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generals.
During the Republic, Roman paintings with historical
themes commemorated the empire's expansion: for example,
the conquests of Carthage in 201 B.C.,Sardinia in 174 B.C.,and
Macedonia in 168 B.C. Subjects included, at one end of the
spectrum, pared-down iconic personifications and, at the
other end, full-fledged battle scenes in landscape settings.
Roman historical paintings not only secured the private
memories of participants in actual events, they also served a
didactic and propagandistic function in the public sphere of
Roman political and religious institutions. The Roman governing class commissioned historical paintings to inform a
specifically Roman audience of its achievements, to educate
that audience about its policies, and thus to persuade that
audience to adopt its views and follow a particular course of
action. It used historical paintings to implement ideology.
Ancient Rome inherited arguments, already old, for the
superiority of painting over any other form of communication
to affect and manipulate an audience.2 In his treatise De
Oratore,Cicero states that the "keenest of all our senses is the
sense of sight, and that consequently perceptions received by
the ears or by reflection can be most easily retained in the
mind if they are also conveyed there by the mediation of the
eyes."3 Valerius Maximus writes about the ability of painting
to aid the memory and about its consequent role in instruction; in both instances he found painting superior to literature.4 In the Ars Poetica Horace argues that "less vividly is the
mind stirred by what finds entrance through the ears than by
what is brought before the trusty eyes, and what the spectator
This article was written with the aid of a National Endowment for the
Humanities/American Academy in Rome Fellowship in the History of Art; I
am grateful to the NEH and the American Academy for their assistance.
Several colleagues heard oral presentations or read drafts of this paper and
offered helpful suggestions; I am indebted to Christopher Baswell, Bettina
Bergmann, Richard Brilliant, John Clarke, Anthony Corbeill, Diane Favro,
Christine Kondoleon, and Tina Najbjerg for their insights and criticism.
Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.
1. Plutarch, Marcellus 21 (trans. Pollitt). Livy (26 21), however, states that
Marcellus was awarded an ovatzorather than a triumph.
2. The tradition appears to go back at least as far as Aristotle; see Poetwa
14.1453b. 1-2. For ancient theonries of memory in general, see F. Yates, The Art
of Memory, Chicago, 1966; and M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of
Memoryin MedzevalCulture, Cambridge, 1990.
3. Cicero, De Oratore 2.357 (trans E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham, Loeb
Classical Library): "acerrimum autem ex omnibus nostris sensibus esse
sensum videndi; quare facillime animo teneri posse ea quae perciperentur
auribus aut cogitatione si etiam commendatione oculorum animis traderentur." He adds (2.358) that these things are well known and familiar ("re nota
et pervulgata"). Orator, politician, and philosopher, Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106-44 B.C.) was caught in the vortex of the dying Republic.
4. Valerius described the effect of a painted image of Mycon and Perus
(known in the later tradition as Cimon and Pero), an exemplary tale of Roman
filial piety, on the Romans who saw it: Facta et dicta memorabilia5.4, ext. 1.
Rhetorician and historian, Valerius Maximus wrote a collection of moralistic
historical anecdotes in the early 1st century A.D.
5. Horace, Ars Poetica 180-82 (trans. H. Rushton Fairclough, Loeb Classical
Library): "segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, quam quae sunt ocuhs
subiecta fidelibus et quae ipse sibi tradit spectator."
6. D. Freedberg, The Power of Images. Studies zn the History and Theory of
Receptzon,Chicago, 1989, 50.
7. In their pursuit of antiquarian detail, Marcus Terentlus Varro (116-27
B.C.) and Gaius Plinius Secundus (ca. A.D. 23-79) preserved information from
the annales, early accounts of important events (including triumphal processions) originally recorded by Roman priests, and from inscriptions on statues
and buildings. Furthermore, Pliny cites Varro more frequently than any other
writer; indeed, Varro may well have preserved Hellenistic art histories and
provided a model to Romans of how to write about art; see Pollitt, xix-xx.
8. The erotic poetry of Publius Ovidius Naso (43 B.C.-A,.D. 18) displeased
Augustus and led to the poet's exile in A.D. 8 Ovid spent his remaining years
composing the Fasti, based on the Roman ritual calendar, to assuage the
emperor's anger. Through the agency of Maecenas, Quintus Horatius Flaccus
(65-8 B.C.) was also dependent on the patronage of Augustus
9. C. W. Fornara, The Nature of Hitory in Ancient Greeceand Rome, Berkelev,
1983, 53.
ROMAN TRIUMPHAL
PAINTING
131
can see for himself."'" How can we understand these statements in reference to the beliefs of the ancient Roman
audience for history painting? Although such notions may be
viewed as mere topoi, David Freedberg recognizes that "topos
becomes a telling index of belief and behavior, not merely the
unthinking repetition of learned or critical commonplaces."6
To what extent can we depend on the veracity of literary
testimonia for accurate reconstructions of Roman historical
paintings? The genres of those textual sources and the extent
to which those genres may affect the reliability and detail of
their accounts present constant problems for historical interpretation. We might assume that a scholar or encyclopedist,
such as Varro or Pliny the Elder, who cites and occasionally
questions his sources, is fairly reliable.7 A poet like Ovid or
Horace, on the other hand, may be more imaginative and
tendentious.8 Roman biographers and historians were either
members of the ruling class themselves or in their service;9
annalists like Polybius and Livy had strong family or political
biases for and against certain subjects.10 Although literary
works were the products of a restricted social class and thus
share its limited vision, they are also revealing of its assumptions and preconceptions. The ancient textual records therefore are not themselves transparent; they, too, have ideological and political points to make, and thus require careful
handling.
Although most ancient authors seem to argue for the
greater potency of images over words, Horace's observation
echoes actual conventions of Roman political and legal
practice. Further, Romans embraced the idea that historical
painting was at its most effective when it became the embodiment of what it represented, or, to use the terms preferred by
Freedberg, when the sign becomes the living embodiment of
what it signifies."1 (Ancient authors, for example, relish
anecdotes describing portraits that profoundly affected spectators long after the death of their subjects.)12 Toward that
end, Roman patrons became increasingly sophisticated about
representational strategies and throughout the course of the
Republic procured the most commanding examples possible.
The evidence for Roman historical painting, commissioned
by a cultured elite, suggests the force of a steady Hellenization
of Roman artistic practice and reveals a mentality that
10. The Greek historian Polybius (202-120 B.C.) could not fail to support
the cause of the Scipio family that had taken him up; see F. W. Walbank,
Polybius, Berkeley, 1990. Titus Livius (59 B.C.-A.D. 17) defers to earlier
personages who were supposedly his own ancestors, while displaying hostility
to the gens Claudza; cf. P. G. Walsh, Lzvy: Hzs Hzstoncal Azms and Methods,
Cambridge, 1967, 89, 152-53.
11. Freedberg (as in n. 6), 28.
12. Plutarch, Alexander 74, recounts how Cassander came upon an image of
Alexander at Delphi that "smote him suddenly with a shuddering and
trembling from which he could scarcely recover, and made his head swim." A
Greek from Chaironeia, Plutarch (ca. A.D. 46-120) wrote biographies of
famous Greeks and Romans in which he advocated the convergence of the two
cultures. Suetonius, Dzvus Julius 7, reports that when he came upon a statue of
Alexander the Great at Cadiz, Caesar mourned that he had as yet done
nothing noteworthy, whereas by his age Alexander had conquered the world.
The biographies of Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (ca. A.D. 69-140) emphasize
scandal and ignominy. Nevertheless, the ScriptoresHzstona Augusta, "Probus"
2, states that he wrote not so much with elegance as with truthfulness: "non
tam diserte quam vere."
13. See Gruen, 232, on translations of Greek used in Roman literature.
14. The distinction between the two terms is found, inter alia, in Cicero, De
InventzoneRhetonca 2.166: "gloria est frequens de aliquo fama cum laude." The
locz communes are listed in D. Earl, The Moral and Polztzcal Tradztzonof Rome,
Ithaca, N.Y., 1967; see also W. V. Harris, Warand Imperzalzsmzn Republcan Rome:
327-70 B c., Oxford, 1979, 17.
15. Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes 1.1.4; see also De Republzca 5.7.9. Although he insisted that a historian should not show partiality, Cicero
nevertheless urged Lucius Lucceius to write an exaggerated account of his
own consulship: Epistulae ad Famzliares5.12.3.
16. Although the triumphal paintings discussed here were commissioned by
aristocrats, similar social urges motivated other sectors of the Roman populace. Under the empire, when laus and gloria could no longer be obtained
politically, the desire for them became particularly strong among those
freedmen (libertz) who amassed fortunes in trade and sought prestige in
municzpza;see R. Bianchi Bandinelli, Rome: The CenterofPowet NewYork, 1970,
60. I first outlined this intersection of private ambition with public action in
"Ad Triumphum Excolendum: The Political Significance of Roman Historical
Painting," OxfordArtJournal, III, 1980, 3-8.
17. Polybius 6.19.4. In seeking to explain to his fellow Greeks the reasons for
Rome's rise to power, Polyblus preserved most of what we know about the
mechanics of power in the Republic of the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C.
18. A. Degrassi, Inscriptzoneslatznae lzberaerezpublicae: Imagines, Berolini, Italy,
1965, 313, 316; H. Dessau, Inscrptiones Latznae Selectae,Berlin, 1892-1916, 48,
49, 54, 56, 57, 60; see Harris (as in n. 14), 13.
132
ART BULLETIN
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1 Typical route of a
triumphal procession
during the Republican
period; significant sites
include: (33) the Theater
of Pompey in the Campus
Martius; (19) Temple of
Hercules of the Muses;
(28) Temple of Hercules in
the Forum Boarium; (16)
Palatine Hill; (32) Forum
Romanum; and (30)
Temple ofJupiter Optimus
Maximus (drawing: R. H.
Abramson)
ROMAN TRIUMPHAL
PAINTING
133
in the Campus Martius. According to Festus, "Laurelwreathed soldiers followed the triumphal chariot, in order to
enter the city as if purged of bloodguilt."32 The procession
followed a counterclockwise route (circumambulatio)through
the city, emulating the choreography of other sacred lustration rituals and indicating an apotropaic function. (In Roman
rites purification was accomplished through a circular movement, or ambitus, and through the magical practice of either
walking around the area to be purified or leading the thing to
be purified in a procession that culminated in a specific
sacrifice.) 33After entering the porta triumphalisthe procession
followed the foot of the Capitoline Hill on the west and
curved up along the Vicus lugarius and across the Velabrum,
past the Forum Boarium. After circling the Palatine, passing
the site of the Circus Maximus, it turned onto the original
Sacra Via and traversed the Forum Romanum, passing in
front of the Temple of Vesta and the area of the Regia. In
practice, the course of the procession varied from celebration
to celebration, allowing the triumphatorto pass buildings and
sites dense with personal and family associations.
The final segment of the triumph focused on its religious
significance. The procession led past the ancient sanctuary of
Saturn and proceeded up the steep Clivus Capitolinus to the
Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. There the victorious
general offered the spolia to Jupiter.34 He then solemnly
sacrificed white oxen and laid a laurel branch and wreaths in
the lap of Jupiter's statue. The ceremonies closed with the
triumphatorand Senate feasting in Jupiter's great temple.
The precise order of the participants varied, but during the
Republic the following groupings were fairly common. At the
head came Roman magistrates and senators, visible manifestations of state approval. At the rear lumbered cartloads of
booty, sacrificial animals, and captives, which collectively
vindicated the cost of war.35Next came the triumphatorin all
his glory. Clothed in a richly embroidered toga,36 he stood in
a chariot drawn by four white horses.37 Above his head a slave
Rome, Baltimore, 1992, 301. On the debates over the porta triumphalhs,see the
extensive research by F. Coarelli, "La Porta Trionfale e la Via dei Trionfi,"
Dzaloghi dz Archeologia,I1, 1968, 55-103; idem, II Foro Boario dalle ongInz alla fine
della repubblzca,Rome, 1988; Versnel (as in n. 20), 132-63; and F. S. Kleiner,
"The Study of Roman Triumphal and Honorary Arches 50 Years after KIihler,"
Journal of Roman Archaeology,II, 1984, 201-4.
32. Festus 104 L (117 M): "laureati milites sequebantur currum triumphantis, ut quasi purgati a caede humana intrarent urbem."
33. See Bonfante Warren (as in n. 20), 54.
34. In the primitive phases of the rite, the spolza had been offered to Jupiter
Feretrius in emulation of Romulus, who is described as dedicating the spolza
opzma of the enemy commander there: Plutarch, Romulus 16. By the late
Republic, however, the Temple ofJupiter Optimus Maximus had become the
primary focus.
35. Contrary to Hollywood's version of history, Cleopatra did not take her
life in misery over Antony's death; rather, the last Hellenistic monarch sought
to avoid the humiliation of being displayed in Octavian's triumph; see
Plutarch, Antony 78; Horace, Carmzna 1.37.30-32: "invidens / privata deduci
superba / non humilis mulier triumpho." In the end Octavian ordered a
painting of Cleopatra grasping the asp carried in the procession: Plutarch,
Antony 86.
36. By the 3rd century, the original triumphal garb introduced in the period
of the Etruscan kings was replaced by even more elaborate dress. On the toga
picta, decorated with designs in gold threads, and the tunzca palmata, see Festus
228 L (209 M).
37. Although the trzumphatormarched with his troops in the primitive
Roman phase of the rite, under Etruscan influence he rode in the vehicle
Etruscan nobles customarily used in honorary processions; see Bonfante
Warren (as in n. 20), 58.
134
ART BULLETIN
ROMAN TRIUMPHAL
PAINTING
135
The dignified reputation of painting at Rome was increased by M. Valerius Maximus Messala, who first displayed a painting of a battle-the one in which he had
defeated the Carthaginians and Hieron in Sicily-on a side
wall of the Curia Hostilia in the 490th year from the
foundation of the city.46
136
ART BULLETIN
public opinion.
The Romans readily promoted an art form of such apparent utility, and throughout the Republican period many other
generals celebrated their campaigns with similar paintings.
The most significant commissions include those of M. Claudius
Marcellus for his success against Syracuse, Scipio Africanus
following the Battle of Zama (201 B.C.), Scipio Asiaticus, the
younger Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus for his victories in
Sardinia (174 B.C.), L. Aemilius Paullus after his victory
against the Macedonians at Pydna (168 B.C.), L. Hostilius
Mancinus after his success against the Carthaginians (146
B.C.), Sulla (81 B.C.), Pompey following the Mithridatic Wars
(62 B.C.), and Julius Caesar's famous fourfold triumph:
Gallicus, Alexandrinus, Ponticus, and Africanus (46 B.C.).54
Analysis of the literary evidence indicates that triumphal
paintings provided an important conduit for the penetration
of Hellenistic innovations into Rome following the conquests
of Greek artistic centers. As described above, following his
victory in Sicily, Marcellus began his triumphal procession
with a painting of Syracuse made prisoner.55 In his slightly
later triumph in 187 B.C. for his victories over the Aetolians
two years earlier, M. Fulvius Nobilior displayed a similar
painting with the image of Ambracia taken prisoner.56 Both
paintings were undoubtedly personifications, images of female figures signifying the captured nations. The triumphal
paintings of Marcellus and Fulvius, therefore, indicate the
introduction in triumphal painting of allegorical representations. Educated Romans with a developing taste for abstraction and symbolism seem to have readily accepted such
imagery. Coins provided another medium for introducing
abstraction in Roman visual arts; however, Romans struck
coins rather late in their history, after the defeat of Tarentum
(272 B.C.) had made them the masters of Italy. Greek models
for coin dies from Magna Graecia and Campania served as the
initial impetus for Roman engravers, paralleling the situation
of triumphal painting.57
Personifications of nations or cities, specifically their Tyche
or Fortune, became increasingly popular in the Hellenistic
world of the fourth century B.C.;58 the complex iconography
of the celebrated Tyche of Antioch created by Eutychides in
ca. 300 B.C.established a standard for such images (Fig. 5).59
She sits on a massive rock symbolizing Mount Silphion, while
the swimming figure at her feet represents the river Orontes;
her crown takes the form of a city wall (or "mural crown"),
and the sheaf of wheat in her right hand stands for the city's
prosperity.60 Even today, only the knowledgeable viewer can
properly decipher such elaborate attributes. The introduction of an artistic language dependent on abstraction and
arcane symbolism may have presented problems of interpretation for the very Roman populace it was created to persuade,
an issue addressed below.61
Following the Battle of Zama in 203 B.C., Scipio Africanus
had paintings carried in his triumph two years later with
representations of captured cities and depictions of the war's
events.62 Similarly, his brother Scipio Asiaticus commissioned
ROMAN TRIUMPHAL
PAINTING
137
61. Even with ubiquitous coin types, the finer points of their messages
probably went unnoticed. W. V. Harris, Ancient Literacy, Cambridge, Mass.,
1989, 213, notes, "It required recherch6 knowledge, as well as reading ability,
to understand some of the coin legends of the late Republic; nor does this fact
make the moneyers' choice of legends impossible to understand, for the
obscurity of a message can make it impressive." See also the more cautious
view of M. H. Crawford, "Roman Imperial Coins Types and the Formation of
Public Opinion," Studies in Numismatic Method Presented to Philip Grierson,ed.
C.N.L. Brooke et al., Cambridge, 1983, 47-64.
62. Appian, Punic War66.
63. During the war Scipio Asiaticus led the Roman army but was advised by
his brother Scipio Africanus, and he soundly defeated Antiochos in the Battle
of Magnesia in Asia Minor in 189 B.C.
64. Livy 37.59.3-5. It is also possible that these were models of the towns or
even statues personifying them; see Pollitt, 41 n. 65.
65. F. Pfister, "Das Alexander-Archiv und die hellenistische-r6mische Wissenschaft," Historia, x, 1961, 30-67.
66. P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, I, Oxford, 1972, 176-77, 306, 311; I1,
406 n. 39; Meyboom, 372-73. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 1.12-13, cites Ptolemy II
as one of his sources.
67. Varro, De Re Rustica 1.2.1.
68. Strabo, Geography 2.5.17. The historian and geographer Strabo (64
B.C.-A.D. 21), who probably wrote for an audience involved in politics,
emphasized the use of geography in public affairs (see 1.1.16-18).
69. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 3.2.17. See C. Nicolet, Linventaire du monde:
Geographieetpolitique aux origines de l'Empireromain, Paris, 1988.
138
ART BULLETIN
commissioned by the younger Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Following his triumph in 174 B.C., Gracchus dedicated
to Jupiter in the Temple of the Mater Matuta a representation
of the island of Sardinia with simulacra pugnarum, representations of battles, at corresponding localities.70 In 146 B.C. L.
Hostilius Mancinus followed with a painting of the site of
Carthage featuring his own successful assaults.71 These paintings would appear to exemplify the genre of painting distinguished as topography. Vitruvius, writing in the Augustan
period, indicates that in antiquity topography involved not
only the drawing of maps but also the insertion of typical
views.72 In the first chapter of his GeographyClaudius Ptolemaeus writes of certain maps that included "topography,"
that is, the representation of typical or characteristic sites or
settings; he also states that a topographer had to be a
70. Livy 41.28.8-10.
71. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 35.23.
72. Vitruvius, De Architectura8.2.6.
73. Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geographia1.1.5-6. See also F. Prontera, Geografiae
geografi nel mondo antico: Guida storica e critica, Rome/Bari, 1983; 0. A. Dilke,
Greekand Roman Maps, London, 1985.
74. Blanckenhagen, 54; Felletti Maj (as in n. 45), 307-14.
75. This situation is captured in the quip by the historian Menecles of Barce
that in this way Alexandria became the teacher to all Greeks and barbarians.
See Fraser (as in n. 66), I, 121, 517-18; II, 165 n. 324; Meyboom, 373 nn. 21, 22.
76. Diodorus Siculus, Excerpta,31.18.2; Valerius Maximus 5.1.1. The historical accounts left by Diodorus (fl. 60-30 B.C.) are valued primarily for their
preservation of numerous sources, including early Roman annalists and
ROMAN TRIUMPHAL
PAINTING
139
Museo Archeologico
Prenestino (Palazzo
Barberini) (photo: Alinari)
140
ART BULLETIN
86. Among the most influential of these studies are F. Wickhoff, Roman Art:
Some of Its Principles and TheirApplication to Early Christian
Painting (Mrs. S. A.
Strong's translation of the introduction to WienerGenesis), London/New York,
1900, 110-14, 154-58; J. Strzygowski, Orient oderRom; Beitrag zur Geschichteder
spdtantike und friihchristlichen Kunst, Leipzig, 1901, 3-4; K. LehmannHartleben, Die Trajanssdule; ein romischesKunstwerk am Beginn der Spitantike,
Berlin/Leipzig, 1926, 152-54; M. Wegner, "Die Kunstgeschichtliche Stellung
der
des Deutschen ArchdologischenInstituts, XLVI,1931,
Marcussfiule," Jahrbuch
61-174, esp. 167-70, 173. O.J. Brendel evaluates the contribution of these and
other investigations to our understanding of Roman art, and to intellectual
history in general, in "Prolegomena to a Book on Roman Art," Memoirs of the
AmericanAcademyin Rome,xxI, 1953, 9-73, expanded to Prolegomenato the
Study
ROMAN TRIUMPHAL
PAINTING
141
8 Arch of Septimius
Severus, Rome, northwest
panel, Siegeof Seleucia,A.D.
203 (photo: Fototeca
Unione)
Some scholars have suggested that Fulvius and Scipio brought actors and
performers to help mount ludi scaenici. It seems probable, however, that the
artifices mentioned by Livy were neither actors nor Dionysiac technitai to stage
and staff plays; see B. Gentili, Theatrical Performances in the Ancient World:
Hellenistic and Early Roman TheaterAmsterdam, 1979, 15-41.
95. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 35.66; Eumenius, Panegyrici Latini 9.7.3. Eumenius states incorrectly that Fulvius actually built the temple in his censorship of
179 B.C., confusing it with the portico he added to the god's shrine: see Livy
40.51.6. On the Temple of Hercules of the Muses, see E. Nash, Pictorial
Dictionary of Ancient Rome, I, London, 1961, 417; and on the images of the
Muses, which may have been recorded on the coins of Q. Pomponius Musa,
see Crawford (as in n. 57), 410, 437-39.
142
ART BULLETIN
ROMAN TRIUMPHAL
PAINTING
143
96. Cicero, Pro Archza 27: "Fulvius non dubitavit Martis manubias Musis
consecrare." See Gruen, 109-10. I have benefited from conversations with
Michael Koortbojian on this topic.
97. According to Cicero, Tusculanae Disputatzones 1.3, Cato the Censor
rebuked Fulvius for hiring such "flatterers." What we know of Quintus Ennius
(239-169 B.C.), who wrote in an affected and Hellenized Latin, makes an
interesting comparison with the Hellenization of contemporary painters in
Rome; in addition, Ennius extolled the aristocratic pursuit of glona: Annales fr.
333-5, 434-5; cf. TragicFragments 10-12. It should be noted that Cato himself
had been responsible for bringing Ennius to Rome from Sardinia, an
important event in the development of Latin poetry: Nepos, Cato 1.4.
98. Gruen, 110. A. Stewart, Attzka. StudzesznAthenzan Sculptureof theHellenzstic
Age, London, 1979, 43, suggests that Fulvius might have promoted the work of
the Athenian sculptor Polycles, whose son Timarchides was subsequently
engaged by Roman nobzlesto decorate temples; Pliny, Naturalzs Hzstona 36.35.
99. Livy, 39.22.10: "tum collatas ei pecunias congregatosque per Asiam
artifices." Gruen, 106, rightly argues that here the term almost certainly
means artists or artisans rather than dramatic actors, as there were plenty of
the other already in Italy; contra Gruen, seeJ. C. Balty, "La statue de bronze de
T. Quinctius Flaminius ad Apollznzszn czrco,"Milanges d'Archiologieet d'Histozrede
l'EcoleFrangazsede Rome, xc, 1978, 683-84.
100. See Gruen, 106.
101. Pliny, Naturalzs Hzstona
"ad triumphum excolendum."
102. See H. KFihler,Der Fries35.135"
vom Rezterdenkmaldes Aemzhus Paullus zn Delphz,
Berlin, 1965.
103. For the remaining fragments see E. H. Warmington, Remains of Old
Latin, II, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass., 1936, 302-5; see also
Plutarch, AemzlzusPaullus 15. Marcus Pacuvius (220-130 B.c.) was also a major
dramatist and the nephew of the epic poet Ennius.
104. Pliny, Naturalzs Hzstona 35.19: "Proxime celebrata est in foro boario
aede Herculls Pacui poetae pictura."
105. This view is best expressed in the work of G. Becatti, "Metrodoro e
Paolo Emilio: Una Ipotesi," Crtzca d'Arte, vi, 1941, 71-72; idem, Arte e gusto
neglzscntton latznz,Florence, 1951, 7-8.
106. See Felletti Maj (as in n. 45), 61.
107. Quintilian, Instztutio oratoria 6.3.61: "ut Chrysippus, cum in triumpho
Caesaris eborea oppida essent translata, et post dies paucos Fabii Maximi
lignea, thecas esse oppidorum Caesaris dixit." The Fabius Maximus of this
anecdote was Caesar's legatus in Spain; Chrysippus was probably Chrysippus
Vettius, a freedman and architect. The rhetorician, teacher, and advocate
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (ca. A.D. 30-ca. 100) was patronized by Galba,
Vespasian, and Domitian, among others.
108. The painting measures 2.66 x 2.78 m. See Martindale (as in n. 43);
Hope (as in n. 43).
109. Pliny, Naturalzs Hzstona 35.24 (trans. Pollitt).
110. Pliny, Naturalzs Hzstona 35.24: "Deindi uideo et in foro positas uolgo."
111. See Gruen, 125.
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ART BULLETIN
mythology that was developing around these generals. Nevertheless, Mummius's boorishness in artistic matters became
legendary:
Mummius, however, was so lacking in culture that, when he
had captured Corinth and was arranging for the transportation to Italy of paintings and statues, which were masterpieces by the hands of the greatest artists, he warned those
in charge of the transportation that if they destroyed any of
the statues and paintings, they would have to replace them
with new ones.112
ROMAN TRIUMPHAL
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145
127. Cicero, Pro Sestzo93; Persius, Satzres6.32 ff.; see Blanckenhagen, 55.
128. T. Fr6hlich, Laranen- und Fassadenbzlderin den Vesuvstaidten:Untersuchungen zur "Volksttimlzchen"
PompeyanzschenMalerez, Mitteilungen des Deutschen
Archa~ologischen Instituts, R6mische Abteilung, Ergfinzungsheft xxxII, 1991;
see Ling (as in n. 77), 163.
129. A precept of reception theory is that all works are full of indeterminacies, that is, elements that can be interpreted in a number of different, perhaps
mutually conflicting ways, and that depend on the observer's interpretation
for their effect. Cf. Iser (as in n. 116).
130. Appian, Bella Czvzlza2.101 (trans. H. White).
131. The histories of Appian (born in Alexandria, fl. mid-2nd century A.D.)
reveal an admirer of Roman impenalism with a strong devotion to Rome
(where he had served as an advocate). He preserves much interesting
information but is unreliable about Republican institutions.
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ART BULLETIN
132. Caesar, Bellum Africanum, 57.2-6. At the final African triumph Caesar
included the Numidian king Juba's four-year-old son of the same name in
order to prove that the campaign had been foreign and not civil strife.
133. For additional descriptions of Caesar's triumph and the reactions it
elicited, see Suetonius, Caesar37; Plutarch, Caesar55.2; Dio 43.20.
134. Appian, Mithridatic War17.117.
135. Note, for example, the inscriptions on the Esquiline Tomb painting
(Fig. 3). The Roman public visited the interiors of large and richly decorated
tombs: see Cicero, Pro Archia 22; Livy 38.56.4.
136. See M. Pfanner, Der Titusbogen, Mainz, 1983; R. R. Holloway, "Some
Remarks on the Arch of Titus," L'AntiquitW
classique, XLVI,1987, 183-91.
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narrative.144