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PATRONAGE OF ART IN THE ROMAN WORLD 1
NICHOLAS HORSFALL
The single patron of artists and craftsmen in the Roman world about whom we are
best informed in detail is, though a little unexpected, indeed paradoxical, perhaps
to be identified from a full list of his commissions:
from sculptors, a marble Venus, a statue of himself and dog, with crowns,
unguents and all the fights of a favourite gladiator, reliefs depicting his
achievements and benefactions, his wife and her pets, his favourite, jars of wine,
a broken urn, a weeping boy and a sundial.2
from gilders (inauratores), cups and shoes3
from goldsmiths, a birdcage, a box for his beard, crowns, rings and an
armband4
from fresco-painters, gladiatorial combats, scenes from Iliad and
Odyssey , a large chained dog, scenes from his own career, and a tablet of the
moon and planets, with indications of days astrologically lucky and unlucky 5
from an architect-cum-engineer, a ceiling that opened6
from bronzesmiths, a Corinthian dish, a ship's ram, and cups, signed
pieces from a named maker7
from booksellers (who do not quite belong in this company), the contents
of his Greek and Latin libraries and a booklet of adaptations from Homer8
from a stonecutter, his epitaph9
from silversmiths, massive cups embossed with mythological scenes and
with gladiatorial combats, a toothpick, crowns, tables, a basket, a bread-dish,
statues of the Lares, a donkey with panniers, a bowl, a basin, a jointed skeleton
and a chamberpot.10
This patron is, as may well by now have become apparent, C. Pompeius
Trimalchio Maecenatianus.11 The recent discussions by John Bodel and John
D'Arms12 have done a very great deal to clarify how the evidence of Petronius is
to be used by the economic and social historian. Though the Cena is not a precise
report, though no single detail is of guaranteed literal accuracy, though allowance
is continually to be made for literary tradition and satiric exaggeration, the overall
picture of what artistic commissions might be expected from a very rich arriviste
businessman in Campania under Nero will not, and indeed for the satire to work,
cannot prove fundamentally misleading and of course gives us a wealth of detail
and coherence over widely disparate areas of artistic patronage that is necessarily
absent from the evidence of Pompeii, though Pompeii and neighbouring sites do
confirm for us the ’authenticity’ of numerous details.13
Patronage of art at Rome is a strange area of academic curiosity, indolence,
misapprehension: to judge from three recent books14 by American scholars on
patronage at Rome, there is little or no significant evidence and the topic is
brushed aside as inconvenient or irresoluble: "in private art ... the main evidence
... is concrete ... rarely is the name or background of painter or patron known"
(Gold 1982, xviii). Things are really not quite that bad. Recent work by Gros,
Zevi and Coarelli (cf.n.67) has clarified some important details of the evidence for
the second century BC and in the 1950's there were useful studies of artists'
PATRONAGE OF ART IN THE ROMAN WORLD
signatures and of legal aspects of the topic.15 But, strangely, no-one seems to
have looked, even superficially, at the evidence over the whole field of Roman
art,16 or to have tried to gather together what detail we have regarding a social and
professional relationship between - preferably identifiable - artists, of whatever
kind, and their patrons. This first attempt is offered by a specialist in Augustan
literary patronage, with interests, and publications, in Roman art and related
fields.
Trimalchio as patron is truly illuminating: he is a provincial, ignorant, vulgar,
self-made, unlettered though not illiterate.*7 Some of the pieces listed above were
clearly to be bought, by a simple visit to the appropriate workshop; others were
equally clearly the result of specific commissions. Sadly Petronius never tells us if
Trimalchio took articles of silver and gold to be melted down and reworked into
new treasures, though legal texts suggest that this often happened (infra ). There
is a basic distinction between paying for the craftsman's metal and providing your
own, and between paying him for time already spent on creating a piece and
commissioning him to spend time on creating a new one. If, that is, Trimalchio
bought his chamberpot readymade, the silver was clearly the craftsman’s and
Trimalchio paid for work already completed.18 Only in one case does he buy
'signed' pieces (50.4). His guests are perhaps more aware of the weight of the
pieces they see and handle (33.7). Of the 108 items in the Boscoreale treasure, 30
bear the owner's name, 4 the weight, and 8 both; there is a single signed
mirror.19 We may, lastly, observe the wide range of art-forms Trimalchio
patronises and the recurrence of motifs between them: gladiators from painters,
sculptors and silversmiths, scenes from his own career in frescoes and reliefs and
dogs likewise.
Study of the non-fictional evidence amply confirms Petronius' scrupulous
attention to significant detail. The abundant artistic parallels between the
fictionalised Puteoli of the Cena 20 and the real Pompeii of the excavators are
well-known (cf.n.5); the actual world of the businessman Jucundus21 is not
generally and demonstrably more cultivated, refined and lettered than that of his
contemporary and neighbour Trimalchio.
Let me offer a simple observation:
The only literature or writing that most Romans ever thought of commissioning
was the occasional epitaph for family or friends.22 Patronage of a real poet, or a
grammarian, or an historian, was an exceptionally rare and restricted activity.
Kitsch, even art,23 on the other hand, was within the reach of any Roman of
sufficient financial resources. Indeed, if he had the means, and did not live in a
bare attic,24 then he had indeed no choice: repeatedly he had to buy outright or to
commission work from a wide range of artists or craftsmen.25 That is obvious
enough from Petronius, or from consideration of the physical remains. It is above
all the legal texts that preserve an idea of how artistic patronage worked at this
relatively mundane, day-in, day-out level:
you want a seal-ring: whose responsibility is it if the stone is broken
during engraving or setting ? (Dig .19.2.13.5)
you want filigree work on the outside of a cup. That is normally
undertaken at your own risk26
you commission work from a goldsmith. The metal is his. But you die
before the work is finished. What happens then ?27
you want to commission a painting. If it is large and the colours are
expensive, you may have to supply them yourself28
NICHOLAS HORSFALL
you want a copy of an original in private hands: you will have to enter into
negotiations with the owner and he may wish to find appropriate painters to
undertake the work (Plin. Ep . 4.28)
the legal status of the painting will then depend on whether or not it is
painted straight onto a w all." There are further problems if the wall is a party
wall !
The elder Pliny reports an intriguing case, that cannot have been all that rare, of a
painting in the temple of Apollo at Rome ruined by the ineptitude of the painter
whom the praetor M.Iunius (? under Augustus) had commissioned to restore it.30
Restoration of paintings is well-enough attested, but, legally, what was the
position if it went wrong ? That one might be able to reconstruct by analogy with
the rulings cited above regarding risk and responsibility: that is, the risk may have
been defined from the outset; if not, then lack of due care by the restorer would
have to be shown.
Or a beloved relative may die. You decide (I quote the younger Pliny):31 'to
commission as many statues and portraits as possible'. So you 'set the
workshops busy portraying him in colour, in wax, bronze, silver, gold, ivory,
marble'. More modestly, moralists writing on grief condemn the widespread wish
to have an image of the deceased, to which you pay private reverence.32 Clearly
such images were therefore commissioned and executed.33 The sums one might
pay for a work of art - and they cover a vast range - have often been collected;34 it
is sadly in the nature of our sources that they concentrate on the excessive end of
the market.
Worse, you decide to build a house. Architects may descend on you to compete
for a commission. (Vitr.6 pr.5). Or like Cicero and the younger Pliny you may
have strong views of your own on both construction and restoration." The partfinished building will certainly give you a clearer idea than the plan (Cic QF
2.5.4) and you may at that point decide to alter your instructions.36 Architects
and contractors - who may be one and the same37 - will certainly run behind
schedule (they did for Cicero and Augustus),38 and they will surely run over
estimate, against which, in the case of a private building, you may have little
redress.39 You may also have to contract separately for special items, such as the
cutting of marble veneer.40 By this stage we have clearly crept towards the upper
end of the economic scale. This is the world of the aedificator, the man with a
mania for building, butt of Republican moralists and imperial satirists (who are
nevertheless impressed by the results), and the dream of every hungry
architect/contractor !41 'Even the fish feel there is less space' says Horace
(Carm.3.1.33ff.) 'as the rock substructures are laid; then the busy contractor and
his gang pour in the rubble, with the owner who disdains the land.' The higher
we rise in the economic scale, the more familiar the examples. I offer only one
more, a masterpiece of occasional architecture, that goes far beyond retractable
awnings, banked seating, special effects (Vitr.l0,pr.3-4) and the curtain
machinery so beautifully reconstructed in the archaeological museum of Lyon:42 I
refer to the revolving theatre commissioned by C.Scribonius Curio for the games
in memory of his father and to secure support for his election to the tribunate 43
Pliny marvels: some brave souls stayed aboard as the two outward-facing theatres
were rotated inwards to form a single amphitheatre, and deplores, literally for
pages, the ambition, prodigality, waste, etc., etc. involved. Who was boldest, he
asks, the man who commissioned it (auctor, iubere ), or planned it (inventor,
exco g ita re ) or actually built it, the artifex, who su scep it ? Quite
characteristically, designer and builder are unnamed, though one might offer a
guess: Curio was a loyal supporter of Caesar and the campaigns in Gaul had
trained an ample reserve of skilled military engineers.44 We are, however, told
PATRONAGE OF ART DMTHE ROMAN WORLD
that eleven years before, one Valerius of Ostia had roofed the theatre for the
games of Libo45 and that architectural adventure in turn was clearly aimed at
outshadowing the first awnings to protect a theatre audience, commissioned by
Q.Lutatius Catulus, in 69 BC.46 Political ambition prompts therefore an
identifiable sequence of developments in architecture and engineering.
Patronage of artists at Rome was centuries older than that of poets.47 Art came
early, literature late 48 In 496 BC the temple of Ceres was vowed and three years
later was dedicated; two Greeks, Gorgasus and Damophilus, decorated it with
both painting and sculpture (Plin.35.154); they took one side each according to
the Greek metrical inscription. Were they mainland Greeks they could (just) have
heard both Aeschylus and Pindar before leaving home, yet at Rome literacy itself
was still in its stunted infancy 49 However, to invite artists to come to Rome to
work was already no novelty: Vulca of Veli was summoned, accitum, under
Tarquinius Priscus, to make a clay statue of Capitoline Jupiter, and a Hercules
also of clay. Three potters, fictores, had accompanied his father Demaratus on his
flight from Corinth to Etruria, along with the painter Ecphantus.50 In the reign of
Tarquin the Proud, fabri, craftsmen, were summoned from all over Etruria to
finish the temple of Jupiter51 and nameless artists, again from Veii, made the
four-horse chariot on the temple-gable.52
But it is contact with the Hellenistic East in the late third and early second
centuries BC that utterly transformed the entire situation for art, as indeed for
literature. First, and most important, contact, or rather, conquest, represented a
huge access of wealth with consequent transformation of the lifestyles, manners,
and aspirations of much of the Roman aristocracy. Then, many Roman
commanders, officers, soldiers, administrators and traders too actually saw great
quantities of Greek art from Trapani to the Euphrates. A little the Romans
destroyed; much more was admired; a good deal was brought back to Rome as
booty. And lastly, Roman commanders learned from Alexander's successors the
full propaganda function of grandiose visual display in the shape of massive
public building projects.53 They also met architects and artists and invited, or
compelled, them to come to Rome, where the status and esteem they enjoyed was
founded on altogether different ideological conceptions. Rome must have been a
very nasty shock for many a visiting Greek craftsman.
Some of these developments clearly had a direct bearing on the scope and function
of patronage.
In the autumn of 167 BC Aemilius Paullus 'decided to employ the beginning of
this season travelling about Greece and seeing the sites made so famous by repute
that they are greater by hearsay than by visual acquaintance'.54 A detailed itinerary
follows. Roman generals repeatedly visited Troy, from 190 on,55 to pay tribute to
the legendary cradle of their race. Nor was it far from Troy to Pergamum.
Prolonged sojourns by Romans in Greece from cultural motives began seriously
only with Atticus, but through the first century BC the number of Romans
stimulated by firsthand contact with Greek art, viewed not incidentally to a
campaign but with deliberate intent, if not always with much understanding, grew
massively.56
Of the art treasures of Greece, some were destroyed at the sack of Corinth in 146
BC, and a little damage was done, though not by the Romans, during Sulla's
siege of Athens in 87-6.57 But most of the treasures survived and many were
shipped back home;58 the plunder of art, like the slaughter of survivors 59 was a
well-rooted Roman reaction on capturing a city. Foreign art60 had begun to flow
into Rome from the capture of Veii (396) and Praeneste (381 A)) on. The triumph
over Pyrrhus (275) yielded huge quantities of art works from NW Greece and
south Italy (Flor.l.l3.26f.). What followed has often been surveyed in detail (nn.
NICHOLAS HORSFALL
13
58,60): Livy (25.40.1f.) says that the fall of Syracuse represented the beginning
of Roman admiration for Greek art. Pliny6* explains that Scipio Asiaticus’
triumph in 190 brought luxury to Rome, along with 1432 lbs. of embossed silver
vases, for a start. Aemilius Paullus’ triumph was similarly enriched (Plut. Aem .
32); he also shipped to Rome the Macedonian royal library.62 A large proportion
of what was brought back was displayed in public places: sculptures by Myron,
Praxiteles, Euphranor, Lysippus and Chares and paintings by Parrhasius,
Nicomachus, and Aristides on the Capitol alone.63 The end of plunder imposed
on Romans - like Cicero - eager to start their own collections the necessity of
acquisition by licit means.64 That in turn led to the use of specialists, agents,
dealers and auctions, and to the commissioning of work from contemporary
sculptors and painters.65
But to return to Aemilius Paullus: he asked the Athenians to send a first-rate
philosopher to teach his sons; they sent Metrodorus, also a painter. Thus he not
only instructed the boys (they were surrounded by Greek painters and sculptors,
says Plutarch) but executed the paintings for Paullus' triumph.66 This again was
nothing new: the arrival of Greek craftsmen at Rome and their work in the second
century was charted by Filippo Coarelli in a long series of adventurous and
overlapping articles.67 Now that the dust has settled, the hard facts are swiftly
summarised.
in 186 M.Fulvius Nobilior celebrated games vowed for his Aetolian victory; he
had taken the poet Ennius with him on campaign, to hymn his triumphs (de vir.
ill. 52.3) and had brought back massive art plunder.68 Now artifices came from
Greece in his honour, in the same year Scipio Asiaticus celebrated games, and for
them collected artifices in Asia Minor.^ A mass influx of Greek craftsmen,
clamour the art historians.70 Not so. It is hard to see why they were required in
large numbers for the games. Artifices renders conventionally the Greek
technitae , the artists of Dionysus, guilds of Greek stage performers, exactly
what the games clearly did require.71 Not is it clear that Timarchides executed the
Apollo with cithara for the temple of Apollo at the request either of Fulvius
Nobilior or of his colleague in the censorship of 179, M.Aemilius Lepidus.72
We can do a good deal better for 146: Metellus Macedonicus vowed a new temple
to Jupiter Stator, in circo Flaminio . It was to contain important works of Greek
art; it was a dazzling novelty, in Greek marble, bold, new, luxurious and Eastern,
and it set the dedicator in the line of the great benefactors, euergetae , of the
Hellenistic East. The architect is known, Hermodorus of Salamis (Cypriot,
probably).73 He is clearly not tied to Metellus 74 In 132 he builds the aeries Martis
in commemoration of D.Iunius Brutus' Spanish victories. The cult statue is
probably by the younger Scopas. And the poet Accius wrote verses set up on the
walls. That conjunction - architect, sculptor, poet - is apparently unique in the
history of Roman patronage.75 Hermodorus went on to restore the Navalia, or
boathouses, around 102-99, but it is really not clear who commissioned this work
at the end of his very long career.76 And by way of reaction, in 101 C.Marius, no
lover of things Greek, used a Roman architect C.Mucius, in building the temple
of Honos and Virtus.77 Another Roman architect, L.Comelius, perhaps of Ostia,
built the Tabularium, still standing, for Q.Lutatius Catulus in the 60's78
But it would be quite wrong to give the impression that all Greek architects or
painters or sculptors worked as part of the entourage of a Roman magnate. Indeed
the contrast with poets and grammarians - from Livius Andronicus, who perhaps
came to Rome after the fall of Tarentum in 272,79 to the crowd of grammarians
brought back alone with Aristotle's library and ample art treasures after Sulla's
capture of Athens80 - is very striking. The only other Greek artist clearly and
explicitly brought in to exercise his skills is, I think, the sculptor Evander, who
had sold statues to Cicero in 61, was then taken by Antony from Athens to
14
PATRONAGE OF ART IN THE ROMAN WORLD
Alexandria and was brought thence by Octavian to Rome along with the other
captives in 30.81
Trajan, in a letter to the younger Pliny, observes that 'most architects come to us
from Greece'.82 Nothing new in that. Rome for three hundred years had been a
potentially invigorating and remunerative place for a foreign, usually a Greek,
artist to work in as a free peregrinus on his own account. TTiat was something a
foreign teacher - of grammar, rhetoric or philosophy - could do at times and with
some difficulty, but a poet or historian could not.®3 There was an Alexandrian
painter, Demetrius 'the topographer', who gave lodging in his attic to the exiled
Ptolemy VII( 164/3).84 There was perhaps die painter Theodotus, mentioned in a
fragment of a comedy of Naevius There was one Lycon, if that is his name, of
Asian origin, who decorated the temple of Juno at Ardea after 200 BC, to judge
from the surviving hexameter inscription. He was rewarded with (local)
citizenship,86 while the south Italian sculptor Pasiteles received Roman citizenship
not for his sculpture but when his home town was enfranchised during the Social
War.87 Verres, in Sicily, enfranchised the painter Tlepolemus of Cibyra, one of
the two 'advisers' he used in his attempt to strip the province of its remaining art
treasures.88 That the two sculptors Sauras and Batrachos actually existed in the
second century is unlikely: most probably their names were created to explain the
presence of a lizard and a frog sculpted in one of the temples of the Porticus
Octaviae. Only the detail that they were Spartans (Plin.36.42) makes the cautious
reader wonder whether they might not after all have been Greeks not reptiles.89
Timomachus, for whose sculpture Julius Caesar paid hugely,90 was not
necessarily brought to Rome by the dictator.
The picture is just as unclear under Augustus. Indeed here there is a famous
mystery:91 of course he claimed he found Rome brick and left it marble
(Suet.AMg. 28.3). Clearly too, Agrippa had a large and important role to play in
funding and directing the building programme. And evidently, in addition, a real
interest:92 he advocated that all works of art should be nationalised, without
success;93 when aedile he also, if that is what Pliny's Latin means, navigated the
Cloaca Maxima in a boat94 Vitruvius in the preface to his first book says: 'I
perceive that you (Augustus) have built and are now building on a large scale'95
explicitly with an eye to the future. But who the architects were we have no idea at
all. Diogenes the Athenian executed the sculptures in the Pantheon.96 We have a
list of the sculptors, Greek of course, who filled the palaces on the Palatine.97
Nothing to suggest that they were not free Greeks, working conventionally on
commissions - exceptionally large and lucrative ones of course. Augustus did as
we saw bring the sculptor Evander back from Alexandria (pi4). The man who cut
the seal (a portrait) that he used in his later years, and was indeed passed on to his
successors, is known - Dioscurides.98 So is the man who was the brain behind
the extraordinary horologium , Facundus Novius, the bearer, interestingly, of a
characteristically Campanian name 99 Not a word of artists in Bowersock's
Augustus and the Greek world. Not a trace of a circle of artists and architects
around the princeps. Why that is so - in such a contrast to the poets and scholars can I believe be explained, though we should always make allowance for the
possibility of a simple lack of interest on the part of our sources for the period.
If one looks ahead over the next hundred years, little emerges from the world of
art to set alongside Henry Bardon's massive Les empereurs et les lettres latines
(Paris,1958). If A.F. Stewart is right, and if the three Rhodian sculptors, who
also created the Laocoon, by their large mythological groups for the grotto at
Sperlonga produced 'a kind of petrified conversation piece for an emperor of
remarkably idiosyncratic tastes' (n.97,86), that represents clearly a massive
commission. Agents must also, if we may trust Suetonius, have been out hunting
for high-class pornography for his bedroom.100 And he was so jealous of the
success of an architect who repaired a collapsing portico, says Dio,101 'that he
NICHOLAS HORS FALL
15
would not permit his name to be entered in the records'. The identities of the
architects who built the Domus Aurea, of the painter who decorated it and the
sculptor who executed the Colossus of Nero in bronze are known.102 Vespasian
put back Nero's collected treasures on public display, commissioned painters to
restore Marius' temple of Honos and Virtus, and rewarded both restorers (Nero's
colossus was already giving problems) and an engineer with good ideas about
cheap ways of shifting large marble columns.103 Martial tells us that one Rabirius
built Domitian's palace.104 Trajan used the brilliant engineer Apollodorus of
Damascus, who had bridged the Danube for him, to build his forum, odeon, and
gymnasium.103 Hadrian, an even more eager builder, inherited him and used
Decrianus as well to shift Nero's colossus.1*
Trajan's old bridge builder was clearly a memorable personality: 'when Trajan
was consulting with him about a certain problem connected with his buildings, the
architect said to Hadrian, who had interrupted them with some advice, "go away
and draw your pumpkins (that is, domes, to which Hadrian was partial, as indeed
he was to sketching);107 you know nothing of these problems". Hadrian became
emperor and remembered. Worse followed: he showed Apollodorus his own plan
for the temple of Venus and Rome; the architect tore it apart, bluntly and in detail.
That was too much and Apollodorus was executed. That is our only account,
colourfully and suspiciously anecdotal, of emperors and architects working
together.108 Hadrian was so determined on his programme of building and
restoration that he organised metalworkers, stonemasons, architects and all other
specialists in building and decorating in cohorts, as in the army.109 Which might
be construed as a first move towards the endless dangling of incentives practised
by later emperors in the hopes of recruiting the specialist personnel their grandiose
schemes required.110
We have as yet found little and have but a poor sense of how relations between
artist and patron functioned. While we can at times watch Horace, a man not
without ambition and a proper sense of his own genius, moving up the ladder of
social and artistic eminence almost dinner by dinner,111 and can hear almost every
chink of Martial's begging-bowl,112 evidence of that same type and character is
almost inevitably lacking for artists. But the silence is in itself significant: if,
beyond the simple fact that artists wrought and poets wrote, we can explain why
the texts do not tell us about the status of artists and their relations with their
patrons, then we may leam thereby how the system did - or did not - work. It is
no answer to say that writers were just not interested in artists. Many were.
'Cicero and art' is a large subject with a fat bibliography.113
We must first return to the Hellenistic East before Roman intervention. Roman
writers are clearly aware that artists there enjoyed a special relationship with
rulers. Alexander the Great 'prevailed upon', impetravit, Lysippus to sculpt the
horsemen killed at the battle of the Granicus.114 Vitruvius represents Alexander as
conversing easily with Dinocrates, who followed the king's advance and planned
Alexandria.115 Alexander often visited Apelles' studio, and Apelles painted him
holding a thunderbolt for a princely fee.116 Alexander would only permit his
portrait to be carved on gems by Pyrgoteles.117 Apelles in Alexander's train
(comitatu ) got on badly with Ptolemy, clashed with him later at Alexandria, and
painted King Antigonus 'One-eye'.11®Ptolemy VO invited the painter Demetrius
to dinner and was repaid with a bed in the painter's attic (above, p. 14). Antiochus
IV Epiphanes enjoyed the company of craftsmen, and employed a Campanian
architect, Cossutius, to work in Athens and probably in Antioch too.1^ Siege
engineers120 were the evident stars in this firmament. King Demetrius also spared
the studio of the painter Protogenes during the siege of Rhodes.121 And Pliny the
elder remarks 'we should not fail to mention the generous spirit shown by King
Ptolemy when he allowed the name of the architect, Sostratus of Cnidus, to be
inscribed on the very fabric of the Pharos'.122 Such commemoration was very
16
PATRONAGE OF ART IN THE ROMAN WORLD
rare indeed on a Roman private building123 and not common124 on a public one.
The man who paid was incomparably more important than the man who designed
or built. Though Lacer, who bridged the Tagus at Alcantara, did hymn his
achievement memorably in verse (ILS 287b).
Little public recognition, then. And worse: it has often been observed that very
few free Roman artists indeed are attested.125 Painting had once been an
exception: a Fabius decorated the temple of Salus in 304 BC and acquired the
cognomen Pictor. If the Romans had respected him for his art, says Cicero, what
might we not have achieved ? Honos alit artes .126 L.Mallius the painter invited
Servilius Geminus to dinner; possibly Aemilius Paullus came too.127 When
Paullus restored the temple of Hercules in foro Boario , apparently, the poet
Pacuvius painted the interior. Thereafter, says Pliny, painting was not spectata
honestis manibus .128 Under Augustus, a dumb child of distinguished family
was taught to paint, with Augustus' approval.129 But a praetorian, Titedius
Labeo, once governor of Gallia Narbonensis, who died a very old man under
Vespasian, roused nothing but mockery and scorn for his little pictures.130 In
sculpture, Coponius executed the fourteen statues placed round the portico of the
Nations in Pompey's theatre.131 Calabi found a free stonecutter, a free specialist
in inserting eyes in statues, a couple of free workers in bronze.132 We are
drawing close to an unpleasant truth: it is no surprise to find that the Roman
governing class disdained social relations with artists, slave, freedman, or
foreign. The list of Greek scholars and philosophers in Roman noble households
is long and has been studied closely.1” In the imperial household, there were
slave goldsmiths and builders.134 That is clearly a very different matter and an
exceptional case. Lucullus stands out among Roman nobles, for Pliny says that
Arcesilaus the sculptor was his familiaris .135 Lucullus' house was full of
Greeks, notes Plutarch.136 And the maniacal Verres not only created a workshop
to recycle some of his thefts in other settings, but 'used to sit in this workshop for
most of the day, wearing a brown tunic and a Greek mantle'.137 In this context, a
silence in Cicero's letters is notably interesting. He can speak with affection, even
respect, of members of his slave household: Alexio the doctor, Sositheus the
reader, Tiro his secretary. It would be easy to extend the list.138 The Greek
philosopher Diodotus lived in his house, too. And moreover, Cicero, especially in
the early 60's, buys a good deal of sculpture; he employs gardeners and
architects, he knows agents and dealers.139 His architect Cyrus worked also with
Caesar, both in Gaul and in Italy.140 But of none of these men does Cicero speak
with warmth or esteem. Indeed architects prompt him to regular exasperation,141
and he does not appear to have asked artists or architects to dinner.
At one end of the spectrum, discussion of Roman patronage concerns itself with
deep problems regarding the origins of the feudal system;1^ at the other, I seek to
understand how patronage functioned in terms, often, of manners, or even
etiquette. Conventional social acts repeated daily formalise, even ritualise, in
visual and comprehensible form many a prejudice, outlook, or tradition.143
The free Roman architect could be and probably was a tremendous snob: 'our
forefathers used to entrust commissions to architects of approved descent in the
first place; in the second they inquired if they were well brought up, honeste
educati, writes Vitruvius.144 Cicero, laying down the fundamental rules of
Roman class-prejudice {Off. 1.150f.), declares that 'the professions in which
either a higher degree of intelligence is required or no small benefit to society is
derived - medicine and architecture, for example - are proper for those whose
social position they become'.145 Out of some 60 architects attested inscriptionally,
at least 25 are free; of these half are army officers; of the remainder, five appear
on public buildings; that is, the circumstances of the attestations may possibly
slant the evidence towards over emphasizing the proportion of free men 146 But
social intercourse between a Roman of the governing class and artist or architect
NICHOLAS HORSFALL
17
remains exceptional. Whereas Trimalchio has Habinnas, a lapidarius , to
dinner,147 which should cause us no surprise. We should not conclude that
because writers talked better than painters they got more free meals. Sulla and
Cicero for example relished the company of actors. So what was wrong ?
Johannes Marquardt went right to the point: 'in Greece each handicraft was a
work of art; at Rome, each work of art an handicraft.’148 Craftsmen and
workmen, that is, were of the same status; Pasiteles and the plumber differed in
wealth and esteem, but very probably not in status. Cicero knows149 that Phidias
was not as useful as a good tiler and roofer, but supposes that in some way he
was worth more. It is sadly easy to explain why all this was so; Roman snobs
were not at all ashamed or embarrassed: Cicero declares 'All opifices , workmen,
artisans, are engaged in vulgar trades; no workshop can have anything liberal
about it'; Seneca snarls in harmony:130 'I am not persuaded to include painters
among the liberal arts, any more than sculptors, or workers in marble, or the other
servants of luxury'.131 At this level, the artifex or craftsman is not differentiated
from the opifex or workman,152 at whom Cicero levels limitless opprobrium153
Architecture, says Vitruvius, is just harder than shoemaking.154 Art, moreover, is
not particularly useful, though architecture is.155 A stone theatre was destroyed in
the second century BC because it was 'useless and likely to harm public
morals'.156 Varro preferred fruit stores to picture galleries.157
Fliny complains to Trajan that the gymnasium built by the citizens of Nicaea is too
big and not functional.158 It would have been more useful for Rome, says
Velleius, had Corinthian bronze never been invented.159 Let us sharpen the
criticism: not very useful, and luxurious: taboo, therefore, to traditional Roman
moralists. The art objects in Scipio's Asiatic triumph represented the beginning of
luxuria in Italy, or so both the elder Pliny and Livy declared.160 Sallust tells us
about Sulla's army in Asia learning depraved habits, including the enjoyment of
art.161 Not only useless and luxurious, but, simply, dirty and noisy.16* That is
part of why the sight of Verres improperly dressed and sitting in a workshop is so
amazing (p. 16). Tacitus' plebs sordida may be rendered 'the mean common
people', but the adjective signifies literally 'dirty', and Romans were not above
observing the literal physical results of real, demeaning work.163 Art was useless,
therefore, luxurious, dirty - and often Greek. Juvenal (3.76) includes a painter
among the trades practised by the Greeks whose infestation of Rome he so
violently condemns. Romans were sporadically and vehemently xenophobic and
notably ready to deplore and despise the Greeks of their own day,164 and many of
the artists working in Rome from Gorgasus to Apollodorus were indeed
Greek.165 It made no difference that Phidias and Sophocles had been their
compatriots.166 Greek art was something about which Cicero found it prudent to
display ignorance when he spoke in public.167 Timarchides, however, appears to
have founded a real artistic 'dynasty', though the genealogy is insecure.168
Success, then, outweighed scorn; denarii assuaged disgust. There was, for some,
interesting, exciting, demanding, lucrative work to be had. And very clearly not
all Romans shared the strident theoretical snobbery we have been examining.
Certainly at the level of the collegia , craft solidarity was strong and
comforting,169 though it would be interesting to know whether Greek and army
architects worked in harmony on the building sites of Augustan Rome.
I offer some parting thoughts about analogies between literary and artistic
patronage and about differences.
At one level the commissioning of public art and the patronage of literature
function in closely similar terms: we have seen Fulvius Nobilior, Aemilius
Paullus, Metellus Macedonicus, Brutus Callaicus thinking of their future gloria in
both literary and artistic terms (ppl2f.). Artistic perpetuation of your fame is an
extremely ancient idea at Rome: Appius Claudius Sabinus Inregillensis in 495 BC
set up the shrine of Bellona with images of his ancestors and inscriptions.170 The
18
PATRONAGE OF ART IN THE ROMAN WORLD
Fornix Fabianus of 121 and the Basilica Aemilia of 78 operate in unchanged
terms.171 As the dedicator of a great public monument, a Roman matches his
ancestors and passes on glory to his descendants.172 The literary texts leave us in
no doubt: architectural glory is not military glory, but the latter justifies the
former, the former perpetuates the latter, and in establishing and increasing the
fame of the gens they work in tandem.173 Augustus' Res Gestae contains the
classic expression of pride in an architectural programme;174 Julius' plans are
completed; Marius, Pompey, Antony and the viri militares are decisively
outdone, as they had been on the field of battle, by Augustus and Agrippa.175 A
similar monumental recognition of achievement emerges in Horace's later openly
patriotic poetry and in Virgil's rare moments of openly patriotic conviction.
Julius Caesar planned Rome's first public library and placed a great many works
of art on display.176 Varro wrote on both libraries and art history.177 Asinius
Pollio, in commemoration of his triumph over the Parthini, built the Atrium
Libertatis, which contained Rome's first actual public library and served also as
an art gallery.178 Octavian then established the Greek and Latin libraries in the
temple of Palatine Apollo, to become a focal point both of research and of
ambition; the temple would also contain dazzling works of art, which would
themselves excite the poets.179
If we consider the situation from the other end, then, to acquire a serious
commission, an artist cannot approach a patron empty-handed. There is some
evidence in the army for young architects putting up buildings by way of
training.180 For jewellers and sculptors, under the elaborate systems of
apprenticeship that existed in the Roman world,181 the creation of some early
'show' pieces will have been a good deal easier. When Virgil and Varius
introduced Horace into Maecenas’ 'circle', the little Pugliese cannot have come
empty-handed.182 And there is perhaps an analogy to be drawn between a
commissioned work of art and a poem or book of poetry created from the first
under a single and stable relationship between author and patron,183 as against a
piece that the artist, or craftsman, or shopkeeper is trying to sell (cf. ad init. and
Dig. 19.5.20.2) and a poem that is seeking a patron, angling, if you like, for the
sort of relationship that Horace and Virgil achieved.184
Of course the commercial element in acquiring works of art is immeasurably
stronger and more explicit than anything that existed in the relationship between
patron and man of letters - at least at a serious level. That the Romans well
recognised in their categorisation of artists. And this commercial element clearly
too coloured the Roman patron's social relations with artists. Poems are not
generally acquired as part of a simple cash transaction, though exceptions could
perhaps be found;185 to set in motion chisel (or brush) and to coax a pen into
action are clearly two very different activities. Great literature (as Martial and
Juvenal seem not to have realised)186 is not 'up for sale'.
At the top end of the scale, Timomachus' Venus, and Varius' Thyestes enrich
hugely the sculptor and the poet.187 At the bottom end, however, there is hardly a
living to be made as a writer of epitaphs and occasional poems.188 Suetonius
records several instances of grammarians living in extreme poverty.189 Vitruvius
tells us of artists who 'lacked neither zeal nor skill, but their reputation was
hindered by scanty possessions or poor fortune or the victory of rivals in
competitions'. If the public is ignorant of craftsmanship, then no wonder
excellence might languish in obscurity.190 But the failed poet or grammarian
found life very hard. The craftsman who failed to obtain commissions could still
practise his skills as artisan. The interchangeability of artifex and opifex has its
advantages.
NICHOLAS HORSFALL
19
Under the Empire, patronage of the luxury crafts, of architects, painters, sculptors
continues unabated, though the patrons themselves alter with the decay of the old
aristocracy, and changes in social mobility, sources of wealth and structures of
power.191 The emperor becomes the fountainhead of money and initiative for
architectural projects at Rome;192 throughout the empire he contributed funds to
assist municipalities and local benefactors and through the army he contributes
labour and engineering expertise.193 In comparison, as stimuli of literature, the
emperors are relative failures. Nero and Domitian tried organising festivals.194
No new Pindar emerged, no great new national poet was created. Many senators
wrote poetry and prose and did not need patronage.193 Senators might also, as
one sees from the prefaces to Statius' Silvae , from Martial's epigrams and from
occasional letters by the younger Pliny, exercise a modest degree of patronage
themselves.196 Why could the age produce no more Virgils ? The question was
asked sourly, glumly, repeatedly.19' Bigger, better patronage was not really the
answer. Literature, under Trajan, did not produce its Apollodorus or Decrianus.
There is a paradox here: artistic patronage, private and public, starts earlier, lasts
later, for much of the time, so far as we can tell, works better than that of
literature, yet many Romans despise or misunderstand art198 - and do not invite
the artists to dinner, Arcesilaus' Lucullan banquets aside. Poets actually need
support; theirs was not really a paying job at Rome without a patron.199 The
growth of imperial and municipal salaries for rhetors and grammarians will
eventually transform the picture, however.200 Artists, on the other hand, and
architects too, begin in a family business, or as apprentices, or even as slaves. Or
they come from Greece to face the risks of a new but potentially lucrative
existence. They have in many cases the social and moral sufjport of a collegium ,
essentially unimportant and irrelevant in the case of writers.*1Their status as, if
you will, superior workmen ensures a respectable survival, which many authors
might have envied, fairly, had they been able to break out of their inherited
carapaces of snobbery.
PATRONAGE OF ART DMTHE ROMAN WORLD
20
N otes
1.
I am most grateful to Prof. R.T. Scott of the American Academy in Rome for his kind
invitation to speak there and to him and Mrs Scott for making the occasion so memorable
and agreeable; audience reaction too was notably helpful. The editor of Prudentia is the
only person since my schooldays formally to have taught me Roman history: I am most
grateful to him but do not for a moment hold him responsible for any errors in what
follows.
2.
Petr.29.8 and 71.9-11: at 71.6 the crucial verb is doubtful; Scheffer^s fingas may be right
and I am not convinced by Delz' defence of ms. pingas in Gnom . 34(1962),683. The urn
o f 71.11 is only an emendation by Gronovius. The sundial on a relief is unique, James
Kerr, BA dissertation on Petr.71, written under my supervision at University College
London in 1986-7. No parallels in S. Gibbs, Greek and Roman Sundials, Yale, 1976.
3.
7 3.5,67.4
4.
28.9, 29.8, 60.3, 32.3(cf.71.9).
5.
29.9, 29.9, 29.9(cf.72.7), 29.3-7. For the archaeological material relevant to the Cena ,
Maiuri's commentary (Napoli, 1945) is still often the best guide. For Trojan scenes, cf.
JHS 99(1979),44, Aegyptus 63(1983),213f., and Atti del convegno mond.scient, di
studi su Virgilio 1981 (Milano, 1984),2,52ff. For scenes from Trimalchio's career, cf. R.
Meiggs, Roman Ostia (0xford,1960),434.
6.
60.3; cf. infra pp.Ilf. for this sort of ingenious engineering for show and entertainment.
7.
50.1,50.3,4,30.1; cf. B. Baldwin, CPh 68(1973),46f.
8.
48.4,59.3; cf. JHS 99(1979),35,45, M.L. West, PO xy .42,3001, R.J. Starr, H erm .
115(1987),252f„ Lot .46(1987), 199f.
9.
71.12. We might wish to compare M.Grunnius Corocotta, the piglet who willed that his
name be placed in letters of gold, to the delight o f C.4AD schoolboy readers; cf. B.
Baldwin, Studies in Late Roman and Byzantine History ... (Amsterdam,1984),137ff. For
the lapidarius, cf. G. Susini, The Roman Stonecutter (Oxford,1973),15.
10.
52.1-2,52.2-3, 33.1,50.1,73.5,70.7,35.6,29.8,31.10,28.8,70.8,34.8,27.3; cf. B. Baldwin,
CQ 64(1970), 364, K. Dunbabin, JDAI 101(1986), 196ff.(masterly).
11.
Cf. Smith’s note on Petr.71.7 and CIL 13.5708=1LS M19=FIRA 3.49 a c. 1-2AD Gaul
gives detailed instructions for his tomb in his will.
12.
J.P. Bodel, Freedmen in the Satyricon o f Petroniu s, diss. Ann Arbor, 1984 and J.
D'Arms, Commerce and Social Standing in A ncient Rome
(Cambridge,
Mass.,1981),97ff.
13.
I hope very shortly to be able to discuss Trimalchio's artistic tastes more fully in a study
of the cultural world of the Cena .
14.
Ri*. Sailer, Personal Patronage under the early Empire (Cambridge,1982), B. Gold (ed.),
Literary and artistic Patronage in ancient Rome (Austin,1982), and ead. Literary
Patronage in Greece and Rome (Chapel Hill,1987), esp.7; for a just evaluation see E.
Badian (n.201),341ff. and notably 356f.
15.
J.M.C. Toynbee, Some notes on artists in the Roman w o rld . Coll Lat .6(1951), Ida
Calabi Limentani, Studi sulla societd romana (Milano, 1958).
16.
G. Becatti, Arte e Gusto negli scrittori latini (Firenze, 1951) and H. Jucker, Vom
Verhaltnis der Rdmer zur bildenden Kunst der Griechen (Frankfurt, 1950) offer substantial
and unexpected help.
NICHOLAS HORSFALL
21
17.
D ’Arms (n.12) offers far the best easily accessible study of Trim, in his socio-economic
environment in English. For education, cf. JHS 99(1979),35, R.W. Daniel, ZPE
40(1980),153ff. (clearly wrong); for literacy, E.E. Best, CJ 61(1965),72ff„ G. Cavallo
in Alfabetismo e cultura scritta (Perugia, 1978), 126; cf. W.V. Harris, ZPE 52(1983)Jlff.
for a fashionably mimimalist view o f the topic as a whole.
18.
D ig .19.2.31,19.5.5.2, Gaius 3.147, Calabi(n.l5),64ff.,74.
19.
Calabi(n. 15),148,92; D.E. Strong, Greek and Roman G old and Silver Plate
(London,1966),19ff. el passim.
20.
Far the arguments in detail,cf. Bodel (n. 12),224ff.
21.
Cf. J. Andreau, Les affaires de Monsieur Jucundus (Coll.EcFrJlome 19,1974).
22.
Cf. Susini (n.9), passim and id., Epigrafia Romana (Roma, 1982), 60ff. for surveys of
the issues involved in commissioning an epitaph; cf. also BICS 30(1983), 85ff. and ZPE
61(1985),251ff. for two individual and notably complex cases.
23.
Many o f the 'treasures' of Pompeii are simply old kitsch, or nearly mass-produced pieces
interesting above all as evidence for industry and for taste; cf. A. Wallace-Hadrill, JRS
73(1983),182f., R. Etienne, La vie quotidienne d Pompeii (Paris, 1966),443ff.
24.
Even Juvenal's poor friend Cordus had in his attic a marble figure of Chiron to support
his table, 3.203.
25
Cf. Calabi (n.15), 65,74 on the distinction, citing Dig. 19.5.20.2: the silversmith has his
own material and can show pieces to a client who wants to buy.
26.
D ig . 9.2.27.29; for diatretum cf. Mart. 12.70.9, PW s.v. D iatreta (Mau), BlUmner,
Terminologie u .Technologic 4,400,402
27.
Calabi (n.l5),73f„ D ig .34.2.34.
28.
Vitr.7.5, Calabi (n,15),67.
29.
Calabi (n.15). U 9 ff„ Dig .30.41.13,39.2.40,19.1.17.3,8.2.13.1.
30.
Plin. 35.100, D.E. Strong, Roman Museums in Archaeological Theory and Practice (ed.
id., London, 1973), 247ff.: a memorable paper.
31.
Plin. Ep. 4.7, o f Regulus, a leading advocate.
32.
ZPE 61 (1985), 271.
33.
Cf. the huge number of statues o f Nero put up during his reign, Suet. Nero, 25.2.
34.
Conveniently in T. Frank, Econ. Survey Anc. Rome 1,352-4.
35.
Cf. Cic. QF 3.1.1, Plin. Ep. 5.6.41; on Cicero and architects, cf. also E. Rawson,
Intellectual Life in the Roman Republic (London, 1985), 88 and n. 113. Aticus clearly
had strong views about gardens: cf. his highly individual Amaltheion, P. Grimal, Les
Jar dins Remains ed.2 (Paris, 1969), 302ff.
36.
J. Crook, Law and Life o f Rome (London, 1967), 223, Dig. 19.2.60.3.
37.
P. Gros, Aurea Templa, BEFRA 231(1976), 56 on the case o f L.Cocceius Auctus of
Puteoli, described as both in inscriptions.
38.
Cic. QF 2.2.2,3.1.1,2.5.4,Aug.ap.Macr.2.4.9.
39.
Crook (n.36), 222f„ Vitr.10 pr.l (public buildings), pr.2 (private); cf. Dig. 19.2.60.3f.
PATRONAGE OF ART IN THE ROMAN WORLD
22
40.
Hor.Carm.2.18.17f. (cf. Nisbei-Hubbard ad loc.), J. D'Alton, Horace and his age
(London,1917), 175ff.
41.
Cf. n.40; cf. also Frank (n.34), J. D'Arms, Romans on the Bay o f Naples (Cambridge,
Mass., 1970), 40ff., L. Friedlaender, Roman Life and Manners (Eng. tr.) 2.185ff. Cf.
Virg. G 2.155ff., Aen. 9.710, Sen.Contr. 2.1.1 Iff., Sen. Ep. 89.21 for architecture's
imaginative impact.
42
P. Wuilleumier, Ann.Ec. Hautes Eludes de Gand 1(1937), lS lff. The display in the Lyon
museum is loo recent to be catalogued, and discussion in standard books on the Roman
theatre is disappointing (but see Beare (n.43), 257ff.).
43.
Its very existence was questioned by J.P.V.D. Balsdon, Life and Leisure in ancient Rome
(London, 1969), 256, after W. Beare, The Roman Stage ed.2 (London, 1955), 162. But
see, decisively, E.J. Jory, in Studies in honour o fT B L . Webster (Bristol,1986), 147:
Cic. Fam. 8.2.1 shows it was still standing in June 51, Jory, loc. cit. 152, n.29.
44.
Calabi (n,15),28. Vitr.l pr.2, Gros(n.37),54f., R. MacMullen, HSCP 64(1959),210f.
See n.140.
45.
Plin.36.102.
46.
Plin. 19.23; see Jory l.c.(n.43) for this sequence o f technical developments.
47.
Useful surveys in JJ. Polliu, ΤΑΡΑ 108(1978), 155ff. and The Art o f Rome (Englewood
Cliffs, 1966), O. Vessberg, Studien z. Kunstgeschichte der rdm. Rep. (Lund, 1941),
Becatti (n.16).
48.
Cf. Cic. TD 1.3f.; note the fine discussion in N. Petrochilos, Roman attitudes to the
Greeks (Athens.1974), 153fT.
49.
Studies in Roman Myth and Mythography, BICS Suppl.52(1987),5 with n.25. The
artisan collegia 'of Numa' are irrelevant; cf. E. Gabba, JRS 74(1984),8Iff.: Plin. 34.1
and 35.159 are not therefore to be treated as serious evidence.
50.
Plin.35.15,152,154.
51.
Liv. 1.56.1
52.
Fest.p.342.4L, Plut.Popl. 13.1.
53.
Cf. Mary Beard and Michael Crawford, Rome in the late Republic (London, 1985), 18ff.,
A. Toynbee, Hannibal's Legacy (London, 1965), 2,428, A. Boethius, Etruscan and early
Roman architecture 2 (Harmondsworth.1978), 136ff., L. Homo, Rome imperiale et
iurbanisme dans I'antiquiti (Paris, 197l),59ff.
54.
Liv.45.47.5, Plut. Aem. 28.1. Cf. L. Casson, Travel in the ancient world
(London,1979),229ff., Rawson (n.35),195, Friedlaender (n.41),l,340ff.
55.
Horsfall (n.49>.22.
56.
Cf. n.54; also L.W. Daly, AJPh 71(1950),40ff., S.F. Bonner, Education in ancient
Rome (London, 1977),90ff.
57.
Corinth: cf. Plin.34.6, the story of the origin of Corinthian bronze, delightfully travestied
at Petr.50.5. For Athens, cf. Plut.Su//. 12; the Odeon was rebuilt by Roman architects,
Vitr.5.9.1, Becatti (n.l6),37.
58.
Plunder of works of art is admirably surveyed by M. Pape, Griechische Kunstwerke als
Kriegsbeute ... (diss. Hamburg, 1975). For convenient summaries of the material cf. n.60.
59.
G.M. Paul, Phoen. 36(1982),144ff., W.V. Harris, War and imperialism in republican
Rome (Oxford, 1979),263f.
NICHOLAS HORSFALL
23
60.
Pollitt, Art (n.47), 18f., 22ff., for example.
61.
Plin. 3 3.148ff., Liv. 37.59.3ff.
62.
Rawson (n.35),40, A J. Marshall, Phoen. 30(1976).258.
63.
Polliu, ΤΑΡΑ (n.47),170,173.
64.
For public and private collections, cf. Rawson (n.35),194f.. Strong (n.30),249,259,
Pollitt, ΤΑΡΑ (n.47),151, Vessberg (n.47),58; cf. below n.93.
65.
Polliu, ΤΑΡΑ (n.47),161f., Strong (n.30),259ff.; for the evidence of Cicero, cf. n.l 13.
66.
Plin.35.135; cf. PlutA em . 6.5
67.
Dial. Arch. 2(1968),302ff., 4/5( 1970/1 )J241ff., Studi Misc. 15(1969/70),77ff„ and in
Hellenismus in Mittelitalien ed. P. Zanker (Gottingen,1976),21ff. He offers a more
cautious survey o f the evidence at PBSR 45(1977),Iff. Cf. too D.E. Strong, BICS
15(1968),97ff. and for the years before Actium, F.W. Shipley, MAAR 9(1931),7ff. See
too P. Gros, MEFR(A) 85. l(1973),137ff. and in Mil.Heurgon (Coll.Ec.FrJiome
27,1976),1.387ff. and F. Zevi in M il.Heurgon. 2.1047ff.
68.
O. Skutsch, ed. ΕηηΛηη.,3ί., G.W. Williams in Gold 1982(η.14),5, E. Badian,
EnirHardt 17(1972),183ff„ Plb.21.30.9, Liv.39.5.13ff.
69.
Liv.39.22.2,10.
70.
Jucker (n,16),60, Vessberg (n.47),30, Coarelli 1970/1 (n.67),250, Pollitt, Art (n.47)42,4,
Coarelli 1976 (n.67),25, 1969/70(n.67),82 with n.40, 1968(n.67),329f.
71.
TLL 2.699,26f., T.B.L. Webster, Hellenistic Poetry and Art (London, 1964),277.
72.
Plin.36.34; Coarelli 1977(n.67),4 has tacitly abandoned earlier hypotheses (e.g.
1968(n.67),333f., 1969/70(n.67),87). The Censors in question are not elsewhere
associated with the temple o f Apollo.
73.
Vitr.3.2.5, Plin.36.34, Veil. 1.11.8, Gros 1978(n.74),38, T.P. Wiseman PBSR 42
(1974), 18f.
74.
Cf. Coarelli 1969/70(n,67),80, Gros 1976(n.67)397f. and Architecture et Sociiti,
Coll Lat. 156( 1978) ,62.
75.
Com.Nep.fr.35 Marshall, CicArch. 27, Plin.36.26, Coarelli 1970/l(n.67),253f., Zevi
(n.67),1061. Note that, despite (e.g.) Coarelli 1970/l(n.6 7 )^ 6 If., C icD iv. 1.79 does not
show that the poet Archias and the sculptor Pasiteles necessarily worked for the same
patron.
76.
Wiseman (n.73),13, Cic. de or. 1.62, M. Gwyn Morgan, Herm. 99(1971)^03, Coarelli
1968(n.67),340, 1970/l(n.67),255, QuadJst.Top. 5(1968),29.
77.
Vitr.7. pr.17, 3.2.5.
78.
Gros(n.74),62, G. Lugli, Roma Antica; il centro monumentale (Roma,1946),42ff., G.
Molisani, RendJJnc. 26(1971),7Iff.
79.
Cf. (e.g.) A. Gratwick, CHCL 2,799f.
80.
Pollitt, Art (n.47), 64, Rawson (n.35),39f., D. Earl, ANRW 1.2.842ff„ Marshall
(n.62),258.
81.
Poφh. ad HotSerm. 1.3.90, C icS a m .Ί.23.Κ.. J. D'Arms HSCP 76(1972),212,n,19.
PATRONAGE OF ART IN THE ROMAN WORLD
82.
Plin. £p. 10.40.3,Toynbee (n.l5),9ff., S. Treggiari, Roman Freedmen during the late
Republic (Oxford, 1969),132ff.
83.
H.D. Jocelyn, BJRL 59(1977),323ff., M.H. Crawford in Imperialism in the ancient
world ed. P.D.A. Gamsey and C.R. Whittaker (Cambridge,1978),193ff., J.P.V.D.
Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (London,1979),54ff„ S. Treggiari EMCICNV
21(1977),24ff., P. While in Gold 1982(n.l4),50ff., Rawson (n.35),5f.
84.
Coarelli 1968(n.67),330, P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, 1972),2.213 ji.2 2 1,
Val.Max.5.1.1, Diod.Sic.31.18.2.
85.
Tunicularia 99ff. Ribbeck.
86.
PIin.35.15; cf. Pollilt, A n (n.47),52; see K. Biichner, Frag. Poet. Lat. 44.
87.
Plin.36.39.
88.
Cic.Verr. 2 .3 .6 9 ,4.40ff„ etc., Treggiari (n.82),135f.
89.
Gwyn Morgan (n.76),495,498, Wiseman (n.76),18f.
90.
Plin.7.126,35.136,145.
91.
Gros (n.37),53ff., R. Paribeni, Miscellanea Galbiati 1(Milano, 194l),147ff.
92.
Cf. F.W. Shipley, Agrippa's Building Activities in Rome (St Louis,1933), M.
Reinhold, Marcus Agrippa (New York,1933),46fT.
93.
Plin.35.26, Strong (n.30),249, Rawson (n.35),l 14.
94.
Plin.36.104.
95.
Vitr.l pr.3.
96.
Plin.36.38.
97.
Plin. ib., A.F. Stewart, JRS 67(1977),89f.
98.
Plin.37.8,10, SuetAug. 50, Dio 51.3.6
99.
Plin.36.72.
100.
Suet.Tife. 43.2,44.2, cf. Plin.35.70,131.
101.
57.21.5f.
102.
Severus and Celer, Tac Ann. 15.42, Famulus, Plin.35.120, Zenodorus, Plin.34.45.
103.
Plin.34.84,35.120, Suci.Vesp.W .
104.
Mart.7.56,10.71.
105.
P.W.s.v. Apollodorus no.73, Dio 69.4.1.
106.
SHA//adr.l9.9ff.
107.
Cf. SHA Hadr.16.10, as were, allegedly, many later emperors: Calabi (n.l5),22, Becatti
(n.l6),39f., SHA Marc.Aur. 4.9, Elag.30.1, Alex.Sev. 27.7, Epit.Caes. 45.7. Some of
these attestations may be elaborating on a biographical topos (SuetH ero 52 is where the
authors may have thought it began), but for Valentinian i, cf. T. Wiedmann,
Florilegium 1(1979), 143.
108.
Dio 69.4.1-5; so Brilliant, verbal communication to the author.
NICHOLAS HORSFALL
25
109.
Epit.Caes. 14.5, P.A. Brunt, JRS 70(1980),83, Mary T. Boatwright, Hadrian and the
city o f Rome (Princeton, 1987),20f.
110.
Cf. G. Dagron, Naissance d une capitale (Paris,1974),35, F.S. Pedersen, Late Roman
public professionalism (Odense,1976)^4ji. 1, against C. Kunderewicz, Rev.hist.droit
50(1972),582f.
111.
Cf. Poets and Patron, PubMAHA 3(1981), J. Gnffin in Caesar Augustus ed. F. Millar
and E. Segal (Oxford, 1984), 189ff„ G.W. Williams in Gold 1982(n.l4),13ff„ Nisbet and
Hubbard Hor. Odes i, xxvii et passim, I.M. Le M. Du Quesnay in Poetry and politics in
the age o f Augustus ed. T. Woodman and D. West (Cambridge,1984),19ff„ for widely
divergent views.
112.
Cf. R.P. Sailer, CQ 33(1983),246ff., P. White in Gold 1982 (n.l4),50ff., and HSCP
79(1975),265ff.
113.
Becatti (n. 16),73ff., E. Bertrand, Elude sur les peintures...(Paris,1893),259ff., S. Valenti,
AR 3.4(1936)263f., J. Carcopino, Les Secrets de la correspondance de Ciciron
(Paris,1947),1,116ff., Rawson (n.35), 185ff. passim, Pollitt Art (n.47), 58ff. passim,
Treggiari (n.82),132ff. passim, W. Laidlaw in Studies in Cicero ed. J. Ferguson
(Roma, 1962), 129ff.
114.
Veil. 1.11.4.
115.
Vitr.2.praef.lff.
116.
Plin.35.85,92.
117.
Plin.37.8.
118.
Plin.35.89f.; on comites, J. Hellegouarc'h, Le vocabulaire latin des relations et despartis
politiques (Paris, 1972),56fff., Horsfall (n.l 11),2f.
119.
Plb.26.1, Vitr.7,praef. 15,17, E. Rawson, PBSR 43(1975),37.
120.
Vitr.10.16.3, M.I. Rostovtzeff, SEHHW (Oxford,1931),2,1232ff.
121.
In 305, Plin.34.104f.
122.
Plin.36.83. Cf. M. Guarducci, Arch.Class. 10(1958), 147ff. for status, emolument and
satisfaction in Greece.
123.
Calabi (n.15), 147:CIL 10.8146, M. della Corte, Case ed Abitanti di Pompeii ed.2
(Pompeii, 1954), 136, no.297.
124.
Calabi (n.l5),89, Becatti (n.l6),37f„ Toynbee (n.l5),9ff.
125.
Calabi (n,15),19ff., Becatti (n,16),35ff.
126.
Cic.TD 1.3, cf. Val.Max.8.14.6; cf. PolliU, Art (n.47),26,81, Petrochilos (n.48), 152ff.
127.
Macr.2.2.10, cf. Lucil.fr.236 Warmington.
128.
Plin.35.19, cf. Platner-Ashby, T opogrD ictA ncR om e s.v.
129.
Plin.35.21.
130.
Plin.35.20; cf. the equestrian artist, Turpilius o f Verona, a contemporary of the elder
Pliny.
131.
Plin.36.41, after Varro.
PATRONAGE OF ART DMTHE ROMAN WORLD
26
132.
Calabi (n,15),26; Plin.36.41, ILS 7675,7714,8562, C1L 14.2887.
133.
Cf. n.83.
134.
S. Treggiari. PBSR 43(1975),54f.
135.
Plin.35.155, Jucker (n,16),82. On fam iliaris, cf. Wiseman in Gold 1982 (n.l4),31, TLL
6.1.250.54ff„ Anc.Soc. (Macquarie) 13(1983),165. Augustus uses the word of Horace's
relations with him: Ep.fr.xxxix Malcovati = Suet.Vito Horati, 3.1 Klingner.
136.
PlutX«cu//.42, Balsdon (n.83), 55f.
137.
Ctc.Verr. 2.4,54.
138.
Drumann-Groebe, GeschJioms 2 ed.6, 353ff.
139.
For the philosopher Diodotus in Cicero's household, c(Jtrut.309, Balsdon (n.83),56; for
his contacts with the world of art, cf. n.l 13 and in addition, B. Bilinski, Alt. 1
Congr.lnt.Stud.Cic. (Roma, 1959), 1.195ff.
140.
Cic.Fam.7.14.1f., Treggiari (n.82),134.
141.
Cf. supra n.38.
142.
Sailer (n.l4),lff.: that is not intended as a criticism of an extremely useful book.
143.
Cf. Horsfall, nn.l 11,135; R. Mayer, PCPhS 31(1985),33ff„ J. D'Arms EMC/CNV
28(1984),327f. The Univ. of Pennsylvania thesis (1914) by A.B. Miller, Roman etiquette
o f the late republic , is insufficiently consulted.
144.
Vitr.6 praef.6, Rawson (n.35),86f.; cf. nn.44,145.
145.
eae sunt iis quorum ordini conveniunt honestae (Off. 1.151); cf. Bilinski (n,139),205ff.,
F. de Robertis, Lavoro e Lavoratori net Mondo Romano (Bari, 1963), 65ff., R.
MacMuIlen, Roman Social Relations (New Haven,1974), 138ff., Treggiari (n.82),89,
Burford (n. 16),238, n.334, P.A. Brunt, Social conflicts in the Roman republic
(London,1971),124ff.
146.
Calabi (n.l5),28.
147.
Petr.65.5; for Habinnas' job, cf.n.9.
148.
'Jede Kunst ein Handwerk', Privatleben der Romer (Leipzig,1886),607.
149.
Brutus 257.
150.
Cic.Off. 1.150, Sen. £ p .8 8 .18.
151.
de Robertis (n,145),69,n.57,66,n.46.
152.
Calabi (n.15), de Robertis (n.145), 1 Iff.
153.
Flacc. 18, for example; de Robertis (n,145),56,n.22.
154.
Vitr.6 praef.7; cf. Habel in PW s.v. Artifices.
155.
Cf. Cic.Off. (n .l50); cf. VarrXL 8.31, Plin.Pan. 51, Cic. de or. 3,180, Plin.Ep. 10.23-4,
10.70-1 for a more acceptable equilibrium between beauty and functionality. Cf. further
n.159.
156.
Liv.Epit. 48, Appi?e//.C»v. 1.28.
157.
Oporothecas to pinothecas, RR 1.2.10.
NICHOLAS HORSFALL
27
158.
'utile', PlinJip. 10.39.
159.
For utilitas in general, cf. Becalti (n.16), index, s.v. Bronze, Vell.1.13.4.
160.
Plin.33.148, Liv.39.6.7, Polliu, ΤΑΡΑ (n.47),158ff., A.W. LinloU, Hist.
21(1972) ,629f.
161.
Sall.Ca/. 11.5f.
162.
de Robertis (n,145)58n.27,221, MacMullen (n.l45),114f.
163.
Hist. 1.4, Horsfall (n.32),264.
164.
Petrochilos (n.48), passim, Balsdon (n.83),30ff., A.N. Sherwin-White, Racial prejudice
in imperial Rome (Cambridge, 1970),62ff.
165.
Cf. further (he discussions o f Calabi and Toynbee (η. 15), and J. Griffin, Latin poets and
Roman life (London,1985),29ff.. = JRS 66(1976).105.
166.
Something had changed. Cf. notably Petrochilos (n.48),63ff., citing e.g. CicI'lacc.
16,17, QF 1.1.16.
167.
Cic. de or. 2,4, Afw.63, Petrochilos (n.48),79,193f., Jucker (n.l6),89ff„ W. Kroll,
Kultur der ciceronischen Zeit (repr. Darmstadt, 1963),239f.
168.
Cf. Coarelli 1970/1 (n.67)^51, K. Jex-Blake and E. Sellers, The elder Pliny's chapters on
the history o f art (London, 1896) ,209, EAA s.v. Timarchides 1,2.
169.
MacMullen (n.l45),73ff„ Burford (n,16),159ff.
170.
CIL 1 ed.2,1827, Plin.35.12.
171.
Plin.Lc., Calabi (n,15)146f„ Lugli (n.77),96f.
172.
Beard and Crawford (n.52)18f„ V e ll..l.ll.3 f., CicScaur. 46f.
173.
J. van Sickle, AJPh 108(1987),41ff., D. Earl, Moral and Political tradition o f Rome
(London, 1967),30ff., Horsfall, Prudentia 8(1976),84.
174.
RG 20f„ cf. SueLAug. 28.3ff., Stfab.5.3.8.
175.
Strong (n.67),102ff., Shipley (n.67),7ff.
176.
Suet.Co«5. 44, Plin.35.156,37.11, Strong (n.30),102, Rawson (n.35),39, BICS
19(1972), 122.
177.
Varro, de bibliothecis, in three books; for art history cf. e.g. Rawson (n.35),197ff.,
Pollitt, Art (n.47),xix ff. Note Varro's statue in Pollio's library, Plin.7.115.
178.
Plin.l.c., Isid.O ig. 6.52, Rawson I.e. (n.176), J. Andrd La vie et ioeuvre d'Asinius
Pollion (Paris, 1949), 116ff., Polliu ΤΑΡΑ (n.47),70, Plin.36.23,33.
179.
Suet/tu*. 29, Dio 53.1, WxgAen. 6.69ff., Ov.F. 4.621ff„ rr.31.59ff., P. Zanker,
Anal Horn J st.Dan. Suppl.l0(1983),21ff., B. Kellum in The Age of Augustus ed. R.
Winkes (Louvain/Providence, 1986),169ff.
180.
R. MacMullen HSCP 64(1980),230, n.67, Vitr.10 praef.4, CIL 13.7945, Ann.Epigr.
1942/3,93, G. Alfoldy Epigr.Stud. 5(1968),19f.
181.
Cf. S L . Mohler, ΤΑΡΑ 71(1940),262ff„ C.A. Forbes, ΤΑΡΑ 86(1955).321ff.
182.
Horsfall (n.l 11),5, E. Fraenkel, Horace (Oxford,1957),16.
28
PATRONAGE OF ART IN THE ROMAN WORLD
183.
Hoi.Carm. 1-3, Virg.G. and Aen. arc the simplest examples; for bibliography, cf.
n .lll.G .W . Williams, Change and Decline (Berkeley, 1978),56ff.
184.
A. Hardie, Statius and the Silvae (Liverpool,1983)35f., citing H otSerm. 1.3.Iff., Ep.
2.1.227. The Laus Pis. (226-8) is very much a poem seeking a patron (of unknown
authorship and probably Neronian date).
185.
Cf. also Livius Andronicus' hymn to Juno in 207, White in Gold 1982(n.l4),51,
Williams ibid.3ff·. P. Fedeli in Oralitd, Scrittura. Spettacolo ed. M. Vegetti
(Torino,1983),98ff., Hardie (n,184),41f.
186.
Mart.8.55.5f., 1.107.3f„ Juv.7.94, Horsfall ( n .l l l ) .l .
187.
Timomachus; supra, n.90; Varius: a million sesterces for his T hyestes; cf. n.194.
188.
Cf. P. Cugusi, Aspetti letterari dei Carmina Latina Epigraphica (Bologna, 1985),92ff.
189.
Suet.Gra/ww. 8.11, While in Gold 1982 (n.l4),61ff., Fedeli (n,185),98.
190.
Vitr.3 praef.2, Gros (n.37),53ff. on Vitruvius' patrons.
191.
K. Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Cambridge,1983),120ff., P. Gamsey and R. Sailer, Tne
early principale, GRNSC 1982, id.et id., The Roman Empire (London,1987).
192.
F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (London,1977),192,326,420f.
193.
R. MacMullen, HSCP 64(1959),207ff., id. Soldier and Civilian in the later Roman
empire (Cambridge, Mass., 1963),23ff.
194.
Williams (n,183),140f.; on Hardie (n.184) cf. K. Coleman, CR 34(1984),190ff.; Fedeli
(n,185),100f., B. Baldwin in Gold 1982 (n,14),68.
195.
Williams (n.l83),275ff„ 301f.
196.
P. While, JRS 64(1974),40ff„ 68(1978),84ff„ and id. in Gold 1982(n.l4),58f.
197.
See n.186; also Williams (n,183),297ff.
198.
Cf. n.167, Polliu ΤΑΡΑ (n.47),158ff.,163, Becatti (n.l6),286ff„ Plin.35.24,
V eil.1.13.4, Virg.A«n.6.847ff. with H. Hine in Homo Viator ed. M. Whitby etc.
(Bristol,1987),173f., Petrochilos (n.48),77ff.
199.
White in Gold 1982 (n,14),50ff.
200.
Millar (n,192),501ff, Bonner (n.56), 154ff.
201.
BICS 23(1976),79ff„ E. Badian, CP 80(1985),348, S. Panciera,
Bull.Comm Arch.Com.Roma 91(1986),35ff., K. Quinn, ANRW 2.30.1,173ff.
29
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