Research Catalog

Title

Held im Bild : zur visuellen Konstruktion Heroischer Figuren im Imperium Romanum anhand von Darstellungen des Aeneas und des Romulus / Matthias Joachim Bensch.

Author

Bensch, Matthias J.

Publication

Rahden : VML, Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH, 2023.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

334 pages, 34 pages of plates : illustrations, plans; 31 cm.

Summary

While heroic cults flourished in the Greek cultural sphere, it is well known that they hardly played a role in Rome. In general, the topos of Rome's "lack of myths" is justifiably still seen as a central paradigm of research into Rome's religious history. Partially, this gap is filled by narratives of the exemplary heroes of republican times and of Roman kings. However, in representational media the only figures closely connected to Rome and shown to any significant extent are Romulus and Aeneas. A solid basis for approaching their significance is provided by various classificatory terms based on ancient terminology: both are reges (kings) and conditores (founders of cities), and Aeneas is also a Troyan ἥ / heros (hero) who is already important in the Homeric epics. Yet these terms only ever grasp partial aspects of their personalities and do not help us to understand the specific contribution of pictorial representations in the construction of these figures. To remedy this gap, the present publication, based on ideas central for research in the SFB 948, sees the heroic as the result of shared attributions linked to an individual "heroic figure". This is therefore the product of communication processes and has nothing in common with essentialised attributions like those provided by the above-mentioned terms. The first part of the study, centred on representational semiotics, focuses on which qualities the different iconographies attribute to, respectively, the founder of Rome and the exile from Troy. The pictorial conception of the forum of Augustus in Rome plays a central role here, as it strongly influenced subsequent traditions. These colossal sculptures, no longer preserved today, showed Aeneas leading his son Ascanius by the hand and carrying his father Anchises on his shoulder, as well as Romulus bearing a trophy, the spolia opima. The volume investigates the body images designed for these two characters, as well as the kinds of objects used as attributes for them, before moving on to the plot motifs offered. In the following second part, the spectrum of representational media and how they are used in communication takes centre-stage. The aim is to find out how using these objects as image bearers contributes to accentuating or rather masking certain semantics. Among the media with relatively numerous representations of Romulus and Aeneas are for instance monumental sculpture, republican and imperial coins and those minted in specific cities, intaglios and glass pastes, as well as clay lamps. In addition, archaeologically documented clusters of heroic representations in certain geographical areas are investigated in order to show whether they really indicate a communally sanctioned emphasis on the heroic figure(s) in question. This part of the analysis is based on representations within the city of Rome, in Pompeii, southern Spain, the northern Peloponnese and the Troad. Overall, investigating how these figures are constructed is an adequate means to contribute substantial additions to our understanding of Aeneas and Romulus in imperial visual culture, as well as to the heroic in general. In many ways, the forum of Augustus is revealed as a key monument offering pictorial conceptions which indeed attributed extraordinary qualities to the two characters. The forum staged these in a way in which these semantics were enriched further, also by bringing them into new contexts of communication. The present volume shows that a differentiated appropriation of these motifs and of the figures generally in specific media and cultural areas were processes decisively driven by engagement with heroic semantics. Ultimately, this study also contributes to the investigation of political communication using heroic characters by drawing out how Romulus and Aeneas could be instrumentalised for the religious and charismatic grounding of the principate.

Series Statement

Tübinger archäologische Forschungen, 1862-3484 ; Band 40

Uniform Title

Tübinger Archäologische Forschungen ; Bd. 40.

Subject

• Aeneas (Legendary character)
• Romulus, King of Rome
• Heroes in art
• Art, Roman > Themes, motives
• Mythology, Classical, in art
• Art, Roman

Note

• Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 2020.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 272-331).

Call Number

JX 24-4597

ISBN

• 9783896466754
• 3896466755
• 3896468758
• 9783896468758
• 9783896468754 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

9783896466754

OCLC

1415949180

Author

Bensch, Matthias J., author.

Title

Held im Bild : zur visuellen Konstruktion Heroischer Figuren im Imperium Romanum anhand von Darstellungen des Aeneas und des Romulus / Matthias Joachim Bensch.

Publisher

Rahden : VML, Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH, 2023.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Tübinger archäologische Forschungen, 1862-3484 ; Band 40

Tübinger Archäologische Forschungen ; Bd. 40.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 272-331).

Other Standard Identifier

9783896466754

Research Call Number

JX 24-4597