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On the Flavian Reliefs from the Palazzo della Cancelleria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Hugh Last
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Extract

It is with considerable reluctance that I offer a few comments on the possible significance of the Flavian reliefs discovered between 1937 and 1939 close by the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. For the interpretation of monuments such as these is largely subjective; and, in a matter on which any student may claim as good a right to his own opinion as any other, the use of space in this Journal to make suggestions which few may think convincing needs special justification. That justification must be found in the encouragement to ventilate the ideas which follow (ideas first aired before the Anglo-Swedish Classical Conference at Lund in August, 1947) given me by various friends—particularly Dr. Arvid Andrén, Professors Axel Boëthius and Einar Gjerstad, Dr. P. G. Hamberg, and Professors A. D. Nock and A. W. Persson. None of these gentlemen should be assumed to agree with any of my conclusions, but to all of them my hearty thanks for useful discussion are due and are hereby offered. Furthermore, it must be made plain that these remarks are not intended even to touch on the problems connected with the development of Roman art in the Flavian age to the evidence for which these friezes are a most notable addition. They are confined to the question, What are the reliefs about ?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 1-2 , November 1948 , pp. 9 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © Hugh Last 1948. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Magi, F., I rilievi flavi del Palazzo della Cancelleria. Rome: Bardi, 1945. Pp. xx + 177 + 28 platesGoogle Scholar, with 76 figures in the text (Magi).

2 There is, however, one curiosity, hitherto so far as I am aware unnoticed, which may be mentioned because any relevance it might have would not be affected by the general interpretation of the relief. In 1885 (by a process mainly of dead reckoning, though helped by the inscriptions now ILS 6051–2) Chambalu, A. (‘Flaviana III. Wann ist Vespasian i.j. 70, Titus i.j. 71 aus dem orient nach Rom zurückgekehrt ?’: Philologus 44, 1885, 502 ff.Google Scholar) reached the conclusion (506) that Vespasian got to Rome in 70 during the first half of October. In the background of Frieze B, but prominent between the vital figures of Vespasian and Domitian, stands the Genius Publicus (in his later, beardless, form: see E. Rink, Die bildlichen Darstellungen des römischen Genius—Diss. Giessen, 1933–44) with his left foot on a low altar. The Calendar of Amiternum (CIL I2, p. 245) and the Fasti Fratrum Arualium (CIL I2, p. 214: Henzen, AFA ccxxxviii) both mark against 9th October a sacrifice to the Genius Publicus, Fausta Felicitas, and Venus Victrix ‘in Capitolio’, on which see CIL I2, p. 331, col. 2, for the fact that in the Arval version everything after ‘Geni Publici’ (sic) is an addition, partly in erasure. But I am not asserting more than that, if Chambalu had been alive, he would probably have been interested in this relief.

3 Certain critics have sought to find an argument for a particular interpretation of this relief by claiming that this figure wears what they allege to be ‘travelling-dress’. This tendencious description rests on an error which may perhaps be traced to a remark quite properly made by C. Cichorius in his discussion of Scene 77 on the Trajan Column (Die Reliefs der Traianssäule 2—Berlin, 1896–367 f.Google Scholar) when, arguing against the view that this represents an adclamatio, he points out that Trajan and his officers are wearing tunics and saga, without cuirasses, which on the Column they are only shown doing when travelling. But from the perfectly legitimate observation that Trajan on campaign does not appear in this dress except when travelling it does not follow that, whenever an emperor wears this dress, he must be dressed for travel.

4 ‘Studi archeologici e topografici intorno alla Piazza del Collegio Romano,’ in Opuscula archaeologica 4, 1946, 47–156, at 105 ff. and 115 ff.Google Scholar