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Images and Image: a Re-Examination of Tetrarchic Iconography1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Roger Rees
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Extract

Consideration of Tetrarchic portraiture has usually focused on the extant porphyry sculptures (plates 2, 6, 7, 9, and 10). This was perhaps inevitable, since the arresting eyes of the Cairo bust or the stubby legs of the Vatican groups are certainly curious. Few scholars have resisted the temptation to pronounce their aesthetic judgement (and why not?), but none has been as caustic as Bernard Berenson who saw in them ‘the meanest symptoms of decay’, an effect into which the sculptor had ‘simply blundered and stumbled’. Berenson's book and many of the other academic works which refer to the porphyry sculptures address the wider issue of style and, in particular, stylistic change in Late Antiquity. They cite the same art, but draw a range of conclusions: L'Orange proposes parallels between style and the structure of society; Kitzinger suggests a conscious approximation to a ‘sub-antique’ style; and Bandinelli sees the porphyry work as exceptional, specialized and short-lived. Without neglecting the porphyry sculpture, the present essay aims to consider the whole range of surviving portraits and to make sense of them within the relatively narrow field of Tetrarchic ideology. This necessarily involves the question of style and, therefore, has points of contact with the above ideas. However, the present study is primarily ‘internal’, drawing together images diverse in form and location. Patterns are soon apparent, but the Tetrarchy had to establish its ideological stability and credibility if the government were to endure. It collapsed quickly (A.D. 284–311), but in this respect, Tetrarchic portraiture offers a good example of the power of art to manipulate its audience by instilling belief.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , October 1993 , pp. 181 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

notes

2. Berenson, B., The Arch of Constantine (London, 1952), p. 52Google Scholar.

3. L'Orange, H. P., Art Forms and Civic Life (Princeton, 1965)Google Scholar, passim; Kitzinger, E. H., Bucknell Review 15 (1967), 1Google Scholarff.; Bandinelli, R., in Breglia, R., Roman Imperial Coins (London, 1968), pp. 24 ffGoogle Scholar.

4. Rothman, M. S. Pond, AJA 81 (1977), 427 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Ibid., 437.

6. Ibid., 440.

7. Secure identification of this group as the Tetrarchy has been difficult. Without contributing new evidence to the debate, it is my hope that my discussion renders that identification at least reasonable.

8. The frescoes, dated CAD. 300, were destroyed last century. However, sketches made by Sir John Gardner Wilkinson survive and are now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. I rely on these sketches and modern amplification of them, made by Decker, J. G., JDAI 94 (1979), 600–52Google Scholar, for a reconstruction of the original.

9. Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, I. argues cogently that the imperial throne was stationed before the recess, DOP 29 (1975), 225 ffGoogle Scholar.

10. Rothman, M. S. Pond, Byzantine Studies II, I (1975), 19ffGoogle Scholar.

11. Kinch, K. F., L'arc de triomphe de Salonique (Paris, 1890), p. 11Google Scholar.

12. Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, op. cit.

13. For example, see Reece, R. in Henig, M., A Handbook of Roman Art (Oxford, 1983), pp. 173 ffGoogle Scholar.

14. Webb, P. H., Roman Imperial Coinage v.2 (London, 1933), pp. 208 ffGoogle Scholar.

15. Sutherland, C. H. V., Roman Imperial Coinage vi (London, 1967), p. 1Google Scholar.

16. Ibid., p. 108.

17. See Reece, R., Roman Coins (London, 1970), pp. 140Google Scholarff, where he says that coin reverses now received more attention than obverses.

18. For a catalogue of the surviving sculpture of the period, see L'Orange, H. P., Studien zur Geschichte des spätanlike Poriräts (Oslo, 1933)Google Scholar.

19. Pond Rothman (1977), p. 429 and n. 9.

20. Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, , op. cit., p. 228Google Scholar.

21. L'Orange, H. P., Likeness and Icon (Odense, 1973), pp. 131 ffGoogle Scholar.

22. Berenson, op. cit., plates 60 and 61.

23. Arnheim, M. T. W., The Senatorial Aristocracy in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1972Google Scholar), Chapter 2.

24. L'Orange (1973), pp. 139ff, identifies a character on the base of the decennalia column in Rome as the genius Senatus. The parallels he cites are not decisive, yet even if he is correct, this is the only example of the Senate in Tetrarchic art. Perhaps it was considered appropriate to acknowledge the Senate in this Roman monument.

25. Pond Rothman (1977), pp. 447 ff.

26. Ibid., p. 440.

27. Only on coins actually minted at Rome do legends such as conservatores urbis suae occur, although a few issues from varied mints are dedicated to Roma.

28. Peirce, P., Art History 12 (1989), 387ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. Sutherland, , op. cit., p. 310Google Scholarand Pond Rothman (1975).

30. Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, op. cit.

31. Springborg, P., Royal Persons. Patriarchal Monarchy and the Feminist Principle (London, 1990), p. 67Google Scholar, suggests that the figures of the two Augusti at Luxor might be related to their divine status.

32. L'Orange (1965), p. 52.

33. Sutherland, , op. cit, p. 412Google Scholar.

34. Kitzinger, E. H., Byzantine Art in the Making (London, 1977), pp. 1 ffGoogle Scholar.