In the article on ‘The Aesthetics of Violence: Myth and Danger in Roman Domestic Landscapes’ Z. Newby argued that ‘[t]he taste for myths of death and violence [in domestic ensembles] suggests analogies to the broader love of violent spectacle satisfied in the public realm through gladiatorial contests or the grisly combination of myth and punishment in the form of “fatal charades” where condemned criminals acted out mythological roles’ (Classical Antiquity 31 [2012], 349–89, at 351). While Newby only briefly explores this tantalising suggestion, B.-B.'s monograph carefully collects, sifts and analyses all the preserved evidence for the staging of historical-legendary and mythological events, from literary passages to reliefs, mosaics, wall-paintings and terracottas (though overlooking the mythological statuary discussed by Newby, whom she does not cite). By assembling a nearly comprehensive dataset about these munera, B.-B. is able to provide a synthetic understanding of how such spectacles both promoted imperial ideology in public and were internalised in private through diverse visual media across the empire and over time.
B.-B. has previously written a landmark study of naumachiae (2006), and the present monograph, which originates as a habilitation à diriger des recherches at the Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne, both builds upon and extends her earlier work. The study opens with a short introduction, in which B.-B. provides an efficient review of several key ancient literary passages as well as secondary works, which illustrate how there was a dynamic dialogue and, indeed, interdependency between the performance of spectacula and their representation in visual culture. By attributing decisive agency to the pictorial arts in this way, B.-B.'s approach fit wells within the context of other recent studies of Roman sport and spectacle, which have sought to make critical use of visual representations as their own distinct body of historical evidence.
The book is then divided into two major sections, the first of which, ‘Les thèmes historiques et mythologiques dans les munera: documentation et problématique’, is organised into three parts. In Part 1 B.-B. reviews the written sources, including spectacles with historical themes (e.g. naumachiae) and those with mythological themes set in the arena (e.g. pyrrhicae, mythological venationes). (B.-B. helpfully reproduces ancient passages, together with their French translation, throughout the book.) In Part 2 she presents the iconographic documentation through the lens of three different settings, official décor (the reliefs from the amphitheatre at Capua of Antonine date), serial production (Gallic ceramics from the Flavian era) and private décor (Spanish mosaics from the fourth century ce, together with earlier examples from North Africa). In Part 3 B.-B. efficiently ties together the two previous parts by considering the issues raised by the different sets of data, which she helpfully illustrates in a comparative table (pp. 73–4). She also categorises the four different kinds of staged events as embodying specific ideological messages (e.g. the flight of Icarus as an exemplum of the ‘infraction of the divine order’), categorisations developed more fully throughout the remainder of the book.
In the second section, ‘Les thèmes historiques et mythologiques dans les munera et dans les arts plastiques: des phénomènes d'influences réciproques’, the heart of the book, B.-B. divides the material into four parts. In Part 1 she looks at spectacles with a historical theme and the celebration of victory, with sections on naumachiae, ground battles (including those held in the Circus Maximus; combats between gregarii), re-enactments of battles and imperial ideology (especially the role of iconography, with particular attention to Hellenistic precedents). Her analysis of how such images plug into a wider discourse about the ‘barbarian’ in Roman art is particularly noteworthy (pp. 111–14) and connects to arguments made in later sections of the book, which also link art, stagecraft and imperial power/knowledge (e.g. Nilotic themes and ‘la victoire de l'Occident sur l'Orient’ [p. 115]).
In Part 2 B.-B. turns to staged executions, which she interprets as examples of ‘le châtiment de l'impiété’. Here she individually treats the stories of Icarus, Pasiphae, Actaeon and Dirce as represented in Pompeiian wall-paintings, each with sections on the evidence for the dramatic staging of the myth, their possible models (theatrical and artistic), and the symbolism of the myth and the posterity of its iconography. This is followed by a long discussion of the story of the flaying of Marsyas, including attestations of its performance in the amphitheatre, visual representations (including the Greek inheritance) and the ideological weaponisation of the myth under Augustus. Indeed, B.-B. argues that the fall of Icarus, the story of Pasiphae and the wooden cow, the death of Actaeon, the punishment of Dirce and the flaying of Marsyas were all linked, more or less directly, either to the punishment of hubris or to Phoebus-Apollo, and sometimes both (p. 166). In this way myths showcased the link between the justice of the gods and the punishment meted out by the emperor.
In Part 3 B.-B. focuses on the venationes in which the ‘exploits des héros’ are read as ‘une exaltation de la maîtrise de la nature’ (p. 167). She turns first to Orpheus charming the animals with his music, who is interpreted as a proxy for the emperor taming wild nature. Then, at great length, she treats Hercules (along with Omphale and Meleager), whose heroic deeds and divinised status were assimilated to the person of the emperor (most famously Commodus), whose military power thereby assumed a divine gloss (though missing here is S. Ritter, Hercules in der römischen Kunst von den Anfängen bis Augustus [1995]).
Finally, in Part 4, B.-B. turns to the parodies of mythological themes, including the fights of Amazons and pygmies, as well as the dramatic set-pieces about Mars and Rhea Silvia, Mars and Venus, Leander and Hero, Neptune, and the judgement of Paris, among others. The various strands of argument advanced in this part are too complex to unravel fully here. In spite of the variety of the source myths, all of their performances are understood as celebrating the prosperity (laetitia temporum) brought about by the person of the emperor, who was visually promoted (e.g. on coinage) as both the beneficent source and sole guarantee of their permanence (p. 280).
The book is rounded off by a short general conclusion, an extensive corpus of written sources (organised by type: historiographic, poetic, epigraphic etc.), an index of sources, a general index and a bibliography. The argument is supported by 37 illustrations, many of them in colour. However, given the vast range of visual phenomena covered, the volume would have benefited from more illustrations to do the argument justice.
The special value and accomplishment of the monograph is its far-reaching collection of evidence to demonstrate a specific association in ‘l'imaginaire collectif romain’ (p. 281) between certain mythological themes and the arena performances. Throughout, B.-B. demonstrates remarkable observational prowess in analysing the ways in which diverse forms of visual culture were employed to insinuate that association throughout the empire, from spectacle venues to everyday homes. On the one hand, some will doubt that we can ever reconstruct such a ‘collective imagination’ or that it existed in the first place. B.-B.'s interpretation of the messaging of these spectacles as exclusively imperially dispersed requires greater nuance, given how game-givers locally appropriated these events in creative ways, especially to show themselves to their best advantage within their communities. On the other hand, the emphasis on the interdependence between visual and literary genres is both novel and stimulating. B.-B.'s insights into how lofty Greek culture was continuously transformed through its entanglement with the messy, violent business of empire-building are fascinating. Indeed, as exhaustively documented here for the first time, Rome's reservoirs for fashioning new ‘histories’ and ‘mythologies’ of imperial mastery appear at once ceaselessly creative and staggeringly violent.
