Text: Northern Autumn
Edited by Beiqiu
From the end of the 3rd century AD to the middle of the 7th century AD, the practice of making and setting up free-standing statues gradually declined throughout the Roman Empire, until it almost disappeared. Over the centuries, communities around the Mediterranean have crowded public and private spaces filled with emperors, nobles, and bronze representatives, celebrating social and political hierarchies and cultural values.
Throughout the Middle Ages, other types of sculpture, such as reliefs and miniatures, continued to be commissioned and displayed in churches and palaces, while the statues placed on the pedestals of the inscriptions have become survivors of the past. The decline of this practice was a key aspect of social, cultural, and material change in the history of cities in late antiquity.
1. Late Roman statue Xi
Late antique statues present a complex blend of continuity and innovation. From 365 to 284 A.D., there was an average of only 1.02 offerings per year. While it is impossible to know for sure the representation of late antique figures, it is clear that much more statues were consecrated in the early empire.
In contrast to other cities, the number of statues consecrated by the Romans stands out, with the exception of Constantinople. Places like Ephesus and Aphrodisia, which have preserved a vibrant tradition of sculpture and continue to produce statues, around 500 AD, have never been as large as the old imperial capitals.
Roman devotional can be divided into four main categories: offerings to the gods, but also "usurpers", honorific statues of non-imperial figures such as officials, athletes, and priests, and statues whose subject matter is not stated, and offerings that are often considered aesthetic value. Classifications like this are always problematic because in many cases devotions can be divided into multiple categories, but they suggest that late antique devotions follow the same pattern as earlier ones.
In a general sense, it is the context in which these offerings take place that sets the Xi of late antique statues apart. For example, in this time and age, statues and their devotions are subject to stricter official control, as evidenced by the role played by the city governor in the devotion.
The rise of Christianity has also necessarily made traditional types of devotion a key issue: the new religion has taken an ambiguous attitude towards the carved iconogram, and Ian Jacobs has recently shown that in the case of the East, even the statue of an honorific acquires new meaning and association.
II. The End of the Statue Xi
The decline of the statue Xi is marked by regional differences, each with its own history. In Rome, the practice of setting up statues lost its "recurring, socially dispersed" character in the second half of the 4th century AD, when it declined rapidly and abruptly. This process was already visible after 380 AD, becoming evident from the death of Honorius, when an average of less than one statue was consecrated each year.
With the decline, the priorities of the awardees varied, with a renewed focus on the city's heritage and elite. On top of that, as the diversity of subjects involved in the setting of the statues decreases, this leads to the disappearance of the social mechanisms that classical statues Xi used to.
It was a revolution in the social practice of honour recognized through statues, now confined to a very narrow social group. This is implied by the law of Theodosius II and Valentine III, which, while referring to Constantinople, also highlights developments in the West.
Even if the statue was provided by a guild or a provincial city, the funds must have been paid by the nobility or officials, representing a dramatic shift in the economics of classical honor. In the early days, generous donors would often pay for the honor of voting on their behalf.
However, the laws of Theodosius II and Valentinian III made the deal a mandatory element of the statue's consecration, acknowledging the pressure that these monuments represented on the financial realities of non-elite awarders. The Xi of classical statues came to an end when the statue ceased to be an element of communication between subjects and rulers or between clients and patrons.
Instead, they are now built by members of the top elite for their colleagues and peers. Thus, the end of the statue Xi was an aspect of a broader change in Roman political life, as power and honor became increasingly tied to the imperial court, with senators claiming their dominance over Rome and its space.
The statues erected after the end of the 4th century AD revealed new priorities, expressed through different social mechanisms, and took on new functions in Roman society.
3. The late antique culture of the statue
The end of the statue Xi does not mean the end of the statue dedication, and the carved monument remains an important feature in the urban landscape. In the Roman Forum, for example, the restoration and rededication of old monuments helped to rebuild Rome's past, emphasizing citizenship and the city's unique cultural and political status.
As Robert Coates-Stephens demonstrates, the statue is preserved, moved, and rededicated in a new environment, creating a new ensemble of sculptures and adding meaning to different parts of the city. The famous monuments, although removed, have been stored for a long time, presumably in the 5th century AD when the city came to a period of military or civil strife.
The chronicle of the Pseudo-Zechariah Rhetorician describes the splendor of Rome, recording 80 golden statues, 64 ivory statues, 31 marble pedestals, 3,785 statues of emperors and commanders, 25 bronze statues of King David's house and other figures from ancient Jewish history brought by Vespasian from Jerusalem, and two colossal statues. While this list is impressive, it is not complete.
The Ostrogothic court in the 6th century AD still appointed an official who was explicitly responsible for the care of Roman statues. Procopius of Caesarea visited the city in the middle of the 6th century AD and thought it worth registering the statues of the famous Greek sculptors he saw in the Temple of Peace.
What's more, the statue is still considered a suitable monument to important senators, Ostrogothic king Theoderic, and even the Byzantine ruler Phocas. Although the statue Xi is over, statues still have an important significance, so the question arises, how should we view these monuments, and how to describe the statue culture of late ancient Rome.
As mentioned above, scholars have traditionally used either honorific monuments as evidence of political change or restored statues as a sign of civic pride and care for the city's heritage.
In order to understand the role and significance of statues in late ancient Rome, it is necessary to consider these two types of devotion as part of the same culture. The mayor of the city played a key role in this area, and in the middle of the 5th century AD, Rufius Valerius Messala made the statue of Victoria an ornament for Vicus Patricius.
A few decades later, Anicius Asilius Agenatius Faust dedicated the simulant of Minerva to Augustus "for the happiness of the times" and restored it in part in Minerva, the atrium at the entrance to the Senate of the Forum.
Christianity also played an important role in urban life, and these governors chose to emphasize the pagan identity of the statues rather than not illustrate the subject. Victoria and Minerva were the deities who played an important role in the history and identity of Rome, and these governors explicitly recognized their importance.
In the second half of the 5th century AD, the prefect of the city, Fabius Félix Parsiphilus Paulinus, consecrated two themes in the temple of Athena, but did not state the theme of the statue.
Because of this, this became one of the main reasons why statues were cherished in late ancient Rome. Identifying the sculptor of a particular work as a famous artist of the past is a popular way to highlight this aspect.
For example, at the beginning of the 4th century AD, the consul Gallus dedicated the 4th-century Euphranor statue of Bacchus. The BC sculptor, according to Pliny, exhibited statues in various famous places in Rome.
It is in this context that we see a set of pedestals with inscriptions, although no other information is given other than the name of the sculptor, such as the Opus Polyclit, Opus Praxitelis, found in the Roman Forum near the Cathedral of Iulia.
Although the inscriptions do not accurately date these offerings, scholars agree that the style of the letters belongs to Late Antiquity, with recommendations varying from the end of the 3rd century to the 5th century AD.
The most likely date of the plinth of the Forum is the end of the 4th - the beginning of the 5th century AD: that is, in the Piazza Quirinal on the hill of Quirinal, there are two such pedestals supporting the monumental statue of Dioscuri, which further indicates this.
Although the statues date from the late 2nd to early 3rd century AD (probably commissioned under Caracalla for the nearby temple of Serapis), the inscriptions identify them as the work of Greek sculptors Praxitellus and Phidias.
Before moving to their current location in 1589, the statues and their bases were part of a monumental structure located in the same area, as we know from two contemporary drawings.
The Italian sculptor Flaminio Vaca, who witnessed the destruction of the complex and the demolition of the statues, observed that the basements in which they were located were built entirely of plundered materials, most likely from the Temple of Severan in Serapis. Although we cautiously accept the recognition of a monument, its status is still not recognized by scholars.
As Coates-Stephens observed, the most likely date for the monument built with reused materials taken from any temple is the middle of the 5th century AD, when the prefect of the city, Petronius Perpenna Magnus Quadratianus, restored the adjacent Baths of Constantine, probably at the time of the production of the base itself with the inscription.
The decrease in the number of reverence monuments consecrated in Rome in late antiquity meant that most of the statues visible in the city, revered or not, referred to events and heroes of the distant past. As a result, the monuments began to receive new interpretations, sometimes based on antiquarian knowledge, but sometimes on pure speculation.
Cassiodorus' interpretation of the elephant on the Boulevard of the Holy See may be related to these developments: even when viewed in different cultural terms, the statues still deserve attention and care. Procopius provides an interesting example of this process when he observes the statue of Domitian on Clivus Capitolinus, where there is a temple dedicated to Vespasia, the emperor's father, as an exact replica of a model made from fragments reassembled from the emperor's flesh.
It is worth asking to what extent in this case the award of the statue to the Ostrogothic king Theoderick or the emperor Phocas in the Forum understood the same system of honor that developed in the late republics as their ancestors.