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The Head-Capitals of Sardis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Nancy L. Hirschland
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Extract

Sardis, most famous as the capital of Lydia in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., was also a major Roman city under the Roman empire. The wealth of Croesus had dissipated, but the Roman inhabitants of Sardis again had the good fortune to live in a prosperous time. The fertility of the Hermus plain and its strategic inland position on the road to the Roman east stood the city in good stead. Nowhere among the ruins of Sardis is the opulence of the third century better to be seen than in the rich and elaborate Marble Court of the Roman gymnasium.

The Marble Court was first built, along with the gymnasium proper, under Lucius Verus in A.D. 165. At that time it served as an independent unit which was connected with—but did not lead directly into—the gymnasium. It was architecturally a part of the palaestra in front. Then in the early third century (212–213) elaborate additions were made : pavilions adorned three sides of the court, a monumental pedimented gate led into the gymnasium, and on the fourth side a screen colonnade was erected between the Marble Court and the palaestra. From this colonnade have come most of the head-capitals at Sardis (fig. 1).

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 35 , December 1967 , pp. 12 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1967

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References

1 Compare, for example, the Vedius Gymnasium at Ephesus and the nymphaeum at Hierapolis.

2 Pointed out by Mr. F. Yegul, an architect at Sardis, who is working on the reconstruction of the Marble Court.

3 First noted by Prof. John Coolidge, Director of the Fogg Museum of Art, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

4 Cf. especially the capitals from Vulci, now in the archaeological museum in Florence and in the Villa Giulia Museum, Rome, in von Mercklin, Eugen, Antike Figuralkapitelle, Berlin, 1962CrossRefGoogle Scholar, no. 198, figs. 377–83 and no. 200, fig. 372. A large collection of head-capitals has been compiled in the work by von Mercklin cited above; for the development of the type see also Arch. Anz., 1925, 162 ff. The use of heads projecting out of foliage has been treated by Jucker, Hans, Das Bildnis im Blaetterkelch, Lausanne, 1961Google Scholar.

5 All dimensions are cited in centimetres. The inventory numbers are those of the excavation catalogue.

6 Jacopi, G., Mon. Ant., xxxviii, 1939Google Scholar, no. 87, cc. 63–4, fig. 13.

7 Couissin, P., Les Armes Romaines, Paris, 1926, p. 151Google Scholar, fig. 47. Also cf. Jacopi, op. cit., pp. 63–4.

8 Similar types may be seen on the much earlier Etruscan head-capitals from the Campanari Tomb at Vulci (Von Mercklin, op. cit., figs. 380 and 383) and at Chiusi (ibid., fig. 396).

9 Compare a similar Medusa with snakes from Ephesus, second half of the second century, ibid., fig. 1112.

10 Professor Hanfmann has suggested that there is a resemblance between our Dionysus and portraits of Caracalla; and that the Dionysus-Alexander type and Caracalla were combined in this head (cf. M. Bieber, Alexander the Great in Greek and Roman Art, 1964, p. 76 f. and fig. 114). I am inclined to think that the sculptor had made heads of Caracalla, and that the resemblance is due more to the style of the period than to an intentional similarity, There is actually a capital in Rome with two busts of Caracalla, one on each side (Von Mercklin, op. cit., figs. 399–400).

11 Compare Jacopi, op. cit., no. 113, c. 77 and pl. XXX.

12 Kindly brought to my attention bv Mr. J. B. Ward-Perkins.

13 Caffarelli, E. Vergara and Caputo, G., Leptis Magna, Rome, 1965Google Scholar, figs. 115ff. Cf. also Squarciapino, M., ‘Le Sculture Severiane di Leptis Magna,’ VIIIe Congrès international d'archéologie classique (Paris, 1963), 1965, p. 231Google Scholar.

14 Jacopi, op. cit., pl. XIV, no. 40.

15 Ibid., pl. XX, no. 67 and pl. XXXIII, no. 117.

16 Squarciapino, M., La Scuola di Afrodisia, Rome, 1943Google Scholar; but cf. also J. B. Ward-Perkins, VIIIe Congrès international d'archéologie classique, 1965, pp. 233 ff. in reply to M. Squarciapino, ibid., pp. 229 ff. Also Toynbee, J. M. C. and Ward-Perkins, J. B., PBSR, xviii, 1950, pp. 38–9Google Scholar; Ward-Perkins, J. B., JRS, xvi, 1951, pp. 94 fGoogle Scholar.

17 Leptis Magna: Von Mercklin, op. cit., no. 378, figs. 720–23 and no. 564, figs. 1065–73 (note especially the leaves and moulding). Gyrene: ibid., no. 561, fig. 1056. Sabratha, capital from the theatre: photo in Mingazzini, , L'Insula di Giasone Magno a Cirene, Rome, 1966Google Scholar, pl. XXXIX. Ephesus: Von Mercklin, op. cit., no. 572 f., fig. 1112, and no. 331, fig. 608.

18 Caputo, G., Il Teatro di Sabratha, Rome, 1959, p. 27Google Scholar. Cf. La Branche, Carol, ‘The Greek Figural Capital,’ Berytus, xvi, 1966, pp. 71 ffGoogle Scholar.

19 Von Mercklin, op. cit., no. 338, figs. 626–34.