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A new date for Agrippa's theatre at Ostia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Alison Cooley
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 67 , November 1999 , pp. 173 - 182
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Copyright © British School at Rome 1999

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References

1 I would like to take this opportunity for thanking Anna Gallina Zevi and Jane Shepherd of the Soprintendenza di Ostia Antica for all the help they have given me during my visits to Ostia. Maria Pia Malvezzi and Valerie Scott of the British School also gave me invaluable practical help in pursuing my research. I am grateful to the Craven and Meyerstein Committees at Oxford, and the British Academy for financial support in carrying out this research. This article is an expanded version of part of my unpublished doctoral thesis, The Role of Inscribed Monuments in Transforming Public Space at Pompeii and Ostia (Oxford D.Phil., 1997), and has greatly benefited from the comments of my supervisors, Margareta Steinby and Greg Woolf, and examiners, Alan Bowman and John Patterson.

2 R. Lanciani (apud G. Fiorelli), ‘VII Roma: Via ostiense’, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (1880), 469.

3 Fea, C., Relazione di un viaggio ad Ostia e alia villa di Plinio (Rome, 1802), 59Google Scholar; Nibby, A., Viaggio antiquario ad Ostia (Rome, 1829), 61, 63Google Scholar. Calza, G. et al. , Scavi di Ostia I. Topografia generate (Rome, 1953), fig. 9Google Scholar, illustrates the plan by Pietro Holl dating from 1804 which shows the semicircular outline of the theatre in the unexcavated part of the site.

4 Lanciani, ‘VII Roma: Via ostiense’ (above, n. 2), 469–78; R. Lanciani, ‘XI. Ostia’, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (1881), 109–20; R. Lanciani, ‘IX. Ostia’, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (1886), 56–7; D. Vaglieri, ‘Il. Ostia — scoperte varie di antichità’, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (1910), 289–90; D. Vaglieri, ‘II. Ostia — nuove scoperte nell'area delle tombe’, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (1910), 434–6; D. Vaglieri, ‘III. Ostia — scavi nel teatro, nell'area dei quattro tempietti, sul decumano, nel foro e nell'area di Vulcano. Scoperte varie’, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (1913), 228.

5 Calza, G., Il teatro romano di Ostia (Rome and Milan, 1927)Google Scholar; Calza, G., ‘Il teatro di Ostia’, Capitolium 3 (1927–1928), 74–85Google Scholar.

6 CIL XIV 82, 114, 129.

7 There are many brief accounts of the theatre's development, including Lanciani, ‘XI. Ostia’ (above, n. 4), 109–20; Pavolini, C., Ostia (Rome and Bari, 1983), 64–7Google Scholar; Fuchs, M., Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung Römischer Theater in Italien und den Westprovinzen des Imperium Romanum (Mainz, 1987), 44Google Scholar. On the theatre's transformation for aquatic spectacles, see Gismondi, I., ‘La colimbètra del teatro di Ostia’, in Anthemon. Scritti di archeologia e di antichità classiche in onore di Carlo Anti (Florence, 1955), 293–308Google Scholar; Traversari, G., Gli spettacoli in acqua nel teatro tardo-antico (Rome, 1960), 39–43Google Scholar.

8 Blake, M.E., Ancient Roman Construction in Italy from the Prehistoric Period to Augustus (Washington D.C., 1947), 163Google Scholar. Pavolini, Ostia (above, n. 7), 64–6.

9 Both Calza, G., ‘Il piazzale delle corporazioni e la funzione commerciale di Ostia’, Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale in Roma 43 (1916), 185, n. 1Google Scholar and Meiggs, R., Roman Ostia (second edition) (Oxford, 1973), 42Google Scholar, cautiously favoured the identification.

10 Pompeii, c. 2 BC: CIL X 833–4; Volterra, c. 2 BC: AE (1957), 220 (illustrated and discussed by Luchi, O., ‘Per la storia del teatro romano di Volterra’, Prospettiva 8 (1977), 40Google Scholar, and Pizzigati, A., ‘La decorazione architettonica del teatro di Volterra: analisi preliminare’, in Cateni, G. (ed.), Il teatro romano di Volterra (Florence, 1993), 67–70)Google Scholar; Casinum and Iguvium (both Augustan): Fuchs, Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung Römischer Theater (above, n. 7), 23 BI 2, 72 BI 1–2; Vaison-la-Romaine, early Principate: CIL XII 1380 (illustrated in de Kisch, Y., ‘Le théâtre de Vaison-La-Romaine: archèologie d'un monument et de ses spectacles’, in Landes, C. and Kramèrovskis, V. (eds), Spectacula II. Le théâtre antique et ses spectacles (Lattes, 1992), 147Google Scholar, fig. 14; Lepcis Magna, Antonine: Reynolds, J.M. and Ward-Perkins, J.B. (eds), The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania (London, 1952), no. 534Google Scholar (illustrated in Bieber, M., The History of the Greek and Roman Theater (second edition) (Princeton, 1961), 207Google Scholar, figs 698–9).

11 Lanciani, ‘VII Roma: Via ostiense’ (above, n. 2), 477–8; Lanciani, ‘XI. Ostia’ (above, n. 4), 110.

12 Vaglieri, ‘Il. Ostia — nuove scoperte nell'area delle tombe’ (above, n. 4), 435, no. 2. Giornale di scavo 3 (1910), 182Google Scholar: 21–23 July. The three fragments are now identified as inv. 12296a-c. See Figs 1–3.

13 I am happy to be able to acknowledge that my interest in Agrippa's inscription was provoked by a pencilled note of Fausto Zevi in the copy of CIL XIV at Ostia, which pointed out that these three fragments are all part of a single text.

14 Typical is Courtois, C., Le bâtiment de scène des théâtres d'ltalie et de Sidle (Louvain, 1989), 113Google Scholar, who suggested the period 27/13 BC.

15 CIL VI 896.

16 Calza, ‘Il piazzale delle corporazioni e la funzione commerciale di Ostia’ (above, n. 9), 185.

17 Blake, Andent Roman Construction in Italy (above, n. 8), 163, even stated unequivocally that Agrippa built the theatre during his consulship of 27 BC.

18 CIL II 474. Richmond, I., ‘The first years of Emerita Augusta’, Archaeological Journal 87 (1930), 98–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Roddaz, J.-M., Marcus Agrippa (Rome, 1984), 358CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hurlet, F., Les collègues du prince sous Auguste et Tibère (Rome, 1997), 42Google Scholar.

20 PIR III no. 457, M. Vipsanius Agrippa: 441 lists sources relating to his tribunician power.

21 Agrippa left Rome some time during late 17 or early 16 BC: Reinhold, M., Marcus Agrippa. A Biography (New York, 1933), 106Google Scholar.

22 In addition, Caius Caesar (Agrippa's son, Augustus's adopted son and heir) perhaps built the theatre at Carthago Nova some years later: Asensio, S.F. Ramallo, ‘Inscripciones honoríficas del teatro de Carthago Nova’, Archivo Español de Arqueologia 65 (1992), 49–73Google Scholar.

23 Braund, D., Rome and the Friendly King (New York, 1984), 79–80, 82–3Google Scholar.

24 Von Hesberg, H., ‘The significance of the cities in the kingdom of Herod’, in Fittschen, K. and Foerster, G. (eds), Judaea and the Greco-Roman World in the Time of Herod in the Light of Archaeological Evidence (Göttingen, 1996), 9–25Google Scholar. Braund, Rome and the Friendly King (above, n. 23), 75–7.

25 Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae XV.8.1, XV.9.6; Bellum Judaicum 1.21.11.

26 Frezouls, E., ‘Recherches sur les théâtres de l'orient syrien’, Syria 36 (1959), 202–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Antiquitates Judaicae XV.8.1–2.

28 G. Picard, ‘La date du théâtre de Cherchel et les débuts de l'architecture théâtrale dans les provinces romaines d'occident’, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres (1975), 394. Theatre of Pompey — Fuchs, Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung Römischer Theater (above, n. 7), 6–7 (EII 1–5), 10.

29 Rossetto, P. CiancioSartorio, and G. Pisani, Teatri greci e romani. Alle origini del linguaggio rappresentato II (Rome, 1994)Google Scholar: Ferentium, 455; Ocriculum, 539. Fuchs, Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung Römischer Theater (above, n. 7): Herculaneum, 31 (EIV 1–3); Minturnae, 38 (EII 2–3).

30 Dio Cassius LIII.26.1: foundation of Emerita.

31 CIL II 474.

32 Roddaz, J.-M., ‘Agrippa et la péninsule ibérique’, in Ceresa-Gastaldo, A. (ed.), Il bimillenario di Agrippa (Genoa, 1990), 71–7Google Scholar.

33 CIL X 1443–5, 1423.

34 PIR 2 II 106, A. Caecina Severus.

35 Bejor, G., ‘L'edificio teatrale nell'urbanizzazione augustea’, Athenaeum 57 (1979), 126–38Google Scholar.

36 Picard, ‘La date du théâtre de Cherchel’ (above, n. 28), 397.

37 Gros, P., ‘Théâtre et culte impérial en Gaule Narbonnaise et dans la péninsule Ibérique’, in Trillmich, W. and Zanker, P. (eds), Stadtbild und Ideologic. Die Monumentalisierung Hispanischer Städte zwischen Republik und Kaiserzeit (Munich, 1990), 381–90Google Scholar.

38 Feeny, D., Literature and Religion at Rome (Cambridge, 1998), 28–38Google Scholar.

39 CIL VI 32323, lines 108, 153–61.

40 Roueché, C., ‘Acclamations in the Later Roman Empire: new evidence from Aphrodisias’, Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984), 181–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, provides an overall picture.

41 For example, Brutus 203; De Oratore II.338; III.220. Cicero was, however, also anxious to distance political orators from the immoral associations of the stage.

42 Frézouls, E., ‘Aspects de l'histoire architecturale du théâtre romain’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II 12.1 (Berlin 1982), 353–6Google Scholar.

43 Dio Cassius XLVIII.20.2.

44 Picard, G.C., Les trophees romains (Paris, 1957), 186Google Scholar.

45 Malalas IX.223.

46 Roddaz, Marcus Agrippa (above, n. 19), 417. EE VIII, 364 no.19.

47 CIL II 475 = EE VIII, 363 no. 18.

48 Josephus, , Antiquitates Judaicae XV.8.1Google Scholar.

49 Pizzigati, ‘La decorazione architettonica del teatro di Volterra’ (above, n. 10), 65–7.

50 Rawson, E., ‘Discrimina ordinum: the lex Julia theatralis’, Papers of the British School at Rome 55 (1987), 83–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar.