Roman Triumphal Painting Its Function, Development, And Reception

Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and ReceptionAuthor(s): Peter J. HollidaySource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Mar., 1997), pp. 130-147Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3046233 .Accessed: 05/11/2013 16:53

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Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and Reception Peter. Holliday

In 211 B.C. the great general M. Claudius Marcellus returned to Rome after his decisive defeat of Syracuse. With him came a vast booty of Hellenistic artifacts. Remaining outside the sacred precincts of Rome, he supplicated the Senate for the purification and glory of a triumphal procession. Plutarch wrote that, receiving the Senate's permission for the celebration, Marcellus paraded "many of the most beautiful public monuments from Syracuse, realizing that they would both make a visual impression in his triumph and also be an ornament for the city."' He opened his triumph impressively with an allegorical painting of Syracuse made prisoner.

Paintings carried in triumphal processions, specifically commissioned to commemorate victorious military campaigns, not only added immensely to the celebratory nature of the rite, they also increased its sociopolitical power. Roman triumphal painting also served to acquaint Romans with novel artistic conventions, previously foreign to their experience. Ancient literary sources reveal most of what we now know about the contemporary Roman reception of triumphal paintings. Although none of the paintings commissioned by victorious Roman generals to decorate their triumphal processions survives, the testimonia provide crucial alternate evidence to determine their role in shaping Roman political and artistic culture in the Republican period. This article exam- ines that evidence to explore the significance this genre of propagandistic art held in Roman society, to ascertain what triumphal paintings may have looked like, and finally to assess how Roman audiences responded to them. As the example of Marcellus indicates, the military victories that could lead to political advancement also carried with them (as spolia, or as captured craftsmen and slaves) the very objects and skills that created triumphal painting. The genre thus demonstrates the

dense interplication of Roman military expansion, Hellenistic artifacts and attitudes that were fundamentally the booty of that expansion, and the rising political ambitions of great 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 instruc- tion; 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 ovatzo rather 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 Memory in Medzeval Culture, 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 traderen- tur." 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 memorabilia 5.4, 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 Greece and Rome, Berkelev, 1983, 53.


ROMAN TRIUMPHAL PAINTING 131

can see for himself."'" How can we understand these state- ments 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 assump- tions 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

welcomed the transmission of Rome's heritage by means of the conventions of another culture. As in the writing of history, literature, or philosophy, this situation elicited no embarrassment or hesitation, nor even any sense that the emulation of Greek models debased or lessened the indig- enous product.'3

History is a cultural product whose narrative alters depend- ing on who writes it. How events and actions are perceived and remembered can be as important as the incidents themselves. The development of Roman historical painting also provided the ruling elite with new means to understand and propagandize its own conduct, which for our purposes is just as important as the historical events themselves. The political structure of the Republic is integral to the role historical painting played in the patterning of Roman culture. The course of politics from the mid- to late Republic reveals a compelling impetus for the arts of self-promotion.

Social prestige was indispensable to a Roman elite that exercised its control indirectly, through elections and assem- blies. Competition for the high esteem of their fellow citizens proved intense among those Romans who had an overwhelm- ing desire for laus, or praise, on one level and gloria on a higher one.14 During the Republic, gloria remained the exclusive province of the aristocracy, accorded by the political class to the elite for great deeds performed in the service of the state. Cicero went so far as to state that the pursuit of gloria was the prime impulse behind all human activity.'5 His explanation has significance not only for Roman political affairs but also for the historical paintings commissioned by aristocrats. 16

Military success was the single most important way to achieve laus and gloria. Not only was such achievement highly advantageous to the Roman state, it held vital importance to the personal aims and interests of Roman aristocrats. Ambi- tious young men of the Roman elite were obliged to under- take military service, and had to complete ten annual military campaigns as a junior officer before they could seek election to even the lowest position in Rome's hierarchy of magistra- cies;'7 inscriptions (epitaphs and elogia) indicate that during the Republic a normal part of the successful young aristo- crat's career centered on warfare.'8

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 Scriptores Hzstona 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

Inventzone Rhetonca 2.166: "gloria est frequens de aliquo fama cum laude." The

locz communes are listed in D. Earl, The Moral and Polztzcal Tradztzon of Rome, Ithaca, N.Y., 1967; see also W. V. Harris, War and Imperzalzsm zn Republcan Rome: 327-70 B c., Oxford, 1979, 17.

15. Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes 1.1.4; see also De Republzca 5.7.9. Al- though 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 Famzliares 5.12.3.

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 Center ofPowet 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," Oxford ArtJournal, 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, Inscriptzones latznae lzberae rez publicae: 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 MARCH 1997 VOLUME LXXIX NUMBER 1

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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)

The Development of the Triumph during the Republican Period The triumph awarded to a successful military commander was Roman society's most spectacular and esteemed celebration, and paintings were integral to triumphal ritual. The Roman triumph served three crucial purposes. First, and most venerable, the ceremony not only acknowledged military success but also purified the city of Rome and its soldiers contami- nated by the bloodguilt of war. Second, the triumphal ceremony appeased and honored the gods. Third-and most crucial for the development of triumphal painting-the rite justified military campaigns to the Senate and people who had remained in Rome. Triumphal celebrations centered on a magnificent parade whose route, choreography, and participants responded to each of these purposes.

The long history of the triumph, however, also traces a fundamental transformation in Roman mentality, a change that resulted in the development of triumphal painting. Originally a purification ritual, the triumph gradually devel- oped into a purely honorific ceremony, whose chief purpose lay in the auctoritas, or authority, and consequent political power it bestowed on the victorious general and the gloria it

brought his family and his troops. According to ancient Roman tradition, Romulus celebrated the first triumph.'19 Indeed, linguistic, archaeological, and literary sources trace the origins of the rite to the earliest history of Rome, before the sixth century B.C., and Roman antiquarians affirmed its venerable history through the connection of many details with Etruscan precedents.20

During the early Republican period, triumphs were infre- quent and simple. Gradually, however, the influence of extravagant celebrations by Hellenistic dynasts, such as the grand Dionysiac procession documented for Ptolemy II Phila- delphus in Alexandria, resulted in numerous and increasingly impressive triumphs in Rome.2' These ceremonies, which became identified with Dionysiac processions accompanying the god's triumphant return to Olympus, specifically glorified the victorious Roman general and his troops.22 Between 220 and 70 B.C. spectacular celebrations occurred approximately once every year and a half.23 It was during this phase of development, when the triumph's outward changes were consonant with the greater luxury and power of Rome, that the practice of triumphal painting flourished. To appreciate fully the significance of triumphal painting, the fundamental



nature of the triumph itself during the Republic must be understood.

Not every victory was worthy of a triumph. Tradition required that the triumphator possess imperium maius, or act as commander of the forces.24 The war had to be fought against foreign enemies, not fellow Romans in a civil conflict. 25 At least five thousand enemy had to be killed in a single battle,26 and that battle had to lead to unequivocal success.27 The army was the first to acknowledge victory by acclaiming the general as imperator on the battlefield. He then sent his report to the Senate, which, after considering it, might decree that thanks- givings (supplicatio) be held. On arrival the general made his request for a triumph at a meeting of the Senate held outside the sacred city boundary (pomerium) in the Campus Martius. The Senate debated the merits of his claim to the honor;28 if rejected, he was sometimes granted a minor triumph (ovatio) instead. Sacred law decreed the general forfeit his chance for a triumph if he entered the pomerium before the vote was taken.29 Sometimes political rivals obstructed the aspirations of victorious generals, indicating that the ambition for a triumph also held dangers for political advancement. Lucul- lus waited three years for the authorization to enter Rome upon his return from Asia.30

Preparations for the triumph began in the Campus Martius, northwest of the city center (Fig. 1). Lying outside the sacred city boundary (extra pomerium), this floodplain-significantly named for the war god Mars-had provided early Rome with a place for military exercises and remained the site for solemn purification rituals, award ceremonies, and speeches by the new triumphator With great fanfare, the triumphal procession entered the city proper through the porta triumphalis. The fact that originally the porta triumphalis remained closed most days of the year, to be opened only specifically for triumphal processions, may have underscored the gate's purificatory significance.31

The expiatory nature of the triumph was evident in its every phase. Religious sacrifices began with offerings by the troops

in the Campus Martius. According to Festus, "Laurel- wreathed 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 lustra- tion rituals and indicating an apotropaic function. (In Roman rites purification was accomplished through a circular move- ment, 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.) 33 After entering the porta triumphalis the 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 triumphator to 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 triumphator and 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 manifesta- tions of state approval. At the rear lumbered cartloads of booty, sacrificial animals, and captives, which collectively vindicated the cost of war.35 Next came the triumphator in 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

19. Plutarch, Romulus 16. 20. For the origins and history of the triumph, see R. Payne, The Roman

Triumph, London, 1962; L. Bonfante Warren, "Roman Triumphs and Etruscan Kings: The Changing Face of the Triumph," Journal ofRoman Studzes, LX, 1970, 49-66; H. S. Versnel, Trzumphus: An Inquzry into the Origin, Development and Meanzng of the Roman Triumph, Leiden, 1970; and E. Kunzl, Der r6mzsche Triumph: Siegesfeiern im antzken Rom, Munich, 1988.

21. On the Dionysiac procession of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, see E. E. Rice, The Grand Processzon of Ptolemy Phzladelphus, Oxford, 1983.

22. A. Bruhl, "Les influences hellenistiques dans le triomphe romain," Milanges d'Archiologze et d'Histoire de l'Ecole Franfazse de Rome, XLVI, 1929, 77-95; F. Matz, "Belli Facies et Triumphus," in Festschrnft Carl Weickert, Berlin, 1955, 41-42.

23. On the frequency of triumphs in the mid- and late Republican periods, see J. S. Richardson, "The Triumph, the Praetors and the Senate in the Early Second Century B.C.," Journal of Roman Studzes, LXV, 1965, 50-63; L. Pietila- Castren, Magnficentia publzca. The Vzctory Monuments of the Roman Generals zn the Era of the Punzc Wars, Helsinki, 1987.

24. Livy 28.9.10. 25. A. Gellius 5.6.21; Valerius Maximus 2.8.7; Dio Cassius 42.18, 43.42, 51.19. 26. Livy 37.46. 27. Livy 26.21; 30.29. 28 Polybius 6.15; Livy 33.23. 29 Although Caesar had been granted a triumph in 60 B.C. for his victories

in Spain, he abandoned it in order to be in Rome to run for the consulate of 59 B.C.: Dio Cassius 37.54.1; Appian, Bella Czvilia 1.c; Plutarch, Caesar 13.

30. Plutarch, Lucullus 37. 31. Cicero, In Pzsonem 23.55; Festus 104 L (117 M); see Versnel (as in n. 20),

135, 152, 394-96. For a contrasting interpretation of the porta trzumphalzs as a gate in daily use, see L. Richardson,Jr., A New TopographicalDzctzonary ofAncient

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 trium-

phantis, 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 trzumphator marched 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.



2 Andrea Mantegna, The Triumphs of Caesar: Trumpeters, Bearers of Standards and Banners (canvas I), ca. 1484-94. Hampton Court Palace, Royal Collection (photo: by permission H. M. Queen Elizabeth II)

held a victory wreath while whispering, "Look behind you and remember that you are a man," a cautionary reminder that the general acted on behalf of the Roman people watching the spectacle. After the triumphator came his military officers, Roman citizens rescued from slavery, and the troops, crying "io Triumphe."3" The order of participants, therefore, indicates that the Roman social hierarchy itself was both embedded in and justified by the spectacle it witnessed.

The didactic functions of the triumph are especially telling. Over the course of several days, extravagant processions flowed past teeming spectators from Rome and throughout Italy. Along with the general and his celebrating troops came a panoply of tendentious displays. Romans learned not only about the prowess of their armies and generals, they were also taught about the people, art, architecture, and flora and fauna of newly conquered lands. Exhibits of captured exotica, ranging from jewel-encrusted furniture to elephants and other wild beasts, awed but also educated the audience about the expanding territory Rome controlled.39 According to Livy, the triumph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus (the elder brother of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus) for his Asiatic victory in 189 B.C. reportedly included 224 military standards, 1,231 ivory tusks, 234 gold crowns, 137,420 pounds of silver, and equally impressive quantities of gold, chased silver vases, coins, and prisoners.40 For his triumph of 61 B.C.,

Pompey had gathered so much material that he could not show it all in the two days allotted.41

Paintings Carried in the Triumphal Procession Triumphal paintings became an integral part of this didactic display. The main purpose of triumphal paintings was to advance the personal prestige of the triumphatorby document- ing those achievements that had led to his triumphal celebration. They were primarily propagandistic, often with political and electoral ends in mind. L. Hostilius Mancinus, for example, used a painting commemorating his victory over Carthage as a successful polemic against his political rival, Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus.42

Triumphal paintings utilized diverse modes of representation. They were sometimes executed on large panels, called tabulae, which could be easily carried in the procession. In his reconstruction of Caesar's triumph, however, Andrea Man- tegna drew on references that describe vast paintings on cloth, works that sources claim could sometimes reach three to four stories in height (Fig. 2);43 paintings of such magni- tude, however, were probably displayed on large wheeled processional floats (pegmata).44 After using their paintings in the procession, triumphatores often exhibited them in public buildings, or in the temples of the gods to whom the victories were pledged, where theyjoined other artworks brought back



as booty. Public display of the paintings shifted their function from that of parade props to permanent records. So displayed, the paintings not only commemorated the victories of Roman generals but also recalled their spectacular celebrations for future generations. Triumphal paintings thereby became a major element in the Roman civic environment.

Two themes dominated triumphal painting: scenes of victorious battles and images of conquered cities.45 Represen- tations of both battles and cities belong to an essentially Hellenistic repertory that was spreading in popularity, a repertory that fulfilled the needs of Roman generals con- cerned with securing gloria.

The first notice of a triumphal painting is the elder Pliny's reference to the tabula picta commissioned by M. Valerius Maximus Messala in 264 B.C.:

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

Pliny's remarks are crucial to understanding the promotion of triumphal painting in Rome. As was mentioned earlier, of course, these textual records are not themselves transparent; the authority we can invest in them remains problematic. Pliny states that this painting, the first one of a battle displayed in Rome, depicted Messala's defeat of the Cartha- ginians and Hieron II in Sicily during the previous year. He emphasizes the importance of this painting, not only because it was the first of a new type, but also because of the role it played in shaping Roman tastes: he states specifically that the esteem Romans gave to the art of painting was increased by its display to the public on a side wall of the Curia Hostilia, the original senate house of Rome.

Although Messala's painting is lost, the frescoes decorating

a tomb on the Esquiline Hill, also dated to the early third century B.C., can stand as comparable examples of early Roman historical painting (Fig. 3).47 Probably based on Greek prototypes, these scenes of battle and negotiation from the Second Samnite War are depicted in horizontal bands, the protagonists carefully identified through hierarchical proportions and inscriptions. The artist has also taken care to distinguish iconographic details such as the different armor and clothing of the participants. In addition, modeling of three-dimensional form is achieved through color, the anatomy shows foreshortening, and superposed figures create the illusion of deep space, techniques learned from Greek practice.

Messala's painting, depicting specific historical incidents, was also probably inspired by an early Hellenistic battle scene, perhaps brought back to Rome from Sicily or Magna Graecia as booty. Similar circumstances probably lie behind the installation of the Alexander mosaic in the Casa del Fauno at Pompeii (Fig. 4).48 It has been proposed recently that several ancient restorations indicate that the mosaic was damaged when it was brought to Pompeii, presumably from the eastern Mediterranean, and was restored when it was placed in the exedra of the Casa del Fauno.49 Other scholars, however, have argued that those repairs could have been made on numerous occasions once the mosaic was already in place.50 Further- more, the tesserae, which are the same as those in the other mosaics decorating the Casa del Fauno, and the manner of their installation suggest that all the mosaics in the Casa del Fauno can be attributed to the same workshop, and were therefore made in Italy.51 The S-shaped strip and reparations running roughly through the middle of the mosaic and the wide, plain strip in the lower side may have resulted from craftsmen who, working from a large cartoon, had some difficulty in fitting the entire composition into the available space. The Alexander mosaic was undoubtedly made after a famous original work of art, reflections of which have been preserved in other media.52 The original has been identified

38. Varro, De Lingua Latzna 6.68: "cum imperatore milites redeuntes clamitant per urbem in Capitolium eunti 'io Trlumphe.' " By the late Republic the soldiers also hurled insults at their commander and sang bawdy songs at his expense, apotropaic practices meant to shield him from the gods' envy: for iocz militares, see W. Ehlers, in Paulys Realencyclopddia der classischen Altertumswzssenschaft, rev. ed., 2nd ser., vii, 1939, s.v. "triumphus," 495, 509.

39. Drawing on ancient accounts, the 2nd-century A.D. rhetorician and historian Florus (1.13) carefully describes the elephants and diverse peoples included among the captives in a triumphal procession in 275 B.C.

40. Livy 37.59.3-5. Lucius Scipio's honorific cognomen is also given as Asiagenus and Asiagenes.

41. Plutarch, Pompey 14.45. Detailed information about early triumphal processions recounted in the works of Livy, Florus, and others ultimately goes back to the annals and the earliest histories based on them (see above, n. 7). For an overview of the sources for early Roman history and their reliability, see H H. Scullard, A Hzstory of the Roman World from 753 to 146B c., 3d ed., London, 1961, 405-16.

42. Pliny, Naturalis Histona 25.23. See below, nn. 123 and 125. 43. One of nine canvases, 8 ft. 9 in. x 9 ft. (2.66 X 2.78 m), probably painted

in the order of their display, based on many of the same classical sources discussed in this article. See A. Martindale, The Triumphs ofJulzus Caesar zn the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Hampton Court, London, 1979, esp. 136-37; C. Hope, "The Chronology of Mantegna's 'Triumphs,' " Renaissance Studzes in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, II, ed. A. Morrogh et al., Florence, 1985, 297-309. On cloth paintings of this scale, seeJosephus,Jewish War 7.5.

44. On pegmata, see S. Settis, La colonna trazana, Turin, 1988, 232. 45. Some of the sources are gathered in O Vessberg, Studzen zur Kunst-

geschichte der romischen Republzk, Lund/Leipzig, 1941, nn. 80, 85, 95, 101, 110, 116, 275, 276; Pollitt provides English translations of many of these citations. See also S. Ferri, Plinzo zl Vecchio, Rome, 1946, 126-29; G. Zinserling, "Studien

zu den Historiendarstellungen der r6mischen Republik," in Wzssenschaftliche Zeitschrzft der Frzedrich Schiller UnzversitditJena, Ix, Jena, 1959-60, 403-48; B. M. Felletti Maj, La tradzzzone ztalica nell'arte romana, Rome, 1977, 59-65, 70-79.

46. Pliny, Naturalzs Hzstona 35.22 (trans. Pollitt). "Dignatio autem praecipua Romae increuit, ut existimo, a M'. Valerio Maximo Messala, qui princeps tabulam [picturam] proelii, quo Carthaginienses et Hieronem in Sicilia uicerat, proposuit in latere curiae Hostiliae anno ab urbe condita ccccxc."

47. Discovered in 1875; it is 0.874 m high. See C. M. Dawson, Romano- Campanzan Mythological Landscape Painting, Yale Classical Studies, Ix, New Haven, 1944, 53; F Coarelli, "Frammento di affresco dall'Esquilino con scena storica," in Affreschi romani dalle raccolte dell'Antiquarium Communale, Rome, 1976, 13-21; Felletti Maj (as in n. 45), 145-51; E. La Rocca, "Fabio o Fannio: L'affresco medio-repubblicano dell'Esquilino come riflesso dell'arte 'rap- prensentativa' e come espressione di mobilitA sociale," Dzaloghz dz Archeolopga, n.s., III, no. 2, 1984, 31-53; A. Rouveret, Hzstoire et zmaginazre de la peinture anczenne (Ve sicle av.J.-C.--ler siicle ap.J.-C.), Rome, 1989, 273, 332.

48. The mosaic is 3.42 m high. On this artwork, see E. Pernice, Pavzmente und figiirlche Mosaziken, vol. vI of Die hellenistzsche Kunst in Pompeji, Berlin, 1938; A. Rumpf, "Zum Alexandermosaik," Mzttezlungen des Deutschen Archaologzschen Instztuts, Athens, LXXVII, 1962, 229-41; T. H61olscher, Gnechische Hzstonenbilder des 5 und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr, Wurzburg, 1973, 122-69; B. Andreae, Das Alexandermosazk aus Pompefi, Recklinghausen, 1977; P.G.P. Meyboom, "I mosaici pompeiani con figure di pesci," Mededeelhngen van het Nederlands Hzstorzsch Insztuut te Rome, xxIx, 1977, 49-93; M. Donderer, "Das Pompejanische Alexandermosaik: Ein 6stliches Importstiuck?" in Das antzke Rom und der Osten: Festschrzftfur Klaus Parlasca zum 65. Geburtstag, Erlangen, 1990, 27-28.

49. Donderer (as in n. 48). 50. See Pernice (as in n. 48), 94. 51. Pernice (as in n. 48), 94; Meyboom (as in n. 48), 72 n. 271. 52. See Andreae (as in n. 48), fig. 21.



3 Fresco from the tomb of Q. Fabius on the Esquiline Hill (detail), early 3rd century B.c. Rome, Museo dei Conservatori, Braccio Nuovo, 1025 (photo: DAI)

with an early Hellenistic painting of a battle scene between Alexander and Darius by Philoxenos of Eretria.53

The painter of the Esquiline Tomb depicted scenes from the war between Rome and the Samnites that focus on the interaction between two leaders, inscribed Fabius and Fan- nius, a treatment echoed by the mosaic's emphasis on the personal contest between Alexander and Darius. This manner of fashioning scenes of battle and negotiation also tends to echo the heroic duels of epic poetry, thereby elevating the achievements of the Roman patron to the heroic and further increasing his gloria. If based on similar Hellenistic models, Messala's battle painting would likewise emphasize the role of the triumphator Indeed, Messala may have brought back an artist from Sicily to execute his painting; only an experienced painter of Hellenistic training could have painted a panel of large proportions so quickly. In any event, it seems probable

that the esteem Pliny claimed Romans gave to the art of painting following Messala's example had less to do with the cultivation of aesthetic sensibilities than with the Romans' recognition of a new and effective means of manipulating 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 fe- male 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



4 Alexander mosaic, ca. 110-80 B.C. Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico, 10020 (photo: DAI)

134 oppidorum simulacra, or images of conquered cities, for his triumphal procession in 188 B.C. celebrating his victory over Antiochos III of Syria;63 it is uncertain whether these were in the form of symbolic personifications or, more likely, panoramic views.64 Whether personifications or panoramic views, images of cities indicate the pervasive taste among Roman patrons for paintings emulating Hellenistic conventions.

Hellenistic innovation, and Hellenistic science, are also apparent in the use triumphal paintings appear to have made of chorography and topography, two types of cartographic illustration that were undoubtedly crucial to the military successes encoded by the later paintings. The origins of chorography and topography, both as literary genres and types of painting, are generally attributed to Alexandria because of the close connection with the geographical studies of the Mouseion. Interest in the natural history of foreign

lands had originated during the campaigns of Alexander.65 In the Hellenistic period, Ptolemy II stimulated further research by mounting expeditions for the exploration of Egypt, collecting species of animals, and even writing a treatise on trees.66

About 252 B.C., Gaius Sempronius Gracchus commissioned a map of Italy, seen by Varro in the Temple of Tellus on the Esquiline (constructed by Gaius Sempronius's father, P. Sem- pronius Gracchus, in 268 B.C.), that documented Rome's territorial expansion.67 This picta Italia was probably an example of the kind of cartographic painting showing land masses defined by mountains, oceans, and rivers described by Strabo, who called paintings depicting such features choro- graphical pinakes.68 A huge map showing Roman conquests placed in the Porticus Vipsania by Marcus Agrippa was probably another example of chorographic painting.69

More elaborate and detailed was the kind of painting

53. H. Fuhrmann, Philoxenos von Eretria, G6ttingen, 1931; see Pliny, Naturalis Historia 35.110. A dating to the late 4th century B.C. for the original is supported by the limited use of colors, primarily yellow, white, red brown, and brown black, which is attested as characteristic of the late classical period: see Pliny, Naturalis Historia 30.32.

54. L. Cornelius Balbus celebrated a triumph over the Garamantes on Mar. 27, 19 B.C.; he was the last triumphator who did not belong to the imperial family.

55. Livy 26.21. 56. Livy 38.43.9. Following the procession Fulvius displayed the painting in

the atrium of his house. 57. See A. Alf6ldi, "The Main Aspects of Political Propaganda on the

Coinage of the Roman Republic," in Essays in Roman Coinage Presented to Harold Mattingly, ed. R. Carson and C. Sutherland, Oxford, 1956, 72-74; M. H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge, 1974, 728-29.

58. Praxiteles made a statue of Tyche for a temple in Megara (Pausanias 1.43.6) and one of Agathe Tyche, removed from Athens to Rome (Aelianus, Varia Historia 9.39; Pliny, Naturalis Historia 36.23).

59. The marble copy of the Roman period illustrated here (height 0.895 m) is the best among many variations, which include bronze and marble reductions and also coins. See T. Dohrn, Die Tyche von Antiochia, Berlin, 1960; J. J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age, Cambridge, 1986, 2-3.

60. Although personifications of cities or countries wearing mural crowns were already established as coin types, Eutychides added new attributes to his composition; see W. Deonna, "La couronne murale des villes et des pays personnifi6s dans l'antiquit&," Geneva, xvIII, 1940, 127-86.

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 War 66. 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 Wissen- schaft," 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: Geographie et politique aux origines de l'Empire romain, Paris, 1988.



5 Eutychides, Tyche of Antioch, Roman copy after an original of ca. 300 B.c. Rome, Musei dei Vaticani, Galleria dei Candelabri, 2672 (photo: Alinari)

commissioned by the younger Tiberius Sempronius Grac- chus. 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 distin- guished 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 Geography Claudius Ptole- maeus 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

painter.73 Topographical paintings with such distinguishing vignettes would be especially suited to the representation of countries and Roman conquests in them.

In order to produce a detailed pictorial record of events within their settings, topographers probably used some form of bird's-eye perspective. However, they combined it with other perspectives, for the objects represented are not uni- formly seen from a high eye level; rather, each appears in its own perspective, one chosen to be the most informative and in which its shape and volume are most easily comprehended. Buildings, for example, appear as if seen from different, usually high points of view, while people and smaller objects seem to be represented at much lower eye levels. Conse- quently, there is no consistent scale; the representation of reality as it appears to the eye takes second place to the desire to give the fullest possible information about the things selected for representation.74

Following the Battle of Raphia in 217 B.C., the Ptolemaic empire began to decline. After 200 B.C., the Mouseion, which had flourished in the third century B.C., also declined, and scholars and scientists departed to find more active patrons in cities such as Pergamon and eventually Rome.75 When in 164 B.C. the exiled Egyptian king Ptolemy VI Philometor came to seek the aid of Rome against his brother Euergetes II, he found lodging with a painter, named Demetrios the Topogra- phos, whom the king had favored with commissions in Alexan- dria.76 Demetrios probably had been born and trained in Alexandria in the late third century B.C. and joined the exodus of intellectuals in the second. The Alexandrian topographos, or one of his followers, may have been employed for such representations as Gracchus's painting of Sardinia and for Mancinus's views of Carthage, in each case adapting Hellenistic conventions to Roman demands.

Hellenistic cartographies also came to be adapted by Romans for decorative use. The vast Nilotic mosaic set into the floor of the apsidal hall adjacent to the sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste (Palestrina) provides important evidence for what Roman triumphal paintings using topographical conventions may have looked like (Fig. 6).77 On the mosaic, the Nile winds past vignettes representing exotic landscapes and settlements; the more recondite details are carefully labeled in Greek, underscoring the Alexandrian source of the genre. The precise nature of the relationship between the mosaic and cartographic practices is controver- sial. Recently the Palestrina mosaic has been interpreted as an actual topographic map of the Nile: the upper part of the mosaic represents Ethiopia, the upper zone of the lower

70. Livy 41.28.8-10. 71. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 35.23. 72. Vitruvius, De Architectura 8.2.6. 73. Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geographia 1.1.5-6. See also F. Prontera, Geografia e

geografi nel mondo antico: Guida storica e critica, Rome/Bari, 1983; 0. A. Dilke, Greek and 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

Polybius. On the character and significance of the term topographos, see E. Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung, III, Munich, 1923, 888-90; Vessberg (as in n. 45), 38; B. R. Brown, Ptolemaic Paintings and Mosaics, Cambridge, Mass., 1957, 88; Meyboom, 186-90.

77. The mosaic is 6.56 X 5.25 m. On this work, see G. Gullini, I mosaici di Palestrina, Rome, 1956; Blanckenhagen, 56-57; A. Steinmeyer-Schareika, Das Nilmosaik von Palestrina und eine ptolemiiische Expedition nach Athiopien, Bonn, 1978; Pollitt (as in n. 59), 205-7; R. Ling, Roman Painting, Cambridge, 1991, 7-8; F. Coarelli, "La pomp? di Tolomeo Filadelfo e il mosaico nilotico di Palestrina," Ktema, xv, 1990, 225-51; Meyboom.

78. Coarelli (as in n. 77). Coarelli also sees specific monuments and settings in the detailed scenes, such as the Nilometer at Aswan, the Canopus, the harbor at Alexandria, and the island of Pharos. In addition, he speculates that



6 Barberini Mosaic, ca. 120-110 B.C., Palestrina, Museo Archeologico Prenestino (Palazzo Barberini) (photo: Alinari)

section represents Egypt, and the foreground represents the Delta, top to bottom understood as south to north, the standard convention for ancient maps.78 More likely, however, the mosaic provides a large, coherent landscape composition of the Nile during the flood season, nevertheless dependent on topographical conventions.79

Although Hellenistic artists commonly show combinations of people and settings, they generally avoid bird's-eye perspective and instead attempt to achieve congruity through the fusion of elements.80 The aesthetics of bird's-eye perspective are contrary to traditional Greek teaching and practice.8' Nevertheless, the device provides an appropriate solution for showing clearly the actions of Roman generals in specific settings. It is only in pictures of such blatantly didactic function that inconsistency of scale and perspective will be accepted as a convention by a public acquainted with and used to a realistic rendering of persons and objects. Signifi- cantly, mapmaking is a form of visual documentation with

obvious military application. It can hardly be accidental, therefore, that Roman triumphatores commissioned works employing a form of representation utilized in their campaigns, a form of illustration drawn from the realm of Hellenistic science rather than art.82

Of the Roman pictorial record only one historical example remains: the famous fresco in Naples of the riot in the amphitheater at Pompeii (Fig. 7),"8 an event in A.D. 59 that led to the closing of the facility.84 The artist depicts the scene from the north, clearly showing both the facade and interior of the amphitheater, the nearby palaestra, and the open area before them dotted with trees and commercial booths; the accurate rendering of the urban setting and details of architecture has been verified by archaeological excavation.85 Rapid, impressionistic strokes indicate citizens, some engaged in their daily business and others as participants in the ignominious events of that day. Although more than a century separates the Pompeian painting from the Palestrina mosaic

the scene represents the Grand Procession of Ptolemy II. 79. Meyboom's careful iconological study convincingly argues that the

flooded countryside contributed to the impression that the composition was made up of separate scenes. He further suggests that the Palestrina mosaic, with regard to landscape and perspective, reflects a 3rd-century B.C. model.

80. Blanckenhagen, 56. 81. For a discussion of various forms of perspective available to artists by the

1st century B.C., see H. Beyen, Die pompeianische Wanddekoration vom zweiten bis zum vierten Stil, I, II, The Hague, 1938-60; P. W. Lehmann, Roman Wall-Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, esp. 149-52.

82. See above, nn. 66, 73, and 75. 83. Found near the amphitheater in the house at 1.3.23, known both as the

Domus of Actius Anicetus and as the Casa della pittura dell'anfiteatro, it measures 1.69 m high. See O. Elia, Pitture murali e mosaici nel Museo Nazionale di Napoli, Rome, 1932, 59-61 n. 101; Felletti Maj (as in n. 45), 330-32.

84. Tacitus, Annales 14.17, describes how the people of Nuceria, whose rivalry with Pompeii was ancient, came out the worse in riots erupting at the amphitheater. They took their case to Nero, who ordered that games be suspended for ten years. Tacitus narrates the events in terms that recapitulate the painted representation.

85. See A. Mau, Pompeii: Its Life and Art, rev. and trans. F. W. Kelsey, New York, 1902, 212-26; E. La Rocca et al., Guida archeologica diPompei, Milan, 1976, 248-60; L. Richardson, Jr., Pompeii: An Architectural History, Baltimore, 1988, 134-38.



7 Riot scene in theater at Pompeii, ca. A.D. 59-79. Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico, 112222 (photo: Alinari)

(the former was probably executed after the earthquake of A.D. 62), their close correlation in perspective and scale is evident. In both works architectural monuments define the locales. In order to show those settings clearly, the artist combined multiple perspectives, dramatically shifting scale from detail to detail and varying in proportion the human figures animating the scenes. These techniques derive from the traditions of cartography imported from Alexandria and first exploited in triumphal painting.

Another characteristic of later Roman pictorial representations, what is generally called "continuous narrative," may also have been inspired by topographical triumphal paintings. In their search for what is "Roman" about Roman art, scholars at the turn of the century thought they discerned innovations in narrative modes; discussions of continuous

compositions have remained at the heart of these studies.86 Although classical Greek artists generally maintained a unity of time and place within monumental narrative scenes, Hellenistic artists incorporated successive episodes from a story, repeating its characters several times in a continuous pictorial plane.87 This cyclic narrative method entails a certain suspension of belief analogous to the anomalies in combined perspectives utilized by topographoi.88 The representations of battles on the map of Sardinia, for example, depicted Gracchus and his army at different times and different locations, all within a single picture. Significantly, the fragmentary paintings from the Esquiline Tomb (Fig. 3), which also feature protagonists repeated across the pictorial field, postdate direct Roman contact with Hellenistic Greek artistic models (through the mediation of southern Italy). The

86. Among the most influential of these studies are F. Wickhoff, Roman Art: Some of Its Principles and Their Application to Early Christian Painting (Mrs. S. A. Strong's translation of the introduction to Wiener Genesis), London/New York, 1900, 110-14, 154-58; J. Strzygowski, Orient oder Rom; Beitrag zur Geschichte der spdtantike und friihchristlichen Kunst, Leipzig, 1901, 3-4; K. Lehmann- Hartleben, Die Trajanssdule; ein romisches Kunstwerk am Beginn der Spitantike, Berlin/Leipzig, 1926, 152-54; M. Wegner, "Die Kunstgeschichtliche Stellung der

Marcussfiule," Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archdologischen Instituts, XLVI, 1931, 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 American Academy in Rome, xxI, 1953, 9-73, expanded to Prolegomena to the Study

of Roman Art, ed.J.J. Pollitt, New Haven, 1979. 87. For a succinct examination of this Hellenistic innovation, see Pollitt (as

in n. 59), 198-205. 88. The idea of continuous narrative is problematic. In order to introduce

some terminological clarity to the scholarly dialogue, "cyclic method" was first used by K. Weitzmann, Illustrations in Roll and Codex, Studies in Manuscript Illumination, II, Princeton, NJ., 1970, 40.

89. Weitzmann (as in n. 88), 40; U. Hausmann, Hellenistische Reliefbecher aus Attischen und bootischen Werkstatten, Stuttgart, 1959, 19-58; Blanckenhagen, 56; Pollitt (as in n. 59), 200-205.

90. For example, the same conventions are found on the panel reliefs of the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome, A.D. 203. These reliefs were probably



8 Arch of Septimius Severus, Rome, northwest panel, Siege of Seleucia, A.D. 203 (photo: Fototeca Unione)

ultimate models for this mode of visual narrative were probably illustrated scrolls, also initially produced in Alexandria.89

Triumphal paintings provided the Roman precedent for combining different perspectival practices. Artists changed viewpoints according to specific needs: figures were seen straight on, but cities were represented from a high level for clarity's sake. Despite, or perhaps because of, these anomalies, triumphal paintings appear to have been effective for the Roman viewer; indeed, similar conventions continued to provide the basis for later historical reliefs from the Imperial period (Fig. 8).90 Whatever the relation may have been between the Alexandrian Demetrios the Topographos and the paintings commissioned by Gracchus and Mancinus, the formal affinity between the conventions of Hellenistic topography and the Roman pictorial record is obvious. They, too, must have been essentially combinations of bird's-eye perspective and normal views, tending to the conventions of continuous narrative; they were symbolic rather than realistic render- ings of events and objects in specific settings. Nonetheless, they were informative and useful.

What do the sources tell us about the artists of triumphal

paintings and the aims of their patrons? When Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse, returned to Rome with spectacular spoils of war, notably a great haul of Sicily's choicest art treasures, his actions implied a deliberate stand: he presented himself as a man of culture and discernment, and professed to stimulate Romans to an appreciation and admiration of Hellenic activity.91 He thereby gained a reputation as a devotee of Greek education and letters and an admirer of those who excelled at them.92 Nevertheless, his goal was not so much to spread Hellenism as to draw Hellenism into the service of Roman civic and religious life.93

Many artists came to Rome from Asia Minor at the time of the wars with Eumenes II and Antiochos III. When Fulvius Nobilior returned to Rome after his defeat of the Aetolians and the capture of Ambracia, many artists followed him from Greece in preparation for a great procession and games.94 In addition, Fulvius dedicated the spoils of war to the Muses themselves: he displayed images of the nine Muses brought from Ambracia in the newly rebuilt or refurbished Temple of Hercules of the Muses (the aedes Herculis Musarum).95 The symbolism is significant, for on one level, it put the fruits of

based on painted prototypes, the paintings Septimius sent to the Senate describing his victories: Herodian 3.9.12; Scriptores Historia Augusta, "Severus" 21.12, "Caracalla" 9.6; see R. Brilliant, The Arch ofSeptimius Severus in the Roman Forum, published as a single issue of Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, xxIx, 1967, 223-24.

91. Plutarch, Marcellus 1.2. 92. Plutarch, Marcellus 21.5; see also Gruen, 214. 93. The treasures from Syracuse were used to finance and decorate a new

temple to Virtus, a characteristically Roman deity. See Cicero, In Verrem 2.4.120-21, De Republica 1.21; Livy 25.40.1-3; Plutarch, Marcellus 28.1; Valerius Maximus 1.1.8.

94. Livy 39.22.1-2: "multi artifices ex Graecia venerunt honoris eius causa."

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 Theater Amsterdam, 1979, 15-41.

95. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 35.66; Eumenius, Panegyrici Latini 9.7.3. Eume- nius 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.



9 Andrea Mantegna, The Triumphs of Caesar: Captured Statues and Siege Equipment, a Representation of a Captured City and Inscriptions (canvas II), ca. 1484-94. Hampton Court Palace, Royal Collection (photo: by permission H. M. Queen Elizabeth II)

war in the service of the advancement of culture,96 and on another, his dedication of spolia in their proper temple underscored their fated migration to Rome. Fulvius's action shows how the matter of spolia could have an effect on the city, dictating what might be refurbished due to the chance acquisition of booty. Fulvius was a scholar, writer, and general who demonstrated a profound interest in the fine arts. He took the poet Ennius with him on the Ambraciote expedition, undoubtedly in order to have him compose a laudatory poem commemorating his campaign.97 Following the example of victorious commanders before him, Fulvius sought to identify personal with national accomplishment through a complex interweaving of artistic, literary, religious, and political elements. His actions were aimed at an enlightened constituency in Rome.98

Livy states, on the authority of Valerius Antias, that Scipio Asiaticus gathered artifices in Asia and brought them to Rome.99 The historian describes how Scipio collected cash contributions from kings and cities following his victory over Antiochos III to help finance the games he had vowed in the event of success; it seems likely that he used some of those funds to pay his artists. Livy does not specify that his action was the first of its kind, nor is it likely to have been, for new

paintings representing recent victories and accomplishments financed from booty or its sale could not have been the work of local artists only.100

After his victory over Perseus at Pydna, Aemilius Paullus harnessed the literary and visual arts to secure his gloria. He demanded that Athens send him the most respected philosopher to educate his sons and a painter "to ennoble his triumph."'0' An Athenian painter named Metrodoros who was also a respected philosopher met both requirements to his satisfaction; Metrodoros was probably responsible for the reliefs commemorating Paullus's victory on his triumphal monument at Delphi.'02 Aemilius Paullus commissioned the poet-painter Pacuvius to write a fabula praetexta commemorating his victory, Paullus.103 Finally, Pacuvius was also hired to decorate the Temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium;104 the gens Aemilia had enjoyed a long association with the temple, and it is probable that this famous painting celebrated the triumph of 167 B.C.

Just how good was the work produced for these ideological and careerist ends? Scholars generally argue that triumphal paintings were second-rate works, little more than colored cartoons, and formed part of the repertory of Romanized Etruscan and Italian artists.105 Yet two considerations suggest



that from the inception of the practice Romans employed artists of Greek training.106 First, Etrusco-Italic artists did not create original representations of battles; rather, such representations were dependent on models furnished by episodes from Greek mythology in which the Romans could not obviously recognize themselves. Second, in the first decades of the third century successive military victories opened to Rome roads of artistic communication and cultural exchange with Greek artistic centers in Magna Graecia and Sicily.

The literary sources for Roman triumphal painting describe sophisticated works that were probably beyond the capabilities of native Roman artists at that time. Greek painting provided the "provincial" Romans with models for complex representations of battles. These models superseded the classical schemata of friezes of combatants with compositions using masses of figures placed in planes of deep space. As discussed in reference to Messala's battle scene displayed on the Curia Hostilia, the paintings were most likely the products of Greek artists, proficient in Hellenistic innovations, working in the service of Roman patrons.

Certainly, triumphatores competed to surpass other members of the elite in the richness and pomp of their processions. The anecdote Quintilian uses to illustrate a point about jesting is revealing:

When ivory models of captured towns were carried in Caesar's triumphal procession, and a few days later wooden models of the same kind were carried in Fabius Maximus's, Chrysippus remarked that the latter were the boxes for Caesar's ivory models.107

Although not specifically about painting, Quintilian's remark addresses the role memory played in commissioning elaborate triumphal displays. Memory allowed spectators to com- pare the wooden models of Fabius with the ivory models of Caesar (Fig. 9)108 and find the former worthless, no more than the wooden cases in which Caesar might have kept the latter. Triumphatores were also undoubtedly conscious of the effects their rivals had achieved, and endeavored to surpass them with their own celebrations, always mindful of the

audience they needed to impress. Obtaining the finest artists available to decorate their triumphs was one efficacious means at their disposal.

Although most of the sources indicate a Roman governing elite that strove to secure laus and gloria by embracing Hellenistic art, the historical tradition also contains a kind of "negative" information regarding the changing tastes and growing sophistication of Romans during this period. The victorious campaign of the consul Lucius Mummius against the forces of the Achaean League culminated in the punish- ing sack and destruction of Corinth in 146 B.c. Although the works of art Mummius brought back as booty had a profound effect on the artistic taste of the age, anecdotes preserved in the literary sources also reveal the self-consciousness later Romans of the early empire felt about some of their less sophisticated Republican ancestors. Pliny relates the following story about the evolving esteem of foreign art in Rome:

Mummius, whose victory won him the cognomen Achaicus, was the first to enhance the esteem which is publicly accorded to foreign paintings at Rome. For when, during the sale of the booty [from Corinth] King Attalos [II of Pergamon] bought a painting by Aristeides, The Father Liber for six hundred thousand denarii, Mummius, amazed at the price and having begun to suspect that there might be something good in the painting which he himself did not comprehend, demanded that it be brought back, and, over the prolonged protests of Attalos, placed it in the sanctuary of Ceres; this, I believe, was the first foreign picture to become public property in Rome.109

Pliny goes on to state that following Mummius's action, paintings were commonly displayed in the Forum Romanum, undoubtedly in order to recall the exploits of great men.110 The accounts related here about Marcellus's sack of Syracuse and Fulvius's dedication of his spolia to the Muses, however, indicate that The Father Liber could not have been the first foreign painting displayed in Rome."' Rather, such conflict- ing testimony indicates the danger of taking sources such as Pliny at face value and, at the same time, reveals the kind of

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. Tragic Fragments 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. Studzes zn Athenzan Sculpture of the Hellenzstic 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 nobzles to 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 Apollznzs zn czrco," Milanges d'Archiologie et d'Histozre de l'Ecole Frangazse de Rome, xc, 1978, 683-84.

100. See Gruen, 106. 101. Pliny, Naturalzs Hzstona 35.135"

"ad triumphum excolendum." 102. See H. KFihler, Der Fries vom Rezterdenkmal des 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, Aemzlzus Paullus 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 neglz scntton 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.



mythology that was developing around these generals. Never- theless, 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 master- pieces 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

Victorious commanders, through the dual display of art objects brought back as plunder and those works specifically commissioned to celebrate their triumph, therefore, culti- vated an image as promoters of the fine arts. The public display of a triumphal painting demonstrates the multiple purposes to which a Roman leader could apply a single work of art. A great painting such as that commissioned by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus combined individual publicity with the observance of a national military success, the conquest of a province, and an expression of gratitude for divine favor.

Caesar's Fears, Ovid's Seductions: The Reception of Roman Triumphal Painting As noted at the outset, the Roman elite used triumphal paintings for ideological purposes. Patrons utilized the paintings they commissioned to persuade fellow Romans to follow their political lead. Ancient Rome presented no single or monolithic audience, however, for these works."3 Rather, the audience for triumphal paintings embraced the whole of the Roman populace, and was therefore characterized by the same strong class divisions and social hierarchies that gener- ated political tensions throughout the Republican period. Furthermore, people journeyed into Rome from the country for triumphal celebrations, and swarms of slaves and foreign- ers joined the crush of citizens to watch the spectacle of the procession. Suetonius describes crowds so vast for Caesar's triumph in 46 B.C. that two senators and several others died in the press of the mob." Although the ancient testimonia were necessarily written by and for an educated elite, they nevertheless indicate the heterogeneity of those who witnessed the paintings and suggest various strategies patrons exploited to manipulate those audiences.

Certainly, different classes responded to triumphal paintings in a way that corresponded to their various social and

cultural situations. The paintings, like any work of public art, were encoded so as to communicate specific messages to specific cultures or groups-not only the educated elite but also the communities from which the artists themselves emerged, and other segments of the Roman populace.115 As will be shown, the distribution of codes necessary for the interpretation of triumphal paintings was unequal: some systems could have been known by most of the lower classes, whereas others would be discernible by only the most sophisticated of viewers.116

Whatever the class, the medium of triumphal painting, through which various Hellenistic conventions of painting were introduced to Rome, provoked a powerful response. The Greek biographer Plutarch emphasized the role played by the spoils Marcellus brought back from the sack of Syracuse in transforming Rome physically through their public display and also intellectually by helping foster the intellectual ferment of the late Republic. He wrote that conservative Romans criticized Marcellus "because he had filled the Roman people, who had hitherto been accustomed to fighting or farming and had no experience with a life of softness and ease ... with a taste for leisure and idle talk, affecting urbane opinions about art and artists, even to the point of wasting the better part of the day on such things."'17 Not only collecting and displaying Greek art but also learning about it and exhibiting one's erudition became status symbols for rich Romans.118

In this socially competitive context triumphatores sought the services of the best Greek artists available in order to increase their gloria among their true peers, other leaders drawn from the educated upper classes. The efficacy of a painting might correspond directly with the quality of the representation: the finer the painting, the more famous the event it commemorated might become; the better the artist or painting, the greater the potential gloria accrued to the triumphator and his family.119 In addition, style itself might be considered capable of holding political significance. Among the upper classes, sophisticated viewers might distinguish the work of the Asian artifices brought to Rome by Scipio Asiaticus from the neo- Attic classicism of Metrodoros's work for Aemilius Paullus; they could admire a painting for its aesthetic qualities, for its artistic skill, as well as for its ability to communicate the specific deeds it commemorated. It is this last criterion, however, that remained the primary function of the painting. Clarity in transmitting the facts about events-or, rather, the triumphator's preferred rendition of those facts-remained

112 Velleius Paterculus 1.13.4 (trans. Pollitt). The Roman military officer Velleius Paterculus (ca. 19 B.C.-after A.D. 30) wrote a brief account of Roman history to celebrate a friend's consulship; he was an admirer of Tiberius (under whom he served), and his evidence and interpretations must be used with care. Gruen, 123-29, for example, argues for a more sympathetic picture of Mummius, whose actions demonstrated a high regard for Greek art, promoted its display in Rome and Italy, and reinforced its association with the Roman political and religious institutions.

113. See the discussion rendering problematic the notion of the audience for Roman art by N. B. Kampen, "On Not Writing the History of Roman Art," Art Bulletzn, LxxvII, no. 3, 1995, 375-78.

114. Suetonius, Dzvus lulhus 39. 115. See Freedberg (as in n. 6), 23. 116. By codes I do not mean units of meaning; rather, codes are areas of

connotation that are occupied differently for different classes and even class

factions, complicated by other factors such as ethnicity and gender, as well as the whole cultural experience of the viewer. See W. Iser, "Indeterminacy and the Reader's Response in Prose Fiction," in Aspects of Narrative, ed. J. Hillis Miller, NewYork, 1971; H. R Jauss, Aesthetic Experience and Lzterary Hermeneutzcs, trans M. Shaw, Ann Arbor, Mich, 1982, esp. 92; idem, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. T. Bahti, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1982.

117. Plutarch, Marcellus 21 (trans. Pollitt). Livy (25.40) also gives Marcellus credit for initiating the Roman fascination with Greek art.

118. See, for example, Epistulae ad Attwum, the letters of Cicero to Titus Pomponlus Atticus (109-32 B.C.), who resided in Athens and purchased works of art to decorate his friend's villa in Tusculum.

119. See Freedberg (as in n. 6), 112 120. Varro, De Re Rustica 1.2.1. 121. Pliny, Naturalis Historza 3.2.17.



the basis for assessing a painting's effectiveness among the masses of Roman citizenry.

After the procession, triumphatores also exhibited their paintings in public spaces to continue to evoke powerful partisan responses in the spectators. As noted above, Messala secured his gloria by displaying a painting of a battle on the wall of the Curia Hostilia in 264 B.C. Generally, the public display of paintings was a means of strengthening the gloria of an entire family. Gaius Sempronius Gracchus undoubtedly chose to place his picta Italia in the Temple of Tellus because it had been built by his father;120 Marcus Agrippa placed his huge map showing Rome's domination of the world in the Porticus Vipsania, built by his sister.121 As Erich Gruen has argued, the use of artistic creations to promote Roman values and to broadcast both individual and national achievements was well entrenched and undisputed. The phenomenon cannot be reduced to mere pragmatism or cynicism, for "political, religious and aesthetic elements all played a part, overlapping and entwined."122

Nevertheless, public exhibition of triumphal paintings could also incite disapproving reactions, such as jealousy and even bitterness. Pliny relates the story that when Scipio Asiaticus placed a picture representing his Asiatic victory of 190 B.C. on the Capitoline, his action infuriated his brother, Scipio Africanus, since Africanus's adoptive son, Lucius Cor- nelius Scipio, had been taken prisoner in that war.123 The elite would have access to full accounts of military campaigns,124 and they also had firsthand knowledge of factional intrigues at home. This audience, viewing triumphal paintings with the awareness of political insiders, could recognize potential political implicatio

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Roman Triumphal Painting Its Function, Development, And Reception