Images of Dionysus in Rome: the archaic and Augustan periods
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Stéphanie Wyler
Abstract
This chapter examines Italian images of Dionysus with a view to exploring the dynamics of acculturation of a Greek figure. The aim is to show that images provide major evidence not only for studying art history, but also religious and cultural history; and that far from being representations of cultic ritual, or being mere adaptations of imported iconographic schemes, Roman and Italian images of Dionysus furnish a figurative and reflexive discourse on the very processes of appropriation and domestication. In the case of each representation, the chapter specifies the ways in which Greek forms acquire local inflections, and identify the ways in which these respond and correspond to Roman or Italian rituals as well as to social and political realities. Where possible, the images are put in the context of Roman literary treatments of related phenomena. Two sets of images are subjected to scrutiny: a miscellaneous cluster from the archaic period, and a more homogeneous body of sacro-idyllic landscapes from the Augustan era. The early images are particularly sensitive to cultural analysis. The Augustan images show landscape being marked as ritual space through Dionysian and other motifs; and the taming of nature which they evince coheres with the new Augustan view of Dionysus, which is a response to Mark Antony’s cultivation of an exuberant Dionysian persona. The main pieces of evidence on which this chapter draws are: a set of fragments of statuary believed to come from the sixthcentury sanctuary of Sant’Omobono in the Forum Boarium; some descriptions of the decorative programme of the late-fifth-century temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera; an image of Liber on an inscribed third-century Praenestine cista (CIL I2, 563. Berlin, Charlottenburg, inv. Misc. 6239); Liber on the fourth-century Cista Ficoroni; a Dionysian fresco from Lanuvium; and frescoes and stucco panels from the Villa della Farnesina, all dating to the early Augustan period.
Abstract
This chapter examines Italian images of Dionysus with a view to exploring the dynamics of acculturation of a Greek figure. The aim is to show that images provide major evidence not only for studying art history, but also religious and cultural history; and that far from being representations of cultic ritual, or being mere adaptations of imported iconographic schemes, Roman and Italian images of Dionysus furnish a figurative and reflexive discourse on the very processes of appropriation and domestication. In the case of each representation, the chapter specifies the ways in which Greek forms acquire local inflections, and identify the ways in which these respond and correspond to Roman or Italian rituals as well as to social and political realities. Where possible, the images are put in the context of Roman literary treatments of related phenomena. Two sets of images are subjected to scrutiny: a miscellaneous cluster from the archaic period, and a more homogeneous body of sacro-idyllic landscapes from the Augustan era. The early images are particularly sensitive to cultural analysis. The Augustan images show landscape being marked as ritual space through Dionysian and other motifs; and the taming of nature which they evince coheres with the new Augustan view of Dionysus, which is a response to Mark Antony’s cultivation of an exuberant Dionysian persona. The main pieces of evidence on which this chapter draws are: a set of fragments of statuary believed to come from the sixthcentury sanctuary of Sant’Omobono in the Forum Boarium; some descriptions of the decorative programme of the late-fifth-century temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera; an image of Liber on an inscribed third-century Praenestine cista (CIL I2, 563. Berlin, Charlottenburg, inv. Misc. 6239); Liber on the fourth-century Cista Ficoroni; a Dionysian fresco from Lanuvium; and frescoes and stucco panels from the Villa della Farnesina, all dating to the early Augustan period.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- List of illustrations IX
- List of Contributors XI
- Introduction. Dionysus in Rome: accommodation and resistance 1
- The ancient reception of Euripides’ Bacchae from Athens to Byzantium 39
- Images of Dionysus in Rome: the archaic and Augustan periods 85
- Liber, Fufluns, and the others: rethinking Dionysus in Italy between the fifth and the third centuries BCE 111
- Dionysian associations and the Bacchanalian affair 133
- Dionysus/Bacchus/Liber in Cicero 157
- Bacchus and the exiled Ovid (Tristia 5.3) 177
- Alius furor. Statius’ Thebaid and the metamorphoses of Bacchus 193
- The shadow of Bacchus: Liber and Dionysus in Christian Latin literature (2nd–4th centuries) 219
- Index rerum et nominum 239
- Index locorum 245
- Index of inscriptions and visual artefacts 247
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- List of illustrations IX
- List of Contributors XI
- Introduction. Dionysus in Rome: accommodation and resistance 1
- The ancient reception of Euripides’ Bacchae from Athens to Byzantium 39
- Images of Dionysus in Rome: the archaic and Augustan periods 85
- Liber, Fufluns, and the others: rethinking Dionysus in Italy between the fifth and the third centuries BCE 111
- Dionysian associations and the Bacchanalian affair 133
- Dionysus/Bacchus/Liber in Cicero 157
- Bacchus and the exiled Ovid (Tristia 5.3) 177
- Alius furor. Statius’ Thebaid and the metamorphoses of Bacchus 193
- The shadow of Bacchus: Liber and Dionysus in Christian Latin literature (2nd–4th centuries) 219
- Index rerum et nominum 239
- Index locorum 245
- Index of inscriptions and visual artefacts 247
