of the second and early third centuries. The wedding sarcophagus in the Vati- can (pl. I, fig. 20), a representative example, re- duces biographical elements to the marriage and pietas by placing the former in the center where the couple and pronuba gather around an altar on which the man makes a sacrifice, thus eliminating the dextrarum iunctio gesture and conflating marriage and sacrifice.55 Venus and Cupid join other divine and allegorical figures in attendance as do the bull and victimarius who elsewhere partici- pated in a separate event.56

A similar centralization occurs on both the Me- dici-Riccardi (pl. 1, figs. 2I-23)57 and Pisa Campo- santo (pl. 12, figs. 24-25)58 wedding sarcophagi on which arcades separate the central dextrarum iunctio from attendant figures such as the Dioscuri. On both monuments the end panels (pl. 12, fig. 25)

San Lorenzo wedding sarcophagus: Matz-Duhn (supra n. 43) no. 3090; Matz (supra n. 31) 151: dated 210-220; Himmel- mann (supra n. i) 120 n. 54: early third century.

56 See especially fig. I3. 57 Medici-Riccardi sarcophagus, now Florence, Opera del

Duomo: H. Diitschke, Die antiken Marmorbildwerke der Uffi- zien in Florenz 2 (Leipzig 1878) no. Io5; Rodenwaldt (supra n. 52) I0-15, fig. 4; Reekmans (supra n. I) 47-48 n. 3; Krantz (supra n. 54) 372: dated late Antonine-early Severan. Note that the sarcophagus preserves vestiges of the earlier Antonine biographical sarcophagus type in its use on the short ends of a submissio and a sacrificial scene, the latter on the right end.

58 Pisa wedding sarcophagus: Diitschke1 (supra n. 57) no. 41; Rodenwaldt (supra n. 52) I5-I7 and 22; for other examples of pagan and Christian column sarcophagi with wedding motifs, see Reekmans (supra n. I) 38-73.

56 [AJA 85


represent participants in a sacrifice, the bull ap- pearing on both pieces. On one of the Medici- Riccardi end panels, part of a submissio occurs as well (pl. II, fig. 23). The end panels are used even more emphatically than ever as predellae, although, at the same time, they draw on motifs from a different, yet related subject. Indeed, the continuing association of wedding, pietas and submissio, like the juxtapositions of the lid and body of the Porto- naccio sarcophagus, suggest memories of a full biographical narrative program.

That the tendency to centralize a composition is not restricted to biographical subjects is demon- strated by several mythological sarcophagi. The linear chronological narrative of second century Marsyas, Medea or Icarus sarcophagi (pl. 12, fig. 26)59 begins to lose its coherence by the early third century, as may be seen in the sarcophagus of Adonis in the Vatican (pl. 12, fig. 27).60 The story is told in an emblematic rather than a sequential form. At the left Adonis is parting from Venus, about to hold him back from certain death; the hunt appears at the right while the center is occupied by the most heavily symbolic element, the wounded and dying hero. The desire to centralize breaks up narrative coherence and places emphasis on the conceptual rather than the realistic aspects of the story. The same process of formal and narrative change occurs in the pseudo-biographies of real and divine heroes: from chronological narration in a linear form, artists move increasingly to centralization which stresses ideas rather than story.

The centralization of compositions is accompanied in biographical sarcophagi by a taste for reduction of the number of incidents used and con- centration on a single crucial element. The physical separation of the biographical scenes on the Porto- naccio sarcophagus lid from the battle scene on the body below illustrates this movement toward the use of one pseudo-biographical element in isola-

59 Marsyas: ASR 5.3.II5, S-K no. 35. Medea: ASR 2.I96, S-K no. 37, M. Schmidt, Basler Medeasarkophag (Tubingen I968) passim. Icarus: ASR 3.1.37, S-K no. 15, V. Tusa, I Sarcofagi romani di Sicilia (Palermo 1957) 34. For other themes, see S-K no. 38, i6, 69.

60 Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano, sarcophagus of Adonis, inv. 10409: ASR 3.21; Helbig4 I, no. 1120 (dated ca. 220); S-K no. 7. See also the lid of this sarcophagus with the cycle of Oedipus, inv. 10408, S-K no. 52, and the Orestes sarcophagus in the Vatican Museo Gregoriano Profano, inv. 10450: ASR 2.155, S-K no. 53.

tion from the others of the older sequence.6 Exam- ples such as the mid-third century Ludovisi battle sarcophagus,62 the wedding sarcophagus of an offi- cial of the Annona in the Terme (pl. 12, fig. 28)63 and the many philosopher representations64 demonstrate the shorthand use of formerly narrative moments. These various forms become increasingly concentrated as their old biographical context is removed; they begin to stand for the full sequence, its list of virtues and moral values, in an emblematic way; and they become denser and more centralized in composition as an analogy to their changed function. The developmental process takes us from chronological narrative to symboli- cally laden emblemata.

Analysis of Roman biographical funerary monuments has revealed an important series of changes in the formal taste of wealthy patrons. Republican and early imperial eulogy and biography commonly employed themes and structure similar to those visible in the Via Portuense monument (pl. 7, figs. 45); art and literature both used a stand- ardized chronological narrative which followed rhetorical convention in documenting the life of a wealthy gentleman. In middle and late Antonine biographical sarcophagi, the ordered narrative gradually gave way to an increasing emphasis on the symbolic and conceptual relationship of a lim- ited number of events. The notion of virtue resided less in the mores maiorum of a traditional life cycle than in a few moments chosen from the cycle because of their visual association with a set of typical and symptomatic virtues. The third step in the process of transformation of the biographical genre appeared in late Antonine and third and fourth century sarcophagi with battles, weddings and scenes of the life of the mind and soul. Here the grouping of a set of episodes illustrative of virtues was finally eliminated. What remained was one

61 Supra n. 53. 62 Battle sarcophagi: Andreae (supra n. I) passim; Ludovisi battle sarcophagus: Helbig4 III, no. 2354 with literature.

63 Wedding sarcophagi: Reekmans (supra n. I) passim; Terme Annona sarcophagus, inv. 40799: Helbig' III, no. 2122 (ca. 280), G. Uggeri, "Sul Sarcofago di Flavio Arabiano, Pre- fetto dell'Annona," RendPontAcc 41 (1967-68) 113-22.

64 Philosopher sarcophagi: e.g. Helbig4 II, no. ioI5; Roden- waldt, "Zur Kunstgeschichte der Jahre 220 bis 270," Jdl 51 (1936) ioi-io6; Marrou (supra n. I) 45-II4, 148-71, 209-67.

57 1981]


centralized emblematic scene accompanied by heroizing figures. The new structure, the isolation of one motif and the association with the symbolism of earlier sarcophagi and state monuments gave rise to an almost obsessive emphasis on one act which was fraught with symbolic value.

The motifs used in biographical monuments, like the value placed on mores maiorum, remain constant over the course of more than two hundred years. The changes are to be seen in composition and narrative concepts as well as in the understanding of the meaning of mores maiorum and virtue. The funerary monuments, unlike written biography the more tradition-bound form of which changes little in this period, reveal major transformations in self-image and social perceptions of the upper class patron.

It seems clear that the early use of narrative form in biographical art paralleled the structure of eulogy and narrative biography as expressions of a fairly coherent taste. The breakdown of that rela- tive homogeneity in the sarcophagi of the later second century indicates transformations in both taste and social perception which are predictable given the complex and crisis-ridden character of the history of this period. Indeed, concrete changes in the life of the upper class male, such as his occasional loss of the right to certain administrative positions and his ever declining role in military leadership, would have shaken traditional assumptions about life and the cursus honorum65; similarly, the dis- ruption of imperial security and order in the late second and third centuries caused important changes in attitudes. Not least among such changes, and crucial to the evolving structure of biographical sarcophagi, are the increasing rapidity and in- tensity of absorption of new religions and soterial ideologies as well as the growth of a strong and, at times, rigid soterial cult of the Emperor. Thus, old values were weakened enough by social change

65 On the changing role of senatorial and equestrian orders in civil and military administration, see A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire: 284-602 I (Norman, Okla. 1964) 24, 525 and 532; review article with current bibliography by P. Brown, "The Later Roman Empire," Economic History Review 56, ser. 2, 20 (1967) 327-43; M.T.W. Arnheim, The Senatorial Aris- tocracy in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford 1972) 33-38. On the social changes in the later second and third centuries, see P. Brown, "Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman Aris- tocracy," JRS 5I (196I) i-II; M. Chambers, "The Crisis of the Third Century," in L. White, Jr. ed., The Transformation of

and crisis to allow receptivity to transcendental ideas. As upper class life lost its cohesion of belief and its commitment to the Catonian ideal, the emperor and the upper class patron both became increasingly concerned with Virtue as a non-chronological, spiritual absolute.

While the patron's desire to associate himself overtly with the ways of the republican past remained strong as a sign of high social status, his understanding of the mores maiorum, as revealed by images and structure on sarcophagi, changed over the centuries. Mores maiorum could now be captured by one significant, ideal act and communicated to its new audience by means of anagogical rather than chronological associations. Virtue had become an emblematic value, an isolated act indic- ative, not of devotion to duty and correct living, but of spiritual superiority which transcended daily life.

Perhaps the clearest summation of this new atti- tude is to be found in St. Jerome's letter to Helio- dorus on the death of Nepotian in 396. Rejecting the traditions of the laudatio funebris and consola- tion literature, Jerome refuses to begin his praise of Nepotian with a discussion of his ancestors or his youth. To the Saint, true birth begins with "the hour when we are born again in Christ."66 The numinous act transcends and subdues all others; it is the expression of supreme virtue.

DEPARTMENT OF ART UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

KINGSTON, RHODE ISLAND 02881

ADDENDUM After this article went to press, I was made aware of Laszlo

Berczelly, "A Sepulchral Monument from Via Portuense and the Origin of the Roman Biographical Cycle," Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia (Norwegian Institute in Rome) 8 (1978) 49-74. Although the focus and intent are somewhat different from my own, it is a valuable supplement. My findings are in general agreement with many of Berczelly's; however, he sees a declamatio on the Via Ostiense sarcophagus, while I have interpreted the scene as a lectus. I suspect that Berczelly is correct.

the Roman World (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1966) 30-58; P. Brown "Later Roman Empire" (supra) 327-43. On contem- porary perception of social change: G. Alfoldy, "The Crisis of the Third Century as seen by Contemporaries," GRBS 15 (1974) 89-111, especially 99-I02 on perception of the loss of senatorial power and traditional mores. Changes in the concept of virtue: W. Eisenhut (supra n. 6) 195-222.

66 Jerome 60.8. A similar structure and message are to be seen in Pontius' life of St. Cyprian (a century earlier than the letter of Jerome) and the mid-fourth century life of St. Anthony by St. Athanasius, especially chapter 20.

58 [AJA 85

KAMPEN PLATE 7

FIG. I. Roman biographical sarcophagus. Los Angeles County Museum, William Randolph Hearst Collection. (Courtesy the Museum)

FIG. 2. Roman biographical sarcophagus: right end. Los Angeles County Museum. (Courtesy the Museum)

FIG. 4. Roman funerary monument: front. Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano. (Photo author)

FIG. 3. Roman biographical sarcophagus: left end. Los Angeles County Museum. (Courtesy the Museum)

FIG. 5. Roman funerary monument: back. (Photo author)

PLATE 8 KAMPEN

FIG. 6. Dionysiac sarcophagus: front. Rome, Museo Capitolino. (DAI neg. 54.194)

FIG. 7. Childhood sarcophagus: front. Rome, Museo Torlonia. (DAI neg. 33.II)

FIG. 8. Roman biographical sarcophagus: front. Florence, Uffizi. (Alinari 1308)

FIG. 9. Roman biographical sarcophagus: left end. Florence, Uffizi. (DAI neg. 75.278)

KAMPEN PLATE 9

FIG. IO. Roman biograp (DAI neg. 73.II5)

al sarcophagus: tront. Paris, Musee du Louvre. FIG. I . Roman biographical sarcophagus: right end. Paris, Musee du Louvre. (DAI neg. 73.121)

FIG. 12. Roman biographical sarcophagus: front. Mantua, Palazzo Ducale. (DAI neg. 62.126)

FIG. 13. Roman biographical sarcophagus: right end. Mantua, Palazzo Ducale. (DAI neg. 62.I29)

FIG. 14. Childhood sarcophagus: front. Rome, Palazzo Doria Pamphili. (DAI neg. 8332)

PLATE IO KAMPEN

FIG. 15. Childhood sarcophagus: front. Paris, Musee du Louvre. (Courtesy Musee du Louvre)

FIG. 16. (left) Childhood sarcophagus: front, left. Scavi di Ostia Antica. (Courtesy Soprintendenza alle Antichita di Ostia) FIG. 17. (right) Childhood sarcophagus: front, right. Scavi di Ostia Antica. (Courtesy Soprintendenza alle Antichita di Ostia)

FIG. 18. Roman battle sarcophagus: front, with lid. Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano. (DAI neg. 6I.I399)

KAMPEN PLATE II

FIG. 19. Roman battle sarcophagus: FIG. 20. Wedding sarcophagus: front. Rome, Vatican, Belvedere. right end. Rome, Museo Nazionale (DAI neg. 36.540) Romano. (DAI neg. 6I.I401)

FIG. 2I. Wedding sarcophagus: front.

Florence, Opera del Duomo. (DAI neg. 75.230)

FIG. 22. (left) Wedding sarcophagus: right end.


FIG. 23 (right) Wedding sarcophagus: left end.


F I

ow,- , .ORIC,I "W" v .9Srf . i i

*

,IIF i ', e

.. ";K r -

PLATE I2 KAMPEN

FIG. 24. Wedding sarcophagus: front. Pisa, Camposanto. (DAI neg. 34.615)

FIG. 25. Wedding sarcophagus: left end. Pisa, Camposanto. (DAI neg. 34.629)

FIG. 26. Icarus sarcophagus: front. Messina, Museo. (DAI neg. 71.94I)

FIG. 27. Adonis sarcophagus: front with lid. Rome, Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano. (DAI neg. 72.I762)

FIG. 28. Wedding sarcophagus: front. Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano. (DAI neg. 66.I877)

Article Contentsp.[47]p.48p.49p.50p.51p.52p.53p.54p.55p.56p.57p.58[unnumbered][unnumbered][unnumbered][unnumbered][unnumbered][unnumbered]

Issue Table of ContentsAmerican Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Jan., 1981), pp. i-viii+1-104Volume Information [pp.i-vii]Front Matter [pp.1-1]The Painted Metopes at Lefkadia and the Problem of Color in Doric Sculptured Metopes [pp.3-11]Cyrene's Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone: A Summary of a Decade of Excavation [pp.13-30]The Thirty and the Pnyx [pp.31-37]The Cap That Survived Alexander [pp.39-46]Biographical Narration and Roman Funerary Art [pp.47-58]Subject and Artist: Studies in Roman Portraiture of the Third Century [pp.59-68]Archaeological NotesMycenaeans at Thera: Another Look [pp.69-70]The Scarabs from Tholos B at Platanos [pp.70-73]The Identification of Middle Minoan Painters and Workshops [pp.73-75]The Relationship of Late Minoan II to Late Minoan III A1 [pp.75-77]The Bronze Torso in the Museo Archeologico, Florence: Greek Original or Roman Copy? [pp.77-79]New Evidence on the Mechanics of Loom Weights [pp.79-81]A Tomb Group from Bisenzio in the Barrett Collection, Buffalo, New York [pp.81-83]The Mystery of Apollo's E at Delphi [pp.83-84]The Annihilation of the Sacred Band at Chaeronea [pp.84-87]A Painter in the Imperial Arms Factory at Sardis [pp.87-88]A Priestess of Isis at Swarthmore College [pp.88-92]

Book Reviewsuntitled [pp.93-94]untitled [pp.94-95]untitled [pp.95-96]untitled [pp.96-97]untitled [pp.97-99]untitled [p.99]untitled [pp.99-100]untitled [p.100]

Books Received [pp.101-103]Recent Dissertations in Archaeology [p.103]Back Matter

biographical narration and roman funerary art

Documents

conditions of use

jstor archive

jstor transmission

noncommercial use

biographical monuments

biographical narration

youmay use content

biographical sarcophagi