DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31189#0061
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displayed and often supplemented by an oral or written explanation 83. Lawyers
used pictorial representations in their pleas, private persons used them to arouse
interest in their affairs 84. Such panels were exhibited in public places and they
accompanied triumphal processions 85. These pictures must have been almost as
familiar to the Romans as newsreels or photographs of current events are to us. In
each and every case the sole purpose was information, the fullest possible pictorial
record of all relevant facts. Sometimes it was just the setting, the locality, that was
pertinent, for example the town walls and the city of Carthage 86 or the luxurious
villa of a rich man 87. How were such pictures drawn and what did they look like?
None, of course, is preserved, but as regards perspective it is not difficult to recon-
struct their character. There is simply no way of producing a complete pictorial
record of events within their settings other than a representation in bird’s eye per-
spective 88. We may add as corollary: it is only in pictures that are means to an end
that inconsistency of scale and of perspective diminution will be accepted as a con-
vention by a public acquainted with and used to a realistic rendering of persons
and objects 89.
There is no evidence whatever that the Hellenistic Greeks developed or even
accepted an analogous species of painting separate in form and purpose from their
mode of representation insofar as we know it. Bird’s eye view is not Greek 90. Com-
Friedländer, Sittengeschichte Roms III (1923 10) 50 ff. For more recent literature: G. Roden-
waldt, Jdl. 55, 1940, 12ff. Dawson50ff. Dawson’s summary is particularly good, compare
also his seventh chapter with literature.
83 For instance the picture of the Conquest of Carthage exhibited and interpreted by
L. Hostilius Mancinus in 146/45 (Plin. n. h. 35, 23).
84 Cic. Sest. 93. Pers. sat. 6, 32 ff are examples of the evidence for such use.
86 For an early triumphal procession with such pictorial reports see Appian. Lib. 66
who mentions ypaqsal xai ava in the triumph of Scipio Africanus in 201. See also
Liv. 37, 59, 3 for the triumph of L. Scipio in 188 and Plin. n. h, 35, 22 for the same Scipio’s
tabula victoriae suae Asiaticae, references to later triumphs abound.
86 In the picture of L. Hostilius Mancinus cited above, note 83.
87 As evidence for the luxurious life of Lucullus the tribunus plebis A. Gabinius
showed the people a painting of his villa (Cic. Sest. 93).
88 One may, for example, try to imagine the actual form of that painting which Livy
describes so eloquently in 24, 16, 16ff: the Banquet in Tarentum in 214 commissioned by
T. Sempronius Gracchus for the Temple of Liberty.
89 For a discussion of various forms of perspective in the first century B. C. see Leh-
mann 149ff. The gallant and convincing defense of the “mistakes” in the perspective in
the murals of the cubiculum of Boscoreale should not conceal the fact that there is a
decisive difference between a conscious levity in applying “realistic” perspective on the one
hand and the intentional application of a non-realistic, bird’s eye perspective on the other.
The former is the case in the Boscoreale murals generally, the latter in the Yellow Panel
inserted in its rear wall.
90 See Beyen I 164ff. Recently Beyen discussed this problem again (II 302-316). His
conclusions based on the reliefs of Tlos and Pinara seem to me unconvincing. These re-
liefs appear to reflect oriental influences rather than an undercurrent of bird’s eye view
in Greek representations of settings. I agree, however, with his interpretation of illustrated
displayed and often supplemented by an oral or written explanation 83. Lawyers
used pictorial representations in their pleas, private persons used them to arouse
interest in their affairs 84. Such panels were exhibited in public places and they
accompanied triumphal processions 85. These pictures must have been almost as
familiar to the Romans as newsreels or photographs of current events are to us. In
each and every case the sole purpose was information, the fullest possible pictorial
record of all relevant facts. Sometimes it was just the setting, the locality, that was
pertinent, for example the town walls and the city of Carthage 86 or the luxurious
villa of a rich man 87. How were such pictures drawn and what did they look like?
None, of course, is preserved, but as regards perspective it is not difficult to recon-
struct their character. There is simply no way of producing a complete pictorial
record of events within their settings other than a representation in bird’s eye per-
spective 88. We may add as corollary: it is only in pictures that are means to an end
that inconsistency of scale and of perspective diminution will be accepted as a con-
vention by a public acquainted with and used to a realistic rendering of persons
and objects 89.
There is no evidence whatever that the Hellenistic Greeks developed or even
accepted an analogous species of painting separate in form and purpose from their
mode of representation insofar as we know it. Bird’s eye view is not Greek 90. Com-
Friedländer, Sittengeschichte Roms III (1923 10) 50 ff. For more recent literature: G. Roden-
waldt, Jdl. 55, 1940, 12ff. Dawson50ff. Dawson’s summary is particularly good, compare
also his seventh chapter with literature.
83 For instance the picture of the Conquest of Carthage exhibited and interpreted by
L. Hostilius Mancinus in 146/45 (Plin. n. h. 35, 23).
84 Cic. Sest. 93. Pers. sat. 6, 32 ff are examples of the evidence for such use.
86 For an early triumphal procession with such pictorial reports see Appian. Lib. 66
who mentions ypaqsal xai ava in the triumph of Scipio Africanus in 201. See also
Liv. 37, 59, 3 for the triumph of L. Scipio in 188 and Plin. n. h, 35, 22 for the same Scipio’s
tabula victoriae suae Asiaticae, references to later triumphs abound.
86 In the picture of L. Hostilius Mancinus cited above, note 83.
87 As evidence for the luxurious life of Lucullus the tribunus plebis A. Gabinius
showed the people a painting of his villa (Cic. Sest. 93).
88 One may, for example, try to imagine the actual form of that painting which Livy
describes so eloquently in 24, 16, 16ff: the Banquet in Tarentum in 214 commissioned by
T. Sempronius Gracchus for the Temple of Liberty.
89 For a discussion of various forms of perspective in the first century B. C. see Leh-
mann 149ff. The gallant and convincing defense of the “mistakes” in the perspective in
the murals of the cubiculum of Boscoreale should not conceal the fact that there is a
decisive difference between a conscious levity in applying “realistic” perspective on the one
hand and the intentional application of a non-realistic, bird’s eye perspective on the other.
The former is the case in the Boscoreale murals generally, the latter in the Yellow Panel
inserted in its rear wall.
90 See Beyen I 164ff. Recently Beyen discussed this problem again (II 302-316). His
conclusions based on the reliefs of Tlos and Pinara seem to me unconvincing. These re-
liefs appear to reflect oriental influences rather than an undercurrent of bird’s eye view
in Greek representations of settings. I agree, however, with his interpretation of illustrated