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Expressions of Art in a Roman commercial city: Ostia1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Guido Calza
Guido Calza
Affiliation:
Ispettore degli scavi di Ostia antica
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Extract

The noteworthy discovery which I have the honour of illustrating for the Journal of Roman Studies is a very recent one, and it was unlooked for because one would not expect to find a rich and beautiful series of small artistic bronzes among the ruins of a great bakehouse. This building consisted of a double series of rooms in which are gathered together the machines for crushing the grain, the machines for kneading the flour (machinae quae farinae subiguntur), and, lastly, two enormous ovens for the making of the bread. This great bakehouse, placed in the heart of the city, near the temple of Vulcan, was destroyed by a fire in the third century, as is proved by certain coins, and it was never re-built. The small bronzes, touched but not destroyed by the fire, were found among the ashes covering the pavement of the ground floor, and since they have nothing in common with the great bakehouse, they come assuredly from the first floor of the building, which was perhaps the dwelling-house of the miller, and it may be supposed from this that they were the religious and artistic furniture of his private chapel.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 5 , November 1915 , pp. 165 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © Guido Calza 1915. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 165 note 2 Ashby, T., ‘Recent Discoveries at Ostia,’ J.R.S. ii, 184Google Scholar.

page 165 note 3 cf. the house-shrine with bronze statuettes of the lares, Mercury and the Capitoline triad found at Pompeii in the Casa degli Amorini dorati, Not. Scav. 1907, p. 564 ff. figs. 14–17.

page 166 note 1 Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera : Aen. vi, 847.

page 167 note 1 The representation of nudity seems more usual, and is in fact up till now the only one met with in the figures of negroes : compare the fine Vienna bronze (R. von Schneider, Jahrb. d. Kunsthist. Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, iii, p. 3 = Reinach, Répertoire, ii, p. 562, 2, and the famous bronze from Châlons-sur-Sâone in the Bibliothèque Nationale: Rayet, Monuments, pl. 58 = Reinach, Répertoire, ii, p. 561, 4). Only in one of the small clay seal-impressions from Selinunte is the head covered by a flat cap (Not. Scav. 1883, tav. XI, nos. 164 and 165).

page 167 note 2 See S. Reinach in Saglio-Pottier, s.v. Cucullus.

page 169 note 1 Euripides seems to have brought negroes on to the stage in the satyric drama Busiris. In the Galleria dei Candelabri in the Vatican, there is the marble statue of a negro slave carrying a ‘lekythos’ (Clarac, 883, 2250=541, 2, Reinach; Helbig, Führer, 375, and references).

page 169 note 2 Besides the clay seal-impressions of Selinunte already cited with the representations on coins, heads of negroes are also found on lead tesserae (Bull. Corr. Hell. viii, 1884, pl. iv, 99, 100Google Scholar). A vase with a negro's head is published in Not. Scav. 1878, plate v.

page 169 note 3 A negro was recognised by Hirzel, in a mosaic of Tusculum (Mon Inst. vi–vii, 1863Google Scholar, plate 82; Annali, 1863, p. 393 ff.Google Scholar), an Ethiopian dancer, found at Herculaneum, is now in the Naples Museum (Bronzi d'Ercolano, ii, tav. xc=Reinach, Répertoire, ii, p. 563, 4), a negro charioteer in a Pompeian relief is in the same Museum (Mus. Borbonico, vi, tav. xxiii=Reinach, Rép. de Reliefs, iii, p. 94, 1, and Guida Ruesch, no. 570). I omit the figurines in which the characteristics of the negro race give place to the abnormal peculiarities of individuals.

page 169 note 4 Charact. 21.

page 169 note 5 Mon. Ann. e Bull. Inst. 1856, tav. 9; cf. Juv. vi, 599; Mart. vi, 39, 8.

page 169 note 6 Salone 3 (British School at Rome, Catalogue of the Museo Capitolino, i, p. 275); cf. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Sala degli orti Lamiani, no. 35.

page 171 note 1 Roscher, Lexikon, s.v. Iuno, pp. 606 ff.

page 171 note 2 de Nat. Deorum, 1, 29, 83.

page 171 note 3 Clarac, 418, 732 (p. 200, 7 Reinach).

page 171 note 4 Scala 6, British School Cat. vol. i, p. 84.

page 171 note 5 Clarac, 419, 733 (p. 201, 1 Reinach).

page 171 note 6 Reinach, Rép. ii, p. 109, 6; Coll. Gréau, pl. xl. 1027.