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Severan Art and Architecture at Lepcis Magna1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

J. B. Ward-Perkins
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Extract

To the student of the art of imperial Rome, and in particular to the student whose views are founded on the monuments of Rome itself, the age of the Severi is often felt to be one of promise rather than fulfilment. It is not until the latter part of the third century, on the eve of the new age, that the pagan architecture of the imperial capital comes to its final, rich flowering in such monuments as the Aurelian Walls, the Baths of Diocletian, and the Basilica of Maxentius. The Baths of Caracalla, the additions to the Flavian Palace on the Palatine and the vanished Septizonium remind us that in the meanwhile monumental architecture was dormant only; but the centre of interest and of experiment has shifted to more practical fields; and it is rather to the houses and warehouses of Ostia that we have to look for evidence of the continued development of Roman architectural ideas. In the field of sculpture we are somewhat better served.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 1-2 , November 1948 , pp. 59 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © J. B. Ward-Perkins 1948. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

1

To all the many persons who have helped the preparation of this article the writer offers his sincere thanks; and in particular to Miss J. M. C. Toynbee, Dr. F. W. Deichmann, Mr. R. G. Goodchild, Mr. D. E. L. Haynes, and Dr. Erik Sjöqvist. Much of the information and many helpful ideas are due to the unfailing generosity of Professor G. Caputo, Superintendent of Antiquities for Tripolitania.

References

2 See recently Lehmann-Hartleben, K. and Olsen, E. C., Dionysiac Sarcophagi in Baltimore, Baltimore, 1942Google Scholar.

3 The epigraphic evidence proves conclusively that Lepcis and Lepcis Magna, rather than Leptis Magna, were the forms in current use locally throughout the classical period. The name derives from the Punic Lbqy or Lpqy, which is found on the early coinage; Romanelli, P., Rend. Accad. Lincei, s.v, xxxiii, 1924, 253 ff.Google Scholar, and Leptis Magna, Rome, 1925, 3Google Scholar.

4 Unpublished inscription from the Forum Vetus at Lepcis Magna.

5 SHA Sev. xv, 7Google Scholar.

6 For the general topography of Lepcis see Romanelli, o.c., and Haynes, D. E. L., Ancient Tripolitania, Tripoli, 1946Google Scholar.

7 Boëthius, A., ‘Roman Architecture from its classicistic to its late Imperial phase,’ Göteborgs Högskolas Årsskrift xlvii, 1941Google Scholar.

8 A useful, though in detail unreliable, survey is that published, with a foreword by B. Apolloni, by the Accademia dei Lincei (R. Accad. d'ltalia) in the series I monumenti italiani, fasc. viii–ix, ‘Il foro e la basilica severiana di Leptis Magna,’ Rome, 1936. The only other accounts of value are two brief excavation-reports by Bartoccini, in Afr. Ital. i, 1927, 53–74Google Scholar, and ii, 1928–29, 30–49. See also Giovannoni, G. in Palladio i, 1937, 3–16Google Scholar and 183–4. The plan here published, by courtesy of the Superintendency of Antiquities for Tripolitania (fig. 6), was prepared by the late Professor D. Vincifori.

9 Gnomon ii, 1926, 339Google Scholar; CAH xi, 781.

10 D. Atkinson, Report on Excavations at Wroxeter 1923–27, Birmingham Arch. Soc., 1942, appendix C, 345–362; on which see R. G. Goodchild, ‘The Origins of the Romano-British Forum,’ Antiquity, 1946, 70–77.

11 Arch. Anz. 1941, 702–3.

12 Overall dimensions: Basilica Ulpia, 540 by 190 feet; London, 420 by 120 feet approx.; Lepcis, 290 by 120 feet. Central span: Basilica Ulpia, 80 feet; Lepcis, 60 feet. The internal height of the central nave at Lepcis was at least 85 feet.

13 This curious feature led Romanelli (Leptis Magna, 103) to suggest that there had been a radical change of plan during construction; but this finds no confirmation in the excavation.

14 Procopius, , De aedificiis vi, 4, 4–5Google Scholar.

15 Guidi, G., ‘La data di costruzione della basilica di Leptis Magna,’ Afr. Ital. ii, 1928–1929, 231–245Google Scholar.

16 Bollettino d'Arte, v, 1925–1926, 565Google Scholar, fig. 8.

17 Dedicated 113. N. d. Scavi, 1932, 201. For recent bibliography see Lugli, G., Roma antica, il centro monumentale, Rome, 1946, 258Google Scholar. The pilaster-bases still in situ are illustrated by Naumann (see footnote 18), fig. 50. The column-bases re-used in the early-fifth century narthex of the Lateran baptistry (Giovenale, G. B., Il battistero Lateranense, Rome, 1929, 142–3Google Scholar, figs. 84–5; Naumann, o.c., fig. 51) are almost certainly derived from this temple. Fyfe, T., Hellenistic Architecture, Cambridge, 1936, 76Google Scholar, and pl. xxib, is certainly wrong in regarding them as contemporary with the construction of the baptistry.

18 Naumann, R., Der Quellbezirk von Nî;mes (Denkmäler antiker Architektur 4, Berlin-Leipzig, 1937), 46 ff.Google Scholar, pl. 39.

19 The earliest dated Egyptian example of the classical type comes from the Kôm el-Shukâfa catacomb at Alexandria (first century A.D.; Naumann, o.c., fig. 35); but several of those in the Greco-Roman Museum at Alexandria appear to be typologically earlier. To the examples cited by Naumann may be added one from Alexandria, illustrated in Annuaire du Musée Gréco-romain, 1935–39, 49. Pl. xvi. 6; and those of a late Hellenistic house at Tolmeta, in Cyrenaica (Arch. Anz. 1941, fig. 164); also terracotta plaques with Nilotic scenes, Boll. d'Arte xii, 1918, 54Google Scholar; Arch. Anz. 1927, 37–8.

20 Probably second century B.C., Arch. Anz. 1927 263–96, fig. 2; 1928, 29–40, fig. 11. Cf. the column of Protomedes at Cyrene (seemingly unpublished, but can be seen in Afr. Ital. ii, 1928–1929, 137Google Scholar, fig. 42, left background).

21 Monumenti Italiani, etc., fasc. viii–ix, pls. xxviii–xxxii.

22 o.c. pl. xxix; Bartoccini, , Afr. Ital. i, 1927, 73Google Scholar, fig. 19.

23 Didyma (ed. Th. Wiegand), part i, H. Knack fuss, Die Baubeschreibung, pl. 170, F. 425–8.

24 e.g. the so-called Temple of Claudius (second century) at Ephesus, , Jahreshefte xxiii, 1926, 265–270Google Scholar, plan fig. 53; and in a modified form a Baalbek.

25 Krencker, D. and Schede, M., Der Tempel in Ankara (Denkmäler antiker Architektur, 3, Berlin, 1936)Google Scholar, pls, 7, 19, and 23. The temple is ascribed by these authors to the second century B.C.; but see Weigand, in Gnomon xiii, 1937, 414–422Google Scholar. It is certainly Augustan.

26 Wiegand, Th. and Schrader, H., Priene, Ergebnisse, etc., 1895–1898, Berlin, 1904Google Scholar, fig. 223; Krischen, F., Antike Rathäuser, Berlin, 1941Google Scholar, pl. xiii; D. S. Robertson, Handbook of Greek and Roman Architecture, 2 ed., 1945, pl. vii.

27 Comana: Germ. Arch. Inst. photo, 10080; Aphrodisias, ditto, neg. 4336; also Crema, , Mon. Ant. xxxviii, 1939Google Scholar, pl. 49, 3.

28 I owe the references to Ostia and Terracina to Professor Gismondi. For Terracina, see Forma Italiae I, i, Anxur-Tarracina, iii fig. 22.

29 Kautzsch, R., Kapitellstudien (Studien zur spätantiken Kunstgeschichte 9, Berlin, 1936Google Scholar), nos. 738–758, pl. 44, distinguishes the two basic types only as, respectively, Kapitelle mit Schilf-(Wasser-) blättern and Rillenkapitelle. He notes, but does not formally distinguish, the third type, and remarks correctly that the simple form is commoner in the East, the more complex, derivative form in the West.

30 Santa Pudenziana: a series in situ in the nave arcade, where they were inserted in the eighth century (temp. Hadrian I, 772–95). Petrignani, A., La basilica di S. Pudenziana in Roma (Mon. Ant. Crist., series II, no 1, Rome, 1934), 48Google Scholar and fig. 30.

Bari, S. Nicola: in the gallery, probably eleventh century. Vinaccia, A., I monumenti medioevali di terra di Bari, Bari, 1915, vol. i, part 2, 23Google Scholar, fig. 16.

Bari, S. Gregorio: Schettini, F., ‘La chiesa di S. Gregorio di Bari,’ Palladio v, 1941, fig. on p. 263Google Scholar (right).

31 Stuart, and Revett, , Antiquities of Athens i, London, 1762 13–25Google Scholar. There is no adequate modern survey. It was built certainly before 37 B.C., probably before (but not long before) 44 B.C.; see Robinson, Henry S., ‘The Tower of the Winds and the Roman market-place,’ AJA xlvii, 1942, 291–305Google Scholar.

32 Fiechter, E., Das Dionysos-Theater in Athen Stuttgart, 1935, iii, 40Google Scholar, nos. 5–9, fig. 20 and pl. 14. The Acropolis capitals seem to be unpublished; I owe my knowledge of them to Dr. E. Sjöqvist.

33 Corinth i, 1932, 208 and fig. 141; pl. xviii. Cf. x, 1932, 95, footnote 1 and fig. 74. Kautzsch, o.c., no. 738, pl. 44.

34 Kautzsch, o.c., nos. 739–745. Eph. Arch., 1909, 217–8 and pl. 7; 1915, 52 f. Sotiriou, , Guide du Musée Byzantin d'Athènes, Athens, 1932Google Scholar, fig. 6B. To these may be added two anta-capitals, presumably classical, at Eleusis (information Dr. E. Sjöqvist).

35 In situ by the entrance to the Fountain of Apollo; and loose beside the Caesareum and in the garden of Graziani's villa. All unpublished.

36 At Alexandria and at Abu Mîna; and notably a painted series of lotus-and-acanthus capitals from Saqqara, now in the Coptic Museum. Quibell, J. E., Excavations at Saqqara, iii, 1909Google Scholar, pl. xxii, and iv, 1912, pl. xxxv, 4; Kautzsch, o.c., no. 746, pl.44.

37 Germ. Arch. Inst. photos nos. 2054 and 7960.

38 Altertümer von Pergamon, v, 2, p. 42, pl. xii, 3; G. Mendel, Catal. des sculptures des Musées impériaux ottomans, 1914, iii, nos. 1200 and 1201.

39 Germ. Arch. Inst. photos nos. 7945–6. Mr. D. B. Harden called my attention to the examples at Oxford.

40 At Abu Mîna (Kaufmann, K. M., Die Menasstadt, Leipzig, 1910, pl. 69, 6Google Scholar); and at Alexandria, in the Greco-Roman Museum.

41 L'architettura antica in Dalmazia, Torino (author and date not stated), part i, pl. 9.

42 I owe this reference to Dr. C. Pietrangeli.

43 Crema, L., ‘I monument architettonici afrodisiani,’ Monumenti Antichi xxxviii, 1939, 227Google Scholar, figs. 59–60.

44 Wilberg, W., Jahreshefte xi, 1908, 118–135Google Scholar; Gotze, B., Jb. deutsch. arch. Inst. lii, 1937, 233Google Scholar, figs. 12 and 13; D. S. Robertson, Handbook of Greek and Roman Architecture, 2 ed., 1945, fig. 120.

45 Gerasa, City of the Decapolis, ed. Kraeling, C. H., New Haven, 1938Google Scholar, pl. xxxvi; Fyfe, T., Hellenistic Architecture, Cambridge, 1936Google Scholar, pl. xxviii (b).

46 Krencker, D. and Zschietzschmann, W., Römische Tempel in Syrien (Denkmäler antiker Architektur, 5, Berlin, 1938)Google Scholar, passim. For Kanawât see Butler, H. C., American Archaeological Expedition to Syria, 1899–1900, part ii, Architecture and other arts, New York, 1903, 354–7Google Scholar.

47 Fyfe, o.c., pl. xxviii (b).

48 The earliest recorded example is that built by Herod the Great at Antioch: Josephus, , BJ i, 425Google Scholar. Dr. Glanville Downey assures me that a Seleucid date (Anderson-Spiers-Ashby, Architecture of Ancient Rome, 1927 60–1) cannot be substantiated.

49 Examples are recorded at Soli-Pompeiopolis in Cilicia; and at Antinopolis (Descr. de l'Egypte, Antiquités iv, pls. 59 and 60).

50 The viae porticatae of Republican Rome (Lehmann-Hartleben, P-W, s.v. ‘Städtebau’, 2059–60) were almost certainly of timber, and developed into the brick-and-concrete, galleried façades of Imperial practice in Rome and in Ostia. Lehmann-Hartleben, and Wiegand, (Palmyra, Berlin, 1932, i, 162Google Scholar) suggest that the East Roman colonnaded street was derived from this source. The resulting product in the eastern provinces, however, is so different, that this derivation, whether correct or not, is of academic interest only in the present context.

51 Maiuri, A., ‘L'origine del portico ad archigirati su colonne,’ Palladio i, 1937, 121–4Google Scholar.

52 The earliest is perhaps the third-century entrance-portico to the stadium at Miletus. Arch. Anz. 1906, 27, fig. 8.

53 e.g. on terracotta plaques with Nilotic scenes viewed through columnar arcades (Boll. d'Arte xii, 1918, 54Google Scholar; Palladio i, 13, fig. 15); and on the Asiatic sarcophagi (Morey, C. R., ‘The sarcophagus of Claudia Antonia Sabina and the Asiatic sarcophagi’ Sardis v, part 1, 46 ff.Google Scholar). See also Yonah, M. Avi in Q. Dep. Ant. Pal. x, 142–6Google Scholar.

54 There is no inscription; but iconography and historical probability alike connect it with Severus's African tour of 203. Bartoccini, R., Afr. Ital. iv, 1931, 152Google Scholar; Townsend, P. W., AJA xlii, 1938, 517, 522Google Scholar; L'Orange, H. P., Apotheosis in Ancient Portraiture, Oslo, 1947, 76Google Scholar. This finds confirmation from the evident haste with which the arch was completed.

55 Miss Toynbee has kindly allowed me in this paragraph to anticipate some of the conclusions of our joint researches, which will appear in PBSR.

56 The well known Hercules capital from the Baths of Caracalla (E. Strong, La scultura romana, 1926, fig. 185) affords another link with the Severan sculpture of Lepcis, where it may be compared with the figures on the Hercules pilasters in the Basilica (pl. viii. 3).

57 See also Afr. Ital. iv, 1931, figs. 26–30.

58 Afr. Ital. iv, 1931, figs. 40 and 41. Other, unpublished, fragments of the same frieze are in a totally dissimilar, dry, flat style.

59 A fairly complete illustration of those at the north-west end, the earlier excavated, will be found in Afr. Ital. i, 1927, 64–72Google Scholar, and ii, 1928–9, 43–7.

60 Rev. Arch. 1885, ii, 110, 2; Denkschr. Wiener Akad. lvii, 1915, 28 ff.Google Scholar, no. 117.

61 Squarciapino, M., La Scuola di Afrodisia (Studi e Materiali del Museo dell'Impero Romano, no. 3, Rome, 1943)Google Scholar—see below, p. 159f.

62 The outstanding works for comparison with the Lepcis sculptures are the great pilaster and the series of sculptured brackets, both now in the museum at Istanbul, Mendel, G., Catal. des sculptures grecques, romaines et byzantines des Musées impériaux ottomans, Constantinople, 1912–1914, ii, nn. 493, 497–501Google Scholar; Squarciapino, o.c., 59–69.

63 Also Afr. Ital. i, 1927, 60Google Scholar, fig. 6.

64 Mendel, o.c., ii, nn. 497, 500. The prototype can be seen at Didyma.

65 Archeologia Classica, Rome I, 1949Google Scholar; see also below, p. 160. But marble was not so used at Lepcis before Hadrian. They might perhaps be Antonine.

66 The exaggerated swing of the torso may be contrasted with the static disarticultion of contemporary Roman work, which results from the simultaneous presentation of frontal and of profile elements. See Lehmann-Hartleben, and Olsen, , Dionysiac Sarcophagi in Baltimore, Baltimore, 1942, 78Google Scholar, fig. 27.

67 Afr. Ital. iv, 1931, 63Google Scholar, figs. 33–4. Compare the rather squat, naturalistic figures of captives on the Arch in Rome, E. Strong, La scultura romana, 1926, pl. lxii.

68 Other items, not here discussed, from the sculptural ornament of the Four-way Arch at Lepcis, are the trophies (Afr. Ital. iv, 1931, figs. 32–3), the frieze of putti bearing a wreath (ibid., fig. 39), and the eagles from the inner pendentives (ibid., figs. 16–17; Lehmann-Hartleben, Art Bulletin. 1945. 18, fig. 54).

69 The precise form of the superstructure of the Arch is far from certain; it may even have been of considerable elaboration, like the Arch of Marcus Aurelius at Tripoli (Aurigemma, S., ‘Il coronamento architettonico dell'arco di Marco Aurelio in Tripoli,’ Afr. Ital. v, 1933, 135–161Google Scholar). In any case the large panels presumably stood at the level of the attic or its equivalent. Both series of panels are fully illustrated by Bartoccini, , in Afr. Ital. iv, 1931, 32–152Google Scholar, figs. 42–65 (smaller series) and figs. 70–111 (larger series).

70 A part of the middle panel is illustrated in Afr. Ital. iv, 1931, p. 72, fig. 43. Caputo has since discovered more fragments, and has recomposed the whole scene.

71 The letters B and D can be seen in pl. xi, incised on the background, top-centre. The surviving length of this panel is 6m. 36.

72 Jones, H. Stuart, Catal. of the Sculptures of the Pal. dei Conservatori, Oxford, 1926Google Scholar, pl. 12; L'Orange, H. P. and von Gerkan, A., Der spätantike Reliefschmuck des Konstantinsbogens, Berlin, 1939Google Scholar, pls. 46–7.

73 Probably the arch erected to commemorate the triumph over the Germans and Sarmatians in 176 and recorded in CIL vi, 1014. See Jones, H. Stuart, PBSR iii, 1906, p. 253Google Scholar. The reliefs have been distinguished into two or three groups from different hands (most recently by M. Wegner, Arch. Anz. 1938, 155–195); but efforts to give an absolute chronological value to such distinctions are of very dubious validity. Hamberg, P. G., Studies in Roman Imperial Art, Uppsala, 1945, 79–80Google Scholar, contributes a welcome touch of common sense to the discussion.

74 H. Stuart Jones, Catal., pl. 12, top left and right.

75 Illustrated by Hamberg, o.c., 135–149, in his discussion of the development of the adlocutio motif. In this scene on the Severan Arch in Rome, the Emperor faces, not to right or left, but straight out over the heads of his audience. This is rightly explained as the development of tendencies already inherent in the sculpture of the Antonine column.

76 The process is well summarized by Morey, C. R., Early Christian Art, Princeton, 1942, 26–36Google Scholar.

77 CAH plates v, 120; Hoyningen-Huene, and Robinson, , Baalbek-Palmyra, New York, 1946, 118–19Google Scholar; Excavations at Dura-Europos, passim.

78 Morey, o.c., 29–30.

79 Afr. Ital. iv, 1931, 152Google Scholar.

80 CAH xii, 547–8.

81 Squarciapino, o.c., 93–6.

82 E. Strong, La scultura romana, 1926, pl. lxii.

83 Strong, o.c., pl. lxiii.

84 Jahreshefte, vii, 1904, Beiblatt, 53–6, figs. 11–12. Cf. below, p. 160.

85 Strong, o.c., pl. 1.

86 Analysis of the marbles of the Arch by the Ufficio Geologico at Rome has shown that all are Greek: Hymettan, Pentelic and possibly Parian. Information from Professor Caputo.

87 Greek quarry-marks can be seen on a number of column-bases in the Forum and in the Basilica, and on one at least of the architrave-blocks of the inner engaged order of the north-east portico of the Forum.