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Unfinished Business: Re-viewing Medea in Roman Painting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Caroline Vout
Caroline Vout*
Affiliation:
Christ's College, Cambridge
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Extract

This chapter examines the Medea of Roman painting. In some senses, this constitutes a crazy editorial decision: gems and sculpture, sarcophagi in particular, are a crucial part of the visual culture that pulls and pushes against text and theatre. But in other senses, a two-dimensional focus offers peculiar challenges that situate Medea firmly within the domestic sphere, in cubicula and peristyles; and yet also beyond this sphere. Unlike freestanding sculpture, which actively intervenes in the viewer's space, painting affords access to a parallel universe. Its figures are not cold to the touch like Pygmalion's statue. They are intangible, exciting different desires from those elicited by stone, desires which invite viewers to leave their world behind them; or at least to pause and take stock. In these ways, painting provides a commentary on everyday life—closer to performances on stage than to installation.

Ancient writers, Ovid included, recognised this analogy between painting and theatre. In defending his work against charges of immorality, the exiled poet cites the genre of the mime, asking whether it is the stage that makes its adulterous content permissible and reminding Augustus that his poems had often ‘detained his eyes’, accompanied by dancing. He continues:

scilicet in domibus nostris ut prisca uirorum

artificis fulgent corpora picta manu,

sic quae concubitus uarios uenerisque figuras

exprimat, est aliquo parua tabella loco,

utque sedet uultu fassus Telamonius iram,

inque oculis facinus barbara mater habet,

sic madidos siccat digitis Venus uda capillos,

et modo maternis tecta uidetur aquis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 41 , Issue 1-2: Roman Medea , 2012 , pp. 119 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2012

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References

NOTES

1. I would like to thank Robin Osborne and Tony Boyle for their reading of a previous draft and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill and the audience of the D caucus seminar in the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge, for their feedback. I also thank the Trustees of the Leverhulme Trust for the award of a Philip Leverhulme Prize which gave me the time to research and write this article.

2. For a survey of Medea in Greek and Roman art, see Mastronarde (2002), 66-69, and Schmidt (1992), 386-98. Also of interest are Hupperts (1990) and Most and Giuliani (2007). On sculpture in particular, see Buchanan in this volume and Gaggadis-Robins (1994).

3. On the Roman paintings which will form the meat of this article, see Croisille (1982), 48-51, and, crucially, Pugliese Caratelli (1990-2003). Probably the earliest of these paintings is National Museum, Naples, 114 321, originally from the House of Jason at Pompeii (IX 5, 18) and dated to c.10 CE; and similar, the Flavian fragment, also from Pompeii (IX 5, 14; National Museum, Naples, 111 440). This was originally on the east wall of an ala off the atrium. Medea is shown standing in paintings in the peristyle of the House of the Dioscuri, Pompeii VI 9, 6-7 (Neronian or Flavian, National Museum, Naples, 8977), from Herculaneum (Flavian, National Museum, Naples, 8976), and perhaps in a cubiculum at Stabiae (Neronian, National Museum, Naples, 8978) with Flora, Diana and Leda, though her identity is not without problems: Croisille (supra) and Elia (1957), 68. She also stands in frescoes in the House of Marcus Lucretius, Pompeii IX 3, 5 (Vespasianic, in situ) and in the dining room of the House of the Centenary, Pompeii IX 8, 36 (Vespasianic), where she is shown wearing theatrical costume. Also relevant are a floor mosaic from the Villa of Torre del Palma in Monforte (late third/early fourth century CE, Archaeological Museum, Lisbon) (Lancha [1997], no. 109) and several gems (dated to the dictatorship of Caesar or later) (Schmidt [1992], 389). Beyond the scope of this chapter is a painting from Trier (second century CE) showing Jason and Medea stealing the Golden Fleece (Ling [1991], no. 198).

4. Plin. NH 35.136: Timomachus Byzantius Caesaris dictatoris aetate Aiacem et Medeam pinxit, ab eo in Veneris Genetricis aede positas, LXXX talentis uenundatas (‘Timomachus of Byzantium painted an Ajax and a Medea at the time of Caesar's dictatorship. These were bought by him for 80 talents and placed in the Temple of Venus Genetrix’) and Cic. Verr. 2.4.135. For the ancient sources on Timomachus, see Overbeck (1868), 407-10, and for bibliography, Gutzwiller (2004), 342, n.8. Note that Plin. NH 35.137 mentions a second Medea by Aristolaus.

5. Anth. Pal. 16.135-41 and 143. See Gutzwiller (2004) and Gurd (2007).

6. Especially good is Bergmann (1996).

7. National Museum, Naples, 8976. See Schefold (1952), 199; Simon (1954), 218-20; Croisille (1982) 44-46.

8. Ling (1991), 135: ‘Could one of these versions reproduce the painting of Aristolaus [cf. n.4 above]? The question must remain open. The different poses could represent distinct and longstanding traditions, but they could equally be variations created in local workshops in Pompeii and Herculaneum.’

9. See n.3 above, Anth. Pal. 16.83, Philost. VA 2.22 and Touchefeu (1981).

10. Westall (1996).

11. Plin. NH 7.126.

12. Plin. NH 35.26.

13. Plin. NH 9.116, 35.156 and 37.11; Cass. Dio 47.18.4 and 51.22.3; App. BC 2.102.

14. Suet. Iul. 47.

15. Plin. NH 35.98. Pliny's description of the painting (‘the mother is understood to be sentient and to fear lest her milk fail in death and the child suck blood from her breast’) serves to throw Medea into sharper relief. The artist is said to have been ‘the first of all painters who depicted the mind and expressed human feeling, which the Greeks call ἣθη, and also emotional disturbance’.

16. Plin. NH 35.156.

17. For the use of τύπος in this poem, see Gurd (2007).

18. Excellent here is Goldhill (2007).

19. Barthes(1970).

20. δεῦρ' ἲδε παιδολέτειϱαν έν ε ίϰόνι, δεῦρ’ ἲδ’ ἂγαλμα,/Κολχίδα, Τιμομάχου χειϱί τυπωσαμένου (‘come, look at the child-murderess in the painting; look at her image, the Colchian's, drawn by the hand of Timomachus’, Anth. Pal. 16.138.1f.). Aubreton and Buffière (1980), 270, have suggested that Timomachus' painting was now a cult image by virtue of its place in the Temple of Venus Genetrix.

21. See Bergmann (1996).

22. Hausmann (1994).

23. cum minor e pueris (casu studione uidendi/constitit ad geminae limina prima foris)…(Ov. Her. 12.149f.)

24. Bergmann (1996), 212.

25. Gutzwiller (2004), 341 and 350: ‘Timomachus thus found it necessary to conflate several scenes from Euripides and to change the staged relationship of characters and props in order to convey the internal dynamic of Medea's monologue by a single visual image.’ Also Woodford (2003), 83f. Croisille (1982), 56-63, is more nuanced and weighs fresco against fresco to bring the influence of Seneca into the frame.

26. Sen. Med. 992f.: derat hoc unum mihi,/spectator iste; 1001: hic te uidente dabitur exitio pari.

27. National Museum, Naples, inv. no. 111 436.

28. See Bartel (2010).

29 Anth. Pal. 16.137.2.

30. Sen. Med. 488 as discussed by Guastella (2001), 207, and Sen. Med. 136 (on the problems of this line, Winterbottom [ 1976], 39).

31. Verg. Aen. 4.600f. and 531f. See Fantham (1975).

32. See also Phil. Imag. 8.

33. Tr. Race (2008).

34. VI 9, 2. The painting is now in the National Museum, Naples.

35. Carucci (2010). Also Bergmann (1996).

36. Suet. Calig. 7.

37. Treggiari (2005), 139.

38. Sen. Med. 143-46.

39. See Boyle (1997), 128.

40. Suet. Ner. 35.5.

41. Suet. Ner. 21.2 and Philostr. VA 5.7.2.

42. See Champlin (2003), 53-83. The metaphor is not restricted to Nero: see e.g. Philostr. VA 5.13.2 in which Apollonius speaks of 69 CE in theatrical terms: ‘None of them [Galba, Otho or Vitellius] will complete his reign, but two will die after holding power in Rome itself, and the other after doing so in the regions near Rome, changing their masks faster than the tyrants of tragedy.’

43. Ov. Her. 12.89f.

44. On the ‘Herculaneum women’, see Daehner (2007) and Trimble (2000). Note also Cowan (2010) on Ennius’ Medea and the women she addresses as matronae.

45. Statue of Agrippina, Hall of the Machines, Centrale Montemartini, Rome, inv. no. MC 1882. See Moltesen et al. (2007).

46. Verg. Aen. 4.646f. and Tac. Ann. 11.37. On Messalina's death, see Beard (1998).

47. Contrary to Carucci (2010), 58.

48. Ovid, Met. 5.218-22: non nos odium regnique cupidolconpulit ad bellum, pro coniuge mouimus arma!/causa fuit meritis melior tua, tempore nostra:/non cessisse piget; nihil, o fortissime, praeter/hanc animam concede mihi, tua cetera sunto! Translation: Miller & Goold (1977), 253.

49. Ov. Met. 5.227-29: quin etiam mansura dabo monimenta per aeuumjinque domo soceri semper spectabere nostr,/ut mea se sponsi soletur imagine coniunx (‘no, but I will grant it that you remain as a monument for ever, and in the house of my father-in-law you will always be looked at so that my wife may comfort herself with an image of her intended’).

50. Simpson (2001), 310, translating Bömer.

51. Prop. 2.31.12-16.

52. Sen. Med. 849-51 (quonam cruenta maenas/praeceps amore saeuo/rapitur?) and 954-56 (utinam superbae turba Tantalidos meo/exisset utero bisque septenos parens/natos tulissem!).

53. Gutzwiller (2004), 356.

54. Bartsch (1994), vi.

55. Cf. n.3 above. Also relevant here are Bieber (1961), 229f., and Pugliese Carratelli (1990-2003), Vol. 9 part II 1048-51. The painting was one of several tragic and comic scenes, including the madness of Hercules. Important here in terms of the popularity of Medea's image is Luc. De domo 31: ύστάτη δέ ή Μήϱεια γέγραπται τω ζήλω διαϰαής, τώ παίδε ύποβλέπουσα ϰαί τι δεινόν εννοούσα. ἒχει γοῦιν ήδη τ ό ξίφος, τ ώ δ’ άθλίω ϰαθήσθον γελῶντε, μηδέν τ ῶν μελλόντων είδότε, ϰαί ταῦτα όϱῶντε τό ξίφος έν τῖϊν χεροῖν (‘Last of all, Medea is painted, aflame with jealousy, throwing her two boys sideways glances and thinking something terrible. Indeed she has her sword already, while the wretched pair sit there laughing, knowing nothing of what is intended, although they see the sword in her hands’). ‘Last but not least’: the reader can almost hear the drum-roll.

56. Bieber (1961), 229f.; Croisille (1982), 61; Koortbojian (1995), fig. 62.

57. Luc. Salt. 27, tr. Harmon (1936), 239.

58. See e.g. Skinner (1993) and Oliensis (1991).

59. Cowan (2010), 48.

60. Nero, for example, divorces and exiles Octavia because of her barrenness and then kicks his next wife, Poppaea, in the stomach when she is pregnant, causing her death.

61. Villa of Torre del Palma in Monforte (late third/early fourth century CE, Archaeological Museum, Lisbon). Lancha (1997), no. 109.

62. Lancha (1997), 224-26 and 339f.