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Septimius Severus at Lepcis Magna and Cyrene1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

D. E. Strong
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Extract

Lepcis and Cyrene in Roman times were two very different cities, each typical of the province to which it belonged—Lepcis to Africa Proconsularis, one of the most successfully ‘Romanized’ provinces of the Roman Empire, and Cyrene to the province of Crete and Cyrene which always remained part of the Greek-speaking world and retained much of its Greek character and institutions. Architecturally, Lepcis today is one of the most impressively Roman cities, with its splendid public buildings, which include the grand Severan Forum and Basilica and the massive Hadrianic Thermae, and its spacious streets. Cyrene, in contrast, preserves an image that is severely Greek, dominated by austere Doric architecture. Even in quite late Roman times there seems to have been a determined effort to preserve the old forms, so that the Capitolium, for example, on the edge of the old Agora, was re-built under Antoninus Pius as a Greek building.

On the occasion of the Libya exhibition, I have tried to find a theme to bring together these two very diverse provinces that both form part of the modern Libyan Arab Republic. The choice of Septimius Severus, emperor from A.D. 193–211, needs some explanation. He was, of course, born at Lepcis probably in 146; he was there again as legatus of his uncle, the Proconsul of Africa; he may have gone there as Emperor in A.D. 203 during a grand tour of Africa and personally planned the great building programme which transformed his home-city. There is, on the other hand, no record of his ever having been at Cyrene, though he might have gone there as a boy. It is generally believed, indeed, that his first experience of the Greek-speaking empire was when he went to Syria to serve under Pertinax in A.D. 180. He does, however, provide a suitable link in that he was commemorated by sculptured monuments in both places, and the attitudes of mind which these monuments reflect, help us, I think to understand the underlying unity as well as the diversity of the two provinces.

Type
Research Article
Information
Libyan Studies , Volume 4 , 1973 , pp. 27 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1973

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Footnotes

1

I should like to thank Miss Sheila Gibson who very kindly drew fig. 1, Miss J. M. Reynolds, Mrs. V. M. Conlon, Mark Hassall, Richard Reece, Miss S. Johnson and my wife for all their help.

References

NOTES

This lecture was given at the British Museum on June 14 1973 on the occasion of the opening of the Libya Exhibition. A few alterations have been made for publication and some footnotes added.

2 For the monuments of Lepcis see Haynes, D. E. L., An archaeological and historical guide to the pre-Islamic antiquities of Tripolitania, 1959Google Scholar.

3 For this and other buildings at Cyrene see now Goodchild, R. G., Kyrene und Apollonia, Zurich 1971Google Scholar.

4 On the 8 April 146 according to SHA 1, 3; on the 11 April, according to Dio 76, 17.

5 Birley, A. R., Septimius Severus: the African emperor, London 1971, 88–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The ‘tour’ is Hasebroek's reconstruction (Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Septimius Severus, Heidelberg, 1921, 132ff.Google Scholar)

7 Africa Italiana iv, 1931, 111Google Scholar; reconstructed drawing, no longer considered accurate in all detail, in Haynes op. cit. See also Archaeology lv, 1951, 226–31Google Scholar.

8 Peace, G., Il ‘Palazzo delle Colonne’ in Tolemaide di Cirenaica, Rome, 1950Google Scholar.

9 Libya Antigua v, 1968, 83ffGoogle Scholar.

10 Cf. IRT 400.

11 For this see Perkins, J. B. Ward, ‘Severan Art and Architecture at Leptis Magna’ in JRS 38, 1948Google Scholar; ibid. ‘The Art of the Severan Age in the light of Tripolitanian discoveries’ in Proceedings of the British Academy 37, 1951.

12 For the topography Goodchild op. cit., 137ff.

13 FA 9, 1954 (6), 3082; 10, 1957, 3229; ILN 230, 1957, 303ff.; SEG XX, no. 728.

14 von Mercklin, E., Antike Figuralkapitelle, Berlin 1962, 184, no. 445CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 E.g. IGRR I, 1064, 1096, 1124.

16 Dio 76, 1, 3.

17 A.A. 1959, 284ff. (H. Sichtermann).

18 Kraus, T., PropyläenKunstgeschichte: Das römische Weltreich 238Google Scholar, no. 233 (H. von Heintze): Goodchild op. cit. pls. 85–7.

19 Vermeule, Cornelius C., Roman Imperial Art in Greece and Asia Minor, Harvard University Press, 1948, 79–80, 93Google Scholar.

20 Sec below, p. 34.

21 Giuliano, A., Il commercio dei sarcofagi attici (Studia archaeologica, 4) 1962Google Scholar: see also Perkins, J. B. Ward, ‘Quarrying in Antiquity’ in Proceedings of the British Academy, lvii, 1971, 137ffGoogle Scholar.

22 Robert, C., Die antiken Sarkophag-Reliefs ii, Mythologische Cyklen, Berlin 1890Google Scholar.

23 EAA sv. Cassandra.

24 The earliest combination of the specific Roman detail with Greek conventions is the monument of Aemilius Paullus; see Mélanges Charles Picard ii, 1949, 633–43Google Scholar.

25 Levi, A., Sculture greche e romane del Palazzo Ducale di Mantova, Rome 1931, 75ff, No. 167Google Scholar; PBSR xxx, 1962, 28ff.

26 Bull. Com., 70, 1942, 57ffGoogle Scholar.

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30 Pallottino, M., ‘Il grande fregio di Traiano’ in Bull. Com. 66, 1938, 17–56Google Scholar; the image of the emperor active in battle occurs first on coins of this period, RIC II, 534, pl. X.

31 Walters, H. B., B.M. Cat. of Bronzes, 1899, no. 867Google Scholar; Hölscher, T., Victoria Romana Mainz 1967, 102ffGoogle Scholar.

32 Kähler, H., Das Fünfsäulendenkmal für die Tetrarchen aufdem Forum Romanum, 1964Google Scholar.

33 There is now a vast literature on the portraiture of Severus, one of the most image-conscious emperors; see especially A. M. McCann, The portraits of Septimius Severus (Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 30, 1968).

34 Weinstock, S., ‘Victor and Invictus’ in Harvard Theological Review 50, 1957, 211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ibid, in RE VIII A 2, 2485ff.

35 McCann, op. cit.

36 See Niemeyer, H. G., Studien zur statuarischen Darstellung der römischen Kaiser (Monumenta Artis Romanae) Berlin 1968, 54ffGoogle Scholar.

37 Alföldi, A., ‘Insignien und Tracht’ in RM 50, 1935, 66Google Scholar.

38 Neuffer, E., Das Kostum Alexanders d.g., Giessen 1925Google Scholar.

39 Alföldi, op. cit. 121.

40 CRE vol III, xxiii.

41 Babelon, E., Catalogue des camées antiques, Paris 1897, pl. XXXIVGoogle Scholar.

42 See especially, Budde, L., Jugendbildnisse des Caracalla und Geta (Orbis Antiquus 5) Münster, 1951Google Scholar; Wiggers, H. B., Caracalla, Geta, Plautilla (Das römische Herrscherbild) Berlin, 1971Google Scholar.

43 Budde, op. cit. pl. 15 (Vatican); pl. 18 (Terme); pl. 9 (Argentarii).

44 Dessau, ILS 398.