(2009) A Late Republican Gem with Dionysiac Representation from Emona PDF

Preview

Summary

Aquileia e la glittica di età ellenistica e romana Atti del Convegno “Il fulgore delle gemme. Aquileia e la glittica di età ellenistica e romana” Aquileia, 19-20 giugno 2008 a cura di Gemma Sena Chiesa e Elisabetta Gagetti Editreg Trieste 2009 © Associazione Nazionale per Aquileia Via Patriarca Pop...

Description

Aquileia e la glittica di età ellenistica e romana Atti del Convegno “Il fulgore delle gemme. Aquileia e la glittica di età ellenistica e romana” Aquileia, 19-20 giugno 2008

a cura di Gemma Sena Chiesa e Elisabetta Gagetti

Editreg Trieste 2009

© Associazione Nazionale per Aquileia Via Patriarca Popone 6 - Casa Bertoli 33051 Aquileia (Udine) - Italia tel. fax ++39 0431 91113 e-mail: [email protected] © Editreg sas di Fabio Prenc Via Ugo Foscolo 26 34129 Trieste - Italia tel. fax ++39 040 362879 e-mail: [email protected] ISBN 978-88-88018-88-1

Progetto grafico della copertina: Valentino Albini (Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità dell’Università degli Studi di Milano)

La pubblicazione di questo volume è stata promossa da:

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Aquileia

e realizzata con il sostegno di:

Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali

Assessorato Istruzione, Formazione, Cultura

Comune di Aquileia

Università degli Studi di Milano Università degli Studi di Padova Università degli Studi di Trieste Università degli Studi di Udine

Le riproduzioni dei reperti di proprietà dello Stato sono pubblicate su concessione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici del Friuli Venezia Giulia - Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici per il Friuli Venezia Giulia. Ne è vietata la duplicazione con qualsiasi mezzo.



??????????????????

Sommario

Saluto di Roberto Molinaro (Assessore regionale all’istruzione, formazione e cultura) ................................ Saluto di Alviano Scarel (Sindaco di Aquileia e Presidente della Fondazione Aquileia) ................................. Ringraziamenti ..................................................................................................................................... Gli Autori ............................................................................................................................................. Abbreviazioni .......................................................................................................................................

p. p. p. p. p.

5 7 8 9 10

p.

15

p.

17

p.

27

p.

37

p. p. p.

57 83 101

p. p. p. p. p. p.

113 119 129 141 149 157

p. p.

171 183

INTRODUZIONE Giuseppe Cuscito, Un anniversario e un incontro: l’80° della Associazione Nazionale per Aquileia e il convegno internazionale “Aquileia e la glittica di età ellenistica e romana” ...................... Gemma Sena Chiesa, Le ragioni di un convegno: le gemme di Aquileia e i nuovi orientamenti della glittica ........................................................................................................................................

La produzione glittica aquileiese Franca Maselli Scotti, Le gemme del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Aquileia ....................... Annalisa Giovannini, Ricerche su dati d’archivio e materiale edito in Aquileia absburgica e italiana. Contesti di rinvenimenti di gemme tra la “città dei vivi” e la “città dei morti” ...... Ludovico Rebaudo, Le gemme di Aquileia nei documenti dell’amministrazione asburgica. Qualche spunto di ricerca ........................................................................................................................ Gemma Sena Chiesa, Cammei ad Aquileia: una prima ricognizione ................................................ Attilio Mastrocinque, Serapide e le gemme aquileiesi ...................................................................

Produzione e diffusione di gemme incise in età tardorepubblicana e imperiale Maria Paola Lavizzari Pedrazzini, Un’impronta di gemma su bicchieri “tipo Aco” .................... Hélène Guiraud, Intailles découvertes en France et Aquilée ........................................................... Gertrud Platz-Horster, Nuove gemme di Xanten e di Augsburg .................................................... Martin Henig, Gem Workshops in the Provinces: Roman Britain .................................................... Erika Zwierlein-Diehl, Tiberio o Caligola? Un cammeo imperiale a Vienna ................................. Tamás Gesztelyi, Gemme romane dalla Pannonia nord-orientale ...................................................

Motivi iconografici e loro significato Francesca Ghedini, Temi ovidiani nel repertorio glittico. Il ruolo di Eros nel mito di Apollo e Dafne Isabella Colpo, Temi ovidiani nel repertorio glittico. Dedalo e le ali di Icaro ................................



??????????????????

Monica Salvadori, Captaeque erat urbis imago. Il tema della Centauromachia fra Ovidio e la tradizione iconografica ..................................................................................................................... Sabina Toso, Intorno all’altare. Segni del sacro nelle gemme a soggetto mitologico ...................... Elisabetta Gagetti, Statue “di” gemme. Copie miniaturistiche in materiale glittico di tipi statuari celebri ........................................................................................................................................ Jeffrey Spier, Fifth Century Gems and Rings: from Constantinople to Italy and the West .............. Fabio Betti, Andrea Gariboldi, Una gemma con ritratto di Tiberio alla corte dei Sasanidi .........

p. p.

195 205

p. p. p.

219 237 247

p.

261

p. p.

281 293

p. p. p. p. p. p.

313 319 327 335 341 347

p. p. p.

353 361 367

p. p. p.

371 377 383

p.

387

p.

397

Il collezionismo di gemme Irene Favaretto, Marcella De Paoli, I «camei di diverse sorte» di Giovanni Grimani, patriarca di Aquileia. Intricate vicende di una collezione di gemme nella Venezia del XVI secolo ........ Carlo Gasparri, Un tesoro recuperato. Gemme, vetri e lavori in pietra dura da una collezione privata ........................................................................................................................................ Carina Weiß, Wiederentdeckte Gemmen in einem Kollier in Privatbesitz ........................................

Poster Sébastien Aubry, Gemmæ inscriptæ. La dimension épigraphique sur les pierres gravées romaines de tradition hellénistique et tardo-étrusque .............................................................................. Alessandra Magni, I percorsi delle gemme vitree. Esempi da una collezione veronese ................. Elisabetta Gagetti, Gemme da un contesto urbano: la domus di Piazza Marconi a Cremona ...... Marco Pradelli, Il rinvenimento di nove gemme in pasta vitrea nel suburbio di Bologna romana ... Emanuela Cicu, Le gemme con iconografie di propaganda augustea in Sardegna .......................... Giovanni Frumusa, Un Alessandro Magno con leonté da Martigny ................................................. Rita Chinelli, Michaela Müller, Vindobona: due gemme con raffigurazioni di divinità da contesti di scavo ......................................................................................................................... Aleksandra Nestorovic´, Roman Gems from Slovenia. A Brief Overview ....................................... Andrej Gaspari, A Late Republican Gem with Dionysiac Representation from Emona ................... Francesca Massaro, Una gemma con Scilla al Museo di Aquileia e l’iconografia di Scilla nella glittica di età romana ................................................................................................................ Cristina Mosconi, Le raffigurazioni di Giove Eliopolitano nella glittica di età romana ................. Paolo Casari, Le gemme della collezione Sartorio a Trieste ............................................................ Gabriella Tassinari, Venezia e la produzione di paste vitree nel XVIII secolo. Esempi da una collezione veronese ....................................................................................................................

Conclusioni Anna Maria Reggiani, Aquileia e l’archeologia oggi: alcune riflessioni ........................................

Andrej Gaspari

A LATE REPUBLICAN GEM WITH DIONYSIAC REPRESENTATION FROM EMONA

Introduction The rescue archaeological research at the Sˇ umi site in Ljubljana, conducted in the years 2004-2008 by the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia in cooperation with the Arhej company, has provided an important contribution to the knowledge of the beginnings of the colony of Iulia Emona, a Roman town on the crossroads of the routes between Aquileia and northern Europe (the so-called Amber Route) as well as of water and land connections towards Siscia1. The pomerium of Emona had a rectangular plan, town walls, a centrally positioned forum and an orthogonal design of streets and insulae with a prevailing per scamna orientation. As such, the town represents probably the youngest and easternmost manifestation of the ideal urbs quadrata scheme among the Late Republican and Augustan towns of the Cisalpine Gaul, that is the later regions of northern Italy2. The town was located on the southernmost end of the straits that represent a natural passage between the southern and northern halves of the Ljubljana basin and through which flows the navigable Ljubljanica. This location indicates that the founding of the town, in the last decade of Augustus’ reign, was decisively influenced by the via militaris coming from Nauportus (Vrhnika) and continuing towards the theatre of war in the northern Balkans, whereby the decumanus maximus was conceived as its urban segment. The excavations, during which the below-presented gem was unearthed, covered the western halves of insulae XXXIX and XXXIII along the principal town cardo and neighbouring segments of the decumani as well as the via sagularis along the northern town wall (fig. 1)3. They showed that the terrain in this area was first levelled and the plan laid out, whereupon the construction of the foundations and façade walls of the insulae as well as the erection of buildings along the principal town street began. The plans of the researched parts of both above-cited insulae have revealed a symmetrical layout of rooms and their orientation with narrower sides towards the cardo, which is characteristic of tabernae. Shops and inns were also established on the basis of their interior layout, but also from the uncovered hearths, counters and rows of dug-in amphorae. Roughly contemporary with the erection of walls, numerous pits were dug in the rear parts of insulae for water collection, but also to function as latrines, wells

1

Plesnicˇar-Gec 1990; Vicˇicˇ 2003. Cfr. Conventi 2004. 3 Gaspari, Hrustel, Masaryk, Novs ˇak 2008. 2

Fig. 1. Emona - Insula XXXIX. Plan of the pits and walls of the first phase (Late Augustan-Early Tiberian period). The pit with the gem is marked by an arrow (graphics René Masaryk)

with barrels used as lining, smaller melting furnaces and a two-part oven for food preparation. The material from the levelling layers, on top of which buildings were erected, mostly includes discarded or lost metal objects, primarily coins, fibulae, plumbs, medical instruments, feet of casseroles and quite numerous parts of military equipment. The latter speak of the probable participation of specialized legionary detachments in the laying out of the town and other more demanding tasks (gromatici, mensores, architecti). Most of the above-mentioned pits and cuts were filled with typical refuse material, which is, on the other hand, only sporadically represented in the levelling layers. The refuse material in the fills of the pits includes animal bones, charcoal and small melting pots, but also a larger number of whole or partially preserved amphorae, thin-walled ceramic, terra sigillata, Pompeian vessels, coarse kitchen ware as well as pots and bowls of Celtic ceramics. Glass is represented with few fragments of small cups with mosaic decoration as well as ribbed cups made of monochrome or marbled glass. Numerous coins and terra sigillata with its stamps date the erection of the Roman town of Emona into the last years of Augustus’ reign. The end of this earliest phase

368

Andrej Gaspari

coincides chronologically with the setting up of building inscriptions, which probably served to honour the end of the town wall construction in late spring or early summer of AD 15. It also coincides with the supposed contemporary act of deduction of a colony4. The gem The gem discussed in this paper was uncovered in the fill of a smaller pit, dug into the surface of the first levelling layer in the northern part of insula XXXIX. The gem is almost round, with a trapezoidal cross-section. It measures 14.3 mm in height, 14 mm in width, 2.9 mm in thickness and was made of carnelian, a translucent variant of chalcedony. The engraving reveals the use of at least two drills with disk-shaped heads in the production process, whereby one of the heads measured approximately 0.045 mm in width (fig. 2). The motif as well as the form of the gem from Emona reflects the influence of the Late Hellenistic art, while the more awkward traits clearly tie the gem to the contemporary central Italian linear-style glyptic5 or to the depictions of divinities and portraits on Late Republican and Augustan gems and coins. A very good analogy can be found in a head with an ivy-leaf wreath, depicted in profile from the left, on a somewhat larger oval gem made of carnelian and set into a silver ring from Xanten. It was

uncovered surrounded by numerous shards of terra sigillata vessels during excavations in 1884. The motif, first thought to represent Bacchus, was interpreted by PlatzHorster as a maenad. The ring dates to the 2nd century AD, while the gem is earlier, from the mid-1st century BC6. Another iconographic analogy worth mentioning is the motif on an oval gem from Athens, kept at the British Museum7. This depiction, first interpreted as a maenad, was explained by D. Plantzos as the depiction of Mithridates VI Eupator, the Pontic ruler, as young Dionysus with a wreath of ivy leaves. The hair-style, very similar to that on the gem from Emona, is characterised by a bun with a pair of locks falling from underneath it, a roll of hair over the forehead as well as a pair of ivy leafs tying hair before and behind the ears. Common to both depictions is also the horizontal line on the upper part of the forehead, which is usual for Dionysus/Bacchus depictions8. In spite of the upward turn of the face with a stretched convex neck, which together with the half parted lips resembles the half-length depictions of maenads in their ecstatic dance, we are rather inclined towards the opinion that the gem from Emona represents the image of young Bacchus9. This would be confirmed also by the execution of the hair with thin straight incisions, which is reminiscent of the male hair-styles on gems and coins form the time between the mid-2nd century and the beginning of the last quarter of the 1st century BC10. Based on stylistic characteristics, the gem can be dated to the first half or just after the middle of the 1st century BC. Conclusions There are few indications that would explain the appearance of such an exclusive object of art, unparalleled in the early layers of Emona. The earthen fill of the pit with the gem revealed, apart from the gem itself, only charcoal bits. This indicates that the gem was not lost and subsequently unconscientiously included into the fill. The surrounding area of the pit revealed a larger natural depression, containing coins and a bundle of medicinal instruments, as well as a smaller cut containing a fibula. These features did not contain typical refuse material other than the above-mentioned metal objects, which leads us to infer on a possible intentional deposition of the gem, whereby the motives behind such an act remain unexplained. An important question is that of the possible owners or users of the signet-ring. In connection with that, the

Fig. 1. Carnelian gem from Emona (photo Arne Hodalicˇ)

6

Platz-Horster 1987, pp. 75-76, pl. 27, 135. Plantzos 1999, pp. 55-56, 116, pl. 15, 98. 8 Crawford 1974, nr. 341/2, 386/1; Platz-Horster 1994, p. 114, pl. 21, 117. 9 Vollenweider 1972-1974, I, p. 16, pl. 15, 7; Platz-Horster 1994, p. 114, pl. 21, 117. 10 Cfr. Vollenweider 1972-1974, I, pl. 18, 1; 46, 1, 4, 6; 55; 56, 1; 61, 4; Sena Chiesa 1989, p. 268, fig. 6. 7

ˇ asˇel Kos 4 Mráv 2001, p. 81-98; cfr. a different opinion in S 1995. 5 Zwierlein-Diehl 2007, p. 137.

A LATE REPUBLICAN GEM WITH DIONYSIAC REPRESENTATION FROM EMONA

members of the work force, who executed a large part of the heavy construction work and were probably selected from among the prisoners of war from the time of the Pannonian-Dalmatian revolt in AD 6-9 or from among the Italic colonists, may be excluded. It is also less likely that the precious gem came to be lost during a hypothetical visit of the construction site on the part of a member of one of the distinguished merchant families, which had been present in the area of modern Ljubljana already in the Caesarean period11. The probable owners should thus

369

be sought primarily among the high-ranking officers of the legions that took part in the construction. Acknowledgements For precious advice and help in the preparation of this paper I would like to thank Ljudmila Plesnicˇar Gec, Gemma Sena Chiesa, Elisabetta Gagetti, Getrud Platz-Horster, Bojan Djuric´ and Aleksandra Nestorovic´ as well as the members of the excavation team Jozˇica Hrustel, René Masaryk and Matjazˇ Novsˇak.

Bibliographical abbreviations Conventi 2004 M. Conventi, Città romane di fondazione (Studia archaeologica, 130), Roma 2004. Crawford 1974 M.H. Crawford, Roman Republican coinage, London 1974. Gaspari, Hrustel, Masaryk, Novsˇak 2008 A. Gaspari, J. Hrustel, R. Masaryk, M. Novsˇak, Gema z gravirano upodobitvijo mosˇkega bozˇanstva, in “Umetnostna kronika”, 19, 2008, pp. 2-10. Mráv 2001 Z. Mráv, Die Gründung Emonas und der Bau seiner Stadtmauer. Zur Ergänzung der Inschrift AIJ 170 B = ILJug 304, in “ActaAntHung”, 41, 2001, pp. 81-98. Plantzos 1999 D. Plantzos, Hellenistic engraved gems, Oxford 1999. Platz-Horster 1987 G. Platz-Horster, Die antiken Gemmen aus Xanten im Besitz des Niederrheinischen Altertumsvereins, des Rheinischen Landesmuseums Bonn, der Katholischen Kirchengemeinde St. Viktor und des Regionalmuseums Xanten (Kunst und Altertum am Rhein, 126), Köln-Bonn 1987. Platz-Horster 1994 G. Platz-Horster, Die antiken Gemmen aus Xanten, II, im Besitz des Archäologischen Parks / Regionalmuseums Xanten, der Katholischen Kirchengemeinde St. Mariae Himmelfahrt Marienbaum sowie in Privatbesitz (Führer und Schriften des Regionalmuseum Xanten, 35), Köln-Bonn 1994.

11

Sˇ asˇel Kos 1995, pp. 235-236.

Plesnicˇar-Gec 1990 L. Plesnicˇar-Gec, Il problema urbanistico di Emona, in La città nell’Italia Settentrionale in età romana. Morfologie, strutture e funzionamento dei centri urbani delle Regiones X e XI, Atti del convegno (Trieste, 1987) (Collection de l’École française de Rome, 130), Roma 1990, pp. 653-663. Sena Chiesa 1989 G. Sena Chiesa, Lusso, arte e propaganda politica nella glittica aquileiese fra tarda Repubblica e principato augusteo, in Aquileia repubblicana e imperiale, Atti della XIX Settimana di studi aquileiesi (Aquileia, 1988) (AAAd, XXXV), Udine 1989, pp. 263-280. Sˇ asˇel Kos 1995 M. Sˇ asˇel Kos, The 15th Legion at Emona. Some thoughts, in “ZPE”, 109, 1995, pp. 227-244. Volle...