Antiquities Exhibits

The Grand Palais Museum in Paris pays tribute to the submerged city of Pompeii with an extraordinary digital exhibition. In addition to various found objects, the focus is on a 3D reconstruction through which visitors can become time travelers and immerse themselves in the ancient city. The show runs from July 1 to September 27. https://www.dw.com/en/the-fall-of-pompeii-reimagined-in-paris-grand-palais/g-53985774 Image: Fountain with theater masks at the House of the Large Fountain in Pompeii courtesy of the exhibit.

The Vermand Treasure was discovered in the last quarter of the nineteenth century by Benoni Lelaurain.  It was recovered from a cemetery near the modern village of Vermand, which is located beside the Celtic oppidum of Viromandui.  In the 3rd century CE, Vermand served as a castra hiberna within the network of provincial Roman border defenses. It was also a thriving glass production center and home to a large number of refugees following the destruction of Augusta Viromanduorum in the late 3rd century by barabarian invaders. The treasure was found in one of the few military burials in the cemetery.  However, grave robbers had previously plundered the burial, cracked the stone sarcophagus and scattered the contents. Perhaps they had been interrupted in their violation of the grave as six objects including this gilt silver spear shaft mount were left behind.  Others, documented in the excavation report, remained as well but it is thought the excavator's workmen pilf...

Antefixes were mold-made, usually brightly painted, terracotta decorative covers to conceal the edges of joined roof tiles and protect the seams from the elements.  They often took the form of heads, either of humans or mythological creatures. The earliest examples in museum collections date back to the 6th century BCE in both Greece and Etruria.  They were also a frequent feature on Roman architecture as well.  On temple roofs, maenads and satyrs were often alternated.  The frightening features of the Gorgon, with its petrifying eyes and sharp teeth was also a popular motif to ward off evil.  A Roman example from the Augustan period features the butting heads of two billy goats.  It may have had special significance in imperial Rome since the constellation Capricorn was adopted by the emperor Augustus as his own lucky star sign and appeared on coins and legionary standards. In 2005, I visited the Villa Giulia in Rome that houses a large Etruscan colle...

Last year after attending the "Buried by Vesuvius" exhibit at the Getty Villa and meeting a group from the Herculaneum Society, I joined the organization. This morning in their newsletter, they included this interesting image of Herculaneum's main street, the Decumano in the 1st century CE alongside a modern photograph of the street today: For years I was under the misconception that Herculaneum was the working port and Pompeii was the resort town but then learned that, in fact, it was just the opposite. Although Herculaneum was discovered first, it was covered by almost 100 feet of volcanic debris so only the "young and nimble" as it was described in an early report I read, were able to descend the deep tunnels to root out the beautiful sculptures and artifacts in demand from the royalty of Europe for their private collections. Pompeii, on the other hand, was only covered by about 11 feet of debris making it much more accessible to excavators in the 1...

Yesterday and today I uploaded a group of my images of gladiator helmets and armor that I photographed at various Pompeii exhibits to Wikimedia Commons and added a gallery of those images to the gladiator Wikipedia page. The images are now freely available for teaching, writing, and research.  Most of the equipment was found at the gladiator barracks in Pompeii although one of the most ornate pieces with a relief depicting scenes from the Trojan war was found in Herculaneum. Roman gladiator helmet with relief depicting scenes from the Trojan War from Herculaneum 1st century CE Roman gladiator shin guard depicting Hercules 1st century CE Roman gladiator helmet with relief depicting scenes from the Trojan War from Herculaneum 1st century CE Roman gladiator helmet with relief depicting scenes from the Trojan War from Herculaneum 1st century CE Ornate Roman gladiator shin guards depicting Silenus and swans fighting serpents Ornate Roman gladiator shin guar...

The Libyan Sibyl by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (after restoration) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. A friend asked me if I could point him in the right direction to study female writers of mythology in the ancient world.  I suggested he research the origins of the worship of the Great Mother (associated with Cybele) with a possible forerunner in the earliest Neolithic at Çatalhöyük. The Roman state adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle in 205 BCE recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome's second war against Carthage (218 to 201 BCE). Roman mythographers (that often included historians like Livy) reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas. Although Roman religion did not have a basis in scriptures and exegesis, priestly literature was one of the earliest written forms of Latin prose. The books (libri) and commentaries ...

Yesterday when I was translating the excavations records for the House of Sallust, I read about one of the finds there, a stamp with ring on the back.  The stamp found had a vase inscribed on the bevel portion of the ring and the words A • COSS•LBAN probably the last owner of the house or one of the guests staying at the hospitium (the House of Sallust was converted into a hospitium (a Roman hotel) during the last decades before the eruption of Vesuvius). This morning while I was searching the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I found just such a stamp from the Villa at Boscoreale. Its ring is inscribed with a winged caduceus, the staff of Mercury, god of commerce.  Its letter inscription, L*HER*FLO, signifies Lucius Herennius Florus, the name of the owner of the villa at Boscoreale from which the Museum's Second Style frescoes come.  Of course, this is a little confusing since the frescoes are labeled as coming from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor. ...

Marble statue of Dionysus seated on a panther thought to be produced in the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, 161-69 CE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This sculpture includes a dedicatory inscription which reads: Philetus, a freedman of the Augusti, willingly fulfilled his dedication to the Invincible God Serapis and Queen Isis (of this) small altar with (its) base and two statuettes for his own safety and that of Aurelia Quintiliana. The Metropolitan Museum of Art points out that the reference to two emperors, as indicated by the abbreviation AVGG, suggests a date in the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, AD 161–69. For those of you who enjoy deciphering ancient inscriptions, here is the original Latin: INVICTO DEO SERAPI ET ISIDI REGINAE PHILETVS AVGG LIB PRO INCOLV- MITATE SVA ET AVRELIAE QVI- NTILIANAE A- RVLAM CVM BASI ET SIGILLA DVO VOTUM LIBES SOLVIT CIL VI.1, 574 Image: Marble statue of Dionysus seated on a panther thought t...

Although scholars disagree on the dating of the evolution of tesselated mosaic from earlier pebble mosaics, most agree this occurred during the 3rd century BCE.  Mosaics are thought to have appeared in Pompeii in the late 2nd and early 1st centuries BCE.  More complex three dimensional scenes were introduced during the Pompeian Second Style about 80 - 20 BCE.  Like panel paintings, sometimes mosaics were mounted in frames so they could be moved during renovation or demolition.   Although elaborate mosaics depicted divine characters or mythological scenes, others depicted still life, animals, and scenes from everyday life. I photographed this mosaic in Pompeii back in 2007. Like other visitors to Pompeii, based on other images of this mosaic I've seen on Flickr, I initially thought this was a mosaic of a wolf.  But as I examined it closer, I think this may actually be a mosaic of a wild boar based on the apparent tail, the stripes above the hind quart...

Second century CE mosaic of a bull and his victims  condemned to damnatio ad bestias 2nd century CE from Leptis Magna, Libya courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Testus. The exact purpose of the early damnatio ad bestias is not known and might have been a religious sacrifice rather than a legal punishment, especially in the regions where lions existed naturally and were revered by the population, such as Africa, India and other parts of Asia. For example, Egyptian mythology had a chimeric Underworld demon, Ammit, who devoured the souls of exceptionally sinful humans, as well as other lion-like deities, such as Sekhmet, who, according to legend, almost devoured all of humanity soon after her birth. There are also accounts of feeding lions and crocodiles with humans, both dead and alive, in Ancient Egypt and Libya. Similar condemnations are described by historians of Alexander's campaigns in Central Asia. A Macedonian named Lysimachus, who spoke before Alexander for a per...

There have been multiple theories proprosed for Trajan's war with Parthia that began in 113 Ce with the pretext that Rome disapproved of a puppet king placed on the throne of Armenia by the Parthians.  Some scholars point to the propaganda value of an Eastern conquest that would emulate, in Roman fashion, those of Alexander the Great.  An expansionist policy was supported by a powerful circle of conservative senators from Hispania, first among them being the all-powerful Licinius Sura as well.  I've previously discussed theories about attempts to balance trade relations with India.  Some scholars, though, think Trajan's original aims were purely military and quite modest: to assure a more defensible Eastern frontier for the Roman Empire, crossing Northern Mesopotamia along the course of the Khabur River in order to offer cover to a Roman Armenia.  Whatever the motivation, Trajan succeeded in placing a client king on the Parthian throne and if he had lived to re...

After finding the marvelous painting of the altar with Actaeon mural at the House of Sallust by Danish artist Josef Theodor Hansen, yesterday, I hoped that, like Luigi Bazzani, Hansen may have painted an entire series of work from Pompeii. So I searched the web to see if I could find any more.  Although I only found a few more, one of them was this spectacular painting of the tepidarium at the Forum Baths in Pompeii.  Hansen specialized in architectural painting and his attention to detail made his paintings almost photographic. I also noticed that it was not on Wikimedia Commons so I uploaded it so others could use it for teaching and research.   Republican bathhouses often had separate bathing facilities for women and men, but by the 1st century CE mixed bathing was common and the practice was frequently referred to in Martial and Juvenal, as well as in Pliny and Quintilian.  But to Roman moralists like Cato the Elder, bathhouses were a symbol of decadence....

Watercolor of an altar in the House of Sallust with a painting of the myth of Actaeon and Diana, 1886, by Josef Theodor Hansen Although I'm researching the House of the Surgeon and the House of the Silver Wedding, I came across so much material on the House of Sallust and its Wikipedia page was so marginal, I spent most of the morning adding much more information about it to Wikipedia.  Late 19th century painter Josef Theodor Hansen produced a beautiful 1886 watercolor of the altar on the back wall of the Gynaeconitis (Courtyard with women's quarters) of the House of Sallust depicting a painting of the goddess Diana bathing and Actaeon, an unfortunate hunter who had seen her bathing and was transformed into a stag with horns, being chased by his own hounds, Europa, Helle, and Phrixus.    This painting gave the house its original name, House of Actaeon.   It later received its modern name from an election notice placed on the facade, recommending Gaius Sal...

According to the most common legend of Hercules' death, no one but Hercules' friend Philoctetes,  son of King Poeas of the city of Meliboea in Thessaly, would light his funeral pyre. For his compassion, Philoctetes  received Hercules' bow and arrows. Later, Philoctetes as one of the many eligible Greeks who competed for the hand of Helen, the Spartan princess, was required to participate in the Trojan War to reclaim Helen for Menelaus when she was stolen away by Paris.  On his way to the Trojan War, Philoctetes was bitten by a snake that Hera sent to molest him as punishment for his service to Hercules. The wound festered and began to smell so his Greek companions stranded Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos. When the Greeks reached Troy, Helenus, the prophetic son of King Priam, revealed under torture that one of the conditions for the Greeks to win the war was that they needed the bow and arrows of Hercules as some of the arrows were those dipped in the poison bloo...

Mars was one of the more important gods of the Roman pantheon. Numerous temples, shrines, and altars were dedicated to him in Rome and throughout the Empire. As the god of war, he had many of the same attributes as the Greek god Ares, but he was also closely associated with the imperial cult, since the emperor's power and popularity depended heavily on the army and its military successes. Mars was therefore often depicted on monuments celebrating imperial victories, notably on triumphal arches, a distinctively Roman type of public building. This fragment presumably comes from one such monument, perhaps even from the now lost Portico of Septimius Severus in Rome. Mars is represented in the canonical guise of an older, bearded man wearing a Corinthian helmet tipped back on his head. - The Metropolitan Museum of Art Image: Mars fragment possibly from the Portico of Septimius Severus courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Colossal statue of Mars found in the forum of Nerva...

I just completed the new Wikipedia page for the House of the Prince of Naples in Pompeii based on my English translation of Hauser in Pompeji Volume 1: Casa del Principe di Napoli. I have managed to condense the book into an article for those of you who didn't feel like plowing through the entire academic text which I have made available on academia.edu. I even incorporated most of the color images and offer a big shout out to Carole Raddato who provided some of them via Wikimedia Commons. This is the most complex Wikipedia page I have ever published! Image: Atrium with impluvium of the House of the Prince of Naples in Region VI of Pompeii courtesy of Carol Raddato.

The Cyclops Polyphemus from the Antonine period 2nd - 3rd century CE photographed at the Capitoline Museum in Rome, Italy. Depictions of the Cyclops Polyphemus have differed radically, depending on the literary genres in which he has appeared, and have given him an individual existence independent of the Homeric herdsman encountered by Odysseus. In the epic he was a man-eating monster dwelling in an unspecified land. Some centuries later, a dithyramb by Philoxenus of Cythera, followed by several episodes by the Greek pastoral poets, created of him a comedic and generally unsuccessful lover of the water nymph Galatea. In the course of these he woos his love to the accompaniment of either a cithara or the pan-pipes. Such episodes take place on the island of Sicily, and it was here that the Latin poet Ovid also set the tragic love story of Polyphemus and Galatea recounted in the Metamorphoses. Still later tradition made him the eventually successful husband of Galatea. According...

Yesterday while researching the Pasquino group, I came across a picture of the sculptures depicting the blinding of Polyphemus, the cyclops, that was found in a grotto connected to the Villa of Tiberius.  According to Tacitus and Suetonius, the roof of the grotto collapsed while Tiberius was dining, and Sejanus rushed to save Tiberius, for which Tiberius in gratitude promoted him, launching his rise to power. Tiberius moved to Capri after 26 CE. Some of the sculptures are now housed in the museum in Sperlonga and include the assault of Scylla on Odysseus' ship, the blinding of Polyphemus, the theft of the Palladium and Odysseus lifting Achilles's corpse. The works have been attributed to Rhodian sculptors Agesander, Athenedoros and Polydoros, and are thought to be the same authors of the group of "Laocoön and His Sons" (as attributed by Pliny the Elder). Yet whether the very same artists are responsible is questionable. Some scholars believe them to be related, but...

Among the most poignant sculptures at the Loggia dei Lanzi (and my favorite) is the ancient Flavian era (1st century CE) Pasquino Group (also known as "Menelaus Carrying the Body of Patroclus" or "Ajax Carrying the Body of Achilles"), a group of marble sculptures that copy a Hellenistic bronze original, dating to ca. 200–150 BCE.    During the 16th century, various authors proposed different identifications for the dead figure, including Hercules, Geryon, and Alexander the Great. Bernhard Schweitzer's 1936 "Das Original der sogennanten Pasquino-Gruppe" identifies the subject of the group as Menelaus carrying the body of Patroclus, However, this identification has been questioned and the identification of Ajax carrying the body of Achilles is now widely accepted for most of the known 15 Roman copies.  However, five fragments of a Pasquino group were excavated from Hadrian's Villa by Gavin Hamilton in 1769. This sculpture was a part of the Roman emp...