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THE LIMITS OF ERASURE: RECOGNISING REUSE IN ROMAN IMPERIAL IMAGERY

Abstract

Over the course of approximately 350 years, erasure transformed likenesses into effigies,

remnants of one figure in another’s guise, and emendations to history. The focus of this paper

is the intersection of preservation and change in Roman imperial imagery. The principal aim

is to discern the mechanisms by which honour and dishonour were linked in a transfer of

power premised on the joining of imperial likenesses. Addressing referents and the revised

roles imposed on such visually transformed figures, this investigation considers well-known

examples of visual alteration in tandem with a production-led typology of erasure, including

palimpsests and partial to incomplete excision. The act of reusing imperial images as spolia

meant that the figure depicted was publicly re-presented as his power was waxing or waning.

This analysis examines the delicate balance of unmaking and remaking as iterations in the

relational nature of viewing and Roman imperial reuse.

Figure 1: Portrait bust re-carved Domitian/Nerva, First century CE. Marble, DIMENSIONS. Rome: Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. Inventory number 106538. Photo: CREDIT.

Figure 2: Severan family painted tondo, c. 199-200 CE. Tempera, diameter 305 mm (12 in). Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin. Inventory number 31329. Photo: Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Photo by Johannes Laurentius.

•© Foto: Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz •Fotograf/in: Johannes Laurentius

Figure 3: Triumph of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, c. 176 CE, Marble, DIMENSIONS. Rome: Palazzo dei Conservatori. Inventory number: 808. Photo: CREDIT.

Figure 4: Hadrian re-carved as Constantine, Arch of Constantine, Rome. Marble, DIMENSIONS. Rome: American Academy in Rome Digital Humanities Center, Arch of Constantine: tondi of Hadrian, second roundel, the sacrifice to Apollo (Rome, Italy). Identifier: 138913. Photo: CREDIT.

Figure 5: Marcus Aurelius re-carved as Constantine, Arch of Constantine, Rome. Marble, DIMENSIONS. American Academy in Rome Digital Humanities Center, Arch of Constantine: Marcus Aurelius Attic Panel, North, detail from the Liberalitas frieze centred upon Marcus Aurelius and his (excised) son Commodus after their joint victory of 176 (Rome, Italy). Identifier: 138983. Photo: CREDIT.

4. (Nearly) Complete Erasure Spolium-as-framework - Remains on display - Excised from a group

1. No Alterations to the Original Not spolia

Figure 6: Typology of Erasure

2. Partial Erasure Spolium-as-trophy - Highlight dishonour - Image is a surrogate for the body - Decapitations, attacks and mutilation

3. Palimpsest Spolium-as-trophy *&* Spolium-as-framework - Remains on display - Visible traces of an earlier iteration remain in re-carving - Double re-carving is known

Figure 7.1 (above) and 7.2 (below). Cancelleria Reliefs, Rome.

FIGS 8.1-8.4 Nero/Domitian/Nerva, - recut on two separate occasions excavated from the Julio-Claudian Basilica at Velleia, Italy Museo Nazionale d’Antichità, Parma. Inv. 146 (1870), 827 (1954)

FIG 9.1

FIG 9.2

THE LIMITS OF ERASURE: RECOGNISING REUSE IN ROMAN IMPERIAL IMAGERY*

I. Introduction

A palimpsest is, by definition, an alteration with visible traces of an earlier iteration.

The focus is, therefore, on the present incarnation. However, the process of changing a

likeness so that it is altered and, concurrently, recognisable leads to intriguing questions

concerning the boundaries of preservation and change. Reuse among Roman imperial

portraiture developed diachronically.2 Accretions gradually transformed likenesses into

effigies, remnants of one figure in another’s guise, and emendations to history. Over the

course of approximately 350 years, from Augustus through to Constantine, erasure acquired a

myriad of distinguishable visual forms and meanings.3 A typology of erasure has the potential

to shed light on Roman conceptual distinctions between categories of visual reuse and

excision, and corresponding social messages targeting posthumous commemorations of

emperors. These commemorations often took extreme forms, such as reviling or celebrating.

There is, however, nuanced meaning evident in palimpsests, for example, which comment on

a past and present emperor by their reciprocal absence and presence.

Roman imperial portraiture sought to convey continuity by incorporating visual

similarities.4 This practice resulted in approaching public imagery as equivalent to the

emperor incarnate.5 The principal aim of this paper is to discern the mechanism by which

honour and dishonour were linked in a transfer of power premised on the joining of imperial

likenesses. Focusing on the intersection of preservation and change in Roman imperial

imagery, this work addresses original referents and the revised roles imposed on such visually

transformed figures. Considering well-known examples of visual alteration to Roman

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imperial imagery, this investigation examines the delicate balance of unmaking and remaking

as iterations in an open-ended sequence; in a typology of erasure.

II. Pieces Joined to Create a Whole

Underpinning the variations evident in the typology of erasure is the projection of

revised and corrected socially-constructed meaning.6 Drawing upon the posthumous

treatment of representations from among Roman imperial likenesses, an ekphrastic rendition

of a Roman imperial statue survives in Prokopios’s Anekdota (Secret History).7 Woven into

the narrative is a union of past and present emperors entwined through their visual forms.

Prokopios likens the current emperor to his vivid rendition of a violently mutilated statue

from over 450 years earlier. This suggestion of a palimpsest not only merges the destinies of

both figures through their physical forms but also hints at the historic validation offered by

the predecessor in the guise of a statue.

Prokopios’s ghastly description of an early imperial statue reflects responses and

para-narratives expressed in descriptions of statuary in its social context.8 Offering a physical

counterpart to sixth-century emperor Justinian, by way of an indirect comparison to first-

century ruler Domitian, Prokopios evokes a vivid representation before the minds’ eye

conjoining two emperors as elements visually representing a whole:

If I had to capture his whole appearance in one image I would say that he was most

similar to Domitian…whose foul character the Romans…hacked him into pieces,9 so

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that the Senate passed a decree that the name of this emperor should never again be

carved in an inscription and no image of him should be allowed to survive.10

Whilst a great deal of Prokopios’ description of the statue appears to be a fiction11 –

most likely intended to foreshadow Justinian’s fate rather than faithfully reporting the

appearance of a 450-year old statue – a number of details are commensurate with what is

widely known about memory sanctions, today referred to as damnatio memoriae.12 This term

was invented in the twentieth-century to explain a Roman practice which, fundamentally,

according to the visual evidence, is not limited to condemnation of memory but rather

highlights the removal of one leader whilst, often concurrently, ushering in and celebrating

his successor.13 Scholars whose focus is epigraphic iterations of damnatio memoriae have

argued that memory sanctions reveal more about the politics behind those rewriting history

than about the subject.14 As expressions of political authority and prestige, beginning in the

republican period, sanctions of the kind referred to as damnation of memory offered the

means by which the legacy of an individual was invalidated.15 Alterations to memory existed

on a continuum of post-production visual change.16 According to the surviving evidence,

imperial likenesses were manipulated to underscore ignominy or exultation and the range of

permutations was fairly restricted.

Offering a personal response, the ‘foul character’ of Emperor Domitian (r. 81-96 AD)

is presented as a contributing factor in the eventual mutilation of his likeness. By senatorial

decree his memory was damned and he was murdered. He, therefore, suffered the removal of

honorific images and inscriptions bearing his name.17 In the text, Prokopios claims the first-

century statue remained. He reports the motivations behind the very specific choice of

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depiction for the commissioned statue by Domitian’s wife, Domitia Longina, in the following

lines:

[Domitia Longina’s] intention was to leave for posterity a memorial to the inhumanity

of those who had butchered her husband…She gathered up all the carvings of

Domitian’s flesh, fitted them together by placing each in its exact position in relation

to the others, and then sewed up the whole body. She showed it to the sculptors and

bid them to produce a bronze imitation of the fate that befell her husband…From that

time on it has depicted the appearance and the fate of Domitian.18

The invocation of the fate of the earlier ruler obliquely suggests an equally grim end

for Justinian. In his ekphrastic depiction of the bronze statue, Prokopios presents a body made

up of pieces which together create a whole. The notion of a likeness visually articulating the

current social role of the ruler underlies transformations in Roman imperial imagery and is

evident in surviving reuse via re-carving. Extant as surrogates, re-workings and obliterations,

palimpsests, and the varied meanings expressed by differentiable alterations, are the primary

focus of this investigation.

Whether removed from circulation, decapitated or re-carved, these likenesses were

treated as spolia.19 The reuse of imperial imagery re-presents altered likenesses as models for

the beholder. As Prokopios states, since the bronze statue was erected it depicts not only the

appearance but also the fate of Domitian. This evocative rendering of a bronze statue

highlights the role of Roman imperial imagery in uniting past and present in visual form.

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Instead of obliterating damned emperors, Roman imperial imagery superimposed meaning,

by altering an image into a transformed union of old and new.

At the core of this investigation is a two-fold argument. First, a typology of erasure

underscores conceptual differences between: re-carving as palimpsest, mutilation as partial

erasure and annihilation as partial, or nearly complete erasure. These were varying degrees of

erasure. Each one visually conveying an emendation; a socio-political reappraisal that was a

product of its time.

Second, fundamentally memory sanctions are about a transfer of power. Inscriptions

and imagery were expedient means by which public portraiture in particular was used to

confer praise, or convey ignominy. Alterations to Roman imperial imagery highlight this

phenomenon.

III. Celebrating and Deriding Simultaneously: A Production-Led Approach to

Alterations in Roman Imperial Portraiture

The act of rewriting history is typically intended to achieve one of two oppositional

aims: to decimate or to elevate. Alterations to Roman imperial portraiture, principally in the

form of palimpsests, have the potential to achieve derision and praise concurrently. Although

there are a number of related – yet distinct – examples of alterations to memory articulated

and exhibited in Roman imperial imagery, currently there is no production-led taxonomy of

memory sanctions in imperial portraiture for this wide-ranging concept.

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The number of remaining imperial palimpsests strongly supports the conclusion that

such re-carvings convey the transfer of power from the absorbed emperor (shown partially

erased) to the inaugurated successor (whose likeness is created and prominent in the re-

carving). Thereby, the nearly complete erasure of Domitian’s imperial portrait (fig. 1)20 as a

palimpsest, which re-carves Domitian as Nerva, confirms Domitian’s memory even as it

dishonours it.21 The Palazzo Massimo alle Terme bust of Nerva re-carved from an image of

Domitian intentionally preserves vestiges of the damned Domitian whilst honouring Nerva as

his successor.22 Telling signs revealing a palimpsest were consistently retained in Roman

portraiture. On this bust, for example, Domitian’s distinctive hair has not been altered in the

re-carving. Instead his hair has been left largely intact. Thus, when viewed from the front or

sides, Nerva’s present incarnation is in fact Nerva’s face with Domitian’s signature locks.

Despite deliberately eliminating all remnants of Domitian’s youthful face, traces of

Domitian’s distinguishable hairstyle, combed forwards, is evident framing the successor’s

face on both sides of the palimpsest.23 Given the large numbers of re-carved first-century

portraits betraying the dualistic nature of a re-carved likeness, such imperial palimpsests

appear to represent subjugation and eradication of the ousted emperor, with concomitant

victory and (literal as well as metaphoric) re-formation into the likeness of the celebrated

successor.24 Thus, evidence of reuse in the form of a palimpsest suggests that the visual

transfer of power is premised on the joining of imperial likenesses, eliciting concomitant

honour and dishonour.

If the aim had been to reuse the material, then evidence of the past iteration would

surely have been excised. In contrast, ‘[e]rasures and recarved portraits are reminders of what

is beneath. They do not eradicate memory; instead, they foster it.’25 Such entwined

palimpsests display vestiges of the condemned emperor, visually announcing the joining of

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distinct characters in a single block of marble. The superimposed nature of this portrait and

the simultaneity of both likenesses underscores the importance not only of praising the

successor but also the concurrent expression of the defeat and removal of his derided

predecessor retained, and therefore remembered, in the bust. In contrast to violent mutilations

(in the form of partial erasure) or emendations to history (in the form of nearly complete

erasure), such re-carvings proffer a radically different fused social message and legacy

preserved in visual form.

A fragmented form of dishonour is expressed in the partial erasure of imperial

portraiture via decapitations, blinding’s and other mutilations to images as surrogates for the

person represented. Perhaps the most well-known imperial example is the second-century CE

decapitation of Geta in two-dimensional form in the Severan family painting (fig. 2).26 The

portrait includes Septimius Severus and Julia Domna along with their two sons Caracalla and

Geta c. 199 CE. Geta, however, has been damned by the removal of his face. The choice to

retain his body highlights his dishonour. Unlike surviving portraits of Nero, an earlier

example of a boy from an imperial family who was later disgraced, Geta’s altered likeness

shows the violent act targeting the young boy before he became emperor. The antithetical

treatment of images of Nero and Geta in their youth, before assuming the title princeps,

reveals a great deal about the contrasting treatment of imperial imagery in the first and third-

centuries CE.27 Whilst the history of alterations to Roman imperial likenesses may have

developed piecemeal, diachronic patterns are evident when the evidence is considered using a

production-led approach. This is true not only of partial erasure, but also for nearly complete

excision.

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Revisionist history remains in the form of nearly complete erasure targeting Roman

imperial likenesses. Emperors involved in benefaction, for example, have been stricken from

history through erasure. Thereby, historic reliefs offer a corrected version of events. A well-

known example is a late-second century CE nearly complete elimination of Commodus’s

presence from an historic relief honouring him in a military triumph alongside his co-ruler,

and father, Marcus Aurelius (fig. 3).28 Originally, the relief portrayed both men in the triumph

of 176 over the Marcomanni and Quadi, standing in a chariot celebrating a joint honour.29

There is extensive evidence of re-carving to convincingly remove Commodus from this

relief. Column bases and stairs, for example, have been re-cut with quickly rendered rough

chisel marks remaining. Such architectural elements indicate the intentional excision of

Commodus from the historic scene. Moreover, Victory and Marcus Aurelius have also been

recut, awkwardly, to obscure Commodus’s removal. The explanation for altering a goddess,

an imperial portrait but leaving evidence of post-production removal appears to be due to the

perspective of the viewer. When seen from below, the beholder is unaware of the retained

elements in the relief.30 Even if the untidied marks resulted in a less realistic relief, the

principal aim was clearly to obliterate Commodus from the historic relief. The selective

excision and amendments to remaining figures and architecture suggest that the decision to

keep remnants of the alterations indicates that speed was crucial to underscore the post-

production intent to annihilate Commodus and to nullify him and his place in history.

A production-led classification identifies distinguishable strategies employed through

excision. Thereby, partial erasure (in the form of violent attacks) is understood as distinct

from palimpsests (imperial re-formed likenesses dishonouring one ruler and elevating his

successor) and nearly complete erasure (a visual form of rewriting history in historic reliefs,

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for example). During the imperial period, each form of erasure was a discrete option

projecting a dissimilar social message.

From Augustan through to Constantinian times, these varied forms of erasure relied

on reuse. Initially, portraiture was made to publically confer honour upon an emperor.31 This

substitute for the original offered beholders the opportunity to be in the presence of a

powerful figure. Alterations to such honorific imagery visually allowed a public revision,

reflecting social developments in real time.32 Roman imperial portraiture’s power, therefore,

was two-fold. First, honorific imagery portrayed the referent in a form visually sanctioned by

the emperor and thus, familiar. Second, subsequent reuse was intentionally limited.

Effectively serving as spolia, the altered image maintained widespread recognition and – at

the same time – exhibited a transformation to that figure’s power.

IV. Visual Transfer of Imperial Power: The Evidence

Visual representations of the transfer of power were achieved through diachronic

alterations to and unions between imperial likenesses. Addressing fundamental differences

between two types of relational meaning, that are often conflated, on reused Roman imperial

portraits found throughout the Roman Empire, Paolo Liverani has presented the case for ‘two

historical significations of the concept spolium.’33 Liverani identified an important conceptual

distinction between two categories of spolia, one class serving as a sign for a particular

conquest, and the latter class functioning as a generalised type verifying modifications to

added material. Building upon this excellent taxonomy, I shall refer to spolium-as-trophy and

spolium-as-framework as key to understanding the means by which partial erasure,

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palimpsests and nearly complete erasure visually convey alterations to imperial power

through distinguishable forms of reuse.

Spolium-as-trophy, the first class, announces its connection to the point of origination.

Already considered in absentia, a figural representation stands in place of the person

depicted. A visual depiction in the form of a statue is ideal because the individual is

unambiguously represented. The likeness can withstand punishment and serves as an example

to viewers, often a negative one. Thus, the act of seizing and publically displaying a captured

likeness can be celebrated as a victory and the statue treated like a trophy, as in the British

Museum’s decapitated portrait of Augustus from Meroë.34 This severed head was excavated

beneath steps leading to a shrine. Thereby, Augustus was effectively a prisoner of war,

permanently placed below the feet of his captors. The aim of such a trophy is to visually

communicate to beholders who was vanquished and when. Therefore, degrading the severed

head as a trophy demonstrates the power of the captors.

Applying the concept of spolium-as-trophy to Roman imperial imagery, this translates

specifically to imperial likenesses that were decapitated, violently attacked and mutilated.

Spolia of this type are effectively relics or remnants of the original referents. Since images

were considered surrogates for the imperial body, imprisoning or abusing the likeness was

equivalent to treating the emperor himself in this manner. Thus, this denigrating class of

spolia treats the original referent as debased and disgraced in effigy.

Later, a second class of spolia developed. Liverani refers to this type as fragments,

however it provides a structure within which to understand a recast narrative. I, therefore,

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refer to this category of spolium-as-framework whereby fragments sever any direct

connections to the original through the act of reconfiguring ruler portraits in the present. The

specific and individual link to the original referent is lost, instead a mixture of reused

fragments creates an authentic or legitimising framework updating social meaning.

Perhaps the most well-known example is Constantine’s reuse of earlier imperial

spolia on the Arch of Constantine.35 In these reliefs, the portraits of emperors Hadrian and

Marcus Aurelius were re-carved to represent Constantine (figs. 4-5).36 Constantine’s arch is

most closely aligned with the Diocletianic Arcus Novus and the Arco di Portogallo, both of

which offer precedents in the laudatory reuse of Roman imperial portraiture.37 Thus,

Constantine’s choice to superimpose his own likeness over that of beloved, or at least good,

emperors is a variation on the well-established palimpsestic re-carving. What is novel,

however, is the selection of reliefs from good emperors as the source for the reformed

carving.38

Moreover, on the Arch of Constantine fragments from earlier respected emperors

were combined to form a framework within which to understand Constantine’s fourth-

century historic reliefs as celebratory.39 Whereas imperial authority derives from the reuse of

earlier imagery, the specific narrative on the Arch of Constantine stems exclusively from the

content found in his 4th-century reliefs. Thus, framing the new emperor’s particular, historic

imagery is the generalised imperial framework of validation. The aim underlying the reuse of

spolium-as-framework is the use of traditional forms as familiar visual scaffolding with

which to articulate and to project authenticated and individuated content for the current

emperor.

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Where does re-carving fall in this binary? The evidence suggests that it is a

combination of spolium-as-trophy and spolium-as-framework. That is, re-carved portraits

serve to provide spolium as the framework within which to identify and to interpret reused

imperial trophies. Throughout the imperial period, erasure took many forms. Although the ad

hoc nature of these alterations contributed to their variation, this typology of erasure suggests

a limited number of dissimilar approaches to emendations and annihilations in the first

through early fourth centuries AD.

V. Types of Erasure

According to extant evidence in the form of reused Roman imperial portraiture,

likenesses could undergo one of four principal alterations (fig. 6). In order of the level of re-

carving, from least to most extensive, the first is marked by an absence, that is, no alteration

to the original. The second is partial erasure, that is, an alteration to perhaps only one part of

the image. The third is a palimpsest, marked by the re-working of a bust or portrait into the

recognisable likeness of another. The fourth is (nearly) complete excision. This last category

must remain incomplete in order to be identifiable as an erasure.

1. No Alterations to the Original

A number of imperial likenesses have been preserved unchanged; in part, or entirely.

In such cases there may be no alteration to the original. This includes images that were placed

in warehouses, stored, hidden or removed by some other means.40 Many of these images

portray individual emperors rather than group portraits. Such images, therefore, are typically

found taken out of circulation and display. Examples are known to have been hidden

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immediately following a senatorial damnation, only to undergo a rehabilitation of memory

with a succeeding emperor’s support.41 For example, the damned emperor Commodus’s

memory was not only rehabilitated by Septimius Severus, subsequently Commodus was

deified.42 Surviving evidence makes it clear that many portraits were not necessarily

destroyed, but simply removed from circulation. A senatorial decree dishonouring the elder

Piso at the time of Tiberius did not order the destruction of his image. Instead it forbade its

display.43 His images were – perhaps temporarily – stored in a warehouse44 until his

rehabilitation of memory. In contrast, group portraits may have required the nearly complete

erasure of a lone figure to excise an offending emperor without altering the likeness of those

who were permitted to publically remain on display.

A renowned pair of imperial narrative reliefs, one a palimpsest and the other

unaltered, are a testament to the sustained practice of storing high-quality carvings despite

depicting damned emperors. Known as the Cancelleria Reliefs, the two imperial reliefs were

originally made to honour Domitian by visually chronicling events from his reign (figs. 7.1-

7.2).45 Each panel originally portrayed Domitian as the principal focus, surrounded by deities.

After Domitian was condemned by the Senate, to honour his immediate successor, Nerva,

one of Domitian’s two likenesses was re-carved, depicting Nerva.46 Tool marks are evident

from this palimpsestic re-carving of Nerva’s portrait. In addition, due to the subtractive

nature of re-carving, Nerva’s head is disproportionately small. It is believed that Nerva died

before the re-carving of the second relief panel was begun. Re-carving was, therefore,

stopped and the accompanying relief portrait of Domitian was left untouched. Thus, the

unaltered panel preserves a youthful Domitian addressing his father Vespasian. With re-

carving limited to that of one palimpsestic head, abandoned before the second imperial

portrait was transformed into Nerva, this pair of reliefs appears to have been stored in a

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warehouse for re-use at a later date. It would appear, therefore, that alongside unaltered

imperial portraits, palimpsests were also stored in warehouses.

2. Partial Erasure

The aim of partial erasure was to highlight dishonour by means of an effigy. Based on

extant evidence, a partially maimed likeness was often treated as a proxy, in particular with

the practice of corpse abuse.47 These symbolic mutilations could take the form of

decapitations, or attacked sensory organs – such as the place of identification and power of

eyes, ears, nose or mouth.

Written accounts remain of emperors and elite figures Sejanus and Vitellius forced to

witness the mutilation of their own images.48 These acts served to visually preview the

destruction to one’s own corpse, which was subsequently abused by the masses before it was

discarded in the Tiber. Such violent acts of disfigurement were sometimes displayed

posthumously, as was likely for the altered Severan family portrait in which Geta’s likeness

is annihilated and his body preserved untouched to underscore his ignominy (fig. 2).49 The

beheading rendered in two-dimensional form in this painting parallels decapitations found in

three-dimensional representations, such as statuary. It, therefore, represents a widespread

practice in the treatment of imperial imagery.

Although the physical form may be different, the underlying brutality is the same. The

partial erasure of a Roman imperial likeness serves as a means of dishonouring an individual

whose portrait is violently incapacitated.50 Partial erasure is, therefore, spolium-as-trophy

whereby the particular figure represented is mutilated in effigy. Violent mutilations were

15

most common in the turbulent late second and third centuries. Earlier, however, in the first-

century, a censured emperor’s likeness was surprisingly often re-carved into the likeness of

his successor.51

3. Palimpsests

Roman imperial palimpsests are perhaps the most varied type of reuse in the typology

of erasure. These reconfigured or recycled images often depict individuals, such as busts, or

groups, as, for example, on the Arch of Constantine.52 Visible traces of an earlier iteration

remain as part of these re-carved portraits. Recognition, and the preservation of identifiable

material, is a key element integral to imperial palimpsests.53 Re-worked likenesses may

indicate a deliberate palimpsest through successive re-carvings. It has been argued that the

purpose of a recognisable transfer from a condemned emperor to his successor was to

confirm the memory of both, the former as a deterrent and the latter as a celebrant.54 Thus,

the goal is viewer participation to fill the gap.55 A visual means of conveying a transfer of

power was through a recognisable visual transference in the form of a palimpsest.

This type of erasure is effectively a combination of spolium-as-trophy and spolium-as-

framework. The reigning emperor was ousted by his successor, thereby his likeness served as

a trophy for the victor. In addition, the earlier, re-formed emperor was transformed into his

successor. The trophy became the framework for the successor’s portrait. Imperial

palimpsests were in large-scale use from as early as in the first-century and into the second

century. By the time of Domitian’s damnation in 98 AD, ‘sculptural recycling had become an

entrenched response to imperial damnationes’.56 The succeeding emperor must have

approved of appropriating the likeness of a predecessor, perhaps considered a form of

conquest and subjugation.57 By retaining and deliberately betraying traces of the earlier

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imperial likeness in the successor’s portrait, a reviled emperor’s image is treated as both a

trophy and a legitimising framework for the latter.

Imperial palimpsests were so prevalent in the first-century that at least one double re-

carving survives. This Nero/Domitian/Nerva statue from Velleia, Italy is a noteworthy

example since it contains pronounced visual elements from two earlier incarnations – all

representations of emperors from the first-century CE (figs. 8.1-8.4).58 The original portrait of

Nero was carved c. 64-8 CE with a clear militaristic emphasis represented by the high-quality

cuirass. Nero’s head was subsequently re-carved into that of Domitian’s, and once again re-

carved into Nerva’s likeness. The imagery on the breastplate of almost identical winged

victories flanking a thymeterium is Neronian.59 Despite re-working the portrait into a new

likeness, on two separate occasions, the body retains its initial form from the mid-60s CE.

Similar to other palimpsestic transformations of Domitian into Nerva, Domitian’s

distinguishable hairstyle is evident on the statue which now bears Nerva’s likeness (cf. fig.

1). Thus, conspicuous signs of earlier imperial portraits visually conveyed the transfer of

power to beholders. Such portraits appear to exhibit signs of their transformation, identifiable

by first-century Roman viewers.

Imperial palimpsests typically portrayed damned emperors re-carved into their good

successors. After a break, however, in the second and third centuries, this continued in the

early fourth-century. The colossal portrait of Constantine from the Basilica Nova was re-

carved from that of his adversary Maxentius.60 By the late third-century, Diocletian may have

reused imperial imagery from good emperor Claudius on the Arcus Novus, just as

Constantine went on to do on his Arch in Rome, re-carving the portraits of his good

predecessors (i.e. Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius) into his own. The choice to

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intentionally include traces of an earlier iteration as part of a visual union was part of broader

Roman visual culture.61 It has been demonstrated that ‘the Romans were used to, and even

had an appreciation for, images that had two sides to them and to the discourse that would

result from such juxtapositions.’62 Imperial palimpsests were, therefore, part of a rich and

layered nexus; a visual means of expressing reciprocal meaning. Images do remain, however,

in which complete, and nearly complete, erasure was limited to spolium-as-framework.

4. Nearly Complete Erasure

Nearly complete erasure is a form of visual annihilation.63 Partial erasure is akin to

spolium-as-trophy, with the identity of the disgraced figure prominently on display. This

generally takes the form of a decapitation or violent mutilation. In contrast, nearly complete

erasure serves as spolium-as-framework. The act of excising an individual, typically from a

group, results in the ‘deliberate rewriting of the visual record of Roman history and

society.’64 Images may intentionally be almost entirely erased or revised, for example, if one

of two co-rulers was disgraced. Often, therefore, nearly complete erasure continues to be

displayed after the condemned emperor’s removal.

As a result of a half-century of military, social, political and economic instability, the

late-second and third centuries marked an apex in mutilations via partial erasure in Roman

imperial portraiture and violent acts of nearly complete excision and obliteration. The Arch of

the Argentarii in the Forum Boarium in Rome, Italy, is a well-known monumental gift given

to Septimius Severus in 204 CE with an inscription and several reliefs amended using

complete erasure (fig. 9.1-9.2).65 Caracalla’s brother, Geta, Caracalla’s wife, Plautilla,66 and

Caracalla’s father-in-law, Plautianus, were all entirely excised from the reliefs and inscription

originally included on the arch. Each of the two reliefs on the interior of the arch originally

18

contained three figures. Emperor Septimius Severus was shown alongside his wife, Julia

Domna, and their younger son Geta (fig. 9.1). Their elder son Caracalla was shown along

with his wife Plautilla and his father-in-law (fig. 9.2). Whilst Plautilla and her father were

obliterated from one relief, excepting empty space, the only tell-tale sign of the missing

figure of Caracalla in the relief with his mother and father is the altered arm of Caracalla’s

mother to hide this visual form of annihilation (fig. 9.1). Awkward recutting is evident on

other examples, such as the nearly complete removal of Commodus on the joint triumph with

Marcus Aurelius in CE 176 (fig. 3). Were complete, and nearly complete, excision invariably

coupled with recutting? Perhaps, since carving in marble is a subtractive process (cf. figs. 3,

4, 5, 7.1, 7.2, 9.1, 9.2). A more fruitful question may be the extent to which earlier nearly

complete erasures were taken as authentic source material for spolia-as-framework.

Although the extent to which imperial re-carving was identifiable in antiquity is not

always clear, the evidence suggests Constantine intentionally re-used one of Marcus

Aurelius’s historical reliefs with nearly complete erasure for the Arch of Constantine. Marcus

Aurelius’s likeness is re-carved as Constantine in a palimpsest on the Arch of Constantine

(fig. 5). In this re-used relief, now on the Arch of Constantine, next to Marcus Aurelius re-

carved as Constantine is a blank space formerly occupied by Commodus in a depiction

originally honouring Marcus Aurelius and Commodus’s joint distribution of a largitio in

177.67 After his damnation, Commodus was nearly completely excised. This is an example of

incomplete excision because the foot of his distinctive chair, the sella curule, remained along

with his foot. Perhaps due to the placement of this relief at a considerable height, or because

the amount of empty space suggests omission, complete erasure was not considered essential

to this emendation to history. The layered meaning offered in this Constantinian iteration is

made more complex by joining a late second-century nearly complete erasure with an early

19

fourth-century palimpsest. From spolium-as-trophy/partial erasure, to spolium-as-trophy and

spolium-as-framework concurrently/palimpsest, to spolium-as-framework/(nearly) complete

excision, the development of the typology of erasure is commensurate with the need to

amend, correct and visually clarify changes to imperial power.

Conclusion

The extent of post-production excision in Roman imperial portraiture disambiguated

transfers of power. The removal of one leader was often entwined with the inauguration of

his replacement. The act of reusing imperial images as spolia meant that the figure depicted

was publicly re-presented as his power was waxing or waning. Carving and erasure were the

means by which shifts in power were communicated visually.

In this typology of erasure, each type of re-carving reuses spolia with a distinct

purpose – and resulting message – concerning the transfer of power. (1) Unaltered imperial

portraiture was often stored for later re-use. Depictions of good and bad emperors appear to

have received uniform treatment since both were warehoused. (2) Re-carved palimpsests are

laudatory, simultaneously installing a successor whilst deriding his predecessor. (3)

Disfigurements in the form of partial erasure are violent attacks denigrating a reviled ruler.

(4) Complete, or nearly complete, erasure rewrites past events to suit the victors.

Returning to Prokopios’ colourful rendering of a 450-year old statue used to herald

Justinian’s appearance. The statue’s body was composed of pieces which together created a

whole to depict ‘the appearance and the fate of Domitian’.68 In his secret history, Prokopios’

aim appears to have been to do what so many Roman imperial statues have done visually,

20

that is, to convey a connection; a transfer of power from one emperor to another. Prokopios

offers a vivid rendition of a statue to represent a palimpsest metaphorically, thereby uniting

Domitian and Justinian. Unlike any surviving example of altered imperial portraiture,

however, Prokopios’ ekphrastic rendition used artistic license to join a damned emperor with

one he anticipated might share the same fate. Created before the minds’ eye, Prokopios’

bronze statue is a testament to the dynamic nature of the transfer of power via alterations to

Roman imperial likenesses.

21

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at Brown University as part of a panel on

‘Reuse Reconsidered’ in 2017. I wish to thank the conveners and Michael F. Thomas for

comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

2 See: M. Bergmann and P. Zanker, “Damnatio Memoriae’ Umgearbeitete Nero- und

Domitiansporträts. Zur Ikonographie der flavischen Kaiser und des Nerva’, Jahrbuch des

deutschen archäologischen Instituts, 96, 1981, 317-412; Dale Kinney, ‘Spolia: Damnatio and

Renovatio Memoriae,’ Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 42, 1997, 117-48; Peter

Stewart, ‘The Destruction of Statues in Late Antiquity,’ in Constructing Identities in Late

Antiquity, ed. R. Miles, 159-89, London and New York, 1999; Charles W. Hedrick Jr.,

History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity, Austin, 2000;

Eric R. Varner, and Sheramy D. Budrick, eds, From Caligula to Constantine: Tyranny and

Transformation in Roman Portraiture, Atlanta, 2000; S. Benoist, and A. Daguet-Gagey, eds,

Un Discours en images de la condemnation de la mémoire, Metz, 2008; K. Galinsky,

‘Recarved Imperial Portraits: Nuances and Wider Contexts,’ Memoirs of the American

Academy in Rome, 53, 2008, 1-25; Richard Brilliant, and Dale Kinney, eds, Reuse Value:

Spolia and Appropriation in Art and Architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine,

Farnham, 2011.

3 Although numerous women and non-imperial figures suffered memory sanctions and other

alterations, the focus of this paper is restricted to a survey of Roman imperial images. On

Roman women, see for example, D. E. E. Kleiner, and Susan B. Matheson, eds, I Claudia II:

Women in Roman Art and Society, New Haven, 2000; E. Varner, ‘Portraits, Plots and

Politics: Damnatio Memoriae and the Image of Imperial Women,’ Memoirs of the American

Academy in Rome, 46, 2001, 41-93; Harriet I. Flower, ‘Public Sanctions against Women: A

Julio-Claudian Innovation’, The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political

22

Culture, 160-96, Chapel Hill, 2006; Eve D’Ambra, Roman Women, Cambridge, 2007; Sharon

L. James, and Sheila Dillon, eds, A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, Chichester,

2012; Jennifer Trimble, ‘Corpore enormi: The Rhetoric of Physical Appearance in Seutonius

and Imperial Portrait Statuary,’ in Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture, eds, Jaś Elsner and

Michael Meyer, 115-54, Cambridge, 2014.

4 Cf., for example, the longevity of Augustus’s comma-shaped locks on imperial portraits

from the Julio-Claudians through to Gallienus in the third-century. See, for example, P.

Zanker, Studien zu den Augustus-Porträts I. Der Actium-Typus, Göttingen, 1973; J. D.

Breckenridge, ‘Roman Imperial Portraiture from Augustus to Gallienus,’ Aufstieg und

Niedergang der römischen Welt, 2: 12, 2, 1981, 483-86, 495; R. R. R. Smith, ‘Typology and

Diversity in the Portraits of Augustus,’ Journal of Roman Archaeology, 9, 1996, 31-47. On

the stylization of beards on imperial statues mirroring that of earlier dynasties as a visual

means of articulating tradition and continuity, see, for example, Septimius Severus’s

appropriation of Antonine facial hair, H. P. L’Orange, ‘Severus-Sarapis,’ Bericht über den

VI: Internationalen Kongress für Archäologie, Berlin 21-26 August 1939, Berlin, 1940, 495-

96; A. M. McCann, The Portraits of Septimius Severus A. D. 193-211, Memoirs of the

American Academy in Rome, 30, 1968; D. Soechting, Die Porträts des Septimius Severus,

Bonn, 1972.

5 Cf. Codex Theodosianus IX.44.1. On the unassailable nature of the imperial image, see R.

Browning, ‘The Riot of A.D. 387 in Antioch. The Role of the Theatrical Claques in the Later

Roman Empire,’ Journal of Roman Studies, 42, 1952, 13-20, esp. 20.

6 The use of the terms ‘revised and corrected’ here refer to responses which may have been

expressed by mob action, see Stewart, ‘The Destruction of Statues’, 159-89, esp. note 8.

7 On Procopius’ Anekdota, see: R. Scott, ‘Malalas, The Secret History, and Justinian’s

Propaganda’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 39, 1985, 99-109; A. Kaldellis, ‘The Date and

23

Structure of Prokopios’ Secret History and His Projected Work on Church History’, Greek,

Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 49, 2009, 585-616.

8 See Peter Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response, Oxford, 2003.

For a discussion of additional, related illustrative examples, such as the Riot of the Statues,

see Stewart, ‘The Destruction of Statues’, 159-89.

9 In his description of the destruction of Domitian’s portrait, Pliny the Younger recounts the

public joy in treating imperial likenesses as effigies: ‘to smash those arrogant faces to pieces’,

‘to threaten them with the sword’, ‘savagely attack them with axes as if blood and pain would

follow every single blow’, ‘his likeness hacked into mutilated limbs and pieces’. Moreover,

the notion of recycling Domitian’s golden statues is underscored ‘portraits hurled into the

flames and burned up, in order that they might be transformed from things of such terror and

menace into something useful and pleasing,’ Pan. 52.4-5. Trans. E. Varner, Mutilation and

Transformation, 112-3.

10 Anekdota, VIII.12-14, trans. A. Kaldellis, Prokopios: The Secret History, Indianapolis and

Cambridge, 2010.

11 For example, Domitian was not hacked to pieces but rather died as a result of stabbing.

12 On the complexities of this modern term, see, for example, F. Vittinghoff, Der Staatsfiend

in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Untersuchungen zur Damnatio Memoriae, Berlin, 1936;

Hedrick, History and Silence; Varner, Mutilation and Transformation; Harriet I. Flower, The

Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture, Chapel Hill, 2006; S.

Benoist, ed, Mémoire et Histoire. Les procédures de condamnation dans l’Antiquité romaine,

Metz, 2007; S. Benoist, and A. Daguet-Gagey, eds, Un Discours en images de la

condemnation de la mémoire, Metz, 2008.

13 Since the Julio-Claudians, Roman imperial imagery has sought to convey continuity

through visual means such as similar hair and beards. For example the transplanting of

24

Augustus’ hair onto Julio-Claudian imperial likenesses, see supra note 4. Or centuries later,

similarities among imperial beards, such as the Severan emulation of Antonine beards, see,

Paul Zanker, The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity, trans. Alan

Shapiro, Berkeley, 1996.

14 See, for example, Harriet I. Flower, ‘Damnatio Memoriae and Epigraphy,’ in From

Caligula to Constantine: Tyranny and Transformation in Roman Portraiture, eds Eric R.

Varner and Sheramy D. Bundrick, 58-69, esp. 59, Atlanta, 2000.

15 Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 1.

16 Cf. Peter Stewart, ‘The Destruction of Statues’, 159-89.

17 Domitian’s popularity in Greece and Asia Minor is documented in the continuous display

of a togate portrait of the damned emperor at a theatre in Aphrodisias in Caria, Turkey until

an earthquake during the reign of Heraclius (610-41 CE), Varner, Mutilation and

Transformation, 134. See also K. Erim, Aphrodisias, City of Venus Aphrodite, New York,

1986, 87.

18 Anekdota, VIII.18-20, trans. Kaldellis, 2010.

19 On spolia, see: Dale Kinney, ‘Rape or Restitution of the Past? Interpreting Spolia,’ in The

Art of Interpreting. Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University, 53-67,

1995; Dale Kinney, ‘Spolia: Damnatio and Renovatio Memoriae,’ Memoirs of the American

Academy in Rome, 42, 1997, 117-48; Anthony Cutler, ‘Use or Reuse? Theoretical and

Practical Attitudes toward Objects in the Early Middle Ages,’ in Ideologie e Pratiche del

Reimpiego nell’alto Medioevo: 16 - 21 Aprile 1998, 1055-83, Spoleto, 1999; Maria Fabricius

Hansen, The Eloquence of Appropriation: Prolegomena to an Understanding of Spolia in

Early Christian Rome, Rome, 2003; B. Kiilerich, ‘Antiquus et modernus: Spolia in Medieval

Art - Western, Byzantine and Islamic,’ in Medioevo: Il tempo degli antichi. Atti del

25

Convegno internazionale di studi, Parma, 24 - 28 Settembre 2003, ed. A. C. Quintaville, 135-

45, Milan, 2006; Brilliant and Kinney, Reuse Value.

20 Fig 1: Domitian re-carved as Nerva, Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo

alle Terme, Rome. Inventory number: 106538. See Varner, Mutilation and Transformation,

fig. 121a-d.

21 Hedrick, History and Silence, xii.

22 This re-carved portrait was discovered at the Temple of Hercules Victor complex in Tivoli

during excavations of an apsidal hall originally dedicated to Augustus. V. Pacifici, ‘Notes on

Some Recent Discoveries at Tivoli,’ Journal of Roman Studies, 10, 1920, 91-3, figs. 8-9. It

has been suggested that the original portrait of Domitian may have been associated with the

imperial cult, Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 118.

23 Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 118.

24 This has also been referred to as a cannibalization, see Eric R. Varner, ‘Violent Discourses:

Visual Cannibalism and Portraits of Rome’s ‘Bad’ Emperors,’ in The Archaeology of

Violence, Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. Sarah Ralph, 121-42, Bristol, 2013.

25 Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial Portraits’, 20; Hedrick, History and Silence, 113.

26 Fig 2: Severan family painted tondo, from upper left: Julia Domna, Septimius Severus (r.

193-211 CE), from lower left: Geta (decapitated), Caracalla, c. 199-200 CE, tempera,

discovered in Egypt, diameter 305 mm (12 in), Staatliche Museen in Berlin. Inventory

number: 31.329. Cf: http://www.smb-

digital.de/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=681547&

viewType=detailView

Accessed 9th November 2017. See: K. Parlasca, Ritratti di mummie, Repertorio d’arte

dell’Egitto greco-romano serie B, II, Rome, 1977, 64-5, no. 390, pl. 95.1, with earlier

literature; H. Heinen, ‘Herrscherkult im römischen Ägypten und Damnatio Memoriae Getas.

26

Überlegungen zum Berliner Severertondo und zu Papyrus Oxryhynchus XII 1449,’

Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 98, 1991, 263-

98, colour pl. 68; Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 181-2, fig. 187. More than a

century later, Eusebius of Caesarea describes a similar practice of applying dark paint over

the painted likeness of Maximinus Daia and his children to render them powerless, Eccl.

Hist., IX.XI.2. Cf. Stewart, ‘The Destruction of Statues’, 179.

27 On perceived differences between Nero as emperor and Nero before assuming this title, see

Flower, The Art of Forgetting, 197-233, esp. 212-23.

28 Fig. 3: Triumph of Marcus Aurelius in 176 CE. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome. Inventory

number: 808. http://capitolini.info/scu00808/?lang=en. Accessed 9th November 2017. Cf.

Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, figs 142a-c. Twelve related relief panels all appear to

have originally honoured Marcus Aurelius alongside Commodus. Eight panels have been

preserved in the form of palimpsests reused in the early fourth century on the Arch of

Constantine, Rome. Three panels were retained until the early sixteenth-century in the

Church of S. Martina in the Forum Romanum and are now housed in the Palazzo dei

Conservatori, Rome. The final panel is a fragmentary portrait of Marcus Aurelius, Ny

Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, 701, inv. 1471. See: Vittinghoff, Der Staatsfiend in der

römischen Kaiserzeit, 64-74; I. S. Ryberg, The Panel Reliefs of Marcus Aurelius,

Monographs on Archaeology and Fine Arts, 14, New York, 1967; E. Angelicoussis, ‘The

Panel Reliefs of Marcus Aurelius,’ Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts,

Römische Abteilung, 91, 1984, 141-205 (with earlier literature); E. La Rocca, ed, Relievi

storici capitolini. Il restauro dei panelli di Adriano e di Marco Aurelio nel Palazzo dei

Conservatori, Rome, 1986, 38-52, pls. 1-3, pls. 23-47; D.E.E. Kleiner, Roman Sculpture,

New Haven, 1992, 288-95, figs. 256-62. See also Varner, Mutilation and Transformation,

142, esp. note 59; M. Cagiano de Azevedo, ‘Relievi storici aureliani,’ Mitteilungen des

27

Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 60-1, 1953-4, 207-10.

29 See HA Marc. 16.1 and Comm. 2.3-5; 12.4-5; E. Angelicoussis, ‘The Panel Reliefs of

Marcus Aurelius,’ 152.

30 E. Angelicoussis, ‘The Panel Reliefs of Marcus Aurelius,’ 152, n. 52.

31 See, for example: C. H. Hallett, The Roman Nude: Heroic Portrait Statuary, 200 BC-AD

300, Oxford, 2005; R. R. R. Smith, et. al., Roman portrait statuary from Aphrodisias, Mainz

am Rhein, 2006; J. Ma, ‘Observations on Honorific Statues at Oropos (and Elsewhere),’

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 160, 2007, 89-96; J. Ma, Statues and Cities:

Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World, Oxford, 2015.

32 On mass action undertaken to update the sculptural landscape in an early form of social

media, see Stewart, ‘The Destruction of Statues’, 159-89, esp. notes 8, 9 and 13.

33 Paolo Liverani, ‘Reading Spolia in Late Antiquity and Contemporary Perception,’ in Reuse

Value: Spolia and Appropriation in Art and Architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine,

eds, Richard Brilliant and Dale Kinney, Farnham, 2011, 33-52, esp. 45.

34 Excavated beneath the steps leading to a shrine of Victory in the Sudan, Northern Nile,

Meroë (archaic Nubia), c. 27-25 BCE. Made of plaster, glass, calcite and bronze.

Measurements: height 46.2 cm, width 26.5 cm, depth 29.4 cm, weight c. 17 kg. British

Museum, London inventory number: BM 1911.0901.1.

35 See Liverani’s convincing interpretation of the Arch and early fourth century

interpretations of the reused imagery, ‘Reading Spolia’, esp. 35-41.

36 Fig. 4: American Academy in Rome Digital Humanities Center, Arch of Constantine: tondi

of Hadrian, second roundel, the sacrifice to Apollo (Rome, Italy). Identifier: 138913.

Accessed 6th November 2017, http://dhc.aarome.org/collections/bini/item/47576. Fig. 5:

American Academy in Rome Digital Humanities Center, Arch of Constantine: Marcus

Aurelius Attic Panel, North, detail from the Liberalitas frieze centred upon Marcus Aurelius

28

and his (excised) son Commodus after their joint victory of 176 (Rome, Italy). Identifier:

138983. Accessed 6th November 2017, http://dhc.aarome.org/collections/bini/item/47603.

The scholarship on the Arch of Constantine is vast. See: Hans Peter L’Orange, and Armin

von Gerkan, Der spätantike Bildschmuck des Konstantinsbogens, Berlin, 1939; J. Elsner,

‘From the Culture of Spolia to the Cult of Relics: The Arch of Constantine and the Genesis of

Late Antique Forms,’ Papers of the British School at Rome, 68, 149-184; Paolo Liverani,

‘Reimpiego senza ideologia. La lettura antica degli spolia, dall’Arco di Costantino all’età di

Teodorico,’ Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 111,

2004, 383-444; Liverani, ‘Reading Spolia’, 33-52.

37 See: Hans Peter Laubscher, ‘Arcus Novus und Arcus Claudii, zwei Triumpfbögen an der

Via Lata in Rom,’ Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologisch-

Historische Klasse, Jahrg., 1976, 3, Göttingen, 1976; Paolo Liverani, ‘Arco di Onorio - Arco

di Portogallo,’ Bullettino della Commissione archeologica comunale di Roma, 105, 2004,

351-70; Paolo Liverani, ‘The Fragments in Late Antiquity. A Functional View,’ in The

Fragment. An Incomplete History, ed. W. Tronzo, 23-36, Los Angeles, 2009.

38 See Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial Portraits’, 1-25; Liverani, ‘Reading Spolia’, 33-52.

39 Liverani refers to the reused reliefs as integral to the creation of an ‘established and

traditional’ context for Constantine’s new imagery, ‘Reading Spolia’, 37.

40 For first-century examples, Otho allowed Nero’s portraits and statues to be re-erected,

Suet. Otho 7.1; Tacitus Hist. 1.78. Sculpted portraits of Caligula were stored in large numbers

in warehouses, Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 45. See also H. Brandenburg, ‘The

Use of Older Elements in the Architecture of Fourth- and Fifth-century Rome: A

Contribution to the Evaluation of Spolia,’ in Reuse Value: Spolia and Appropriation in Art

and Architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine, eds, Richard Brilliant and Dale Kinney,

53-73, Farnham, 2011.

29

41 Not only was Nero the first princeps to be officially condemned, but he was also the first

whose one to have his memory and images subsequently rehabilitated (under Otho and

Vitellius and again in the mid-third and the end of the fourth centuries), Varner, Mutilation

and Transformation, 85.

42 On Commodus’s consecratio – the process whereby a deceased emperor was declared a

god of the Roman state – see S. R. F. Price, ‘From Noble Funerals to Divine Cult: The

Consecration of the Roman Emperor,’ in Rituals of Royalty. Power and Ceremonial in

Traditional Societies, eds, D. Cannadine and S. R. F. Price, Cambridge, 1987, 56-105, esp.

93.

43 Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial Portraits’, 17, with references.

44 On warehousing, see Varner and Bundrick, From Caligula to Constantine, 16-17; Varner,

Mutilation and Transformation, 5-6; Brandenburg, ‘The Use of Older Elements’, 53-73. On

workshops specialising in re-carving (Umarbeitungsateliers), see H. Jucker, ‘Iulisch-

claudische Kaiser- und Prinzenporträts als Palimpseste’, Jahrbücher des Instituts, 96, 1981,

236-316, esp. 248.

45 Fig. 7.1: Panel with portrait of Domitian re-carved as Nerva, Musei Vaticani, Museo

Gregoriano Profano, Rome. Fig. 7.2: Panel with portrait of a youthful Domitian and his father

Vespasian, Musei Vaticani, Museo Gregoriano Profano, Rome. See: F. Ghedini, ‘Riflessi

della politica domizianea nei rilievi flavi di Palazzo della Cancelleria,’ Bullettino della

Commissione archeologica comunale di Roma, 91, 1986, 292-309; Varner, Mutilation and

Transformation, figs. 122 a-b.

46 ‘Almost every single one of Nerva’s extant marble and bronze images have, in fact, been

reworked from Domitianic representations,’ Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 135.

47 The process of poena post mortem entailed the disfigurement of imperial likenesses and

was linked to the desecration of the corpses of capital offenders, Varner, Mutilation and

30

Transformation, 3. For Julia Soemias, the only imperial woman known to have received such

treatment, Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 199.

48 Dio 58.11.3; Juvenal 10.56-64 (Sejanus); Tac. Hist. 3.85 (Vitellius); Varner, Mutilation

and Transformation, 92-3; 105-110. See also, D. G. Kyle, ‘Disposal of Victims from Roman

Arenas,’ American Journal of Archaeology, 97, 1998, 155-83.

49 Coinage from the late second-century CE, however, shows another version of what the

family portrait may have originally looked like. See, Harold Mattingly and Edward A.

Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage, IV: 1, London, 1936, plate VI, no. 12.

50 For examples, see Varner and Bundrick, From Caligula to Constantine.

51 ‘[O]ver time there is a development and a shift in emphasis from sculptural recycling to

disfigurement,’ Stewart, ‘The Destruction of Statues’, 161, 164. After the first-century zenith

in imperial palimpsests, subsequently, when imperial likenesses are recycled there is a delay.

‘[N]one of the portraits from this period [the late second and early third centuries] were

reconfigured immediately following condemnations’, Varner, Mutilation and

Transformation, 154.

52 ‘[R]ecyling, rather than mutilations, was the preferred methodology for the repression of

Caligula’s sculpted representations,’ Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 44. ‘More

portraits of Nero were reconfigured than for any other emperor and into a wider variety of

new identities,’ Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 85. Cf. Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial

Portraits’, 11, 21. Cf. Flower, The Art of Forgetting, 280-1; Eric R. Varner, ‘Tyranny and the

Transformation of the Roman Visual Landscape,’ in From Caligula to Constantine: Tyranny

and Transformation in Roman Portraiture, eds, Eric R. Varner, and Sheramy D. Bundrick, 9-

26, esp. 14-16, Atlanta, 2000; Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, esp. 136, 154, 270-85.

53 Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial Portraits’, 4. Cf. Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, for

example, 9 and 154.

31

54 Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial Portraits’, 20.

55 ‘Absence, in fact, can translate into an even stronger presence because it asks for a greater

participatory effort on the part of the viewer,’ Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial Portraits’, 17.

56 Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 135.

57 ‘A way of artistically and metaphorically signalling [one emperor’s displacement of a

previous emperor’s power]…’, Varner and Bundrick, From Caligula to Constantine, 136; ‘to

profile the change’, Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial Portraits’, 4.

58 Figs. 8.1-8.4: Nero’s honorific portrait with likeness (only) re-carved as Domitian, then re-

carved as Nerva. Museo Nazionale d’Antichità, Parma. Inventory number: 146 (1870), 827

(1954). Discovered in 1761 during excavations of the Julio-Claudian Basilica at Velleia,

Italy. See Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, catalogue 5.13.

59 C. Saletti, ‘Il ciclo statuario della basilica di Velleia’, Milan, 1968, 54-5; Varner,

Mutilation and Transformation, 58, esp. note 115.

60 See Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 217-18; figs. 209 a-d. Palazzo dei

Conservatori, Rome, inventory number: 1622. C. Evers, ‘Remarques sur l’iconographie de

Constantin,’ Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Antiquité, 103, 1991, 785-806; P.

Pensabene, ‘New Archeometric Investigations on the Fragments of the Colossal Statue of

Constantine in the Palazzo dei Conservatori,’ in Asmosia 5. Interdisciplinary Studies on

Ancient Stone, eds. J. J. Herrmann, Jr., N. Herz, and R. Newman, London, 2002, 250-5.

61 Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial Portraits’, 1-25.

62 Galinsky, ‘Recarved Imperial Portraits’, 19. Cf. ‘union of the incompatible’, H. Wrede

Consecratio in Formam Deorum, Mainz, 1981, 103; Kinney, ‘Spolia: Damnatio and

Renovatio Memoriae’, 139; an aesthetic of discontinuity’, Elsner, ‘From the Culture of

Spolia’, 176-7. See also visual examples such as portraits of older women on the body of the

nude figure of Venus, Eve D’Ambra, ‘Nudity and Adornment in Female Portrait Sculpture of

32

the Second Century A.D.,’ in I Claudia II, eds, D. Kleiner and S. Matheson, 101-14, Austin,

2000.

63 I refer to this category as ‘nearly’ complete erasure, as opposed to complete erasure,

because if the removal had been complete, then there would be no way of verifying excision.

64 Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 7.

65 Fig. 9.1: panel depicting Septimius Severus and Julia Domna performing a libation, DAI

Rome, 70.993. Fig. 9.2: panel depicting a youthful Caracalla performing a libation, DAI

Rome, 70.1000. On the Arch of the Argentarii, see: D. E. L. Haynes and P. E. D. Hirst, Porta

Argentariorum, London, 1939; M. Pallottino, L’arco degli argentarii, Rome, 1946; J. Elsner,

‘Sacrifice and Narrative on the Arch of the Argentarii at Rome,’ Journal of Roman

Archaeology, 18, 2005, 83-98.

66 On Caracalla’s feelings of abhorrence towards his new spouse, see early third-century

historians, Dio 76 (77).2.5-3.1; Herodian 3.10.8.

67 See Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, figs. 143 a-b.

68 Anekdota, VIII.21, trans. Kaldellis, 2010.