The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome 9780691042374, 0691042373

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THE RHETORIC

OF SPACE

Eleanor Winsor Leach

The Rhetoric of Space Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscapein Republican and Augustan Rome

PRINCETON

UNIVERSITY

PRINCETON,

NEW

JERSEY

PRESS

Copyright C>1988 by Princc:tonUniversityPress Publishedby Princcton UniversityPress,41 WilliamSmct, Princcton, New Jersey08540 In the United Kingdom: Princcton UniversityPress,Guildford, Surrey AURights R.csctVcd

Library of CongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Leach,Eleanor Winsor. "Therhetoric of space: literaryand artistic representationsof landscapein Republicanand Augustan Rome / Eleanor Winsor Leach. p. an. Bibliography:p. Includesindexes. ISBN 0-691-04237-3 (alk. paper) 1. Latin literature-History and criticism.2. Landscapein literature. 3. Description (Rhetoric) 4. An and literature-Rome. 5. An, Roman. 6. Landscapein an. 7. Rhetoric, Ancient.I. Title. PA6029.N4L441988 88-19668 870'.1'09357--dcl9 CIP This book has been composed in Linotron Gallianl

Clodibound editions of Princcron UniversityPressbooks arc printed on acid-freepaper, and binding materialsarc chosen for strmgth and durability.Paperbacks,although satisfactory for personalcollections,arc not usuallysuitablefor libraryrebinding Printed in the United Statesof Americaby Princcron UnivcrsityPress,

Princcton, New Jcrscy DesignedbyLM,ryA. F.gtu1

For T.R.S.B. B.M.M. A.K.L.M.

My unde,;graduate Latin teachers

CONTENTS

LIST

OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TEXTS

FOR LATIN

Xl

QUOTATIONS

Xlll

ABBREVIATIONS INTRODUCTION:

XIV

Pictorialism and the Spectator PART

3

I

Spatial Patterns CHAPTER

1. Words and Pictures: Vergil'sAeneid and the Odyssey

Landscapes

27

Lociet Imagines: The Development of Topographical Systems in Roman Landscape

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

2.

3. Spatial Patterns in Vergil's Georgics

PART

73 144

II

Two Augustan Landscape Genres CHAPTER

4. Sacral-Idyllic Landscapes

197

CHAPTER

5. Architectural Landscapes and Augustan Rome

261

PART

III

Landscape and Narrative CHAPTER

6. Reading Continuous Narrative

CHAPTER

7.

CHAPTER

8. Visual Imagery and Literary Point of View

Mythological Ensembles in Painting and Literature

309 361 409

viii

CONTENTS

CONCLUSION

467

BIBLIOGRAPHY Commentaries, Editions, and Translations Books and Articles

469 469

INDEX

483

OF PASSAGES

GENERAL

INDEX

DISCUSSED

470

489

LIST

OF ILLUSTRATIONS (Illustrations follow page 288.)

1. Odyssey Landscapes: Odysseus' men en-

counter the Lastrygonian princess. Alinari 38033. 2. Odyssey Landscapes: The Lastrygonians pursuing Odysseus' men. Alinari 38031. 3. Odyssey Landscapes: The Lastrygonians attacking the ships of Odysseus' men. Alinari 38029. 4. Odyssey Landscapes: Odysseus enters Circc's palace. Alinari 38030. 5. Odyssey Landscapes: Odysseus visits the underworld. Alinari 38032. 6. The Nile Mosaic in the Temple of Fortuna at Palestrina. Author's photograph. 7. Villa Oplontis: Yellow monochrome panels from antechamber of Salone 14. Author's photograph. 8. Pompeii, Casa dcgli Epigrammi: Landscapes illustrating Greek epigrams in framing acdiculae. DAI Inst. Neg. 56.1218. 9. Villa Oplontis: Theatrical decoration on the rear wall of Room 23. DAI Inst. Neg. 74.2680. 10. The Palatine, Casa di Augusto: "Room of the Masks," corner view. ICCD Neg. E.47768. 11. The Capitolinc Tablet: Ilioupersis(DestructionofTroy). DAI Inst. Ncgs. 57.974 and 57.975. 12. Ara Pacis Augustae: The Tellus Relief. Neg. Mc d923. 13. Ara Pacis Augustac: The Sacrifice Relief. Neg. Mc d925.

14. The Palatine, Casa di Livia, Room of the Landscapes: Sacral-idyllic landscape with a betylus shrine. DAI Inst. Neg. 2387. 15. Rome, Musco Nazionale, Roman villa beneath the Villa Farnesina: Sacral-idvllic landscape within a framing acdicula tfom Cubiculum E. Photo by Barbara Bini. 16. Rome, Musco Nazionale, Roman villa beneath the Villa Farnesina: Sacral-idyllic landscape from Cubiculum E. Photo by Barbara Bini. 17. Naples, Musco Nazionale, Villa at Boscotrccasc: Detail of the sacral-idyllic panel from the west wall of the red room. DAI Inst. Neg. 59.1986. 18. Naples, Musco Nazionale, Villa at Boscotrccasc: Detail of the sacral-idyllic panel from north wall of the red room. DAI Inst. Neg. 59.1987. 19. Naples, Musco Nazionalc, Villa at Boscotrccasc: Sacral-idyllic panel from the cast wall of the red room. DAI Inst. Neg. 59.1989. 20. Naples, Musco Nazionalc: Sacral-idyllic landscape with Roman family preparing to sacrifice (M.N. 9489). After P. Herrmann, Denkmiilerder MaJereidesAltertums (Munich, 1906ff.), pl. 172 (right). 21. Rome, Musco Nazionalc, Roman villa under the Villa Farncsina: Panel from Corridor G, No. 3.1230, showing a threesided porticus with statue of Isis Fortuna and Egyptian dancer. Photo by Barbara Bini.

X

22. Rome, Musco Nazionalc, Roman villa under the Villa Famcsina: Panel from Corridor F, No. 2.1233 (2), showing a bridge and a villa. Photo by Barbara Bini. 23. Rome, Musco Nazionalc, Roman villa under the Villa Farncsina: Panel from Corridor F, No. 2.1233 (8), showing rustic buildings, a dancing Lar, and sacrificcrs. Photo by Barbara Bini. 24. Pompeii, Casa di Giulio Polibio: Continuous narrative representing the punishment of Dirce by Zethus and Amphion. ICCD Neg. N.45603. 25. Pompcii, Casa del Fruttcto: Continuous narrative representing the myth of Acteon and Diana. Dai Inst. Neg. 64.2251. 26. Pompeii, Casa di Epidio Sabino: Line drawing of continuous narrative representing the myth of Acteon. DAI Inst. Neg. W346.

27. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Villa Boscotrecase: Continuous narrative representing the myth of Polyphcmus and Galatca. Rogers Fund, 1920 (20.192.17). 28. Pompeii, Casa dcl Sacerdote Amanda: Continuous narrative representing the myth of Polyphemus and Galatea. DAI Inst. Neg. 66.1784. 29. Pompeii, Villa Imperialc: Mythological landscape representing Daedalus' search for Icarus. DAI Inst. Neg. 58.1206. 30. Pompeii, Casa 9.6.17: Drawing of a mythological landscape painting representing Daedalus' search for Icarus. DAI Inst. Neg. 80. 756. 31. Pompeii, Casa 5.2.10: Drawing of continuous narrative representing the fall of Icarus. DAI Inst. Neg. 53.500. 32. Pompeii, Casa del Sacerdote Amanda: Continuous narrative representing the fall of Icarus. DAI Inst. Neg. 66.1791. 33. Pompeii, Casa dcl Frutteto: Myth-

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ological landscape representing the fall of Icarus. DAI Inst. Neg. 64.2250. 34. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Villa Boscotrccase: Continuous narrative representing Pcrscus' rescue of Andromeda. Rogers Fund, 1920 (20.192.16). 35. Pompeii, Casa dcl Sacerdote Amanda: Continuous narrative representing Perscus' rescue of Andromcda. DAI Inst. Neg. 66.1785. 36. Pompeii, Casa del Saccrdote Amanda: King Ccpheus with Andromeda's suitors, detail from Pcrseus and Andromcda. DAI Inst. Neg. 66.1787. 37. Pompeii, Villa Imperiale: Rear wall of grand pinacotheca:Theseus' victory over the Minotaur. DAI Inst. Neg. 58.1205. 38. Pompeii, Villa Imperiale: Left wall of grand pinacotheca:Theseus abandons Ariadne. DAI Inst. Neg. 58.1204. 39. Naples, Musco Nazionale, Casa di Jasone: Helen and Paris. After P. Herrmann, Denkmiilerder Maierei desAltertums (Munich, l 906ff. ), pl. 71. 40. Naples, Musco Nazionale, Casa di Jasone: Phaedra and her nurse. DAI Inst. Neg. 79.1856. 41. Naples, Musco Nazionalc, Casa di Jasone: Mcdea and her children. After L. Curtius, Die wandmalerei Pompejis (Leipzig, 1929), fig. 139. 42. Naples, Musco Nazionale, Casa di Jasonc: Europa and the bull. Alinari 23469. 43. Naples, Musco Nazionale, Casa di Jasone: Pan and the nymphs. Alinari 23443. 44. Naples, Musco Nazionale, Casa di Jasone: Hercules, Nessus, and Deianira. Alinari 23432. 45. Naples, Musco Nazionale, Casa dcl Centauro: Hercules, Nessus, and Dcianira. Alinari 23431.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The greater part of the research for this bookwas carried out in 1976-77 with the aid of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. I thank the Foundation for its generosity in granting me the time that made this work possible. Grants-in-aid received from Indiana University in 1982 and 1986 have helped me with the expenses of photographs and preparation of the final copy. For permission to carry on my investigations in Pompeii, I am particularly grateful to Dottorcssa Giuseppina Cerulli Irelli, Director of the Excavations from 1968 to 1979 and Superintendent from 1980 to 1985. I must also thank the former Superintendents of Antiquities in Naples, Dr. Alfonso de Franciscis and Professor Fausto Zcvi, as well as Dr. Baldissarc Conticcllo, the current Superintendent of Antiquities for Pompeii. My work in Rome has benefited from the kindness of Professor Adriano La Regina, Superintendent of Antiquities. Dr. Gianfillipo Carettoni kindly guided me through his excavation of the Casa di Augusto when it was still in progress on the Palatine in 1976; since that time, the Directorate of the Forum granted me permission to visit the site more than once. Dottoressa Anna Eugenia Feruglio, Superintendent of Antiquities for Umbria, kindly arranged for me to visit the Domus Musac in Assisi. I want to thank Dr. Helmut Sichtermann and Dr. Helmut Jung for their fricndlv assistance as directors of the photographic archives of the German Institute in Rome as well as for permission to

publish photographs from the collection. For assistance in arranging many permissions nccessarv to my research in Rome, I am deeply grateful t~ Signora Bianca Passeri of the American Academy. I must also thank Dr. Dietrich von Bo~er for granting permission to sec the collection of wall paintings from Boscotrecase in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Since I had the good fortune to carry out a large part of my research in the accommodating atmosphere of the American Academy in Rome, I owe particular thanks to the Librarian at the Academy, Lucilla Marino, both for her considerate attention to individual needs and for her efforts in maintaining a collection that reflects the most recent archaeological scholarship. At Indiana University, acquisitions librarians Barbara Halporn in Classical Studies and Betty Jo Irvine for Fine Arts promptly and cheerfully expedited many requests. The subject of this book has occupied my thoughts, conversation, and correspondence for so many years that a large number of friends have played an essential role in its development. As always, I am indebted to Lawrence Richardson jr., for his generous sharing of knowledge and time, and above all for his inimitably discriminating judgment. Helen Bacon has remained a constant source of friendly encouragement and good literary conversation. Discussions of archaeological and cultural questions with Stephen Dyson often pointed toward new directions for investigation. To my immediate colleague, James

Xii

Franklin, I am grateful for the stimulus of our lively continuing dialogue on Pompeian matters. Ingeborg Hoesterei of the Indiana University Department of Germanic Studies provided valuable suggestions for reading in contemporary literary theory. I profited greatly from sharing with Ingrid Edlund a common interest in rural sanctuaries and from watching Ann Vasaly develop her dissertation on Cicero's rhetorical employment of topographical allusion. As seasoned Pompeianists, Wilhelmina Jashemski and Laura Anne Laidlaw gave me invaluable guidance during the time I myself was learning the routes and routines of the city. Several friends have read portions of the manuscript at one or another stage of its progress. For this I thank Helen Bacon, Stephen Dyson, Ingrid Edlund, James Franklin, Katherine Geffcken, W. Ralph Johnson, David Konstan, Letitia La Follette, Betty Rose Nagle, Michael Putnam, Lawrence Richardson, and Ann Vasaly. As readers for Princeton University Press, Bernard Frischer, James Tatum, and Cecilia Weyer-Davis offered valuable advice. Joanna Hitchcock of the Press encouraged this project from its early stages. Valerie Jones and Gretchen Oberfranc dealt with the complexities of production, and Peggy Hoover was a patient

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

and observant copy editor. I must also thank Terry Schneider, Susan Langdon, and Tracy Cullen, who carried out the initial word-processing, and Frances Huber, who printed the final copy. The study was effectively completed in Fall 1983. With the exception of my own works or papers presented at symposia, the Bibliography concludes with that year. Over the years I have profited from sharing ideas with students who participated in courses and seminars on subjects directly or indirectly related to my work. I think particularly of my graduate classes at Indiana University in the years 1978--80 and my classesat Columbia University in 1981, and of the several groups from the American Academy who provided occasions for repeated visits to the paintings on the Palatine. By several summers' cheerful companionship in Pompeii, Harriet Leach helped to define study within the sphere of recreation. The book is affectionately dedicated to my undergraduate Latin teachers, in whose classes I first made the acquaintance of many of the Roman writers I discuss here. Questions they raised in their teaching furnished the challenge for many of my projects. I hope they will be well disposed toward this present tribute to their encouragement and example.

TEXTS

FOR LATIN

QUOTATIONS

The text editions listed below arc used for Latin quotations in this book. All translations from these editions arc mv own. C. Julii Caesaris Commentarii Rerum Gestarum, ed. Otto Seel, vol. 1. Bellum Gallicum (Leipzig, 1968). Catullus: The Poems, ed. Kenneth Quinn, 2nd ed. (London, 1970). M. Tullius Cicero. Fasc. 45, De Natura Deorum, ed. W. Ax after 0. Plasbcrg, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1968). Q. Horati Flacci Opera, ed. Friedrich Klinger (Leipzig, 1959). Lucreti De Rerum Natura Libri Six, ed. Cyril Bailey, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1922). P. OvidiiNasonis,Amore1, Medicamina Facei Femineae, An Amatoria, Remedia Amoris, ed. E. J.Kenney (Oxford, 1961).

P. Ovidii Nasonis Metanwrphose1,ed. W. S. Anderson (Leipzig, 1982). Petroni Arbitri Sat_vricon, ed. Konrad Muller (Munich, 1961). Si:xti Properti Carmina, ed. E. A. Barber (Oxford, 1953). M. Fabi Quintiliani Institutionis Oratoriae Libri Duotkcim, ed. Michael Winterbottom, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1970). Tibulli alwrumque Carminum Libri Tre1, ed. J.P. Postgatc, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1915). C. Sallusti Crispi Catilina, Iugurtha, Fragmenta Ampliora, ed. Alphonse Kurfcss, after A. W. Ahlberg, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1957). P. Virgili Maronis Opera, ed. R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969).

ABBREVIATIONS

ADAnnlllikll'InstimmdiComspondenza Archeologica AJA AmericanJounud ofArcheology AJP AmericanJounud ofPhiJqJogy ANRW Aufttieg und Neiderg,mgtier romischen Welt: Geschichteund Kultur Romsim Spiegeltier neuerm Furschung AntK Antike Kunst AZ Arr:hiiologische Zeimng BABeschBulletin 111mk Vereenigingrot Bevorderingtier Kennis 111m k Antieke Beschaving BAR BritishArchaeological Rept,rts BdA. Bollettinod'Arte BD Bullmino kU'l~m di CurrispondmzaArcheologica BuUComBullmino della CommissumeArcheologica Communaledi Roma CEFRA Collectiond'archtologie et d'histoire k l'EaJle franflUSek Rome,Antiquitl CTL CorpusI nscriptwnumLatinarum CJ Classical Jounud CP ClassicalPhiwlogy CQ ClassicalQuarterly CSCA CaliforniaStudiesin Classical Antiquity EphDac EphemerisDacoromana GRBS Greek,Roman, and ByzantineStudies HSCP Han,ard Studies in ClassicalPhiwlogy

]DAI Jahrbuch des Deutschen ArchiiologischenI nstituts · JRS Jounud ofRoman S~ MAAR Memoin ofthe AmericanAcademy in Rome MDAI(R) Mitteilungen des DeutschenArchiiologischen Instimts (RomischeAbteilung) MEFRA Mllangesd'archlologie et d'histoire k l'EaJle franflUSek Rome,Antiquitl MemLinc Memorie. Atti klli Accademia N a:;:;iona/e ki Lincei. Classedi scienze morali,storicheeftlologiche MemPontAccAtti klla PontiftciaAccademia Romana di Archeologia, Memorie Monlnst Monumenti ineditipubblicatidall' Instimto di Correspondenza Archaeologu:a MonPiot Monumentset Memoirespub/. par l'Acadlmie ks inscriptions et belleslettres,FondationPiot O]h Jahresheftedes Osterreichischen archiiologischenInstimts in Wien RE Pau(v-Wiuowa, Real-Encycwpiidietier klassischen Altertumswissenscha.ft REL Rn,ue desEtudesLatines RendPontA.ccAtti klla Ponti.ficiaAccademia Romana di Archeologia,Rendiconti TAPA Transactionsofthe American PhiwlogicalAssociation rcs ra1e ClassicalStudies

THE RHETORIC

OF SPACE

INTRODUCTION

Pictorialism and the Spectator

S

CHOLARS have invested considerable effort in correcting misguided assump1 What artists and writers of the tions founded upon Horace's ut picturapoesis. Renaissance and neoclassical periods understood, or wanted to understand, by this phrase was not the same thing Horace meant by it in Rome. Above all, he did not say that pictures were like poems. 2 The certainty of this might be sufficient to warn off any inquiry into the cultural interassociation of verbal and visual art-save that certain subjects, by their contemporaneous presence in both fields, invite such treatment. Among these subjects is landscape, which has often served as a focus of attention for Roman art and literature. The perennial attraction that landscape painting has maintained for classical art historians owes much to its reputation as a uniquely Roman contribution to visual art. Although this claim has sometimes been exaggerated, these paintings unquestionably incorporate Roman systems for the visual denotation of space.3 Studies of landscape in Roman literature have conceived of their subject as virtually synonymous with nature, concerning themselves with its psychological, religious, or philosophical significance in addition to its aesthetic 1 C.O. Brink( 1971 ), pp. 368-369, remarks on the traditional nature of the comparison, on which Trimpi ( 1973) expands in some detail. The history of its practical applications to the ans is reviewed by Hagstrum (1958). 2 Hagstrum (1958), pp. 59--60 surveys the history of interpretation, noting that certain fifteenth- and sixteenth- century editions of Horace attached the verb erit to ut pi.tumpoesis.

• As Brendel ( 1979), pp. 2~7, surveys it, the history of scholarship dealing with the Roman development of spatial concepts is closely bound up with opinions on the Roman originality oflandscapc. Carroll ( l 983) recently traced a history of motif's in the Greek world and commented on the Roman borrowing and transformation of some of these into new and genuinely pictorial compositions.

INTRODUCTION

4

charm.• In both art and literature the representation of landscapes may offer an index to modes of perception and attitudes fostered by culture. If such questions logically invite comparative study, the difficulties such study may incur have nonetheless been almost prohibitively stated by Wellek and Warren's pronouncement on the independence of artistic traditions: The various arts-the plastic arts, literature and music-have each their individual evolution with a different internal structure of elements. No doubt they are in constant relationship with each other, but these relationships are not influences which start from one point and determine the evolution of the other arts; they have to be conceived rather as a complex scheme of dialectical relationships which work both ways, from one art to another and vice versa and may be completely transformed within the art which they have entered. It is not a simple affair of a "time spirit'' determining and permeating each and every art. We must conceive of the sum total of man's cultural activities as of a whole system of self-evolvingseries, each having its own set of norms which are not necessarily identical with those of the neighboring series.5 This prescription describes with particular accuracy obstacles confronting the classicist who proposes any kind of interdisciplinary study of art. Although our discipline hypothetically encourages us to exercise our ingenuity in reconstructing interrelationships among forms of ancient culture, it also imposes historical probability as a limit on such reconstructions. This limit entails a particularly strong respect for the self-containment of verbal and visual traditions. From this point of view, the coincidence of subject matter in the arts must continue to seem accidental unless our identification can be put to work in cooperation with an interpretive approach that is capable of bridging the recognized differences between the arts. Such a method cannot be drawn up for the specifications of a single subject, but must rather stand the test of general applicability to the arts. For this I return to Horace and his seemingly accidental challenge to the corn• The subject has been discussed almost as frequently as the literature itself, but the following have given it particular attention: General: G. Williams (1968), pp. 634--681; Vergil: Poschl (1957) and

Recker (1971); Horace: OJmmager (1962), pp. 235-306, and Troxler-Keller (1964); Ovid: Grimal (1938), Viarrc (1964), and Segal (1969a). • Wcllek and Warren (1942), p. 124.

PICTORIALISM

AND THE SPECTATOR

5

parison of pictures and poems. Granted, he did not tell us that the two are alike, but he instinctively drew analogies between them. As a corrective to misinterpretation, the mass of commentary surrounding his ut picturapoesishas so wholly concerned itself with demonstrating what he did not say that it has virtually overlooked the very simple basis for these analogies. His comparison is not directly concerned with the work of art itself, but rather with the spectator's impression of the work: Ut pictura poesis: erit quae, si proprius stes, te capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes; haec amat obscurum, volet haec sub luce videri, iudicis argutum quae non formidat acumen. [Epis.2.3.361-364] (As it is with paintings, so with poems; there will be one that takes your attention more the closer you stand, and another example [the more] if you stand farther off. This one loves shadow, and this one wants to be seen in a light that will not put the keen perception of its critic to flight.) This comment gains some clarification from historical context. The distinction between paintings that address themselves more effectively to distant or nearby spectators should not puzzle any person familiar enough with the general history of Roman painting to recognize a change in fashion that was taking place during Horace's own time. 6 Republican wall decoration had favored megalography with pronounced illusionistic effects that look most lifelike from a distance. The new fashions of that later Augustan period when Horace wrote were bringing in smaller images and more intricate details that cannot be clearly perceived from far away. • Hagstrom ( 1958), p. 9, brings out the superficiality of the comparison, which he terms "a fortuitous and memorable parallel." Its probable source is Aristotle, Rhaoric 3.12.15, l414a7-l4, a passage that which, by reacompares public oratory to sltit,grRphia, son of its distance from the spectator has no need of finished detail. Trimpi (1973), pp. 7-15, adduces parallels 10 these two passages from Seneca the Elder and Longinus to argue that the commonplace had so completely passed into the vocabulary of rhetoric by Horace's time that it had no relationship at all to contemporary painting. Horace, he argues, is talking about the styles proper to the forum (the sphere of

bright light) and the rhetorical schools (the sphere of shade). But the analogy fits contemporary painting very well, and the notion of pictures that show well in the dark, which sounds improbable to Trim pi, is not out of keeping with Vitruvius' recommendation that decorated summer dining rooms and picture galleries should have a northern exposure to protect their colors from direct sunlight (Arch. 6.4.2). While the above quotation from Horace is concerned with the occasional flaws in a litcrarv work, what follows warns aspiring writers that medi~re poetry finds no favor and recommends submission of work in progress to a discerning judge (Epis.2.3.366-390).

INTRODUCTION

6

Horace refers to these visual differences as audience, not as creator, but his discussion of artistic creation also places emphasis upon the spectator's judgment. In the well-known ekphrastic passage at the commencement of the An Poetica, he describes the creation of pictorial hybrid~orse-necked human and feathered fish-woman-whose incongruities inevitably provoke the spectator's laughter. 7 A book that resembled these monsters, Horace goes on to suggest, like a sick man's nightmares-all incoherent-would fall short of persuasion. Granted that painters and poets may possess the skills to execute their fantasies at will, Horace insists that each should become his own critic in respecting the proprieties of natural form. Thus it is primarily from the spectator's point of view that he draws his analogy between the arts (Epis.2.3.9-13). 8 The criterion of pictorial fidelity to nature upon which this analogy is founded receives equivalent testimony in the few surviving passages ofliterature on the visual arts. We encounter this standard in the call for paintings simulating the appearance of real persons and places and things that we hear from Horace's contemporary Vitruvius (De Architectura 7.5.3-4), and in many of Pliny's anecdotal notices of ancient painters, such as his story ofXeuxis and the grapes that lured hungry birds (Natural History 35.66--67). Although the record of Roman painting suggests that the taste for verisimilitude could admit many variations, I am here concerned not with specific subjects and forms but with general principles. Ancient art from all periods abounds in examples of pictorial illusionism that bear witness to Pliny's stories' being only slightly exaggerated. Technically, as Ernst Gombrich shows, achievement of imitative versimilitude in painting is the culmination of experiments ' Humano capiti cc:rviccmpictor cquinam iungc:rc:si vclit et varias inducere plumas undique conlatis membris, ut rurpitc:r atrum dcsinat in piscem mulic:r formosa supcme, spc:ctarum admissi risum tc:nc:atis,amici? crc:dite, P.isonc:s,isri tabulae fore:librum pcrsimilcm. [Epir. 2.3.1-7)

(If a painter should join a horse's neck to a human head and to introduce variegated fc:athc:rsall over thc:sc:juxtaposed members so that a woman beautiful above would taper off into a dark fish, would you, my friends, rc:srrain your laughter when you came to look? Imagine, Pisonc:s, that there: is a book.similar to that painted tablet.)

• Horace's joke may well refer to specific examples of contemporary art. A figure ,·c:ry like: the fishwoman herself, with a human head and torso, wings, and a di,·ided tail (branching into floral scrolls). appears among the ceiling decorations of a newly excavated room in the Palatine: House: of Augustus. The room also contains a fria.c of birds and serpents. Reconstructions arc: in Carerroni (1983a), pp. 78-79 and pl. l 5. Later occurrences of grotesque ornamentation in Roman painting arc: discussed by Dacos (1969). On the literary side:,as Brink (1971), p. ll4, points out, other pcf\·crsions of nature: that Horace: mentions in this passage (JJSS. 29-30) actually correspond to images in Odes l.2.5-12.

PICTORIALISM

AND THE SPECTATOR

7

in molding pictorial form through the application of colored highlights and shadows.9 In its aesthetic aspect, it is the culmination of that particular divergence from symbolic abstraction that characterizes the Greco-Roman tradition of the visual arts.

ID

In the verbal realm, the counterpart of verisimilitude is mR'lJeia,or the achievement of persuasively lifelike description. 11 The fact that ena'lJeiabecomes a more self-conscious rhetorical principle among the Romans than among the Greeks might be taken as evidence of their more simplistic dedication to verisimilitude, but it might also be construed as a token of their fuller acculturation of the concept of visual imagination. Ena'lJeia is directed by the speaker to the spectator. Although its artfulness derives from the speaker's verbal facility, its effects fall short of completion without the spectator's response. Ena1lJeiadiffers from pictorial verisimilitude in the complexity of the receptive act it demands from the spectator. In responding to pictorial verisimilitude, he needs only to perform the two simple and interrelated mental functions of identifying the subject and acknowledging its likeness to life, but in responding to mR'lJeia his cognitive faculties approximate the painter's act of giving form to the unseen. Although these points are simple, they suggest areas of potential interaction between verbal and visual traditions similarly founded upon the persuasiveness of pictorial communication. But in order to con• Gombrich (1976), pp. 5-18. 10 Gombrich (1974), pp. ll6--145, attributes this impetus in part to the naturalism of Homeric narrative with its detailed accounting of the actions. 11 References arc in Lausbcrg (1973), 1: 339-401, 544. Pollitt (1974), pp. 54--55, speculates that the notion of phtmtRSia,the: mental conception of visual imagesupon which nu,rgeilJitself depends, may be owing to Stoic sources, and in particular to Posidonius. Becauseof its prominence in the works of Roman rhetorical writers, he suggests that the principle may have had some relationship to literary criticism from the start. The concept of fflM'geitiundergoes refinement and redefinitionin the history of Roman rhetorHermnium calls deical theory. What the Auaor t:111 "111N1Ttltiq (4.55.68: "cum ita verbis rcs exprimitur ut gcri negotium et res ante oculos cssc vidcatur" [When a matter is expressedin words in such a way that the businessappearsto be carried out and the very thing itself seems to stand before your eyes]) is acrually somewhat different from Quintilian's nuirgeilJ.The

vivid and lengthy account of the deaths of the Gracchi that illustrates this definition suggests that the Auetor's ~ is primarily narrative. His dacriptio (Aua. Her.4.39.51 ), although categorm:d as a figure, is more similar to later nu,rgeilJ.Contemporary critics tend to evaluate this concept according to their own standards. Thus G. Williams (1968), pp. 668-670, emphasizes the emotional impact of nu,rgeilJrather than its communicativestrategy and also disassociates it from his own concept of description: "Careful observation of the real world has only an occasionaland marginal role to play in this literary process." In discussing the idea under the heading of imagination, Russell (1980), pp. 109-II0, shows the modem critic's impatience with imaginativeconcepts that do not stress the creative experience of the communicator. He thus distinguishes between rhetorical measuresof descriptive effectivenessthat arc based upon the rendering of factUalimagesand poetic dcsctiptions that involveelementsof the supernatural and the unreal.

INTRODUCTION

8

sider how this principle can be brought to bear upon a variety of contextual situations, we must consider further the problems posed by interdisciplinary comparison. Much of the skepticism surrounding modem attitudes toward the validity of artistic intercommunication may be credited to Lessing's well-known pronouncement in the Laocoonon the epistemological separation of the verbal and visual arts. From antiquity throughout the neoclassical period, aesthetic theory had encouraged the perception of similarities between the arts by analogizing the means of imitation through which each achieved its semblance of reality.12 The precedent lay in Aristotle's definition of the instruments of pictorial communication as color and form, and those of poetry as language, rhythm, and harmony .13 To each of these Lessing added a definition of context. Poems and paintings, he observed, elude comparative equation, even as they fail to reproduce one another, because the one is progressive, the other stationary. Painting, whose signs of communication are forms and colors existing in space, must relinquish all representation of time, but the signs employed by poets are articulate sounds existing in time. Bodies with spatial extension are the subject of painting, while actions are the subject of poetry.'• This doctrine is well suited to foster a sense of the self-containment of artistic traditions and is easily invoked by formalist critics to justify their concentration on the internal structure of elements that constitutes each artistic design. 15 Within these given limitations, no area of coincidence between painting and poetry appears as legitimate evidence of artistic intercommunication, save where the one art demonstrably refers to the other. Thus Jean Hagstrum's survey of ancient theory and practice in the opening chapter of The Sister Arts derives from classical examples only a tenuous precedent for a more active interchange of pictorial influences between the arts in later periods. The two narrow areas of demonstrable rapprochement between poetry and painting that Hagstrum identifies are illustration, on the " E,g., invention = composition; disposition of episodes = drawing; expression (diction, figures) = coloring. Among the most influential neo-classical treatises was Alphonse Dufrcsnoy's Larin poemDe Arte Gmphia,, which Dryden translated and published in 1695 with the preface entitled "A Parallel of

Poetry and Painting" (Dryden (1961), 2: 115--153). 13 Hagsrrum ( 1958), pp. 5--13. 1• G.E. Lcssing (1766), pp. 114-121. 1• An extremely negative invocation with particular reference to the concept of period style is in Wimsan

(1976).

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one hand, and literary description of objects produced by graphic art, or ekphrasis, on the other hand. 16 Since these phenomena are responsible for much of the material to be discussed in this study, a preliminary consideration of their limitations and possibilities will be useful. Illustration, as we commonly understand it, involves a close correspondence between literary images and graphic representation. Although it might, in the abstract, seem to provide the most reliable evidence of intercommunication between the arts, demonstrable examples are rare. Investigation of illustration has most often engaged classical art historians as a species of conjectural source study. Kurt Weitzman proposed a hypothesis for transmission of a pictorial tradition drawn from Homer and the tragedians, which he based upon arguments for the existence of illustrated papyrus manuscripts from the early Alexandrian period. 17 Whatever credibility we grant this hypothesis in explaining the origin of certain specific examples, we must still understand that visual traditions stemming from illustration would not long preserve the close kinship with literature that obtained at their genesis. Unless this kinship is renewed by the artist's reconsultation of the literary text, the images must inevitably dissever themselves from this background and assume characteristics of their own. The illustrations with which modern audiences are most familiar entail substitution of an authoritative visual image for the reader's independent approximation of a visual response to the literary text. Although very rare examples of this kind do exist in Pompeian art-the most notable being an illustration from Aeneid 12 18-still, the major Roman example of illustration, a series of episodes from the Odyssey,diverges systematically from the literary text in pursuit of its own visual coherence. The questions it poses have more to do with the nature of Roman landscape painting than with Homer. 19 As I shall show, the audience of Roman art was far less interested in pictorial illustrations with detailed allegiance to literary texts than modern audiences are. The absence of such precise one-to-one correspondences between art and literature should not be imposed upon comparative study as a negative condition. Rather, it is one of the circumstances that such study must explain. •• Hagstrum (1958), pp. 17-29. 17 Weitzman ( 1970), pp. l2-46. 18 This painting, M.N. 9009, from the Casa di Sirico, shows Venus coming to the aid of her wounded

son with the magical herb dittany. It appears in Rizw (l 929), pl. 195, and in Galinsky ( l 969), pl. 23. •• See von Blanckenhagen (l963), pp. l00--l46 and pls. 46-53.

INTRODUCTION

10

The relationship between poetic ekphrasisand the visual arts might also seem peripheral to historical investigation of artistic correspondences, since the objects described by Roman authors, at least during the Republic and the early Empire, are fictional rather than actual. 20 In designating ekphrasis as "iconic poetry," Hagstrum emphasizes its self-containment. 21 The motifs and themes of the objects described spring out of the very literary contexts to whose meaning they contribute in their own tum. At the same time, we should remember that ancient literary theory, which existed in the service of rhetorical practice rather than interpretive perception, characterized all extensive and precise description within the same species of discourse without distinguishing fictional subject matter from real. In the terminology of ancient criticism, ekphrasis might be called a mode of achieving verisimilitude through enargeia;its aim is to induce the reader as spectator to visualize a work of art. Even the symbolic relationships to context that modern readers perceive in ekphrastic passages are dependent upon an attentive response to visual rubrics as their interpretive preliminary. 22 Thus we may assume that the contemporary reader of these descriptions conferred his own reality upon them by imagining them in whatever manner his own experience dictated, referring himself at least to the familiar and popular modes of a contemporary visual art, if not to specific examples. For this reason the value of ekphrasis cannot be so easily dismissed for its fictional status. As a meeting point for strategies of verbal and visual persuasion, it raises the possibility of approaching the communicative address of ancient art from the spectator's point of view. For this purpose, additional insight may be derived from literary theories centered upon the process of reading. Only recently has the discourse of critical analysis given serious attention to the manner in which the responsive experience of audience or reader shapes the significance of a work of art. 23 This premise transcends 20 Friedlander ( 1912), pp. 1-23, discusses the in· terrclationship of such passages as variations on Homer. Ccnain dcscripive lyric poems of Statius arc among the first verbal representations of ostensibly real objects, and these arc:monuments of architecture or sculpture rather than painting. In these, however. Cancik ( 1965 ), pp. 9-15, claims to sec a verbal style that self-consciously adapts itself to the artistic style of the subject matter and thus reveals the poet's sympa· thetic allegiance to contemporary canons of taste.

Hagstrum ( 1958). Hagstrum (ibid., p. xvi) remarks, "It should always be borne in mind that literary pictorialism is more literary than pictorial." A number of tftphrttstis in Alexandrian and Roman poetry and their relationships to context arc discussed in Leach ( 1974a), pp. I 04--106 and note 5 in that aniclc:. 23 Iser ( 1978), p. ix: "As a literary text can only produce a response when it is read, it is vinually impossible to describe this response without analyzing the 21

22

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11

specific historical circumstances or artistic styles, but it can easily be adapted to strategies of artistic address implied by the classical principles of verisimilitude and enR'flJeia.As my initial discussion of these qualities suggests, they are not opposite in their mode of appeal to the spectator, but merely solicit the spectator's participatory involvement at different degrees of intensity. Such variable participation is invited where reading demands especially by the passages of description we call ekphraseis, visualization as a first step toward the perception of significance. In fact, Lessing's rigid exclusion of the spectator's necessary response to the visual images implied by ekphrasisforced him to contrive impractical arguments in defense of the separation of the arts. 24 Elsewhere his insistence upon maintaining the boundaries of time and space is more flexible and better attuned to the psychological processes of perception. He had admitted a margin of time into the interpretation of dramatic paintings where the painter's articulation of an arrested motion so clearly designates its place in a sequence of actions that the spectator instantly understands the preceding and consequential moments. 25 He was also quite ready to follow a poet's description of action with his own train of mental images.26 Thus, in the practical applications of his aesthetics Lessing was not wholly beyond responding to ena'flJeia. Paradoxically, however, he was unable to transfer these intelthe shield of Achilles. lectual responses to a reading of Homer's supreme ekphrasis: If the reader should be able to envision the shield as a finished object, then, as Lessing feared, he might consequently regard the poet as a mere copyist who had yielded up his originality and his sense of the functional power of words in service to a lesser art. 27 reading process. Reading . . . sets in motion a whole chain of activities that depend both on the text and on the exercise of certain basic human faculties." A general introduction to contemporary theories of reception aesthetic appears in Suleiman and Crosman ( 1980), pp. 3--45. In the field of classical art history, von Blanckcnhagen (1975), pp. 193-201, invokes the concept of the spectator's responsive completion of the visual image to make a distinction between Classical and Hellenistic statuary. While fn:e-standing Classical sculpture, as von Blanckenhagcn argues, supplies the spectator with all the \-isual information needed, the unfinished or suspended quality of the gestures and motion in such Hellenistic statues as the bathing Aphrodite of Doidalsus or the Ludovisi Gaul

induce the spectator to complete the action by imagining a complementary figure. 2• Brooks and Wimsatt (1957), pp. 269-270, remark on G. E. Lcssing's rather contrived effort to maintain his principles by treating certain highly pictorial descriptive passages as versions of narrative, observing, "Lessin g's conception of the difference between painting and poetry, when put under the pressure of a faetual application, seems to amount to a distinction between still pieturcs and moving pictures." 25 G. E. Lcssing (1766), p. 114. l6 Ibid., p. 107. 27 Ibid .• p. 61.

INTRODUCTION

12

Since his purpose in discussing the shield was to advance the dignity of Homer the poet over Homer the painter, Lessing had first to deny all properties of spatial existence to the object. 28 In this he was not misguided. Although a French illustrator had meticulously translated Homer's description into a schematic drawing, the effort was clearly arbitrary. 29 The images on the shield are not assigned to clear spatial positions, but merely linked in verbal sequence. An interpreter has recently compared the paratactic nature of their succession to that of units of discourse in oral formulaic composition. 30 Although Lessing scarcely anticipates such a historical argument, he invokes his own criterion of the temporal context of poetry in pointing out that the reader cannot really see the shield as a completed and static object, but sees, rather, the master workman performing the actions that bring its separate elements into life.31 By effacing the visual impressions we conceive from the shield itself, Lessing translates the temporal dimension with which Homer has invested its actions and episodes into the narrative time that encompasses its creation. But the images of the shield take precedence over that of their maker. The spectator not only sees these images, but becomes convinced that they are animate. In The Sister Arts, Hagstrum easily resolves a part of Lessing's contradiction by showing that the representational quality Homer gave the shield is not the limited function of an inert pictorial object and therefore need not be ignored or explained out of sight. 32 The very fact that Vulcan's figures speak, move, and act beyond the capability of mute pictorialism imbues the shield with its own unique verisimilitude. Its art transcends the boundaries of pictorial mimesis and creates a miniature second nature. By these observations, Hagstrom makes of the shield a supremely miraculous verbal icon: But above all, it is like life itself, and herein lies the miracle. Huge though it is, it is still a shield. On it are the cities, the wars, the feasts, the industries and the loves of men; the heavens, the sea, the seasons of the year and the yield of the earth. multum in parvo.33 Ibid., pp. 133-134. Ibid., pp. 140-141. 30 I owe this observation to Dr. Richard Pryor in a talk given at Columbia University in April 1982. 2

•

2 •

·" G. E. Lcssing ( 1766), pp. 115-116. 32 Hagstrom ( 1958), pp. 19-22. 33 Ibid., p. 21.

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13

The poetics of the shield thus exemplify the poetics of the Iliad, yet they reach beyond the poem to embrace the real world that is its human context. One can hardly find fault with the symbolic dimensions of this interpretation. The modern scholar, who might recognize the shield as a more likely approximation of prearchaic abstraction than of veristic naturalism, should readily agree that the significance of the artifact resides in what Homer makes of it, not in what it might be in itself.34 Of course, this is precisely the way symbolic abstraction addresses its spectator. Verisimilitude and narrative coherence are not intrinsic properties of the shield, but rather come into being as the spectator lends animation to the images. The shield achieves persuasive enat;geiabecause it is capable of stimulating the spectator's imagination. It becomes a microcosmic replica of nature because the spectator supplies this coherence. In Homer's discourse, the spectator's role is filled by the poet acting in the double capacity of creator and audience to tell the listener not only what he sees but also what he hears and what he thinks. No other arrangement is possible, since the Homeric spectator does not have a real artifact before his eyes, yet the consistent transformations of gold into natural image, of image into action, give us to understand that the qualities of sound and movement and emotion come into being through the responsive participation of the spectator in the work. Likewise, as the variations between Lessing's and Hagstrum's interpretations of the iconic symbolism of the shield may show, the context of significance within which the work is contained is that supplied by the spectator. The active exercise that Homer commands of our visual imagination in enacting the role of the ideal spectator who converts seeing into storytelling anticipates what contemporary theory has to tell us about the way the temporal and visual dimensions of literary narrative are reconstructed by the reader.35 Here again, Lessing was not misguided when he argued that an exact diagram of Achilles' shield was impossible. The shield the illustrator designs forsakes its progressive verisimilitude, 34 Whitman (1965), pp. 205-207, exemplifies the process of animating a symbolic depiction: "One is not quite sure whether the pictures on the Shield are static or alive. Homer, in fact, is not quite sure just what kind of pictures arc made by Hephaestus. He seems to stand a little bewildered between the realism of the finished panels and the limitations of the matcrial.n Gombrich (1974), pp. 129-131, similarly dis-

cusses the interrelationship between the schcmatization of archaic art and the fullness of narrative. Vermc:ule( 1964), pp. 90-106, describes objects from the shaft graves at Mycenae that picture subjects similar to those on the shield, especially the silver rhyron showing a beseigcd town that is its closest analogue. "Todorov (1981), pp. 27-32.

INTRODUCTION

14

but it also substitutes an authoritative image for each hearer's individual shield. As one contemporary theorist points out, there is a great difference between our visual images of an absent object and the reality of that object. 36 The former are approximate and multiple; the latter is absolute and restrictive. It is precisely this potential for subjective variation in the mental image that must be understood as a practical modification of the theoretical concept of ena,;geia.The rhetorical guidelines for ena,;geuitell us that its effects upon an audience are controllable and will end in common consensus. 37 But ifwe look beyond the theoretical prescription to see the response of the ancient spectator in practice, we find that the images he formulates are far from precise, and also that his translation of image into action is natural and inevitable. The point can be demonstrated by a second and much more self-conscious example of a spectator's response, this time from Quintilian's explanation of the strategies of ena,;geui. Mere narration, or telling, Quintilian observes, will not be enough for the orator to obtain conviction; the things we want our hearers to understand must be set forth with a clarity of definition that makes them available to sight (Institutio Oratoria8.3.62: "dare atque ut cerni videantur''). The art of verbal description must approximate a physical shaping of the image before the faculties of mental perception: Non enim saris efficit neque, ut debet, plene dominatur oratio si usque ad aures valet, atque ea sibi iudex de quibus cognoscit narrari credit, non exprimi et oculis mentis ostendi. [Inst. 8.3.62] (Oration is indeed not effective enough, nor will it gain the mastery it should, if it is forceful enough for the ears and the judge believes that the things he has learned are told to him, not modeled and displayed to the eyes of the mind.) "'Iser (1978), pp. 136-137. 37 Russell (1980), pp. 99-100, accepts the idea of producing consensus as a limitation in the ancient concept of imagination: "Ancient notions of'imagia long way from Coleridge nation '-j1h1111tl&ri4--arc and the whole idea of the writer as somehow creating a new world rather than merely offering a partial image of the world to the senses is, in general, alien to

Greek and Roman thinking." One cannot make much headway with the classicalconcept of imagination by thus examining it from the creator's point of view, since it is not, like the Romantic imagination, an independent process leading to a sense of sclf-fulfillment but rather bound up with the achievement of communication.

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Earlier in the lnstitutio, Quintilian explained the reception of the verbal image by showing how the mind is capable of producing physical reproductions of the unseen: Quas phantasiasGraeci vocant (nos sane visiones appellemus), per quas imagines rerum absentium ita repraesentantur animo ut eas cernere oculis ac praesentes habere videamur, has quisquis bene ceperit is erit in adfectibus potentissimus. [Inst.. 6.2.29] (What the Greeks call "phantasms" we sensibly call visualizations, through which the images of absent things are represented in such a way that we seem to see them with our eyes and to have them present with us. Whoever has mastered these things skillfully will be very powerful in his appeal to the emotions.) Here Quintilian calls the appeal of enargeiapowerful because it seems to show the speaker's immediate experience of the very things he is describing (6.2.32: "et adfectus non aliter quam si rebus intersimus sequentur"). Filling his mind with animated images, he compels his audience to share his emotional responses. In book 8, however, the orator does not so much transport the spectator as engage him in painting a picture. Quintilian's initial distinction between narrari... exprimi. .. ostendi(told, molded, displayed), implies little more than production of a static image, but he goes on to illustrate the nature of the spectator's response by his own extrapolation upon an example. As a model for effective enargeia,he chooses from Cicero's Verrine orations a defamatory sketch of the rapacious praetor who stripped Sicily of virtually every portable work of art: "stetit soleatus praetor populi Romani cum pallio purpureo tunicaque talari muliercula nixus in litore." [Inst.. 8.3.64] (The praetor of the Roman people was standing on the shore in his slipper socks with a purple cape and an ankle-length gown, resting himself on a wench.) Although this portrait is composed of clothing and posture without hint of the subject's physiognomy or expression, Quintilian argues that the orator could count upon his audience's filling in the details not supplied:

INTRODUCTION

16

non solum ipsos inrueri videarur et locum et habirum, sed quaedam etiam ex iis quae dicta non sunt sibi ipse adstruat. [Inst.. 8.3.64-65] (Not only may he seem to look upon the place and the attitude, but in fact he may build up certain things for himself from things that have not been said.) Thus, when Quintilian comes to explain the effectiveness of the portrait by bringing it to an imaginative completion of his own, Quintilian produces a second and differently focused image: Ego certe mihi cemere videor et vulrum et oculos et deformes utriusque blanditias et eorum qui aderant tacitam aversationem ac timidam verecundiam. [Inst.. 8.3.65] (I, for my own part, certainly seem to see the face and the eyes and the perverse flatteries of each, and the silent loathing and hesitant shame of those who were close by.) In casting himself in the role of Cicero's listener, Quintilian self-consciously strives to bridge the distance between himself and the historical occasion. Although he believes he is responding to his predecessor's manipulative technique of persuasion exactly as demanded, he is using his own imagination more actively than Cicero's listeners would have had to do. Presumably such an audience of contemporaries needed only to add Verres' familiar physiognomy to the orator's sketch of attitude and dress to fill out a graphic but stationary tableau of moral turpirudc. 38 By contrast, Quintilian's embroidery upon visual suggestion lends the picture a quasi-narrative dimension. He supplies several people attending on Verres and creates an interaction between these additional figures and Cicero's original image by contrasting their repressed indignation with Verres' self-flaunting arrogance. The arrested moment thus becomes animated, and the single action assumes a progressive dimension in time. 311The difference I suggest is dose to one defined by Iser (1978), p. 140: ~There is a basic difference between image-building in literature and image building in everyday life. In the latter case, our knowl-

edge of the real objec't naturally preconditions our image of it, but in the former case, there is no empirical outside object with which to relate the image."

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The image charged with enar;geia,Quintilian goes on to say, achieves its intellectual life when the mind of the spectator unites its scattered details into a lifelike third dimension. Once again Quintilian illustrates by a model description-a scene, this time, instead of a portrait. The atmosphere of a luxurious banquet takes shape from an abstracted antithesis of motions completed by a few precise and concrete images that place the figures within an appropriate ambience: "Videbar videre alios intrantis, alios autem exeuntis, quosdam ex vino vacillantis, quosdam hesterna ex potatione oscitantis. Humus erat inmunda, lutulenta vino, coronis languidulis et spinis cooperta piscium." Quid plus videret qui intrasset? [Inst.. 8.3.66] ("I seem to see some folks corning in, others going out-certain ones unsteady with wine, certain ones shaky from yesterday's drinking. The ground was dirty, muddied with wine and littered with wilted garlands and fish spines." What more would a man who actually entered a room see?) But the spectator sees far more, since the orator's selection and balance has conferred a neat and stylized order upon the chaotic picture of degeneracy he wants to evoke. It is the task of the spectator, whether he summons personal experience or pure imagination to his aid, to disassemble this tidy verbal balance into active pictorial disorder. In this book I shall undertake a new investigation of pictorialism as an area of coincidence between the verbal arts and the visual arts in Rome by considering how literary and pictorial texts address themselves to the spectator by either implicitly incorporating or overtly dictating his participatory response. Formalist criticism has never welcomed the spectator into interpretation any more than it has invited interdisciplinary study, because in any interpretive situation the spectator's responsive participation must break down the selt:containment of the individual work of art. 39 39 The discussion of Horacc's literary criticism in Broob and Wimsatt ( 1957), pp. 77-95, which approaches the subject from the "New Critics' "point of view, completely passes over the questions of verisimilitude and the spectator's judgment of the work of art to focus instead on decorum,11rs and ingenium, poetic language, and similar matters that ha,·e a bearing

on the sclt:containmc:nt of the work of art. Their single comment on en11,;_qti11 also reveals their formalist bias: " 'Actualitv' or ,·ividncss [en11,;gtill] is perhaps better taken as a term for summing up the effect of rhetorical figures than as a name for another figure on the same footing" (ibid., p. 70).

18

INTRODUCTION

At the same time, we recognize that formalist criticism has generally been reluctant to acknowledge the rhetorical basis of ancient art and its self-conscious inclusion of its audience, and thereby to grant that ancient theory had any influence upon methods of interpretation. 40 These theories, however, address themselves to the experience of the spectator as the recipient of artistic persuasion and the judge of its success. The spectator can mediate between the separate realms of verbal and visual art because in either case he is incorporated into the structure of elements. Beyond this, as a representative of the ancient audience, the spectator may serve as a mediator between the standpoint of the modem critic, prejudiced by his own aesthetic judgments, and the cultural perspectives of the past. As my example from Quintilian demonstrates, we come closest to understanding the latitude of the spectator's role, both generally and specifically, when we are able to join him in actionthat is, when we enter into the vision of literary passages where acts of seeing and interpretation are dramatized. Although the revelations of such vicarious perception are not out of keeping with the formulas we may abstract from ancient theory and criticism, they demand that we intellectually revitalize these formulas as working principles instead of as descriptive rules. In this guise ancient principles are capable of leading us beyond definitions, through such steps of visual response as Quintilian sketches out in explaining the power of ena,geia.While theory may prescriptively tell us what we should be seeing, the guidance of the ancient spectator can more fully instruct us on how to look and how to question. This approach addresses itself not only to the understanding of pictorialism as a vehicle of communication, but also to certain circumstances that make the corpus of Roman art, when considered in its entirety, different from any other corpus. Some of these circumstances result from the accidents of preservation, but others are characteristic of the art itself. One problem that is virtually unique to Roman 40 As the most recent historian of ancient literary criticism, RusscU ( 1980), pp. 2-4, exemplifies this prejudice in attributing its limitations to the rhetorical orientation of its philosophy. Ancient literature, he observes, whether it be oratory, drama, or poetry, is pervaded by its authors' awareness that they an: directing their words to an audience; the ancient critic also addresses himself single-mindedly to this concern: "The rhetorical critic is concerned with means

to a predetermined end and that end is the persuasion or entertainment of an audience whom he thinks of as inferior in inteUigence and sensibility to himself and his pupil .... For my part, I am quite certain that this ancient rhetorical criticism, though undoubtedly useful in suggesting principles of judgement and helping to elucidate authors' intentions, is fundamentaUy not equal to the task of appraising classical literature."

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painting is that of its anonymity in contraposition to its conspicuous place in the sphere of Roman domestic life. Another problem, which Roman painting poses in common with other artistic forms, is how to define its properly Roman characteristics amid a great number of subjects and styles that are at once varied and conventionalized. Although art historians have devised many strategies for approaching these problems by way of categorization and chronology, they will inevitably haunt our efforts to look beyond the boundaries of Roman painting as a self-contained series of examples. As our major contemporary source of information concerning Roman attitudes toward pictorial art, book 35 of the elder Pliny's Natural Historysometimes consciously and sometimes accidentally calls our attention to what we do not know. Thus, when Pliny introduces the question of anonymity within the context of artistic patronage, he appears to underscore the lacunae in our modem knowledge of a situation that he himself must have understood at first hand. The one persistent tradition he attributes to a named Roman painter is that of decorating walls with a variety of landscape designs (N.H. 116-117). Although he granted that such paintings were attractive and inexpensive, the custom, as he saw it, had lowered the status of painting in contemporary society by subjecting it to private patronage and by effacing opportunities for individual fame. The ancients, he declared, were wiser. The art of great painters had formerly found its home in cities; the artists had belonged to the whole world (N H. 118). Consistently Pliny regrets that the productions of Fabullus, a noted painter of the Neronian age, were imprisoned within the emperor's Golden House (N.H. 120). Whether Pliny is historically accurate in representing so complete a migration of painting into the private sphere or not, his remarks correspond to the state of our existing evidence:" What little we know about Roman public painting comes almost entirely from a few written notices, but the corpus now available for study is, or was once, located within Roman houses and therefore must manifest a character appropriate to its context. Thus Otto Brendel proposes a distinct separation be•• Pliny claimsan early beginning for Roman an in the public sphere (N R. 35.19), but he does not trace in it the kind of coherendy evolving tradition he traces in Greekan. The first painters were distinguished as

much for their social position as for their sryle ( 35.19-20), but later works made for public display arc to be remembered for their patrons or historical occasions (35.20-24).

20

INTRODUCTION

tween the art of the public world and that of the private world. 42 Although both sectors show a strong preference for pictorial forms of representation-painting and relief sculpture over statuary-still, as he says, "The mass of private art shows few, if any, obvious contacts with the official. . . . In the private sector, political subjects are extremely rare. The preferred themes are idyllic landscapes and still life, religious ceremonies, mythological or literary narrative and family portraits." 43 We may logically assume that both fashion and personal taste are responsible for the diffusion and persistence of these subjects, yet this premise gives us scant help in the absence of more specific information about the identity of painters and patrons who determined the balance between fashion and personal choice. We would like to know not only the identity of owners and artists, but also something about their negotiations and intentions. The balance of fashion and taste proves no less of an imponderable in our evaluation of the Golden House-whose master we know and whose artist, as Pliny tells us, worked in his toga-than it does when we tum to the hundreds of anonymous walls in Pompeian houses whose owners' identities live only through their environments. The principal effort scholars have made to break through this elusive silence of domestic painting has taken the form of a descriptive chronology based upon the necessary recognition of the close association between painting and its environment. As the archaeologists and excavators of the late nineteenth century acknowledged by preserving discoveries in situ, Roman paintings should be studied within their total decorative contexts. 44 Brendel lists the subjects of private art by categories, but no single example of these subjects, no image or pictorial panel however attractive or well composed, is an independent, freestanding work of art. Each contributes to a multifaceted system of decoration that orders an entire wall.45 Images that are removed from their contexts lose a part of their meaning the same way 42 Brendel (1979), pp. 152-156, characteri7.espublic art as thematic, limited in scope and in means of expression. Its monuments deal with the changing concepts and functions of Roman institutions. As he sees it, this division between the public and private spheres is typically Roman and analogous to the: division made by Roman juridical thought. One: must realize:,however, that the: forms of art in each sphere: arc:also, in their separate ways, characteristically Roman.

43 Ibid., p. 156. .. This policy, to which we owe our entire: understanding of the stylistic history of Romano-Campanian art was instituted in 1861 under the: new directorship of Giuseppe Fiorelli (Mau ( 1904 ], pp. 29-30). •• As Brilliant (1974), pp. 135-136, points out, ceiling, walls, and floor arc:planned as unified systems.

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21

passages excerpted from poems do. Therefore, the chronological study of contexts is essential to any historically oriented investigation of painting. At the same time, this approach has placed an exaggerated emphasis on the diachronic dimension of its subject. It has conferred the shape of a consistently evolving history upon Roman painting by classifying its examples within a succession of four period styles.46 The larger outlines of these styles are derived from their approaches to the comprehensive design of the wall: whether they depict open or closed backgrounds, functional or nonfunctional architectonic supports, or "realistic" or "fantastic" omament. 47 This periodization was initially established in coordination with the apparent history of construction materials and techniques, but its refinement into a series of phases and transitional phases has been based upon internal comparisons among the paintings themselves.48 In the absence of additional documentary evidence by which to date paintings, stylistic chronology continues to provide an essential structure for analyzing new discoveries, and yet its practical value masks certain implicit theoretical assumptions that are subject to question. When its evolutionary principles are applied too meticulously, the concept of stylistic history tends to foster an illusory sense of coherence in the corpus of domestic painting. Often it calls attention to similarities in cases where differences might well provide a more productive basis for evaluation. As a totally self-referential system, it creates the impression that painting, in the security of its private domain, was one strain of Roman art that took form beyond the influence of historical circumstances. One must remember that the concept of stylistic chronology is a substitute for the factual knowledge of artists and patrons that would link the monuments of painting with the realities of their social context as represented by the institution of the Roman house. If we knew more about the specific circumstances 46 Discussions are numerous and reveal much disagreement concerning the origins, the precise dating, and even the succession of the styles. The most comprehensive study, with emphasis on the second style, remains that by H. G. Beyen (1938; 1960). There is raisonni for the third an equally detailed catawgue style by Bastet and de Vos ( 1979). 47 Brendel (1979), pp. 169-172, characterizes this stylistic succession as a paradigm for the general transformation of Hellenistic art into Roman art. The concept is not uncommon, but he differs from many in placing the fully Roman acculturation of decorative

schemes quite early. The second style, he says, might already be called Roman art, while the third is ~manifestly late Augustan" in its precision and refinement of detail. •• Baster and de Vos ( 1979), pp. 5-7, state their general belief in a definite evolution of ornament and compositional pattern in third-style walls, but with certain cautions necessitated by the apparent rapidity of this evolution. The review by von Blanckenhagen ( 1982), pp. 307-308, expresses strong doubts that the examples of the style can be classified and their classifications further subdivided with such precision.

22

INTRODUCTION

that surrounded individual examples of painting, we might venture to say that the artistic history might not be written in this abstract and logical way. As it stands, our diachronic narrative of style constitutes an art-historical paradigm that is removed not only from the interplay of social and political forces in Roman history but also from the variability of Roman art itself.49 Its tidiness makes us forget the general difficulties of perceiving a straightforward progressive trend in Roman art history over its visible shifts of emphasis and permutations of form. If, then, we are to open some avenue of communication with the self-referential history of painting and establish a genuinely synchronic dimension of associations between the mutations of Roman style and their cultural context, we need a method of reading that will help fill the lacunae in our knowledge that result from the anonymity of Roman painting. Although this means we must continue to assign an unusually high value to what we can learn from the paintings themselves, it also means that certain traditional questions must be posed in new ways. For patrons, we must be able to refer to a receiving audience shaped by the traditions of painting. For Roman originality, we must consider what was legible to this audience in Roman terms, irrespective of source or genesis. Unitary principles, if such there are, must be sought on similar grounds, not so much in formal characteristics of style, whose variety eludes such reduction, but in general purpose and effect. These are questions that formalist criticism has discouraged us from asking, as much in the study of art as in the study of literature, yet they are questions shaped by the actual circumstances of the material and not imposed by a preordained scheme of historical interpretation. With these questions in mind, we return to the interdisciplinary study of art •• As Brendel (1979), pp. 92-101, poimsout, it is an important and influential fact in our conceptions of art history that the Greeks wrote the narrative: of their own artistic development and attributed to it a pattern of progressive: development. That the Romans did not create an equivalent history is, however, not an entirely negative circumstance:, since it points to the diverse and self-contradictory nature of the currents in Roman style and form. The problems of correlating artistic and national (political-social) history are explored by Jauss ( 1982), pp. 47-75. Jauss' initial definition of the:problem is insrructive: "At first sight, history in the realm of the ans presents two contradic-

tory views. With the first, it would appear that the history of architecture, music or poetry is more consistent and more coherent than that of society. The: chronological sequence:of works of art is more closely connected than a chain of political events, and the more gradual transformations of style arc easier to follow than the: transformations of social history. . . . With the second view, the paradigms of art historiography, in their prescientific and then in their positivistic phase, show that this greater consistency of detail is purchased at the price of an overall inconsistency as regards the links between art genres as well as their relation to the general historical and social process.n

PICTORIALISM

AND THE SPECTATOR

23

and literature as participants in a cultural dialectic. In order to trace this dialectic, we cannot use literature as mere "written evidence" in the service of art history, nor should we attribute to art any aim of perpetuating or illustrating literary concepts. Rather, the two should illuminate each other by intensifying our awareness of their processes of communication, as Horace implies in the opening lines of the Ar.rPoetica when he shapes his examples of poetic license in visual images. Thus I propose to place examples of Roman pictorialism within an examination of literary history conceived with an emphasis on the rhetoric of landscape description. My current investigation is limited to the literature of the Republic and the Augustan Age, in which the artistic history of landscape has its origins and most intensive development. Later periods demand an even broader approach to visual pictorialism, one that goes beyond the boundaries of domestic painting. For this period the emphasis on private art is not only dictated by the nature of our extant material, but also appropriate to the degree of personal vision involved in literature. In the semantics of artistic communication, landscape plays a major role. The mention of topographical description in Roman rhetorical theory emphasizes its capacity to contribute persuasiveness to argument. 50 It shares with other kinds of verbal pictorialism the communicative strategies of ena,;geia.By investigating the manner in which the representation of landscape addresses itself to the spectator, the modern interpreter can distinguish its various contributions to artistic experience. In supplying a spatial context for action, landscape frequently builds a symbolic significance that the interpreter wants to verbalize, yet its arrogation of spatial order is also a factor in shaping the point of view from which the spectator determines the relationship between the artistic world and his own. The methods of analysis I employ in this study do not follow any given model, since there is no problem quite parallel to that of my particular subject, but I have gained much insight into the nature of pictorial and verbal communication from recent studies in the aesthetics of reception. That field embraces both the problems of the spectator's immediate response to the individual work of art and the concep50 Quintilian, Inst. 4.2.36, speaks of the inclusion he of locusin narrative exposition, and at 9.2.4~ as a species of persuasive evidiscusses topographui dence. Ciccro's description of Sicily in the Vcrrines is a classic example for Quintilian, which he mentions

both when discussing formulas for the praise of place (3.7.27) and the use of descriptive digressions (4.3.12-13). further references in Quintilian and later theoreticians may be found in Lausberg (1973), sec. 289, p. 164; sec. 318, p. 178; sec. Sil, p. 401.

24

INTRODUCTION

tualization of artistic history. My study is, for the most part, an essay into historical reconstruction that attempts to approximate from contemporary Roman sources the assumptions and point of view that the Roman audience brought to visual perception and the way perceptions shaped by one of the arts could be transferred to the other. It does not pretend to offer a complete cultural history, but rather a step toward the interpretation of cultural history. The entire picture I am constructing is based upon scattered pieces of evidence that are not consistent among themselves, as Roman painting and literature are also not consistent. Nonetheless, it is my hope that by devising a series of strategies appropriate to the parts I may be able to communicate a sense of coherence to the whole. As Wellek and Warren suggest, this coherence must take "the form of an intricate pattern of coincidences and divergences rather than parallel lines."51 51

WeUck and Warren (1942), p. 124.

PART

I

Spatial Patterns

CHAPTER

1

Words and Pictures:Vergil'sAeneid and the Odyssey Landscapes

0

!CHARD HEINZE was dissatisfied with the insufficient information he ~found in Vergil's picturing of scenic backgrounds for epic action. These descriptions, as Heinze saw them, presented no programmed exposition or unification of detail that would meet the requirements of clarity, but only a running series of single features interwoven with progressive action that failed to satisfy a reader's curiosity about places. Something, he conjectured, was missing. The ellipsis made it difficult to decide whether Vergil had in his own mind a complete picture which he did not allow his reader fully to share with him, or whether the poet himself had fixed upon single details without conceiving their unifying context. 1 Within his larger framework of reference to the narrative standards of epic, Heinze was able to give a generally positive construction to Vergil's elliptical mode of description. In speaking of literary ekphrasis,he praises the poet for the restraint that kept him from luxuriating, as became the habit oflater epic authors, in the kind of descriptive plethora that brings action to a halt.2 The influence of Lessing seems to color these remarks, and equally their underlying assumption that description makes little legitimate contribution to the progress of epic narrative. Epic tradition also provided Heinze's methodological approach to Vergil's infrequent descriptions of nature as deliberate imitations of Homer, amplified in the poet's own style to 1

Heinze ( 1914), p. 352.

2

Ibid., pp. 398-399.

28

SPATIAL

PATTERNS

perform a limited function of supplying pictorial atmosphere. 3 Amid this structure of canonical criticism, Heinze's specific examples of unsatisfied curiosity stand out as an intrusion of Kulturgeschichte,a virtually unliterary expectation of historical authenticity in epic. The form of a Roman camp, he insists, should correspond to the reader's own knowledge of such structures. Vergil places an unfair burden upon the reader when he leaves him to construct the plan of a camp for himself.4 However, it is not, finally, to Vergil's own failing, but rather to that of his cultural background, that Heinze attributes such lapses in clarity, observing how seldom ancient authors, even historians, succeeded, notwithstanding their own beliefs to the contrary, in conveying clear topographical pictures. I invoke again these observations which the consensus of contemporary Vergilian criticism might seem to have rendered obsolete, not because of their challenge to defend the value and significance ofVergil's descriptive style, but because of their account of the manner in which the poet's structures of perception guide the reader. 5 This matter also falls within the sphere of cultural history, although the questions it provokes are of a different species from those we raise when seeking authentic antiquarian information. The distinction between what we accept and what we supply in responding to Vergil's description is certainly related to our conception of his narrative style, in both its traditional and personal qualities, but this conception itself may be guided by our understanding of the contemporary framework of communication within which the poet addresses his audience. Certainly, historical objects and customs that scholarship can re-create for us may function within this framework, but its larger boundaries are conceptual and encompass the species of perceptual exercise that the poet may even instinctively expect the reader to perform with his guidance. As Ernst Gombrich pointed out, the uninitiated spectator finds it difficult to achieve a conceptual understanding of pictorial representations whose systems of spatial interrelationships are unfamiliar to him. 6 Thus we may examine Heinze's descriptive ellipsis a little further. Quintilian provides testimony that the Roman reader could be expected to create a visual image in response to verbal description, yet Heinze proposes that the descriptive techniques of Roman • Ibid., pp. 250--251. • Ibid., p. 353. • While most discussions ot Vergilian landscape, following after Posch! ( 1957), have been concerned primarily with the symbolic value of the poet's de-

scriptions, Recker ( 1971) approaches the topic by srudying the manner in which the order of descriptive language shapes the reader's point of view. • Gombrich (1957), pp. 122-125, and passim.

WORDS

AND PICTURES

29

literature did not allow the reader to do so in a very precise manner. At the same time, he suspects that Roman authors operated under the delusory belief that their descriptions were informative. Can we give credit to this delusion? If so, was it shared by the Roman reader? In addressing these propositions, we may reasonably seek models to demonstrate how the Roman reader might form visual images and relate them to his knowledge and experience. We cannot find such models by directly examining Vergil's style or by simple comparison ofVergil with any other Roman author. The time-honored method of comparing Vergil and Homer measures the poet's individuality-but little moreunless some further, external standard of measurement can be adduced to determine what aspects of personal style might be ascribed to, or indeed are enabled by, cultural codes of communication. Thus I shall introduce an experimental third element of comparison from the realm of visual art. The triangle of interrelationships created by the Odyssey,the Aeneid, and the Esquiline Odyssey landscapes presents a unique instance of painter and poet working with an identifiable common source. Whatever the background or models of the landscapes, they are in their present embodiment directed toward a Roman audience. 7 In them the painter reveals himself, like Vergil, as a reader and interpreter who transforms familiar Homeric narrative and The paintings which, with one exception (sec below) arc now located in the Vatican Museum were discovered in 1842 in the basement of a house on the Esquiline. A bibliography of early reports and discussions appears in Bcycn (1960), pp. 260-261. The circumstances of the discovery and the evidence for dating arc reviewed by von Blanckcnhagcn (1963), pp. 100-146 and pls. 44--53. Forming the upper section, or frieze wnc, of a long wall, the landscapes appear as a series of panels divided by red pilasters that must have extended to the base of the wall. This design is typical oflatc Republican decorative schemes. On this basis and that of the underlying opusin&ntum, the paintings arc dated 45 B.C. Almost immediately upon the discovery of the landscapes, archaeologists noticed that they scc:mto correspond to the mvtiona Ulixis pertopu,,which Vitruvius (Arch. 7.5.2) mentions in company with pug,uuTroituuuas subjects that were popular in the painting of the era just past. This correspondence has frequently been taken as a confirmation of the late Republican date. The eight-and-a-half panels in the Vatican collection form a visually continuous series depicting Odys7

scus' adventures in the supernatural world into which he and his companions arc driven by the winds off the Cape of Malca. The first of the surviving panels represents the meeting of Odysseus' men with a Lastrygonian princess in the harbor. There follow, in order, the emergence of the Lastrygonians from their city, the destruction of the Greek ships in the harbor, the passage from the Lastrygonian land to the island of Circe, and Odysseus' resistance to Circc's enchantments within her palace; then there is one faded panel, followed by the mccring with the shades in the underworld, the interior of the underworld (in a half-panel by the door), and finally, in a half-preserved panel that came to light only in the 1950s (Borelli [ 1956), pp. 289-300), Odysseus' passage by the rocks of the Sirens. The adventures follow the narrative order of the poem, but within the artistic strucrure of the frieze the painter has given a new kind of unity to these events by placing them within a topographically coherent panorama that appears as an unbroken landscape prospect, were it not for the interruption of the pilasters.

SPATIAL

30

PATTERNS

description into a new structure of communication. If, then, we can abstract some common structuring of perception from these parallel reinterpretations, and furthermore discover how this structure "works" in addressing itself to the spectator, we may be closer to understanding the imaginative resources for translating words into pictures which Roman audiences could employ to experience description, and conversely, how they might experience pictures by translating them into words. I begin this test of the directive power of the visual image by comparing two descriptive passages in Vergil and Homer whose differences have often been cited as an index of the poet's originality in many respects-his "creative" synthesis of sources, his interest in nature, his realism or pictorial precision, and even his geographical exactitude. 8 The subject of the descriptions is a natural harbor. As the Phaeacian ship bringing Odysseus to Ithaca sails into a secret, sheltered cove, the narrator prepares for the hero's homecoming with a detailed description of the site: There is, in the demos of Ithaca, a harbor belonging to Phorcys, the old man of the sea. Two projecting headlands steep and sharp, embrace the harbor. They keep off the great waves from the tempestuous winds outside. Within, well-oared ships can ride at anchor without mooring when they have come within the boundary of the cove. At the head of the harbor is a slender-leaved olive. Nearby is a cave, lovely in darkness, sacred to the nymphs they call Naiads. [Od. 13.96-106] 9 This harbor promises temporary rest and the beginning of self-renewal after the hero's long wanderings. In the Aeneid, Vergil creates a similar haven of safety for • Macrobius (SRtUrnlllia5.3.18) mentions the pas-

sageas an example of the way Vcrgil imitates Homer yet remains himself. Hcimc (1914), pp. 250-251, cites same passage to make a similar point to illustrate his belief that Vergil's description takes its departure from literary models and not from personal observation. Conversely, G. Williams ( 1968), pp. 638-639, speaks of the "realism" that shows through a synthesis of literary sources, while Recker( 1971 ), p. 39, conducts a close study of the passageas his model for analyzing the originality of Vergilian descriptions. Although the literary background of the description has always been recognized, the history of its reception reveals a tendency to equate descriptive precision with

topographical realism. Scrvius ( 1881 ), pp. 65-66,"" Am. 1.159, distinguishes between tupothesia,or description fashioned accorcling to poetic license, and topogrt,phia., description of a real thing. He bases this distinction on the lack of a harbor like this one in Carthage, yet he also refers to a traditional belief that Vergil had incorporated the physical characteristics of the harbor at Spanish New Carthage into his landscape to make it more credible. Ancient descriptions of the Spanish harbor are cited by R. G. Austin ( 1971 ), p. 71, ""Am. 1.159. • This translation is based on the text edited by T. W. Allen ( 1917). Subsequent translations from the Od_vssey arc by Richmond Lattimore: ( 1967).

WORDS

31

AND PICTURES

the epic wanderer. When Juno's destructive storm has been dispersed by the sea gods, Aeneas' fleet sails into a natural harbor on the African coast: Est in successu longo locus: insula portum efficit obiectu latenun, quibus omnis ab alto frangitur inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos. hinc atque hinc vastae rupes geminique minantur in caelum scopuli, quorum sub vertice late aequora tuta silent; tum silvis scaena coruscis desuper, horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra fronte sub adversa scopulis pendentibus antrum; intus aquae dukes vivoque scdilia saxo, Nymphanun domus, hie fessus non vincula navis ulla tenent, unco non alligat ancora morsu. [Aen. 1.159-169] (There is a place within a long recess where an island makes a harbor by the projection of its sides, against which every wave from the deep sea is broken and cuts itself against its returning curves. Here and here again vast cliffs and twin peaks rise threateningly against the sky and under their summit the broad, protected sea lies quiet. Then the back-drop, the forest, flashing gleams of light and the dark grove looms up with its bristling shadow. Under the opposing face is a cavern with hanging rocks and sweet waters and seats of stone, the home of the nymphs.) The topographies of the two enclosures are similar.10 Twin cliffs mark the entrance of each bay. Within each is a broad sheet of calm water and a cavern belonging to the nymphs. Even as we recognize this similarity, however, we realize the 10 T. M. Anderson (1974), pp. 37-103, discusscs these passages, although not in close comparison, in his two chapters on the "latent" space of the Homeric poems and the "visible" space of the Aeneid. Therefore his approach to the analysisof descriptions is similar to mine, but his interest is primarily in each author's realization of the pktorial qualities of his scenes. Therefore his concept of ''latent" Homeric space suggests that something is lacking in the de"The rich opportunities for scriptions of the Od_vssry:

varied color and description afforded by frequent changes in location are only panially realized" (p. 37). N. Austin (1975), pp. 144-158, focuses his discussion of space and Homeric landscape upon the "correspondence between the human and the natural orders." Although his practical evaluations of the poet's descriptive techniques often coincide with Anderson's, he judges the poem in its own terms rather than by extrinsic criteria.

32

SPATIAL

PATTERNS

Vergilian landscape demands that we read with a different kind of attention. The difference is more than the substitution of a forest for a single olive tree; it is a difference in descriptive organization. Homer lays out a simple paratactic series of cliffs, enclosure, olive tree, and cave, giving clear focus to each feature by his adjectives. The cliffs are sharp and steep, the olive slim-leaved, the cavern dusky. Each point in his succession stands out momentarily to catch our attention, but the poet moves decisively from one EJtl single object to another. The adverbial expressions he uses-Exi:o8EV,EVtoo8EV, XQato~,o.yx68L-fix his spatial locations in a progressive sequence that is coordinated with the syntactical sequence of the verbs to point the eye steadily forward. By their particular economy, the verbs contribute to our understanding of the symbolic value of the scene simultaneously with its physical structure. 11:on1tE1ttrJuim establishes the reassuring maternal curve of the harbor; oxE1t6wmshuts it off on its outer side from the sea; µtvoum brings the ships to a quiet rest at anchor. Certainly the landscape achieves a distinct form that the modern reader may well pause to imagine. Whether Homer's contemporary listener thus conceived a mental image we can hardly surmise, but such an activity is not dictated by the narrative. At no point in his building of the image does Homer himself reflect upon its totality or fill the space between the headland and the cave. He is apparently not concerned with the impression the visible juxtaposition of its features might give, only with the order in which a ship entering the harbor passes by them in its progress to the further shore. In Vergil's greatly revised description, we cannot miss the increase of verbal and syntactical complexity that unites the features of the landscape within a broad panorama. The initial words-locus, successulongo,portus-provide a progressive clarification of topography. The poet insists upon our knowing the outline of the place as if on a map, and he follows this definition by a precise filling in of details. In place of Homer's simple parataxis, he uses a structure of relative clauses that makes his verbal subordinations convey the spatial interdependence of topographical features quibus unda sescindat;quorumsub verticeJato.The structural complexity of the sentences is intensified by an agglomeration of prepositional phrases that does not, like Homer's, move the eye forward, but rather directs our attention up and down in space to contemplate the interassociation of objects mentioned: ab alto, in

WORDS

AND PICTURES

33

caelum,sub vertice,late, desuper,frontesub advma, intus. Similar visual interrelationships are established by the verbs. Minantur follows the line of the cliffs projecting upward toward the sky, while imminet relates the encircling forests to the waters below. These forests filling the shoreline present no clear outlines like that of Homer's slim-leaved olive. Instead their massed forms catch the eye as as impression of atrum nemus;hurrentiumbra. A close approximation shadow and light: siivisa>ruscis; of the real effects of distant vision appears in these words. Although the order of description concludes with the cavern beneath overhanging rocks at the farthest reach of the enclosure, the details are not seen from the point of view of one moving past them in space, but rather from a fixed location at the harbor mouth. In fact, Vergil never tells us at what place within this refuge Aeneas' men go on shore, "magno telluris amore egressi" (disembarking with an intense passion for dry land). Thus, all the more, we understand this panorama of shapes and shadows as an impression that meets the eye in a particular moment of time. If we consider these two passages as examples of descriptive enargeia-which is to impose a Roman definition upon Homer-we must admit that their stylistic differences make very little practical difference in the evocative clarity of their images. All the same, we would probably not be inclined to picture Vergil's landscape in the manner I have suggested if we were not accustomed to conceptualizing visual space by a mental approximation of distances between perceiver and object. Because we ourselves linger over the reconstruction of spatial relationships, we see Vergil's description as effecting a temporary pause in action, while Homer's is interwoven with the continuation of action. Our pause to assemble the visual image also controls our response to the significance of the landscape, as we can see by turning momentarily to a purely literary analysis of the symbolic import of each passage. From this point of view, Homer's simple scene can assume a complex function within its narrative context. Each detail presented signals the hearer's recollection of previous incidents and, less obviously, looks to future events. 11 The embracing headlands evoke the maternal reassurance oflthaca that Odvsseus has so often called the "nurse of men." The olive tree at the head of the harbor suggests Athena's protection of the hero, soon to be manifested once more as she watches over his sleep 11 N. Austin ( 1975), p. ll, defends his own symbolic reading of Homer's descriptions, arguing from

a structuralist's point of view for the importance: of symbolism in primitive mythic thought.

34

SPATIAL

PATTERNS

in the cave and then reveals herself as his guide and collaborator in the new strategies he must devise. Already the olive has figured in many crises of self-preservation during Odysseus' adventures-his escape from Polyphemus, his departure from Calypso's island and arrival in Phaeacia-and it will appear once more as the fabric of the unique marriage bed Penelope invokes as the final test of his identity. The tough and long-lived tree embodies Odysseus' determination to live and realize his identity as master of Ithaca. Its presence at his place of disembarkation is a trustworthy sign of his return to himself. Likewise, the cave where he will sleep away the last weariness of his journey is an emblem of homecoming, the positive side of an ambivalent archetype. The things concealed within it are fully as significant as the visible features of the landscape-the bees with their honey, the wine jars, and especially the weaving nymphs. Weaving is an occasional metaphor for Odysseus' cleverness. Within the Cyclops' cave he wove strategies of self-preservation (Od. 9.422). Once he has defeated the suitors, the final challenge of his homecoming will be that of restoring the personal complementarity between himself and the elusive weaver Penelope. Thus Homer's harbor description is a mythic paradigm that associates the physical features of the hero's homeland with the internal structure of his personality . 12 Our visual image of the landscape is almost irrelevant to a meaning that is not to be seen, but only understood within a context of motifs that has gained its symbolic value through recurrence. By contrast, the visual structure of Vergil's description is the direct cause of its significance within its narrative context. Unlike Odysseus, who enters his homeland, Aeneas is a stranger to the scene he surveys. The images of the harbor landscape have no recognizable association with his previous history. Vergil makes this foreignness explicit by his realistic accumulation of the details one needs to register the first impression of an unknown place. Because we ourselves strain to sec these details in their given interrelationships, we follow Vergil's descriptive language closely. In so doing, we may notice that there are actually two spatial patterns shaping the landscape. The one is close to Homer's model; the other is created by VerC. H. Taylor, Jr. ( 1967), pp. 87-99, discusses the interrelationship of nature in the world of the poem and the hero's progress towards self-realization. 12

WORDS

AND PICTURES

35

gil's added detail. The initial maplike description that incorporates a maternal language of enclosure (successu, sinus) outlines the broad expanse of peaceful water (late aequoratuta silent) and terminates with the pleasant cave of the nymphs, a source of pure water. Upon this simple Homeric plan, whose spatial dimensions are horiwntal, Vergil has imposed his own more complicated vertical structure of cliffs and forests, the interrelationships of which he defines in language consistently shaded with personification: minantur; imminet; horrenti;adversasubfronte. These words are not vivid personifications; they do not really animate natural objects, but they color them with an inexplicitly brooding tone that is much at odds with the Trojans' joy in their sheltered refuge. few modern readers have failed to respond with uneasiness to this brooding language, whether they explain it as a figurative projection of Aeneas' deep uncertainties merged into the reader's vision or as a more objective symptom of the potential danger of unknown Carthage. 13 Then scaena,the word that finally completes Vergil's unification of details within a comprehensive panorama, is so strikingly inappropriate to this natural setting that its meaning rests wholly upon the reader's personal construction. 14 It is not a descriptive word here, but a substitute for a description that provokes a chain of wandering associations. By evoking the theater, it may well seem to tame the ominous chiaroscuro of the wilderness into an orderly structure, yet a dressed stage provokes expectations of action, while at the moment neither Aeneas nor the reader knows what future e,·ent to expect. Thus Vergil's two spatial patterns, traced in differing currents of descriptive language, are consonant with two emotional currents of reassurance and apprehension attendant upon the immediate circumstances of the characters. 15 Suggestively counterbalanced in their close association with the realistic coherence of the landscape, these conflicting emotions engage the reader's own participation in the ambiguities of a fictional world as a replica of real experience. By calling the spatial structure of Vergil's description in this passage realistic, I do not mean to suggest that there are no effects of distant vision or panoramic Thus, e.g., P6schl ( 1957), pp. 231-234; Recker (1971), pp. 12-22; Segal (1981), pp. 71-72. 14 G. Williams ( 1968), pp. 642-643, comments: ~A bold metaphor thrown out without explanation. ... The brevity and economy of the expression lea\'es room for the imagination to expand." R. G. Austin ( 1971 ), p. 73, ad Am. l.164, pushes the comparison 13

further to suggest that Vergil was thinking of a particular kind of scenery sometimes seen on the Roman stage. " R~-cker( 1971 ), p. 28, gi\'es the fullest exposition of the contradictory effecrs of welcome and menace in this passage.

36

SPATIAL

PATTERNS

overviews in Homer. The reader may especially remember how the shipwrecked hero sights the outline of far-off Phaeacia appearing dimly above the waves, and how its features take form as he approaches until he sees breakers crashing against a rocky shore. All the same, these are single images appearing in succession. The reader does not assemble a comprehensive picture from them, because Odysseus presents them to mark the progress of his own action. The information thus provided induces our single-minded sharing in the hero's conscious experience. Likewise, Odysseus admits us into his thinking when he surveys the country of the Lastrygonians. I turn to this passage next because it is associated both with the Aeneid and with the Odyssey landscapes. The ominous coloring in Vergil's picture of the Carthaginian harbor has often been ascribed to his echoing of this description. 16 Certainly its narrative import is closer to his own than that of the Ithacan passage, for here also the hero arrives as a stranger in an unfamiliar country: Nevertheless we sailed on, night and day, for six days, and on the seventh came to the sheer citadel of Lamos, Telepylos of the Laistrygones, where one herdsman driving his flocks in hails another, who answers as he drives his flocks out; and there a man who could do without sleep could earn him double wages, one for herding the cattle and one for the silvery sheep. There the courses of day and night lie close together. There as we entered the glorious harbor, which a sky-towering cliff encloses on either side, with no break anywhere and two projecting promontories facing each other run out toward the mouth, and there is a narrow entrance there all the rest of them had their oar-swept ships in the inward part, they were tied up close together inside the hollow harbor, for there was never a swell of surf inside it, neither great nor small, but there was a pale calm on it. I myself, however, kept my black ship on the outside, at the very end, making her fast to the cliff with a cable, •• G. Williams () 968), p. 639; Reekcr () 971 ),

p. 18.

WORDS

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and climbed to a rocky point of observation and stood there From here no trace of cattle nor working of men was visible; all we could see was the smoke going up from the country. So I sent companions ahead telling them to find out what men, eaters of bread, might live here in this country. I chose two men, and sent a third with them, as a herald. They left the ship and walked on a smooth road where the wagons carried the timber down from the high hills to the city. [Od. 10.80--104] Information is the most important element of this description. As narrator, Odysseus selects details that anticipate the outcome of his adventure. In mentioning the towering cliffs, unbroken crags, and narrow entrance, he prepares us to see how his companions' ships come to be trapped by the Lastrygonians while he himself is able to escape because of his foresight in anchoring outside. In describing the interior countryside, he tells us only as much as we must know to enter into his thinking. Therefore the reader scarcely sees any landscape at all, in spite of the several lines devoted to it; instead there is an ambiguous absence of declarative signs-no trace of the workings of cattle or of men, except in the distance there are traces of smoke. As readers we are scarcely invited to fill in the uncertain spaces with images of our own, but simply to understand why Odysseus chooses four companions in his own place to inquire after the inhabitants. Not until these men begin their journey do we see a further element of the landscape, the broad road leading from city to shore. Although Vergil's towering cliffs may well recall those of Homer's Lastrygonian harbor, the physical similarity is not the primary reason we find them ominous. Rather, the ominous language ofVergil's description builds the context into which we transfer our associations. Similarly, recollections of other Homeric scenes-the rocks of Scylla and Charybdis, the Cyclops' harbor, the Island of the Sun-may sharpen our sensitivity to Aeneas' doubts or Olli'. suspicions of Carthaginian peril. The spatially coherent topography that maids the reader's first impressions assumes an autonomous character as a result of the poet's independent descriptive techniques. In a comparable manner the painter of the Odyssey landscapes produced his own visual image of the Lastrygonian harbor by superimposing a spatial structure

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upon the inexplicit territory of Homer's negative panorama. As we shall see, his composition was determined by his aim of achieving topographical coherence. The spectator's first impression may well be that the painter was unfamiliar with the text he illustrated. The event represented in the first extant panel of the landscape frieze is the meeting of three sailors and the Lastrygonian princess, who answers the sailors' inquiries by leading them into the city (Figure 1). 1n Homer this meeting takes place inland, beyond sight of the shore, at a spring outside the city gates where the princess has come for water. The spring appears in the painting, personified by a female figure to identify it clearly, but the city gates are nowhere in view. By creating a setting focused upon the great headland that marks the entrance of the harbor, the painter has moved the incident into the context of Odysseus' description. The reason for this changed location, as we may infer from the succeeding panel, is the preservation of foreground continuity. The towers of the distant Lastrygonian city appear at the horizon of the rocky landscape through which the giants come rushing to attack Odysseus' ships by the shore (Figure 2), so the painter has followed Homer precisely in locating the city far inland. By the same token, he has interpolated a panorama to fill the distance between shore and city. 17 This panorama would not, however, engage the spectator's interest or recall the poem if it did not adumbrate the fateful significance of the meeting between the princess and the men by evoking a sense of problematic correlation between appearances and reality equivalent to that in Odysseus' own survey of the countryside. The painter has done this-and successfully-by creating his topography between the lines, as it were, from the very landscape elements that Odysseus does not see. The open country between cliff and city is represented as a pastoral country. Although the animals do not belong to the description-where their very absence provo~es caution-the painter has clearly borrowed them from the earlier passage where Odysseus introduces the Lastrygonian land by speaking of cattle and sheep herding. The two passages are contradictory. Homerists have explained the first as a formulaic description intended to locate the Lastrygonian country in the far Bcyen (1960), pp. 270-271. sees a cenain carelessness about the logical structuring of the landscape in this redistribution of Homeric topography, but he 17

believes that the questions raised cannot be satisfactorilv resolved.

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northern land of the midnight sun. 18 Translated into visual terms, however, the placid sheep by the shore and the cattle in the sunlit plain beyond fill out a landscape that is perhaps as reassuringly deceptive as Homer's road that leads to the city. 19 But this reassuring quality is graphically offset by the wild shoreline landscape itself. The broad road that leads to the city has been replaced by a steep track through rugged cliffs by which the princess descends to the spring. Between this cliff and the field beyond, there is no close visual continuity. The cliff faces in the wrong direction to serve as an entrance to the Lastrygonian country, and with the harbor and boats lying behind it on the right, it appears to float in space, presenting the image of a wild and lonely place calculated to intimate danger. The iconography of the scene makes these intimations explicit. The forms of Odysseus' three companions stand out sharply against the dark mouth of a cave beneath the overhanging brow of a cliff. There is no Homeric basis for this cave, but there is a strong basis in visual tradition. Rocky arches that symbolize the entrance to the underworld appear frequently in South Italian vase-painting to surround figures doomed to death-as these three comrades of Odysseus are.20 In the panel representing the hero's visit to the shades, we see another arch of grander form as the principal feature of the landscape. Thus the cliff and cave serve not only as a compositional center but also as a symbolic center for the painting, which becomes by this token an overt drama of deception. There is only one way to read this new version of Homer's story. The companions of Odysseus are about to accept the guidance of the Lastrygonian princess through the wilderness to the city. They are not, like Homer's men, the victims of misjudged appearances, but rather victims of a treachery well calculated to entrap men in a strange land. Even as we see the snare laid, we sense the unwariness of the companions in the helpless appearance of their small, white-dad figures against the harsh forms of wild nature. No experienced Roman commander would have accepted such a guide as the Lastrygonian princess through a rugged defile that con11

Page (1973), pp. 39-48. This passage defines and locates the country, but it has no relationship to Odvsscus' adventure. 19The distinctly pastoral character of this country· side has been mentioned in many descriptive analyses of the friczc-c.g., Wocnnann (1876), pp. 323-324;

Nogara ( 1907), p. 40; and von Blanckcnhagcn ( 1963), pp. 105. Bcyen ( 1960), p. 270, comments especially on the deceptiveness of this appearance. 20 Phillips (1968), pp. 11-12; K.K. Schaumberg ( 1969), 44--45, make this observation independently and virrually simultaneously.

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ceals the country beyond. In making this landscape visible, the Odyssey painter gives an altered slant to the story. He presents the spectator with images that require the reader to contribute his own interpretation to be clearly understood. The incorporation of visible space within the Odyssey landscapes and their consequent topographical continuity are the reasons they have, in the writing of Roman art history, served as a point of departure for the definition of a Roman style.21 Since I am suggesting that certain innovative elements in Vergil's descriptive technique address themselves to the reader's capacity to conceptualize a unified visual space, let us consider the implications of space as a mark of Roman originality, before looking further at the landscapes. Given that Pliny, as our major source for ancient art history, tells us almost nothing to help us distinguish Roman compositions from Greek, the problem of identifying Roman characteristics in Roman painting has been left for later art historians to solve.22 It is far more difficult than assessing the individuality of Vergil, but not dissimilar to the problem of establishing "das Plautinische im Plaute." Comparative methods are demanded in the face of an uncertain background that makes comparison virtually one-sided. The background for painting is even more uncertain than that of comedy, since our ideas about Greek painting depend on indirect evidence rather than on real fragments. Although a large number of paintings are regarded as adaptations of Greek originals, what these originals looked like remains purely conjectural. All the same, investigations of painting have followed a course that is parallel to those of comedy in formulating analytical methods that have led steadily toward a conviction of independence in Roman works and the existence of genuinely Roman traditions. In the case of comedy where compositional structures remain the indeterminables, these methods proceed from part to whole. Elements of expansion that address themselves unquestionably to Roman audiences-Latin wordplay, RoThe notion that Roman anists contributed spatial aniculation to landscape grows out of late-nineteenth-century efforts to describe an evolutionary development proper to Roman art by identifying stylistic traits that persisted into Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Thus Wickhoff ( 1900) associates the phenomenon of spatial panorama with that of continuous narrative. He assigns a late date to these 21

developments, erroneously insisting (p. 154) that the Odyssey landscapes arc works of the Trajanic period in which he sees the continuous narrative method reaching full aniculation. 22 Brendel ( 1979), pp. 94-95, describes the study of Roman art history as a search for methodology conducted without guidance from the creators and the original audience of Roman art.

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man topical allusions, elaborations on favorite Roman myths-show a consistency that spans immediate differences in dramatic situation and permits recognition of Plautine reworking in larger units of dialogue and scene. This method does not yield a definitive untangling of Plautus' total contribution to any given play, but it has led to the recognition that originality does not demand largescale revision. The comedies are no less genuinely Roman for not being new in every part. Likewise in the study of Roman painting one must accept the proposition that originality does not preclude a blending of Roman and Greek. Here the criteria are derived from observations on composition for which the Odyssey landscapes have served as a key. The conspicuous feature of these paintings that finds analogies across a broad spectrum of comparison is the distribution of figures and landscape elements within a visibly unified extension of space.23 The indirect evidence of Greek pictorial relief sculpture seems to indicate that such complexity of spatial articulation did not at least exist in that Greek art form, 2• while the consistency of spatial self-consciousness within a large number of Roman compositions favors the assumption that their artists commanded modes of innovation that had the double capacity of transforming borrowed subjects and producing genuine originals. 25 All the same, the predilection for describing spatial unity does not produce a uniform Roman manner of developing representational patterns. 26 The mode of perspective we see in the Odyssey landscapes is generally "naturalistic," which is to say it procures an empirical illusion of spatial recession through the diminution of background figures and the attenuation of background colors. Many other examples of Roman art employ a "symbolic" perspective that signifies spatial organization merely by the diagrammatic placement of objects on a single ground plane. As I suggested, the horizontal and vertical dimensions in Vergil's description of the Car23 Rodenwalt ( 1909), pp. 24-35, regarded the frieze as a primary example of the "free-hand" Roman style of drawing figures and distributing them in space. On this basis he arguedthat the habit of creatinga deep and open foreground space gave, even to Roman copies, a greater sense of recessive depth than the Grcclr.originals would have had. All the same, Brendel (1979), pp. 2~9. criticizes the notion that a simple concern for spatial representation is a sufficient criterion for distinguishing between Greek art and Roman art. & he observes (p. 69), "The term

spRUis too general for the effective investigation of Roman art. What must take place instead is an investigation of the various specific devices which express spatial experience in ancient art." 24 Dawson (1941), pp. 1-49, reviews the evidence. A more comprehensive study now is by Carroll (1983). /' Von Blanckcnhagcn (1962, 1968) makes such distinctions. 26 Brendel ( 1979), pp. 12S-133, discussesthis aspect of stylistic inconsistency in Roman art.

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thaginian harbor imply a combination of these two modes of vision, and the two are frequently combined in Roman painting. From a purely an-historical point of view, patterns of spatial representation provide a basis for stylistic discrimination among heterogeneous strains in Roman an. The naturalistic mode of perspective is frequently considered "classical,"and the symbolic "nonclassical."27 As scholars have gradually become willing to acknowledge, these two lcindsof perspective schemata occur interchangeably, and even contemporaneously, throughout Roman an history, showing no apparent logic of chronological evolution or obedience to canons of period style. Thus it is clear that the modes of articulating space in Roman painting are not the simple product of consistent technical progress within an artistic community, but rather a more flexible means of answering to the representational demands of subject and situation. Although the schemes and techniques of spatial representation may belong to the inherited resources of artistic tradition, their specific applications are conceptual. Unlike the drafting or copying of figures, spatial representation demands not merely technical skills-a sense of proportion or the means to shape form-but also a larger view of communicative strategy that provides a rubric for the spectator's response. This is especially obvious when compositions employ symbolic perspective with its clearly designated function of supplying information, but it is also true of compositions in naturalistic perspective. Roman methods of simulating spatial recession do not produce a perfectly systematized illusion (like those of Renaissance painting) to control the spectator's point of view. Rather, they offer an informative approximation of illusion toward which the spectator must establish his own point of view.28 Consequently we may find a communicative interplay between the rhetoric of spatial depiction and the spectator that appeals as strongly to faculties of interpretation as to aesthetic sensibility. The operation of this communicative interplay can be well demonstrated by 211bid., pp. 129-133. 28In defining the idiosyncratic nature of Roman spatial representation, Panofsky ( 1953), p. 9, distinguishes between the systematic perspective "construction" of posttncdicval art and the perspective "representation" of Roman art. In the latter instance, as he observes, "rocks, trees, ships and tiny figures arc frequently distributed over vast areas of land and sea; but

space and things do not seem to coalesce into a unified whole or to expand beyond our range of vision. The volume and color of all the objects arc strongly af. fcctcd by the action of light and atmosphere, but neither their diminution in size nor their optical attenuation is expressed in terms of a consistent relation to distance."

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further reading of the Odyssey landscapes. As I already suggested, these paintings engage the spectator in interpretation as a direct consequence of a naturalistic topography that imposes its own conditions upon the order and pace of a familiar narrative. It is not surprising that the written record of interpretation shows a high degree of subjective variation. Some scholars have judged the paintings quite faithful to their literary background; others grant them only a tenuous association with Homer's text. The painter's interest in creating the landscape has often been called greater than his interest in telling the story. 29 More accurately, one may say that the incorporation of landscape into the story proves disorienting to the spectator's recollections and compels him to discover a new basis for understanding its events. This is clear when we look at the second panel of the frieze with its striking effects of spatial recession (Figure 2). 30 Here, as already mentioned, the walls and towers of the distant Lastrygonian city stand at the horiron of the rocky landscape through which the giants come rushing to attack Odysseus' ships by the shore. This handsome and well-constructed scene is far from capturing the dramatic value of the event it illustrates. In Homer's narrative, the reader follows a swift series of horrifying revelations. Under the guidance of the princess, Odysseus' emissaries enter the city to find a queen "as big as a mountain" who summons her husband from the assembly, and he in tum sounds a call to his people. The pursuit from city to shore eclipses all sense of spatial distance within one rapid, dramatic sentence (Od. 10.119-120): " ... the powerful Lastrygonians came swarming up from every direction, / tens of thousands of them, and not like men, like giants." At this moment the Homeric reader is a vicarious participant in the action, sharing the speaker's nightmare impressions of size and number and speed. Not so the reader of the painting, who can only find such expectations disappointed if he brings them to the scene. Because the Odyssey painter's articulated topography requires a literal representation of the far distance between city and shore, he can no more convey the swift pace of Homer's action than fill out his hyperbolic enumer29 The idea that landscape is so much the predominant clement in the frieze that it could stand alone without its "staffage" figures runs through several major discussions--e. g., Wocrmann ( 1876), pp. 323324; Nogara ( 1907), p. 40; von Blanckenhagen ( 1963 ), p. 105. 30 These interpretations arc at variance with those

of Wocrmann, (1876), pp. 324-329 and Bcycn ( 1960), pp. 269-286, both of whom place heavy emphasis upon the painter's fidelity to Homer. But for both these authors the simple fact that the landscapes contain the people Homer mentions engaged in the actions he describes constitutes ample fidelity to the text.

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ation of the enemy. Instead of sharing in the participants' nightmare of massed giants at his back, the spectator observes a few forms scattered over the landscape. They are isolated figures, moving with no appearance of common purpose, and several are occupied like simple workmen in wrestling boulders and trees. 31 Although Antipater, the king, appears among them sounding his cry, we have no visual indication that this gesture has initiated the attack. Because all these figures are dwarfed by the rocks and trees of their own landscape, we must make a conscious effort to recall their gigantic stature, especially when we look at the background figures, which are painted small in keeping with the scale of perspective. The concentrated energy of Homer's narrative account is wholly diffused within the spaces of the landscape. While the first panel of the frieze reordered the given facts of the Homeric narrative to procure topographical continuity, here it is primarily the quality of the action that has been changed. Yet it is difficult to think that even an uninformed spectator would mistake the import of this scene. What is lacking in dramatic violence is compensated for by the interpolation of visual effects. The savagery of these Lastrygonians is actually conferred upon them by the wild nature of the landscape, with its bristling trees and threatening rocks. The naturalistically extended spaces of this landscape intensify its hostility, and the distant Lastrygonian city, which the spectator must make a conscious effort to identify, shares in its glowering desolation. Within this environment the forms of the Lastrygonians, few and scattered as they are, assume an elemental brutality that appears to derive from the earth itself. Thus the painter's representational vocabulary has filled the descriptive silences of the Homeric narrative with its own code of communication. To tell his story, he has used the interaction of figures and landscape. Likewise the sixth panel, which depicts the encounter between Odysseus and Circe, depends upon a vocabulary of spatial representation to communicate the quality of the adventure. The architecture of Circe's palace dominates the scene (Figure 4). A juncture of two segmented walls opens an interior view of the palace to the spectator. To the left we see the inner side of the entrance portal, where Circe ·" Beycn ( 1960), p. 273, speaks of the impressive bronzed forms of the giants and of their grim city, even adding that the forms in the backgroW1darc no

less threatening for their diminished size, but all this is in keeping with his attempt to find as close a correspondence as possible.

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welcomes Odysseus. Beside this, in ambiguous juxtaposition, a colonnaded hemicycle suggests the side of an open courtyard with colonnaded rooms beyond. Here we see Odysseus when he has drained off Circe's drugged liquor, threatening the enchantress with drawn sword while she clasps his knees in supplication. Such juxtapositions of two successive stages of a single episode are commonly called continuous narrative. The spectator must interpret them by arranging the acts in temporal order and, even more important, by supplying explanatory links from his own knowledge. Although the sequence of actions in this panel appears obvious, the spectator still must supply much information, for the painter's choice of representational moments is particularly elliptical in its omission of any factual allusion to Circe's magic. 32 The supernatural character of Homer's Circe episode resides largely in the figure of the woman herself. Through Odysseus' eyes we see her singing sweetly as a goddess and welcoming strangers with a grace that allays suspicion. The brilliant and luxurious interior of her palace also sets fears aside and appeals to a love of creature comforts. As victims ofCirce's magic, Odysseus' comrades trap themselves by their readiness to believe appearances. Little trace of the goddess's compelling charm appears in the small painted Circe of the frieze, shown at the very moment when her enchantments have failed before Odysseus. At the same time, however, the appearance of her palace has taken on a new character. The building stands in an open area at the center of the composition, highlighted against a background of hills and trees. While these wooded areas are shaded, the walls and level spaces of the courtyard are flooded with sunlight. The painter may well have been guided by Homer's description of the palace in a bright clearing among forest glens, 33 but he has not followed the text so faith" Such is not the case with another work of Roman art that combines the same two figure groups. The central panel of the Tabu/11IliRaiRondinini in Milan, ina small sculptured tablet illustrating the Od_-mey, cludes three scenes in continuous narrative: (I) Odvsscus, standing before Circe's gate, receives the protective herb moly from Hermes; (2) Odysseus threatens the enchantress; (3) Circe restores the transformed comradt.-s (discussion and illustration arc in Weitzmann [ 1970], pp. 40--41 and pl. 3). Here also the scenes take place within a colonnaded interior, but in-

stead of a backdrop it is an enclosure drawn in bird'seye perspective that provides an interior diagram of the house. Although the coincidence between the two representations may suggest that they belong to the same tradition, the frieze painter's use of iUusionistic perspective creates a less informative and more atmospheric scene. 33 I agrt.-e with Woermann (1876), p. 327, and Beycn ( 1960). p. 281, that the landscape here is a faithful rendition of Homer.

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fully as to re-create its reassuringly glittering interior. No area of the composition is as deeply shaded with darkness as the spaces we see behind the columns of the hemicycle. The sunlight that suffuses the walls and glances off the surfaces of the columns deepens these interior shadows by contrast; they focus our attention and yet provide a barrier to our sight. Behind this barrier the spectator must imagine the mysterious reaches of the palace with its undefined perils of enchantment. Thus Circe's environment has become the visible evidence of her supernatural powers instead of their disguise. The psychological appeal of her charms is not evident; it has been replaced by visual adumbrations of an elemental communication between sorcery and the obscure mysteries of nature. The dangerous quality of Odysseus' adventure is to be comprehended within the structure of a setting that effects the transformation of psychological magic into practical magic. We understand this setting not as merely a picturesque embellishment of the story but as a participating element of the narrative. In the face of these interpretations, one may hastily object that the ancient spectator will not have examined the relationship between the frieze and the Homeric text so precisely, and certainly not to the extent of comparing their variations in narrative point of view. This is precisely the right conclusion. Our experience of the frieze detaches itself from our experience of the Odyssey. As an inexact visual approximation of the poem, the painting makes itself available to spectators with varying degrees of residual knowledge by establishing its own conditions of narrative integrity. In reading its story, the spectator must give full value to all the painter's resources of communication: his spatial structure, his shorthand for action, his atmospheric effects. However often it has been argued that the landscape alone would retain its pictorial coherence were its figures subtracted, one can scarcely argue the contrary-that these particular figures, separated from their pictorial context, could achieve a coherent communication of their story. 34 Their narrative sig34

This closely integrated relationship of landscape and figures is reason for excluding Beyen's proposal ( 1960), pp. 290--291, that the frieze is based upon an earlier megalography. According to the specifications outlined by Weitzmann ( 1970), pp. 12--81, book illustrations could conceivably have provided a source for the figure groups, although not for the landscape background. In denying the possibility of such a

source, von Blanckenhagen (1963), pp. 142-144, seems really to deny only Schefold's suggestion ( l 960) that the entire frieze was copied from illustrated manuscripts. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that a painter who created so much by way of background would have felt the need to copy his figure groups literally.

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nificance must be reconstructed from their visual interaction with their surroundings. In assembling his narrative from the figures presented by the frieze, the spectator is likely to arrive at a tale that has emphases different from those of Homer. Losing sight of Odysseus' wily and calculating point of view, and seeing him only from outside, as one participant in his story, we are less likely to think of the mental energies elicited by his wanderings and more likely to contemplate the physical challenges posed by their natural environment. The factual topography of the frieze fosters such a practical impression. Within this environment, the boundaries between natural and supernatural causation may even seem blurred by the objectification of all physical phenomena in a legible vocabulary of wild and civilized places, of darkness and light. In sum, the spectator is likely to arrive at a story that is more factual and more probable than Homer's-prejudiced as he must be by his visual understanding of the places in which it transpires. One may venture to say that this more factual story is also a more Roman story, but the point remains to be demonstrated. The contributory interassociation between spatial articulation and narrative address in the Odyssey Frieze provides the grounds for comparison between the landscapes of the frieze and those of the Aeneid. Often enough the frieze has been called "Vergilian" in appreciation of certain visual effects-its picturesque forms, its atmospheric subtlety, and its subordination of human figures to nature. 35 These impressionistic comparisons appear to grasp at correspondences that bear some relationship to cultural history, but such surface resemblances will become meaningful only if we are able to place them within a larger structure of communication shared by the poem and the frieze. Indeed, the simple vocabulary of topographical phenomena that enters into these two works is not significantly different from that of the Odyssey,insofar as all three incorporate a repertoire of exotic scenes categorically appropriate to epic wanderings. The telling difference between one and another representative configuration lies in the way each focuses our attention. As I suggested in my preliminary close comparison between Homer's Cave of Phorcys and Vergil's Carthaginian harbor, the verbal and syntactical complexity of the latter description demands a concentrated exercise 35

Bc:ycn( 1960), p. 268, speaks of the world of the frieze as one far from all culture and from inhabited

places, but he concludes by commenting on its "Roman" clement as a "Vcrgilian love ofnarure" (p. 347).

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of visual imagination from the reader. Since this is certainly an exercise in which the subjectivity of individual imagination plays a large part, the Odyssey landscapes can lend some historical guidance to our responses. Their model of illusionistic perspective opens up the possibility that the Roman reader might conceivably have responded to Vergil's rubric of shapes and distances, of light and shade, by formulating a mental landscape with coherent spatial interassociations. Such an analogy between the structures of verbal design and visual design does not make the Odyssey landscapes Vergilian. It does, however, help us see some potential significance in the near-contemporaneity of the two works through which we may go a step toward recovering what H. R. Jauss called the "horizon of expectation"-the range of artistic possibility that pertains between author and audience in a given period. 36 Within this horizon of expectations, we do not need to propose a specific interchange of influences between the frieze and the poem to explain their mutual reliance upon illusionistic perspective as an effective structure of communication. It is sufficient to see that this option was within the available range of artistic possibilities. Before further considering the implications of this proposition for our understanding of the rhetorical strategies of spatial articulation in the Aeneid, we should expand its historical foundation by looking directly at the significance of illusionistic perspective in the frieze within its contemporary artistic context. As one of our earliest Roman landscape paintings, the frieze has always seemed remarkable, even mysterious, for its technical and conceptual sophistication. The construction of the wall on which it was discovered has been taken as evidence that the frieze was executed during the late Republic, at some time between 50 B.c. and 40 B.C. Within this period it is without extant parallel or precedent, 37 yet the man"'Jauss ( 1982), pp. 25-32 and passim. In general, Jauss applies this conceptual term to works as manifestations of what their own genre might be expected to produce, with attention to the manner in which the reader's expectations might be either satisfied or baffled. 37 Even though the frieze has no extant parallel, Vitruvius' reference (Arch. 7.5.2) to pug,u,eTrouimu and m-atwnesUlixisper topiRmight be construed as indicating that it was not unique in its own time but representative of a common type. The controversial question remains insoluble. Bc:ycn ( 1960), pp. 346-

347, regarded the Odyssey painter as an innovator who synthesized new landscapes out of elements contained in several of the second-style genres that Vitruvius discusses. He attributes the "heroic actionsn specificallyto the heroic megalography which he assumes would have been represented with only vestigial landscape. Von Blanckenhagcn (1963), pp. 132-134, assumes, on the basis of his belief in the South Italian origins of the frieze, that the Esquiline paintings might be one of several copies of a great original, all of which provided the basis for Vitruvius' remark. Andreae (1962), p. 116, argues that the full cycle of

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ner in which its representational strategies address the spectator may be more meaningful if we contrast them with those shown by earlier and roughly contemporary work. In its employment of spatial recession and full articulation of topography, the Odyssey frieze differs conspicuously from another painted narrative frieze, found also on the Esquiline, which is composed of scenes from the legendary history of Lavinium and Alba Longa. 38 Although the subject matter indicates that this is an original Roman composition, the style belongs to the common Greco-Roman classicizing mode. Each narrative unit comprises a large group of figures engaged in concerted activity-battles, councils, the building of a city wall. The actions of the individual figures within the separate units are temporally simultaneous, so that the spectator need not adjust the narrative sequence to their space. Because the types of scenes are themselves so conventional that they might form part of any number of stories, some external information is required for understanding the sequence of narrative units. 39 Granted, however, that the spectator can identify the principal figures, the events themselves dramatize the history. The narrative procedures of the painting are those of the classical sculptured frieze. The organization of the figures also resembles the traditional linear pattern of frieze composition. Each narrative unit comprises two files of closely grouped figures with consistent overlapping on the foreground plane. The close interassociation of figures in battle scenes where foreground and background warriors are entangled obtains precisely that dramatic impression of conflict which, although common in classical art, is lacking in the battles of the Odyssey Frieze. Since the spatial separation of foreground and background planes in the historical frieze is minimal, there is virtually no reduction in the size of the background figures, but a noticeable diminution in the intensity of color distinguishes the recessed plane. Likewise, the forms on this plane are less clearly articulated by shadows and highlights. This use of color as an auxiliary means of indicating spatial location suggests Odysseus' adventures was represented on this wall, beginning with Polyphcmus in the first intercolumniation, and that the opposite wall of the room was decorated with a complementary series of pug,uu Trouinaefor a perfect correspondence with Vitruvius' list.

·'" Robert (1878), pp. 234-274; plate in Monlnst 10, pls. 60 and 60a. di Mino (1983), pp. 163-164 and 170-171, pls. 3, 4, has a color reproduction of the frieze.. 39 Robert ( 1878) p. 239, describes the scene divisions of the Esquilinc frieze.

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that the painter intended to reproduce the contrast of high and low relief that distinguishes the foreground and background planes of a sculptured frieze. Although one may not want to consider this painting as an overt imitation of sculpture, still it utilizes the possibilities and observes the limitations of that medium. 40 By contrast, the Odyssey frieze, with its designation of deep spatial recession through a manifold series of planes, produces a visual effect that is virtually beyond the capacities of sculptured relief. It is not the mere fact of its employing aerial perspective, but rather the conceptual clarity of its system, that is remarkable. Certain late Republican examples of Campanian landscape painting in monochrome utilize the basic principles of faded color and attentuated form to procure a spatial distancing of isolated background objects. 41 These isolated objects are painted without highlights and shadows in pale tones of the foreground color. Such monochrome landscapes, which are always contextually situated as friezes or decorative plaques, are clearly intended as simulations of carved relief.42 Although the compositions lack topographical coherence, the effects of aerial perspective are realistic insofar as it renders background objects too featureless for certain identification. These landscapes reflect the experience of empirical perception in the same manner as Homer's description of the dim outlines of the island of Phaeacia appearing over the edge of the sea. The Odyssey landscapes differ from these Campanian examples not only in their employment of polychrome and multiple levels of recession, but also in their provision for the spectator's identification of distant forms. From foreground to background, the painter has indicated the sequence of spatial planes with systematic alterations in the tone and intensity of colors, but at each level he also articulated some contrast of highlight and shadow to mold the visible surfaces of objects. Consequently, the forms of the landscape appear, as Peter von Blanckenhagen puts it, 40 Koeppel ( 1982 ), pp. 524--528, discusses the interchangeability of background effects in painting and historical relief sculpture. In his opinion, painting was the first artistic medium for portrayal of historical scenes in Rome. •' The largest collection of such panels is in the Villa Oplontis at Torre Annunziata, published by de Franciscis (1975), pp. 1-16 and pl. 1-39. The landscapes in plates 31-32 make a sharp distinction in

color between foreground and background, but they arc probably third-style paintings later than the Odysseyfria.e. Then: is yet no publication of the secondstyle landscapes that show such a distinction, but these an: described briefly by Ling (1977), pp. 1-16. • 2 Bamabci( 190 l ), p. 80, makes such a suggestion to explain the monochrome coloring of a landscape panel on the rear wall of the "cubiculum" in this villa.

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"to have weight, volume and precise location." 43 This technique goes beyond rough simulation of visual appearances to reveal a conceptual awareness of perception as a cognitive process in which the physical impression of sight must be completed by mental recognition. The closest Roman literary counterpart to the Odyssey landscapes in this capacity is not in Vergil but in Lucretius. In his discussion of vision and illusion in book 4 of De Rerum Natura, Lucretius attributes the loss of solidarity that constitutes the illusion of aerial perspective to the actual physical flattening of images as they travel through the air. His chief example of the phenomenon is the manner in which square towers appear round to the distant spectator: ... aera per multum quia dum simulacra feruntur, cogit hebescere eum crebris offensibus aer. haec ubi suffugit sensum simul angulus omnis, fit quasi ut ad tornum saxorum structa terantur, nee tamen ut coram quae sunt vereque rotunda, sed quasi adumbratim paulum simulata videntur. [4.358-364] (Since images, while they travel, are carried through much air, by frequent collisions the air causes their shapes to be blunted. When, for this reason, each angle has eluded our perception, it is as if the structures of stone had been turned on a lathe, not, however, with the unmistakable appearance of objects that are truly rounded, but rather like something that imitates roundness by shading.) More important to Lucretius than the simple phenomenon itself is its revelation of the objective and subjective aspects of perception. The physical conditions of sight require a compensatory process of interpretation. Without an understanding of the physical facts of atomic conflict-the interaction of simulacra and air-the appearance of round towers in the distance would invalidate the sense evidence that is so fundamental to the Epicurean system. The spectator must counteract this deception by understanding the dynamics of atomic movement. Once he has made an adjust•• Von Blanckenhagcn (1963), pp. 117-118.

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ment between theoretical knowledge and practical impression, objective understanding is possible. The perceived image takes its place within a coherently systematized estimation of the external world. The process of vision that the painter has translated into the frieze is very similar. The towers of the Lastrygonian town are an ambiguous compromise between square and round. They have blunt angles with one side in shadow, but no dearcut planes. Their appearance precisely fits the descriptive rubric of the sentence in which Lucretius explains how distant rectangular towers have an appearance that is not really round, but rather a bit simulated as if they had been turned on a lathe. Compared with the indistinct rendering of background objects in Campanian monochrome landscape, the visually rationalized articulation of the Lastrygonian city suggests the self-consciousness of the painter's concern for dear factual communication. One cannot reliably argue that the painter gained his understanding of aerial perspective from the De Rerum Natura, or even from its Epicurean sources, although the latter might have influenced the traditions in which he worked. More important, however, as in the case of Vergil's harbor description, the coincidental analogy of verbal and visual structure is witness to a contemporary sensitivity to the processes of perception that goes beyond a simple accounting of things seen to allow for the practical psychology of vision and for establishment of the spectator's point of view. The consistency of Lucretius' interest in the perceiver's reception of the visual image appears in other passages of the De Rerum N atura----as, for instance, his well-known comparison of the invisible seething of atomic motion with the spectacle of a grazing flock on a green hillside (D.R.N. 2.317-322). In this description, the poet supplies an effect of nearly simultaneous double vision. He enlarges objects at dose focal range-well-fed lambs, grasses gem-studded with dew-and blends these together in patches of color and light, a flash of white radiance glancing off a green hill. In this re-creation of visual experience, Lucretius plays off the empirical effects of sense perception against his reader's presumable firsthand experience of the subject to provide a model of how understanding may enlarge unseen truth. Another not dissimilar distant vision in book 5 celebrates the order human agriculture has imposed upon the visible landscape:

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inque dies magis in montem succedere silvas cogebant infraque locum concedere cultis, prata lacus rivos segetes vinetaque laeta collibus et campis ut haberent, atque olearum caerula distinguens inter plaga currere posset per tumulos et convallis camposque profusa; ut nunc esse vides vario distincta lepore omnia, quae pomis intersita dukibus omant arbustisque tenent felicibus obsita circum. [5.1370-1378] (And more and more, every day men drive the forests to withdraw to the mountains and to yield place to cultivated spaces below, so that they may possess meadows and pools and streams and crops and promising vineyards on the hills and plains, and so that the gray-green line of olive trees marking out boundaries may run extended over hillocks and hollows and fields. So now you see all things marked out with the grace of diversity where these serve as adornment placed among sweet apple trees or hold their ground hedged about with flourishing orchards.) Unlike the description in book 4, quoted earlier, this one has no scientific principle to illustrate; instead, it figures within the poet's history of human civilization. The landscape thus adumbrated has no specific formal shape of its own in spite of its role as a testimony to order. It is an evocation of visual possibilities-shapes, names, and colors-ready for the spectator to form into whatever pattern his own recollections of the agricultural countryside may dictate. For full communication, the descriptive rhetoric of these passages requires an imaginative response that is more complicated than the formation of a single picture in fixed perspective. The reader needs to adjust his simulation of perceptual experience to the inferences of varied spatial designations. He must change his focus on the landscape he imagines and look at it from diverse points of view. Granted this flexibility of response to verbal suggestion, he should in tum have an instinct for resolving whatever visual contradictions might confront him in the perspective design of visual art.

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The illusionistic perspective of the Odyssey Frieze requires such adjustments in point of view. It is not really, as Erwin Panofsky once suggested, the precise equal of the scientifically schematized illusions to which the Renaissance painters have accustomed us which determine the spectator's fixed point of view "in the manner of a window frame." Those structures establish their own internal measures of visual credibility, while the frieze presents, instead, a corrected approximation of empirical experience whose coherence is supplied partly by the spectator:"' The instinct by which the spectator adjusts his visual orientation to the landscape is similar to that by which he adjusts his knowledge of Homer to the pictorial narrative. Furthermore, the perspective of the frieze contains visual inconsistencies that may be seen as resulting from the coordination of its spatial system and its narrative content. 45 Sometimes, for example, its horizon line appears to have been misplaced for the sake of extending its field of action. The effect is particularly noticeable in the scene where the Lastrygonians attack Odysseus' ships (Figure 3). 46 Here two contradictory spatial systems have been superimposed. The spectator looks at a concentration of violent activity in the foreground, where several ships have been shattered, yet beyond this he sees a tranquil reach of harbor where other ships rest undisturbed. Peter von Blanckenhagen typifies such inconsistencies as a result of the painter's translation of the frieze from its original South Italian, Hellenistic form into the decorative idiom of Roman late Republican painting. 47 One does not, however, need to discuss the likely origins of the frieze to agree that its present form 44 To the contrary, Panofsky (1953), p. 9, observes that the frieze so litc:rallvrealized Alberti's definition of a perspective painting as "a view through a kind of window" that the spectator perceived the "continuous scenery as through the openings of a pergola." All the same, he did not find a coherent system of spatial or• ganization behind this effect. Von Blanckenhagen (1963), pp. 114-124, analyzed the landscape corn· position in each panel and found specific inconsistcn · cies in the spatial organization. 45 Von Blanckenhagen (1963), pp. 119-123, finds the perspective system in panels 2-5 more consistent than that in panels 6-9 and consequently proposes that the latter group copy the original less faithfully than the former; their narrative proceeds with a hiatus between incidents, and their topography is "sugges• tive rather than realistic."

Von Blanckenhagc:n (ibid., pp. 117-118) ex· plains the inconsistency as the consequence of a di· vidc:dpoint ofview; the ships before the:middle of the bav are seen from above, while those bevond are seen o~ eye level. However, this di\•ision is ~loscly linked to the content of the:scene:,and earlier scholars-such as Wocrmann ( 1876), p. 326, and Nogara ( 1907), p. 43-had clearly perceived the narrative value of show• ing the enclosed harbor to indicate the: impossibility of escape. As Bcyen (1960), p. 291, suggests, the painter may well have used a naumachia scene as his model for painting the full complement of Greek ships. They are, in fact, warships, and this part of the panel resembles later naumachia scenes (e.g., panel G 1.1231 of the frieze landscapes in the Villa alla Far· nesina. 47 Von Blanckenhagc:n( 1960), pp. 128-134. 46

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incorporates spatial devices peculiar to Roman art and addresses itself to Roman interpretive capabilities. Although it would be superfluous to credit this one painting with any specific shaping of contemporary Roman poetic vision, it is another matter to consider it a guide to the cultural idiosyncrasies of vision that incorporate themselves into the fabric of Roman poetry. This question of cultural idiosyncrasies brings us back to the difficulties Heinze experienced in following the pictorial rubric of the Aeneid. To his mind the incomplete articulation of Vergil's pictorial backgrounds failed to satisfy a reader's curiosity about places. Certainly the Odyssey Frieze seems to address itself most specifically to answering the spectator's curiosity about places. Indeed, it does this with such factual self-confidence that the specific character of places infringes on the meaning of the narrative. As I suggested, the story the spectator reconstructs from the frieze can easily be a more believable story than Homer recites; its otherworldly effects are subdued by a rule of visual probability. Contemporaneous ancient notions of Homeric geography give us reason to believe that this is not accidental.48 In explaining the particular topographical phenomena of the frieze-its steep cliffs, stark dolmens, and jagged harbors--scholars have often referred to the long-standing tradition that identifies the territory of Odysseus' wanderings with Sicily and the western coast of Southern Italy. Strabo discusses the reliability of this tradition in the introductory passages of his Geographyin a manner that helps us understand the significance of empirical reality as a framework of reference for the frieze. The relationship between Homer's Odysseyand the real world of Italy provides the basis for Strabo's proposal that there is an instructive alliance between geography and myth. In the face of the scientific skepticism maintained by Alexandrian geographers, he explains how topographical knowledge contributes to our understanding of the truth embodied in myths. Granted that the overtly fantastical character of mythological narratives is a necessary trimming to engage the interests of their readers, he claims a genuine historical basis for their traditions. The entertainment offered by mythology is not without intellectual value for readers who take an interest in the places that furnished its settings (Geog.l.l.19). To an extent, all poets are geographers. Homer was not only the leader in this capacity, but also the most •• Von Blanckenhagen ( 1963), pp. 129-130, traces the history of this interpretation. He is the first

scholar to assign the artistic origins of the frieze to Southern Italy.

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orderly and methodical (1.2.20). His readers may quite legitimately believe that he saw Italy and Sicily as the location of Odysseus' adventures, so long as they do not fall into the error of believing in the marvels themselves ( 1.2.11). The larger truth of mythology, then, is one that inheres in the reality of places. Based as it is on local traditions that often reflect native chauvinism, its validity is more general than specific. The rival claims of four areas in the Bay of Naples to possessing the real Sirens' rocks are immaterial in the face of the historical fact that these rocks exist somewhere within the bay. Although Strabo did not write specifically for a Roman audience, he cites Polybius as an authority for his convictions. We may also safely assume that his experience as a visitor in Rome brought him into contact with attitudes that served the practical nature of his science. In light of his remarks, we do not even need to conjecture, as von Blanckenhagen does, that real features of the South Italian landscape may have influenced the Odyssey painter, in order to explain the topographical specificity the painter used in his reinterpretation of Homer's epic backgrounds. Much more simply, it is possible to understand that the naturalistic perspective of the frieze and its visual coherence possess an imaginative integrity that directs the spectator toward a world of geographical and historical reality within which its narrative content can achieve a renewal of significance. Let us consider the transfer of Homeric fiction into probability as the practical assumption on which the frieze appeals to its immediate audience by forming a bridge between Greek and Roman culture. 49 The potential for such a transfer is only implicit within the naturalistic structure of the representation; the spectator must complete it mentally under the auspices of a cultural climate that favors such interassociations. Again, it is not difficult to recognize an analogy with Vergil's conceptual procedure in dramatizing a national mythology within a context that offers itself not only as a re-creation of historical reality, but often as a reflection of the reader's immediate historical environment. It remains to be seen how the visual structures available within the poet's artistic culture fostered or impeded this proc•• Beyen (1960), p. 348, proposes that the contemporary spectator would have discovered a moral significance in the fric:u's rcflecrion of the perils and vicissitudes of human experience. The suggestion is

compatible with Strabo's claims for the instructive value of myth. Seneca, Ad Lucilium 88.6-8, weighs the moral and geographical significance of the Od_-mry and assigns greater value to the former.

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ess. Did Vergil indeed not satisfy his reader's curiosity about places as fully as the Odyssey Frieze? As the foregoing discussion suggests, Heinze's response to Vergilian description was not unperceptive. Especially in speaking of backgrounds outlined only through a sporadic mention of details interwoven with actions, he sensed the need for the reader to intervene actively by exercising visual imagination. Still, he stopped short of understanding this exercise as a legitimate expectation of the text and attributed it instead to the poet's failure to communicate a complete vision. He found . this failure to be characteristic of the poetic techniques of epic and also of ancient description in general. To his mind the authoritative presentation of pictorial information should remove the burden of independent visual imagining from the reader. The example of the Odyssey Frieze should demonstrate that Roman strategies of pictorial representation do not observe this simple formula. As illustrations of Homer, they show that it is possible to develop complex visual structures from minimal suggestions. In this capacity also they suggest patterns of spatial organization available to the Roman audience. As a species of visual narrative, however, the Odyssey landscapes also show that informative visual patterns do not wholly preempt the spectator's independent contribution to the experience of perception. The spectator must not only sometimes supply the coherent synthesis of an elliptically stated meaning, but also establish the larger frame of reference that forms the context of his interpretation. The immediate conclusion to be drawn from comparing the landscape representation of the frieze with that of the Aeneid is that the reader's contribution of visual coherence to reading and the spectator's contribution of verbal coherence to perception are complementary responses within the same climate of artistic possibility. But this conclusion goes only partway toward answering the questions Heinze raises about Vergil, because Heinze describes not one but several kinds ofincomplete verbal representation in the Aeneid and attributes their practical effects to different causes. This classification prompts one to inquire whether the reader's imaginative exercise should proceed similarly in each instance. That is, should the reader supply the visual outlines of all Vergilian landscapes on a uniform model, or should he believe that the poet, in addressing his reader's capacity for pictorial reconstruction, still guides his visual imagination by different modes of presentation to achieve different purposes. For the sake of this inquiry we may ex-

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amine comparatively four passages from a single book, Aeneid 3, where different procedures in description are associated with similar episodes. The contrast between the first two examples will appear clearer if they are considered in reverse of the order in which they appear in the narrative. The description that dramatizes Aeneas' first sight of Italy embodies an order of spatial presentation similar to the order we encountered in the harbor at Carthage. It differs from this, however, in that it is a landscape seen from a moving, rather than stationary, point of view and consequently from two vantage points. The first is far off: Iamque rubescebat stellis Aurora fugatis cum procuJ obscuros collis humilemque videmus Italiam. Italiam primus conclamat Achates, Italiam laeto socii clamore salutant. [Aen. 3.521-524] (And now the east was reddening with the stars put to flight when far off we sighted dim hills and low-lying Italy. "Italy," Achates first calls out. "Italy," my comrades raise their salute with joyful noise.)

As the ship nears land, we see the elements of a landscape emerging from obscurity into sharp focus within a framework of panoramic vision: crebrescunt optatae aurae portusque patescit iam propior, tempJumque apparet in arce Minervae; vela Jegunt socii et proras ad litora torquent. portus ab euroo fluctu curvatus in arcum, obiectae salsa spumant aspergine cautes, ipse latet: gemino dimittunt bracchia muro turriti scopuJi refugitque ab litore templum. quattuor hie, primum omen, equos in gramine vidi tondentis campum late, candore nivali. et pater Anchises "helium, o terra hospita, portas: bello armantur equi, bellum haec armenta minantur."

[3.530-538]

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(The breezes we long for intensify, and the harbor lies open; now we are closer and the temple of Minerva appears on the arx. My comrades gather in the sails and turn the prows toward shore. The harbor, hollowed by the eastern wave, curves like a bow; the rocks, cast seaward to shield it, foam with salt spray while its recesses lie hidden. The towering cliffs stretch their arms downward to form a twin barrier, and the sacred precinct recedes from the shore. Four horses I saw here-the first omen-cropping the broad field and shining with the gleam of snow. And father Anchises: ''War you promise, 0 welcoming land. These steeds are armed for war; this herd threatens war.") The foreground and background in this landscape are closely unified, although Vergil mentions the more distant landmark-the temple of Minerva-first, because of its conspicuous high position, and afterward shows us the curved harbor facing the sea whose inner line is partly obscured by the foam of crashing waves. A second panoramic image, superimposed on our first vision by vss.33-34, sharpens the clear demarcation of foreground and background by the spatial implication of its verbs. The fortress-like rocks and the breakwater move forward toward the spectator's eye (dimittunt) while the sacred precinct recedes (refugitque ab litore). Then, with a final sharpening of focus, Aeneas sees four white horses grazing in the field beyond the shore. It would appear that the description supplies all the spectator might perceive in the landscape. This was not the case when Aeneas described his first landing on the coast of Thrace. The country, as he explains by way of preface, was ruled by King Lycurgus, an ally of Troy during its prosperous days, so the Trojan exiles think the place is appropriate for building a new settlement: feror hue et litore curvo moenia prima loco fatis ingressus iniquis Aeneadasque meo nomen de nomine fingo. [3.16-18] (To this place I am carried, and after I have embarked on land with unpropitious fates, I mark the site for my first walls on the curved shoreline and fashion the name of Aeneadae from my own name.)

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As Aeneas prepares for the ritual inauguration of his enterprise by constructing an altar for sacrifice to the Great Mother and to the gods, an unexpected phenomenon disturbs his efforts: forte fuit iuxta tumulus, quo cornea summo virgulta et densis hastilibus horrida myrtus. accessi viridemque ab humo convellere silvam conatus, ram.istegerem ut frondentibus aras, horrendum et dictu video mirabile monstrum. nam quae prima solo ruptis radicibus arbos vellitur, huic atro liquuntur sanguine guttae et terram tabo maculant. mihi frigidus horror membra quatit gelidusque coit formidine sanguis. rursus et alterius lentum convellere vimen insequor et causas penitus temptare latentis: ater et alterius sequitur de cortice sanguis. multa movens animo Nymphas venerabar agrestis Gradivumque pattern, Geticis qui praesidet arvis, rite secundarent visus omenque levarent. tertia sed postquam maiore hastilia nisu adgredior genibusque adversae obluctor harenae (eloquar an sileam?) gemitus lacrimabilis imo auditur tumulo et vox reddita fertur ad auris: "quid miserum, Aenea, laceras? iam parce sepulto, parce pias scelerare manus."

[3.22-42] (By chance, a mound stood close by, on top of which were cornel bushes and myrtle bristling with thick shafts. I approached and attempted to pull out the green forest from the earth so I might cover the altar with branches and leafy boughs. I see a frightening but wondrous prodigy: from the tree that is first tom with broken roots from the ground, drops of dark blood liquify and splatter the earth with gore. Cold horror shakes my limbs, and my blood stands cold with fear. Again I press on to pluck the tough shoot

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of another and to explore causes deeply hidden. Dark blood issues from the bark of the other shoot. Thinking over many things in my mind, I pay reverence to the rural Nymphs and to Father Gradivus, who rules over the fields of Thrace so that they might duly favor my ritual and take away this omen from my sight. But after I have approached a third shaft with greater struggle and wrestle it on my knees amid the opposing sand (shall I speak or be silent?), a mournful groan is heard from the deep tomb and a voice, sent back, reaches my ears. ''Why, Aeneas, do you wound my wretched condition? Spare now a buried man. Keep from polluting dutiful hands with guilt.") Unlike the fully drawn landscape I discussed previously, this would appear (to adopt Heinze's classification) to be one that Vergil himself had not completely envisioned. Nothing of the Thracian shore is ever seen beyond the projected line of Aeneas' walls, and in the foreground no object stands out except the wooded tumulus. From this image we follow the narrator's focus upon single details to a dramatic revelation. The language he uses to present these details appears, seemingly accidentally, to anticipate the revelation. The myrtle shoots above the tumulus look like thickly clustered spear shafts. Soon we learn that they are indeed spear shafts, now nourished by the murdered body that has treacherously been secreted beneath the earth. The tumulus continues to hold Aeneas' attention until Polydorus' funeral rites have been duly performed and the Trojans have abandoned the "land stained with crime." Although the range and fullness of vision in these two passages are strikingly different, their contributions to the unfolding narrative are not unsimilar. As segments in a recurrent pattern of arrivals and departures that structures Aeneas' account of his wanderings, each event commences amid positive expectation and ends in uncertainty. In both cases Vergil appears to have effected this pattern by conflations and interpolations in the legendary tradition of Aeneas' wanderings. No permanent Trojan colony remains to carry the hero's name in Thrace. 50 Anchises interprets the horses of the Italian Castrum Minervae as an ambiguous sign of war or 50 This is the usual basis upon which Thracian sites claim their place in the Aeneas legend. R. D. Williams ( 1962). pp. 56-58, tulAen. l.18 If., reviews the tra-

ditions of the Thracian landings, commenting on Vergil's interpolation of Polydorus' story.

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peace. The triumph of reaching Italy is diminished. 51 Aeneas follows Helenus' instructions to remember Juno by sacrifice and continues hastily onward. Hostile forces must be propitiated in the new world no less than in the old. The clear, authoritative vision that characterizes Vergil's description of the Italian coastal landscape has often been attributed to his direct acquaintance with the site.52 Other ancient descriptions of the promontory and temple of Castrum Minervae seem to confirm the accuracy of his topography. 53 At the same time, the location Vergil gives to the abortive "Town of Aeneas' people"-"on a curving shore"seems to be a not inaccurate description of the Thracian settlement of Ainos by the mouth of the Hebrus that claimed its Trojan affiliations by virtue of its name. 54 The difference between the two descriptions is not a matter of truth or fiction any more than historical authority. Nor indeed could the mere facts of historical authenticity or personal experience account for the narrative shaping of the two descriptions as vehicles of revelation. The surface of the Thracian shore conceals its secrets until the test of physical contact brings them forcibly to light. The harbor of Castrum Minervae warns the observer of its unapproachability by the very structure of its prominent fortifications and concealed precinct, as well as by an omen. Such, at least, is the reader's impression, because Aeneas himself, in the penultimate stages of his journey, seems to command a more realistic perception and is more ready to act upon objective interpretation of what is perceived. In each instance our vision is transmitted through his eyes, and our knowledge is shaped by his. Thus the restricted focus of the Thracian landscape appears-both at the moment when we are vicariously engaged in Aeneas' experience and, later, when we reflect upon it with hindsight-to represent the limited scope of Aeneas' immediate vision. This limitation conveys a measure of ambiguity. The hero's desire for speedy termination of his quest leads him, through visual signs, to the discovery of unex Dionvsius of Halicamassus (Ant. Rom. l.51.3) makes Castrum Minervae the place of Aeneas' first landing in Italy, but locates his sacrifice at the Sicilian temple of Juno Lacinia, where the Trojans leave ,·otive offerings. 52 Francesco delta Corte ( 1972), p. 9, speaks of the contrast between the precision of Vergil's Italian descriptions and the imprecision and error in his de51

scription of other places. He even suggests that rhe poet's putative trip to Greece (interpreting Horace, Odn 1.3, literally) had the intention of topographical researches pcrtinem to Ameid 3. '·' Strabo, Gto.ir 6.281, and Dion. Hal., Am. Rom. l.51.3, mention the loftv temple on a promontory and the harbor. •• Francesco Della Corte ( 1972 ), pp. 53--54.

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piated pollution. His inability to read the visual language of the tomb and the bloody spears may indicate the confusion of his first stages of wandering. Yet Michael Pumam suggests that Aeneas' action manifests an intellecrual obsession-a greed for knowledge like the material greed behind Polydorus' murder.ss Through its shaping of the reader's point of view, the form of Vergil's description communicates the quality of action and directs us toward the significance of the narrative. The prodigy that greets Aeneas in Thrace involves an awakening of the supernatural insofar as these forces are intertwined with traditional structures of society and religion. However, the supernatural forces that Aeneas rouses on the island of the Strophades appear in mythological dress. This adventure occurs at a stage of Aeneas' journey that initially might seem inappropriate. After a second abortive beginning in Crete, Aeneas has learned that Italy is the ancient home of his race and his destined goal. In the immediate aftermath of this enlightenment, the Trojan fleet sails amid a blinding sea storm of three days' duration. Their vision is bounded by the gray rain above and dark shadows on the waves. At the clearing of the storm they arrive on a new coast: hue ubi delati portus intravimus, ecce laeta boum passim campis armenta videmus caprigenumque pecus nullo custode per herbas. inruimus ferro et divos ipsumque vocamus in partem praedamque Iovem; rum litore curvo exstruimusque toros dapibusque epulamur opimis. at subitae horrifico lapsu de montibus adsunt Harpyiae et magnis quatiunt clangoribus alas, diripiuntque dapes contactuque omnia foedant immundo; rum vox taetrum dira inter odorem. rursum in successu longo sub rupe cavata [arboribus clausam circum atque horrentibusumbris] instruimus mensas arisque reponimus ignem; ss Pumam ( 1980a), p. 269, finds the symptom of Aeneas' limitation in the persistent violence with which he tears at the bloody branches, symbolically if inadvertently rcenal-ring the crime of Polydorus' mur-

der. As he goes on to say, "The broader importance of the imagery of breaking and rearing that accompanies this inreUecrual greed and its physical manifestations will only become clear as the book progresses."

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rursum ex diverso caeli caecisque latebris turba sonans praedam pedibus circumvolat uncis, polluit ore dapes. sociis tune anna capessant edico, et dira bellum cum gente gerendum. haud secus ac iussi faciunt tectosque per herbam disponunt ensis et scuta latentia condunt. ergo ubi delapsae sonitum per curva dedere litora, dat signum specula Misenus ab alta aere cavo.

[3.219-240] (Here, when driven onward we have entered the harbor, behold, we see prosperous herds of cattle and a flock of horn-wearers with no guardian ranging everywhere through the grass. We rush in with steel, and we call the gods and Jupiter himself into partnership and shares of the prey. Then, on the curved shore, we spread out our couches and feast on choice banquetings. But the swift Harpies, gliding fearsomely from the mountains, are all at once with us; they rattle their wings with monstrous clangor, snatch away the feast, and soil all with their dirty touch. Then amid the foul odor comes a harsh voice. Once more in a deep retreat beneath a hollowed cliff [closed round with trees and bristling shadows] we set our tables and restore fire to our altars. Again, from a different quarter of the sky and from unseen hiding places, the noisy crowd circles around the booty with clawed feet and pollutes the feast by mouth. I proclaim that my comrades must take up arms and that battle must be done with the dreadful race. They do not otherwise than they are ordered; they lay aside their swords under cover throughout the grass and conceal their lurking shields. When the down-gliders give out their noise throughout the curved shore, Misenus sounds a signal from a lofty watchpost with his hollow bronze.) Here again details become visible one after the other, 56 but with the difference that the first vignette presents an apparent conspectus of the entire landscape, implicitly 56

Recker (1971), p. 50, accurately finds this landscape composed of single details from which only an

approximate picture emerges. It is certainly not, as T. M. Anderson ( 1974), p. 80, wants to sec it, rcmi-

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leading us to share in the pleasure of its welcoming aspect.57 The way the details are subsequently presented serves the progress of the narrative in that each new feature of the landscape appears only when it becomes important to the action: the mountains where the Harpies lurk, the hollowed cave to which the Trojans retreat, Misenus' lookout rock, and at last the sheer cliff (245: praecelsarupe) from which Calaeno speaks a dire prophecy of future hunger: "sed non ante datam cingetis moenibus urbem vos dira fames nostraeque iniuria caedis ambesas subigat malis absumere mensas."

[3.255-257] (But you will not surround your given city with walls before relentless hunger and the offense of our slaughter compels you to devour tables with your jaws.) Once the whole panorama is before us, the island assumes a forbidding aspect that the dramatic ordering of Aeneas' narrative has led us to suspect and that the Trojans failed to see at first. In the shortsightedness of their initial vision, they conceive their desires heedless of context, then tenaciously defend their purpose in the face of legible prohibition. The visual structure of this description is analogous to that of the Thracian coast insofar as its stages of revelation mark the stages by which the Trojans enter into a physical and psychological entanglement with the natural world. Turning once more to the penultimate stages of the journey, we see another contrast with the immediate pictorial coherence of a panorama from which the Trojans are again shut out. Here, as on the island of the Strophades, mythological tradition enters into the narrative. Off the Sicilian coast, Aeneas has rescued Achaemenides, the stranded comrade of Odysseus, and heard the recounting of one of Homer's most nisccnt of the landing in Carthage, since there the entire panorama of the harbor meets the eye while only a limited portion of the shore is shown here. The incomplete view shows how the Trojans, like Odysseus' companions, are preoccupied with the problem of immediate sustenance. 57 Henry (1878), 2: 404, tulAen. 3.220-221, sug-

gcsts the Trojans should have understood this prohibition from its visible signs. He cites Livy. Ab Urbe Condita 24.3, and Suctonius, Julius Caesar 81, to demonstrate that animals emancipated from work were not to be touched by the butcher's knife because they were sacred.

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fearful episodes at one remove from reality. His glimpse of the Cyclops likewise takes place from a distance. From the safety of their ships, the Trojans watch Polyphemus descending to the shore to wash his great eye. As he moves step by step into the sea, all his kinsmen fill the shoreline behind him: at genus e silvis Cyclopum et montibus altis excitum ruit ad portus et litora complent. cemimus astantis nequiquam lumine torvo Aetnaeos fratres caelo capita alta ferentis, concilium horrendum: qualis cum vertice celso aeriae quercus aut coniferae cyparissi constiterunt, silva alta lovis lucusve Dianae. [3.675-081] (The race of the Cyclops rushed in a band from the forests and high mountains and filled the harbor and the shore. We saw them standing, bearing up their lofty heads toward the sky, just as airy oaks or cone-bearing cypresses stand on some high peak, the lofty forest of Jove or the grove of Diana.) Description and simile are closely bound together in this passage. The one superimposes itself upon the other, so that the natural prospect conceived within the simile replaces the mythological image outlined by the narrative. The visual effect the reader follows is one of forms merging together to become indistinguishable-a reversal of the progressive clarification that marked Aeneas' first approach to the Italian shore. Now, as the Trojans move out to sea, they look backward toward a prospect whose features fade and diminish with distance. Emerging from the backdrop of their wild forest, the Cyclops tower above the shore in their human aspect until the intervening comparison dissolves their visible identity. Their threatening figures assume the outlines of lofty oaks and cypresses. The monsters are gone; the shape of the forest remains. Unlike the arrivals in Thrace and Castrum Minervae, which in spite ofVergil's reshaping of them belong to the traditional canon of Aeneas' wanderings, these encounters with the supernatural are wholly of the poet's contriving. Clearly they mark points of narrative intersection with earlier epic: Apollonius' A1:!fonauticain

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the first instance, and the Odysseyin the second. Vergil places the Trojans' landing in the Strophades in chronological sequence after the flight of the Harpies from Phineus' palace in the Argonautica (3.212-213). The allusion alerts the reader to similarities and differences between the two episodes. Here, as before, the Harpies are themselves hungry and condemn to hunger those whom they pursue. 58 Like Apollonius' sons of Boreas, the Trojans attempt to banish their plague, but their resolute determination gives them no power over the immortal monsters. On their own island, the Harpies exercise a legitimate claim to repel invaders. Although the prophetic curse of devouring their tables, which clouds the Trojans' own banishment from the Strophades, figures in the legendary tradition of Aeneas' wanderings, Vergil has recast historical legend within a context of epic invention. 59 Comparing the narrative functions of these two episodes, we see that each, in proof, has the effect of distancing Aeneas' own history from the background of mythological epic and thus in a sense from his own mythological past experience in Troy. The Harpies' effective exclusion of the Trojans from nourishment (a recollection of the famine that had earlier driven them from Crete) is only one more of those injunctions to abandon his world of past experience that haunt Aeneas' wanderings. Its larger significance is constructive. However, insofar as the Trojans themselves have provoked the vengeful gesture and incurred the threat of recurrent famine in Celaeno's curse, it brings a shadow of the old mythological world to cloud the hope of the new.60 To this effect the reader studies Vergil's episode of the Harpies for evidence of •• Notably, the Harpies trouble Phineus in his palace but arc driven off by the Boreads with Zeus' consent. Here we sec them in their new home on the Sttophades as creatures of the wilderness. According to Lawall ( 1966). pp. 144--146, the incident reveals the usefulness of prophecv within the limitations imposed upon the seers by Zeus. But here the Harpies have assumed a prophetic role; the prophecy is cryptic and remains so within the poem even after its seeming fulfillment, since the eating of bread tables has little to do with the real problems of settlement in Italy. 59 Aeneid 7.109, attributes the prophecy to Anchises. As R. D. Williams ( 1962), p. 21, mentions, the inconsistency has often been ascribed to the poem's unfinished state. Tradition had attributed it to various sources (Ibid., p. 107, RdAen. 3.256), but it

acquires a new and unsettling significance within the context of this incident, which Vergil himself has invented. 00 Otis (1964). p. 257, judging Aeneas and the Trojans without culpability in this affair. interprets the Harpies as a psychological symbol: "Not a physical threat, not a tangible danger, but a symbol of the dread which invests the unknown, they dishearten and overwhelm Aeneas. casting a false terror over the future." Putnam ( 1980a), p. 270, takes a different view, emphasizing the Trojans' own pro,·ocation of these monstrous and irrational forces: "Once more in his search for truth, selt:identity and wholeness after a period ofupheaval, Aeneas enters the territory of the monstrous and yields to its negative enticements."

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the Trojans' innocence or guilt. The substance of this evidence must be gleaned indirectly from Aeneas' shaping of the tale. In this context we cannot fail to see how the initial seductive vision of the landscape and the Trojans' ensuing banquet recalls nothing in Apollonius' account of the Harpies, but rather the arrival of Odysseus and his companions on the Island of the Cattle of the Sun. 61Without such guilt as that of Odysseus' comrades, who defied a known prohibition, the Trojans-and Aeneas, in complete accordance with them as their leader-have still violated a sanction.62 Thus their course indeed obliquely intersects with that of the Odyssey. As a counter to this incident, whose limited vision shows itself paradoxically at odds with Aeneas' newly gained knowledge of his Italian goal, Aeneas' vicarious brush with Polyphemus takes place in the light of full information: both the geographical information that Helenus had given him at Buthrotum to guide his course around Italy, and the mythological information he acquired from Achaemenides. The redemptive or humanitarian connotations of the Trojans' hospitality to the abandoned Greek have often been discussed and need only be mentioned. 63 The event marks a stage of transition. Accordingly, the reader may notice how Aeneas' distant vision of the threatening race of the Cyclops as they fade into the outlines of a mountain grove diminishes Homer's supernatural world into a natural environment that is the necessary setting of Aeneas' historical mission. Although these four examples of Vergil's descriptive style belong to a single book, their contrasting rubrics of broad and limited perception are typical of the inconsistencies in visual articulation throughout the poem. Within the structure of their single narrative unit, they appear to occur independently of a simple semantics •• The storm that precedes this landing is closely reminiscent of Homer's sea storms, and especially the one that forces Odysseus' landing on the Island of the Cattle of the Sun. The Homeric clement is emphasized in three cxtratcxtual lines cited by Sctvius,Aua. (Scrvius 1, p. 378, IIIIAm. 3.204), which augment the contextual sense of allusion to the Odysseywith mention of the Cape of Malca.,the:beginning of Odysseus' wanderings: hinc Pelopis genres Maleaeque sonantia saxa circumstant, pariterque undae terraequc:minantur. pulsamur sac:viset circumsistimur undis. (The nations of Pelops and the: surrounding rocks of Malea ring this place:round, and earth

and sea arc equally threatening. We arc lashed and hemmed in by savage waves.)

As R. D. Williams (1962), p. 96, IIIIAm. 3.204, explains in giving the history of these lines, they arc usually omitted from the text on the grounds that Aeneas would not ha\·e mentioned Cape Malc:a when the Trojans did not know where they were going. • 2 On the other hand, as Pumam (1980a), p. 278, points out, Aeneas himself differs from Odysseus in this incident by conduct that is "as culpably blind" as that of his men. "-'Pumam (ibid., pp. 276-278) discusses the symbolism of this episode and its meaningful contrast with the: Sinon episode: in Aeneid 2.

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of content, since their differences cut across the large distinction a reader might want to make between the historical and mythological frames of reference implied by the incidents interwoven in book 3. The reality in which these visual structures engage the reader is uniformly that of Aeneas' empirical perception and his interrelationship with the perceived world. In this respect, the descriptions in book 3 effect a more direct form of communication than that of the Carthaginian harbor in book 1. Instead of directing the reader toward an independent re-creation of Aeneas' thoughts from implication, they show his perceptions as the basis of his judgments and the immediate cause of his actions. As I also suggested, the manner in which Vergil structures the world of Aeneas' journey through variously controlled empirical revelations also appears to be independent of his personal knowledge of the places represented or his accuracy and inaccuracy in employing topographical information. In considering the contemporaneity of Vergil's visual structures, however, we should look briefly at how his general patterns of topography distinguish the epic from that of Homer by reflecting its historical and intellectual background. Hans Dieter Reeker has shown that the practical structure ofVergil's Mediterranean geography, and the shape of many descriptive passages, are indebted to the or the voyager's catalog of landmarks seen from the Hellenistic genre of periplus, sea.64 The general significance of this form within Roman art will be considered in later chapters. For the moment, we can note that the patterns derived from this type of descriptive literature are embodied in some of the factual catalogs that often serve as transitions between major incidents. Aeneas' account of his sailing through the Greek islands, the instructive map that Helenus provides at Buthrotum, and the final stages of his course around Sicily are a few examples. Such summaries allow the reader to follow Aeneas' journey with a sense of precise location and thus lend their own measure of reality to the narrative so as to remind us that the Mediterranean environment of Aeneas' mission is in large part a historical world. 65 The poetic structure corresponds to a factual structure laid open by contemporary geographical Recker (1971 ), pp. 82-99. The tradition, which he considers a major influence on the unity of perspective and experience in Vergil's landscapes, is as old as the Od_meybut takes its true technical and literary shape in the Alexandrian period. It is explicitly developed in the work of Apollonius of Rhodes. 64

•• Recker (ibid., p. 88) comments on the geographical frame of reference into which the opening passages of the poem arc cast; T. M. Anderson ( 1974 ), pp. 44, 75, also discusses very specificallythe geographical orientation of book 3.

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science, by the social and institutional intercommunications of travel, and by Roman commercial and military enterprise. Furthermore, Vergil's practical outline of the Mediterranean is in conceptual harmony with his use of the pseudohistorical tradition of Aeneas' wanderings. This variable catalog of landings and settlements claiming Trojan origin passed into the Roman synthesis of Aeneas legends from its sources in Hellenistic history. 66 From its superabundance, Vergil selected a few incidents, whose locations he often changed to produce-in combination with his mythological interpolations-a balanced series of nine major events. The settings of these events are analogous to those of the Odyssey landscapes in reflecting a general idea of the historical validity of mythological tradition. But neither the descriptive model of the periplusnor historical tradition can account for the differences in picturing the visual structures oflandscapes that I have described. Indeed, even the travelers' catalogs that represent Aeneas' attention to the territory he traverses are fuller and broader in the Italian stages of his journey. Nothing, for instance, in his account of the eastern Mediterranean equals the vivid descriptions he gives of the sight and sound of Mount Aema's fiery cone. We may easily see that the widening of Aeneas' visual horiwns describes a progressive pattern that is coincident with his progress toward the west. Such marked distinctions in the breadth and depth of visual perception do not appear in the Odyssey,in spite of the different narrative pacings of Odysseus' adventures and the diversity of places that he sees. Still Odyssey9-12 may properly be compared with the third Aeneid, because in each case the hero acts as narrator. As I suggested earlier, Odysseus relates his experiences with a self-conscious display of personality. His survey of the ambiguous countryside of the Lastrygonian land is programmed to reveal that he did not interpret dubious signs without forethought. Likewise, when he looks at the green Goat Island off the shore of the Cyclops' country, he thinks of its potential value to civilized cultivators. In approaching the Cyclops' cave, he prefigures the primitive barbarity of his opponent, "a man like a wooded mountain crag" (Od. 9.192), and anticipates a test worthy of his own resourcefulness. Aeneas, as he tells about his own wanderings, does not show the "" Perret ( 1942 ), pp. 1-89, remains the most extensive critical treatment of the subject.

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same speculative craving for adventure that Odysseus does, because his purpose and sense of identity are different, but also he does not capitalize on the advantage of hindsight to show himself anticipating the consequences of his actions. Although he often reveals his emotions, Aeneas apparently does not try to control the hearer's view of his experience by implying a perspicacious interpretation of his perceptions. Rather, he tells what he saw and how he acted with variable degrees of personal insight and with varied indications of breadth and depth in his spatial definition. In this he would seem to lack-and deprive his hearer of-Odysseus' narrative double vision, yet the consistent pattern of changes that Vergil effects in the range and scope of his vision seems to indicate some alterations in perspicuity that readers will judge for themselves. Some years ago Robert Lloyd observed that the nine episodes of Aeneid 3 divide themselves into three thematically consistent groups according to the way their different versions of prophecy supply Aeneas with increased clarification of his mission.67 More recently, Michael Putnam has shown that this process of clarification goes beyond the conveyance of intellectual enlightenment to constitute a process of psychological change "from insecurity to authority." 68Aeneas' emotional reluctance to relinquish his memories of past experiences is familiar to the modem reader, and many have seen it as a poetic core of significance whose frame of reference extends to the ultimate consequence of the hero's mission in defining the character of historical Rome. His personal definition of his mission is in some respects analogous to the poet's definition of his creative mission in summoning this protagonist out from a fragmentary and inconsistent background in Greco-Roman tradition and endowing him with a character and local habitations suitable to his name. Aeneas' physical and mental journey from the eastern Mediterranean to Italy is a structural paradigm of this greater psychological and creative process whose conclusion is scarcely confined to his first-person narrative. Still, when Vergil traces Aeneas' entry into the geographical sphere of his historical self-definition, it scarcely seems inappropriate or accidental that the more substantial structures of perception by which 07 Lloyd (1957), pp. 138---145.His essay is perhaps too positi\'c about the degree to which Aeneas de\'cl• ops a purposeful understanding of his mission and consequently overemphasizcs the schematization of

the episodes, but its general pattern appears "alid to me. ""Putnam ( 1980a), p. 4.

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the hero judges his physical environment should be framed with an empirical solidarity like that which we find in the Roman Odyssey Frieze. In this indirect comparison between the rhetorical effects of landscape in the Odyssey Frieze and in the Aeneid, I approached the question of creative interchange between verbal and visual expression in mediasres,looking in both cases at the lineaments of highly developed style. Although such a stylistic coincidence may represent cultural synchronicity, it should not be interpreted as the cuhnination of an evolutionary artistic process. As I mentioned in speaking earlier of the recurrent stylistic pole that the naturalistic perspective of the frieze represents within the total panorama of Roman art history, the artist's choice of one or another spatial system serves the particular character of the experience that the artistic structure defines. Both empirical consistency in perspective and inconsistency are among the visual options of the Roman artistic tradition. Thus Vergil also uses a number of different visual patterns to convey Aeneas' experience. These lead us at times to follow the hero's perceptions and at other times to see more broadly and clearly than he. Their common basis of address to the reader is the way they engage the reader's interpretive participation and allow him scope and latitude for interpretation. I shall not proceed further with the interpretation of Vergil's descriptive techniques, but at the end of this study I return to the interrelationship between Roman literary pictorialism and the shaping of point of view to demonstrate more fully how the rhetoric of visual description establishes a variable structure of communication between author and reader. We shall see how the capacity of the literary image for tolerating and manipulating the variety of interpretive responses it provokes is one cause of the ambiguity that is so often perceived in Roman and especially Augustan literature and is at the same time the basis of its particular imaginative appeal. In order to arrive at this larger goal, we must consider several varieties of Roman pictorialism. This may be accomplished from a historical perspective by following if not the evolution at least the variations of period style in Roman art. In the next two chapters the discussion focuses upon the development of the cartographic perspective systems that are the opposite of empirical illusion.

CHAPTER

2

Loci et Imagines:The Development

of TopographicalSystems in Roman Landscape

T

ACITUS' ACCOUNT of the Great Fire of A.D. 64 (Anna/.es15.38--43) is effective for several reasons: for the inferential subtlety with which it weaves rumors of Nero's complicity into a damning case for his culpability, for the sense of historical pattern captured by self-conscious reminiscences of Livy's account of the destruction of Rome by the Gauls, and for the disciplined economy of its language. So carefully does the historian choose and organize his words to create a narrative of rapid movement within a narrow focal range that information and descriptive color are inseparable. From that part of the Circus contiguous to the Palatine, where its incipient flames are nourished by combustible merchandise in the shops, the blaze is hastened by wind down the whole length of the Circus across open places barred neither by houses nor by walled temples. From these low-lying areas it rises swiftly to the higher, inhabited regions-all measures of prevention impeded by the narrow and winding streets that formed the pattern of old Rome. No words are spent in extraneous emphasis. Until human actors enter to add their chorus of laments to the disaster, the appeal to the reader's emotions is based upon the progress of the fire as it follows a course so precisely outlined that it communicates itself to the modern reader with the same clarity it must have shown to Tacitus' contemporaries. The

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narrative technique summons the spectator's ability to construct a mental overview of spaces defined by architecture and topography. Within a framework of familiar locations, the description at once creates a sense of reenacted terror and reawakens the memory of a city whose visual aspect has been lost. In ensuing passages, the field of vision thus laid out before us expands into peripheral scenes: the destruction of the Domus Transitoria in the suspicious absence of its master; the flight of the homeless populace into the Campus Martius and Nero's gardens; and the burning and razing of the Esquiline area. Following upon a chronologically ordered catalog of venerable shrines swept away, and lost monuments of art, the narrative returns to the region of the Esquiline, where the Golden House begins to rise amid newly made desolation, blending together its improbabilities of luxury and artificial landscape. All around it are the broad, colonnaded streets, the open places, the uniform blocks of tenements that shape Nero's Rome. A new panorama replaces the old. Although Tacitus' narrative is the product of a period when vivid description had become a standard feature of Roman writing, the visual order of his account is not unsimilar to that of an earlier passage that offers the first verbal conspectus of the city known in Roman literature. The colorful walk through the Forum that introduces the fourth act of Plautus' Curculio(4 .1.46 7-481) is an impious itinerary on a clearly designated course. Beginning at the Comitium, with its population of perjurers, the observer takes us past the Cloaca, a hangout for seekers and braggarts (in its proximity, perhaps, to the Rostrum), and on by the Basilica Aemilia with its diveset damnosimariti (rich and vicious husbands) and the whores who do business with them. Landmark by landmark, the observer moves down the Via Sacra to the Forum lnfimum marked by the brook and the Lacus. Turning at the Aedes Castoria, he follows the Vicus Tuscus to the Velabrum; he is looking for a scoundrel to serve his schemes, all the while characterizing each location he passes according to its peculiar brand of rogue in a sequence of names and images that assumes its visual form in the hearer's mind. Because this itinerary is offered by the Choragus, we may understand it as an interlude for building a scene beyond what the limits of staging allowed, but it is certainly no architectural scaena,or backdrop, evoked here, but rather an auditory map that merges the actions of the drama into Rome itself. Revisiting a sequence

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of familiar locations that his experience will associate with the order of Roman public life, the hearer, under the guidance of an irreverent new interpretation, now sees them transformed into a scurrilous context appropriate to comedy. Although the Tacitean passage involves the reader in the re-creation of swiftly moving action, while the Plautine passage leads through a static order of images and caricatures, the two resemble each other in appealing to the reader's ability to evoke residual knowledge of the city in a coherent visual pattern. In its implied movement through a spatial order of places marked by images, such an itinerary as Plautus lays out in the Curculiomight easily have served a Roman orator as a mental diagram to prompt recollection of the topics he planned to include in a speech. Although the rhetorical writings of the Republic contain no specific guidelines for describing topographical contexts or landscapes, 1 they do provide evidence, perhaps even more enlightening than prescriptive formulas might be, for a structure of thinking closely associated with the conceptualization of physical places and for the visual powers that such mental activity necessitates. These suggestions are incorporated into the fundamental discipline of the an memoriae. This unusual system of providing for the speedy and flawless recall of arguments essential to public delivery, which Frances Yates brings to our notice, 2 is a process of mental ordering that involves the imaginative laying out of a three-dimensional pattern of mnemonic stimuli, called loci,which are arranged seriatim to be traversed successively in thought-that is, the orator employs loci to create a mental topography, or map. The signs by which he structures this topography are common architectural forms, "ut aedes, intercolumnium, angulum, fornicem et alia quae his similia sunt" (such as buildings, intercolumniations, a comer, an arch, and 1 The

most explicit suggestions for describing places are in De InventumeRhetori&R 1.38, where Cicero explains potential interrelationships of setting and action that an orator may exploit. What is imponant about places, he says, is the opponunitics they offer for carrying out the action under discussion. The opponunitics may be found in the size or dimensions of the place, in its neighborhood, in the fact that it is solitary or crowded, in the nature. of the place itself and of its surroundings and the entire region, and in the characteristics of a place-whether it is or was sacred or secular, public or private, or strange or familiar to the person conducting the action. The extent to

which an orator will construct a visual image of a place in pursuing these questions is a matter for individual discretion. Simple allusions may serve the purpose. The passage from Cicero, along with others on the subject of descriptio, has been cited by Vasaly (1983), pp. 1-16, as evidence of Roman awareness of the effectiveness of topographical description as a strategy of argumentation. As Vasaly observes, however, the actual articulation of this awareness is limited, and dominated by practical considerations (p. 7). 2 Yates (1966), pp. 1-26.

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other things similar to these). 3 The order and complexity of their arrangement will be in accord with the complexity of what must be remembered. 4 Quintilian's simplest formula for construction of such a spatially oriented series is the traditional plan of the Roman signorial house-such houses as we see in Pompeii-with its vestibulum, atrium, impluvium, and surrounding chambers, but it is equally possible, he adds, to form a memory pattern by employing the structure of a public building, by conceiving the route for a long journey or a tour through the city, or with pictures. 5 In fact, such an arrangement of locimay be established independently of real situations through the action of imagination itself. Before Quintilian, the Republican Auctor ad Herennium had quite explicitly described the mind's ability to form its own concepts of places:6 Sed quamquam facile est ei qui paulo plura noverit quamvis multos et idoneos locos conparare, tamen si qui saris idoneos invenire non putabit, ipse sibi constituat quam volet multos licebit. Cogitatio enim quamvis regionem potest amplecti, et in ea situm loci cuiusdam ad suum arbitrium fabricari et architectari. [Auct. Her. 3.19.32] (Although it is easy for a person with a relatively large experience to equip himself with as many and as suitable backgrounds as he may desire, even a person who believes that he finds no store of backgrounds that are good enough, may succeed in fashioning as many as he wishes. For the imagination can embrace any region whatsoever and in it at will fashion and construct the setting of some background.) Whether the orator's chosen basis for the locibe real or imaginary, his utilization of them clearly requires the approximation of a spatial image through an act of visual imagination. The spatial extension of loci is further explained by the Auctor's comparison of them with paper or wax tablets (3.17.30) to which the imaginesare as letters. The mental distribution of loci is thus comparable to the writing, or positioning, of letters, from which it follows that the delivery of an oration is like a reading of what has been written. 'Auctor tui Herennium 3.16.29. Text and translations of this work arc from the edition by H. Caplan (1954).

• Aua. Htr. 3.17.30. • Quintilian, Inst. 11.2.17-22. • Aua. Her. 3.17.30.

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Within these mental spaces, of which every orator is advised to maintain a good variety, the speaker in the act of delivery may range backward and forward from one point to another in accordance with the demands of the occasion. It is important, the Auctor observes, that the locishould be designed and ordered to permit such free movement without loss of orientation: Item putamus oportere ex ordine hos locos habere, ne quando perturbatione ordinis impediamur quo setius quoto quoque loco libebit, vel ab superiore vel ab inferiore parte, imagines sequi, et ea quae mandata locis erunt edere possimus; nam ut, si in ordine stantes notos complures viderimus, nihil nostra intersit utrum ab surnmo an ab imo an ab medio nornina eorum dicere incipiamus, item in locis ex ordine conlocatis eveniet ut in quam-libebit partem quoque loco libebit, imaginibus commoniti, dicere possimus id quod locis mandaverimus. Quare placer et ex ordine locos conparare. [3.17-18.30) (I likewise think it obligatory to have these backgrounds in a series, so that we may never by confusion in their order be prevented from following the image-proceeding from any background we wish, whatsoever its place in the series, and whether we go forwards or backwards-nor from delivering orally what has been committed to the backgrounds. For example, if we should see a great number of our acquaintances standing in a certain order, it would not make any difference to us whether we should tell their names beginning with the person standing at the head of the line or at the foot or in the middle. So with respect to the backgrounds. If these have been arranged in order, the result will be that, reminded by the images, we can repeat orally what we have committed to the backgrounds, proceeding in either direction from any background we please. That is why it also seems best to arrange the backgrounds in a series.) The spatial arrangement of loci,the Auctor observes, keeps ideas readily accessible just because of the flexibility of movement it permits. For this purpose, the loci should be significant and clearly distinguishable from one another; the intervals at which they are distributed should be ample, and the intervening spaces uninterrupted. The orator who chooses his model from among known places should select

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some silent and deserted area rather than one whose openness and visibility are commonly disturbed by the movement of crowds. Although credit for inventing the association between spatial arrangement and memory is assigned to Simonides in an anecdote concerning the seating of guests at a dinner,7 Roman writers made the system their own and greatly embellished its possibilities for imaginative precision and coherence. The testimony that rhetorical treatises give for the persistence of the memory system as a feature of Roman forensic education from the Republic well into the Empire suggests an inherent affinity with habits of perception generally fostered by Roman verbal and visual culture. While Yates, in her exposition of the ars memoriae, finds it "strangely complex, and even awkwardly cumbersome," she also recognizes the highly developed capacities of visual and spatial imagination that it implies.8 Although a pattern of memory loci remains within the mind of the orator and is not transmitted to his audience, the delivery of a speech that has been committed to this pattern effectively involves the performer in a private mental journey through a territory structured in the manner of a map. Quintilian suggested that locations of a memory system might be furnished by the experiences of travel. Save for the greater freedom that it offers to personal invention, the organization of lociis not unlike that of the periplus,or geographical catalog, reflected in certain passages of Aeneid 3. Clearly the two kinds of pattern invoke the same faculties of diagrammatic vision and rely upon similar instincts of imaginative response. Insofar as the capacity for conceiving an image of spatial extension implies a correspondent capacity for receiving one, the ars memoriaeis also related to enargeia.Either the listener will translate the description he hears into a panorama that he contemplates from a fixed point of view, or he will engage in imaginary traversal of the space. Thus, while the ars memoriaeis not in itself a formula for literary description, it does provide a model that one should not be surprised to see realized in topographical descriptions incorporating a concept of extended space. Cicero, De Ortitore2.86.351-354, cited by Yates (1966), p. 2. • Yates (1966), pp. 8, 16. It is perhaps just because Yates docs not form the coMcction between the memory system and the Roman sense of topography 7

that she remarks (p. 8) on the baffling nature of the entire concept of memory in which she senses something "which is either impossible for us to understand or which is not being really fully explained to us.n

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A tracing of such spatial patterns in the graphic and literary arts of the later Republic is the subject of this second chapter of my historical reconstruction of the Roman spectator's point of view. Frequently scholars have suggested that the particular style of artistic representation that aims to render spatial contexts in coherent topographical patterns is fostered by an endemic Roman craving for practical and factual information. 9 After considering evidence for some of the early practices of Roman painting which implies their topographical consciousness of space, I shall go on to show how schemata of factual representation serve both the art and the literature of the late Republic by providing structures for exploring imaginative experience as well as conferring information. The depiction of space in coherent topographical patterns fixes a relationship between the spectator and his environment that indicates man's confidence in his capacity for organization and control, a capacity to be exercised not only on a practical or political plane, but also on an intellectual plane. While the formation of diagrammatic topography in Roman painting and sculpture has frequently been designated a phenomenon of popular art, one can see that its availability to vicarious imaginative experience goes beyond this categorical distinction to serve a broad and general range of communicative styles and purposes. Its descriptive manifestations range from the practical narrative of Caesar's Gallic campaigns, where topography is closely bound up with the ideology of political self-advertisement, to psychological and philosophical investigations in the poems of Catullus and Lucretius. Our understanding of the Republican origins of Roman pictorial representation must be drawn from literary evidence. In its early stages of development, Roman painting, because of the civic function it served, came to employ a system of spatial representation adapted to the visual clarification of factual events. Although the first paintings of which we hear were given prominent display in public places, their primary purpose was not decorative. In 302 B.c., Pliny tells us, Fabius Pictor painted the walls of the Temple of Salus with megalographic compositions (Natura/. History 35.19). These paintings may have represented the military successes of • In criticizing the one-sidedness of this approach, Brendel (1979), pp. 60-61, observes: "A history of spatial representation which ascribes nothing to Greekartand gives everything to Roman art is bound to err in both directions .... The legitimate question

can only be, what is special to the Roman attitude towards space?" The study by Koeppel (1982), pp. 4 77-535, takes up Brendel's question with particular attention to one sculptural genre.

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L. Junius Bubuculus, who dedicated the temple. 10 M. Valerius Maximus Messala was said to have been the first person to display a wooden tablet depicting a battle when in 264 B.c. he exhibited his defeat of the Carthaginians and Hiero in Sicily at the side of the Curia Hostilia (Pliny, N H. 35.22). Later, in 190 B.c., Lucius Scipio angered his brother by displaying a picture of his Asiatic victory in which the son of Africanus had been taken prisoner (NH. 35.22). The substantial list of such celebratory paintings derives from several authors and extends from the years of Rome's great Republican victories through the time of Caesar. Some were given permanent housing in association with architectural monuments; others were perhaps only temporary display pieces made to be carried in triumphs.11 Among the notices Livy and Pliny give of these paintings, many of which must have shown an uninspired resemblance to one another, a few stand out for their reflection of a particular visual technique. In 177 B.c., Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus set up a tablet near the Temple of Mater Manita commemorating his achievements in Sardinia (Livy 41.28.10). The tablet contained a representation of the island of Sardinia with Gracchus' battles painted in appropriate locations. L. Hostilius Mancinus, who first broke into Carthage in 146 B.c., displayed in the Forum a painting of the site of Carthage showing his various assaults (Pliny, N.H. 35.23). Representations of the battle of Pompey the Great in similar form are reported by Appian. Since the first mention of such paintings occurs within the context of the second cenniry, some distinction appears to be made between the older works that represented events by means of figures and actions alone, and these newer picnires offering fuller information through their interrelationship of action and location within the framework of a symbolic topographical structure. 12 The accounts reveal clearly that these pictures had a narrative intention and that they assembled a series or selection of actions that were originally discrete in time within a unifying format Plinv, NH. 35.19; Valerius Maxirnus, 8.14.6. The s~ation appears in Jex-Blake and Sellars (1976), p. 88. 11 Vcssbcrg ( 194 l), pp. 25-56, furnishes a complete list of the sources. Koeppel (1982), pp. 513517, reviews scholarship on the traditions of triumphal painting as a background for his discussion of the Trajanic battle frieze on the Arch of Constantine. The rcliefs of Trajan's column also reveal their indebtedness to these traditions. 10

These map paintings have frequently been attributed to one Dcmetrios the topographer, said to have come to Rome: during the first quarter of the second century B.c. (Diodorus Siculus, 3l.l8.2; Valerius Maxirnus, 5.1.l.), but we have no real evidence of the nature of his work. Even if Demetrios did initiate the style he was hardly responsible for its development throughout the years. The cartographic style and its implications arc discussed in von Blanckcnhagen ( 1962), pp. 54-56. 12

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of place. 13 One can probably obtain a reasonable idea of their organization and appearance from a later piece of work. 14 This is one of a series of peculiar small sculptured tablets of Augustan or early Imperial date, known generally as the Tabulae Iliacae. On the Capitoline Tablet, which is the best-preserved example, 15 the decorative pattern consists of twentyfour figured strips showing scenes from each book of the Iliad, arranged to the right and left in columns of twelve; two long top and bottom files illustrating the Little Iliad and Ethiopad;and a more fully organized central section whose contents has been attributed to the Ilioupmir of Stesichorus (Figure 11). 16 The composition of this central panel is panoramic; its figures are distributed on seven horizontal bands separated by distinctions of terrain or by conventionalized architectural motifs. Within the encircling wall of Troy with its twenty-eight towers are two trapezoidal compartments of space. The upper represents the temple precinct of Athena defined by a three-sided porticus; the lower is the palace of Priam, similarly marked out. Between these central areas and the city wall are clusters of anonymous houses and smaller temples. The rape of Cassandra takes place within the confines of Athena's precinct, along with several duels between unnamed warriors, while the courtyard of Priam's palace is the scene of the infamous murder of the king and his young son. At the left are two figure groups: Menelaus meeting Helen, and Aeneas receiving the Penates.A second Aeneas with the rest of his family emerges from the Scaean gate to move toward the shore. On either side of the panel, in the area before the city walls, are the tombs of Hector and Achilles. At the left, Talthybius is addressing the disconsolate women of Troy; to the right is the sacrifice of Polyxena. The panorama is completed by an array of Greek ships moored at the left-hand shore, while Aeneas boards his own ship with his family on the right. This thricerepeated figure suggests that the design of the central panel is intended to highlight, by a species of continuous narrative representation, the actions of the mythological founder of Rome. " Gracchus provided factual information concerning his achievements on an inscribed tablet posted near the painting, but Mancinus stood by his painting and delivered a discourse on his campaign; his efforts gained him a consulship. 14 Rodenwalt (1909), pp. 27-28, makes this suggestion.

This is the Tabula lliaca O,pitolina, Rome, Musco Capitolino, Sala delle Columbc 83. The most thorough analytical study of the corpus as a whole is by Sadurska ( 1964). 1• Ibid., pp. 14-16. 15

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Weitzman has attributed the whole class of the Tabulu Iliacae to a background of Alexandrian manuscript illumination. 17 Although this explanation remains controversial, it is not out of keeping with the compositional patterns of the twentyfour frieze scenes. But regardless of the probability of the theory, manuscript illumination cannot account for the composition of the Stesichorean panel, whose conglomeration of figures and architecture spreads out too extensively for the limited space of a papyrus column. Whatever the sculptor's source for the individual dusters of figures might have been, it is dear that his adaptation of these figures to the ample spaces of the tablet required organizational work of his own. Details of its scenes, furthermore, show signs of Roman adaptation. 18 The freestanding temples are Roman in form; the three-sided colonnades are the type that, by the Augustan Age, was being used in such monumental public buildings as the Porticus of Octavia. 19 Along with the prominence given to Aeneas, 20 these structures lend a strongly Roman cast to a panorama of patriotic implications assembled within the format traditionally employed in the representation of battle scenes. Not only is the architecture in the panorama Roman, but also its technique of bird's-eye composition is similar to that used in a large number of Roman paintings and relief sculptures ranging from the historical depiction of a skirmish in and around the Pompeian amphitheater, 21 to the military reliefs on the arch of Septimius Severus, 22 and the circus mosaics in the Sicilian Piazza Amerina. 23 The common characteristic of such compositions is their integration of human activity into locations defined by architecture. Their bird's-eye perspective lays open enclosed spaces, while their comprehensive framework makes a multiplicity of such 17 Weitzman (l 970), pp. 40--44. For criticism and alternative explanations, sec Sadurska ( 1964), p. 22. 11 Sadurska (1964), pp. 35-36, comments on the contemporary style of the temples and porticoes as well as on the Roman character of the Scaean gate. She also compares the houses with those in certain Roman landscape paintings. 19 The development of three-sided coloMades in forr,and temple prccinets, and the differences between Roman and Hellenistic versions of this panern, arc discussed by Bocthius and Ward-Perkins ( 1970), pp. 122-127, 138--140. The Temple of Hercules Victor atTivoli (ibid., p. 141 and fig. 77) is a good example. 20 Galinsky (1969), pp. 106-113, and Horsfall

( 1979), pp. 39-43, agree that the Tabula is not a faithful rendition of Stesichorus and that the Roman story of Aeneas has been interpolated. Galinsky believes that the piece shows the influence of Ameid 2; Horsfall is less convinced of that. 21 Von Blanckcnhagen ( 1957), p. 81 and fig. 9. He reviews the Roman history of bird's-eye perspective both here and in his study of the Boscotrccasc paintings (1962), pp. 54-57, where he remarks on the amphitheater scene that Tacitus' record of the fight in Ann. 14.17 "reads almost like an abbreviated description of the painting." 22 Brilliant ( 1967). ,. Gentile (n.d.).

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spaces available for depiction of a multifaceted event. Both simultaneity and continuity can be represented. The use of bird's-eye perspective involves no pretension to illusionistic verisimilitude or to decorative value. & a utilitarian device, it serves primarily to convey information, yet one may observe that the Roman penchant toward this mode resulted in its incorporation into contexts where its informational contribution appears secondary to the pictorial. Such is the case when a distant city forming the background of a Daedalus and Icarus painting from Pompeii shows the open ellipse of an amphitheater standing prominently among its clustered buildings.24 One may think also of the walled towns and the buildings with open courtyards called aquae that give a distinctive pattern of design to the Peutinger Tablet, the earliest Roman map we know. 25 Practically speaking, such a series of symbols adds no more genuine information than the spectator might derive from a label, a ground plan, or a front elevation, but the apparent conviction that bird's-eye drawing is informational must be considered one of the factors shaping the aesthetics of Roman landscape. & the examples mentioned should indicate, there are two ways of employing bird's-eye perspective: in the depiction of single buildings and in the organization of full landscapes. The use of this mode to depict single structures may appear to be a natural consequence of a Mediterranean predilection, common to the architecture of houses and public buildings alike, for the enclosure of unroofed interior spaces. 26 While frontal representation cannot convey the plan of such enclosures, the bird'seye view allows the spectator to see into courtyards or open colonnades. The walledcity design, which adapts itself so readily to battle scenes, is no more than an amplification of this simple type of pictographic communication, whether its function is merely to indicate the generic characteristics of a city 27or to provide a specific set of locations for action. In the latter case, the setting may be expansive, as it is in the Capitoline Tablet, or crowded, as that in another Ilioupersis scene of Vatican Vergil 3225, where the Trojan Horse spills its warriors into an enclosure barely large ,. Peters (1963), p. 131, pl. 28 and fig. 111. 15 Levi and Levi ( 1967) and now also L. Bosio ( 1983). The color illustrations in Bosio's book arc usefulfor iconographical study of the map. 26 Levi and Levi (1967), pp. 137-143, associate the bird's-eye style especially with such structures and trace its occurrence on rclicfs, in paintings, and on

coins. They disagree with von Blanckcnhagcn on the association between bird's-eye drawing and any particular style or period, considering it instead one of the resources of Mediterranean an. 27 Levi and Levi ( 1967), pp. 134-135, place the generic city symbols on the Tabula within a tradition.

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enough to contain them. 28 The practical use of the convention is unaffected by the degree of narrative complexity it may be called upon to sustain. On the other hand, employment of bird's-eye, or cartographic, perspective for the organization of large and complex landscapes does not consistently involve the drawing of individual buildings in a cartographic style.29 Some of the fullest Roman landscapes are composed of vignettes-self-contained units of figures and architecture brought together in somewhat random juxtaposition to produce the effect of continuous panorama. Behind these, we might think, was the assumption that the mind can comprehend large reaches of territorial space through symbolic representation of its contents, but in the majority of extant examples such compositions appear to have been created with the aim of combining informative and decorative values. Whether the features of cartographic landscape are specific or general, its popularity as a system for organization of visual images appears closely related to a Roman interest in the making and use of maps. This branch of geographical knowledge was closely associated with the political history of Roman territorial expansion and settlement. 30 Members of a society versed in the reading of maps will understand the process of translating a symbolic code of representation into useful geographical information. W. J. Ong has argued that the introduction of graphic diagrams or illustrations into the development of a culture system fosters conscious awareness of the link between visual and imaginative perception and facilitates a writer's recognition that his arrangement of words can objectively convey a visual image to the reader. 31 Ways in which such assumptions could influence the conduct of literary description in the late Republic can be seen in a variety of examples. When Catullus addresses a poem to his paternal seat at Sirmio 32 he does not 28 DcWit (1959), pp. 53-56, pl. 82, and fig. 14. The representation is in the tradition of the Tllbuu, IlUICII, but it contains few of the same incidents. Another example appears in the scene: in which Aeneas and Achatcs look down from a hill on the construction of the: city of Carthage: (ibid., pl. 6 and fig. 10). 29 Levi and Levi (1967), p. 136, make this point. 30 Levi and Levi (1967), p. ll9, cite: Strabo l.l.16 to the effect that a useful geography must show the entirety of the known world. They go on to discuss the importance of maps in travel and commerce: as well as in war. Sherk (1974), pp. 537-543, provides a historical survey of the military campaigns that were

especially productive in the area of geographical knowlc:clge. " Ong ( 1970), pp. 17-35. 32 Arguments to the effect that "the: real Catullus family owned the real Sirmio, and that he returned to it from Bithynia in or about 56 B.c.," are presented by Wiseman ( 1985). The villa that provided Carullus' image in this poem will have: been a small, U-shaped villa built in the second half of the first century B.c. which was discovered beneath the foWldations of the palatial villa of the Flavian period and whose remains now dominate: the end of the peninsula.

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lay out a scenic vista, in the manner of later European poets, to initiate his reader into the setting, but rather sketches a diminutive map, which the reader can easily reconstruct. Opening with a topographical term, the "almost island" (C. 31.1-2), he shows us by implication the interassociation of the land and water, which will be the structural base for the poem. Ownership, the pride of possession that will surge up with the emotional relief of homecoming, is first intimated when the poet places his small map within a larger context. His ocellusinsularum (small eye of islands) surpasses all others within the great seas. Such descriptive economy may disappoint the modern reader. 33 Nothing is said of the physical beauty of Sirmione-the panorama of august mountains set off by the broad expanse of the lake or the breathtaking drop of its sheer cliffs to the brilliant azure waters below. Nor indeed does the poet answer to our archaeological curiosity by any hint of the size or plan of the villa. Instead, he continues to develop his map. By greeting his Lar and taking possession of the leaus (masterbed)-two traditional Roman symbols of familial dominance-he places himself at the center of his diagram and draws the emotional experience of the poem out of the aristocratic identification of owner and house. Only from his enclosed, interior vantage point does he glance at the waters of Lake Garda, hearing their laughter as it reflects the animating presence of the master returned home. As a fuller illustration of the way the spatial and geographical vision of mapmaking adapts itself to literary purposes, one inevitably turns to the familiar opening passages of Caesar's Gallic commentaries. 34 The tripartite division of Gaul so

33 G. Williams ( 1968), p. 680, notices that Catullus does not describe either Sirmio or the lake, but sees them simply as "rcfle~1:ionsof his emotions." He compares Propertius, Elegus l 7 and 18, where the poet sees his emotions reflected in desolate regions of seacoast and forest. But the situations are very different. and Propertius' poems arc much more pktorial than Catullus 31, where emotions much more Roman than personal arc expressed within a Roman conceptual frame. 34 BeUumGtulicum l.l-7: "All Gaul is divided into three parts. In one of these live the Belgians; the Aquitanians in a second, and in the third those who arc called Celts in their own language and Gauls in ours. All three nations have different languages, customs, and laws. The river Garormc divides the Gauls

from the Aquitani; the Matrona and the Saonc separate them from the Belgians. The Belgians are the hardiest of all these especially because their provinces arc farthest from luxury and from society, and commercial traders travel there least and bring in those goods that make dispositions effete. Their closest neighbors are the Germans, who live across the Rhine and with whom they wage war on a moderate scale. for that reason the Swiss also surpass other Gauls in ,•alor because they do battle with the Germans almost cvcrv day, eith~r when they arc keeping them out of their own territories or when they themselves are fighting on their borders. The one part of these that the Gauls are said to hold in their power takes its beginning from the river Rhone; it is bounded by the river Garonne, by ocean, and by the territory of the Belgians;

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decisively introducing the narrative establishes a comprehensive territorial framework to direct the reader's attention to a widely settled, unruly people about to be brought into order through processes of conquest, alliance, and settlement. The boundaries and landmarks that particularize the spatial picture are both topographical and social. Rivers and tribal territories mark the major divisions of the country. These cartographic signifiers give us to understand a natural relationship between peoples and the land they inhabit. The technique of communicating with the reader through diagrammatic definition is apparent later when Caesar describes the shape of the island of Britain as a triangle, reducing unfamiliar regions to an understandable geometric abstraction. Given this workable figure, he is able to place the remote island in clear relationship to the known world by describing the orientation of its points and angles. To complete the definition, he again describes the regional subdivisions of the territory in practical terms of their tribes, types of habitation, and industry, making men and their works into symbols that mark locations on his map. Caesar's use of these verbal diagrams to communicate his assurance of order among Roman provinces has its analogy in another diagrammatic passage of broader scope in Cicero's De Natura Deorum. Here the Stoic speaker argues for the existence of divine reason by reference to the orderly framework of the universeits divisions, its topography, and its multiple living species. He introduces his demonstration with a call to defer abstract argument in favor of the concrete process of visualization: Licet enim iam remota subtilitate disputandi oculis quodam modo contemplari pulchritudinem rerum earum quas divina providentia dicimus constitutas. [Nat. D. 2.38.98] (So now, with the fine points of argument put aside, let us gaze, so to speak, with our eyes upon the beauty of the things we call the institutions established by divine providence.) it c:venreaches as far as the river Rhine in the direction of the Sequani and the Swiss and points toward the northern constellations. The Belgians begin at the extreme borders of Gaul; they extend to the lower part of the river Rhine and face toward the North Pole and

the rising sun. Aquitania stretches from the river GaroMe to the Pyrenccs and that part of the ocean which lies toward Spain; it looks toward the setting sun and the northern constellations."

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What the speaker has to expound is not, however, a mere impression of beauty, but a picture of unity resulting from the order of complementary parts. Beginning with a diagrammatic shape, the geometrical outline of the spherical earth, he builds his comprehensive landscape within its tripartite divisions of land, sea, and sky. In describing each of these three, he moves from an initial, remote perspective closer and closer to his subject by embellishing its broad outline with specific detail. First, he gives his attention to the terrestrial zone: Ac principio terra universa cernatur, locata in media sede mundi, solida et globosa et undique ipsa in sese nutibus suis conglobata, vestita floribus herbis arboribus frugibus, quorum ornnium incredibilis multitudo insatiabili varietate distinguitur. adde hue fontium gelidas perennitates, liquores perlucidos amnium, riparum vestitus viridissimos, speluncarum concavas altitudines, saxorum asperitates, inpendentium montium altitudines inmensitatesque camporum; adde etiam reconditas auri argentique venas infinitamque vim marmoris. quae vero et quam varia genera bestiarum vel cicurum vel ferarum, qui volucrium lapsus atque cantus, qui pecudum pastus, quae vita silvestrium. Quid iam de hominum genere dicam, qui quasi cultores terrae constituti non patiuntur earn nee inmanitate beluarum efferari nee stirpium asperitate vastari, quorumque operibus agri insulae litoraque collucent distincta tectis et urbibus. quae si ut animis sic oculis videre possemus, nemo cunctam intuens terram de divina ratione dubitaret. [2.39.98-100] (And first the earth may be seen in its entirety, located in the middle station of the world, solid and spherical and all its parts compacted together by their internal agreement, clothed with flowers, grasses, trees, and fruits, whose unbelievable multiplicity is in each case distinguished by endless variety. Add to these the everlasting abundance of cool springs, the clear waters of rivers, the brilliant green dress of river banks, the hollow depths of caverns, and the jagged ridges of rocks, and the lofty height of overhanging mountains and the broad reach of fields. Beyond these, add hidden veins of gold and silver and unending sources of marble. What varied classes of animals, the cultivated and the wild, and how diverse! And what

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about the gliding flight and the songs of birds, what about the flocks nourished in grazing lands, and what about the life of the forest? Now, what shall I say about the race of men, who, designated to cultivate the earth, do not allow it to become a wilderness through the brutality of its beasts, or to be desolated through the intractable nature of its own growth, and by whose labors fields and islands and shores gleam with man's ornamentation of houses and cities? If we could see these things with our eyes as we see them with our minds, no person looking upon earth in its entirety would have any doubt about divine reason.) Order is the theme of the passage. Its exposition is facilitated by the flexibility of the periodic sentence, which becomes, in its categorical accumulation, a kind of extended diagram in itself. First there is the rational order of the compacted globe, followed by the intermingled forms and surfaces that the vital elements of the earth have assumed. Next we perceive the several classes of animate beings that earth supports, and finally the image of natural order refined by human beings, who impose the stamp of their habitation and labors upon the outlines of earth and establish their necessary distinction between the civilized and the wild. The speaker continues his description by turning his attention from habitable land to the sea. The panoramic vision first encompasses the entire surface of the sea, bounded by varied coastlines. A second catalog enumerates the diverse creatures in its several regions (2.39.100-101). Finally, turning to the sky, the "extrema ora et determinatio mundi" (most remote coast and definition of the universe), the speaker completes his panorama with a survey of the courses described by heavenly bodies and their patterns of arrangement, placing the terrestrial sphere in proper relationship to its greater context (2.40.102-104). As he turns to his chart of the sea, the Stoic pauses to exhort the visual imagination of his audience: "If we could see these things with our eyes as we see them with our minds .... " The patterns of physical beauty and abstract reason are inseparable; ena,;geiaproduces conviction. Thus he reemphasizes the interrelationship of verbal and visual communication, and the efficacy of the imaginative diagram, in sketching a field of communication. In bringing together didactic and aesthetic visualization, the argument binds together its appeal to the emotions and to reason in its premise of intellectual mastery. In spite of the difference in scale, the passage

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serves a function similar to that of Caesar's introductory map of Gaul. In the one, the successful commander proposes a spatial framework to explain the orderly process by which he has subjected the provincial spheres to the Roman; the other extends the same mode of thinking to a total vision of the world to dramatize the fundamental tenet of a philosophical system. Although Cicero goes beyond Caesar in the rhetorical self-consciousness of his ena,:geia,a Roman voice speaks in each passage. If the Roman predilection for cartographic drawing implies the influence of mapmaking, so also the literary approach to description in terms that invite the reader's participation in re-creating a formalized spatial diagram implies that both author and reader are familiar with the communicative codes of mapping as a vehicle for transmitting information concerning the physical and practical characteristics of places. Since the earliest stages of Roman mapmaking technology are scarcely known to us, the nature of the maps familiar to Caesar and Cicero can only be a matter of conjecture. The first complete Roman map that we have is the Peutinger Tablet, a later copy of an original dating from the Antonine or Severan era. Many scholars have thought that this comprehensive representation of the civilized world may be based upon, or may even reflect closely, the great world map commissioned at Augustus' behest by Marcus Agrippa. 35 Whether this speculation is reliable or not, it is likely that the later work would preserve some of the generic conventions of the earlier work, whose public place of display in the Campus Marti us must have made it a familiar landmark. Among the notable characteristics of the Peutinger Tablet is the idiosyncrasy of its longitudinal distinction, which describes geographical configurations in a shape that is so distorted that the informational function prevails over the representational. 36 Within this nonrepresentational structure, specific information is conveyed pictographically. Along with buildings and cities, the Peutinger Tablet em35 Levi and Levi (1967). pp. 22, 169. We do not have enough infonnation about this map to affinn or deny its importance as a source. It is often thought to have been based upon the map published by Eratos• thenes. Although it probably was not a real itinerary, it may well have remained a major point of reference for people interested in cartography. "'ibid., pp. 23-25, 169. The map is in the shape of

a long strip that presents the world in a conrinuous horiwntal extension from west to east; the fonn, Lc:vi and Levi argue, was not a result of imperfect knowledge, but rather of the purpose of the map. Such defonnation is typical of Roman maps and follows a middle course between the purely schematic diagram and the panoramic landscape.

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ploys such symbols as a line of standing trees to mark a forest and peak elevations to indicate mountains. 37 Such conventionalized symbols bear no relation to the specific characteristics of places, yet because Roman mapmaking developed no abstract system, such as the use of contour lines or color-coding, to indicate the conformations of the land, the symbols arc needed. Pictographic markers also appear later in 38 They turn any map into a crude illustrations of the books of the .Agrimensores. version of landscape and, conversely, can be seen as a basis for portrayal of landscapes in maplikc form. 39 Such symbols appear to have been peculiar to the practices of Roman geography because of their suitability to its particular purposes. While Greek geographers were primarily concerned with fixing geographical locations in their mathematically calculated positions, and then with creating theoretical models to demonstrate the shape of the earth and its countries, Roman mapmaking aimed to provide practical diagrams to be used in the actual planning of events: land distribution, military conquest, and territorial administration. 40 For example, the purpose of Caesar's first expedition to Britain was in part to obtain geographical knowledge for future exploitation: Tamen magno sibi usui fore arbitrabatur, si modo insulam adisset, genus hominum perspcxisset, loca portus aditus cognovisset, quae omnia fere Gailis erant iJ1cognita. [BellumGallicum.4.2-3]

37 Bosio (1983), pp. 48-59. The mountains, although \'aricolored, arc gi\'en little attention and seldom named. The mapmaker shows greater interest in signifying the \'icinity of mountainous territory than in denoting specific characteristics. This, he suggests, is because mountains were oflittle intrinsic interest to ancient civilization. As arteries of communication, the rivers on the map get more specific attention; the placement of their sources and their mouths is exact. 31 Dilke (1971), pp. 109-132, discusses the illustrations in the surveyors' manuals and their relationship to practices in mapping. These arc not models for surveyors' maps, but illustrations pertinent to the discussion that reflect a tradition of pictorial mapmaking and often approximate the real characteristics of places. Harvey ( 1980), pp. 53-55, recently discussed these pictorial representations, as well as those of the

Peutinger Tablet (ibid., pp. 138-40), within a broad context of the history of cartography, likewise emphasizing the close interassociation between topographical pictorialism and landscape design. •• Levi and Levi ( 1967), p. 44. remark on the difficulty of establishing a clear demarcation between maps and landscapes in Imperial Roman times. Thus also Bosio ( 1983), p. 79, comments that in spite of its monotony the tablet achieves the effect of inserting routes and centers of ci\'ilization into "an articulated atmosphere of landscape.~ An instance of the influence of military mapping in landscape is described by Koeppel (1980), pp. 301-306 and pls. 95-96. 40 Bagrow (1964), p. 38. According to Canesi (1931). pp. 145-168, this tendency also inhibited Roman interest in geographical writing.

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(He thought it would be very useful to approach the island and gain knowledge of its people and became familiar with the locations of harbors and approaches. All these things were practically unknown to the Gauls.) Although an interest in distance is common to Greek and Roman geographers alike, the knowledge of the Roman geographer is more specificallyoriented toward the tangible conditions of travel than toward theoretical consideration of the shape of the earth. In his study of geography, Ptolemy describes two different kinds of mapmaking-the one a theoretical, large-scale rendition of the world with attention to parallels and meridians, as exemplified by the illustrations within his own work, the other a more artistic kind of drawing or "choragraphy'' that renders the particulars of places.41 This latter type seems to have been connected with the craft of cartographic drawing as practiced in Rome. A. and M. Levi argue that the Peutinger Tablet was created to provide for the needs of the imperial postal service and that its various symbols give information on rest stops and changing stations. 42 As I shall demonstrate, the characteristic Roman landscape style influenced by cartography affected even illusionistic landscapes, but the art of the Republican period shows many examples that are almost purely cartographic. The fullest example of a maplike painting is the Nile Mosaic in the Temple of Fortuna at Palestrina (Figure 6). 43 This complex panorama poses many problems of dating and interpretation; the two issues are closely interrelated. Some scholars assign it to a period as late as the fourth century A.O., others to the reign of Hadrian, but it has also frequently been identified with the lithostrata mentioned by Pliny that Sulla installed in the temple during his recompensatory rebuilding at Palestrina. 44 Because the Nile Mosaic has been subject to numerous restorations since its •• Ptolcmy, Geographyl. l. Chorography selects certain places to treat in detail with particulars such as harbors and farms; geography shows the earth as a unit and the details of features large enough to be mentioned in a general survey. Chorography, which is concerned with the status and nature of the place it describes, paints a true picture and needs an artist. Geography docs not require the same skills, since anyone can use lines and notations to fix positions and draw outlines. 42 Levi and Levi ( 1967), pp. 98-134. ., Gullini ( 1956) provides a brief history and de-

scription. The mosaic is mentioned by Levi and Levi ( 1967), pp. 44--46, as a prime example of a work midway between map and landscape. .. 0. Marucchi (1907), p. 166, summarizes eight major theories previous to his srudy and adds his own idea that the work was inspired by Aelian's Historiii AnillUUiumand by Hadrian's interest in Egypt. Whitehouse (1976), p. 79, n. 11, surveys principal theories on dating. Most recently. Dunbabin ( 1978), p. 5, supports a Sullan dating within the context of her historical survey of mosaic technique. To her, the mosaics of Hadrian's villa, with which the Palestrina mo-

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discovery in the sixteenth cenrury, the original plan of its scenes and figures remains uncertain, as do the original dimensions of its design, which many believe were considerably more extensive than its current reconstructed form allows.45 The origins of the work are also uncertain. With equal conviction various scholars have attributed it to Hellenistic workmen imported from Alexandria or to Roman artists following a Hellenistic original, while a few have argued for its indigenous character. For this srudy, I assume a late Republican date for the Nile Mosaic because its crustula are composed entirely from stone and mineral without any of the glass pieces that Pliny mentions as customary in later work. 46 Since the shape of the mosaic was determined by that of the apsidal space it filled, its map was not circumscribed by a territorial outline within an outline of geographical boundaries; instead, it took its form around the course of the Nile, which it traced from the wild hill country of Ethiopia to the urbanized Delta. Its figures comprise a series of vignettes, each self-contained, depicting either the famous landmarks of Egypt or the people, crearures, and occupations typical of the country. In the upper quarters of the mosaic, a continuous combination of rocks, ledges, and hills gives the impression of firm and distinctly articulated terrain. From center to foreground, the continuous sheet of water flowing around small islets makes the spacing of the vignettes seem comparatively random. But because the informational scope of the landscape embraces a territory far larger than any form of continuous representation might practically encompass, we should remember that the entire design is the product of selection and abstraction. Many of the arguments in favor of foreign sources or workmanship in the landscape are based upon the surprising degree of accuracy achieved by its images of animals, people, and architecrure. Yet however true to life these may be (the more fantastic animals are the contribution of Renaissance restorers), they are still forms that might have been copied from illustrations in papyrus manuscripts of narural saic has often been compared, appear more similar to the lacer works of Antioch. 45 Whitchouse's reconstruction (1976), pp. 70-74, assigns to the design a much greater space than it now fills. The panorama is broadened at the top, the masses of rock stand out against sky or water, and the monumental buildings are placed at the center foreground.

46 Thus Schmidt ( 1929), p. 9, argues that it is not a /ithostniton, which is nothing but a scone pavement studded with large pieces of stone or glass, but rather what Plinv, N.H. 35.1-2, calls opusvmni&ldatum,the finest art i>fpainting in mosaic. This technique occurs in many Republican examples, such as the Alexander Mosaic in the Pompcian Casa del Fauno.

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history. 47 Neither are the buildings the necessary product of direct observation or knowledge, even though several of their types become standardized in later Roman representations of Egypt. The two temples of Isis are, in fact, buildings of the Romanized style, although their rounded pediments are Egyptianizing. The pylon architecture of the Palace of Kings at Memphis is a piece of exotica that appears to combine the authentic Egyptian style of tapering towers with the ground plan of a Mediterranean megaron building. On the basis of this eclecticism, Kyle Phillips argues that the vignettes, even if Alexandrian in origin, were not necessarily transmitted through the medium of mosaic, or indeed in their present arrangement; in all likelihood the artists composed their design by a combination of ingenuity and whatever source material reached their hands. Various interpretations proposed for the mosaic give different answers to the question of its scope and content. A nineteenth-century study by D. Santis Pieralisi limited its territory to the area of Memphis. 48 In his opinion, the unity of the composition was a narrative unity; its vignettes represented the ceremonies that accompanied the installation of Ptolemy Alexander II on the throne of Egypt in 80 B.c. Although the brief and catastrophic nature of Ptolemy's royal career makes this commemorative function unlikely, his theory-based upon the political friendship between Ptolemy and Sulla-does assign a date to the mosaic that is compatible with its workmanship in company with the kind of historical context one might logically expect for an example of Roman public art.49 Much more probable is the concept of the map as a representation of the entire country. 50 Thus, Alexandria with its Ptolomeiac Temple of Serapis is represented in the foreground. This structure is closely connected with the Isaic tempietto standing just behind it where a procession of priests is carrying out a ritual. In the massive Egyptian building with its statues and pylons, one sees the Temple of the Kings at Memphis, a city known for its royal sepulchers and deeply imbued with a sense of This theory is proposed by Phillips (1962), pp. 198--224. .. Pieralisi (1858). •• Ibid., pp. 59-60. Ptolcmy Alexander II fled to Rome at the end of the Mithradaric War and lived there for four years under Sulla's protection, until he was called back to Egypt at the time of Berenicc's coronation. But his reign lasted only nineteen days and 47

ended with his murder (Appian, BellRCiviliR 1102). The idea that the mosaic represents Sulla's interest in the Isaic religion is more probable and docs not restrict the scope of the map to Memphis. 50 This is the general consensus-sec e.g. Marucchi ( 1907), pp. 155-199; Schmidt ( 1929), p. 22; Whitehouse (1976), pp. 3-5.

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the Egyptian past. 51 To the left is the Isola Sacra of Phyle, with its oracular Temple of Isis and two obelisks. North of this island is a monument that may represent either the well of Cyrene, which reflected the midday sun at the summer solstice, or the well ofElephantis, which measured the rise and fall of the Nile. These buildings mark the limits of civilized Egypt, beyond which lies wild Ethiopia, populated by native tribes and savage beasts. While the map probably had a specific purpose and significance that we may not be able to determine, the many scholarly readings all point to a fundamental fact of its communicative style: the spectator's need to assemble its details in a conceptual order. Whatever the intended scope of the representation, its images fulfill an informational function directed toward satisfying the spectator's curiosity about a distant realm of great political importance. To this end it serves both as a catalog of monuments and as an illustrative exposition of cultural symbiosis. The names of many strange animals are inscribed to assist identification, and their habitats are delineated graphically. Even the habits and diets of some species are dramatized, as in the vignettes that show a mongoose battling a cobra, two otters rising from the water with their catch of fish, or a pair of jackals and hyenas with mouths bloody from tearing at their prey. 52 The scraps of natural science we glean from these images fit into a larger thematic pattern when we observe how the relationship of hunter and hunted that governs the balance of life in the natural world extends also to people in all regions of the country. While the Ethiopians amid their primitive landscape are pursuing birds with bows and arrow, the Egyptians at the Delta engage in communal hunting of the hippopotamus. 53 If the parts of the Nile Mosaic had been properly restored, the hunting theme would surely stand out even more prominently. Phillips suggests that the birds the gigantic snake in the Ethiopian territory is devouring will actually have been those felled by human bowmen. The Ethiopians with drawn bows behind the pylon building are certainly also a band of hunters, although their quarry is no longer in place-perhaps it was one of the running animals, or the rhinoceros who stands on Thus Pieralisi ( 1858), p. 50, but he sees this as only one building within the entire panorama of Memphis, while Marucchi ( 1907), p. 171, regards the single monument as a symbol of the city. 52 E.g., Marucchi (1907), p. 197. Phillips ( 1962) 51

has most recently studied the animalsand their names in detail. •• Schmidt ( 1929), p. 23, remarks on this theme, and also (p. 32) points out the many instances of animals fighting with one another.

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an isolated rock in the defensive posture of an animal at bay. But even within the reconstructed version, the strong thematic disposition of the map allows us to recognize a symbolic structure. By concrete visual articulation of an unknown world, it charts the coexisting spheres of civilization and nature whose interrelationship appears the stronger for their exotic character. The spectator is invited to compare and contrast diverse customs and forms of social bonding in religions, occupations, and pastimes. These thematic associations override the effects of spatial separation among the vignettes to create a unitary coherence within the entire design. Although the map takes in an area that is beyond the possibility of practical survey, the result of the artists' selection and distribution is a visually ordered landscape. Additional vestiges of order give some indication of the original plan. The angles of the buildings are consistently oriented. Whatever their specific locations, their forms would still have been coordinated in a single line of vision.54 The impression of a perspective view is fostered by a slight diminution of the background figures. Buildings placed one above the other also give an immediate appearance of spatial recession at the same time that this arrangement signifies geographical distancing within a factual cartographic plan. Visual motion in two directions follows the superimposition of spatial recession upon cartography. While the Nile itself flows constantly forward toward its delta, the spectator who viewed the map as it lay horirontally in place could allow his eye to wander backward in a simulated journey. Tracing the course of the river upstream, he would travel past the monuments of civilization into the depths of an exotic, unfamiliar world. Similarly, cartographic compositions created by the juxtaposition of architectural vignettes are often incorporated into the domestic wall decoration of the late Republican period. 55 The fullest collection of such paintings appears in the recently 54

Whitehouse (1976), p. 71. The decorated rooms from the Villa of Fannius Synisror at Boscoreale gh·e us two examples of such paintings: a yellow monochrome painted on the back wall of the room now installed in the Metropolitan Museum of An, and fragments ofa purple frieze from a summer rriclinium now at the Chateau di Mariemonr (Barnabci [ I 901 ], p. 80; Bcyen [ 1938], pp. 198-199 and pl. 64; Lehmann [ 1953], p. 118 and pl. 25). A small room in the predominantly second-style Casadi Obcllio Finno at Pompeii has a yellow monochrome frieze landscape whose best-preserved panel 55

presents a rural scene that is the first of its kind in Roman an (Spinazzola [1953), 2: 360-361; 2: pl. 81). A fragment of a later wall from the Escuderia Reale in Ponici has two blue monochrome panels--rhe one a rural scene and the other, quite singular for this period, a mythological landscape. That many more landscapes of comparable style and composition once existed is apparent from Mau's references ( 1907), p. 210, and from references to friezes executed in yellow or purple in the Pompeian Casa de! Fauno, the Casa dd Marinaio, and 8.5.2.

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excavated Villa Oplontis at Torre Annunziata near Pompeii. 56 Each of the five painted rooms comprising the Republican core of this villa contains some form of landscape representation. Although the patterns of spatial organization in these landscapes are similar, each has a distinctive character adapted to its place within its decorative context. While some landscapes are centered within vertical panels forming part of the surface ornamentation of a closed wall, others are framed by window-like apertures that have the illusion of being cut through the structural fabric of the wall. The colors and pictorial techniques of the landscapes differ according to their situations in context. These conspicuous differences give us a basis for understanding the communicative address of the paintings. Five yellow monochrome panels in the antechamber of the large dining room, Sala 14,57 form an ensemble portraying a wide variety of architectural forms sharply delineated with bold contrasts of light and shade. Although the buildings in each panel stand apart from one another in successive vertical registers, each floating within its individual compartment of space, we can sec from the simplification of forms and the diminution of size in the upper registers that a sense of spatial recession is intended (Figure 7). The composite effect of the decoration is that of a panorama segmented into linear views. All the same, this is not a naturalistic panorama, but one that bespeaks its own artifice as the imitation of a landscape executed in a plastic medium, either molded stucco or even carved marble relief.58 The disposition of light and shade makes this mode of imitation apparent. On their surfaces facing the door of the room, the figures of buildings and trees are uniformly illuminated with bright yellow so they appear to reflect the sunlight entering from outside. Their opposite faces are shadowed in brown. Although the ground planes supporting these figures are in shadow, the figures themselves do not cast their own shadows on the ground, as we would expect within a realistically sunlit landscape. The absence of such predictable Alfonso De Franciscis ( 1975), pp. 9-17 and pls. 1-38. " The inner portion of this room is shown in ibid., pls. 17-23, but the landscapes do not appear in these photographs. Ling ( 1977), p. 8, discusses them bridl~•5• Barnabci ( 1901 ), p 80, made this suggestion to account for a similar panel on the rear wall of the 50

"cubiculum" of the villa at Boscoreale, but it has been passed m·er by other scholars- According to Sandy (1968), 389-399, the per· vasive animal imagery of which these three citations provide examples is the dominant current of thematic imagery that governs the poem, providing the meta·

phor of Attis' transformation. N m,us, as he argues, docs not here signifv a "grove," but rather "wooded pasture land," which is the grazing place for animals.

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the forest, then a place of escape from it. Standing on the shore, Attis casts his thoughts back to the forest behind him and then far off to his homeland. The land from which Attis has come is the final symbolic territory in this poetic structure, the city opposed to the alien wilderness: patria, bonis, amicis, genitoribus abero? abero foro, palaestra, stadio et gyminasiis? [63.59--60] (Shall I be absent from fatherland, from possessions, from friends and parents? Shall I be absent from the forum, the palaestra, the stadium, and the gymnasium?) Unlike the cloudy forest with its dim latebraferarum, the civilized world shapes itself as a landscape of distinct, familiar forms. Attis thinks explicitly of the doors of his house, his threshold garlanded with flowers, and the cubiculum from which he was summoned daily at sunrise. The orderly rituals of a young man's life contrast with the mad rituals of Cybele as the architectural landscape that contains them contrasts with the inhospitable foreign shore: ego viridis algida Idae nive amicta loca colam? ago vitam agam sub altis Phrygiae columinibus, ubi cerva silvicultrix, ubi aper nemorivagus? [63.70-72] (Shall I live in the chilly realms of green Ida mantled with snow? Shall I spend my life beneath the lofty columns of Phrygia, where [live] the forest-haunting hind and the grove-wandering boar?) A being of the civilized world here becomes the companion of wild beasts. But Cybele permits no such remorse. As Attis' words travel to the ears of the goddess, Catullus shifts our attention once more to the interior of the forest, where Cybele unyokes her lion and spurs him to drive this strayed member of her flock back into the fold. With a reversal of the earlier direction of action, we follow the paces of the lion through the forest until he reaches the wet and glistening shore, where Attis stands, like Ariadne, a lone figure beside the sea (63:88: "teneramque

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vidit Attin prope marmora pelagi"). Thus Attis flees in nemorafera, back into the dreaded wilderness, now doomed forever to membership in Cybele's band. A clear and well-defined topography serves a double function in this poem. It is at once a setting for the mythological episode and a chart of its psychological experience. The topographical contrast that creates the narrative pattern of the poem is an emotional contrast written large.93 Wilderness and civilization may be seen as contrasting areas of the self. The dark grove suggests unknown regions where the rational mind is caught up in a powerful spell of furor and where man is reduced to a helpless child of the mother and, even below this, to the subhuman level of her beasts. By contrast, the orderly, far-off town is a rational sphere where the young man approaches maturity in the rituals of athletics and companionship. The pellucid shore figures as a dividing line of consciousness where the mind hangs suspended between alternative states of irrationality and reason. Thus Catullus' diagrammatic topography transcends its immediate context and the particular mythological experience it frames to become a universalized expression of many kinds of experience, as the abstraction of the poem's final verses makes clear: procul a mea tuos sit furor omnis, era, domo: alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos. [63.92-93] (Let all your madness, mistress, remain far from my home. Go, arouse others, make others rave.) The emotions Attis suffers are the very essence of experience that is abhorrent to Roman life. Although the clarity and preciseness in the way the poet matches external and internal experience through symbolism is no more than a slight intensification of a traditional mirroring capacity of landscape familiar in Hellenistic poetry, 94 0 • "Personal" elements in the poemarc discussed by Harkins (1959), pp. 102-116. He suggests that Catullus chose the Arris myth to reflect a dramatic conflict in his experience with Lcsbia, a point at which he struggled between the "despair ofloss and the resolve never to return to Lesbia." Such a precise identification is not necessary to justify arguments for the psychological validity of the experience depicted by the

poem.

94 Segal (1975), pp. 115-119, describes this function oflandscapc whose development he traces within a structure of cultural and ideological change (p. 211 ): "By the end of the fifth century B.C. and especially in Euripides, nature, no longer part of a divinely governed world-order, is free to become a vehicle for purely poetic signification, resonant with human feelings and scnsiti,·e to human emotions." Later he remarks, with reference to Idyll 1, "The boundaries be-

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the design of the poem, with its integration of setting and action, has the lucidity that characterizes Caesar's descriptions of the battle sites of Gaul. If Attis himself remains equally trapped within his emotions and within the dark forest, deprived of all possibility of asserting himself to mastery over a world he has come too late to understand, the poet's plotting of his experience is still not merely a matter of recording the helpless subjection of a man to external influence, but rather an assertion that such explorations of the irrational are an exercise in understanding and control. Control through understanding is the purpose with which Catullus' contemporary Lucretius plots the De Rerum Natura. In view of the integral association between the Roman faculty for imaginative exploration of space and the practice of mapping foreign territories, it is scarcely surprising that the first Roman poems to make extensive use of landscape description are poems involving journeys. In contrast to the physical journeys of Caesar's Gallic commentaries and Catullus' mythological poems, the journey in which the De Rerum Natura engages its reader is solely an expedition of the mind. Lucretius summons us to a mental perambulation of the universe following after the intellectual footsteps of Epicurus, its first true explorer (l.74): "atque omne immensum peragravit mente animoque" (And through all its immensity he traveled by means of mind and reason). Like Caesar, who begins his Commentarieswith a map of Gaul, Lucretius in his proem marks out the territory of his study. Venus, mother of the generations of Rome, is the power that gives life to the three great divisions of the world: alma Venus, caeli subter labentia signa quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferentis concelebras. [l.2-4] (Nurturing Venus, you who crowd, beneath the gliding signs of the sky, the ship-bearing sea, and fruit-bearing earth with life.) twccn objective narun: and inward emotion become blurred." G. Williams (1968), p. 680, comments on the same functions of nature, which he finds rare in Roman poetry. In my opinion, the emotional mirror of narun: is not so much "rare" as specialized, because it is associated with a disorderly and noncrcativc kind

of emotion. A somewhat different view of the distinc· tion between Hellenistic and Roman poetic landscapes appears in Troxler-Keller (1964), pp. 11-32. In her opinion, Hellenistic landscape is abstract and conventionalized, while Roman poets incorporate their landscape descriptions into the human world.

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Surveying these divisions as from a lofty vantage point, the poet follows the goddess in her springtime passage through them as earth's response to Venus' influence begins to lend animation to his panorama: te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus summittit flores, tibi rident aequora ponti placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum. [ 1.6-9] (You, Goddess, you the winds flee, and the clouds of the sky [flee] you and your approach; for you the artisan earth puts forth sweet flowers, and for you the surface of the sea laughs and the sky's vault shines, smoothed over with scattered light.) Gradually enlarging the scale of the reader's vision of the subject, Lucretius sketches topographical features as part of his panorama. By increasing the specificity of his language and by sharpening its images with adjectives, he increases its sense of animate life: inde ferae pecudes persultant pabula laeta et rapidos tranant amnis: ita capta lepore te sequitur cupide quo quamque inducere pergis. denique per maria ac montis fluviosque rapaces frondiferasque domos avium camposque virentis omnibus incutiens blandum per pectora amorem efficis ut cupide generatim saecla propagent. [1.14-20] (Thence the wild flocks range over their abundant food and they swim swift rivers. Thus caught by your charm they follow you eagerly whereever you invite them to go, and at last, throughout the seas and hills and racing rivers and the leaf-bearing homes of the birds and green fields, inspiring delightful passion in the hearts of all, you effect the propagation of generations, species by species.)

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In the course of the poem the persuasive force of Venus will be refined by more scientific definition that gives it its place within the continuum of atomic motion, yet by whatever names and principles they are designated, the great cycles of generation remain before our eyes as in this first field of vision. This introductory passage serves, then, as an announcement, or program, for the poem, but also as an anticipation of the role description will play within its argumentative structure. Recent scholarship has rightly emphasized Lucretius' development of an inseparable relationship between poetic and scientific conceptualization. 95 The poet emphasizes the critical nature of this relationship by speaking of the difficulties of his task-the search for words to clarify new material. Sight is the key to his exposition; he writes to initiate his reader into a new process of seeing. The two cardinal fields of investigation, naturaespecies ratioque(the appearance and rationale of nature), are respectively concrete and abstract yet wholly interdependent. They must be offered to the reader's sight with equal clarity.. In this guise, Lucretius invokes the rhetorical principle of enargeiafor the purpose of rendering invisible processes visible by imagination. The relationship of parts to their whole is the substance of his scientific doctrine. This principle will be investigated with reference to physical structures of various magnitudes and from multiple points of view. In order to render the invisible workings of this relationship dear, the poet must proceed from visible phenomena, alternatively enlarging or diminishing the reader's scale of perception. From appearances it is necessary to create an expository system as reliable and orderly as the principles discussed. In facilitating such constant intercommunication of two levels of vision, the diagrammatic structure of landscape description plays a large part. The process of making the unseen visible is critical in the first two booksof the poem. Their exposition of the fundamental principles of physical science requires arguments that delve beneath the level of sight. Lucretius introduces these arguments by a priori demonstration, stating first his abstract principles and then adducing the necessary proofs of his demonstration by the analogy of visible and understandable things. Thus, when he first leads his reader's vision beneath the surface of •• My discussion of the relationship between visible and invisible phenomena is particularly indebted to Amory (1969), pp. 143-168, and Schrijvcrs (1970).

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perceptible phenomena, he guides the reader by referring to the familiar active world of natural appearances. If something could be created from nothing, without fixed origins, then people might arise from the sea, fish grow from the earth and birds break forth from the sky. While the poet conjures up this distortion of order, he calls upon his reader to supply, by contrast, a comprehensive vision of the stable world he knows: armenta atque aliae pecudes, genus omne ferarum, incerto partu culta ac deserta tenerent. nee fructus idem arboribus constare solerent, sed mutarentur, ferre omnes omnia possent. [1.163-166] (The herds and other flocks and the whole race of wild beasts of undetermined birth would possess the cultivated regions and the wild. Nor would fruits be accustomed to keeping their consistency on their trees; but they would be altered. Everything could give rise to everything.) Instead the continuity and repetition of earth's production in accordance with place and season are proof of their governing laws. Similarly, as Lucretius argues his second defense of the prima materia,demonstrating that material substance does not dissolve into nothingness, he draws his proof from the visible regeneration of species after their own kind. Again he displays to his reader the stable panorama of the earth: praeterea quaecumque vetustate amovet aetas, si penitus perimit consumens materiem omnem, unde animale genus generatim in lumina vitae redducit Venus, aut redductum daedala tellus unde alit atque auger gcneratim pabula praebens? unde mare ingenui fontes externaque longe flumina suppeditant? unde aether sidera pascit? [ 1.225-231] (If, furthermore, whatever time removes by old age perished consuming all its substance internally, from what source would Venus lead back the

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race of animals, species by species, into the light of life, or from what source would the artful earth nourish and foster its growth after birth offering, sustinance to each species? From what source would indigenous springs and rivers running through long foreign courses supply the sea? From what source would the air nourish the stars?) By echoing the earlier description, this passage enforces the complementary interrelationship of the two argumentary proofs. At the climax of the poet's first demonstration, a third illustration occurs. Here Lucretius propounds the crucial principle of the conservation and reconstitution of matter that will later play a large part in his ethical exhortations against fear of death. His description focuses upon the interdependent processes of generation and nourishment with a broad sweep of vision that unites forests, cities, and fields into a grand, panoramic prospect: postremo pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater aether in gremium matris terrai praecipitavit; at nitidae surgunt fruges ramique virescunt arboribus, crescunt ipsae fetuque gravantur; hinc alitur porro nostrum genus atque ferarum, hinc laetas urbis pueris florere videmus frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas; hinc fessae pecudes pingui per pabula laeta corpora deponunt et candens lacteus umor uberibus manat distentis; hinc nova proles artubus infirmis teneras lasciva per herbas ludit lacte mero mentis perculsa novellas. [ 1.250-261] (After the rains perish, when paternal air has cast them into the lap of mother earth, but the fruits rise gleaming and branches grow green on the trees, and they themselves grow and are laden with fruit from which straightway our race and that of the beasts is nourished; from here we see cities blossom joyfully with children and the leaf-bearing forests on all sides resound with new bird song; from here the weary flocks, sleek with

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abundant food, lay down their bodies, and the white milky moisture runs from distended udders; from here the playful new offspring sport on shaky limbs through the soft grasses, overcome in their inexperienced minds bv unmixed milk.) Throughout the first book of the poem the number of scientific principles introduced is actually very small in proportion to the space devoted to their clarification through visual evidence. By repeating a familiar pattern of images, the descriptive passages provide points where the reader may take stock of the unfolding argument and adjust its novel perspectives to his established sense of reality. Furthermore, in each of these descriptions he finds recapitulations of the opening panorama that supply an overarching consistency to the interrelationship between subject and method. 96 By the end of the book, the poet has caused his reader to construct not only a model of the unseen world of nature, but also a vivid image of that world of life and action to which his principles pertain. Within this world, as he says, the interrelationship between the unchanging common parts and their diverse configurations is analogous to the structure of letters and words within the poem: namque eadem caelum mare terras flumina solem constituunt, eadem fruges arbusta animantis, verum aliis alioque modo commixta moventur. quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis multa elementa vides multis communia verbis, cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti.

[ 1.820-826

J

(The same things comprise the substance of the sky, sea, earth, rivers, and sun; the same things crops, orchards and animate life. In truth, their intermixture is moved now in some ways and now in another. Yes, even all throughout these very verses of mine you see many common elements in 96 Amory (1969), p. 154 and passim, demonstrates the way the imagery of the atomic argument in book

2 echoes the language of the procm; in this respcIC\."tor of LmJs th.11~ mrcrmcJ,.ll'\·

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Faune, Nympharum fugientum amator per meos finis et aprica rura lenis incedas, abeasque parvis Aequus alumnis [Odes3.18.1-4] (Faunus, lover of the fugitive nymphs, may you stalk gently across my boundary lines and sunlit fields, and may you go away indulgent to the little nurslings.) Sacrifice figures in this poem as a means to the stable accommodation of man and nature so essential to the confidence with which the lyricist uses the pattern of his life as a model of order. Beyond Faunus' preserve are the realms of nature haunted by Bacchus, a more dangerous liminal god. Bacchus enters the second book of Odes to mark the lyricist's transition from modest to bolder aspirations. 87 The poet's first vision of the god within a landscape, remote and wild as this may be, is all the same colorcd by his habitual bias toward the perception of order: Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus vidi docentem, credite posteri Nymphasque discentis et auris capripedum Satyrorum acutas. [Odes2.19.1-4] (I have seen Bacchus teaching songs on far-off mountain peaks-believe me, you of the future-and the Nymphs learning and the sharp raised ears of goat-footed Satyrs.) In this poem Horace approaches his subject with a kind of obliqueness that he often employs. Although Bacchus cannot be resisted, his worshiper may be spared. It is right to rehearse the myths of the god. The myths, as Horace arranges them, celebrate Bacchus' twofold exercise of punitive and creative powers. He destroys the between the wild world and the civilized world. Charles Babcock (1961), pp. 13--19, considers the significanceof this ambivalent god in the poem's meditations on death.

7 • Commagcr ( 1962), pp. 338-340, brings out the way Horace employs the god's double nature in the ode: "The inspirer of the most turbulent feelings, he also exerts a stern control."

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palace of Pentheus and elevates Ariadne's crown. In lion guise he casts down the giants invading Olympus yet returns to the choric dance. Even as Bacchus tames Cerberus in the underworld, the poet tames the divine image, forming it into a replica of his own participation in the private and public world. The mythological vignettes of this poem are clearly a way of talking about something else. Like the vatic metamorphosis of equestrian Horace into a snowy, far-seeing swan that follows, the Bacchus poem looks toward the Roman Odes, where the private voice will speak with new public confidence. Amid the Bacchic landscapes of 3.25, however, the poet is less in possession of his accustomed stability, and the groves that his imagination visits under the stimulus of the god are not those of the Sabine Farm (3.25.2-3: "Quae nemora aut quos agor in specus velox mente nova?" [Through what groves or into what caverns am I hastened, swift, in a new state of mind?]). As if he had taken on another identity, the poet sees these unknown landscapes through mythological eyes: ... Non secus in iugis exsomnis stupet Euhias Hebrum prospiciens et nive candidam Thracen ac pede barbaro lustratam Rhodopen, ut mihi devios ripas et vacuum nemus mirari libet. [3.25.8-14] ( ... Not otherwise on the mountain ridges stands the sleepless Bacchante in wonder, looking out over Hebrus and Thrace white with snow, and Mount Rhodope danced over by uncivilized foot, so for me, out of my accustomed path, there is a pleasure in marveling at the riverbank and vacant grove.) This simile that effects the poet's metamorphosis into a rhapsodic character very foreign to himself contains a degree of paradoxical misemphasis, since the uncommon caverns and groves at which the poet so marvels are far more conventional

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within the vocabulary of poetic inspiration than is his own Sabine Fann. 88 In the third book of his elegies, Propertius enters Callimachean groves and the Heliconian cavern by the right of his performance as a poet of private experience, but for Horace they signify transformation into a public poet. The dangers and pleasures of Bacchic inspiration (3.25.17-18: "nil parvum ... mortale nil loquar" [Nothing trivial . . . nothing mortal shall I speak]) are experienced through the Dionysian gesture of inserting Caesars fame, upon the model of Ariadne's crown, among the stars. Like the dedicatory poem to Apollo, this treats with a certain humor the poet's awareness of the homeostatic equilibrium of his characteristic identity. The function of Horace's sacral-idyllic imagery, then, is to encircle his poetic personaby the complementary fiction of a world that bears its impression. 89 In the next chapter we shall see how the sacral-idyllic world of the Odesfigures in juxtaposition with other symbolic areas sketched out by the landscape imagery of the poems, but here it is more appropriate to consider for a moment longer the quality of that self-conscious externalization that governs the poet's interrelationship with his personal world. Horace's famous criticism of Tibullus in the Epistlesportrays the young man amid a sylvan environment: 90 Albi, nostrorum sermonum candide iudex, quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana? scribere quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula vincat, 81 Both Commager (ibid., pp. 344--345) and Troxler-Keller ( 1964), pp. 52-58, take the profession of inspiration quite seriously, and the landscape itself as an intermingling of "the domestic with the mystical, the Italian with the Dionysiac experience" (Commagcr, p. 345). Troxler-Keller, p. 53, regards the poem as "prefatory," looking toward experiences not yet achieved, while Commager finds its significance in its reflection of the creative process itself: "Although Horace claims that it is his new attempt to immortalize Caesar that influences him, he seems captivated less by Cacsar's immortal glory than by his own power to create it." 19 Troxler-Keller (1964), pp. 1-27, discusses Horace's modification of the abstra~ symbolic landscapes that Hellenistic poets had associated with poetic in-

spiration through his introduction of elements of"actuality ." Roman poets, she suggests, invented the idea of a private and personal world created by verse, but in her conception this world has much of the "Arcadian" counter to realitv, and she associates it with a division between the powerful pose and their actual powerlessness at a distance from the dfcctive military and political establishment. 90 Pumam (1970b), pp. 81-88, 152-162, identifies Albius' withdrawal, both physical and psychological. as the theme of the poem (p. 156): "He lives (at least as Horace chooses to envision him) in one of the more deserted areas of the Alban Hills, amidst healthful woods. He is a theoretician and an acsthctician, devoted to two endeavors, writing and thinking (each offering an aloof, abstract preoccupation)."

poets'

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an taciturn silvas inter reptare salubris curantem quidquid dignum sapiente bonoque est?

[Epis.1.4.1-5] (Albius, good-natured judge of my discourses, what shall I say you are doing in the region of Pedanum? Are you writing things to outdo the booklets of Cassius Parmensus? or creeping soundlessly among the restorative woodlands, attentive to whatever becomes a wise and good man?) If these lines refer to Tibullus the elegist, they do not, as we shall see, incorporate a wholly fair judgment of his use of the sacral-idyllic mode, but they certainly speak for a characteristically Horatian point of view. It is not important whether the landscape to which Horace alludes is a poetic or a real one, since the addressee's relationship to his environment is the issue. Silent and creeping-the teasing reptilian metaphor is pointed-amid places that are inherently salubres,Albius disappoints both his talents and his social obligations. Unlike Horace in his creative Sabine otium, he makes himself an exile in an unsuitable world. 91 Although Horace does not give an explanation for the rural solitude of Albius, whose productivity he treats with such skepticism, there may be an allusion to the Hellenistic and Republican use of nature as a subjective mirror of emotion. Both Catullus' Ariadne and Gallus of the tenth Eclogueexemplify this convention, but one may find an example more appropriate to contrast with Horace's Sabine retirement-the farm was a real one in spite of all fictions-in a passage from Cicero's letters. However strategically the urbane orator might have seized occasion to parade the virtues of the good old country in support of such clients as Roscius and Quinctius,92 for him personally it was a melodramatic and unnatural gesture to take refuge in rural isolation. When political troubles drove him from the city, Cicero's mood in withdrawal signified his despair over a world unresponsive to his influence. In Putnam (ibid., p. 158) suggests that the phrase is "a paradigm of the devious, which lurks hidden, out of sight of the world.~ In spite of his talents, Putnam argues, Albius has lost the power to evaluate himself and seems to be in danger of losing the talents themselves. 91

92 Vasalv (1985), pp. l-21, explains Ciccro's persuasive manipulation of the idea of rural ,·ircue in these two speeches.

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writing to Atticus of the prolonged grief he suffered after the death of Tullia, he pictures rather than states his emotions with an image of the public man turned recluse:93 in hac solitudine careo omnium colloquio, cumque mane me in silvam abstrusi densam et asperam, non exeo inde ante vesperum; secundum te nihil est mihi amicius solitudine. [AdAtt. 12.15] (In this solitude I lack conversation with all when in the morning I withdraw to a thick and harsh forest and do not leave before evening. Except for you, nothing is friendly to me except solitude.) One can scarcely question the veracity of this externalized self-portrait or the depth of the untempered emotion it embodies, yet consciously or unconsciously it is a product of literary conventions that shape the meaning and dictate the occasion of rural seclusion. To find the environmental complement of his grief, Cicero turns to a world that appears to him uncivilized and inarticulate. Although this thick, rough woodland is actually a part of his estate, he enters it as if it were a foreign territory. As the image of his desperate temper, it is not the image of himself. The solitude he calls friendly is one that offers no consolation. His self-portrait dramatizes his presence as an alien in an unfamiliar world. By contrast to the limited landscapes that mirror such single-minded and passing emotions as Gallus' amorous despair or Cicero's unmastered grief, Horace's sacral-idyllic world embodies the multiplicity of a creative man. 94 However removed from the center of society, it is a sociable world. Horace makes this expansive quality clear when he introduces the poetic topography of the farm by means of an invitation. Shared first with the anonymous Tyndaris, a figure midway between flesh and artistic abstraction but more frequently shared with Maecenas, who links him with Rome itself, the Sabine Farm generates the self-confidence that ultimately enables the lyricist to address the public world: 93 Putnam ( 1970b), pp. 158-159, also compares this passage. 94 Reckford ( 1969), p. 74, interprets this image as one of escape from the world, but Troxler-Keller

(1964), p. 71, observes that Horace never goes outside himself or seeks freedom from himself in nature, that he is always at the center of the landscapes he creates.

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cur invidendis postibus et novo sublime ritu moliar atrium? cur valle permutem Sabina divitias operosiores? [Olkf 3.1.46--48) (Why should I construct my atrium to be envied lofty with columns in the new mode? Why should I take more burdensome riches in exchange for my Sabine valley?) For the SacerdosM usarum of this first Roman Ode, the Sabine Farm has become a precinct. The tutelary Faunus, whose protection pays tribute to the social value of the poet, is even Horace's equivalent of Augustus' Actean Apollo. In this context one can understand the essentially Augustan quality of Horace's landscapes, and perhaps also their similarity to the painted sacral-idyllic panels that bring personal taste into social view. The association between these landscapes and their background in the dedicatory epigram shows a coalescence of literary and artistic traditions within a context defined by the cultural modes of society. The paintings of the Casa di Livia approach the sacral-idyllic settings directly, as Horace often does, to create an ambience integrated into the actual physical presence of the house. The chief artistic influence here may be considered the Roman tendency to employ imitative forms in decoration-that is, the same habituation to verisimilitude that Vitruvius approvingly commemorated among the vanished good customs of the past. In later examples, however, the landscape itself takes a form that is even more reminiscent of its original association with literary epigram by presenting the sacred precinct through the intermediary of a worshiper. Horace also does this in a number of poems that define their occasion by means of ritual. For example, the objectified figure of Ht1ratiuscaelebsat the altar appears in the opening verses of 3.8. This visual change appears in the third of our Roman examples: a collection of three sacral-idyllic paintings in "cubiculum E" of the Villa alla Farnesina. Whether this Tiberside residence, whose symmetrical plan and central hemicyde seem to copy the architecture of Lucullus' monumental villa on the Pincian, belonged to a member of the senatorial class or only to a prosperous equestrian, its pretensions to

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luxury are conspicuous. 95 If the design of the villa is Lucullan, so also its collections of wall-paintings may appear to emulate the plutocrat's famous picture galleries. At the same time, the proportions of the rooms are modest. The decorations of the "cubiculum" are on a smaller scale than those of the Casa di Livia and, unlike the latter, make no pretense of illusionistic coherence with their context. 96 They are simple sketches whose graceful figures are painted with light strokes against a background of pure white so they appear to float in their surrounding space. The compositions of the three scenes are visually similar. Each consists of a single monument and a worshiper located at the center of its panel.97 Within this uniform scheme, however, the painter has varied the dispositions and interrelationships of the figures. One panel portrays the worshiper seated at the foot of a shrine (Figure 15), while another shows him in the very act of offering (Figure 16). This latter panel incorporates two spatial planes. The goddess raised on a pedestal occupies the middle ground, while the worshiper who has just placed his tribute of first fruits on the altar raises his hand to salute the deity from a respectful distance. In all three of these compositions, the human figure is fully as important as the shrine, while the background elements of the precinct are reduced almost to invisibility. The relationship between these landscape panels and their decorative contexts is a tasteful juxtaposition of simplicity and elaboration. In considering the ornamentation of these walls, one must keep in mind Vitruvius' censorious description of the unnatural illusions that contemporary fashion was producing. As he says, convincingly depicted architectonic structures with substantial columns and pediments had given way to slender, reedlike supports too fragile to bear the weight resting on them. Leaflike stalks form the bases for columns, or they are supported by human 95

The similarity between the architectural plans is brought out by G. Lugli (1938): 5-27. The history of the excavations and a brief conspectus of scholarly interpretation arc given by Bragantini and de Vos (1982), pp. 17-24. Lugli identified the house with Clodia's notorious Tiberside villa (Cicero, Pro Oielio 15.36). So far as the dating of the decorations is concerned, this speculation cannot be correct. Bragantini and de Vos do not commit themselves to an opinion on ownership, although they observe that Agrippa is the only proposed owner who is chronologically possible. Those who arc tempted to assign the villa to a prominent senatorial aristocrat will find it instructive

to review the history of Ciccro's negotiations for a piece of Tibersidc property (sec Shackleton Bailey (1966], Appendix 3: Tullia's Fane, pp. 404-413). There were many properties along the river bank, and their turnover was frequent. 96 Von Blanckenhagcn ( 1962), pp. 27-28, finds a different visual quality in these paintings, observing that they arc "no longer formalized allcgories of a sacred spot, but charming and gentle sketches of pious rural life." 97 Mau ( 1885), pp. 310-319 and pl. Sa; Bragantini and de Vos (1982), pp. 284-295 and pls. 116-178. Sec also Leach ( 1980a), p. 55 and pls. 3 & 4.

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figures (Arch. 7.5.3). Although elements of such innovation do appear in the interior furnishing of the Casa di Livia, they are much more fully illustrated by this room. 98 The aedicula columns are slender and fluted; the remainder of the supporting members are decorative candelabra performing the function of columns. The columns of the antechamber rest on caryatid bases. In the central portion of the room the landscaped panels are flanked by draped female figures on the dado that must be taken for pieces of statuary, 99 while the frieze on the rear wall contains a pair of shuttered pinakes enclosing small erotic paintings. These latter elements show that the character of the room is similar to that of the Casa degli Epigrammi as the housing of a collection of objets d'art. Style, as much as subject, commands our attention here. The mode described by Vitruvius, much as he himself refuses to acknowledge it, signifies a change in decorative symbolism from imitation of such grandiose marks of status as the porticus or fictive theater to a more credible approximation of interior decoration. Small in scale, intimate, and sophisticated, these paintings do not call attention to themselves from a distance, but their fine details invite close inspection. It is perhaps just the contrast between the boldly stated techniques of megalography and this fine spun style that Horace had in mind in the well-known ut picturapoesispassage of the Ars Poetica: Ut pictura poesis: erit quae, si proprius stes, re capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes. [Epis.2.3.361-362] (As it is with paintings, so with poems; there will be one that takes your attention more the closer you stand, and another example [the more] if you stand farther off.) Standing at a distance from these paintings, the observer sees only the slender outlines of their forms. At the middle distance, he receives the full illusionistic effect of 98 Compositional similarities between the paintings in the two houses have been mentioned frequently in studies of the e\'Olution of the third style. Bastet and de Vos (l 979), p. 19, see in the Famesina house a stylistic evolution by which the new forms progressively distance themselves from the old.

99 Bastct and de Vos (ibid., p. 20) rightly compare the statuary and basic design of the room with that of the Casa degli Epigrammi.

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the imitation of texture and sculptured form. At close range the observer can appreciate how cleverly this illusion has been contrived by the patterning of fine, single brush strokes. Admiring both the art and the artifice that produces it, one may think again of Horace and the caUidaiunctura (ingenious interweavings) which unite words to form the verbal design of a well-structured poem. As a setting for panels reflecting the dedicatory epigram, these walls provide a context appropriate to the refinement of the genre. The contrast between simplicity and ornamentation, less dissonant than that of the Casa di Augusto, was surely one of the effects intended for the spectator to appreciate. Indeed, this new mode of combination confers a new character upon the visual expression of taste. No longer does it manifest itself by the simulation of diversity, the assemblage of choice gleanings that exhibits a command of money; instead, it is shown in the ordering of a decorously harmonious ensemble whose parts are conceived in consideration of the whole. Not unsimilar in visual suggestion to the composition of the Farnesina paintings are the sacral-idyllic vignettes of Ti bull us' first elegiac book. One part of the program of rural activities the poet employs to objectify his self-portraiture in the opening poem is an ensemble of sacrificialscenes focused upon the single worshiper making a gesture of dedication at a simple, even primitive, rural shrine: nam veneror, seu stipes habet desertus in agris seu vetus in trivia florida serta lapis: et quodcumque mihi pomum novus educat annus, libatum agricolae ponitur ante deo. flava Ceres, tibi sit nostro de rure corona spicea, quae templi pendeat ante fores; pomosisque ruber custos ponatur in hortis terreat ut saeva falce Priapus aves.

[Elegies1.1.11-16] (I pay reverence, whether a deserted stock holds its place in the fields, or an ancient stone at the crossroads with a flower garland. And whatever fruit the new year brings forth for me is freely placed before the farmers' god. For you, golden-haired Ceres, let there be an eared crown from my

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acreage that may hang before the doors of your temple, and let the ruddy guardian Priapus be placed in the fruit orchards to terrify birds with his fierce sickle.) When in poem 5 the elegist creates a complementary portrait of a female worshiper, bringing Delia into the milieu of the farm, he invites us to imagine a similarly varied ensemble of sacral-idyllic scenes: illa deo sciet agricolae pro vitibus uvam, pro segete spicas, pro grege ferre dapem. [El~. 1.5.27-28] (She will know how to offer a duster to the farmer's god on behalf of the vines, grain-ears for the sake of the crops, and a meal for the welfare of the

flock.) In both these passages the details are sparing and carefully placed. The picture is that of the shrine, or god, with its proper token of agricultural abundance. The economy of detail bespeaks the simplicity of the gesture. In describing pastoral sacrifices to Pales, the poet more explicitly associates this simplicity with the rural virtues of ancient times: hinc ego pastoremque meum lustrare quot annis et placidam soleo spargere lacte Palem. adsitis, divi, neu vos e paupere mensa dona nee e puris spernite fictilibus.fictilia antiquus primum sibi fecit agrestis pocula, de facili composuitque luto.[Eleg.1.1.35-40] (For this cause, I am accustomed to perform a ritual purification of my shepherd year after year and to sprinkle a peaceful Pales with milk. Be favorable, gods. Do not spurn gifts [offered] from a humble table or out of dishes of unadulterated day. The ancient countryman first shaped common ware for himself and formed it of pliable mud.)

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In the tenth poem, the speaker again returns to the theme of the poor man's sacrifice: hie placatus erat, seu quis libaverat uvam seu dederat sanctae spicea serta comae: atque aliquis voti compos liba ipse ferebat postque comes purum filia parva favum. [El~. 1.10.21-24] (The god was appeased, whether someone had sprinkled wine or had dedicated an eared garland to his sacred locks, and if anyone who had been granted his votive prayer carried sacrificial cakes and, his small daughter accompanying him, a pure honeycomb.) With greater emphasis here on the figures of the sacrificers than on the shrine itself, the poet dresses himself in proper garb for the ritual: hanc pura cum veste sequar myrtoque canistra vincta geram, myrto vinctus et ipse caput. [l.10.27-28] (After him I shall follow in a spotless robe, and I shall carry a basket bound with myrtle, and my head shall also be twined with myrtle.) Tibullus' sacral-idyl1icvignettes are rural landscapes only because they imply such a context. Although insistently visual and sharp in their foreground detail, his descriptions are lacking in spatial perspective or concern for immediacy of place. Like the panels of the Famesina cubiculum they focus upon a single, central image with minimal surrounding detail. In referring to the Tibullan technique of vignette painting as "misty and unreal," J.P. Elder hits upon that very charateristic of abstraction that makes his landscapes the poetic equivalent of sacral-idyllic painting, 100 but they are also similar to sacral-idyllic painting in the art of their relationship to context. The profound impression that Tibullus' rural imagery has made upon readers 100 J.P. Elder ( 1962). p. 81. The vignettes, as Elder argues, arc not Vcrgilian.

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owes much to its being the only hint of topographical orientation that the poems provide within their context of interior monologue. Propertius, by contrast, occasionally associates his reflections with specific places and scenes. Even the version of a paradausithuronthat occupies second place in Tibullus' first book of elegies has so uncertain a place in the abstract structure of the poet's thought that the reader remains uncertain whether the complaint is actually dramatized in front of a door. 101 Consequently, the world the poet seems to structure through his glimpses of country landscape has seemed to many to have the semantic status of an "unattainable" imaginary world. What the paintings can contribute to our understanding of this poetic imagery is the function of the rural image as a mode of decoration or fictional self-display. Tibullus' sacral-idyllic images are closer than Horace's to the exhibitive order of the picture gallery just because they lack Horace's referential association with a specific and concrete geographical place; the space within which they exist is created by the poetic discourse alone. In considering the sigriificance of these images, one must not forget what an unusual literary figure Tibullus' farmer / elegist really is, or how carefully Tibullus controls our acquaintance with this figure by introducing his rural costume in advance of his erotic spirit. 102 In the first poem an atmosphere not unlike the farmworld of the Georgiaforms around the poetic speaker. This environment assigns him a number of specific functions and gestures that create his character by implication. 'Allying himself with Vergil's simple rustic, who finds nonmaterial satisfaction in activities dictated by the natural cycle of work and fruition, the elegist speaks with an attitude balanced between self-indulgence and self-justifying solemnity. The physical pleasures of stomping the vintage and caressing ripe fruit have their proper dues in the systematic observance of ritual. High-mindedly, the poet even challenges the gods to be sure they have not lost their respect for simplicity in a world given over to materialism and greed. 1• 1 A bibliography for this elusive question is provided by David Bright ( 1978), p. 137, n. 28. Although Copley ( 1956), pp. 91-107, treated the poem as a conventional p11t"RdRusithyron, more recent interprcters--c.g., Bright (1978), p. 137; Pumam ( 1973), p. 61; and Lyne (1980), p. 179-agrecin recognizing incorporated reminiscences of the p11t"RdRusithyron into an indefinite setting.

1• 2 More extensive discussion is in Leach ( 1980a), pp. 60--63, and (1980b), pp. 182--86. Lyne (1980), p. 155, similarly observes: ~He is reinterpreting and re-deploying against the Roman establishment's thinking a figure of the establishment's own moral mythology. Tibullus' wish must have made provocative and (initially) puzzling reading."

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Once the poetic speaker has established the validity of his pietas,however, he exploits the very virtues he has praised, extending these, on the one hand, to excuse him as a true patriot of the land from the more energetic patriotism of military service and, on the other hand, to justify his self-indulgence in the campaigns of love. 103 Idealistic and individualistic as the speaker's dedication to virtuous simplicity may sound, the reader should not overlook its poetic background. & farmer and lover, the elegist sets himself clearly apart from his predecessor Gallus, whose erotic career, according to Vergil's tenth Eclogue,was complicated by his bondage to a military life. In the dosing passages of his poem, Tibullus defines himself as a soldier who confines his warfare to the contests of love. Terming the life of his preference a vita inm, Tibullus' poetic speaker reveals a number of inherent contradictions between his disposition and his disguise. This phrase suits neither the farmer nor the artist, but only the lover exploiting the farmer's role. Not inaccurately, it is often said that Tibullus' artistry rests upon concealment of art. His profession of artlessness and of its behavioral complement in a passive enjoyment of uncompetitive sufficiency reveals a certain tone of aristocratic self-confidence. The speaker's concomitant failure to govern or arrange the order of life becomes the basis for the irony that characterizes the lover's career in the book. When put to the actual test of a relationship with a mistress belonging to the urbane world of erotic convention, the lover's ideals of aloof simplicity chart a course toward failure. Within this unstable climate oflove, the rural image becomes an impractical motif that fades into paler and paler insubstantiality. The distraught lover barred from admittance in elegy 2 imagines his hopeless affair as a Lucretian or pastoral idyll. Away from Rome in poem 3, the soldier-lover who has not so far succeeded in controlling his destiny as to escape a military life refashions both the world and Delia. In fantasy he evokes subsequent visions of a golden age-an Elysian paradise of lovers and an Odyssean return to a faithful puella. In the fifth poem, the hope of Delia's fidelity is fading, but the lover retains his rural ideal to measure 1°' The clearly imagined "death scene" ( 1.1.59-68) so often cited as a symptom ofTibullus' romantic melancholy fits this context perfectlywell if we notice that the emphasis is not reallyon death as a fact, but rather on the funeral itself, which will not boast all the trappings and insignia of Roman upper-classachievement

that a Mcssala might anticipate. Gototf(l974), pp. 241-242, likewisedocs not understand the deathbed scenes as a serious self-revelation,although his major point is that so much weeping would, like Lesbia's grief for her pet sparrow, ruin Delia's pretty eyes.

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the real woman against his evanescent image. Although the book contains no explicit narrative, its combination of incident and reflection hints at a narrative under the surface that the reader composes for himself. 104 This implied narrative fosters the perceptible progress of the poet's learning, simultaneously, both the nature of Delia and the limitations of his own fictional persona. Within this context the image of nature and the stability of ritual serve the thematic conflict between an artistic craving for order and reality's insistent subversion of order. Conceived primarily as a poetic antithesis to Gallus-but also, no doubt, to reveal the Vergilian affinities of his unannounced artistic credo-Tibullus' gallery of sacral-idyllic imagery is a verbal picture gallery exhibiting refined standards of taste. The difference between the functions of sacral-idyllic imagery in the Elegiesand in Horace's Odes has much to do with the differences of genre and the implied poetics of the two works. Like Horace, Tibullus differs from Gallus (and also Propertius) in making landscape a facet of his permanent self-definition rather than the momentary reflection of a passing mood. Aside from its role in the Delia poems, sacral-idyllic imagery figures also in the Priapic ars amatoria,where the god pronounces a philosophy that encompasses the natural affinity between love and art. 105 However, the fact that the elegiac speaker receives this aesthetic credo from another while his own fictional experience teaches him contrary principles is only typical of his passive behavior throughout the book. Horace, by contrast, accepts his artistic principles from no one; he is constantly revising and redefining his chosen models. In his hands, Roman lyric becomes at once a vehicle for statements of public consequence and a pattern for harmonizing the multiple experiences of the personal life. Of course, the offhand manner in which Tibullus yields the task of formulating his poetics to Priapus is also consonant with his idiosyncratic fiction of artlessness. So far, Horace's admonitory epistle to Albius may approximate the traits ofTibullus' persona. Within the conventions of elegy, this pose of ineffectuality may appear as an ingenious version of the lover's generically predetermined failure, for it seems to be an uncodified rule of the genre that the lover fails even as the poet succeeds. •04 As Bright ( 1978), p. 124, observes, "The coherence of the collection will emerge from reading the components consecutively." 105 The dcdicatorv form rums didactic in accordance with Priapus' ~onventional function of granting

potency to his worshipcr, but the advice here is the substirute for acrual potency. Further discussion of the garden image and its relation to piaorial conventions is in Leach ( 1980a), pp. 65-66.

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In Ovid's last witty variation, poetry demonstrates its persuasive efficacy when it prostitutes Corinna to the poet's glory and the lover's chagrin. 106 As a lyricist, Horace has an opportunity to incorporate his progress toward self-definition into a broader context of experiences and a more definite framework of time. For the Roman reader, the occasional specificevent must have dated certain individual odes so that his progress through the books assumed a kind of chronology correspondent to his memory of recent history. 107 Although one should not think that the order of the poems preserves their order of composition, their current of movement in time is a structure which complements that of the poet's developing artistic self-confidence. This sense of the inseparability of historical and personal time for a publicly oriented poet colors the attitude toward love in the third book. The poet studies the subject from the retrospective distance of a spectator for whom its urgencies no longer need occupy the center of consciousness. The fourth book will deal with love at a further remove as an impulse unsuited to the decorum of age. However, the peculiar elusiveness of Tibullus' poetic l'envoito his collection, Elegies1.10, is owing to the fact that he accomplishes something similar to Horace's retrospective gesture without the same clarifying framework of historical time. This final elegy takes the shape of an imaginative return to the countryside. In it the poetic speaker reasserts his idiosyncratic identity in separation from the circumstances that have disappointed his self-confidence. The temporal fiction bypasses intermediate stages of experience-indeed the whole implied narrative of erotic adventure, and locates itself at an indefinite moment when a summons to war is heard. The poet further confuses the historicity of this summons by placing it against the mythical background of the golden age: divitis hoe vitium est auri, nee bella fuerunt, faginus astabat cum scyphus ante dapes. A11111m 3.12.8: "Sic erit; ingenio prostitit ilia mco." 107 As Nisbet and Hubbard ( 1970), p. xix,observe, "Many of the most successful political allusions arc merged in essentially private poems." The commentators discuss the problems of dating and chronology on pp. xxvii-xxxvii, arguing that dating played a larger part in the arrangement of Odes 1-3 than scholars generally assume. A large portion of the Odes in book I arc earlier than those in book 2, and these in " 16

turn arc earlier than the odes in book 3. Book I contains a large proportion of" Alccan" Odes. This is not to say that the final order of the poems reflectsthe order of their composition; several odes at the beginning of book I refer to events close to the time the collection was probably published. In his outline of a structural study of the books, Santirocco ( 1980), pp. 49-50, emphasizes the very heterogeneous character of the Odes,noting that no single principle of arrangement governs their order.

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non arces, non vallus erat, somnwnque petebat securus varias dux gregis inter oves. tune mihi vita foret vulgi nee tristia nossem arma nee audissem corde micante rubam. nunc ad bella trahor, et iam quis forsitan hostis haesura in nostro tela gerit latere. [Eleg.1.10.7-14] (This is the flaw of enrichening gold, nor were there wars when a beechwood drinking cup took its place before the feast. There were no citadels and no fortifications, and the leader of the flock sought sleep in confidence among all his variegated sheep. If only I were alive in that race of men, and I had not known stern arms or heard the trumpet with fearful heart. Now I am dragged to the wars, and perchance some enemy already has the 'weapons in hand that will cling fast in my flank.) Imagery reflecting that of previous poems makes this no Hesiodic golden age, but rather a Tibullan, sacral-idyllic golden age, whose near equivalent the poet finds in his own recollections of childhood: sed patrii servate Lares: aluistis et idem, cursarem vestros cum tener ante pedes. neu pudeat prisco vos esse e stipite factos: seu veteris sedes incoluistis avi. [l.10.15-18] (But, Lares of my ancestors, be protective; for you nourished this very same man when I ran about as a stripling child at your teet. And do not be ashamed to be formed from a stock of wood or to inhabit the seat of paternal ancestors.) Throughout the poem, Tibullus employs his visual imagery in association with his characteristically ambiguous subjunctives to maintain the sense of confusion that intermeshes mythological, national, and autobiographical time. His pictorialism places him in a spectator's position similar to that which Vergil, at the conclusion of the second Georgie,assumes in observing the farmer:

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quin potius laudandus hie est quern prole parata occupat in parva pigra senectu casa! ipse suas sectatur oves, at filius agnos, et calidam fesso comparat uxor aquam. sic ego sim, liceatque caput candescere canis, temporis et prisci facta referre senem. [1.10.39-45] (But how much more worthy of praise is he whom, with his children reared, a slow old age overtakes in a little house. He tends his own sheep, and his son the lambs, and his wife warms water for him when he is weary. Such may I be. Grant that my head shine white with age.) As the poem continues to its conclusion, the objectified image of the rural world fills its boundaries, as it were, to the margin. From a distance the poet watches the country family returning homeward in its wagon, the quarrels of rustic lovers. He does not, however, revert to that former self-indulgent mood in which he had made the country a background for his own amorous gratification. This new restraint contributes to the reader's impression that he is inspecting familiar scenes from an altered point of view. The explanation for this more contemplative revisitation of the rural landscape may well lie in the relationship between the poet's fictive personality and his autobiographical self.108 With the disappearance of the elegiac lover, the mask itself seems to drop away, while artistic allegiance to Vergil comes more openly to the surface of the poem. In the second book of elegies, Tibullus takes a broader and more proprietary view of the country, but one that is more consonant with his social position as a member of the Roman equestrian class. As master of ceremonies for the blessing of the fields in poem 1, the birthday teast of poem 2, and the priestly inauguration of poem 5, he speaks in the role of a creator of order. As they become more ceremonial, the poems become also less personal when Tibullus expands his rural vision beyond the status of a decorative, self-advertising motif to encompass the bond between nature and the historically defined social world.

'°"

Ross ( 1974), pp. 152-168, discusses the inter· relationship of historical sclt:consciousness and poetics in Tibullus' second book.

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The further development of sacral-idyllic painting appears similarly to break free of its confinement to the miseen sceneof the dedicatory epigram and to encompass more signs of that real social and physical world in which rirual fulfills a serviceable role. This transformation might be described as an assimilation of facrual specificity responsive to the interests of Roman culture. That is to say, the allembracing topographical context which the reader misses in Ti bull us landscape vignettes begins to assert its presence within the visual images of painting. Von Blanckenhagen finds that the generic development of sacral-idyllic painting achieves its high point in the panels of the red and black rooms of the Villa of Agrippa Posrumus at Boscotrecase.109 Technically speaking, this is quite true. In quality and precision the images surpass those of the Casa di Augusto or Farnesina paintings to make these appear, retrospecti\'ely, as mere forerunners of a marure style. In fact, however, the innovations of the Boscotrecase paintings, even as von Blanckenhagen himself describes them, show the sacral-idyllic tradition forsaking its inceptive characteristics and changing into something else. The painter or workshop responsible for the decoration commanded the technical skills for perfecting their form. Working in a fine, detailed manner comparable to that of the Farnesina painters, these artists developed an even clearer and firmer touch. 110 Where the technique of the Farnesina cubiculum defined solid forms in soft wash with patterns of single lines to simulate texrures and shadings, the Boscotrecase painter combined the flexibility of line with a buildup of color tones to sculprure his forms. The use of vivid polychrome also allowed him to make effective use of white shadings and dark highlights. Thus both his panels and decorative backgrounds have a glowing intensity of color not previously achieved in works of the sacral-idyllic genre. The pattern of interior decoration that surrounds the panels is at once more restrained in ornamentation and bolder in its artifice than that of the Farnesina room. The columns, candelabra, and cornices---even more attenuated than in the Von Blanckenhagen (1962), pp. 58-59, in whose opinion, the Boscotrecasc painters were either trained in the atelier of the Famesina painters or hea,·ily influenced by the work of this house, but in my opinion the difference in brush technique and the execution of details sets them apart. • 09

110 Holland ( 1937), pp. 428--441, describes these shrines. According to the passage she quotes from the text of the Gr111nmRticiLatini (302.20) the shrines might ha,·e four, three, or two doors. Another discussion is in Dumezil ( 1970), p. 343.

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previous example-are flattened against the wall so that they appear from a distance as slender bands of color. Only upon close inspection can the spectator appreciate their meticulously rendered detail: the delicate contours and traceries of the floral ornaments and jewel-like bandings that stripe the frames. For the spectator close at hand, these details assume a third-dimensional quality and simultaneously an aspect of improbability. The lifelike flowers are fixed in stiff patterns; the delicate sprays, too stylized for real vegetation, are still too intricate to be wrought in the fine metal from which they appear to be made. A fiction of opulence governs itself by impeccable taste. Although such artificial floral decorations appear consistently throughout the third style and often with extremely beautiful effect, they seldom achieve this degree of harmonious self-assurance. The decoration of the black room is wholly based upon sacral-idyllic vignettes. Although centered within their aediculae, these float unframed against the dark background of the wall. As usual, the central images are sacred precincts, but instead of solitary worshipers, the painters have created scenes of communal activity. Five figures appear in the most complicated vignette: two men wearing togas, two women, and a figure in a short robe. The shrine at which they have gathered consists of a tower with two porches extending outward at right angles. In front of each porch is an altar; that closer to the foreground is set with four sacrificial bowls. One can perhaps not inaccurately identify the subject. Sacrificesto the Lares Compitales were performed at towers located at the crossroads and constructed with doors, each one facing the property of a family. The two togate figures suggest that two families are sacrificing. 111 The sense of communal participation is similar to that created by the opening verses ofTibullus' second book: Quisquis adest, faveat: fruges lustramus et agros, ritus ut a prisco traditus extat avo. [Eleg.2.1.1-2] (Be propitious, whoever is at hand. We carry out the rites of the fields and crops as the ceremony that is handed down from our first father persists.)

111

This is the north wall landscape. That of the west wall also depicts a tower with a group ofsacrific-

crs on each side, although a velum is here substituted for the door on the right-hand side.

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The distinctly Hellenistic tone of the Farnesina landscapes has been replaced by specific Roman content. The famous landscapes of the red room are the first sacral-idyllic paintings to employ a full polychrome scheme, but this novelty is almost the least of the painter's innovations. Instead of isolating his sacral-idyllic motif against a plain background or enclosing it within its own grove, the Boscotrecase painter brings his sacred precincts to the foreground and highlights them against a thematically irrelevant background.112 Compositionally, his backgrounds are far more complex than his foregrounds. The one on the north wall (Figure 18) has a small temple in the Etruscan manner with a deeply overhanging roof and acroteria, and a small building of less clearly defined character by its side. Two dramatically slender cedars rise up behind the smaller building. To the left is a wall, or colonnade, seen in bird's-eye perspective encircling a park filled with trees. On both sides of the buildings, great cloudy mountain peaks form the background of the landscape. The architectural background of the east wall panel (Figure 19) is more substantial and more elegant than that of the north wall. A long roofed colonnade stretches backward on the right-hand side. On the left are two towers, a low balustrade, and a series of terraces. The forms of the buildings are not unlike some in the Oplontis monchrome landscapes, but the fine details of their architectural ornament and the graceful trees that shade them create a thoroughly urbane air. The background for this villa is again composed of blue-shaded mountain peaks. The panel on the west wall (Figure 17) shows somewhat simpler buildings but the same distant view of shadowy mountains. The foreground shrines in the red room are handsomely designed to complement the background architecture and at the same time to suggest quite specifically the worship of a particular god. The shrine on the north wall consists of a small cylindrical building not unlike several in the Oplontis paintings, a slender column bearing an urn, and the seated figure of a goddess. A Priapic altar on the one side is balanced by another altar opposite. The west wall shrine is a roofed tetrastyumwith a large libation bowl placed before it and the head of a long-horned goat suspended from one of the columns. Tympani hang from the columns; another crowns the 112

Von Blanckcnhagcn ( 1962), pp. 20--23.

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pediment. Clearly this shrine belongs to Dionysus. The semi-circular schola of the east wall is adorned with a hatlike shield; a tripod stands in front. In all these images we see something possibly approaching the complexity of the real Roman temenos. An inscription of the ancient Tabula Agone describes a hortus Cerea/.iscontaining altars of thirteen rural gods. 113 These multiple dedications to minor deities, whose roles we can identify only imperfectly, suggest what must have been the almost garish complexity of the Roman sacred place. Here, for the first time, scenes that are genuinely rural combine the formalities of architecture and landscaped planting with a backdrop of the actual countryside. It can hardly seem coincidental that these scenes decorate a Campanian house whose own setting on the slopes of Vesuvius in view of the dramatic ridges of the Apennines was similar to the background of the paintings. The villa itself, probably the property of an Augustan freedman, must have been of the same kind as those reflected in the paintings and will have looked out upon similar neighboring villas. In later years so socially assured a man as Pliny did not conceal the pleasure of ownership he felt in looking out from his windows over the villa landscape of the Laurentian shore. 114 In incorporating their dedicatory motifs into such a factual context, the landscapes suggest a new way of expressing the self-satisfaction of prosperity through a reflection of the owner's status in his environment. Their style is no more realistic than that of the Farnesina panels. Von Blanckenhagen's analysis of the compositions shows how their combination of illusionistic and bird's-eye perspective creates a kind of double vision for the spectator. Foreground and background are seen from contradictory points of view in a discontinuous ordering of space. 115 Their separation is also emphasized by the discontinuity of the ground wash surrounding the discrete islands of space. Only in the west wall landscape is there a level stretch of ground unbroken from foreground to background and this inconsistency adds to the spatial ambiguity of the ensemble as a whole. Furthermore, the forms, by their floating position, maintain the formal char1 " Pisani ( 1953 ), p. 92. I owe this reference to the kindness of Agnes K. Michels. One mav. in fa~,, corn• pare Varro's dedicatory passages in the De Rt RusticR where the di consmtis (counsclor gods) im·oked arc not "the twelve whose gilded starues surround the Forum,n but rather a group of twelve rural deities (b.R.R. l.J.4-7).

11• Plinv, Epistu/Rt2.17: "The roofs of the villas adorn the shoreline with a most pleasing variety. now continuous, now interrupted, that surpasses the aspect of many cities whether you make use of an ap· proach by sea or by land.n 115 Von Blanckenhagcn (1962), pp. 31-35.

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acter of vignettes. In this the painter no doubt shows the influence of the tradition in which he worked. He preserved its essential visual characteristics while adapting it to place and circumstance. Neither in stylistic complexity nor in the skill of their execution are any other sacral-idyllic landscapes quite equal to those of Boscotrecase.116 The unusual vision shown by the painter is further confirmed by the two directions in which the genre develops. In some examples we see the picturesque foreground vignette isolated from context in a manner so stylized that the image loses all communication with reality. Such abstracted landscapes most often appear as floating motifs in the panels of rooms whose primary focus is upon mythological painting. In other examples, far greater realism is created by the filling in of the background space. Paintings in the realistic mode occur less frequently in the sun iving corpus, but they are more interesting. 117 Three examples deserve notice. Their foreground scenes are distinguished by a specificity comparable to that of the Boscotrecase panels, but the densely textured backgrounds of trees and rocks setting off these temenoigive them the character of remote places closer to wilderness than civilization. The ritual gestures depicted in these settings seem to belong to definite circumstances and moments of time. A large panel in Casa 1.7.19 shows a solitary worshiper in the grove of a Priapic herm. His dog noses the ground in the foreground, and the man's attention is fixed on the dog. 118 The spectator is invited to supply a text that will complete the contextual significance of the gestures. The visual suggestions again direct our thoughts to the dedicatory poem, especially the ever-popular Priapic epigram. Of two panels in the Naples Museum that were taken from the same room, one is quite similar to this, but the other shows a small family of three people who have come to perform a sacrifice at a woodland shrine (Figure 20). 119 The shrine itself is as complex as those of the Boscotrecase paintings with its seated goddess and symbolic decoration; the precinct itself is more complex. Located on a small islet, it is surrounded by streams, with a small waterfall splashing down over the rocks behind. The thick forest surrounds it with rocks and trees. Unlike the virtually 1

11°

Ibid., pp. 35-37.

° Further discussion and descriptions of later ex-

11

amples arc in ibid. and in Leach ( 1980a), pp. 58-59.

Peters ( 1963). pp. 68--69 and fig. 49. This is M.N. 9489. Sec ibid., pp. 149-150, pl. 34, and fig. 142. The goddess appears robe Cvbclc. 118

119

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anonymous family groups of the red room vignettes, these three people form an interassociated unit playing out clearly designated familial roles. While the mother stands holding the offerings with the child beside her, the father has begun to prepare for the ritual by washing his hands at the waterfall. From this specific moment, the spectator can follow the further steps of the sacrifice in his imagination. The natural beauty of the setting lends a certain piquancy to the rough dress of the countryman and the homeliness of the gestures. The elegant style of sacral-idyllic has been transformed into what we might call a genre scene similar to Tibullus' picture of the return from a rural festival: rusticus e lucoque ,·ehit, male sobrius ipse uxorem plaustro progeniemque domum. [El~. 1.10.51-52) (And the rustic himself, in a shaky state of sobriety, drives home his wife and offspring in a wagon from the grove.) Both in their compositional fullness and in the use of visual symbolism for narrative suggestions, landscapes of this kind have much in common with mythological compositions. These few examples, which constitute the sum of our knowledge of sacral-idyllic landscape during its period of most intensive development, indicate a Roman acculturation of the genre that widens its focus from the solitary, individual gesture of votive dedication to a socially oriented depiction of ritual amid a more complexly structured environment. The specific interest in defining a coherent shape and character for the precinct that characterizes this transformation distinguishes these painted scenes from the Ara Pacis panels, which employ an abstracted background of natural objects in the Hellenistic manner, with historical and allegorical implications. The organizational difference between such political art and our domestic landscapes argues for the semantic independence of sacral-idyllic, yet it provides no grounds for romanticizing the paintings in a modern sense as evidence for glorification of simplicity or a rejection of the public life. The preeminence of the genre attests to the imitative penchant of Roman decorative fashions without implying a

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concomitant uniformity of message save for the socially oriented exhibition of taste. The amplification of compositions by incorporating of specific characteristics of place is consonant with the adoption of a Roman vocabulary. Admittedly, the paintings whose contents suggest the institutional nature of ritual are of a more serious cast than those that pay tribute to the slight form of the dedicatory epigram, but the later poems of Tibullus show how this larger subject may serve the personal point of view. If indeed the Augustan program for the reordering of the Roman community set out to foster civic harmony through a reanimation of ritual, such an aim was practical because this consciousness of symbolic order was already deeply rooted in Roman patterns of thought. Whether the religious occasion is personal or civic, the formulas of ritual participate in the politics of man and his environment so as to allow the performers a measure of self-determined control over their circumstances. The importance of this practical negotiation with nature appears very clearly in still another of Horace's sacral-idyllic odes that employs distinctly articulated visual imagery. The opening stanza of Odes 3.23 specifies a formula of religious decorum. Here the sacrificer does not speak for herself, but is pictured objectively through the poet's hortatory second-person address. At the turning of the moon, he advises, rustic Phidyle must stand with hands upraised to the sky to consecrate her small offering of barley, incense and a pig. This economical sacrifice will be enough to fulfill the circumscribed needs of the individual: nee pestilentem sentiet Africum fecunda vitis neu sterilem seges robiginem aut dulces alumni pomifero grave tempus anno.

[3.23.5-8] (Nor will your fruitful vines feel the plague-bearing African wind, nor your crops the blighting mildew, nor your sweet nurslings the heavy season in the fruit-bearing year.) The poet speaks to Phidyle as an inarticulate worshiper whose purpose he himself must interpret. He addresses also her anxious sense of insufficiency:

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te nihil attinet temptare multa caede bidentium parvos coronantem marino rore deos fragilique myrto. [3.23.13-16] (You are not obliged to address the diminutive gods you decorate with rosemary and delicate myrtle with much slaughter of two-year-old sheep.) Of all Horace's sacral-idyllic poems, this one most fully explores the meaning of sacrifice as an adjustment between human life and nature, yet it is equally concerned with the position of the individual within a larger social scheme. Phidyle represents the kind of uninstructed mind most likely to be daunted both by the powers she propitiates and by the panoply used to approach them. Her lesson is that of separating personal proprieties from those of a world beyond her concern: nam quae nivali pascitur Algido devota quercus inter et ilices aut crescit Albanis in herbis victima, pontificum securis cervice tinguet.

[3.23.9-13] (The victim that is fed on snowy Mount Compatri among the oaks and ilex trees or fattens amid the grasses of the Alban hills will dye pontifical axes with its neck.) Since the imagery describing the civic sacrifice is fully as rural as that surrounding rustic Phidyle, this cannot be called a poem that distinguishes city from country, nor does it argue for the moral superiority of the simple. Private and public worlds both rely upon sacrifice. African plague and blighting mildew press with equal urgency upon the life of the community and upon that of the individual. Phidyle must recognize that her own due observance has power equivalent to more dazzling observers:

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nmunis aram si tetigit manus, non sumptuosa blandior hostia, mollivit aversos Penatis farre pio et saliente mica. [3.23.17-20] (If a hand with no guilt touches the altar, not more flatteringly will it

placate adverse Penates by a sumptuous victim than by pious spelt and a grain of salt.) Although Horace speaks to Phidyle from a superior point of view, the lesson he reads to her is that of the third book of Odes,and its decorum is coincident with the poet's artistic philosophy. In poems and in painting, the circumscribed world of sacral-idyllic landscape is capable of reflecting and enlarging the order of the individual life.

CHAPTER

5

Architectural Landscapes and Augustan Rome

T

HE SECOND GENRE conspicuous in Augustan landscape painting is the architectural panorama. My discussion of these compositions will be based upon the most legible extant examples: two friezes among the mural decorations of the Casa di Livia and the Villa alla Famesina. 1 Located in houses that also have sacral-idyllic panels, these friezes share in their technical refinement and indeed incorporate many similar forms. Still, their range of vision and techniques of composition set them apart as a distinctive mode. 2 Where the sacral-idyllic is selectively focused, these friezes are eclectic in their combination of motifs. Unlike sacral-idyllic landscapes, they have no demonstrable literary background, but are rather a species of composition based upon visual principles alone. Furthermore, they are clearly rooted in the traditions of earlier painting. As we shall see in discussing the literary testimony in Vitruvius and Pliny, the

1 The Villa alla Famesina contains three examples, but two arc now too indistinct to be discussed in detail: a fria.c landscape on white panels in Corridor A, and a series of polychrome landscapes sketched on black panels in Corridor C (sec J. Lcssing and Mau [1891], pp. 6---7,and Baster and de Vos [1979], pp. 19-20). Traces of similar landscapes now appear on a black-ground garlanded wall in the Casa di Augusto (Carcnoni [1983a], pp. 30--32), but these also arc barely legible; two human figures, a tree, and what is possibly an altar with a statue on a column arc all that

can be identified. I also omit another series of contemporary landscape sketches from the Columbarium of the V ilia Pamphili; sec BendineUi ( 1941 ) . Although these are similar in style to the Famcsina landscapes, they arc less complicated; they do not form a continuous fria.c, but arc arranged on slabs separating the niches of the columbarium. 'The most recent discussion of stylistic interrelationships among landscapes of the period is in Ling ( 1977), pp. 1-16.

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Augustan architectural panorama is a form in transition that already shows signs of its later development into the widely popular form of the villa landscape. 3 One might, in fact, call it a villa landscape, save that it lacks the particular emphasis upon the magnificence of construction and the amenities of landscape gardening that dominate the later form. Although the eclecticism of imagery in panoramic landscapes clearly aims at simulation of the typical, the coherence of their topographical pattern in company with a certain contemporary frame of reference place them within a world of historical time. Where sacral-idyllic landscapes seem to represent the selective taste of their owners, the vision of the frieze is directed outward to the communal world, a world that is commodiously ordered and engagingly varied. Juxtapositions of diverse images create the aesthetic rationale of the frieze, and in this respect they offer an analogy to the techniques of visual juxtaposition used by Horace to establish a spatial and temporal structure in the Odes. The sacred precincts of sacral-idyllic landscape have their own subordinate place within the order of the architectural panorama. The rooms in which our two extant friezes are located were designed with a standard pattern of wall division that is well accommodated to emphasizing their continuity. 4 Of these, only the rooms in the Villa alla Famesina approximate the ambulationesthat Vitruvius associates with eclectic landscapes.5 In spite of the difference between the characters and shapes of the rooms, the organizational patterns of their walls were very similar. Each combined the paneled orthostat background • This similarity is enforced by the fact that later painting docs include fri= that arc specificallyvilla fri=, such as the examples in the Casa dcl Menandro (Maiuri [ 1932), p. 232) and from the Casa dcl Citarista (M.N. 9610 and M.N. 9496in Peters [1963), pp. 164-166, pl. 39, and figs.158 and 159. Sec:the:catc:· gorical discussion of fourth-style landscapes in ibid. This genremay be explained as a reversion to an old type:of organization with nc:warchitecrural forms. • These arc Corridors F and G (J. Lcssing and Mau [ 1891], pl. 11 ). The similarity between the wall schemes in these corridors and in the YeUow Frieze room of the Casa di Livia has been mentioned often, most recently by Bastct and de Vos ( 1979), p. 11. 5 Arch. 7.5.2: "ambulationibus, vcro propter spatia longitudinis varictatibus topiorum omarent ab certis

locorum proprictatibus imagines exprimentc:s-pinguntur enim portus, promontoria, litora ftumina, fontes, curipi, fana, luci, montes, pc:cora, pastores" (Because of their extended length, they decorated corridors with a diversity of topographical features, depicting imagesdrawn from the definite characteristics of places-they painted harbors, promontories, coastlines, rivers, springs, water channels, shrines, groves, hills, flocks, shepherds). The: important point here, as Wcscnbcrg (1975-76), p. 27, argues, is that the distinguishing characteristic of corridors is length-not height, as in the case of the exetJtw,whose ""'fllitudines (open spaces) Vitruvius has just mentioned. Clearly he associates the genres of painting with the spaces to be decorated.

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common in second-style rooms with a simulation of projecting columns and hanging garlands. The Esquiline room in which the Odyssey Frieze was located was similarly paneled and columniated but lacked the garland decoration. In the scale of their decorations, however, these two rooms are as dissimilar as the sacral-idyllic rooms of the two houses. The Yellow Frieze has been described far more often and more extensively than that of the Famesina villa.6 Its sources and background have provoked controversy and repeated speculation. Early interpreters assigned the work to non-Roman origins. Rostovtzeff took it for an Alexandrian interpretation of the physical landscape of Egypt, while certain others substituted Syrian for Egyptian. 7 Karl Schefold argued for its derivation from an Alexandrian original transmitted through the medium of manuscript illustration which, in its new mural context, portrayed a series of highly idealized Greek landscapes as a tribute to the culture and the aura of a remote golden age.8 On the other hand, a large number of scholars, by one argument or another, have attributed the frieze directly to that shadowy but perpetually interesting painter Studius (Ludius), whom Pliny locates in the Augustan period as the inventor of villa and harbor scenes.9 By this attribution it has generally been implied that the frieze is a genuine innovation, and one might easily remain content with such an explanation were it not for the contradictory evidence on behalf of a continuous artistic tradition provided by the new corpus of second-style monochromes at Oplontis. From these we may now construct a clear if not full context • Complete publication is in Rizzo ( 1936), pp. 4~ 50. The major comparative analysis remains Rostov17.df( 1911), pp. 12-26. 7 Rostovu.cff (1911), pp. 12-19. • Schefold (1960), pp. 87-96. Schcfold also believed that religious themes and images arc paramount in the fiia.c. Ling (1977), pp. 7-10, understands clearly the second-style background of these paintings, but he goes too far in assigning both fiiczcs to Studius, or indeed to the same hand or workshop. The differences in technique arc great enough to indicate the work of different painters. • Ling ( 1977), p. 2, defends this reading as a Roman name that is given in the oldest manuscript of the NRturtll History. An earlier discussion by Aletti ( 1948) also assigned the two fiiczcs to the same painter, but had a different concept of his tradition.

As he saw it, the Yellow Fria.c constituted a summary of Pliny's entire description of the Augustan landscape style. The images,he argued, were created out of the Egyptian "compendiary" style (p. 48: a form of painting based upon the shortcut instructions in handbooks), but "Ludius," as the first representative of an indigenous Italian school, refined and perfected them. Thus he transformed Roman painting by introducing his own bold manner of free composition to create continuity and motion within the context of the impressionistic Hellenizing style. Rizzo ( 1936), pp. 31--43, alsoassigns the Yellow Fria.c to Studius, although he docs not, like Alctti, discussthe question of "impressionism." In Rizzo's opinion the paintings give a new Italian character to a style of Hellenistic landscape represented by such examples as the red fiia.c from Boscoreale.

264

TWO AUGUSTAN

LANDSCAPE

GENRES

for understanding the development of the architectural panorama within the indigenous traditions of Romano-Campanian work. Although the Yellow Frieze painter has developed his own new patterns for composition and for the alignment of perspective, these are steps that can be easily understood in the translation of a static, conventional form into something more consciously matched to the visible characteristics of the real world. Close inspection of the composition of the frieze reveals dearly its foundations in previous work. Like the Odyssey landscapes, it was painted in segments divided by columns-six on one long wall-each of which represents a continuous series of buildings, shrines, and topographical variations. In spite of this pattern of divisions, the intercolumniation is not the basic unit of the design. Rather, the buildings that constitute the predominant feature of the frieze are grouped within distinct pictorial units that subdivide the space of each intercolumniation. 10 In each instance, these units consist of foreground and background planes whose spatial separation is indicated by the slight attenuation and diminution of distant forms. In some cases, foreground and background are linked by bridges, in others they are linked by the extended ground lines or by figures moving between their spatial planes. The simple paratactic succession of these pictorial units creates the impression of continuity in the frieze. The direction of movement indicated for the figures is in dose visual correspondence with the distribution of light and shadow in the landscape. The uniformly bright side is that nearer to the door at the left so that buildings and figures appear to receive a common illumination from the light that enters the room. This pronounced pattern provides a strong visual orientation that directs the spectator to follow the sequence of the landscape from left to right. In so doing he cannot fail to miss the compositional pattern that governs the arrangement of the successive units. The more substantial architectural forms of each unit duster at the left foreground, with their background line of recession toward the right so that the right foreground is left as a pocket of open space that generally contains no more than one or two figures-two travelers with a donkey in one instance, a small shrine with worshipers in another, and a boat in still another place. Although the buildings 10 Rizzo ( 1936), p. 44. This separation by units of design is not commonly noted. Rizzo remarks that

the formal di\'ision of the frieze does not affea its continuity.

ARCHITECTURAL

LANDSCAPES

265

within each compositional unit frequently overlap, the units themselves do not overlap. Noting this distinctive pattern, the spectator may see the landscape as a progression of vignettes. The regular and judicious spacing of the vignettes so that their areas of vacant foreground space preclude visual clutter is the chief source of the graciously leisured annosphere the frieze conveys. 11 Although the alternation of light and shade is consistent, the perspective is far from being uniform. The majority of the buildings are obliquely turned toward the foreground with a long, receding right-hand side in view, but some appear cornerwise with two sides equally visible, and a few present their full fronts or sides to the spectator. This inconsistent alignment of points of view so common to Roman panorama makes it difficult to locate any terminus for recession. As a result, the landscape has a realistic, wide-angle appearance. Although the frieze differs greatly from such purely cartographic compositions as the TRbula Iliaca or the Palestrina mosaic in its fixed paratactic ordering of foreground and background planes, 12 elements of the cartographic vision persist in the raising of the background level into full view above the foreground and in the inconsistent gradation of foreground and background scale. These survivals of old technique within a new composition seem to indicate that the painter was well versed in conventions of representation and modified them only insofar as the needs of his spatial ordering dictated. The forms of the buildings also indicate the painter's grounding in tradition. Temples raised on podia, square towers, and towers with projecting porches are frequent. Seldom do these towers stand alone; instead they are integrated into larger complexes of buildings and often combined with colonnades. In the initial vignette of the first intercolwnniation, a round tower and colonnade join together to form a type of elegant structure that is common in later villa landscapes.13 There A full description is in ibid., pp. 45-48, and Peters ( 1963), pp. 35-42. 12 Ling ( 1977), p. 12, believes that the painter of these works breaks away from the cartographic style and develops a more visually consistent treatment. 13 Ling (ibid., p. 8) cites Grimal ( 1939), pp. 2859, to argue that these arc working fannhouscs (sec n. 63, Chapter 2, above). Certainly they represent a type of sttucturc frequently round in the Italian countryside, but in spite of its honorific reputation the 11

modest working fartnhousc is a difficult phenomenon to identify and define. Seneca speaks (Ep. 86.4) of the towers of the villa of Scipio at Litemum. The villas now calledSette Fcncstre and Le Colonne in the Ager Cosanus (sec Dyson (1979), pp. 31-37) have rows of rowers on the walls of their front platforms that arc different from the towers in these paintings, but we cannot be certain that the formulaic sttucturcs of the painters correspond exactly to contemporary reality. The clarity of the distinction between productive vii-

266

TWO AUGUSTAN

LANDSCAPE

GENRES

are two colonnaded hemicycles of the kind that appear in architectural landscapes at Oplontis and Boscoreale-two arched bridges and a number of scholae and syzygiae. Among the structures novel to the frieze are several complex shrines, the most unusual being one composed of several tripods. A group of buildings that appears on a hillside in the fifth intercolumniation is more solid in form than other architectural structures and with its surrounding foliage appears to constitute a distinctively rural structure. A smaller but similar complex appears twice in Campanian monochrome. 14 If the frieze shows affinities with earlier Campanian panels in the types and shapes of its buildings, it differs from them in its more frequent inclusion of human figures and actions. Along with numerous occurrences of the static pair of standing figures-a woman and a child in most cases-are many lively and animated pairs and groups: figures greeting others, figures conversing with clear gestures, figures moving together across the landscape. Communal actions are also present in such examples as a group of fishermen near a boat tugging together at a net. The most unusual of all figures is the one standing on a ladder propped against the roof of a temple who has just turned to receive something from a man standing on the ground. Both the modified cartographic order of composition and the resemblance of the buildings to earlier examples suggest that the origins of the Yellow Frieze are in Roman tradition, while the freedom exercised in new forms and combinations argues strongly for the autonomy of the painters in creating their own designs. The higher degree of precision with which standard and familiar forms have been executed offers another strong argument for the individuality of conception behind the work. Comparison of earlier and later examples shows little modification in the conservative form of the temple but considerable variation in buildings of the villa type. Because these variations suggest that the tradition of architectural landscape aimed toward producing an approximation of familiar structures, the innovations of the frieze may well reflect changes in the actual face of contemporary architecture as the Augustan period saw an increase in the number and types of extraurban villas. las and luxury villas has been questioned by D'Arms ( 198 I), pp. 72-96. " These are in the upper right-hand comer of the

Boscorcalc vellow monochrome panel and in the arched aperture of the double alcove room at Oplontis. Sec Chapter 2. pp. 95n and 107n.

ARCHITECTURAL

LANDSCAPES

267

Although the occurrence of trees in complementation to architecture is much more frequent in the frieze than in Campanian monochrome, and their shapes and types are much more varied, the dominant role that buildings and monuments play in the structure of the composition suggests that the landscape does not purport to represent an exclusively rural world, but is rather an abstraction and intermingling of urban and country scenes. Quite clearly, some portions are deliberately differentiated from others. The group of buildings in intercolumniation 5 seems definitely intended to be a farmstead. It is set in a different kind of topography and presents a much rougher appearance than many of the graceful villa forms. The landscape, then, is a conspectus of typical features whose design and contents work together to offer a characteristically Roman view of a world ordered for human convenience and activity by human design. The landscape frieze of the Villa alla Farnesina is the first known departure from the monochrome style in architectural landscape painting. Although its form is similar enough to that of the Yellow Frieze to have occasioned frequent comparison, 15 it is sufficiently different to merit separate description. Both in content and in technique, it shows innovations that constitute an even stronger approach to the structural approximation of reality. 16 Unlike the landscape of the Yellow Frieze, this one is not continuous from one intercolumniation to another. The scenic panels alternate with a series of sketched masks and musical instruments. Instead of a sequential progression of vignettes, we see a paratactic series of self-contained panoramas. Although many of the architectural forms are familiar (round towers, syzygiae, temples, and towers with porches), the frieze incorporates many buildings of types that are quite new to the tradition. These new structures, especially, provoke our speculation about the representational intentions of the frieze. Among the series of intercolumniations, the patterns of composition differ significantly from one another. While a few panels are composed by the juxtaposition of separate vignettes, the greater number are organized around a single outstanding " Rizw (l 936). p. 48, and Bastet and de Vos ( 1979). p. 22, compare several earlier caryatid walls. 16 Sec p. 261. note: I. above. The white frieze of Corridor A, which is placed at eye level behind a series of columns. is perhaps most similar to Vitruvius' de-

scription. The black panels of Corridor C distribute their images seemingly at random over a broad spatial plane. Although these structures are the same type as those in the friezes, the composition lacks their sense of patterned regularity.

268

TWO AUGUSTAN

LANDSCAPE

GENRES

structure. Most conspicuous of all these buildings is that at the center of corridor panel G.3.1230, which reaches to its background (Figure 21). 17 This is a colonnaded square of imposing proportions with a monumental gateway. Although the upper portion of the entrance portal and the far wall of the building itself are missing, the central space is clearly an open rectangle. The structure is composed of two units--a freestanding ambulacrum with side entrances forms the facade, while a continuous three-sided porticus encloses the interior space. The building itself is white, but details are sketched and shaded in purple, and one or two figures are visible within its enclosure. The foreground of this panel is fairly complex. At the right hand side on a rocky islet rises a massive syzygia framing a statue whose long cornucopia suggests a goddess of the Isis-Fortuna type. A crouching sphinx appears on the forward corner of the architrave, and there is a large sculpture in the center. Two figures in swirling robes have been identified as dancers performing in the "Egyptian manner." 18 A small brook runs beside the shrine and along the front of the panel. Although the water itself is not visible (at least now), its channel is indicated by the several animals lowering their heads to drink and by a small arched footbridge crossing over it at the left. The rising ground toward the foreground is painted in a darker color so that the building itself appears to stand in a depression. With the vantage point given by bird's-eye perspective, the spectator looks down into it from above. Although the shrines of the foreground might be referred to the repertoire of sacral-idyllic painting, the centrally located building is far too imposing to be considered a mere backdrop to a sacred precinct. It is clearly intended to be the focus of interest to which the foreground objects have been added as staffage. This building is similar in shape to the urban portico of the Tabula Iliaca, but it is perhaps even more similar to certain contemporary Augustan constructions-for example, the Porticus Octaviae, which consisted of a single freestanding colonnade that Augustus had restored or rebuilt on the site of the older Porticus Octaviae and behind it a new three-sided porticus that Octavia herselflater sponsored. 19 The Saepta Julia, Bragantini and de Vos (l 982 ), p. 340 and pls. 236 and 238. 18 Ibid., p. 341, n. 27. Although this identification seems to be correct, it should not be taken to indicate 17

that Isaic ritual is the center of interest in the panel. 19 A description of this complex as it appears on the Marble Plan is given by L. Richardson jr. ( 1976 ), p. 63.

ARCHITECTURAL

LANDSCAPES

269

which Agrippa completed in the course of his building program, may also have been similar to this structure. On the Marble Plan the Saepta appears as a three-sided enclosure whose fourth side was supplied by the free-standing Porticus of Meleager.20 Thus it appears that the painter wanted to present a semblance of recent public architecture, perhaps even to the point of having a specific model in mind. The presence of the brook with footbridge makes the Saepta Julia an attractive candidate for this model, since the Euripus that carried the extension of the Aqua Virgo ran near the Saepta and was crossed by a footbridge. 21 Nearby stood the Iseaum, whose presence here may be indicated by the statue and the Egyptian dancers. Such apparent specificity also characterizes corridor Panel G 1.1231, whose unusual subject, a naval battle, sets it apart from the other primarily architectural panels.22 On the right hand side is a group of fully armed ships. Although the background plane is only vaguely defined, these ships appear to be confined within an enclosure. At the foreground edge of this enclosure is the debris of a wrecked ship whose sailors are clambering out of the water. To the left is a circular tower on the shore of a small island. Men with shields and weapons have taken stands on the island, while an armed figure appears on the balcony of the tower. The semblance of confined space suggests that this is a staged naval battle, probably taking place in a naumachia. During the period from 43 s.c., when the naumachia of Caesar was filled in, until A.O. 2, Rome had no such naval arena, but in the latter year Augustus celebrated the dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor with a spectacular battle staged in a new naumachia he had constructed Transtiberinum. According to Dio and others, this was a grand affair whose landscaping included a bridge and an island.23 The date of about 23 s.c. conventionally assigned to the Famesina decorations would preclude their representing this landmark; however, the close resemblance between this painting and the Esquiline panel representing the Lastrygonian attack on Odysseus' ships within an enclosed harbor might suggest some background in a tradition of naumachia paintings or even triumphal paintings celebrating victories at sea. Another panel whose degree of specificity suggests an allusion to the concern20 Taylor ( 1966), pp. 47-52 and pl. 9. coordinates the building history with the evidence on the Marble Plan. 21 R.B. Lloyd (1979), pp. 193-204.

22 Bragantini and de Vos ( I 982), p. 339 and pls. 228 and 230. '-' Suetonius,Aug. 43; DioCassius 55.10.7-8.

270

TWO AUGUSTAN

LANDSCAPE

GENRES

porary landscape is one combining a bridge and a villa, corridor Panel F4.1243 (Figure 22). 24 Q. Dellius of Odes 2.3 possesses a villa washed by the golden Tiber, as did Clodia and the Tullus to whom Propertius addresses Elegy 1.14: Tu licet abiectus Tiberina molliter unda Lesbia Mentoreo vina bibas opere, et modo tarn celeres mireris currere lintres et modo tarn tardas funibus ire ratis; et nemus omne satas intendat vertice silvas, urgetur quantis Caucasus arboribus. [1.14.1--0] (In dispassionate ease by the Tiber's flowing current you, perchance, are drinking Lesbian wine from a cup crafted by Mentor, and now you marvel how swiftly the sailing vessels run and how slowly the barges pass by with their towropes, and all around the park cultivated forests stretch up to the sky with as many trees as Caucasus is laden.) Features of this scene appear in the panel that seems quite clearly to be a riverside villa scene. A tall building surrounded by trees and shrubs with upper-story windows and a porch occupies the center of the panel. The long span behind it stretches to a farther shore, where colonnaded buildings are faintly visible. On the nearer shore is a statue of Neptune with a dolphin and an anchor, at whose base two fishermen are hauling in a net. A rigged ship is passing by in the water moving toward the bridge. Although the combination of bridges and buildings is quite common in Carnpanian monochrome and occurs also in the Yellow Frieze,25 this new version is much more coherently organized as a topographical unit and clearly presents a riverside villa scene. Along with these landscapes of an urban cast, the collection also contains scenes th~t are specifically rural. That of corridor panel F2.1233 (Figure 23) is a country house scene combining three vignettes. 26 On the left is an aedicula-frarned Bragantini and de Vos ( 1982 ). p. 338 and pls. 212,215, and 216. 25 De Franciscis (1975 ), pl. 13. The motif appears also in the Boscoreale yellow monochrome panel (Bamabei [19011, p. 80). 24

2•

222.

Bragantini and de Vos (1982), p. 338 and pl.

ARCHITECTURAL

LANDSCAPES

271

building with two women emerging from the doorway and a prancing horse outside; in the center is a herdsman resting with his flock beneath a large tree; and to the right is a column with a dancing Lar, beneath which a man is arranging sacrificial bowls on an altar. The building is surrounded by trees, and trees also appear in the background. The second rural scene, corridor panel F 1.1232, which is more fully unified by its topography, comes closer than any other example to a genuinely pastoral landscape. The setting is composed around a pool beside the statue of a seated deity in a grove where herdsmen have brought their animals to rest. 27 Two herdsmen are seated on the farther embankment of the pool, another leans against a low wall surrounding the statue. A lyre resting at the foot of the schola suggests that the god himself might be Apollo. The animals in the foreground lend a bucolic air to the landscape, while the dense shade of the trees reminds us of the traditional noon hour when herdsmen rest. The large number of trees in the Famesina landscapes is another major difference from the Yellow Frieze. The forms of the trees are used not merely in conjunction with architecture but also as independent elements of compositional design. All the same, the presence of trees should not be taken for proof that the panels are rural landscapes. The large buildings are urban in nature. In addition to those I have described there is a massive gateway in panel G2.1235 and a group of temples with lofty pediments surrounding an open area in panel F2.1233. Furthermore, the country scenes are distinguished from the urban scenes by their more modest architecture and their animals. The painter has by no means created a continuous or uniform panorama, but rather a series of contrasts bringing together a variety of environments, of architecture, and of activities that structure man's world. Certain scenes appear to aim at providing contemporary specificity; others employ commonplace motifs. The conspectus as a whole has a character similar to the categorical surveys of human character and occupation with which Horace introduces his books of Odes and Satires. Thus, while the Yellow Frieze remains a work whose visual substance is still defined by the traditions of architectural landscape, the Farnesina frieze develops these conventions in a new direction, toward a topographical Ibid., pp. 337-338 and pls. 208 and 210. This feature has not been clearly discerned. The drawing published by Mau ( 1885), pl. 5, sketches its outlines unevenly so that the pool appears only as part of a 27

continuous ground running from foreground to background. Thus Rostovtzelf ( 1911), p. 22, and Pe• ters ( 1963), p. 54, fail to see the pool and speak only of a background slope.

272

TWO AUGUSTAN

LANDSCAPE

GENRES

structuring which approximates as its point of reference the appearance of the actual world. In its organization and variety it is a genuinely new contribution to Roman painting. As I mentioned earlier, the two frieze paintings have often been attributed to that otherwise unknown Augustan "Studius," whom Pliny credits with the invention of a new mode of decoration that was both versatile and inexpensive: non fraudando et (Studio) divi Augusti aetate qui primus instituit amoenissimam parietum picturam, villas et porticus ac topararia opera, lucos, nemora, colles, piscinas, euripos, amnes, litora, qualia quis optaret, varias ibi obambulantium species aut navigantium terraque villas adeuntium asellis aut vehiculis, iam piscantes, aucupantes, aut venantes aut etiam vindemiantes. sunt in eius exemplaribus nobiles palustri accessu villae, succollatis sponsione mulieribus labentes trepidis quae feruntur, plurimae praeterea tales argutiae facetissimi salis. idem subdialibus maritimas urbes pingere instituit, blandissimo aspectu minimoque inpendio. [NH. 35.ll-9: 123 l.14-20: 123-124 1.74: 122

DISCL'SSED

INDEX

OF PASSAGES

l.225-231: 125-126 1.250-261: 126--127 l.163-166: 125 l.820-826: 127-128 l.1024--1034: 128 2.1-13: 135-137 2.317-322: 52, 141-142 2.589--599: 129-130 2.1024--1036: 139-140 3.978--1022: 138 4.302-317: 105 4.358--364: 51 5.7: 138 5.32--42: 131-132 5.200-220: 132--133 5.925-930: 134--135 5.1370-1378: 53 Macrobius, Satur,uilia

5.3.18: 30n Manilius,Astrrmomial

1.433-438: 5.553-557: 5.577-579: 5.581-584: 5.595-604:

365n 365n 365n. 366n 365n 367n

Ovid,Amom

l.7.13-18: 439 l.10.1-8: 438 3.12.8: 249 Ch·id, An AmRtoria 2.45-46: 350 2.77-78: 349 3.31--41: 440n 3.107-114: 440 3.251-254: 440n Ch·id,Fa.rti

5.563-564: 205 6.703-710: 389 Ch·id, Matunorphoses l.1--4: 445 1.35-45: 447--448 1.293-312:449 l.432--437:449 2.1--4: 450 2.15: 450 2.76--78: 451 2.187-190: 451--452 2.195-200: 452 2.214--259: 452 2.601--o02: 441n 3.22--25: 461

DISCUSSED

485 3.28--32: 461--462 3.97-98: 462 3.138--142: 456 3.145: 456 3.155-164: 457--458 3.174--180: 458--459 3.198--199: 459 3.203-205: 459--460 3.226--228: 460 3.253-254: 327 3.708--711: 463 3.714--715: 463 3.729-731: 463 4.174--176: 441n 4.644--648: 391 4.703-704: 366 5.1-235: 366n 6.5-8: 442--443 6.22--23: 443 6.104: 444 8.201: 448n 8.213--215: 351 8.217-220: 349 8.220-225: 348 8.227-228: 350 9.334--335: 454--455 9.380-381: 455 13.740-897: 343 Ch·id, Tristia

2.354: 201 4.10: 201 Pausanias, Descriptions

1.38.9: 338n 10.25ff.: 319n Pctronius, Satyriam

30.1: 378 83.3: 406--407, 411 Plaurus, Curr:ulio

4.1.467--481: 74--75 Pliny the Elder, N aturalisHistoria 7.34: 372 34.13: 318n 34.23: 225n 35.1-2: 92n 35.9-10: 283 35.19-24: 19n, 79-80 35.23: 322n, 323 35.66--67: 6 35.86--87: 421 35.97: 421 35.116--118: 19,100,272

fl6

JSDEX

.,""""H.,_,__,

OF PASSAGES

J'lmy the f.Jdcr. •, • 35.120 19 35 I 30: 374 35 I .39:425 35.I .. ; 319

4.4.7.3-:-S:304ft 4.6; 207 Prolcmy.~ 1.1:91

.36.24--25:206n .3632: 20611 .36.34: 3.36 M,.~: 102 36.71: 275 .36.80:275 l'hny the Younger,Eput#IM 2.17: 255n Propcn,u,. Ekgia U.29-32: 415 1.2.15-20: 420 1.2.21-22: 421 1.2.26: 422 1.3.1-6: 361,~5 1..3.7--9:.362-.363 U.3-6:422 U.17-26: 42HU J.10 ..3-17: 426-427 1.13.21-U: 4U--425 1.14: 427-428 1.14. 1-6: 270 J.15.9-22: 417-420 1.15.22 27: 420 I.I 5.29-31: 420 1.17.2: 416n 1.18.1: 416n 1.19.7 -10: 428 1.19.25--26: 428 2.1.11-16: 429 2.3.35--40: 429-430 2.3.41-42: 414 2.3.49- 54: 430 2.6.27 34: 412-413 2.14.1-2: 431n 2.15.13-16: 431 2.16.29-30: 433 2.20.1-2: 433 2.21.15-16: 433 2.22.29 34: 432 2.25.11 14: 433 2.30b.29-36: 434 2.32.29-34: 435--436 2.36a: 43.3--434 3.2 ..3-10: 436 3.2.5 -6: 339n 3.2.7-8: 343 4.4.5.3-54: 304n

Qwnnlun./-0,,,,,3.7.27: 23n 4.2.36: 32n 4.3.12-13: 23n 6.2.29: 14 6.2.32: 14 8.3.62: 14 8.3.64: 14 8.3.64-65: 16 8.3.66: 17, 323 9.2.4~:23n 11.2.17-22: 76n Sallust, H iltoriM 2.70.5: 216 Sallust,/ "B"'fha 78.1-5: ll+-115 Seneca, llll Lwili,m, 86.4: 98n 88.6: 56n Seneca,P"'""'7, 1.18: 391n Scrvius, °"""""1Rrii llllAm. 1.34: 309 llllAm. 1.159: 30n llllAm. 1.446: 328n llllAm. l.~l: 313n llllAm. 1.464: 318n llllAm. 1.471: 314n llllAm. 1.474: 314n llllAm. 3.204: 68n llllAm. 6.24: 357n llll Gt1tr. 3.268: 169n Strabo, Geo9"'Phy 1.1.19: 55-56 1.2.2-3: 404n 1.2.8: 404, 405n 1.2.11: 56 1.2.20: 56 6.28: 62n Suctonius, Vita tlivi Augusti 8:223 29:206 29.1-3: 223n 31: 205 43:269 57.2: 214n 72:213n,214

DJSCl."SSED

INDEX

OF PASSAGES

487

DISCUSSED

73:202 74:202 79:202 84:202 85:222 99:202

Tacirus,Annales 14.17: 82n I 5.38----43:73 Thcocritus, Idylls I l.12-13: 396 11.45-47: 342n 11.54---57:341,343 11.60--62: 342 11.80-81: 341 Tibullus, Elegies l.l.11-16: 243-244 l. l.35-40: 24---45 l.l.59--68: 247n l.5.27-28: 244 l.10.7-14: 250 l.10.15--18: 250 l.10.21-24: 245 l.10.27-28: 245 l.10.39--45: 251 l.10.51-52: 257 2.l.l-2: 253,299 2.l.15--18: 299 2.1.21-24: 300-301 2.1.51-60: 300 2.1.79-81: 301 2.1.25--30: 302 2.5.83-84: 303 Valerius Maximus 5.1.l: 80n 8.14.6: 80n Varro, D, Rt Rustica l.l.4---7: 255 l.2.1: 159 1.2. IO: l02n, 106n, 220n, 374 l.4.l-3: 106n l.16.1-5: 106 2.1.9-12: 172 2.7.9: 169 2.9.9-IO: 169 3.5.l: l02n 3.5.S-17: l02n 3.16.5--7: 176 3.16.10-11: 188 3.16.19: 179 3.17.S-9: l02n

Vcrgil, Ameui 1.28: 407n l.159-169: 31-36 1.460: 311 l.461--464: 317 l. 466--468: 3 I 3 1.4 74---482:314---316 l.483--487: 316 3.16--18: 59 3.22-23: 465 3.22--42: 60--61 3.219-240: 64---65 3.255--257: 65-66 3.521-524: 58 3.530-538: 58 3.675-681: 66 6.IS-19: 350 6.20-22: 354 6.24---27: 354, 357 6.2S-35: 355--356 6.34: 309 7.109: 67n 8.638-641: 225n 8.730-731: 306 Vcrgil, Eclogues l.l-2: 149 7.29-32: 228 Vcrgil, Georgia 1.41: 148 l.145--146: 164 l.31S-331: 164 2.46: 168n 2.136--139: 155--156 2.142-144: 156 2.146--148: 156--157 2.155-157: 157 2.173-176: 157-158 2.336--342: 160-161 2.468----474:162 2.475-489: 166--167 2.490-492: 145--146 2.493-502: 146--147, 161 2.511-512: 162-163 3.12-15: 174 3.103-112: 170 3.152-153: 171 3.190-208: 172 3.225: 171 3.242-244: 168 3.252-254: 169 3.269-271: 169

488 Vcrgil, Gwrgia (cont.) 4.3-7: 177 4.4-5: 175 4.69-72: 183 4.128--129: 186 4.131-132: 187 4.159-163: 180-181 4.203-205: 181-182 4.210-218: 183-184 4.236-238: 182 4.392-395: 189 4.401-402: 189 4.561-566: 190-191

INDEX OF PASSAGES

DISCUSSED

Vitruvius, D, Architeaum

1.4.1: 177-178 5.6.9: 214,218 5.9.l: 216 6.3.8--9: 223n 6.4.2: Sn 6.5.l: 200 6.5.2: 229, 374 6.5.18: 229n 7.5.l: 102n 7.5.2: 29n, 48n, lOln, 102n, 214,262,319, 385n 7.5.3-4: 6, 242

GENERAL INDEX

Acteon: in literature, 169, 325, 327, 335, 370, 455, 464; and mythological story line, 324-325, 331, 389; in painting, 324, 325-328, 330-333, 346, 367,386-387,393-394,460 Actium: battle of, 214n, 218--219, 302,443. Seeiwo Temple of Apollo ady,urton,448 Aelian: HistoriaAnimlllium, 91n Aeneas' landings: Buthrotum, 69; Castrum Minervac, 58--59, 62, 66; Cumac, 309-310, 354-360; Sicily, 65; Strophades, 63-65, 66-68; Thrace, 60-63,66,464-465 Ameid, ambiguity in, 72, 204, 356-360, 404, 465466; ancient illustration of, 9; national purpose of, 71, 445-446 aerial perspective. Seeperspective: aerial Agamemnon, 431n Agrimmsom, 90 Agrippa, M. Vipsanius, 89, 203, 226n, 241n, 282 Alcacus: "ship of state," 283 Alcean strain in Horace, 208, 249n, 278, 280-281, 290,292 Alphesiboca, 403n, 417-418

ambulationes,262,273 Amphion, 334-339, 436. Seeiwo Antiope Andromeda, 361-363, 364-367, 385n, 402-403, 433 Antiope, 334-336, 338--339, 422-423 Apelles, 275n, 421-422 Aphrodite. SeeVenus Apollo: Agyieus, 218, 219n, 222; in an, 206,223, 227n, 230, 376, 390; as deity, 206, 237, 271; in literature, 177, 400, 406-407, 429; in myth, 400, 420,441,449. Su iwoTemplc of Apollo Arachne,442-444,446,455 Ara Pacis, 199n, 203-205, 213, 223-226, 257, 305 Arcadia, 152, 210, 237n, 424 Ariadne: in Catullus, 117, 120, 238, 322, 384; in other poets, 357, 358n, 361-364, 383,393,439, 440n; in painting, 381-385, 394,396 Aristeus, 175, 188--190 an memoriae,75-78, 142 Anemon,425

Assisi:DomusMus11e,376 Atalanta, 152, 439 Athena. SeeMinerva Attis, 117-122 Augustus Caesar, 145n, 174, 190-192, 198, 202207,209,214, 218-227, 237n, 280,283,293, 349, 378. Su iwo Ovid: anti-Augustan attitudes in Bacchantcs, 167,201,236, 333-335, 337, 361. See iwo Pentheus Bacchus,235-237,334,363,462-463 BasilicaAemelia, 74; historical frieze of, 305n battle paintings, 79-81, 322-323 bety/us,217,218-219,222-223,227-228,391 Cadmus, 156,455-456,461-462,464 Calendar of Santa Maria Maggiore, 98n Callimachus, 153n, 174,211,325,328,436 Calypso,34,403n,417-418,433 Campus Martius, 74, 89, 276n, 281. Seeiwo Saepta Julia cmpediem: as motif, 287, 296 Canhage: harbor of, in Aeneid, 31-32, 35-36, 47, 58, 69, 113; and Temple ofJuno, 311-319 canographic landscape, 80n, 84-85, 89, 105, 107, 108--109, 148,265,297,311-312,322-323, 346-347 Cassandra, 439 Catullus, 150,154,201; eltphrasisin, 322; Roman cityscape in, 276-277 Cicero: as collector of an, 200-201, 220, 230, 373374; on solitude in nature, 238--239; topographical allusion in, 279; and Vcrrincs, 15-16, 23n, 374 Cithacron: as mythological setting, 327, 334-335, 338-339,456-457 Cleopatra, 206, 282, 372. Seeiwo Actium: battle of clients, 162,288-289,292,377 Columbarium, Villa Pamphili, 261n continuous narrative: definition of, 197, 220-221, 310,320-324,331-333,344-345,352,409;cxamplcs of, 305n, 324, 331, 333-339, 340-346, 357,364-370,386-387,388-390

490 C.Orinna:in Ovid, 438-440 C.osa, 1S7n; Ager C.osanus, 102n, 26Sn Cynthia: in Propcrtius, 201, 361-363, 368, 40S, 413-424,427--429,432-437 Daedalus: at Cumac, 309,347, 3S3-360; in litcrature, 344-34S, 347-349, 3S2-3S3, 448n; in painting,83,32S,344-347,367n,381-382,38S, 386-390,392,393 Danaids,138,206,372,427 ilmwnstrt,tw,7n tleseriptio, 7n, 7Sn Dcucalion's flood, 279, 436, 448-449 Diana, 206,218, 223n, 227-229; and Actcon, 32S-331, 4S9, 464; as goddessin literature, 304; in painting,227,32S--331,387,388,390-391 dining rooms, Sn, 216-217, 223, 229n Dionysus, 220, 221, 25S, 333, 37S, 376n, 383. See "1.soBacchus Dirce,333-339,402n Doidalsas, Aphrodite (so-called), 11, 324, 328, 332 Dryopc, 454-4S5, 46S Edo,gr,a,151-lSS, 162,167,192,198,224 nuwgeiR,10-18,23,28-29,33,78,88,89, 124, 13S,323,360,409,426,446 Encolpius: in Pctronius, 378n, 406-408, 411 Ennius, 137 eltplmllis: as term, 9-11, 27, 222, 3S3; as text, 6, 11, 13,117,226,311,312-317,322,353,354-360, 370-371, 4S0 epigrams: literary, 220, 221n, 221-222, 227-228, 240,2S6;inpainting,220-223,243 Eros,221,301,303n,37S,380 Esquiline Fricu (founding ofLaviniwn), 49. See"1.so OdysseyFricu; Odysseylandscapes Esquiline Hill, 74,293,296 Euripides, 327, 334-338, 390-391, 463 Europa, 397-399, 401n, 440n, 444, 45S Evadnc,376n,403n,417-419 Fabius Picror, 79 Fabullus, 19-20 Faunus,231-232,234,23S,240,281 Nile Mosaic Fortuna, Temple of, 98, 200n. See"1.so Forum, Sn; descriptions of, 74-7S, 279 Forum of Augustus, 20S--206 Four Pompei an styles: as interpretive concept, 2123 Polyphcmus Galatca, 436. See"1.so Gallus, C.Omelius,1S2, 173,210, 238-239, 247, 248, 298n, 377-378, 424-42S

INDEX Gallus (Propcrtian addrcsscc), 426-427 Ganymcdc,406-407 genres,literary, 198-199, 207, 210-211, 248, 282n, 304 geographical catalogues, 116-117, 15S, 446, 4S24S3 geographical theory, SS--S6, 69-70, 84n, 90-91 Getn;8ia,198,204,246,288,296;Bookl,16316S; Book2, 161-164, 16S--168, 180, 191, 2S0; Book 3, 171-173; Book 4, 17S--177 Glaucus: mares of, 169, 170n 14Sn; Golden Age, 263; Augustan, 224; in Gem;8ia, Hesiodic, 147,448; in love poetry, 247, 2S0, 298n, 412; in Met--,phoses, 448 groves,197, 198,217,22S--226,236-237,2S42SS, 271 Helen ofTroy, 81,396,414, 429-430, 43S, 440n Hellenistic culture and inftucnccs, 11, 21, 54, 69, 82,203,212,216,222-223,237n,2S7,263n, 297,336n,37S,383-384,4S0 Hercules, 131,206, 3S ln, 372, 376n, 407; and the Hespcridcs, 386, 388, 390-392; on Mt. Octa, 424-42S; and Ncssus, 397, 399-400, 401n; at the shrine of Bona Dea, 437, 4S8 Hippolytus, 388 Homer: as pictorial subject, 221, 37S Horace, 198,201,209, 271, 401n, 437; Epode 2, 210n; Odes,Book 4, 304 "horizon of expectations": illustrations of, SS, S7, 140-143, 360; theory of, 48,409 Hortcnsius, aetlesof, in Tusculan villa, 374; Palatine property of, 213 house (Roman upper-class): design of, 76, 200-201, 214n,373-37S,376-377 Hyginus,331,334,378,408 Hylas, 210, 38Sn, 406-407 Hypsipyle, 403n, 417-418 ideology: in art, 199-209, 212-213, 218-219, 223-226,2S7-2S8,306n,372;inpoctry,138, 14Sn, 174n, 180-181, 18S, 199, 286-287, 304propa30S, 440-442, 443n, 46S--466. See"1.so

ganda Iluul and Odyssey:painting attributed to Theorus at Rome, 319; as subjects of narrative painting, 29n, 48-49n,378,384-38S,406 Ilioupmis: by Polygnotus at Delphi, 312, 319; of Stesichorus, 81, 82n, 83-84, 321; in Vatican Vergil No. 322S, 83 illustration, 8-9, 378,467; in papyrus manuscripts, 9,46,81,92-93,263 lo, 171,379-381,433

INDEX Iron Age, 147, 298-299, 304,448. Su "'1oGolden Age Isis, 93, 94, 227n, 268 Italy: verbal maps of, 144-148 Jupiter: in myth, 334, 391, 398-399, 407,432, 434,438,453,455; as Roman divinity, 174, 185, 225,280,296

IAusltiiliRe,l5>-l59,160,166,224 Lcssing, Lilocoon,8, 11-13, 27, 306n, 319, 410n Lcucippids, 420-421 klci:in lll"S memoriiu,7►78 1-: in rhetoric, 23n Lucrctius,14► 148, 149, 150-151,158, 166,168, 169,192,275; ponrait of, in Geo,;gia, 146, 148, 191 Lucullus, L. Licinius, 98n, 102, 191-192, 200n, 241-242 Maecenas, 192, 233-234, 239, 277-278, 280,284, 287n,289n,290-291,292-296,305 Maenads. See Bacchantes maps,84--85,89-91, 159;cosmic,~8, 139140, 447--448; in literary description, 69-70, 7375, 8>-86, 109, 114,11 ► 116,122,128-129, 131, 137-138, 140, 144-145, 148-149,15 ► 160, 177-179, 182,278-279,311-312,446447,450,452-453 Marble Plan, 269 Marsyas, 376n, 389-390 Mcdea,396,433,440 megalographicpainting, 5, lOln, 103, 141, 215, 242, 274, 332; mythological,46n, 48n, 343, 345, 381-382,385,387n,388 Milanion, 152,173,210, 41>-416, 424--425 Minerva, 199n,373n,374,382,388-390,442-444 monochrome landscapes,50, 96-98, 103, 1~107, 140,149, 150,263-264,266-267,270,273, 367,382-383 Muses, 201, 375,389,400, 434--435, 442 mythological allusion: as topic, 173,210, 344, 352353,362, 370-371, 377-378, 403-408, 409412, 414--440 passim mythology: ancient theories of, 55, 56n, 377-378, 404--406 Narcissus,376n, 410,462,464,467 naumachia, 54n, 269 nco-Attic style, 203 Ncptunc,98n,270,341,390,425,443 Nile Mosaic (Templeof Fortuna, Palestrina), 91-95, 108, 109, 156, 265

491 Odysseus:as comparison figure,247,418, 427-428 Odyssey: as topic, 29-30, 32, 33, 46-47, 70-71, 137 ~ MSmptilm ;,,, 31n, 33-34; Cape of Malca, 68; Cattle of the Sun, 37, 68; Cave of Phorcys, 30-32, 33-34, 47; Circe, 45; Lastrygonians, 36-37, 39-40, 43-44; Phacacia, 36, 50; Polyphemus, 34, 37, 49n, 68, 70, 339-340, 34 l; Protcus, 189 OdysseyFrieze, 49, 263 Odysseylandscapes,9, 29, 55, 57, 70, 72, 107, 197, 221n, 263,264, 319, 325, 333, 386n; Circe, 29n, 44-46, 319; Lastrygonians,29n, 37-40, 43-44, 52, 54,269, 319-320, 340; perspectivein, 29n, 41-43, 47, 50-51, 54--55, ll7; Rocks of the Sirens, 29n; Underworld, 29n, 138, 320 opiftx:in MetMMrphoses, 447-448 optics: Epicurean, 51-52, 105, 142 Orpheus, 175,188-190,282,400,436,442n Orphic music, 231-232 uti-, 106,190-191,238,287-288,427 Ovid, 201,249,305, 409-410; anti-Augustan attitudes in, 440; landscapesettingsin, 453-454, 464-465

Pacuvius:Antiope,334n, 335, 338n Palatine: description of, 302-303 Pan,220-221,232,302,397,400-401,455,465 pimrdmuit~,246,416 Paris,387n,396,431 Parrhasios,275n Pasiphae, 152, 345n, 354, 357, 358n Pcntheus, 376n, 462-463, 464 periplus,69, 70, 78, 115n, 348 pmtm11, 193,200-201,207,237,251,282n,298, 305; in Ovid, 439-441; in Propcrtius, 410-417, 424,427-437 perspective,3, 40n, 41n, 42n, 210, 265; aerial, 41, 49, 51-52, 104, 141; bird's-eye, 82n, 83-84, 310, 322-323, 348, 351-352; Renaissance,42n, 53, 54n; vanishing point, 217n. See"'1ocartographic landscape:OdysseyFrieze Pcutingcr Tablet, 83, 89-91, 98 Phacdra, 382,391,396 Phaeton, 448-453 ph1111tw,7n,14n,15 picture galleries.Secpintuotheau piet11r,212,225,230,232,246-247,286,360n piniraitheau,5n,220-223,241-243,246,373-376, 377-403 passim,406-408, 419; in Pctronius, 406-408, 4ll; in poetry, 419, 421n, 438 pilUlltes, 104--105,230,242,375,377,381 Plautus: description in, 74--75; originality of, 40-41

INDEX

492 Pliny the Elder: his an historical concepts, f>..-7,l 920, 274-275 Pollio, C. Asinius, 282, 283, 284, 336 Polydorus, 60-61, 63, 464-465 Polyphemus: and Galatea, 333, 339-344, 364, 36(>... 370,376, 379-381, 385, 393--396, 402---403; in Vergil, 66 Pompeii, locations of paintings in, 20--21, 373,467; Casa degli Amorini Dorati, 376n; Casa dcl Ccntauro, 399; Casa del Citharista, 262n, 362n; Casa del Criptopottico, 215-216; Casa di Epidio Sabino, 329-331, 370; Casa degli Epigrammi, 219, 222, 230, 242, 373--374, 376; Casa del Fauno, 92n, 95n; Casa del Frutteto, 325-328, 349-350, 351, 38f>..-387,393,457; Casa di Gavio Rufo, 383n; Casa di Giulio Polibio, 333--339, 402n; Casa di Jasone, 39f>..-402;Casa dcl Labirinto, 101n, 273n; Casa del Marinaio, 95n, 273n, 402n; Casa del Menandro, 224n (silver treasure), 262n; Casa deUe Nozzc d'Argento, 223; Casa di Obcllio Firmo, 95n; Casa del Pocta Tragico, 382n; Casa del Sacerdotc Amando, 347,351, 368-370, 386, 388n, 393, 402; Casa di Sirico, 9n; Casa dci Vettii, 336n, 337n; Casa 1.7.19, 256; Casa 5.2.10, 352n, 388-393, 402; Casa 9.5.4-6, 385-386, 394-395; Casa 9.7.16, 393--394; Thcrmopolium 1.8.8, 398-399; Villa Imperiale, 345, 362n, 381385 Porticus Octaviae, 82, 268, 425 Pru,peill,222, 256; Priapic tm lllnM01'ill,in TibuUus, 24 Priapus, 186,248,256,369 Prima Porta (garden room), 100n, 273n propaganda (personal) : in literature, 79, 109, ll 0-115; in painting, 323--324, 372-373, 443--444. See tilsoideology propmrptiam,298,350 Propertius, 85n, 198,209, 210-2ll, 237,298, 409-4ll, 466; ElegiesBook 4, 304-305, 437, 440,458n reader response theory, 10--ll, 13--14, 17-18, 320321,324,405, 4lln reception aesthetics, 11, 22-24, 48. Seetilso"horizon of expectations"; reader response theory rtCUSlltUJ,167,282,290 Rome, locations of Palatine paintings in: Casa di Augusto, 6n, 199-200, 202, 213--226, 243, 261n, 305n; Casa di Livia, 22f>..-230,241-242, 261, 263--267, 274n. See tilsoYeUowFrieze Rome, topographical descriptions of, 73--74, 75, 27f>-277,279,280-281,292-293

Romulus,204,205,225,413 Sabine Farm, 2ll, 229, 231-237, 238, 239-240, 278-279,281,290,292,297 sacral-idyllic landscape, 20, 197-199, 209, 212-213, 217-260 passim, 261,273, 297, 306, 340-341, 352n,364,373,380,454n sacrificcs,60-62,207-208,224-225,228-229, 234-235,240,243--246,253--254,25f>..-260, 291,299-300,302-303 Saepta Julia, 268-269 sau,uufrrms:in painting, 101n, 102n, 202, 214-219 23 B.c.), 281 Scstius, L. (cos. suffeaus, Shield of Achilles, 11-14, 311,450 Shield of Aeneas, 305-306, 450 Sirrnio: in description, 83--84, 115-116 sltuigmphiR,Sn South Italian ceramics, 39, 337-338, 383, 390-391, 398n Studius, 263, 272, 273n, 274-276, 297

tabellae:as decoration, 220 tabellaeobscnu,e:in Propettius, 413--414 Tabuui'4eone,255 tabuuie ex l'OtTPO, 355, 358, 396 TabuuieJlillu,e, 81-82, 83, 265, 268; Capitoline Tablet, 83--84, 319; TabuuiIliRcaRundinini, 45n temmas,255,256,328,369,391-392 Temple of ApoUo (Palatine), 175n, 20f>..-208,210, 218-219,240,302,372 Temple of Mars Ultor, 205, 269 templum: definition of, 328n tmuis (poetic style), 177,278 Theatre of Pompey, 276n, 372,375 theatrical painting. Sec sau,uu frrms Thcocritus, 121n, 148,150,154,294n Theseus, 361-363, 381-385, 396; in Athenian painting, 3 72, 385 tholos, l O1, 102n, 221 Tiber River, 226, 240, 295-296, 427; in poems, 210,270,279-280,281,294-296 TibuUus, 193,198,209, 210-2ll, 297,428; as addrc:sscc,237-238 Tibur, 281,293 time: in Capitoline Tablet, 321-322; in ekphrastic narrative, 313--319; in Horace's Odes, 249,262, 29f>..-297,304; in literary description, lf>..-17, 320n; in narrative painting, 89, 220--221, 342, 456n; in Odyssey Frieze, 319-321; in painting, generally, 8-9, 320--321; in Tibullus, 250, 299300, 302-303 topogrt,phiR,23n, 30n, 75n travelogues, l 09, 179

INDEX Trimalchio: as collector, 321n, 377n, 378, 406 Utopian writing, 179-180

utpiaumpotsis,3,5,242 Varro, 219, 283n, 356; portrait of, in Gm-gia,145, 191; as source for Gm-gia,159-160, 161, 164, 166,168,172,173, 176,178,185,187-188;on villas,101, 102,106, 108,161-162 Vcnus,122-125, 129,133,169,221,357,375, 391,398,428,435; and Anchiscs,435; and Mars, 357n,44ln; Via?u',372 Vcrgil: as addrcsscc, 282, 350, 351n; and landscape style, 454n; Roman landscapes in, 2 79, 305--306 vcrisimilitude,6-7,9,12-13,17n,102-103, 105, 217,240,275,313 vignettes: literary, 149-152, 164-165, 210--211, 228, 230--231, 243--246, 300--301; in painting,

493 84-85,93,95--103,252-253,254--256,265-267, 270--272 villa landscapes, 100, 197-198, 255,262,263, 265, 272-275, 330. SeelllsoStudius Villas, 98, 102, 105-107, 209, 255, 266, 374, 427; Boscorcale,l0ln,266;Boscotrccasc,226,252256, 339, 364-368, 402; in Catullus, 85; dei Mistcri, 97n, lOln, 105n; dci Papiri, 201n; Famcsina., 98n,226,240-243,261-263,267-274,276277, 375-376; in Horace, 284-285, 288; Oplontis, 96-106, 254,266; Scttcfcncstrc,102n, 265n

Xcuxis,6 Yellow Frieze, 263--267, 270, 271 Zeus, 67n, 334, 339, 407n; Temple of, at Olympia., 372. Su RlsoJupiter: in myth