Misplaced Pages

#273726

23-795: The fresco was discovered about the year 1600 from the masonry of a house near the Arch of Gallienus on the Esquiline Hill . It was in possession of the Aldobrandini family until 1818, when it was purchased by the Vatican authorities. Until the 19th century, this was one of the few and most influential paintings from the early Roman empire, and generated much interest and scholarship, including engravings by Pietro Santi Bartoli (1635–1700), and attention by Winckelmann , Karl Böttiger , and others. There are many elaborate competing interpretations of

46-447: A cloak wrapped around his waist and head wreathed with ivy, lies on the doorstep and observes the scene that takes place at his right. In the far right scene, outdoors, three young women stand around an incense burner supported by a tripod. One, wearing a headdress, pours the essences from a patera , a second wearing a radiated crown of leaves turns towards the third, who holds a seven string lyre and plectrum . This group may represent

69-515: A pedestal, from which hangs a towel and in which a maid seems to pour more water. In the background a person carries an elongated object which is not well defined, perhaps a stool. At the foot of the column is an object made of overlapping tablets, probably a cassette. In the central scene, bordered by a pillar between two walls on the left and the threshold of the house on the right, a woman wearing sandals with legs crossed (perhaps Charis , or, more likely, Peitho , goddess of persuasion) leans against

92-413: A pillar, and pours essences from an alabastron over a shell supported by her left hand. On a cloth-covered bed sits the bride, with head veiled and dressed in a white coat and yellow shoes. Another female figure ( Venus ), bare-chested and wearing sandals, affectionately embraces the bride and raises her hand to the bride's face. At the foot of the bed a young half-naked man ( Hymen , god of marriage), with

115-404: A scene from the play Hippolytus by Euripides as a guide for the correct reading of the fresco. Others have proposed some passages of Alcestis as defining the scene. Setting aside these mythologic-literary interpretations, it is clear that the sequence relates to a wedding, with a focus on the universal anxiety experienced by a young bride, comforted and supported by Venus , waiting to meet

138-402: Is of travertine , 8.80 metres high, 7.30 wide, and 3.50 deep. It is supported by piers which are 1.40 metres wide and 3.50 deep. Outside these piers, there are two pilasters of the same depth, topped by Corinthian capitals . The pillars support a horizontal entablature which is 2 metres high and contains a dedicatory inscription on the architrave . There is a simple cornice on each side of

161-699: The Republic and later as an area for the horti and the emperor’s most beautiful gardens such as the Gardens of Maecenas . Connecting northward to the Esquiline Gate was the agger , the heavily fortified section of the Servian Wall. Just southwest of the Esquiline Gate were notable locations such as Nero’s Golden House, the Baths of Titus , and Trajan’s Baths . Two major roads, the via Labicana and

184-577: The Servian Wall of Rome . It was here that the ancient Roman roads Via Labicana and Via Tiburtina started. The arch was rebuilt in monumental style in the Augustan period. It was not intended to be a triumphal arch but to serve as a gateway in the Republican city wall of Rome. In 262, the equestrian (Marcus) Aurelius Victor, member of the imperial household, rededicated the arch to

207-537: The Three Muses . The classic interpretation of the work, devised by the classical scholar Winckelmann , is that the scene depicts the wedding of Peleus and Thetis , parents of the hero Achilles . A second hypothesis, formulated in the 18th century by Luigi Dutens , is that the scene is the marriage of Alexander the Great and Roxana . These interpretations were pre-eminent until 1994, when Frank Müller proposed

230-558: The Servian Wall was said to have been built by the Roman king Servius Tullius . However modern scholarship and evidence from archaeology indicate a date in the fourth century BC. The archway of the gate was rededicated in 262 as the Arch of Gallienus. The Porta Esquilina allowed passage between Rome and the Esquiline Hill at the city’s east before Rome expanded with the later Aurelian Wall . The Esquiline Hill served as Rome’s graveyard during

253-423: The arch, beneath its spring. A drawing of the 15th century shows small side arches. These pedestrian arches were demolished during the 15th century. These two surviving lines represent the end of an inscription. The large rectangular blank space above them had marble slabs fixed onto it, with the beginning of the inscription – the drilled holes for these slabs' metal fixings are still visible. The missing part of

SECTION 10

#1732800945274

276-419: The background indicate that the characters are indoors, while at right the background is the sky, indicating events taking place outside the same household. The threshold of the house appears between these scenes, in the lower center. In the scene on the left, a Roman matron with white cloak, veiled head and flabellum , appears to test the temperature of the water poured into a small washing lustral supported by

299-409: The bridegroom and lose her virginity. The two side scenes help to integrate this interpretation; the scene on the left, with the matron that controls the temperature of the water in the basin, probably alludes to the ceremony of accepting the bride in her husband's house ( aqua et igni accipi , acceptance of water and fire) according to the Roman tradition of deductio in domum mariti , while the scene on

322-575: The city walls, to be sent outside through the Esquiline Gate so that when the Etruscans came down south to seize the cattle, the Romans could ambush the Etruscans from all sides. Cicero , in a speech deemphasizing the greatness of triumphal processions, mentions how he trampled his own Macedonian laurels underfoot while entering Rome through the Esquiline Gate and this suggests that the Esquiline Gate

345-580: The emperor Gallienus and his wife, Salonina , by replacing the original inscription. The purpose of the rededication was to balance the negative publicity which Gallienus had earned due to the various setbacks the Empire had suffered during his reign. It still stands in the Via San Vito, the ancient Clivus Suburanus – the sequel, the Via S. Martino ai Monti, follows the course of the ancient Argiletum ,

368-488: The inscription probably named the emperor Valerian , father of Gallienus who was captured by the Sassanid Persians in 260 . [REDACTED] Media related to Arch of Gallienus (Rome) at Wikimedia Commons Porta Esquilina The Porta Esquilina (or Esquiline Gate ) was a gate in the Servian Wall , of which the Arch of Gallienus is extant today. Tradition dates it back to the 6th century BC, when

391-760: The main road to the Roman Forum . Already in the Augustan period the Porta Esquilina was taken as included in the Esquiline Forum, which included the market called the Macellum Liviae . When these buildings were abandoned in late antiquity, the diaconia and monastery of San Vito took them over, as recorded in the Einsiedeln Itinerary . It is this church against which the arch's remains now rest. The surviving single arch

414-542: The murder of Asinus of Larinum was done outside the Esquiline Gate, and in Tac. Ann. ii. 32, the astrologer Publius Marcius was executed by consuls outside the Esquiline Gate. The Esquiline gate is also mentioned in ancient literature as an important way of entering and exiting Rome. Livy writes about the consul Valerius ’ strategic plan to lure out Etruscan pillagers that had been preying on Roman fields. Valerius ordered cattle, which had been previously brought to safety within

437-478: The right, is interpreted as a sacrifice for auspicious fortune, possibly in the presence of the recumbent god (Hymen) as the lyre plays the wedding song that accompanied the bride into her new home. The formal language and style of the work suggest the work dates to the early Augustan age. Arch of Gallienus The Arch of Gallienus is a name given to the Porta Esquilina , an ancient Roman arch in

460-400: The scene. The painting, broken at both ends, is part of a frieze decorating a wall in the third style of a domus of the Esquiline Hill . It did not occupy the central position of the decoration, but was at the top of the wall on which it was painted. Ten people appear in the painting, in three groups, whose action takes place both indoors and outdoors. At the left and in the middle, walls in

483-484: The via Praenestina, originate at the Porta Esquilina but lead out of Rome as a single road until they separate near Rome's outer, Aurelian Wall . Following from the concept of the pomerium , there seems to be an unofficial Roman “tradition” that certain killings were to be done “outside” the city and thus several ancient authors include the Esquiline Gate in their descriptions of such deeds. For example, in Cic. Pro. Clu. 37

SECTION 20

#1732800945274

506-437: Was marked by a single arch that was built in the 1st century AD, but it later became a triple arch structure in the 3rd century AD that had a peak height of 8.8 m. The conversion to a triple arch was sponsored by the equite M. Aurelius Victor in 262 AD to honor the Roman emperor Gallienus . Although archaeological evidence shows signs of extra pillar foundations, Aurelius Victor’s additional arches did not survive and today only

529-464: Was used for triumphal processions. Another example of the Esquiline gate in ancient literature comes from Plutarch ’s description of Sulla ’s first march on Rome. Sulla ordered the Esquiline Gate secured and sent some of his forces to go through it. However, bricks and stones were hurled upon them by citizens that Marius had recruited to defend the city. Initially, the site of the Porta Esquilina

#273726