DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0692
654 SCULPTURE UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
townsmen, as a recognition of their services. Along the west side of the
forum of Pompeii, a city of only about thirty thousand inhabitants, have been
found fourteen portrait-statues, to say nothing of numbers discovered in other
parts of the buried city. Great learning was also thus recognized, as in the
case of a statue on the capitol at Beneventum to Orbilius Pupillus, who died in
great want, in an attic, at the advanced age of nearly a hundred years. It rep-
resented him as wrapped in a Greek mantle, and having two book-holders by
his side. Statues were also put up as a consolation to the bereaved. In
Brixia, the commune, on the occasion of the death of a child six years five
months and five days old, ordered an equestrian figure of gilded bronze to be
put up, to comfort the mourning father. Frequently these statues to humble
individuals were multiplied to increase the marks of respect.
It is a curious fact, that very often the expense of such statues was
defrayed by the person to whom they were erected; the expression being fre-
quently found in inscriptions, "Satisfied with the honor, he paid the cost." It
became customary for Romans even to put up statues and monuments to them-
selves; and although the senate, as early as 45 B.C., limited the privilege for
the Forum, it was allowed in temples and private grounds. One Regulus,
although notoriously miserly, built limitless colonnades in his garden on the
Tiber, and lined the shores with statues of himself. To his son, who died while
still a lad, he raised many statues and likenesses ; having him portrayed by
different artists, not only in bronze, silver, gold, marble, and ivory, but also in
encaustic and other painting. Statues were also put up by the client to his
patron, by freedmen to masters, often in their dwellings. No less than thirteen
pedestals of statues to L. Licinius Secundus, underling of L. Licinius Sura,
exist in Barcelona, three of which were put up by as many Spanish towns, four
by friends, and one by a freedman. How boundless was the ambitious display
in funcTal monuments, even with subalterns, is well illustrated by a palace-like
tomb erected to his wife Priscilla, by the freedman, Abarcantus, Domitian's
secretary. In this tomb she appeared several times, — in the form of the god-
desses Ceres and Ariadne in bronze, and as Maia and Venus in marble.
In addition to their few native Italic gods, the Romans adopted in thought
and form many Greek deities, so that their Pantheon became most crowded.
In this process of adaptation, Jupiter came to represent Zeus, Minerva stood
for Athena, Venus for Aphrodite, Diana for Artemis, Salus for Hygieia, and
so on. The specifically Italic god, Janus, at first represented as double-headed,
.vas doubtless but a reflex of the double-headed Greek Jicrmcz; later, Janus came
to appear as a full figure, with key and staff, or with the fingers of one hand
bent to represent CCC, and those of the other to represent LXV, thus making
up the number three hundred and sixty-five, the clays of the year, with which
he was intimately connected : but of how little importance this Roman Janus
townsmen, as a recognition of their services. Along the west side of the
forum of Pompeii, a city of only about thirty thousand inhabitants, have been
found fourteen portrait-statues, to say nothing of numbers discovered in other
parts of the buried city. Great learning was also thus recognized, as in the
case of a statue on the capitol at Beneventum to Orbilius Pupillus, who died in
great want, in an attic, at the advanced age of nearly a hundred years. It rep-
resented him as wrapped in a Greek mantle, and having two book-holders by
his side. Statues were also put up as a consolation to the bereaved. In
Brixia, the commune, on the occasion of the death of a child six years five
months and five days old, ordered an equestrian figure of gilded bronze to be
put up, to comfort the mourning father. Frequently these statues to humble
individuals were multiplied to increase the marks of respect.
It is a curious fact, that very often the expense of such statues was
defrayed by the person to whom they were erected; the expression being fre-
quently found in inscriptions, "Satisfied with the honor, he paid the cost." It
became customary for Romans even to put up statues and monuments to them-
selves; and although the senate, as early as 45 B.C., limited the privilege for
the Forum, it was allowed in temples and private grounds. One Regulus,
although notoriously miserly, built limitless colonnades in his garden on the
Tiber, and lined the shores with statues of himself. To his son, who died while
still a lad, he raised many statues and likenesses ; having him portrayed by
different artists, not only in bronze, silver, gold, marble, and ivory, but also in
encaustic and other painting. Statues were also put up by the client to his
patron, by freedmen to masters, often in their dwellings. No less than thirteen
pedestals of statues to L. Licinius Secundus, underling of L. Licinius Sura,
exist in Barcelona, three of which were put up by as many Spanish towns, four
by friends, and one by a freedman. How boundless was the ambitious display
in funcTal monuments, even with subalterns, is well illustrated by a palace-like
tomb erected to his wife Priscilla, by the freedman, Abarcantus, Domitian's
secretary. In this tomb she appeared several times, — in the form of the god-
desses Ceres and Ariadne in bronze, and as Maia and Venus in marble.
In addition to their few native Italic gods, the Romans adopted in thought
and form many Greek deities, so that their Pantheon became most crowded.
In this process of adaptation, Jupiter came to represent Zeus, Minerva stood
for Athena, Venus for Aphrodite, Diana for Artemis, Salus for Hygieia, and
so on. The specifically Italic god, Janus, at first represented as double-headed,
.vas doubtless but a reflex of the double-headed Greek Jicrmcz; later, Janus came
to appear as a full figure, with key and staff, or with the fingers of one hand
bent to represent CCC, and those of the other to represent LXV, thus making
up the number three hundred and sixty-five, the clays of the year, with which
he was intimately connected : but of how little importance this Roman Janus