Bronze oil flask depicting a slave with a lantern waiting for his master

A servant waiting to escort his master home was a well-known sculptural subject during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. A Hellenistic terracotta statuette from the Fayum, Egypt provides the earliest known evidence for this type. The subject was particularly popular in Roman times, when marble examples served as fountain sculptures in villa gardens in Pompeii and Syria, and bronze and silver variations were made into luxurious household objects such as inkwells, pepper-castors, and oil flasks. The example of a bronze oil flask included here is from the Roman town of Isurium Brigantum, now known as the Aldborough Roman Site in modern Yorkshire. It was founded in the late first century or early second century by Julius Agricola. This Roman civitas was the administrative center of the Brigantes tribe, the largest and most northerly tribe in Roman Britain.

Tacitus recorded that Isuer was the seat of Venutius, king of the Brigantes who was usurped by his wife, Cartismandua (also spelled Cartimandua) and her lover Volucatus at the beginning of the first century. Cartismandua welcomed the Romans who perceived little threat from the Brigantes and the Roman army focused its occupation to the south of Brigantium. But, when Venutius and his followers began to attack Brigantian centers towards the end of the first century, the Roman army, commanded by Agricola, pushed further north finally subjugating the Brigantes in 79 CE.


Image: Bronze oil flask depicting a slave with a lantern waiting for his master that I photographed at the British Museum.




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