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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
1 Cf. Polybius' description of funeral masks in Rome in the middle of the second century B.C. (6, 53):—ή δ' εἰκών ἐστι πρόσωπον εἰς ὁμοιότητα διαφερόντως ἐξειργασμένον καὶ κατὰ τὴν πλάσιν καὶ κατὰ τὴν ὑπογραφήν.
2 ‘Du Réalisme magique de la République romaine a l'Art de Constantin le Grand’ (Formes, viii, Oct. 1930, 6 ff.Google Scholar). The term ‘realism’ is not, of course, used here in its usual sense, as roughly equivalent to naturalism. These primitive masks had a magic ‘reality’ in the sense that they represented the dead ancestors, made them ‘really present’ as it were. The deceased and his forefathers were impersonated at the funeral ceremonies by his relatives or actors, wearing these masks—a custom retained long after the origin of the funeral procession in a religious procession of a magical character had become obscured (cf. Suetonius, Divus Vespasianus, 19: ‘in funere Favor archimimus personam eius ferens imitansque ut est mos facta et dicta vivi’).
3 Pliny's statement is, of course, too sweeping. Some Flavian portraits seem to demand the addition of colour and traces of paint have been found on several. But Pliny may well be thinking of the vivid black-and-white effects produced by certain styles of Flavian female coiffure, where colour would be wholly superfluous.
4 N.B.—Misprint in text, ‘become’ for became’.