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Gaius and the Grand Cameo of Paris
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
The Grand Cameo of Paris has generally been supposed to depict either Tiberius' reception of Germanicus on his return from Germany in A.D. 17 or the dispatch of Germanicus by Tiberius to the East in the same year. The scene is surveyed by Augustus and others from the heavens above; below is depicted the humiliation which Germanicus is diplomatically supposed, on the one hypothesis, to have inflicted on Germany, on the other hypothesis, to be about to inflict on the East. These interpretations have now been challenged and Dr. Ludwig Curtius 1 offers in their room a novel interpretation of which M. Gagé writes, ‘elle peut ouvrir (aux historiens) d'apercus neufs et saisissants’ 2 and Professor H. M. Last, ‘if he (Curtius) is right in dating the work to the principate of Gaius, the results are serious, both for the plans about the succession to Tiberius and for other matters… This theory needs much examination.’ 3 I wish to show, as briefly as possible, that, however great its merits may be in respect of iconography, the theory so seriously violates established historical facts as to be in large part untenable.
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- Copyright ©J. P. V. D. Balsdon 1936. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 Röm. Mitt. xlix, 1934, 1–2, pp. 119–156Google Scholar. References to earlier theories will be found there in the notes on p. 119 f. Curtius' theory has been examined by Gagé, J., ‘Un manifeste dynastique de Caligula,’ Revue des études anciennes xxxvii, 2 (1935), 165–184CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I made my own criticism of Curtius' theory before reading Gagé's article, and afterwards revised it, in the light of that article. The present illustration of the cameo (pl. x) is from a photograph of Giraudon, to whom, as to the Conservateur of the Cabinet des Médailles in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, I have to express my thanks.
2 Gagé, o.c., p. 165.
3 The Year's Work in Classical Studies, 1935, 52 ff.
4 Curtius, o.c., p.153. A.D. 37 is not of course, a certain date for Tiberius Gemellus' death. We only know that it was probably not earlier than October, A.D. 37, and that it was certainly not later than May 24, A.D. 38. See my book, The Emperor Gaius (Caligula), Oxford, 1934, pp. 36Google ScholarPubMed, n. 1, 37, n. 1.
5 Curtius, o.c., pp. 152 ff.
6 o.c., pp. 120 ff.
7 E.g. Tac., Ann. iv, 38Google Scholar, ‘ego me, patres conscripti, mortalem esse et hominum officia fungi … et vos testor et meminisse posteros volo,’ a passage which Curtius might fairly emphaize.
8 Tac., Ann. v, 2Google Scholar.
9 o.c., p. 122.
10 Marsh, F. B., The Reign of Tiberius (Oxford, 1931)Google Scholar.
11 Tiberio Successore di Aueusto (1934), pp. 101, 197.
12 Gagé follows Curtius in this assumption.
13 Espérandieu, E., Bas-reliefs de la Gaule (Paris, 1910), iii, 377Google Scholar, no. 2551.
14 Tiridates, who was fetched from Rome and who occupied the Parthian throne for a short time in A.D. 35, Tac., Ann. vi, 37Google Scholar; F. B. Marsh, The Reign of Tiberius, pp. 212 ff. Curtius is unable to identify this figure with Darius, son of Artabanus, mentioned in Suetonius, C. Caligula 19; Cassius Dio 59, 17, 5f., as Darius did not come to Rome earlier than A.D. 37, while the scene represented on the cameo must be earlier than the death of Iulia Augusta in A.D. 29 (Curtius, o.c., p. 136 f.).
15 o.c., pp. 131 ff.
16 o.c., p. 133.
17 o.c., p. 141.
18 See Gagé, o.c., p. 168.
19 Here I disagree with Gagé, who is impressed by Curtius' ‘idée centrale,’ o.c., p. 168.
20 RG, c. 14.
21 Cassius Dio 55, 12, 1; Tac., Ann. i, 3Google Scholar.
22 Mattingly, H., BMC R. Emp., 1, 88–91Google Scholar, nos. 513–543, pl. 13, 7–20; pl. 14, 1–4; pl. 51, 3; p. 97, no. 589; pl. 21, 3.
23 Tac., Ann. xii, 41Google Scholar; Mattingly, , BMC R. Emp. 1, 177Google Scholar, nos. 90, 92, pl. 33, 9 (aurei); 177, nos. 93 f., pl. 33, 10 (denarii); pl. 37, 4 (sestertii).
24 See Stein, A., Der römische Ritterstand (Munich, 1927), p. 84Google Scholar, correcting Mommsen, Staatsr. ii3, 827 f., iii, 523.
25 Ex Ponto 2, 5, 41.
26 CIL vi, 31200. Perhaps from Tac., Ann. iv, 9Google Scholar, ‘memoriae Drusi eadem quae in Germanicum decernuntur,' we may suspect that the Equites had passed a similar resolution after Germanicus’ death in A.D. 19.
27 o.c., pp. 171 f.
28 Tiberius Gemellus was not ‘seul enfant survivant de Drusus,’ as Gagé states (o.c., p. 166). His sister Julia lived until A.D. 43.
29 ‘Römische Bleitesserae,’ Klio, Beiheft 3, p. 71; Tesserarum urbis Romae et suburbi plumbearum sylloge, St. Petersburg, 1903, no. 8.
30 Curthis endeavours (p. 150) to show from the example of C. and L. Caesares that the acclamation as Princeps Iuventutis need not necessarily synchronise with, but could precede, the adoption of the toga virilis. But, as Gagé points out (p. 172, n. 5), Tac., Ann. i, 3Google Scholar is his only evidence, and that is by no means incontrovertible.
31 o.c., p. 151.
32 See for further details PIR, ‘I,’ nos. 145 (Drusus), 149 (Nero); P-W, s.v. ‘Iulius,’ nos. 137 (Drusus), 146 (Nero).
33 Suetonius, C. Caligula 10; cf. Tac., Ann. iv, 8Google Scholar; iv,59.
34 ILS 183; CIL v, 4953.
35 see my book, The Emperor Gaius, p. 18.
36 o.c., p. 151.
37 Gagé, o.c., pp. 174 f.
38 See above notes 20–23.
39 o.c., p. 166.
40 o.c., p. 169.
41 C. Caligula, 52.
42 Cassius Dio 59, 17, 3.
43 NH 35, 94.
44 Apotheosis and After Life (London, 1915), p. 56Google Scholar.
45 Appian, Mith. 117 : cf. Sallust, , Hist. 3, 88Google Scholar; Plutarch, Pompeius, 46.
46 Suetonius, , Divus Iulius 7, 1Google Scholar. Cf. Meyer, Eduard, Caesars Monarchie 2, pp. 521 ff.Google Scholar; Taylor, L. R., The Divinity of the Roman Emperor (Middletown, Connecticut, 1931), p. 75Google Scholar.
47 Plutarch, , Antony 54, 8Google Scholar; cf. Holmes, Rice, Architect of the Roman Empire, i, 124Google Scholar.
48 Cicero, , Philippic v, 17Google Scholar, 4.8; Suetonius, , Divus Augustus 18, 50Google Scholar and 94, 5.
49 Annals, 2, 73.
50 Chiefly that the face is not of the ‘Germanicus type’ and that, on this hypothesis, Germanicus may appear twice in the cameo, once on earth and once in heaven.
5l o.c., p. 184.
52 o.c., pp. 177 f., but to this Curtius could justly reply that the lituus appears, together with shield and spear, in the coins of C. and L. Caesares (see supra, p. 156, note 22).
53 Curtius, o.c., p. 154.