Can anyone identify this?

[Caius Fabius]

I took some photos of a painting in the city museum of Capua, IT. Can anyone tell me about this figure?

[Alanus]

Caius,

The soldier appears to be Greek. Capua, like many towns in Campagnia and Sicilia, was originallly a Greek settlement. The individual could have been a specific historical person to the Capuans, or maybe he was nothing more than a generic representative. I would say the painting dates before the area became Roman.

[Ross Cowan]

More likely a Capuan (Oscan) aristocrat, and probably fourth century BC, but not necessarily before Capua became part of the ager Romanus (338 BC. although the equites had citizenship two years before this). The scutum is interesting; not the shield of an eques. Is it the deceased warrior's shield (assuming this surviving portion of the tomb represents him), or was it a trophy taken from an enemy such as a Samnite?

For a good survey of Campanian tomb painting (though not much discussion of this particular example) see R. Benassai, La Pittura dei Campani e dei Sanniti (Rome 2001). For a good summary of the impressive Lucanian tombs of Posidonia/Paestum see, A. Pontrandolfo et al., The Painted Tombs of Paestum (Paestum 2004).

Cheers,

R

[Medusa Gladiatrix]

Your photo reminds me of the tombs paintings from Paestum. It is from the style similar to the photo I have taken at the exhibition here in Hamburg and when flipping through my exhibition catalog I could find a noble men on a horse resembling in style of his panoply your picture. This style dates around 370-360 BC. The people were Lucanian, not the Greek inhabitants of that area.

[Caius Fabius]

It is interesting what you can find in the small town museums, so much never compiled into a single research data base.

[MeinPanzer]

More likely a Capuan (Oscan) aristocrat, and probably fourth century BC, but not necessarily before Capua became part of the ager Romanus (338 BC. although the equites had citizenship two years before this). The scutum is interesting; not the shield of an eques. Is it the deceased warrior's shield (assuming this surviving portion of the tomb represents him), or was it a trophy taken from an enemy such as a Samnite?

If I'm not mistaken, aren't captured arms usually displayed hung from the spear carried by the deceased in such South Italian paintings?

[Ross Cowan]

If I'm not mistaken, aren't captured arms usually displayed hung from the spear carried by the deceased in such South Italian paintings?

That's true, but there is another 4th C. tomb from Capua depicting a horseman holding a scutum, in my opinion, as a trophy. See figs in Benassai or Cowan, Roman Conquests: Italy.

Cheers,

R

[Quintus Galerius]

It's a samnite-oscan painting, samnite and expecially Campani had a lot of relationship with greek who lived on the coast and sometimes italics used greek-fashoned armour, like this one, while the shield is the italic oval shaped with the "spina" in the middle

[MeinPanzer]

If I'm not mistaken, aren't captured arms usually displayed hung from the spear carried by the deceased in such South Italian paintings?

That's true, but there is another 4th C. tomb from Capua depicting a horseman holding a scutum, in my opinion, as a trophy. See figs in Benassai or Cowan, Roman Conquests: Italy.

Cheers,

R

Why couldn't horsemen have employed scuta? We know from other evidence that South Italian horsemen did so.

[Quintus Galerius]

There are a lot of tombs with the fresco of the "return of the warrior" and in all of them the horseman has a scutum, in one from Nola the horseman has a montefortino helmet with horns and carries a shield

[Dan Diffendale]

The painting comes from the wall of a tomb in Capua, Tomb 16. The tomb was found intact, a male burial with grave goods. These comprised:
-a bronze belt of "Sabellian"/"Samnite" type, Suano's type 1b
- an iron spearpoint
- a bronze coin - an obol from Neapolis (Naples)
- five Black Gloss ceramics: a guttus, a bell-krater, a fish plate, and two small (diam. ~6 cm) open vessels
- an unglazed balsamarium.

Benassai dates the tomb to ca. 300 BC.