01-16-2006, 08:28 PM
Travis, I can't access your page of pics from the Vatican. Nevertheless, here are the reliefs in question, I believe:
Antonine Column Base Reliefs
And here, for contrast, are Some of the metopes from Adamklissi
Quite a few differences there alright. And more examples of wacky segmentata on the Antonine praetorians! This is an important (and rather obvious) point, however - we have archeological remains of Roman segmented armour, and Roman helmets, that do not resemble those on Trajan's column (which isn't to say that the column representations aren't authentic, just that we have examples that contradict them...). Adamklissi, on the other hand, shows soldiers equipped very differently - and the majority of equipment items portrayed have been evidenced by archeology. Not just the helmets with the cross bracing but also the armouring of the right arm - these are telling details, and must surely be drawn from accurate observation. The column, on the other hand, is also very detailed - more so, in fact - but the details are often wrong The details are also often right, as far as we know, but if a bridge was constructed the way it is (very graphically) portrayed on the column it would fall down - if turfs were laid into a rampart like that they would slump into a muddy heap before the first Dacian foot was planted upon it. These are not just errors caused by the demands of narrative or the shortcuts of artistic economy - they are clear examples of the artists getting it wrong.
Which is not to say that said artists were Greeks or slaves, or that Romans were incapable of fine stonework - just that somewhere in the translation from original drawing (and there must have been original drawings of some sort), or perhaps before that, certain details were lost or muddled while others remained strikingly clear. Clearly, however, the Roman public and the commissioners of the column either didn't know or didn't care! (and the remarks on the purpose of the column are very pertinent here - it wasn't intended to help military historians of the future, clearly!)
Aye, point taken there. I'm still not convinced by the idea that the artists must have been Dacians - it seems like a default option. Are there examples of Dacian relief sculpture that resemble the metopes? If not, you're consigning them to a hazy realm of mystery. Certainly there's a lot of difference between the carvings at Adamklissi and the Antonine Column bases - if they are representative of the 'vernacular' style you mentioned. Looking at the carvings again, however, I'm struck by how very similar they are to other attested work by military stonemasons - the column bases from the Mainz principia, for example, or (more tellingly) the better-carved grave stelae. The way that the figures fit the frame of the 'picture' (or don't - witness the three cornicen players in XLII, with the circles of the horns jutting from the frame!), the comparative size of the figures themselves, the way that the pictures are composed - all of these are common to the Adamklissi metopes and to grave art from Roman military sites. There is no 'background' to any of them, of course - the pictures exist in a hazy shallow pictorial space: on the grave pictures, this is the non-space of Elysium, where the soldier is free to engage in his favourite activities (feasting, riding down the enemy etc) - in effect, might the pictures from Adamklissi be intended in a similar way? The is also a memorial altar at the site, dating to several years before the Tropaeum and inscribed with the names of the dead soldiers - is it too fanciful to imagine that the representations of soldiers on the later victory monument are intended as similar commemoration of the dead - carved by the soldiers themselves, in demotic military style, to honour their fallen comrades?
Antonine Column Base Reliefs
And here, for contrast, are Some of the metopes from Adamklissi
Quite a few differences there alright. And more examples of wacky segmentata on the Antonine praetorians! This is an important (and rather obvious) point, however - we have archeological remains of Roman segmented armour, and Roman helmets, that do not resemble those on Trajan's column (which isn't to say that the column representations aren't authentic, just that we have examples that contradict them...). Adamklissi, on the other hand, shows soldiers equipped very differently - and the majority of equipment items portrayed have been evidenced by archeology. Not just the helmets with the cross bracing but also the armouring of the right arm - these are telling details, and must surely be drawn from accurate observation. The column, on the other hand, is also very detailed - more so, in fact - but the details are often wrong The details are also often right, as far as we know, but if a bridge was constructed the way it is (very graphically) portrayed on the column it would fall down - if turfs were laid into a rampart like that they would slump into a muddy heap before the first Dacian foot was planted upon it. These are not just errors caused by the demands of narrative or the shortcuts of artistic economy - they are clear examples of the artists getting it wrong.
Which is not to say that said artists were Greeks or slaves, or that Romans were incapable of fine stonework - just that somewhere in the translation from original drawing (and there must have been original drawings of some sort), or perhaps before that, certain details were lost or muddled while others remained strikingly clear. Clearly, however, the Roman public and the commissioners of the column either didn't know or didn't care! (and the remarks on the purpose of the column are very pertinent here - it wasn't intended to help military historians of the future, clearly!)
Quote:Local or provincial styles were more than acceptable at Adamklissi, even for an official monument. Local style at Adamklissi may not have been just 'acceptable' - as in that was all they could muster - but actually preferable, as a demonstration of dominion over the locals.
It demonstrates exactly why dependence on art as a source text is SOOOO difficult.
Aye, point taken there. I'm still not convinced by the idea that the artists must have been Dacians - it seems like a default option. Are there examples of Dacian relief sculpture that resemble the metopes? If not, you're consigning them to a hazy realm of mystery. Certainly there's a lot of difference between the carvings at Adamklissi and the Antonine Column bases - if they are representative of the 'vernacular' style you mentioned. Looking at the carvings again, however, I'm struck by how very similar they are to other attested work by military stonemasons - the column bases from the Mainz principia, for example, or (more tellingly) the better-carved grave stelae. The way that the figures fit the frame of the 'picture' (or don't - witness the three cornicen players in XLII, with the circles of the horns jutting from the frame!), the comparative size of the figures themselves, the way that the pictures are composed - all of these are common to the Adamklissi metopes and to grave art from Roman military sites. There is no 'background' to any of them, of course - the pictures exist in a hazy shallow pictorial space: on the grave pictures, this is the non-space of Elysium, where the soldier is free to engage in his favourite activities (feasting, riding down the enemy etc) - in effect, might the pictures from Adamklissi be intended in a similar way? The is also a memorial altar at the site, dating to several years before the Tropaeum and inscribed with the names of the dead soldiers - is it too fanciful to imagine that the representations of soldiers on the later victory monument are intended as similar commemoration of the dead - carved by the soldiers themselves, in demotic military style, to honour their fallen comrades?
Nathan Ross
