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HOME Forword Selected sources |
REMEMBERING THE DEAD PORTRAITS OF THE DEAD After the burial and all the usual ceremonies have been performed, they place the likeness of the deceased in the most conspicuous spot in his house, surmounted by a wooden canopy or shrine. This likeness consists of a mask made to represent the deceased with extraordinary fidelity both in shape and colour. (Polybius Histories 6.53) In addition to inscriptions, the Romans commissioned portraits to commemorate the dead. One type was the ancestor mask, as described by Polybius. Masks were placed in the central hall of the Roman house, the atrium, which served as a reception hall where clients and patrons met. Positioned in such a prominent place, the ancestor masks bore witness to the family’s honourable lineage and served as a strong political statement about the values of the aristocratic Roman family. In the first century BC, it became quite common to place marble portraits of the deceased in the tombs. Portrait busts or reliefs were set in a niche, or in a frame on the exterior wall of the tombs, giving the impression that the deceased was looking out of a window at the passers-by. One beautiful example from the middle of the 1st century BC is the bust. It is reworked from a statue, and depicts an old man in a realistic style typical of the art of the Roman Republic. He is dressed in his toga and his aged facial features emphasize his lifelong dedication to his family and the Roman state.
Photo: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty © The Museum of Cultural History Also common are tomb monuments where the deceased is portrayed reclining on a couch. Our sculpture of a recumbent boy served as the lid of a child’s sarcophagus. The boy’s facial features and hair clearly show that the sculpture was intended to be a portrait of the deceased.
Photo: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty © The Museum of Cultural History The dead can also be portrayed on a sarcophagus within a circular frame, the so-called clipeus (shield). The clipeus framing the portraits of a couple is held by two winged figures, possibly Geniuses or Victories.
Photo: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty © The Museum of Cultural History IN MEMORY OF A FAITHFUL FRIEND Sometimes even animals were given lasting memorials. This gravestone from Asia Minor is dedicated to a dog called Phylokynegos. The rather fat and shapeless old companion is pictured in the upper part of the slab. The lower frame bears the epigram: “My name is Hunting Friend because I once stormed fleet of foot after the terrified animals.”
Photo: Ellen Hote © The Museum of Cultural History WHEN THE EMPEROR DIED The death of a Roman emperor was a major event. Emperors became divine after death, and monuments were erected and coins minted in their honour. The enormous cylindrical mausoleums of the emperors Augustus and Hadrian can still be seen in Rome. Some emperors, however, were deeply unpopular. In these cases, the emperor’s successor could order that he be treated as an enemy of the state and that all memory of his person be erased; ‘damnatio memoriae.’ This was not a legal order, but nevertheless functioned as very effective public sanction. The rationale behind the practice was that portraits contained a part of the presence of the dead. In ordinary circumstances, placing the statue an emperor in a law court, ensured that justice would be done, while his likeness on a coin guaranteed its value. If, however, an emperor fell out of favour, his portraits, and thus his presence, had to be removed. This was achieved by destroying or reworking statuary and deleting names from inscriptions. This is an inscription to the late Emperor Aurelian (A.D. 270-275). We can also see that someone has tried to erase the name of Emperor Probus (276-282 A.D.), the donor of the inscription.
Photo: Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty © The Museum of Cultural History Once an emperor had been denounced and condemned to a ‘damnatio memoriae,’ he could be denied a proper funeral. Suetonius writes about the makeshift burial of the hated emperor Caligula, who was murdered by leaders of the Praetorian guard. His body was conveyed secretly to the gardens of the Lamian family, where it was partly consumed on a hastily erected pyre and buried beneath a light covering of turf; later his sisters on their return from exile dug it up, cremated it, and consigned it to the tomb. Before this was done, it is well known that the caretakers of the gardens were disturbed by ghosts, and that in the house where he was slain not a night passed without some fearsome apparition, until at last the house itself was destroyed by fire. (Suetonius, Caligula 59). A FATE OF NATURE: POMPEII
Perhaps the most famous of all „necropolises“ of the ancient world is the city of Pompeii. Pardoxically, this „burial place“ is not the work of man but the result of the violent forces of nature. In the afternoon of August 24th 79AD, the volcano Vesuvius erupted and within days, Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were destroyed, buried under thick layers of pimpstone and ash. An estimated 5 000 people died as a consequence. Some were buried under collapsed buildings or were struck by flying volcanic debris. Others died from the intense heat and poisonous gases generated by the erruption. Some have been preserved at their moments of death by forces that killed them. NEXT: CULTURAL CROSSROADS – THE ROMAN PROVINCES OF SYRIA AND JUDAEA |
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