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Sculptors from Aphrodisias: Some New Inscriptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

K. T. Erim  and
C. M. Roueché
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Scultori da afrodisiade: alcune nuove iscrizioni

Tre nuove iscrizioni da Aphrodisias in Caria descrivono i cittadini locali — Flavius Zeno e Flavius Andronicus — come autori delle statue (ora perse) che stanno dedicando. Essi sono probabilmente il Flavius Zeno e il Flavius Andronicus di Aphrodisias le cui ‘firme’ — con l'asserzione che essi hanno ‘fatto’, ἐποίει, le statue — appaiono sui plinti di alcune statue trovate sull'Esquilino. II titolo da essi usato — sia ad Aphrodisias che a Roma — non può essere anteriore al IV secolo. Ciò solleva problemi circa la datazione delle statue provenienti dall'Esquilino — attualmente nella Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen — che fino ad ora sono state attribuite al secondo secolo. Sarà necessario ridatare queste opere, o presumere che le ‘firme’ vennero aggiunte su statue anteriori. Flavius Zeno e Flavius Andronicus godevano di una posizione insolitamente elevata per cittadini privati ad Aphrodisias in questo periodo. II titolo di Flavius Zeno di alto sacerdote, che usa in tutte le iscrizioni, è stato cancellato in uno dei testi ad Aphrodisias; può darsi che il suo sacerdozio non appartenesse al culto imperiale ma alla religione pagana, introdotta da Massimino.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 50 , November 1982 , pp. 102 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1982

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References

The new material presented here is from the excavations at Aphrodisias, conducted since 1961 by Professor K. T. Erim of New York University, with the generous support of many friends, and, chiefly, of the National Geographic Society. We are very grateful to all those with whom we have discussed this paper, and particularly for information supplied by Dr. A. Claridge, Dr. M. Moltesen, Professor L. Robert and Dr. S. Walker. We are also indebted to the British Academy for help with photographic expenses.

1 Squarciapino, M., La Scuola di Afrodisia (Rome, 1943)Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as Squarciapino. As well as the conventional abbreviations, the following forms have been used: BCA = Bolletino della Commissione Communale di Roma; Lanciani, Destruction = Lanciani, R., The Destruction of Ancient Rome (London, 1901)Google Scholar; Löwy = Löwy, E., Inschriften Griechischen Bildhauer (Leipzig, 1885)Google Scholar; Ny Carlsberg Catalogue = Poulsen, F., Catalogue of Ancient Sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen, 1951)Google Scholar; Porträtplastik = Inan, J., Alföldi-Rosenbaum, E., Römische und frühbyzantinische Porträtplastik aus der Turkei (Mainz, 1979)Google Scholar.

2 Squarciapino 12–17; a new, unpublished, inscription of an Aphrodisian sculptor found at Lepcis Magna is mentioned by Ward-Perkins, J. B., PBSR 48 (1980), 64Google Scholar.

3 Squarciapino 20.

4 Those previously known are a text on a statue base, published most recently by Squarciapino 11 no. 2, and a fragment published by Cormack, J. M. R., ABSA 59 (1964), 20 no. 13bGoogle Scholar, and identified as a sculptor's signature by Robert, L., Ant. Class. 36 (1966), 400–1Google Scholar; this fragment, which has been found again by the current expedition, appears to be part of a statue plinth. Some of the finds from the current excavations were considered by Erim, K. T., Archaeology 20 (1967), 18–27Google Scholar, and two new sculptor's inscriptions have been published by him in Porträtplastik, 214 and 219.

5 See Erim, K. T. in Porträtplastik, 217–21Google Scholar, nos. 190 and 191, and Ins. Priene, 214.

6 For this campaign see Boulanger, A., CRAI (1914), 46–53Google Scholar.

7 Published by Paris, P. and Holleaux, M., BCH 9 (1885), 79, no. 9Google Scholar; found again by the current expedition.

8 Published, from a copy by Boulanger, by Robert, L., Hellenica 4 (1946), 14, n. 3Google Scholar; found again by the current expedition.

9 Seen by Doni, , and published in Inscriptiones Antiquae, Florence (1731), 138Google Scholar, from whence come all subsequent editions; of these the most important are those of Franz, , CIG 8699Google Scholar, Löwy no. 364, Squarciapino 14, no. 20. Kaibel, (at IG XIV. 1268Google Scholar) follows Löwy in suggesting that this fragment is the same as that published in 1880 (below, n. 10), but the descriptions of the remaining traces of statuary on the two plinths do not tally.

10 Mentioned in BCA (1872–1873), 314, no. 47Google Scholar; published BCA (1880), 30, no. 197Google Scholar, whence Löwy p. 258, and again, BCA (1886), 317, no. 1Google Scholar, whence IG XIV. 1268Google Scholar; Squarciapino 14, no. 19. For the circumstances of the discovery see below, p. 107.

11 BCA (1886), 318, nos. 2, 3, 4Google Scholar, whence IG XIV. 1269, 1270, 1271Google Scholar; Squarciapino 14, nos. 18, 17, 16; the latter two inscriptions also published, from the plinths, Ny Carlsberg Catalogue nos. 523 and 521 (illustrated here, Pl. VIIIa). The text is also published, from IG XIV. 1268–71Google Scholar, as IGR I. 173Google Scholar. For the circumstances of the discovery, see below, p. 107, and n. 22.

12 So, for example, W. Gross, art. Zeno 27, RE 10 A (1972), 216–17Google Scholar.

13 BCA (1886), 319, nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9Google Scholar (the last of these, with additional fragments, again, p. 235) whence IG XIV. 1273, 1274, 1275, 1276Google Scholar (from which IGR I. 174Google Scholar), Squarciapino 13–14, nos. 11, 10, 12, 13. The first two inscriptions are also published, from the plinths, Ny Carlsberg Catalogue nos. 525 and 524 (illustrated here, Pl VIII b).

14 BCA (1886), 235, no. 2Google Scholar, and again, 320, no. 12, whence IG XIV. 1266Google Scholar, Squarciapino 14, no. 14; BCA (1886), 320, no. 11Google Scholar, whence IG XIV. 1267Google Scholar, Squarciapino 14, no. 15.

15 See the useful facsimile drawings, BCA (1886), Plates XI and XII, reproduced in part by Squarciapino, Plate A.

16 See Ensslin, W., art. Perfectissimus, RE 37, 1937, 664–83Google Scholar, and Pflaum, H.-G., Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres (Paris, 1960), 624Google Scholar, both with lists of examples.

17 Ensslin, art. cit., 672.

18 The only provincial high priest who is known to have been an official of the imperial bureaucracy, rather than a man of local eminence, is the high priest of Egypt; somewhat misleadingly Ensslin (loc. cit.) cites, under municipal notables with the title perfectissimus, the high priest of Egypt in 267–68, some 40 years earlier than the other examples, to which it is in fact not properly comparable.

19 For the adoption of the nomen Flavius see Mocsy, A., Akt. IV Congr. Epigr. (Wien, 1964), 257–63Google Scholar; Keenan, J., ZPE 11 (1973), 33–63Google Scholar.

20 Seeck, O., art. Comitiva, RE 4.1 (1900), 633–4Google Scholar.

21 Seeck, art. cit., 634–5.

22 The excavations are described in BCA (1886), 215 and 234Google Scholar; see also Lanciani, , Destruction 41–2Google Scholar.

23 Lanciani, , Destruction 28Google Scholar, gives the date as 30 January 1873, but in BCA (1875), 79Google Scholar, in the first publication of the excavation, he gave the date as January and February 1874. The discoveries are listed in the last fascicule of the first volume of the BCA, which covers the years 1872–73; but this fascicule was published in 1874, and could therefore cover discoveries made early in that year. H. Bloch (l.c. below, n. 28) says that the building was ‘found and destroyed in 1875’.

24 These are listed in BCA (1875), 80Google Scholar; cf. BCA (1872–1873), 292 ffGoogle Scholar.

25 Lanciani, , Destruction 28Google Scholar; also BCA (1875), 79–82Google Scholar, with a plan, and FUR 30–1.

26 Lanciani, ll.cc., whence Jordan, H. (ed. Hülsen, C.), Topographie der Stadt Rom I. 3 (Berlin, 1906), 353–4Google Scholar.

27 BCA (1875), 82Google Scholar, noting the similarity—‘essa sembra contemporanea’—to the wall described at BCA (1874), 59 ffGoogle Scholar. (whence Jordan-Hülsen, o.c, 368).

28 BCA (1875), 81Google Scholar—‘tratti in piu centinaia dalle coperture degli ipocausti’. The stamps are: CIL XV. 1567, 1569a, 1579b, 1608a, 1609, 1610Google Scholar. Bloch, H., I bolli laterizi (Rome, 1947), 314, n. 237Google Scholar, cites this find as an interesting group, but does not develop the point.

29 Baths of Diocletian: 1567, 1569a; Baths and Basilica of Constantine: 1569a, 1608a, 1610; Nereus and Achilleus (with no precise findspot): 1569a, 1609, 1610; Baths of Cerealis: 1608a.

30 See Bloch's observation (o.c. at n. 28, 315–16) that, of the stamps of this period, those that are not found in the Baths of Diocletian should be assumed to be later than the reign of Diocletian.

31 So, in a discussion of Hellenistic practice, Stewart, A., Attika (London, 1979), 103Google Scholar; for similar observations on the ‘signatures’ on Greek pots, see Cook, R. M., JHS 91 (1971), 137–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The largest collection of inscribed ‘signatures’ is still that of Löwy; J. and L. Robert include, in the Bulletin Epigraphique, a rubric, ‘Signatures d'artistes’.

32 Ny Carlsberg Catalogue nos. 521–7.

33 We are grateful to Dr. Mette Moltesen, of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, for confirming this point.

34 Thus Poulsen, Ny Carlsberg Catalogue 364, suggests that they might have decorated a nymphaeum; such a proposal seems preferable to Lanciani's, hypothesis, Destruction 41–2Google Scholar, that the statue fragments came from a sculptor's workshop in the area.

35 So Poulsen and Squarciapino, oo.cc.; Toynbee, J. M. C., The Hadrianic School (Cambridge, 1934), 242–3Google Scholar; Richter, G. M. A., Three critical periods in Greek sculpture (Oxford, 1951), 47Google Scholar; Moreno, P., Enciclopedia dell'arte antica classica e orientale VII (1966), 1251Google Scholar (with bibliography); W. Gross, art. cit. at n. 12.

36 Squarciapino 20, no. 29; Manselli, G. A., Galleria degli Uffizi. Le Sculture I (1958), 164, no. 140Google Scholar.

37 For the history of the discovery and the alterations, see Cristofani, M., Prospettiva 20 (1980), 69–72Google Scholar.

38 The text was first transcribed by Buonarotti, F., Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi di vetro (Florence, 1716), xxiGoogle Scholar.

39 See Inan, J. and Rosenbaum, E., Roman and early Byzantine Portrait Sculpture in Asia Minor (London, 1966), 177, no. 239Google Scholar; Erim, K. T. in Porträtplastik, 134Google Scholar, no. 80, 223–7, nos. 194, 195, 196.

40 See Erim, K. T., Mélanges Mansel (Ankara, 1974), 767–75Google Scholar.

41 For preliminary descriptions see Erim, K. T., AS 30 (1980), 205 ff.Google Scholar, 31 (1981), 177 ff.; for the date of the complex see Reynolds, J. M., ZPE 43 (1981), 317–27Google Scholar.

42 The text itself was questioned, and unsatisfactorily emended, by Franz, and Keil, (CIG 8699 with p. 1262)Google Scholar. H. Brunn expressed doubts, and suggested that Zeno might have commissioned the statue (Geschichte der griechische Kunstler I 2 (Stuttgart, 1889), 401Google Scholar) followed (from the first edition) by Hirschfeld, G., Tituli statuariorum sculptorumque Graecorum (Berlin, 1871), 145Google Scholar. Their objections were overruled by Neubauer, R., AZ 34 (1876), 70–1Google Scholar, followed by Löwy p. 258.

43 See, in particular, Blanck, H., Wiederverwendung alter Statuen als Ehrendenkmäler (Rome, 1969)Google Scholar, setting out the known examples from every period, and showing the increase at this time.

44 Published by F. Poulsen, Ny Carlsberg Catalogue no. 552, and, more fully, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 13.2 (1934), 5 ff.Google Scholar; the inscription is published as IGUR 1209.

45 So A. Stewart, l.c. at n. 31. G. M. Richter's suggestion (o.c. at n. 35, 45 ff.) that the practice of signing on the plinth or the actual body of the statue, which is common among Aphrodisian artists, was intended to make the signature less prominent, seems less convincing in light of the range of texts which are found on statue-plinths (usefully collected by Kron, U., JDAI 92 (1977), 148 ff.Google Scholar).

46 Jerome, Chron., ann. 334. On the furnishing of Constantinople see Mango, C., DOP 17 (1963), 55 ff.Google Scholar, Dagron, G., Naissance d'une capitale (Paris, 1974), 37 ffGoogle Scholar.

47 Ps. Codinus II. 73. For an example see Robert, L., CRAI (1969), 42–64Google Scholar.

48 For general descriptions see Krautheimer, R., Rome, Profile of a city (Princeton, 1980), 28 ff.Google Scholar; Lanciani, , Destruction 30 ffGoogle Scholar.

49 CIL VI. 1658Google Scholar; for the date see PLRE I, Probianus 4.

50 CIL VI. 1670Google Scholar (ILS 5716), an inscription of Iulius Felix Campanianus (PLRE II Campanianus 4).

51 Brinkerhoff, D. M., A collection of sculpture in classical and early Christian Antioch (New York, 1970), esp. 54–5Google Scholar.

52 REG 19 (1904), 136, no. 69Google Scholar, whence Squarciapino 11, no. 2; first or early second century A.D.

53 IGUR 1222; for other Aphrodisian sculptors with this name see Squarciapino 13 ff., nos. 2, 24 and 33; cf. also Erim, K. T. in Porträtplastik, 214Google Scholar.

54 Squarciapino 20.

55 So Ward-Perkins, J. B., PBSR 48 (1980), 26Google Scholar, citing a large column cut 50 years before it was used, and marble blocks which waited for several centuries.

56 Lettres Byzantines, JS 1961, 97–166Google Scholar, and 1962, 5–74, especially 13 and 26. On the same topic see now also Ward-Perkins, J. B., PBSR 48 (1980), 23–69Google Scholar. The practice of inscribing ‘signatures’ on statues and statue plinths has been associated with the export of sculpture (see Kron, o.c. at n. 45, 150).

57 The inscription (discovered in 1976 and not yet published) was erected—apparently in the third century—by the man's son, and honours him in terminology appropriate to a citizen of moderate status and expectations; unusually, his profession—ἀγαλματοποιός—is given. The well-born young man honoured in MAMA VIII. 520Google Scholarbis excelled περὶ τὴν πλαστικὴν τέχνην, and probably competed in the local sculpture contest (MAMA VIII. 519Google Scholar); but this need not imply a ‘professional’ career.

58 For a perfectissimus high priest of a provincial imperial cult in the late 330s see ILS 6623 (for the date, PLRE I Antoninus 8). The title of comes for a high priest at such a date is not paralleled, but by the second half of the fourth century provincial high priests were being granted imperial ranks ex officio, including (in Africa) that of ex comitibus (Jones, , LRE 764 and n. 117Google Scholar, with references).

59 On this see Jones, , LRE 1013–14Google Scholar, quoting (nn. 62, 65) Constantine's appeals for the training of more architects (Cod. Theod. XIII. iv. 1, of 334Google Scholar) and artifices (Cod. Theod. XIII. iv. 2, of 337Google Scholar). The titles of Cyriades, comes et mechanicus in the 380s (PLRE I from Symmachus, , Rel. 25 and 26Google Scholar, and Ep. V. 76Google Scholar) perhaps suggest an improvement in the status of technicians.

60 For other examples of the erasure of pagan terminology at Aphrodisias see Reynolds, J. M., Aphrodisias and Rome (London, 1982), xv–xviiGoogle Scholar, and Jones, C. P., HSCP 85 (1981), 120 and 126–7Google Scholar. It is not clear that all these erasures have the same status; the removal of the name of Aphrodite and its derivatives is probably to be associated with the change of the city's name in (?) the early seventh century (so Reynolds, l.c.), but the erasures in the text published by Jones, and the one discussed here, require a greater knowledge of pagan terminology, and are therefore perhaps earlier (late fifth century, Jones).

61 Jones, , LRE 763–4Google Scholar, gives a summary of the evidence; the subject has not recently been examined in any detail, but there are some useful observations by Chastagnol, A. and Duval, N. in Mélanges Seston (Paris, 1974), 87–118Google Scholar.

62 For the evidence see Roueché, C., GRBS 20 (1979), 174–5Google Scholar, and n. 9. The editors of PLRE I suggested that Zeno (Zenon 9) was high priest of Caria.

63 Lactantius, De mort. pers. 36: novo more sacerdotes maximos per singulas civitates singulos ex primoribus fecit … parumque hoc fuit, nisi etiam provinciis ex altiore dignitatis gradu singulos quasi pontifices superponeret.

64 Julian, , Epistulae et Leges, ed. Bidez, and Cumont, (Paris, 1922), nos. 84a, 88, 89aGoogle Scholar; what we know of Julian's institution does not necessarily imply a new invention, and could be referred to a revival of Maximin's arrangements.

65 Edited most recently by Grégoire, H., Byzantion 8 (1933), 49–56Google Scholar. There is no reason to assume that Maximin's scheme was carried out throughout his domain; Lactantius' phrase (above, n. 63) could apply just to a few specific appointments.