Hartnett Remarkable Life Death and Afterlife of an Ordinary Roman

STARC Journal, 2017

Just outside ancient Rome stand two very different yet contemporary funeral monuments, that of Eurysaces and that of Caecilia Metella from the late 1 st century BC. One is dedicated to the deceased wife of a freedman and baker, and the other to a lady of the aristocracy. The elaborate decorations, inscriptions and sheer monumentality of the tombs can intrigue a viewer with questions of how the identity and status of those who had built them were transmitted through the imagery and inscriptions. A closer examination based on the sociological 'field' and 'capital' theories of Pierre Bourdieu can extract some reflections on these speculations. Accordingly, it becomes clear how the baker Eurysaces created a monumentality about his work and his honest ways of doing it. In contrast, the possible builder of the Metella tomb, Marcus Licinius Crassus created a strong sense of authority and respect by relying on his dignified family name and the deeds of his family. These two tombs give us an insight into how each of the builders used the monument as a platform for expressing status and identity and thereby immortalizing themselves for eternity.

By what seems a miracle, a collection of rustic 8th century B.C. huts on a hill gradually grew into a kingdom, a republic, and finally an empire that dominated three continents. At its height in the 2nd century A.D. Roman territory stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf and from the British Isles to the upper reaches of the Nile. Nothing can recreate the splendor and scale of Rome's achievement. What can be evoked are some specific aspects of that achievement. The exhibition on which this book is based attempted to provide a setting for a diverse collection of Roman portrait sculptures donated to the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art by Tom and Nan Riley in 1996. This book documents the original exhibition, Art in Roman Life: Villa to Grave, held at the CRMA from September 2003 to October 2005. After the close of the exhibition, a smaller version of the show was installed in December 2005 and will be on display for the foreseeable future. This new installation exhibits all of the Riley sculptures and a selection of artifacts from the original exhibition. We hope that this book will be used not only by all who visited and remember the original exhibition, but also by those who visit the museum to see the Riley collection of portrait sculptures for the first time. (from the Introduction by R.D. De Puma)

Devastated by the death of his daughter Tullia, Cicero struggled to assuage his grief. Cicero did all that was expected of an elite man— seeking comfort from friends and philosophy, from reading and writing, from remembering and commemorating—yet to the dismay of his friends he was still unmanly in his grief. This paper looks at the strategies used and available both to express and control grief in the Roman world. How did the bereaved negotiate a new role both for themselves and for the dead? How did they both display and conceal their grief? Grief was both a public performance and a private journey, and, as Cicero discovered, for the bereaved the tensions between public and private could be an emotional and practical minefield. Focusing on evidence from the late Republic and first century CE, the paper explores how individuals, after the public performance of the funeral, lived with their grief. It investigates ideals and counter ideals (including gender stereotypes) for the behaviour of the bereaved, and how bereavements were rationalised and consoled through various mechanisms such as support networks, rituals, beliefs (religious and philosophical), public monuments, personal mementos, art and literature. The dead could not be brought back to life, but for those left behind the dead were often a potent presence which could have a negative or positive impact on the future of the bereaved.

Formae mortis: el tránsito de la vida a la muerte en …, 2009

Las declaraciones de defunción en el Imperio romano: el caso de Egipto (Carlos Sánchez-Moreno Ellart) Mors: una imagen esquiva (Gabriel Sopeña Genzor) 9 13 25 39 89 101 113 119 133 143 165 181 217 253 EMINENT CORPSES: ROMAN ARISTOCRACY'S PASSING FROM LIFE TO HISTORY FRANCISCO PINA POLO Universidad de Zaragoza ¿Quién es el mar, quién soy yo? Lo sabré el día ulterior que sucede a la agonía JORGE LUIS BORGES, El otro. El mismo

The legacy of the Grand Tour: new essays on travel, literature, and culture (ed. Lisa Colletta), 169-183, 2016

In Sources et modèles des historiens anciens. Ed. Olivier Devillers and Breno Battistin Sebastiani, 219-231. Scripta Antiqua 109. Bordeaux: Ausonius Éditions. , 2018

The emperor Augustus, though not a historian as such, had a profound understanding of how to construct political events into a form a historical narrative through both architectural and epigraphic monuments. In this one way, at least, Augustus shares a resemblance with Tacitus, who took no less care in fashioning his account of the Julio-Claudians than Augustus did in designing for posterity a narrative of his reign. Although Augustus was immediately addressing a contemporary, and often local, audience with his message and Tacitus was reflecting upon past events, both of them were seeking to create an enduring message. This paper investigates particularly how Tacitus responds to the narrative that Augustus constructed through his Mausoleum and its accompanying Res Gestae.

2018

The aim of this paper will be to understand the role of the portrait bust in Roman practices of mourning. The portrait bust held a special status in Roman funerary contexts. Even in funerary contexts where busts were inconvenient or where resources prevented the ‘real’ thing, the form of the bust was utilized, this is reflected in the large corpus of funerary reliefs and sarcophagi, which depict portraits in bust format. Despite the proclivity of portrait busts in funerary contexts an in-depth discussion of the societal function of these portraits and specifically the significance of the bust format, in the funerary context, is lacking. Important work has been done on the use of myth in Roman funerary monuments, and of particular relevance here, the use of portraits within Roman mythological sarcophagi not only to assert social status but to channel, aid and express the grief of the mourning family and kin (Newby 2011 & 2014; Koortbojian 2005; Zanker & Ewald 2004). Portrait busts, from funerary contexts, however, are rarely discussed in these terms. Their societal function is limited to asserting the status of the depicted. As a result the funerary context is overlooked and the function of these portraits as stand-ins for the deceased, the focus of grief and commemoration, requires further exploration (Hope 2011; D’Ambra 1995, 673; Carroll 2006, 30ff.). The intention of this article will be to re-marry the frequently separated themes of commemoration, memory, mourning and status affirmation. To do this I will take a holistic approach considering references in the literary sources and epigraphic evidence, as well as representations on funerary monuments, to mourners interacting with portraits of the deceased. Through this evidence I will explore the agency of portrait busts as loci of grief and commemoration for Roman mourners. For example Livia, who on the loss of her son Drusus, is reported to have surrounded herself with images of him which so embodied his presence that she would speak to them (Senecca, ad Marc. 3.2). More specifically, I will argue that the bust format, through focusing the viewers’ attention on the face of the deceased was uniquely appropriate for fostering the presence of the deceased. Further, in its more portable formulations, the portrait bust could be easily moved between contexts, carried, processed and easily interacted with. This is supported through the depiction of family members interacting with busts on funerary monuments. This is indicative of the role portraits, and specifically portrait busts, could play as mediates between the dead and living. In this way the Roman portrait bust not only immortalized the deceased, but also prolonged their present and even future familial relationships.

This essay explores the implications for our understanding of ancient Roman burial and commemorative practices of the obliteration of three large suburban cemeteries during the first three centuries of the imperial period, at intervals of approximately 150 to 200 years. Specifically, it investigates the closing down of the Esquiline burial ground to the east of the city by Maecenas around 35 BCE, of the Via Salaria necropolis north of the city by Trajan around 110 CE, and of sections of the Vatican cemeteries along the Via Cornelia to the west of the city by Constantine in the 320s CE. Consideration of the circumstances of these closings suggests 1) that the average "lifespan" of a suburban Roman necropolis, if one restricts the view to the period of its most active use, is likewise about 150 to 200 years; 2) that the coincidence of these two periods is not accidental but 3) is instead due to the influence of purposeful imperial interventions into the landscape. Subsequent developments in suburban burial at Rome during the later fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, though ostensibly marking a break with the past, seem merely to have reoriented the dynamics of the relationship between the living and the dead.