The Emperor Justinian. 
 I. Silver Disc in Petrograd. 2. Gold Medallion formerly in Paris. 
 
APOTHEOSIS 
 AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Three Lectures on Certain Phases of 
 Art and Religion in the Roman Empire 
 
 MRS. ARTHUR STRONG, Litt.D., LL.D. 
 
 FORMER STUDENT OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ATHENS ; 
 LIFE FELLOW OF GIRTON COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ; HONORARY 
 MEMBER OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ATHENS AND 
 OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA ; AND 
 ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 EPDUTTON ^ COMPANy 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Printed in Great Britain 
 
 // 
 
 '^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^;' 
 
 V 
 
ERRATA 
 
 p. vi, 1. lo. — The reliquary of Ugolino di Maestro Vieri at Orvieto 
 holds not the fragments of the True Cross, but an even more unique 
 relic, the Sanciissimo Corporale. 
 
 P. 'J2)- — By some inadvertence Dryden's translation of Virgil, 
 Aeneid, vi. 851-852 has been substituted for that of Lord Bowen, 
 originally chosen by me as laying stress on the quality of mercy 
 referred to in the text : 
 
 These be thine arts, thy glories, the ways of peace to proclaim, 
 Mercy to show to the fallen, . . . 
 
 P. 242, 1, 2. — For teffiples read temper. 
 
ENVOI 
 A CHRISTIAN MALLET 
 
 Marechal des Logis au XX 11^"" Regiment de Dragons, IV^'"^ Escadron 
 aux Armies, en campagne 
 
 My dear Christian, — / always like to re7nember how we 
 smuggled you, a French subject, into our British School in the 
 guise of honorary assistant secretary. But from the first I pre- 
 ferred to call you my adopted son, as by a premonition that we 
 should be united always in a commo?i love of Rome, and this con- 
 fidence of mine was ?iever betrayed, for Rome in her every aspect 
 found you responsive. . . . Those were fruitful hours that we 
 spent together in the Villa Giulia, trying to reconstruct some 
 picture of the vanished civilisation of the Latin race ; or in the 
 
 Vatican, where the masterpieces of Greek sculpture revealed to us 
 the spell by which Greece held her grim conqueror captive ; or in 
 the Baths of Diocletian, where we traced on the stelae of her 
 Provinces the religious beliefs that helped Rome to establish her 
 Imperial sway, and the soldiers of her legiotis to live and die 
 faithful to her service. And always, whether among the ruins 
 and relics of classics or of Mediaeval Rome, or in the churches and 
 palaces of the Rome of Sixtus and Bernini, I was glad to balance 
 the impetuous judgments of your youth against the measured con- 
 clusions of scholarship. 
 
 Other moods would take us to the Campagna, or to the city^s 
 ''enchanted gardens. '' Do you remember that Easter Eve on the 
 
 Via Appia when a great red moon lay in a hollow of the Alban 
 hills ? Or that sombre garden ofi the Esquiline, under ivhose 
 
vi APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 desolate paths lie the ruins of the Golden House built by the rest- 
 less genius who was Nero ? Or the groves of the Villa Mattel 
 and the seat under the old sarcophagus where S. Philip discorreva 
 delle cose dell' anima with his disciples ? 
 
 At times we went further afield — to Arezzo, where the master- 
 piece of Piero della Pra?icesca, transfigured in the evening light, 
 made us forget the humbler Arretine ware we had come to study ; 
 to Orvieto, where by a special grace we saw high above the altar, 
 like a vision of the Holy Grail vouchsafed to the Knights of old, 
 the enamelled reliquary that holds the fragments of the True 
 Cross. . . . 
 
 Do you ever think of the little flat on the Monte Tarpeo, and 
 of the view, perhaps the noblest in the world, which would at 
 times be lifted by music beyond the conditions of time and space ? 
 How poignantly these memories and impressions crowded upon us 
 as we left Rome that June morning of last year ; yet how swiftly 
 regrets yielded to the magic of the hour, as we were borne through 
 the sunlit Campagna and the hill towns of Latium to the noonday 
 rest at Benedictine Monte Cassino, whence you had written to me 
 a year before ^ one could do great things here.' The beauty of the 
 Italian afternoon mellowed as we passed from Latin to Greek 
 lands, and reached the gracious hospitality of the villa embowered 
 in the ilex groves of Posilippo. A few days more and white sails 
 were bearing us over a summer sea from Sicilian to Ionian waters, 
 to your first glimpse of Greece. . . . 
 
 It was thus in memory of our Roman friendship that I first 
 wished to dedicate to you this little book, and also because while 
 I was endeavouring to convey to my audiences in America some- 
 thing of what I conceived the spirit of Rome to mean to our modern 
 world, you were putting into practice the Roman virtues of dis- 
 cipline and endurance during the first months of your military 
 service. Little did either of us guess that when I revised the 
 lectures for publication it would be during weeks of alternating 
 hopes and fears, relieved by trust in the alliance of your country 
 
ENVOI vii 
 
 and of mine in the cause of liberty, lit up by the brave confidence 
 of your letters which confirmed what we already knew in our 
 hearts of the valour of yourself and your Dragoons. On that 
 fateful night of July $ist you had ridden out of Reims with 
 France^ s vanguard, a simple Cavalier (paene miles !) ; since then 
 you have twice won your promotion. It is with affectionate pride, 
 therefore, that I inscribe beneath your name the grade you have 
 fust won by an act of great bravery on the battlefield. Once again 
 have you proved yourself worthy to serve in one of the proudest 
 regiments of France, 
 
 Dragons que Rome eitt pris pour des legionnaires. 
 * * * * 
 
 The news of your fresh promotion to the grade of Lieutenant, 
 and of your decision to pass into the Infantry for the sake of more 
 continuous work in the trenches, comes as I correct this proof. 
 But I like to think that you would wish me to retain the original 
 superscription in remembrance of a sharply defined phase of your 
 life. 
 
 Feb. 27, 191 5. E. S. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 During the fall of 1913 it was my high privilege, as 
 lecturer on the Charles Eliot Norton foundation of 
 the Archaeological Institute of America, to speak on 
 the subject of the Roman Empire and of Roman art 
 and religion before about twenty-five centres of the 
 Institute, before the Universities of Wisconsin and 
 Princeton, the Colleges of Brynmawr, Wellesley and 
 Vassar, and in the Lecture Hall of the Metropolitan 
 Museum of New York. These Lectures form the 
 basis of the present book. To my audiences I would 
 like to record my thanks for their cordial and en- 
 couraging reception, and in a more personal manner 
 I would thank the President of the Archaeological 
 Institute, Professor Shipley of the Washington Uni- 
 versity, St. Louis, and its indefatigable Secretary, Dr. 
 Mitchell Carroll of Washington. I may add that my 
 choice of subject was determined in the first instance 
 by the belief that any discussion, however modest 
 and restricted in compass, concerned with doctrines 
 of Apotheosis and of the Soul's ultramundane destiny, 
 would be welcomed by audiences, many of whom 
 had listened the previous year to M. Cumont's 
 lectures on Astrology and Religion, now embodied in 
 the brilliant book that we all know. 
 
 The lecture on the Apotheosis has developed by 
 
X APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 slow degrees out of a lecture on the influence of the 
 Imperial figure on later decorative art, given before 
 the Architectural Society of Oxford as far back as 
 1908. In the same way, the lectures on the After 
 Life are the expansion of some three pages on the tomb- 
 stones of the Roman Provinces of Central Europe 
 which appeared in the first number of the Journal of 
 Roman Studies in connection with the Exhibition of 
 the art of the Roman Provinces at the Baths of Dio- 
 cletian in 191 1. In both cases the long prelude on 
 the similar problems of Greek art seemed necessary 
 in order to determine more closely than is usually 
 the case in lecture-rooms and handbooks, the precise 
 debt of Rome to Greece and the originality of her own 
 contribution. In their present expanded form the 
 lectures were repeated at Rome in the spring of this 
 year before the students of our British School, which 
 in part accounts for the delay in the publication of 
 the book. 
 
 The subjects of the two lectures, though akin, are 
 approached from a somewhat different standpoint. 
 In the first lecture I have tried to account for the 
 centralised formula that appears in late Imperial 
 reliefs by showing the role played by the cult of the 
 Emperor in the formation of what appears to be a new 
 type of composition. Primarily, therefore, this is a 
 study of certain phases of antique design. The two 
 lectures on the ' Symbolism of the After Life,' on the 
 other hand, represent the attempt to disentangle the 
 various strains of thought and belief, whether native 
 or foreign, that went to the shaping of the magni- 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 ficent sepulchral imagery of the Empire. The lectures, 
 which, as the Introductory Address shows, are speci- 
 ally intended for students, are put forward much in 
 the form in which they were delivered, so that I trust 
 that their many deficiencies may be ascribed not to 
 ignorance only, but to the want of space and oppor- 
 tunity for a fuller treatment. In the notes, at least, 
 I hope I have made up for certain unavoidable 
 omissions from the text, and should like to add that 
 the present book is only preparatory to another 
 in which I project to exhibit on a more extended 
 canvas the complicated and intercrossing influences 
 which flowed into the art of Rome. 
 
 Of the books dealing with Roman subjects which 
 have appeared since the lectures were delivered in 
 America, I should like to mention with special grati- 
 tude Mr. Warde-Fowler's Roman Ideas of Deity. To 
 it I owe, with much else, a clearer understanding of 
 that monotheistic current in Roman religion which is, 
 I believe, responsible for certain fundamental charac- 
 teristics of Roman art which the cult of the Emperor 
 later helped to bring to mature expression. 
 
 Without the full complement of illustrations made 
 possible in the lecture-room by the use of the lantern, 
 the lectures may appear inconclusive, but I have done 
 my best, with the liberal help of the publishers, to 
 illustrate the monuments most essential to my 
 theme ; for the rest I have endeavoured to give refer- 
 ences to publications easily accessible, such as M. S. 
 Reinach's Repertoire de Reliefs, which should be at 
 every student's elbow. 
 
xii APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 I am only too well aware that I court publication 
 at a moment when all our thoughts are diverted 
 by present anxiety from studies of an academic 
 nature, and not least from everything that touches 
 antiquity. Yet a time of probation which has called 
 forth Roman ideals of national life and personal 
 conduct is, after all, one when an attempt to gauge 
 some of the causes that moulded the aspirations of 
 Rome may not prove useless or out of place. 
 
 My thanks are due to His Excellency Don Ramon 
 Pina y Millet, Spanish Ambassador to the Quirinal, 
 for permission to photograph and reproduce here the 
 large sarcophagus in the Palazzo Barberini repre- 
 senting a scene of apotheosis ; to Mr. A. H. Smith 
 for leave to illustrate several monuments in his 
 Department, including the fine Flavian medallion- 
 portrait recently acquired by the British Museum 
 and still unpublished ; to the Commandant Emile 
 Esperandieu, to Mr. O. M. Dalton and to Dr. E. 
 Krueger for the loan of valuable photographs. 
 
 I recall with gratitude the generous help given 
 me by Mrs. Arundell Esdaile in getting the lectures 
 into book shape ; by Miss C. Amy Hutton, who, on 
 my departure from England to Rome, relieved me of 
 all anxiety with regard to the illustrations ; and by 
 Dr. Ashby, Director of the British School at Rome, 
 in the correction of the proofs. 
 
 EUGENIE STRONG. 
 
 Rome, March 1915. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ENVOI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . 
 
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS . . . . 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS: ROME AND THE 
 PRESENT STATE OF ROMAN STUDIES 
 
 LECTURE I : THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE IM- 
 PERIAL FIGURE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON 
 DESIGN 
 
 LECTURE II : SYMBOLISM OF THE AFTER LIFE 
 ON THE GRAVESTONES OF THE LATER 
 ROMAN EMPIRE .... 
 
 LECTURE III : THE AFTER LIFE {continued) 
 
 NOTES 
 
 ADDENDA . 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 V 
 
 30 
 
 181 
 
 280 
 28s 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ,. I. The Emperor Justinian — i. Silver Disc in 
 
 Petrograd. 2. Gold Medallion formerly in Paris Frontispiece 
 "II. An Imperial Lady and her Children (Glass 
 
 Medallion) — Brescia . . . To face page \ 
 
 . III. An Imperial Proclamation and an Imperial 
 Largesse — Arch of Constantine. Portrait of 
 Diocletian — Spalato . . . . „ 34 - 
 
 -IV. Maiestas Christi— Chartres . . . „ 36 
 
 ^V. I. Selene (Greek Vase in Berlin). 2. Sol (Greek 
 
 Phalera in the British Museum) . . • » 38 
 
 ^VI, I. Gorgon from Temple in Corfu. 2. Sug- 
 gested Reconstruction of Pediment of Temple . „ 40 
 -VII. Apotheosis of Julius Caesar (Altar in the 
 
 Vatican) . . . . . . „ 64 
 
 -^III, Two Reliefs from Altar in the Vatican . „ 66 
 ^.IX. I. The Grand Cam^e de France. 2. Coins 
 
 with Apotheosis of Sabina and of Faustina „ 70 
 "X. The Abdication of Jupiter — Benevento . „ 86 
 
 XI. Apotheosis of Marcus Aurelius — Vienna (from 
 
 Ephesus) . . . . . . „ 90 
 
 XII. I. The Emperor Honorius — Aosta. 2. The 
 Christ between Romanus and Eudocia — 
 Paris ........ 102 
 
 XIII. I. Valens and Valentinian — Vienna. 2. Val- 
 
 entinian with his Troops — Geneva . . „ 104 
 
 XIV. I. An Imperial Triad (Theodosius and his 
 
 Sons), Silver Disc in Madrid. 2. The Marriage 
 
 of David, Silver Disc, Nikosia . . • „ 106 
 
xvi APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 -''^^ XV. 1. Sarcophagus of Haghia Triada (Detail) 
 — Museum of Candia. 2. Two Scenes of 
 Apotheosis : — {a) From the Chariot of 
 Monteleone. {b) From the Sarcophagus of 
 Haghia Triada .... To face page il'^ 
 
 '^ XVI. I. Stele from Chrysapha — Berlin. 2. Greek 
 
 Stele — Grottaferrata . . . . „ 130 
 
 'XVII. I. Stele of Lyseas — Athens. 2. Stele of 
 
 Archippos — Cook Coll., Richmond . . „ 132 
 
 XVIII. Scene at a Tomb (Attic Lekythos)— Boston . ,,134 
 
 XIX. Sarcophagus from Clazomenae (Detail) — 
 
 British Museum . . . . • » 144 
 
 ' XX. Scene at a Tomb (Stele from Xanthos) — British 
 
 Museum . . . . . • ?» 150 
 
 '^ XXI. The Banquet of the Apotheosis — Con- 
 stantinople . . . . . „ 156 
 XXII. Recumbent Sepulchral Statue of a Boy 
 
 — Rome (Terme) . . . . „ 172 
 
 / XXIII. Funeral of a Roman Military Official — 
 
 Amiternum . . . . • „ 175 
 
 /XXIV. I. Tombstone of a Centurion — Graz. 2. 
 
 Tombstone of Flavian Period — British 
 
 Museum . . . . . • » 184 
 
 ^ XXV. A Family Group— Museum of Arlon . . „ 196 
 
 XXVI. Satyr and Maenad— Museum of Arlon . „ 200 
 
 XXVII. Two Family Repasts— Museum of Arlon . ,,218 
 
 .. XXVIII. 1. Selene (ReHef from Argos)— British Museum. 
 
 2. Sepulchral Urn (Detail)— British Museum „ 220 
 
 . XXIX. The Igel Monument near Treves . . „ 222 
 
 XXX. Apotheosis of Heracles — Igel . . „ 224 
 
 XXXI. Apotheosis of a Roman Emperor— British 
 
 Museum . . . . . • ,, 226 
 
 -'XXXII. Apotheosis on a Sarcophagus in the 
 
 Palazzo Barberini . . . ... 228 
 
ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 ROME AND THE PRESENT STATE OF ROMAN STUDIES 
 
 I. Modern Views and Controversies touching Roman ^^°^ 
 Art. The Pan-Orientalists ... 2 
 
 II. Criticism of the Pan-Oriental Theory. Attempted 
 
 Estimate of Rome's Relation to the East . . 5 
 
 III. Character of Roman Art — 
 
 (a) In Pre- Augustan Times . . .10 
 
 (1^) The Art of the Empire . . .13 
 
 IV. Proposed Treatment of Subjects chosen to illus- 
 
 trate Roman Imperial Art . . . .14 
 
 V. Necessity for keeping in View the 'Contributing 
 
 Factors ' of Roman Art , . . .17 
 
 VI, Spirit in which our Studies should be approached. 
 
 Some Pitfalls . . . . .19 
 
 VII. The Present and the Future of Roman Studies . 26 
 
 LECTURE I 
 
 DIVVS AVGVSTVS : THE INFLUENCE OF THE IMPERIAL 
 APOTHEOSIS ON ANTIQUE DESIGN 
 
 I. The Problem . . . . . 30 
 
 II. Centralised Composition in Roman, Mediaeval and 
 
 Christian Art contrasted . . . -33 
 
 III. Centralisation of Design in Greek Art — 
 
 (a) From the earliest Period to the Pediments 
 
 of Olympia . . .. -39 
 
 (d) The Pediments of the Parthenon. Pedi- 
 
 mental Composition in the Fourth Century 47 
 
xviii APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 {c) Character of Greek Religion responsible for 
 the Character of Greek Art. Influence of 
 a Pantheon . . . .49 
 
 {(i) Weakness and Strength of Greek Design 
 further illustrated from Panel Compositions 
 and Friezes . . . -53 
 
 IV. Tendencies of Greek Design in the Hellenistic 
 
 Period ...... 56 
 
 V. Hellenistic Art in Rome . . . .58 
 
 VI. The Imperial Apotheosis and Deification as a Theme 
 
 of Art ...... 60 
 
 VII. The Monuments of the Apotheosis and kindred 
 
 Works from Augustus to the End of the Julio- 
 Claudian Dynasty — 
 (a) The Imperial Idea in Augustan Art . . 65 
 
 {b) The influence of Augustan Art upon Popular 
 
 Imagination . . . '75 
 
 {c) Characteristics of Roman Art favourable to 
 
 Expression of the Imperial Idea . . 77 
 
 {d) Principles of Roman Design in the Service of 
 
 the Imperial Idea . . . -79 
 
 VIII. Centralisation of Design from the Flavians to the 
 
 Close of the Dynasty of the Severi . . 83 
 
 IX. The Principate of Hadrian to the Severi . . 88 
 
 X. The Period of Diocletian and Constantine. The 
 
 Christ gradually usurps the Place of the Emperor 
 
 as the Central Theme of Design . . .94 
 
 XI. From Constantine to Justinian, Persistence of 
 
 Imperial Figure as the Central Motive of Design. 
 
 Summary . . . . . . 103 
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 THE SYMBOLISM OF THE AFTER LIFE ON 
 LATE ROMAN TOMBSTONES 
 
 I. The Subject . . . . .112 
 
 II. The Origin of the Gravestone traced to Fear of the 
 
 Ghost . . . . . .114 
 
ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 III. Origin of Sepulchral Imagery . . .121 
 
 IV. Conceptions of the After Life on Mycenaean and 
 
 Peloponnesian Stelae . . . . ia8 
 
 V. The Attic Reaction. Character of Attic Sepulchral 
 Imagery — 
 (a) Traces of Beliefs in an After Life in certain 
 
 Attic Stelae . . . .134 
 
 (3) After Life Beliefs in Attic Vase Pictures . 137 
 (c) General Trend of Attic Thought with regard 
 
 to Death ..... 138 
 VI. The Sepulchral Imagery of Asia Minor — 
 
 (a) General Character . . . .142 
 
 (^) Scenes of Apotheosis and After Life on 
 Sarcophagi from Cyprus and from Clazo- 
 menae. The Chariot of Monteleone . 144 
 
 (c) Sepulchral Imagery of Lycia . . .148 
 
 {d) Chios. The Sarcophagi of Sidon. Character 
 
 of Ionian Art . . . • ^53 
 
 VII. Graeco- Asiatic Stelae of the Hellenistic Period . 157 
 VIII. Figured Tombstones in Greek Lands outside Asia 
 
 Minor and Attica . . . . -159 
 
 IX. The Sepulchral Art of the Romans from Primitive 
 Times to the Augustan Era — 
 (a) Prehistoric Rome and Latium . .162 
 
 (^) From the early Fifth Century to the End of 
 
 the Republic . . . .166 
 
 {c) From the End of the Republic to Augustus . 1 70 
 
 LECTURE III 
 
 THE AFTER LIFE {continued) 
 
 I. Symbolism of the Apotheosis of the Soul. The Eagle 
 
 and the Wreath . . , . . 181 
 
 II. Influence of Mithraism on Sepulchral Imagery — 
 
 (a) The Mithraic Legend . . .187 
 
 {b) Mithraic Symbols on Roman Tombstones . 191 
 
 III. Orphic and Dionysiac Symbolism . . .197 
 
XX APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IV. The Dioscuri, Heracles and Aeneas, as Emblems of 
 the Wanderings and Triumph of the Soul. Death 
 conceived as a Sacred Marriage. Retrospect . 201 
 V. Excursus on the Imagery of Tombs in Rome . 205 
 
 VI. Minor Symbolism of the Stelae. Scenes from Daily 
 
 Life . . . . . .214 
 
 VII. The Monument at Igel. Summary and Conclusion 222 
 
PLATE II. 
 
 An Imperial Lady and her Children. 
 Glass Medallion. Brescia. 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO 
 STUDENTS 
 
 ROME AND THE PRESENT STATE OF ROMAN 
 STUDIES 
 
 O Roma nobilis 
 Orbis et domina 
 Cunctarum urbium 
 Excellentissima. 
 
 Mediaeval Hyjnn. 
 
 I WELCOME the opportunity of offering a few general 
 remarks on the present state of Roman studies all the 
 more gladly that when I come to the special subjects 
 of the lectures I shall be able to unfold them, so to 
 speak, against a prepared background, and you will 
 be able to realise more easily perhaps than might 
 otherwise be the case, the range of phenomena to 
 which they belong. 
 
 No modern development of Classical studies is, I 
 think, more striking than the new sympathetic ap- 
 preciation of the art of the Roman Empire, though 
 the value placed upon this art varies, and its origi- 
 nality has been most violently impugned. This 
 newly awakened interest flows no doubt from a larger 
 Imperialistic movement which turns to Rome once 
 more as to the forerunner of its own aspirations. 
 
 A 
 
2 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 What has happened is not so much a revival as a 
 quickening of interest in ideals which never entirely 
 died out. Though bereft of political power, Rome, 
 as our mediaeval hymn reminds us, remained Orhis 
 domina to the imagination of the Middle Ages. The 
 Renaissance is heralded by Dante's vision of a re- 
 formed Imperialism which should revive the old 
 Roman and Stoic ideal of a city of men, with the 
 Emperor to direct the human race to ' temporal 
 felicity in accordance with the teaching of philosophy,' 
 and Imperialism in one form or other has continued 
 to fire the imagination of mankind and dominates our 
 era with a new prestige. Year by year we see an in- 
 crease in the number of books and lectures dealing 
 with Roman ideas and their application to the pro- 
 blem of Empire to-day. Archaeology and the history 
 of art have naturally come in for their share of this 
 revival, and while the scholar gains a fresh conception 
 of ancient Rome from the monuments on which her 
 history is hewn in imperishable shapes, the artist 
 feels inspired by those same monuments to seek for 
 new and enduring formulas, wherewith he may 
 clothe the ideals of a modern world. 
 
 I. Modern Views and Controversies touching 
 
 Roman Art. The Pan-Orientalists 
 To-day I propose first to attempt a brief survey of 
 the stage reached by the burning controversy as to 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 3 
 
 the origins of the art of Imperial Rome, and to follow 
 up these remarks by touching, though perforce more 
 briefly still, on the value which her past bestows upon 
 modern Rome as a centre of study. I must begin by 
 trying to define what is meant by Roman art. The 
 task is not an easy one. In spite of the fact that the 
 importance of the subject is now fully recognised, the 
 difficulties which attend its study seem to increase 
 rather than to lessen with every new discovery and 
 every fresh point of view. Scholars now concede that 
 the art produced under the Roman rule has a place 
 in the long evolution of artistic form ; and that, in 
 the centuries which followed the establishment of the 
 Empire, accepted formulas were revivified by adap- 
 tation to new political and religious ideals, and 
 finally quickened into new and vigorous life by the 
 spread of Christianity. Nevertheless deep-rooted 
 superstition dies hard : 
 
 The old dragon underground 
 
 Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. 
 
 The prejudice against Roman art as inferior still lives, 
 and, lurking even under the latest speculation, rears 
 its head in a new and subtle form. The art of the 
 Roman Empire is no longer dismissed as a last un- 
 important chapter in the history of the decadent 
 antique ; the endeavour is now to prove that this art 
 was not Roman at all. If, to quote a sentence which 
 
4 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 has become proverbial, there was not only decadence 
 in the ' three first centuries of the Empire but also 
 progress along an ascending line,' a militant school 
 led by Josef Strzygowski^ claims this progress as 
 the effect of foreign influences and allows to Rome 
 only the heritage of decadence. These look upon 
 Greece as outworn in the time of the Empire, and 
 upon Rome as sterile ; and trace back the new artistic 
 forms corresponding to new spiritual needs to the 
 Graeco-Oriental cities of Asia Minor or of Egypt, to 
 Syria, to that Asiatic hinterland which looms so large 
 in modern archaeological speculation. Moreover, the 
 controversy has now assumed a double aspect. For 
 the celebrated war-cry, ' Orient or Rome,' with which 
 Strzygowski opened his campaign against the Roman 
 school, he soon instituted that of * Orient or Byzan- 
 tium ' in the attack which now extends to Rome's 
 successor, Byzantium, whose position as a long ac- 
 knowledged centre of artistic inspiration is likewise 
 threatened. The Pan-Orientalists will not admit that 
 any new ideas flowed from the New any more than 
 from the Old Rome, or, as their leader puts it, * the 
 accession of fresh ideals seems insignificant in com- 
 parison with the fund of ideas received.' ^ These 
 views receive the warm support of many important 
 modern writers on the subject of Oriental religions. 
 In the first chapter of his Religions Orientates dans 
 le Paganisme Romain, Cumont, whose introductory 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 5 
 
 remarks I shall venture to paraphrase, asserts that 
 the Western peoples who have hitherto gloried in 
 being the direct heirs of Imperial Rome must abandon 
 their aristocratic pretensions, and learn to bow their 
 heads before the once despised East, from which they 
 derive so pre-eminent a share of their intellectual 
 and artistic patrimony ; and he proceeds to picture 
 the Orient as penetrating the West, not indeed, as 
 used to be thought, through the fascination which an 
 old and corrupt civilisation necessarily exerts over 
 one less mature, but, on the contrary, in virtue of a 
 renewed vigour which enabled the East to endow the 
 failing Graeco- Roman peoples with new technical 
 resources, with artistic skill and intelligence, and 
 with the crowning gift of science. 
 
 II. Criticism of the Pan-Oriental Theory. At- 
 tempted Estimate of Rome's Relation to 
 THE East 
 
 While a leading part is thus assigned to the East 
 in the formation of later Classical and early Christian 
 art, Rome as a contributing factor is thrown back into 
 the shade and sometimes left altogether out of count. 
 In addition to this, a small minority — unimportant 
 perhaps save for their violence — have tried of late to 
 return to the old point of attack, by representing 
 Rome as a brutalising influence in the development 
 
6 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 of the antique. Let us try to arrive at some saner 
 view of our own. 
 
 Old-fashioned archaeologists have been not unjustly 
 reproached with adopting too easy a solution when 
 they represented the growth of the antique by the 
 direct line — Greek — Roman — Christian, yet it seems 
 an equally artificial formula that represents Greece, 
 with Rome tacked on to her as a negligible aftermath, 
 as a concrete and self-contained episode slowly sub- 
 merged by the vast wave of Oriental influence. Such 
 phrases as ' Greece and Rome die smothered in the 
 Orient's embrace ' are admirable catchwords, but 
 they do not represent the infinitely complex factors 
 that went to build up the art which flourished under 
 the Roman Empire. On the other hand, the claim 
 that an Imperial art originated at Rome under 
 Augustus which spread its influence to the utmost 
 confines of the antique world was equally exaggerated.^ 
 We now see that the vast culture of the Roman 
 Empire, emanating from nations in the most diverse 
 stages of civilisation and of intellectual development, 
 could not have radiated from one point only. It is 
 more in keeping with the facts to say that Rome 
 encouraged national development by her Imperial 
 policy and then gathered into her service the diverse 
 phases of art fostered by her regime. At the same 
 time, in discussing Rome as distinct from the Empire 
 we may still reasonably assert that she ranked from 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 7 
 
 Augustus onwards as a centre of artistic activity by 
 the side of Alexandria, of Antioch, of Seleucia herself ; 
 that it is no more incorrect to speak of Roman than of 
 Pergamene, Alexandrian, Antiochene or Seleucid art, 
 though Rome was by no means the only centre of 
 Roman Imperial art. It is true that when we have 
 established a legitimate claim to speak of Roman art 
 we have to acknowledge on historical evidence alone 
 that the East must have played a major part in its 
 formation. Artists and architects, craftsmen and 
 workmen of every description flowed into the great 
 capital from the Eastern provinces of the Empire, 
 sometimes attracted by the building operations of 
 successive Emperors, at others returning in the train 
 of the conquerors. We hear that after the Mithri- 
 datic wars and the reduction of Syria, Pompey brought 
 gangs of Syrian workmen to carry out his building 
 plans ; Augustus himself wished, it is said, to remodel 
 Rome upon Alexandria ; Trajan entrusted his vast 
 engineering and architectural operations to the Syrian 
 ApoUodorus. Long before Trajan's reign, numerous 
 Syrians must have drifted to Rome in consequence of 
 the Flavian conquest of Palestine ; it is not yet 
 known what influence went to shape the profoundly 
 original genius of Rabirius, the architect of the Flavian 
 Emperors, but it seems probable that Vespasian 
 and Titus were inspired by some kingly residence 
 seen in the East to plan the famous Domus Flavia of 
 
8 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 the Palatine. This Syrianising process recalls what 
 happened in Europe at the time of the Crusades. 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, for instance, found the model 
 for his great fortress of Chateau Gaillard in the forti- 
 fied strongholds of Syria, and the Crusades had an 
 effect on the marvellous art of the thirteenth century 
 analogous to that exerted by the East on the art of 
 the Empire.^ Rome assimilated what she borrowed, 
 and in spite of her debt to both Oriental and Hellenic 
 models, her art, whether Imperial or Republican, 
 developed on lines of its own, and is without exact 
 parallel or counterpart in either Greece or the East. 
 However mixed the parentage, the offspring grew up 
 in a way of its own, and even rendered back with 
 interest the forms taken over from older peoples. 
 Miss Gertrude Bell, for instance, in the admirable 
 chapter on the ' Genesis of the Early Mohammedan 
 Palace ' in her book on Ukhaidir, writes as follows of 
 the origin of vaulted construction : 
 
 In the second half of the third century, vaults with 
 similar characteristics appear under Hellenistic influence 
 in central Italy, where, after the middle of the second 
 century, they underwent a development to which the 
 Hellenistic East can offer no parallel. At the end of the 
 second century, while Latin builders threw their stone 
 vaults securely over a span of 14" 50 metres, as in the 
 Ponte di Cecco on the Via Salaria, and even of 1850 
 metres, as in the Pons Milvius, the Greeks of Asia Minor 
 did not venture to use a span wider than 7*10 metres, and 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 9 
 
 confined themselves as a rule to vaults under 4 metres in 
 span. It was now the part of the East to learn from Im- 
 perial Rome.'* Western Asia took back its own creation 
 from the hands of Roman builders in the vast proportions 
 which the proficiency of the latter had given to it, and 
 over the whole of the Roman Empire the monumental 
 vault sprang into being. The earliest extant examples 
 on Mesopotamian soil are the great vaults of the palace 
 at Hatra.5 
 
 This intelligent and lucid statement, contributed, 
 moreover, by one who is an ardent disciple of Strzy- 
 gowski, should go far to restore the lost equipoise 
 between East and West as contributing factors in the 
 formation of the architecture of the Empire. It is 
 in striking contrast to the violent language in which 
 a recent writer condemns the architectural effort of 
 Rome.® Every one is welcome to his own opinion 
 expressed in his own way, even if it lead him to ridicule 
 the daring concrete vaulting of the Empire by com- 
 paring it to the * lid of a saucepan ' ; but to do this 
 while ignoring the sober and solid vaulting systems 
 of the Republican period, which may still be seen in 
 the arches of the Pons Milvius or the beautiful Ponte 
 di Nona, is at once bad history and bad criticism, 
 much as if we were to take the Pergamene marbles as 
 the supreme and final expression of the Greek genius 
 in art, without so much as a reference to the art of the 
 Parthenon and of the age of Pericles. Again, is it 
 
 * The italics are mine. 
 
10 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 necessary to exalt the undeniable perfection of Santa 
 Sophia — as much, be it said in passing, a building 
 of the Empire and of a Roman Emperor as any 
 Augustan temple by the Tiber — by decrying the less 
 mature architecture of the Roman Thermae ? Yet 
 since Rivoira's researches few will deny that the 
 masterly suspension of the dome of Santa Sophia 
 above its pendentives was only rendered possible by 
 the attempts made in this direction by Roman archi- 
 tects in the Baths of Caracalla and of Diocletian. 
 * Jamais le genie de Rome et celui de F Orient ne 
 s'associerent dans un plus surprenant et plus har- 
 monieux ensemble,' says the illustrious French archi- 
 tect, Choisy, of Santa Sophia, and at that, I think, 
 we can leave it {Histoire de V Architecture, ii. 51). 
 
 III. Character of Roman Art 
 
 {a) In Pre-Augustan Times 
 
 In point of fact, Roman Imperial art is neither so 
 individual nor yet so Graeco-Oriental in character as 
 the extremists of either party would have us believe ; 
 nor, again, is it merely Greek of the decadence, as the 
 archaeologists of a generation now rapidly passing 
 away were wont to teach ; but different strata meet 
 and mingle in it, and to learn to distinguish between 
 these is the true task of criticism. The term * An- 
 tique ' embracing Greece and Rome as the main 
 factors of one mighty artistic m^ovement, was after all 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS ii 
 
 exact. The old error lay not in linking Rome to 
 Greece, but in representing the Greek or Hellenistic 
 element in Roman art as an accession of the Augustan, 
 or of the late Republican period. On the contrary, 
 Hellenistic art transplanted to Rome flourished anew 
 in a soil long prepared to receive it, a fact which has 
 been overlooked in all our histories, where, until 
 lately, Augustan art followed directly upon Hellen- 
 istic, with rarely so much as a glance at that of Re- 
 publican Rome or ancient Latium which we are only 
 beginning to understand and appreciate. 
 
 This early Italic art, as it is convenient to call it, 
 to a great extent derives from Greek, and more 
 especially Ionian art, but it lacks many of the fasci- 
 nating qualities of its models. At times it clings to 
 tradition with an obstinacy almost Egyptian, at others 
 it adopts Greek ideas with headlong enthusiasm. 
 Beside the more finished and measured achievements 
 of Greece, early art in Rome appears somewhat 
 prosaic and pedestrian. It sinks on occasion to the 
 provincial level ; it has the heavy earnestness, the 
 sturdy conservatism of a community remote from the 
 centres of intellectual activity and production, which 
 the art of the Empire itself did not wholly shake off ; 
 but it has also the sterling qualities of the provincial 
 spirit, solidity, and that prudent reliance on tradition 
 which by preserving primitive forms by the side of 
 the innovations introduced from Greece, evolved in 
 
12 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 time such architectural masterpieces as the round 
 temples — the temple of Vesta in the Forum, the temple 
 of the Sibyl at Tivoli, the Pantheon itself — noble 
 structures which, as has so often been indicated, 
 can be traced back step by step through the cen- 
 turies to the round huts of the Neolithic peoples of 
 Italy. 
 
 The art forms of Latium and Etruria gave way in 
 part to those of Greece, and these in their turn to 
 influences imported from the South or East, which 
 Rome passed on again with her advancing legions to 
 every nation that came within her Empire. But the 
 old was never wholly swallowed up by the new ; it 
 was the peculiar quality of Roman art as of Roman 
 religion to be at the same time conservative and hos- 
 pitable. Primitive customs and the most primitive 
 of magical ceremonies were so strong even in the 
 Rome of Ovid's day that they permeate his Graecised 
 conceptions of religion and literature. We shall 
 therefore not be surprised to find that the conservative 
 Roman, when faced with the necessity of expressing 
 the relation of the deified Emperor to his people — 
 if I may illustrate my meaning from the subject of 
 my first lecture — recurs for the central figure of the 
 State to the primitive ' frontality ' which had never 
 been altogether lost to Roman art even at its most 
 Hellenising period. 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 13 
 
 (b) The Art of the Empire 
 
 The fate of Hellenism itself might have been very 
 different had Roman surroundings, like those of 
 Egypt, for instance, been uncongenial to its develop- 
 ment. In discussing the relatively trivial achieve- 
 ments of Ptolemaic art, Mr. Hogarth has admirably 
 said : * Greek art came to Egypt to vivify, and stayed 
 to die.' ' Precisely the reverse took place in Rome. 
 Here Greek art neither decayed nor died, but stayed 
 to live, and was itself vivified by contact with Roman 
 ideals on the one hand, and on the other with the 
 fresh influences which Rome herself, as we have seen, 
 derived from the East. The chief phases of the new 
 activity were the ages of Augustus and the Flavians, 
 of Trajan and the Antonines. A period of com- 
 parative sterility followed, due in great measure to 
 political reasons and the absence of that incentive to 
 production which comes with conquest and military 
 glory. But a reaction for the better set in once more 
 under Aurelian and Diocletian, induced by the vic- 
 torious campaigns of these Emperors in the East. 
 In this period the East began to play the leading 
 part which in earlier days had been that of Greece ; 
 the result was a first great outburst of activity under 
 Diocletian, and its eventual outcome the splendid 
 massive art of the fourth century, of which I shall have 
 much to say to you in the lectures. From the begin- 
 
14 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ning Rome stood to Greece, to Ionia, and the Nearer 
 East as these in turn stood to Persia and Meso- 
 potamia, until Rome became a World-Empire and 
 could draw her own inspiration direct from the Orient. 
 But that is no reason for denying that the various 
 influences were refashioned in the service of Rome 
 till they emerged, both in the city itself and in the 
 provinces, as what may still be justly called Roman 
 Imperial Art. 
 
 IV. Proposed Treatment of Subjects chosen to 
 
 ILLUSTRATE ROMAN IMPERIAL ArT 
 
 In what follows, my endeavour is to show in two 
 concrete instances how Greek and Oriental influences 
 combined with certain Roman strains to express new 
 ideals. One typical example is afforded, I think, by 
 the slow transformation of the traditional schemes 
 of antique design brought about by the necessity of 
 giving prominence to the deified or quasi-deified figure 
 of the Emperor, who had by slow degrees become the 
 central theme of the religious art of the Empire. 
 In the two lectures on the symbolism of the After 
 Life on Greek and Roman tombstones I shall try to 
 show how the religious ideas of Greece and Rome, 
 quickened by the strong current of the Oriental 
 religions which spread over the Empire, left in the 
 carved stelae of the Roman provinces the vivid record 
 of a new Faith. Western artistic formulas that seemed 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 15 
 
 exhausted were revivified by the magic touch of the 
 East ; and in the Western world a sepulchral imagery 
 developed which in the purity of its ideals and in 
 the strenuous expression of its faith in immortality 
 surpasses everything that the earlier antique had 
 attempted, and comes near to Christian icono- 
 graphy. In both cases I shall devote considerable 
 space to the Greek ideas involved, as inseparable 
 from the later purely Roman phase into which 
 they merged. 
 
 My hope as a teacher of the subject of Classical 
 Archaeology is that studies of this character may 
 help to heal that schism between Greece and Rome 
 which is instilled in their school-days even into those 
 brought up in modern methods, and which does more 
 than anything else to retard the progress of Classical 
 studies by weakening and falsifying our scientific 
 outlook on the past. At no time do we show ourselves 
 less Greek in spirit than when we repudiate as un- 
 wholesome that intellectual curiosity which was 
 among the rarest and most distinctive qualities of 
 the Greek mind, and shut ourselves up in satisfied 
 contemplation of the formulas which we have erected 
 into shibboleths. Greek studies have suffered no 
 less than Roman from this attitude of mind. By 
 setting up artificial barriers between what we imagine 
 to be Greek on the one side and Roman on the other, 
 we debar ourselves from observation of the infinitely 
 
i6 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 complex processes of development which unite the 
 two. 
 
 If I may permit myself a direct personal allusion, 
 it is to beg of you, should you ever think of me or 
 these lectures again, not to bring it up against me 
 that I pleaded for Roman at the expense of Greek 
 art. On the contrary, I have tried everywhere and 
 always, in what teaching I have been privileged to 
 give, to substitute for barren rhetorical contrasts 
 between Greece and Rome, evidence — based on facts 
 arranged as well as I knew how — of what Rome 
 owed to Greece, for so far this debt seems to me 
 very imperfectly ascertained or understood. In- 
 deed at the present moment I am compiling a 
 book — small in bulk, but covering a wide historical 
 area — in which the debt of Rome to Greece is traced 
 step by step. Do you suppose, that after long years 
 spent in study among the incomparable collection 
 of Greek masterpieces in our British Museum, I am 
 blind to Rome's and the world's debt to Greece ? 
 Above all, I realise Greece's infinitely clearer vision 
 of beauty, though I cannot help thinking that this 
 vision was attained by the sacrifice of certain things 
 pertaining to the spiritual world, which the Romans, 
 in spite of their more mediocre endowment as artists, 
 as poets, as thinkers, yet came to realise and to 
 express, partly in forms inherited from the Hellenic 
 Orient, partly also in others surviving from a primitive 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 17 
 
 stratum of religious art and religious belief. I like- 
 wise claim that in the process the Romans touched 
 at times the great heights of inspiration and achieve- 
 ment, though they left it to Christianity to bring to 
 a victorious issue in its mediaeval sculpture much for 
 which Rome could only pave the way. 
 
 V. Necessity for keeping in view the ' Contri- 
 buting Factors ' of Roman Art 
 
 One more point. From what I have said it might 
 be thought that I propose to consider Rome as the 
 unique centre of the artistic impulse of the Empire, 
 Far from it ; I merely claim the right to call Roman 
 any art form which seems to have been inspired or 
 transformed or invested with new meaning by the 
 ideas imposed by Rome — whether the subjects under 
 discussion be the superb type of the Defensor Fidei, 
 or of the Christian Maiestas — both of which are, I 
 admit, of Egyptian origin^ — or the Apotheosis with 
 its mixed Oriental and Hellenistic character. We 
 can see clearly in art as elsewhere how much Rome 
 gained by substituting for a narrow national ideal the 
 higher ideal of Empire. Let me repeat here a little 
 more fully what I have already indicated, namely, 
 that Rome never showed a greater or more intelligent 
 sense of her Imperial mission than in her encourage- 
 ment of the national characteristics of the conquered 
 races. It is here that the opponents of Roman art 
 
 B 
 
i8 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 come unwittingly to our assistance with theories that 
 are mutually destructive, for it is evident that if, as 
 one school asserts, the art of Rome is entirely non- 
 Roman, then Rome cannot have stamped out all 
 artistic impulse in the people she governed in order 
 brutally to impose her own formulas, as writers of 
 another school would have us believe. Instead of 
 crushing the different nationalities that came within 
 the pale of her Empire by the artificial imposition 
 of a Roman super-nationality, Rome encouraged 
 and developed their national life, and thus bestowed 
 upon them more permanent prosperity than could 
 have otherwise been theirs.^ Her Imperial reward, 
 as I hope I may be able to show you in the lectures, 
 was that the artistic formulas of diverse peoples 
 became devoted to the expression of the new Imperial 
 idea. More than six years ago, I said of the much 
 discussed Barberini ivory, that if this beautiful object 
 really was of Egyptian origin, ' it only illustrated once 
 more the compelling force of the Roman genius that 
 could gather up into its service the art-forms of the 
 different countries under its sway * {Roman Sculpture, 
 p. 346) . I am more than ever convinced that this is 
 the right point of view for looking at the artistic 
 achievement of the Roman Empire, and that in this 
 way the envenomed question * Orient or Rome,' 
 instead of running to acrid controversy, may lead to 
 illuminating results. 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 19 
 VI. Spirit in which our Studies should be 
 
 APPROACHED. SOME PiTFALLS 
 
 Students of Rome certainly have nothing to gain 
 by obscuring the truth as to the origins of her art 
 or of the manifold forms which it could command. 
 At this point you will perhaps allow me to say a few 
 words as to the spirit in which I conceive our studies 
 should be approached, and to warn you of certain 
 pitfalls against which young students, especially, 
 should ever be on their guard. First a word as to 
 the fashion still prevalent in our Classical teaching of 
 using the Romans as a foil to the Greeks. Perhaps 
 in America you have never fallen a prey to this bad 
 habit : it is certainly on the decrease on the Continent, 
 but we English cling to it stoutly. Let me take an 
 example from a book of great literary beauty which 
 has done a great deal towards restoring to us a saner 
 and juster appreciation of the Greek Genius. The 
 author cannot rid himself of the habit of heightening 
 the value of Greek endeavour by depreciating Roman 
 effort in parallel directions ; his estimate of Greek 
 literature is as admirable as everything which he says 
 of the Greeks, but listen to what, by way of comparing 
 the two literatures, he has to tell us of Rome's poetic 
 achievements : 
 
 The Romans took kindly to the literary pastoral and 
 the literary epic, and the sham didactic poem ; they 
 
20 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 revelled in the undigested mythology of another race. 
 They are imitative and second-hand, content to dispense 
 with a direct experience of life and transmit into their 
 own language the emotions and thoughts of others ; for 
 the most part their fingers do not touch the pulse of life. 
 Vergil's Pastorals and Georgics are charming ; his shep- 
 herds are sham ones and keep no sheep, nor are any 
 genuine labourers at work in his fields. Only Lucretius 
 among Latin poets will show us the hard struggle of man 
 with the earth. And if we only keep Vergil in selections, 
 we shall have some difficulty in keeping Ovid at all.^*^ 
 
 I confess that this airy way of treating Vergil 
 pierces me to the heart, for though I have little time in 
 which to improve classical attainments which were 
 always meagre, I yet try to read through Vergil once 
 every year, not only for the pure beauty of his poetry, 
 best appreciated if we read it In his own country face 
 to face with the landscapes that he loved, but because 
 it is the poetry of one who also understood certain 
 things of the spirit as none had quite done before, 
 and only one or two have done since .^^ I also know 
 all that Vergil means for the true understanding of 
 Augustan art and of the whole Latin civilisation ; ^^ 
 and as it is not often that archaeology comes to us in 
 poetic garb,^^ the idea of keeping Vergil only in 
 selections does not commend itself to me. You will 
 see in the sequel that I am myself not over tender 
 towards the ' undigested Greek mythology ' which 
 went to spoil so much of the artistic endeavour of 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 21 
 
 Rome, whether plastic or literary, by diverting it 
 into paths alien to its spirit. But however much we 
 may deplore the sinister effect which wholesale and 
 uncritical imitation of Greece and adoption of Greek 
 standards had upon the development of Roman art, 
 and I admit more especially upon Latin poetry, at 
 certain periods, that is again no reason for hurling an 
 indiscriminating thunderbolt at all her poets, and 
 including them in one catastrophic condemnation. 
 The futility of contrasts was long ago brought out 
 by Mr. J. W. Mackail in a fine sentence on the poetry 
 of Homer and Vergil, which I often like to quote to 
 students, it is so good a text to keep in view : 
 
 No great work of art can be usefully judged by com- 
 parison with any other great work of art. It may indeed 
 be interesting and fertile to compare one with another, in 
 order to seize more sharply and appreciate more vividly 
 the special beauty of each. But to press comparison 
 further, and to depreciate one because it has not what 
 is a special quality of the other, is to lose sight of the 
 function of criticism.^* 
 
 In spite of all efforts to combat it, the determination 
 to praise the Greek at the expense of the Roman 
 persists. At the close of one of his American lectures, 
 a distinguished Oxford scholar drew a comparison of 
 the civilisation and character of Greece and Rome 
 in which not only were the Greeks endowed with 
 all the amiable virtues, but what is more important 
 
22 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 In the bid for popularity, with the endearing and 
 sympathetic faults as well, while the Romans were 
 presented as 'severe, strong, well-disciplined, trust- 
 worthy, self-confident, self-righteous, unimaginative 
 and harsh,' ^^ not all of them agreeable qualities making 
 for pleasant intercourse, or again such as we fancied 
 specially characteristic of the Scipios, or of Cicero, 
 or of Augustus and Vergil and Catullus, but fairly 
 true perhaps of the race as a whole. So far so good, 
 but lest we should be left with one shred of sympathy 
 for the poor Roman, we are further told that he was 
 a * heavy feeder.' At what Roman is this shaft of 
 ridicule levelled ? If the feasts of Lucullus have 
 remained proverbial, what shall we say of Marcus 
 Aurelius' praise of abstinence ? Or not to trespass 
 beyond my own subject, do the harsh spare features 
 of the portraits of Republican date or the intellectual 
 and ascetic face of the Augustus from the Via Labi- 
 cana suggest ' heavy feeding ' ? The Roman Em- 
 perors are fairly well charged by now with every 
 vice of which humanity is capable, but even with 
 the help of the illuminating elogia affixed to their 
 busts in our British Museum, I have failed to find 
 the unromantic sin of gluttony attributed to any 
 Emperor save Claudius, that perpetual butt of 
 the irony of the historian, whether ancient or 
 modem. 
 
 ' They knew,' we are further told of the Greeks by 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 23 
 
 the same authority, ' what Rome as a whole did not 
 know, the inward meaning and the reverse side of 
 glory. They knew the bitterness of lost battles, the 
 sting of the master's lash ; they knew self- judgment 
 and self-contempt, amazement and despair.' I speak 
 always with diffidence as a mere student of the monu- 
 ments, but what of the Roman conception of defeat, 
 as we see it depicted on the column of Trajan ? 
 Where in earlier art do we find the pathos of failure 
 and the psychology of despair drawn with such un- 
 erring mastery, or the tenderness of the conqueror 
 towards the conquered more nobly delineated ? 
 I need only remind you of the incomparable scene 
 where Trajan, courteous and merciful like the great 
 commander that he was, receives the submission of 
 the Dacians at the close of the first war ; or that other 
 scene where he turns away with a noble gesture of 
 aversion from the soldiers who present to him the 
 heads of enemies as spoils ; or again, of the episode 
 within the walls of Sarmizegetusa, when the conquered 
 chiefs prefer poison to surrender. These * harsh ' 
 Romans understood the quality of mercy, and re- 
 membered the precept of their own poet whom a new 
 generation can only tolerate in selections : 
 
 haec tibi enint artes . . . parcere subiectis. 
 
 Indeed it always seems to me that the artists who 
 carved the Trajanic reliefs were inspired by that same 
 
24 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 sense of pity which Mr. J. W. Mackail justly observes 
 is the ' central charm of Vergil,' and that, like the 
 Augustan poet, they too could ' sound the depths 
 of beauty and sorrow, of patience and magnanimity, 
 of honour in life and hope beyond death.' As further 
 examples let me also recall to you the old Dacian 
 chief who turns away to hide his tears as he receives 
 the body of his dead son, and those many scenes 
 towards the close of the second war in which the 
 prowess and the endurance of Decebalus are held up 
 to admiration and respect. As much and sometimes 
 more imaginative sympathy is needed to realise 
 another's woe as to express one's own. 
 
 Remember also the pathos of the later Roman 
 portraiture, with its psychological insight, its tender 
 handling of moral or physical defects. Look at 
 certain Flavian and Antonine portraits ; at the 
 ' Aesop ' of the Villa Albani, or at the bust of the 
 young Marcus Aurelius in the Capitol ; at the por- 
 traits of the women of the Emesene dynasty ; at the 
 wonderful head of an old and wrinkled woman in 
 the Louvre, surmised to be the aged Helena, ' mother 
 and grandmother of Emperors,' and then tell me if 
 our hard and practical Romans had no sense of the 
 lacrimae rerum. 
 
 One more warning as to the habit of trotting out 
 certain conventional epithets, resembling set leit 
 Motivs, whenever the Romans or their achievements 
 
>[TRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 25 
 
 are discussed. Roman art and architecture, for in- 
 stance, invariably call forth the adjectives * practical ' 
 or * unimaginative ' even from writers who otherwise 
 are ardent apologists of Rome.^® Yet I maintain 
 that no people whose formative instinct failed to rise 
 beyond the ' practical ' could have created Roman 
 architecture or imparted even to works of utility 
 such as aqueducts, viaducts, bridges — the Pont du 
 Gard and the bridge of Alcantara — the inspired 
 character which brings them within the region of 
 great art. We are told that * in the works of their 
 hands and their brains they were not an imaginative 
 people.' But the Pantheon with its astonishing 
 dome, the Thermae of Caracalla and of Diocletian 
 where vast halls are spanned in a manner that has 
 moved to admiration every architect who knows 
 his business from Michael Angelo to our own times, 
 the Basilica Nova with its harmony of spaces and 
 its aerial cofferings reflected as it were in the 
 patterned marble of the pavement — are any of these, 
 I ask you, conceivable as the work of a people who 
 lacked the imaginative quality ? In archaeological 
 studies as elsewhere, traditional tricks of thought 
 and speech may result in warping the sanest judg- 
 ment ; as students you should ever bear in mind the 
 words of the Wisdom of Solomon, that crooked thoughts 
 separate from God. 
 
26 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 VII. The Present and the Future of 
 Roman Studies 
 
 I am well aware that the views I have ventured to 
 criticise survive only as traditional formulas bereft 
 of all driving force, and are therefore bound to pass 
 away. Already our histories of art give every year 
 a larger share to Rome's contribution to the world, 
 and our periodicals welcome articles on Roman sub- 
 jects as eagerly as on Greek. The great publications 
 on the art of the Roman provinces now undertaken 
 by almost every modern country settled by the 
 Roman legions ; the archaeological expeditions to 
 various Roman sites such as the Romanised cities of 
 Asia and the Syrian cities of the Antonine period ; 
 the now recognised importance of the art of the 
 Empire and its bearing on Christian art — all are signs 
 of a great revival of interest in the Roman Empire 
 and in Roman studies. Nor should we forget that 
 for many years the nations of modern Europe, all of 
 whom were more or less affected by the civilisation 
 diffused by Rome and her armies, have been repre- 
 sented in Rome as in a mother-city by Institutes of 
 art and archaeology. After a period when their 
 activity was for a time eclipsed by the attraction of 
 archaeological discovery in Greek lands, these Insti- 
 tutes have been strengthened and reorganised and, 
 best omen of all, have attracted a fresh influx of 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 27 
 
 students, whose presence shows that Rome is once 
 more looked upon as the natural centre of these 
 studies. If we are no longer to be allowed to call 
 ourselves solely the heirs of Rome, it is, after all, 
 because history and archaeology have shown us to 
 be something greater still — the heirs, namely, of all 
 the civilisations, whether Western or Eastern, that 
 once came under her sway. And as a proof of the 
 acknowledged vitality of the conceptions that ema- 
 nated from Imperial Rome as factors in modern art, 
 we should rejoice that two of the Institutes, the 
 American and the British, have decided to amal- 
 gamate with the bodies either existing or in process 
 of formation, of practising members of the living arts. 
 In this new alliance of art and archaeology, under the 
 auspices of our British School and of the American 
 Academy, I see the happiest presage for the future 
 of the constructive and the plastic arts. You in 
 America, with architectural triumphs such as the 
 Pennsylvania and the Grand Central Railway Stations 
 of New York, the Station of Chicago, the exquisitely 
 planned * Hall of all the Americas ' at Washington, 
 the mighty * sky-scrapers ' which have restored to 
 modern cities the soaring dignity of the vertical line, 
 do not need to be reminded of what the modem world 
 can learn, and learn, too, in the way of application 
 to modern life, from Roman architecture. Your 
 architects have learnt to build round a central space, 
 
28 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 to construct piers that support aerial systems of 
 roofing, to clothe walls in multi-coloured marble 
 revetments, in a manner that would astonish Domi- 
 tian's Rabirius and Trajan's Apollodorus, and that 
 excellent architect, the Emperor Hadrian himself, 
 and which would delight the unknown genius who 
 planned the Basilica Nova. I am not here to speak 
 to you of the ' Mistress Art,' nor, indeed, am I com- 
 petent to do so, though I ask you to bear in mind 
 what I have said of the imaginative quality of Roman 
 architecture. There emanates from it that vital 
 impulse of which Americans have not been slow to 
 avail themselves. In this respect we English lag far 
 behind, but if anything can help us to shake off the 
 parochial character which is apt to mar our best 
 modern efforts, we shall owe it, I think, to a renewed 
 belief in the efficacy of study in Rome. The very 
 fact that the art of the Roman Empire has a com- 
 posite character, and that in order to understand it 
 we must first grapple with the far-reaching problem 
 of its origins, redoubles its interest and value, since 
 we can learn from the manifold forms that went to its 
 making as well as from the finished product. Our 
 aesthetic outlook broadens with the archaeological. 
 The long neglected art of the centuries which pre- 
 ceded the great period of Justinian is slowly coming 
 to its own. Already we do justice not to its 
 architecture only but to the grand originality of its 
 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 29 
 
 portraiture. The Tetrarchy of San Marco and the 
 Valentinian of Barletta ; the Constantine of the 
 BasiHca Nova and the * Theodora ' of Milan ; the 
 Imperial group on a glass medallion at Brescia 
 (plate ii.) * and the * Serena ' of Monza, are only a 
 few of the masterpieces which have been rescued 
 from oblivion or the handbooks of specialists for the 
 delight of all lovers of art. 
 
 You will not, I know, take it amiss if in conclusion 
 I urge those of you who are artists to shake off once 
 and for all the perverse notion that knowledge of the 
 conditions under which works of art were produced 
 in the past is harmful to the production of works of 
 art in the present, or if I implore the archaeologists 
 among you to abandon the methods of antiquarianism 
 and to let their studies flow once more with the stream 
 of life. Only so can artist and archaeologist alike 
 draw from the past strength and inspiration for 
 present effort and future achievement, and by their 
 combined efforts raise art to greater heights than 
 those attained even in Imperial Rome. 
 
 * See note on p. 284. 
 
LECTURE I 
 
 DIVVS AVGVSTVS 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE IMPERIAL APOTHEOSIS 
 ON ANTIQUE DESIGN 
 
 Human art does not impose problems of form through 
 caprice or excess of virtuosity, it imposes them only when 
 they are questions of life and death for the subjects to be 
 treated : here also in the centre of all progress in art is the 
 force of religious inspiration. — Della Seta. 
 
 I. The Problem 
 
 It is my purpose in this lecture to treat of the Im- 
 perial Apotheosis as a factor in those highly cen- 
 tralised compositions which differentiate the art of 
 the Roman Empire in the fourth and succeeding 
 centuries from anything that precedes it. None of 
 the current formulas of Greek or Hellenistic art 
 proved adequate to express the ideas attaching to 
 the Apotheosis. The doctrine accordingly called 
 forth a new artistic scheme in which the central 
 motive of the deified Emperor was combined with the 
 narrative element supplied by the representation of 
 the Imperial deeds, the res gestae. The formula 
 adopted for this central figure was simply a return 
 to the old frontal principles of primitive art which 
 
 30 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 31 
 
 had been discarded in the great age of Greece ; the 
 narrative element was that which, developed origi- 
 nally by Greece, had become the common property 
 of the Graeco- Roman world. 
 
 Of recent years there has been much use and also 
 much abuse of the terms ' frontal ' and ' frontality.' ^ 
 In the present instance I shall restrict the words to 
 their simplest meaning, and leave out of consideration, 
 as foreign to my present purpose, any discussion of 
 the aesthetic laws which attach to the frontal position. 
 Thus I shall say of an image or statue that it is 
 frontal, when it is placed squarely to the front, face 
 to face with the spectator.^ This full-face pose, for 
 which we have no entirely adequate English word, 
 expresses the simplest relation that can be established 
 between the image of the god and the suppliant, since 
 this inaction effectually isolates the image for con- 
 templation. In a stimulating essay on the effect of 
 religious belief upon plastic form, Alessandro Delia 
 Seta has recently shown that races content to consider 
 the deity under the magical aspect of a power from 
 whom they ask protection only, are apt to retain the 
 primitive full-face, the frontal pose, as I shall call it, 
 for their gods ; while the reflective and intellectual 
 Greeks soon abandoned this isolated pose in order to 
 link figures together in a common action and so 
 created the mythological and narrative art which 
 enabled them to illustrate the nature of the gods by 
 
32 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 representing their dealings with one another and 
 with men, thus at the same time setting their cultus 
 images free from the hieratic stiffness of the primitive 
 frontahty.^ Delia Seta's book is at last before the 
 English-speaking public, and it is needless further to 
 summarise his views. In both this lecture and the 
 next I shall have ample opportunity of indicating the 
 greatness of my debt to what is certainly the most 
 important work on the evolution and the function of 
 art that has appeared of recent years. At the same 
 time I continue to differ from Delia Seta as to the 
 barren destinies of later Imperial art. He admits 
 that * Rome had put the Emperor in the place of the 
 gods, and near the image of the Emperor were reliefs 
 commemorating his deeds ' {Religion and Art, p. 286), 
 but he does not link this phenomenon with any subse- 
 quent progress or with the art of early Christianity. 
 I hold, on the contrary, that as the Maiestas of the 
 deified Emperor gathered force it brought with it a 
 centralisation of design that paved the way for the 
 Maiestas of Christian art, and that the representation 
 of the Imperial res gestae lead up to those of Christ 
 and His Saints and the deeds of the chosen people. 
 Frontality, the full-face pose, reintroduced into art 
 that monolatric element which brings all the parts 
 of a composition into the service of a central idea, 
 and without which there can, I conceive, be no great 
 religious compositions. Thus the subject of the 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 33 
 
 Imperial Apotheosis can throw light not only on the 
 later art of the Empire, but also on the perplexing 
 period of the transition from Pagan to Christian art. 
 The Emperor, the man exalted to the rank of god, comes 
 by degrees to claim for himself the central place in 
 design, to the exclusion of the gods who had been the 
 constant theme of Graeco-Roman art. Then in his 
 turn the Emperor is called upon to abdicate in favour 
 of one greater than himself, and by the same slow 
 degrees that he himself obtained it, he yields his place 
 to the God made man. 
 
 II. Centralised Composition in Roman, Medi- 
 aeval AND Christian Art contrasted 
 
 The problem which we have to examine will at 
 once be clear if we illustrate it by concrete examples. 
 First I would draw your attention to certain reliefs 
 of early fourth century date on the arch of Constan- 
 tine at Rome. According to investigations lately 
 undertaken by Professor Frothingham, the arch may 
 date as far back as the period of Domitian, after 
 whose death it was doubtless desecrated and fell into 
 neglect.* It seems to have been taken in hand by 
 a succession of Emperors, and to have been repeatedly 
 altered and redecorated, till under Constantine it 
 assumed the shape under which we know it and was 
 dedicated afresh. Owing to its association with 
 the name of the first Christian Emperor, it has always 
 
 c 
 
34 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 exerted a special fascination, and its architecture and 
 sculptures are very familiar.^ 
 
 In the centre of the attic is the proud inscription 
 which records that Constantine liberated the State 
 from its tyrant instinctu divinitatis, two words gener- 
 ally accepted as containing a covert allusion to the 
 introduction of Christianity. To either side are 
 arranged eight oblong panels taken from an arch 
 set up to commemorate the campaigns of Marcus 
 Aurelius against the Germans and the Sarmatians 
 {R.R., i. 241-8). Beneath again are eight medallions 
 with hunting scenes, which, from their Flavian char- 
 acter, may have belonged to the original decoration 
 of the arch {R.R., i. 250-1). Below runs a little 
 frieze which, from the style of the carving, cannot 
 well be earlier than the beginning of the fourth 
 century {R.R., i. 254-7). It commemorates on all 
 four sides the res gestae of an Emperor, and probably 
 refers to the Persian campaigns of Diocletian of the 
 year 303, and the procession and other ceremonies 
 of the Triumph.^ On the west side are depicted the 
 siege of a city and a great battle scene, once supposed 
 to be that of the Milvian Bridge ; on either side are 
 scenes from the triumphal pomp ; while on the Eastern 
 face, looking towards the Coliseum, run the two 
 friezes that form the text of this lecture. On the 
 one the Emperor is making to the assembled people 
 a proclamation from the Rostra ; on the other he is 
 
PLATE HI. 
 
 I. An Imperial Proclamation and ax Imperla.l Largesse. 
 
 Arch of Constantine. 
 
 2. Portrait of Diocletian. Spalato. 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 35 
 
 seen enthroned while officials distribute to eager 
 crowds the congiarium or largesse customary after a 
 triumph (plate iii., i and 2). 
 
 In almost every handbook and history of art these 
 friezes, when mentioned at all, are dismissed as late 
 and decadent work showing the complete debasement 
 of art in the fourth century. This judgment has 
 been repeated in one book after another, since, like 
 Anatole France's shrewd professor, we all find it 
 notoriously easier and more popular to repeat old 
 ideas than to search for new ones. Yet I can imagine 
 an unprejudiced observer looking at these reliefs, and 
 failing to see why they should be dismissed as decadent 
 antique. Surely the first thing that would strike him 
 would be that their spirit is not antique at all. Where, 
 in Greek or in Graeco-Roman art, do we find so highly 
 centralised a composition, figures so consistently 
 placed in a frontal position, or a similar principle of 
 lighting, or flat planes thus combined with deep 
 undercutting ? The deliberate optic effects aimed 
 at by the Constantinian sculptor have been fully 
 discussed by others, and I do not propose to touch 
 upon the question here.' I want rather to draw your 
 attention to the accent laid on the central figure of 
 the Emperor, to the manner in which all the lines of 
 the composition flow towards him, so concentrating 
 the interest upon him that he becomes the centre of 
 homage to the figures on each side, and is also offered 
 
36 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 in full frontal view to the homage of the spectator 
 from without. It is this union of centrality or con- 
 vergence, with frontality which distinguishes Roman 
 from Greek composition in relief. 
 
 The same principle makes itself felt, alongside of 
 the older methods, in early Christian and mediaeval 
 ivories, and finds supreme expression in the sculptures 
 of our cathedrals — in the tympanum of Saint Trophime 
 at Aries, for instance, or in the magnificent Royal 
 porch at Chartres, to take two examples from the 
 Romanesque and Gothic sculptures of the twelfth 
 century.^ Let us examine for a moment the con- 
 struction of the design in the Chartres tympanum 
 (plate iv.). The subject, Christ worshipped by the 
 symbols of the four Evangelists, is one familiarly 
 employed in thirteenth century sculpture : within 
 the almond-shaped nimbus or mandorla sits the 
 Christ according to the scheme known as the Maiestas.^ 
 On His left knee He holds the book of the Evangels, 
 and He raises His right hand in the act of benediction. 
 The figure faces the spectator in the hieratic frontal 
 attitude, with no inclination to either side. The 
 Evangelists adore Him, but the central figure is uncon* 
 scious of the act which heightens and emphasises His 
 own majesty ; for the Christ is thought of not in 
 relation to the other figures within the tympanum, 
 but is presented as God to the worshipper who looks 
 up at the image. Consider for one moment what 
 
PLATE IV. 
 
 (J 
 
 < 5S 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 37 
 
 would happen were the Christ drawn into the action 
 of the surrounding scene. He would at once become 
 an historical personage participating in a definite 
 action ; whereas the artist's intention has been to 
 remove Him, by means of the frontal pose, outside all 
 conditions of time and space, and to present Him to 
 us as the pre-existent Christ, the Son of God and of 
 Man.io 
 
 This method of emphasising the central by the 
 frontal principle was not unknown, as we shall see, 
 to the earliest periods of Greek art ; but from the 
 first the Greeks exhibit a tendency to work away 
 from the frontal pose, so that centralisation with 
 them becomes rather a matter of arrangement of 
 lines, untouched by higher spiritual considerations. 
 Take, for instance, the masterly design of the 
 ' Nativity of Aphrodite ' represented on the principal 
 face of the so-called Ludovisi Throne (Terme Museum • 
 R.R., iii. 326, i-4=Helbig, 1286). Here, too, you 
 have a strongly centralised composition : the straight 
 slim young figure occupies the exact centre of the 
 panel, and is raised by the two stooping attendant 
 nymphs, who, for all their bending grace and tender- 
 ness of movement, hold up the young goddess with 
 the precision of heraldic supporters. So far as the 
 body is concerned, the Aphrodite is placed in a 
 purely frontal pose, which enhances the central note ; 
 but look at the head. This is shown in profile, to a 
 
38 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 certain extent perhaps for technical reasons, since it 
 is easier to draw the head in profile than en face, 
 but the technical reasons are assuredly influenced by 
 the Greek desire of arranging figures into self-con- 
 tained and closely-knit groups. Observe the result ; 
 instead of the central figure being, like the Christ on 
 the tympanum of Chartres, removed by the frontal 
 position beyond the conditions of time and space that 
 govern the rest of the design, the profile turn of the 
 head and its upward tilt in the direction of the nymph 
 on the right connect the Aphrodite directly with the 
 ministering figures on either side, and make her, from 
 the passive object of their ministrations, into the 
 active participant of their action and their emotion. 
 There could be no greater contrast to the effect 
 obtained by the frontal formula of late Roman and 
 early Christian art, with its definite withdrawal of 
 the central figure from the surrounding action. 
 
 One more comparison, and this time between two 
 objects of Greek art. One is the lovely cylix of early 
 fifth century date in Berlin, representing Selene sink- 
 ing with her horses into the ocean ; the other the 
 bronze phalera from Elis in the British Museum, 
 representing the rising Helios (plate v.). On the first 
 of these the interlacing of the horses, the turn of their 
 heads towards each other, the head of the goddess 
 seen in profile above her body which is placed front- 
 ally, all set this work in the class of narrative art, 
 
PLATE V. 
 
 1. Selene. Greek Vase in Berlin. 
 
 2. Sol. Greek Phalera in the British Museum. 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 39 
 
 in spite of the fact that the design as a whole is seen 
 from the front by the spectator. The phalera, on 
 the other hand, with its great HeHos facing straight 
 to the spectator, the horses galloping to either side 
 that nothing may stand between the god and his 
 worshipper, exhibits a purely frontal centralised 
 design. The prophylactic virtue of the phalera 
 doubtless kept the figure of the god in this primitive 
 position, while the cylix, being purely decorative, 
 retained the accidents, but not the essentials of 
 primitive religious art. 
 
 III. Centralisation of Design in Greek Art 
 
 (a) From the Earliest Period to the Pediments of 
 Olympia 
 
 But in order to seize the different principles that 
 govern composition in Greek and in later Roman 
 art, it is not sufficient to compare monuments which 
 might appear specially selected to support my own 
 personal theory. To make the point clear it will be 
 necessary further to prelude our subject by consider- 
 ing a representative range of examples from archaic 
 times down to the period when Greek artistic activity 
 passed into the service of Rome. I shall draw my 
 illustrations as far as possible from pedimental sculp- 
 tures, since the triangular shape of the pediment calls 
 for a highly centralised composition as clearly as 
 does the tympanum of a church door. By the degree 
 
40 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 of the Greek sculptor's obedience to this demand 
 shall we be able to gauge his sense of the problem 
 involved. In the very earliest period the Greek 
 obeys the frontal law as closely as other primitive 
 peoples. You can at once appreciate this fact from 
 the earliest Greek pedimental sculptures known, those, 
 namely, which were discovered at Corfu in 1910 
 (plate vi.) }^ They belong to a very archaic temple of 
 which certain architectural fragments have likewise 
 been recovered. The centre of the pediment is occu- 
 pied by the powerful group of the Gorgon, flanked 
 by her monstrous offspring, Pegasus and Chrysaor. 
 All three are placed in full frontal view in their double 
 capacity as protectors of the temple and averters of 
 evil. This apotropaic function is heightened by the 
 flanking lions whose heads are likewise turned vigo- 
 rously to the front.^^ There could be no more direct 
 illustration of the magical function of early art ; the 
 power of the divinity is made visible, and through its 
 concrete form becomes permanentlj^ effective. It is 
 interesting to note that wherever a figure or group 
 has a prophylactic function — is conceived, that is, as 
 powerful to avert evil influences — it will be placed 
 in a frontal pose even if in relief. It is thus that 
 we can explain the strange and awe-inspiring frontal 
 figures of the oldest temple at Selinos in Sicily ,^^ or 
 the awkward combination of frontal head and torso 
 with running legs placed in profile in the Nike of 
 
PLATE ri. 
 
 1. Suggested Reconstruction of Pediment of Temple in Corfu. 
 
 2. Gorgon from Temple in Corfu. 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 41 
 
 Archermos ; ^* again, when it is desired to mark the 
 divinity of one figure within a group, it will be 
 emphasised by means of the frontal pose, as is the 
 deified ancestor on the famous Laconian stele from 
 Chrysapha in Berlin, which we shall have much to 
 say about in another lecture. Let me point out that 
 the design of the group from Corfu is centripetal, that 
 is to say, the figures of the sides contribute to the 
 support of the central image. This monolatric quality, 
 which, under the influence of Athens and Athenian 
 thought, was lost in what we call the great period of 
 Greek art, is at the base of all centralised design. 
 When the Greeks abandoned the centripetal construc- 
 tion as on the pediments of Aegina and Olympia, we 
 get that barrenness of design for which the most 
 ardent admirers of Greek art have not been able to 
 find an entirely satisfactory apology, and we shall see 
 that the gradual disappearance of a monolatric prin- 
 ciple deprived Greek sculpture of the factor essential 
 to religious art, where everything should minister to 
 a figure of supreme and central importance. 
 
 We have so far only spoken of the central part of 
 the pediment at Corfu. The figures of the wings, 
 however, illustrate the tendency, prevalent from the 
 first in Greek art, to throw off the tyranny of fron- 
 tality. The subject is the struggle of the gods against 
 the giants, and here an attempt is made to get rid 
 of frontal poses and parallel lines so as to obtain 
 
42 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 groups in which the figures are interrelated in a 
 common action. 
 
 Frontality was never entirely abandoned at any 
 period, but it was thrown into the background as a 
 secondary motive in Greek art from the end of the 
 sixth century onward, when the whole attention was 
 directed to expressing relation in terms of mythology. 
 But the principle was always there, as the minor arts 
 attest. The frontal figure and pose were beloved not 
 only in gold-work and in embroideries and textiles, 
 but in much minor sculpture, a fact of which we can 
 easily convince ourselves by looking through Reinach's 
 Repertoire de Reliefs. In the major sculpture, how- 
 ever, it was suppressed ; but it was beginning to 
 emerge again in Hellenistic days, and it reasserted 
 itself in the art of the Empire, strengthened and puri- 
 fied by its obstinate though often obscure resistance 
 to more fashionable methods. In this persistence 
 and re-emergence lay the proof of its vital significance 
 as a principle of artistic expression. 
 
 A long interval separates the pedimental sculptures 
 found at Corfu from those which come next in date.^^ 
 In the early poros pediments from the archaic temples 
 on the Acropolis of Athens there is little attempt at 
 centralisation {R.R., i. 42, 1-4). In the ' Heracles 
 and the Hydra ' or ' Heracles struggling with Triton,* 
 while other serpent-bodied monsters are introduced 
 as spectators of the conflict,^® the artist, in order to 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 43 
 
 satisfy the exigencies of the central space, is content 
 to make the monster rear his head and fore-parts at 
 this point, or else places here the attacking figure of 
 Heracles. In these instances, at least, the centralised 
 composition is abandoned in favour of the narrative 
 method, and there is no such harmonious subordi- 
 nation of the figures of the sides to a central motive 
 as in the Corfu pediment. Equally unsatisfactory 
 as meeting the requirements of a centralised com- 
 position is the design from the small pediment of the 
 Cnidians at Delphi {R.R., i. 135, i).^' The subject 
 selected is appropriately enough the contest of Apollo 
 and Heracles for the sacred tripod. Apollo, on the 
 left, assisted by a goddess (Leto or Artemis ?) who 
 stands immediately behind him, pulls at one of the 
 legs of the tripod to which Heracles, on the right, 
 clings stoutly, while Athena, in the centre, is present 
 to aid her favourite hero. The scene is conceived as 
 a pursuit rather than a contest, the movement run- 
 ning in a straight line from left to right. Furtwangler, 
 in commenting upon the composition, rightly remarked 
 that it resembled a piece cut out of a frieze rather 
 than a pedimental group. The backward turn of 
 the head of Heracles towards his pursuing enemy, 
 and the heightening of the figure of Athena to fill 
 the pediment at the apex, are the sole concessions to 
 the demand for a central note. The pose of Athena 
 tends to be frontal, without providing a true centre ; 
 
44 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 for the sculptor, with a more genuine feehng for 
 narrative than for decorative art, avoids giving to the 
 figure the definite aspect which should tend to isolate 
 it from the rest of the personages of the action. 
 
 These early sculptors were satisfied with making 
 the figures increase in size towards the middle, but 
 as time went on the childish device was abandoned 
 for a definite central figure, as on our next example 
 from the pediments of the temple of Aphaia at Aegina. 
 Let us consider their composition as revealed by the 
 recent examination of the figures and of the traces 
 for their attachment on the floor of the pediments.^^ 
 The subject of both pediments is a combat between 
 Greeks and Trojans, the combatants being arranged 
 in two groups of three at either side, with the solitary 
 figure of Athena in the centre. In the western pedi- 
 ment her attitude is rigid, almost frontal, her feet 
 alone being placed in profile to the right, but the 
 movement of her body does not follow that of the 
 action within the pediment ; on the contrary, she 
 appears to move forward towards the spectator. At 
 first sight one might think, ' If this is not centralisa- 
 tion, what is ? ' But if you look closely at the struc- 
 ture of the design you will find that it breaks up on 
 each side into isolated groups which, in spite of the 
 balanced symmetry of their parts, are without organic 
 relation either to one another or to the figure of the 
 goddess. The old idea, based on our modern point 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 45 
 
 of view, that Athena is controlHng the action, that 
 she is present to favour the Greeks as against the 
 Trojans, and that the battle is waged, so to speak, in 
 her honour, was well enough so long as archaeologists 
 could shuffle the Munich figures about to suit their 
 preconceived notions of the composition, but it must 
 be abandoned in the light of recent investigations 
 which have definitely shown that the action moves 
 away from the centre and has no relation to the 
 goddess. Athena here is not present as god of hosts, 
 she is at most an impassive symbol of battle, and her 
 image, while marking the central architectonic space, 
 is so little required by the meaning of the composition 
 that it might be left out and replaced by some other 
 figure or object without injury to the sense of the 
 groups as a whole. Although Athena has the frontal 
 pose of a cultus image, the fact that the actors are 
 unaffected by her presence leaves the spectator in 
 doubt as to the meaning she is intended to convey, 
 and the centrifugal design of the wings effectively 
 neutralises the monolatric formula which the central 
 image seems to claim. On the east pediment, the 
 sculptor, whether the same or another, dissatisfied 
 with the cold mechanical effect of the central western 
 group, attempts to make the goddess participate in 
 the general movement of the fray by stretching out 
 her aegis ; but as her gesture is without effect on the 
 action, it remains unconvincing and a little trivial. 
 
46 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Although Greek sculptors for a time recognised that 
 the centre of the pediment required a dominant 
 motive, they were powerless, in spite of their mastery 
 of line, to invest this central figure with an emotional 
 idea, a spiritual meaning, that should flow from it 
 through the whole composition, knitting the various 
 groups and figures to one another and to itself ; and 
 so it is that in spite of the great beauty and the noble 
 movement of figures and groups, the composition as 
 a whole is not only poor and ineffective, but violates 
 the main laws of pedimental decoration. The same 
 defects and the same attempts at compromise which 
 we note at Aegina recur in the pedimental sculpture 
 from a temple of Apollo at Eretria (in the Museum of 
 Chalcis), where Theseus, as he ravishes his Amazon, 
 runs rapidly away from the centre and from his pro- 
 tectress Athena. ^^ In both pediments of the temple 
 of Zeus at Olympia, the central figures, Zeus on the 
 eastern, Apollo on the western pediment, are no 
 integral part of the composition ; they neither join 
 in the action with the other personages of the scene, 
 nor are they isolated as objects of reverence and 
 worship. There is, however, a marked difference in 
 the two pediments at Olympia. The Eastern, with 
 its dull mechanical arrangement of the figures on 
 the principle of a clock on the mantlepiece between 
 two candlesticks, falls short even of the Aeginetan 
 compositions ; on the other hand, the solidly con- 
 
DIWS AVGVSTVS 47 
 
 structed groups so splendidly massed on either side 
 of the Apollo, in spite of their centrifugal movement, 
 bring the Western pediment, to my mind, nearer to 
 the great compositions of early Christian art than 
 anything else accomplished by Greek sculpture.^** 
 
 (6) The Pediments of the Parthenon. Pedimental 
 Composition in the Fourth Century 
 
 So slight was the intellectual hold of the central 
 figure upon the artistic imagination of the Greeks 
 that the scheme was abandoned by the sculptors of 
 the great period. When we come to the pediments of 
 the Parthenon, we find that the supreme genius who 
 carved their figures, whether Pheidias or another, 
 when brought face to face with the pedimental 
 problem, solved it, at any rate on the west side, of 
 which alone we can speak with certainty, by abandon- 
 ing the central scheme altogether, and by imparting 
 to the composition a centrifugal rather than a centri- 
 petal principle. No figure marks the dividing vertical 
 line ; its place is taken by the group of the two com- 
 batants, each of whom starts back from the centre in 
 a diagonal line. The subject is the contest of Athena 
 and Poseidon for the land of Attica, and we know 
 that Athena was destined to be the victor ; but there 
 is nothing to indicate this in the design, in which the 
 artist accepts the scene of the contest as a whole, 
 and substitutes for a dominant central motive the 
 
48 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 moment when the divinities move asunder to disclose 
 their gifts. In other words, we might say that 
 Pheidias took as basis of his composition the same 
 centrifugal scheme that appears at Aegina or Olympia, 
 but omitted the disturbing central figure, for which 
 he substitutes, in order to fill up the space, the minor 
 motive of the olive tree. By what we may call the 
 principle of the divided centre the Pheidian school 
 attains to that unity of composition which preceding 
 artists, in their effort to combine opposite motives, had 
 altogether missed. Carrey's drawing has preserved 
 for us the main lines of the Western pedimental 
 scheme, and since the torsos of Athena and Poseidon 
 have been placed in position in the British Museum we 
 can form a very good idea of the effect of the design. 
 On the Eastern side, where the Nativity of Athena 
 was represented, the attempt was also made, to 
 judge from the marks on the floor of the pediment, 
 to establish the principle of the divided centre. But 
 the nature of the subject, which imposed an inert or 
 inactive position for the Zeus, must have resulted in 
 a less pleasing and well-balanced arrangement.^^ 
 
 After the Parthenon, and in the hands of lesser 
 men than Pheidias, pedimental composition, which 
 his genius had momentarily raised to a higher 
 power, seems again to have declined. The state- 
 ment must, however, be made with caution, since 
 the pediments attributed to Scopas, Praxiteles, 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 49 
 
 and other great masters of the fourth century are 
 unknown. But there are a sufficient number of lesser 
 pedimental sculptures preserved from stelae and 
 sarcophagi to show that the demand for a dominant 
 central motive was once more satisfied by devices akin 
 to those of archaic art. This appears from the pedi- 
 ments of later sepulchral stelae or from those of the 
 ' sarcophagus of Alexander ' at Constantinople, where 
 in the battle episode of the one side a Greek is made 
 to tower high above his fallen foe in order to fill the 
 space, while on the other side the figure of a horseman 
 on his rearing horse fills the pediment up to its apex. 
 In this case again we might say, as of the Cnidian 
 group, that this is a piece cut out of a frieze rather 
 than a pedimental composition. 
 
 (c) Character of Greek Religion responsible for the 
 Character of Greek Art. Influence of a Pantheon 
 
 If we stop for a moment to consider this lack of 
 true centralisation in Greek design, remembering at 
 the same time that Pheidias gave the problem a 
 solution which was quite the opposite of what the 
 space of a pediment seems to demand, we shall, I 
 think, find the reason in the character of Greek 
 religion. The highest ideals of every national art 
 have always gathered round the national conception 
 of the Deity ; if Greek art never discovered a strong 
 central formula, it was because such a formula was 
 
 D 
 
50 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 not called forth by some dominating conception such 
 as that which inspired the strongly centralised com- 
 positions of Christian art. The feeling had been 
 there in the magical art of primitive Greece in the 
 pediment at Corfu, the metope of Selinus, but 
 instead of being purified and developed by some 
 central religious ideal, it was stifled by the claims of 
 the Olympian religion. Had any one of the Olympian 
 gods made a supreme claim to the adoration and 
 devotion of man, his figure would have imposed upon 
 art a type expressive of that claim, and all art, even 
 when not directly in the service of religion, would 
 have been inspired by that type. But Greek art was 
 without a central theme to unify and concentrate 
 the artistic impulse ; it was in the service of many 
 masters, dedicated to a religion with many gods, 
 with an anthropomorphic Pantheon where none 
 reigned supreme, and it therefore lacks the theurgic 
 quality that is so vital an element both in Mediaeval 
 Art and in the art of the early Renaissance. 
 
 Much has been said of late years in scorn of the 
 Olympians, and concerning the spiritual aridity of a 
 system represented as already decadent and outworn 
 when it makes its appearance in Homer. Yet the 
 enduring strength of the system is nowhere so mani- 
 fest as in the successful resistance which the Olympians 
 offered to any serious or sustained expression of the 
 monotheism which was after all latent in Greek 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 51 
 
 religion. Monotheism was the central doctrine of 
 the powerful Orphic sects, and was proclaimed by 
 one school of philosophy after the other ; in the sixth 
 and fifth centuries, as Professor Gilbert Murray has 
 reminded us, it nearly gained the day ; ^^ it was 
 inherent in Zeus himself as supreme lord of the skies ; 
 yet Zeus, for all his leadership of the other Olympians, 
 was never strong enough to impose himself upon art 
 as a dominant religious type. The Olympians held 
 their ground triumphantly and penetrated with 
 Hellenism into Rome, where they nearly suffocated 
 the monotheistic tendencies of Roman religion. But 
 the figure of the Emperor arose in good time to expel 
 these foreign gods from the scene ; and in art at 
 least brought to fruition much that they had sought 
 to destroy. 
 
 It may be that once, in the Zeus of Olympia — and 
 unfortunately we only have literary criticisms and 
 indifferent copies or distant imitations to guide us 
 in our judgment — Greek art attained through the 
 genius of Pheidias to the expression of a great mono- 
 theistic ideal, and made visible the Divine Fatherhood. 
 But as a rule, and judging not only from extant 
 copies, but from a certain number of originals, the 
 Hermes of Olympia, the Demeter of Cnidus, etc.,^^ 
 Greek artists, I venture to assert, failed to create 
 religious figures that make the same direct appeal to 
 the devotional sense as the Beau Dieu of Rheims or 
 
52 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 the Holy Face of Albert Durer's Sudarium, or 
 Raphael's * Madonna di San Sisto,' that unsurpassed 
 example of a composition in which a central group 
 is enframed within a monolatric design. I do not 
 say that Greek art was inferior on this account ; I, 
 at any rate, believe that, where the rendering of the 
 human figure is concerned, its sculpture is the greatest 
 in the world ; but its aim was not primarily religious. 
 In the end, and in spite of much that has been said 
 to the contrary, it is the subject that informs the art, 
 not directly perhaps, but by creating in connection 
 with itself a spiritual temper, an atmosphere which 
 emanates from the subject and reacts upon it, and 
 which colours, directly or indirectly, the whole art 
 of the period. In simpler language it might simply 
 be called the way of looking at things. Now, because 
 in Greece this way of looking at things tended to 
 distribute the interest through the parts of a com- 
 position rather than to concentrate it on one central 
 figure, Greek artists enjoyed a freedom of action and 
 of discovery which could never have been theirs had 
 they been fettered by hieratic formulas requiring the 
 interest to be focused on one point. They were able 
 to apply themselves to the rendering of every aspect 
 of the human form, which they interpreted in a manner 
 probably destined to remain unsurpassed, though 
 their compositions lack the depth of emotion which 
 turns the decoration of Gothic Cathedrals into what 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 53 
 
 has been so well defined as * one great act of adoration 
 in stone.' 
 
 Professor Gardner in his Principles of Greek Art 
 has doubtless made out a better case for Greek 
 pedimental construction than I am able to do, but 
 even he can only say of the principles which govern it 
 they are ' defined and rigid,' ^* two qualities which 
 scarcely suggest the glow and play of artistic in- 
 spiration. 
 
 {d) Weakness and Strength of Greek Design further 
 illustrated from Panel Compositions and Friezes 
 
 In panel composition and in those parts of a frieze 
 that demand a central note, Greek composition 
 betrays the same weakness as in the temple pediment. 
 The more I think of the suave lines of Greek sculpture, 
 its voluptuous modelling and fluid contours, its studied 
 avoidance of all angularity and harshness, the less do 
 I feel that its greatness could ever have lain in the 
 direction of monumental composition. It lacked the 
 necessary solemnity and massiveness that can only be 
 imparted by subordination to a central religious idea. 
 For one moment, towards the close of the archaic 
 period, there was a flash of inspiration which resulted 
 in the uniquely beautiful design — so strong, so tense, 
 so vivid — of the ' Nativity of Aphrodite ' on the 
 Ludovisi Throne ; with this we may compare, as being 
 already one degree less powerful, the exquisite relief 
 
54 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 from Eleusis with Triptolemos between his patronesses 
 Demeter and Persephone {R.R., ii. 339, 3) ; ^^ here, 
 too, as in the Ludovisi reUef, we have the dip at the 
 centre intended to draw towards this point the lines 
 of the design ; but the aesthetic conception is weak- 
 ened, to my mind, by placing the figure of Triptolemos 
 in profile instead of frontally. The motive continues 
 to lose strength and effectiveness — at least so it seems 
 to me when I compare with earlier works the * Medea 
 and the Daughters of Pelias' of the Lateran {R.R., 
 iii. 277, i) ; or the ' Theseus, Heracles and Peirithoos ' 
 of the Torlonia collection {R. R., iii. 340, 4). After 
 all, the central slab of the Parthenon frieze, with its 
 humble subordinate motive, is as good an example 
 as any of the weak spot in much Greek design — its 
 failure, namely, to discover an arresting motive where 
 this is most needed. In the same way sepulchral art 
 in Attica ignored, as we shall see in another lecture, 
 the definite central note which a cult of the heroised 
 dead seemed to demand ; nor, as a consequence, did 
 the deification of the living — a commoner event 
 even in the pre-Alexandrine period than is generally 
 supposed — affect, so far as we can tell, the principles 
 of design. It is true that now and again we catch 
 in the designs of Greek vases the central note which 
 was suppressed in the major arts. The beautiful 
 ritual scene in honour of Dionysus, on a vase in 
 Naples, exhibits a centralised composition which does 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 55 
 
 not fall short of a mediaeval altar-piece.^^ Every move- 
 ment of the ministering Maenads, even when directed 
 from the centre, is subordinated to the expressive 
 sweep of the lines that flow towards the frontal image 
 of the god in the middle of the picture. We perceive 
 here what masters of this type of religious design the 
 Greeks might have proved had not the atmosphere 
 emanating from the gods of the State been hostile to 
 its development. 
 
 Greek artists, accordingly, were weakest in pedi- 
 mental and other compositions, where, as in the tym- 
 panum of a church, an impressive central note is de- 
 manded. On the other hand, they showed themselves 
 incomparable masters of design where the space to 
 be decorated could be filled, as in their friezes, by 
 long processional groups in which the interest must be 
 distributed in order to be sustained, or by a series 
 of combat or hunting scenes linked in a continuous 
 chain. In this style of composition, indeed, where 
 the figures need only to be arranged in relation to 
 one another, the Greeks produced exquisitely cen- 
 tralised designs of a kind, as on the friezes of the so- 
 called sarcophagus of Alexander ; the principle which 
 prevails in these reliefs, however, is not really cen- 
 tralisation so much as harmony or balance of corre- 
 sponding parts. A figure like the splendid horseman 
 formerly identified as Alexander, on one long side of 
 the Sidon sarcophagus {R.R., i. 415), may divide a 
 
56 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 group or mark the meeting point of convergent move- 
 ments ; but the centre itself is not given emphatic 
 weight and prominence. It is a mere resting-place 
 in a decorative scheme where in reality all parts have 
 equal value.^' 
 
 IV. Tendencies of Greek Design in the 
 Hellenistic Period 
 
 So little Hellenistic art has survived, and that little 
 is so imperfectly known, that it is difficult to realise 
 the stage reached by Greek sculptors in the develop- 
 ment of centralised composition when the antique 
 passed into the service of Rome and was called upon 
 to represent Roman subjects. Of especial interest 
 would it be to know what innovations, if any, were 
 introduced into art by the influence of the cult of the 
 deified Alexander, whether in life or after death. 
 Diodorus has left an elaborate if obscure description 
 of the panel pictures that decorated his funeral 
 chariot, and we find ourselves speculating as to 
 whether the scheme of the picture in which Alexander 
 was shown surrounded, like an Oriental despot, by 
 his bodyguard, 2^ already heralded compositions such 
 as those of the narrow friezes on the] principal face 
 of the arch of Constantine. In art, as elsewhere, 
 Alexander is certainly responsible for not a few of 
 the ideas which used to be fathered upon the Roman 
 Emperors, but there is little or nothing at present to 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 57 
 
 throw light on questions which are so vital for the 
 history of the antique. The Pergamene friezes show 
 a number of new elements : close grouping, landscape 
 setting, dramatic gesture, and so on, unknown to 
 earlier art, which will reappear in the art of Rome ; 
 but the action is still unfolded along a surface, with 
 little tendency towards grouping masses about a 
 central point {R.R., i. 207-19). 
 
 More striking are the system of grouping and 
 the arrangement of groups and figures on the frieze 
 from the temple of Hecate at Lagina (first century 
 B.C.), now in the Museum of Constantinople {R.R., 
 i. 171-5) : the figures, for instance, are to a great 
 extent shown in full face ; overlapping of either figures 
 or groups is avoided, and there is an obvious attempt 
 to isolate them from one another. Moreover, and 
 this is above all important, there is apparent in various 
 of the groups an effort at concentrating interest on a 
 central motive which is far in excess of what had so 
 far been attempted by the Greek antique. I would 
 specially call your attention to two admirable com- 
 positions on the South frieze {R.R., i. 174, 25 and 28). 
 This frieze has been described as ' confused and 
 awkward,' a mere imitation of Pergamene work. 
 When it has been better studied it will be found to 
 contain many traits which seem to have passed 
 straight into the Hellenistic art of Rome. It is cer- 
 tainly in the sculpture of this period that we must 
 
58 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 look for many of the innovations which imperfect 
 knowledge had attributed to Rome. At the same 
 time, in any Hellenistic sculpture so far known — 
 there is little enough indeed, and that little has been 
 neglected — we look in vain for the unifying touch 
 which can be imparted to composition by a figure 
 or a motive of commanding interest. This last and 
 all-important factor was to be contributed, as we 
 shall now see, by Rome and the ideas embodied in 
 the figure of her Emperor. 
 
 V. Hellenistic Art in Rome 
 
 In the last years of the Republic and the first of 
 the Empire, when the centre of artistic production 
 was gradually shifting to Rome, design shows certain 
 innovations which at once distinguish the Graeco- 
 Roman art of Rome from that of Greek countries. 
 The composition of the * Sacrifice to Mars ' in the 
 Louvre {R.R., i. 277), from a basis set up about 
 B.C. 42 by Gn. Domitius Ahenobarbus in the temple 
 of Neptune, is an instance in point. It exhibits the 
 same tendency to a full-face pose of the figures already 
 noted in the case of certain later Hellenistic sculptures, 
 but this is combined with a symmetry severer than 
 any observed in Greek schemes of decoration. The 
 altar occupies the centre ; Domitius, in sacrificial 
 attire, is on the right ; Mars, a stately figure in armour, 
 balances him on the left. The god is present at the 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 59 
 
 sacrifice in his own honour, and stands in a prominent 
 position, with one foot on the altar step, as if in token 
 of possession ; at the same time the turn of head and 
 body so draw him into the scene of the reHef that the 
 interest of the central group is about equally divided 
 between the god and Domitius, who in the spirit of 
 Greek art turns not towards the centre but towards 
 the advancing procession of the sacred animals. ^^ 
 With regard to the general composition, I should like 
 for one instant to compare it with that of the two 
 groups from the south frieze of Lagina ; you will be 
 struck, I think, by the contrast which the stiffer, 
 almost crystallised poses of the figures at the centre 
 of the Roman relief offer to the fluid lines of the 
 Hellenistic example. The composition of the sides, 
 on the other hand, is more frankly Hellenistic, and 
 if we had time to look at it in detail we should find it 
 to be closely inspired by Hellenistic prototypes. 
 
 Some thirty years later, in B.C. 12-9, the Ara 
 Pacis Augustae, set up by command of Augustus to 
 commemorate his successful settlement of Gaul 
 and Spain, was decorated with scenes intended to 
 represent the Emperor followed by a long cortege 
 {R.R., i. 232-7). The difficulty which archaeologists 
 have experienced in identifying the figure of Augustus 
 shows how slight an accent was laid upon the 
 leading personages of the pageant. At one time 
 the Emperor was seen in the stately aged man, with 
 
6o APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 veiled head, afterwards variously interpreted as 
 Agrippa, Caesar, and Lepidus {R.R., i. 235, 3) ; again, 
 he was thought to be the figure surrounded by lictors 
 and jiamines on a slab which is now rejected from 
 the Ara Pads (below, p. 79), while Augustus seems 
 now finally identified with a veiled figure (who has 
 also been taken for the Rex Sacrijiculus) on a slab 
 discovered in 1902 {R. R., i. 236, 3). We cannot 
 imagine any such difficulties and uncertainties attend- 
 ing the identification of Christ on mediaeval or early 
 Renaissance monuments, or that of the Emperor on 
 the works of the late Empire. It is true that the 
 tendency to place figures in a full-face position makes 
 itself felt here as on the basis of Ahenobarbus, with 
 this difference, that in the earlier work the figures 
 are isolated in space, and in the later they are isolated 
 against a crowded background by means of the frontal 
 turn imparted to them.^° But without a dominant 
 central motive and without any monolatric scheme 
 of the attendant figures the invention is ineffective. 
 The main spirit of the composition of the Ara Pacis 
 remains Hellenic, still aiming at diffusion rather than 
 at concentration of interest. 
 
 VI. The Imperial Apotheosis and Deification 
 AS A Theme of Art 
 
 This Hellenistic art transplanted to Roman soil 
 contained, it is true, many new and vital traits, such 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 6i 
 
 as the crowding of the figures ; the introduction of 
 children ; the vivacity of the glance introduced by 
 hollowing the pupil of the eye, which imparted to it 
 a new vitality.'^ Yet it might easily have degener- 
 ated into meaningless imitation of Greek formulas 
 and become purely academic, had it not been for the 
 intrusion of a fresh idea destined slowly to transform 
 all the laws of antique design. This was the doctrine 
 of the Imperial Apotheosis, of the deification of the 
 Emperor after death, upon the art-type of which 
 Cumont's researches have thrown so vivid a light.^^ 
 The doctrine is so familiar that I need hardly remind 
 you of the manner of its introduction by Augustus 
 in honour of his adopted father, the great Julius 
 Caesar, whose star, the Julium sidus of Horace, the 
 Caesaris astrum of Vergil, had been seen in the sky 
 heralding the new god.^^ Caesar is said to have 
 received an altar and a column twenty feet high at 
 the spot where his body was burnt, and where after- 
 wards rose the temple of Divus Julius, the core of 
 which stands to this day.^^ We may note inciden- 
 tally that column and altar should be borne in mind 
 by students of Roman art for the light which they 
 throw upon the later columns of Nero at Mayence, and 
 of Trajan and of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. The 
 deification of Augustus, already acknowledged in 
 his lifetime as Divi Jilius, followed as a matter of 
 course, and the Apotheosis of the Roman Emperor 
 
62 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 soon became the rule.^^ It was based largely on that 
 cult of the ruler which was so prominent a religious 
 and political feature under the Ptolemies of Egypt 
 and the Graeco-Syrian Seleucids : ^® the very wreath 
 worn by the Caesars was imitated from that of the 
 Hellenistic rulers ; their eagle was borrowed from 
 Oriental solar symbols ; yet from the first the art 
 form of the Imperial Apotheosis acquired a distinctly 
 Western and Roman character, and this because the 
 primary inspiring factors were already an integral 
 part of religious belief. 
 
 The religious conscience was better prepared for 
 the doctrine of the Imperial Deification than is often 
 supposed. Apotheosis, admission of the great dead 
 among the gods, was a not unfamiliar idea in pre- 
 Imperial Rome. Ennius (239-170 B.C.) had already 
 sung of the admission of the elder Scipio into the 
 courts of heaven.^' Not only had Cicero desired 
 Apotheosis for his daughter, ^^ but he has left us in the 
 wonderful myth of the ' Dream of Scipio,' ^^ a noble 
 vision as to the ultimate fate of those who had de- 
 served well of the State. The picture he presents 
 of the elder Scipio appearing to his illustrious descen- 
 dant and pointing to Carthage de excelso et pleno 
 stellarum inlustri et claro guodam loco — implying the 
 ascent of the Soul to the Stars — must have belonged 
 to a widely current range of ideas. On a relief from 
 Amiternum, for instance, which we shall consider in 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 63 
 
 detail in the next lecture (p. 175), representing the 
 funeral procession of a military official of the close 
 of the late Republican or early Augustan period, the 
 idea of astral Apotheosis is conveyed by the star- 
 spangled canopy above the bier. Such conceptions, 
 as we shall see, were largely the fruit of the teaching 
 of Posidonius of Apamea and of the Orphic beliefs 
 which had filtered into Rome from Southern Italy. 
 The Stoic philosophy which attained to its fullest 
 expression in Rome from the end of the Republic 
 onwards, laid special stress on the reabsorption of the 
 soul into the fiery aether after its separation from 
 the body. All these ideas were part of a new religious 
 movement that set in before the Empire, though, as 
 we shall see in the lecture on the ' After Life,' the belief 
 in the immortality of the soul and in the soul's return 
 to the heavenly seats, was to gain fresh lustre from 
 the Apotheosis of the ruler. 
 
 It must also be remembered that the divine honours 
 so frequently rendered to Roman generals and 
 governors in Greece and the East, must have early 
 familiarised Romans with the idea of the deification 
 of a living man. According to Plutarch, Flamininus, 
 the 'Liberator' of Greece (b.c. 196), had been as- 
 sociated at Chalcis with the worship of both Heracles 
 and Apollo ; **• Pompey, it seems, had received 
 several temples ; ^^ Cicero records with pride that he 
 refused similar honours — among them shrines (fana) 
 
64 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 — offered to him in B.C. 50 during his governorship 
 of Cilicia ; *^ and it is probably present to all your 
 minds that Cicero twits Verres more than once in 
 the famous second Verrine Oration, for allowing 
 games (praedara ilia Verria) to be celebrated in his 
 honour.*^ As to Julius Caesar, whatever his own per- 
 sonal beliefs and attitude of mind, there is no doubt 
 that he received and accepted unmistakable offers of 
 deification alike from the Greek cities and in Rome.** 
 
 Above all, this deification of the ruler could not 
 come as a new conception to a people who, like the 
 Romans, had from a period of high antiquity been 
 accustomed to see victorious generals, to whom the 
 honours of a triumph were accorded, arrayed in the 
 insignia of the chief god of the state, Jupiter Optimus 
 Maximus himself. It is not sufficient to say with 
 the classical dictionaries that the general wore for 
 the time being the attributes of Jupiter : during the 
 pageant the general was Jupiter, *5 in token of which 
 his face, in early times at least, was painted blood- 
 red like the god's ; he carried the thunderbolt and 
 ivory sceptre ; he wore the toga picta — the great 
 embroidered mantle — as talisman of dominion and 
 of victory ; and he rode in the four-horse chariot, the 
 quadriga, which is no other than the chariot of the Sun 
 god — of Sol,*® who, long before he figured as Apollo 
 in the Graeco-Roman Pantheon, was identified with 
 the great Jupiter of the Capitol. I venture to assert 
 
PLATE VII. 
 
 ^. > 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 65 
 
 that the growing beHef in an after life of blessedness 
 reserved for those who had deserved well of the 
 State, combined with the temporary deification of 
 the Triumphator, were more powerful factors in Im- 
 perial Deification and Imperial Apotheosis than any 
 attempt on the part of the ruler to model an astute 
 piece of religious policy on that of Alexander and his 
 successors. Religious ideas, it has been well said, 
 * are easily assimilated only when there already 
 exists an indigenous system of thought into which 
 they readily fit.' *' Had not the soil been ready, 
 neither Imperial Apotheosis nor Imperial Deification 
 would have struck root so quickly and so firmly. 
 We now have to examine their influence upon art. 
 Here, too, I hope to show you that the way had been 
 prepared — that Etrusco- Roman art had a predilection 
 for certain centralised formulas, the reflection perhaps 
 of monotheistic religious tendencies, which were to 
 mature in the service of the Imperial idea. 
 
 VII. The Monuments of the Apotheosis and Kin- 
 dred Works from Augustus to the End of 
 THE Julio-Claudian Dynasty 
 
 (a) The Imperial Idea in Augustan Art ' 
 
 In the age of Augustus we are a long way still from 
 
 the adoption of the old frontal pose into the official 
 
 art of the Empire. The earliest instance of Imperial 
 
 Apotheosis, except on coins, occurs on an altar which 
 
 E 
 
66 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 stands in the Cortile del Belvedere of the Vatican 
 (Helbig, 155 ; =R. R., iii. 398) .* The purely Augustan 
 style of the reliefs is of singular beauty (plates vii., 
 viii.), yet the monument has attracted little attention. 
 The Victory on the principal face carries a shield in- 
 scribed with the dedication of the altar to Augustus by 
 the Senate and the People. As the Emperor is given the 
 title of Pontifex Maximus, the date of the dedication 
 must be subsequent to B.C. 12, in which year Augustus 
 assumed the high priesthood left vacant by the death 
 of Lepidus. The relief on the left evidently com- 
 memorates the restoration of the cult of the Lares 
 by Augustus between 14 and 7 B.C. ; this composition 
 is centralised round the altar somewhat after the 
 manner of the scene of sacrifice on the back of the 
 basis of Domitius Ahenobarbus from the temple of 
 Neptune. On the one side, Augustus himself, accom- 
 panied by two attendants ; facing him on the other 
 side is the priest capite velato, who stretches both hands 
 to the Emperor over the altar to receive from him the 
 statuettes of the two Lares. The relief of the opposite 
 face bears a direct relation to the ceremony we have 
 just witnessed ; it represents the ' Prodigy of the 
 Laurentine Sow,' likewise depicted on the Ara Pacis, 
 
 * A vast literature has gathered round the Imperial Apotheosis and 
 Deification, but the numerous monuments have so far never been 
 grouped together or exhaustively discussed. The theme is one that 
 should prove attractive to students, and I heartily recommend it to 
 any one who is looking round for the subject of a thesis. 
 
PLATE Vni. 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 67 
 
 by which Father Aeneas was to know that he had 
 reached the spiritual metropolis of Latium. And on 
 the rear of the altar occurs what is probably the 
 earliest representation of the Imperial Apotheosis : 
 the first Divus, the great Caesar himself, is seen borne 
 heavenward in the flaming chariot drawn by winged 
 horses in the presence of Augustus, here figuring as 
 the Divi filius of the inscription, and the princes of 
 his house. Above the Divus hovers the Eagle of the 
 Apotheosis, now much effaced ; the Sun in his chariot, 
 and Coelus personified as Jupiter within the arching 
 folds of the cosmic mantle, come down to meet him 
 from the left and from the right respectively. 
 Cumont has aptly remarked that the intended corre- 
 spondence between the chariot that comes down from 
 heaven and the one which rises upward from the 
 earth shows without a doubt that in this first mani- 
 festation of the Imperial cult in plastic art, a relation 
 is already clearly established between the deified 
 personage and the Sun.^^ 
 
 The subject of the Apotheosis is common on gems. 
 We have no actual example showing the Apotheosis 
 of Augustus, but two cameos with the deification of 
 princes of his house will serve to recall the familiar 
 scheme to your minds. One, a fine cameo in the 
 Cabinet des Medailles, shows a young Julio-Claudian 
 Prince, possibly Germanicus, borne aloft by the eagle, 
 and bearing in his left hand the cornucopiae ; in his 
 
68 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 right is the Htuus or augur's staff, while Victory hovers 
 over him with the crown {R.R., ii. 236, 4). The 
 second cameo is in the Library of Nancy ; it repro- 
 duces the same scheme, but this time the Imperial 
 personage is Nero, and in his right hand he carries 
 in place of the augural staff the actual image of 
 Victory holding a crown as if to place it on his head.** 
 We shall see when we come to discuss ancient beliefs 
 as to the After Life and the Apotheosis of the soul that 
 the eagle, messenger of the sun, was from a period of 
 high antiquity a favourite vehicle of the soul in its 
 ascent to the celestial sphere. The first example 
 quoted shows that deification was early extended to 
 other members of the Imperial family besides the 
 Emperor. The doctrine soon affected the religious 
 status of the living ruler also. Since he was Divijilius 
 he was exalted spiritually above the rest of mankind. 
 The most splendid of all antique cameos, the Grand 
 Camee de France of the Cabinet des Medailles in 
 Paris, shows us in pictorial form the ideas that at- 
 tached as early as the time of Tiberius to the Emperor 
 and the Imperial family (plate ix. i).^** Here in the 
 centre is Tiberius, enthroned, wearing the aegis and 
 other attributes of Jupiter, and though as Trium- 
 phator the Emperor had a traditional right to these 
 insignia, yet the fixing of the Imperial image in art, 
 with all the attributes of the chief deity of the State, 
 must have gone far towards building up the con- 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 69 
 
 ception of a deified living ruler. Let me put this 
 rather more emphatically — my point is that as 
 Triumphator, the Emperor, like all generals to whom 
 triumph was accorded (see above, p. 64) , was for the 
 time being the god, was in very truth Jupiter Optimus 
 Maximus, and that art contributes to give perman- 
 ence and fixity to the otherwise ephemeral notion of a 
 deified prince. By the side of Tiberius sits his mother 
 Livia, represented as Ceres, with ears of corn and 
 poppy flowers, since the security brought about by 
 the Imperial victories encourages the divinities of 
 fertility and increase to put forth their powers ; 
 around the Imperial pair are grouped the younger 
 princes and princesses of their house. Such an image 
 as this central group seems conjured up by the de- 
 scription in ancient authors of the Triumphator sur- 
 rounded during the pageant by his sons and other 
 members of his family, and even by friends of high 
 standing. In the upper zone appears the majestic 
 figure of Augustus, partly supported on a figure which 
 from its Phrygian costume must be one of the mythic 
 ancestors of the Julian race — Anchises or lulus. On 
 the left is a deified prince, thought to be the elder 
 Drusus ; on the right, springing towards Augustus 
 on a magnificent winged steed, is another deified 
 prince, possibly Marcellus. The winged horse, like 
 the winged chariot on the Augustan altar in the 
 Vatican, is the vehicle of the soul's ascent,^^ and 
 
70 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 belongs to the same cycle of ideas as the winged 
 chariot in which the dead are rapt to the other world 
 on archaic Greek and Etruscan monuments, a sub- 
 ject about which I shall have much to say in the 
 next lecture. As we look at this wonderful pictorial 
 allegory of Augustus and the deified princes of his 
 house we are reminded of the lines : 
 
 quos inter Augustus recumbens 
 purpureo bibit ore nectar. 
 
 Hor., Od. iii. 3, 12.^^ 
 
 May not indeed the Horatian verses have been 
 directly inspired by some picture similar to the one 
 before us ? The figures and groups both of the 
 Vienna cameo and of the Grand Camee represent, 
 I surmise, actual triumphal pictures or triumphal 
 statuary groups taken from real life. 
 
 The cult of the living Emperor, of the divi filius, 
 was the natural sequel to the deification of his pre- 
 decessor. We already hear of divine honours being 
 offered to Augustus, and, it is commonly alleged, 
 refused by him. Like Caesar he may have feared 
 lest the simple-minded Romans should look askance 
 at any attempt on his part to invest himself with the 
 religious attributes associated in their mind with the 
 idea of an Oriental despot. In Rome, it is generally 
 said, he was content to be worshipped in the guise of 
 his own Genius, a conception beautifully expressed 
 in the statue of the Vatican (Helbig, 304), though a 
 
PLATE IX. 
 
 1. The Gram) l vm^e de France. 
 
 2. Coins with Apotheosis of Sabina and of Faustina. 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 71 
 
 host of statues show that he wiUingly allowed the 
 images of the gods to bear his features. ^^ At any 
 rate Augustus soon represented himself as compelled 
 to accept divine honours in the eastern provinces of 
 the Empire, where he wisely recognised that the figure 
 of the Roman military leader would not carry with 
 it the necessary prestige unless invested with a super- 
 natural character. But in order to soothe Roman 
 susceptibilities he made it a condition that his cult 
 should be associated with that of the goddess Roma, 
 as in the lovely temple at Ancyra, erected to Roma 
 and Augustus as early as 25 B.C. by the grateful 
 Galatians, who had that year received autonomy 
 from the Emperor. Other well-known instances of 
 the double cult are the temples at Pergamon and at 
 Nicomedia, while the great altars at Lugdunum and 
 Tarraco show that the cult soon spread to the West.^* 
 Tiberius, a man of stiffer morality, perhaps, than 
 Augustus, but with less imagination, declined, accord- 
 ing to Tacitus (Annals, iv. 38), the divine honours 
 offered him in Spain, ^^ though the Grand Camee 
 shows him as not averse to being represented with 
 all the insignia of a god. 
 
 Augustus and Roma appear enthroned side by side 
 on a magnificent cameo of the Imperial Library of 
 Vienna {R.R., ii. 144).^^ The cameo is specially 
 important for our purpose, owing to its strongly 
 centralised composition ; Roma and Augustus form 
 
72 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 a compact group, as the Dea looks round at her 
 paredros, who, wearing the insignia of Jupiter as 
 Triumphator, receives the crown of victory or of 
 empire from a figure symbolising the Oikoumene, the 
 inhabited earth. Below the throne is the Eagle, the 
 bird of Jupiter, symbol at once of Empire and of 
 Apotheosis ; between Roma and Augustus appears 
 the natal sign of the Emperor, the constellation of 
 Capricorn.^' The other figures of the allegorical 
 group on the right of Augustus are, besides the 
 Oikoumene already mentioned, Neptune, the watery 
 element well placed here with the figures of the in- 
 habited world and of Terra Mater, the Nature 
 Mother, who is seen reclining below holding the horn 
 of jplenty, and with children about her. In all these 
 Roman monuments which commemorate victory 
 and triumph we find incessant insistence on the fact 
 that the fertility of the earth, encouraged and pro- 
 tected by the Pax Augusta, is the grand result of the 
 Emperor's victorious campaigns. On the left is the 
 young victorious prince himself alighting from his 
 chariot ; and to make his identity doubly sure the 
 natal constellation of Tiberius, the Scorpion, is 
 depicted on the shield that hangs from the tree 
 which Roman legionaries are setting up as a trophy 
 of victory in the lower frieze. These two cameos, 
 worthy to be placed in the Imperial collection, the 
 dactyliotheca of which Pliny has left us an account, 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 73 
 
 are almost certainly copies or adaptations of large 
 pictures set up in temples or public buildings, where 
 they would largely influence the popular conception 
 of the Imperial power. 
 
 The spiritual atmosphere now beginning to envelop 
 the Imperial person is everywhere manifest in the new 
 prominence given to his image in art. On one of 
 the cups from Boscoreale, in the Edmond de 
 Rothschild collection in Paris, the attitude of 
 Augustus is already made more emphatic than on 
 the Ara Pacis.^® On the one side Augustus receives 
 the submission of conquered barbarians. The noble 
 pose and gesture of the Emperor at once command 
 attention. The tendency, already apparent on the 
 Ara Pacis, of isolating the figure against a crowded 
 background is worked up here to a higher effective- 
 ness. A new pathetic quality, characteristic of Im- 
 perial art, is introduced, and that the central scene 
 should be one of a father recommending his little 
 child to the Imperial mercy inclines me to think that 
 Vergil had some real picture in his mind when he 
 wrote the celebrated 
 
 To tame the proud, the fettered slave to free ; 
 These are imperial arts, and worthy thee. 
 
 (Dryden's transl.) 
 
 On the other side we see Augustus surrounded by 
 allegorical figures and divinities. In both scenes he 
 is placed not in profile but in three-quarter view, in 
 
74 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 a first attempt to relate him not only to the attendant 
 personages in the picture, but also to the spectator. 
 Especially is this the case in the scene where the 
 Emperor, enthroned in solitary majesty, is approached 
 on the one side by figures allegorical of Empire, on the 
 other by a group of the conquered provinces, who 
 are brought into the Imperial presence by Mars ; the 
 first instance, I believe, of his appearance in the 
 direct service of the Princeps. The old Latin war- 
 god was not merely killed, as has lately been said, by 
 literary convention,^^ but, like the other gods, includ- 
 ing Jupiter Optimus Maximus, his godhead paled 
 and eventually disappeared before the rising numen 
 Augusti. Not Vergil, nor any Augustan poet, but 
 the Emperor himself, or, more correctly, the Imperial 
 idea, is responsible for ' taking the life out of Jupiter, 
 Mars and Apollo.' The gods had perforce to efface 
 themselves before the Imperial power emanating from 
 the Emperor, though the Emperor might for a time 
 encourage their worship and reinstate their cults with 
 a new splendour. 
 
 The Emperor's majestic pose on the Rothschild cup 
 is in complete harmony with the spirit of the epoch 
 which witnessed the birth of the Imperial cult and 
 of the religion of Augustus and Roma. To a great 
 extent these cults were evolved out of ideas familiar 
 to the Orient from the period of Alexander the Great 
 onwards ; yet the Emperor as you see him here is 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 75 
 
 essentially a Western conception, and his image will 
 retain this character even when in time, by the con- 
 stant admixture of Oriental ideas, he himself can be 
 described as more of an Oriental despot than of a 
 military leader of the West. 
 
 (6) Influence of Augustan Art upon Popular 
 Imagination 
 
 The compositions before us help us to grasp man- 
 kind's belief that the Emperor was the promised 
 redeemer and saviour {crcorrjp Kal 6vepryeT7]<;) who, ac- 
 cording to the prophecies of the Sibyl, was to close 
 the cycle of the ages and open a new era of salvation 
 and peace, who was to bid the gates of war be shut, 
 and the golden age of Saturn return.^'' 
 
 To students of the Augustan period, it is clear that 
 Augustus called in the service of art to help his re- 
 ligious schemes to an extent as great, or even greater 
 than that of poetry. The assistance he received 
 from poetry has been fully recognised,®^ but art with 
 its greater because more concrete influence is often 
 dismissed as almost irrelevant to the question. 
 English scholars especially have a tendency to under- 
 rate the role played in the formation of religious ideas 
 by the visible form given to deities and abstractions.®^ 
 Yet the works we have just considered — whether repre- 
 senting the actual deification, or merely showing the 
 Emperor in the majestic pose which his exalted state 
 
76 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 demanded — seen in every public place, at every street 
 corner, repeated, we may add, in miniature for the 
 sideboard and the dining-table, must have gone far 
 to fill the popular imagination with the Imperial 
 idea. We are apt to forget that art in antiquity has 
 the same didactic mission as in the Middle Ages before 
 the invention of printing. Its function was largely 
 utilitarian : one of its purposes was to impress upon 
 the people a definite attitude towards religion or 
 politics. For one man who had access to Vergil or 
 Horace, thousands would see on their daily rounds 
 the great monuments on which, to borrow Whistler's 
 phrase, ' the nation had learnt to hew its history in 
 marble.' The opening of the First Georgic, the Sixth 
 Aeneid, the Imperial lyrics of Horace were possibly 
 less potent factors in the establishment of the Empire 
 than the pictures of the Imperial ' might, majesty and 
 dominion,' of which cameos and coins and silver cups 
 have preserved for us the copies ; the lovely com- 
 position of the young Tiberius, who descends with 
 modest grace from the triumphal chariot to do 
 homage to Roma and Imperator in the Vienna Cameo, 
 or the group of the deified young heroes of the Grand 
 Camee, would serve the same high purpose as the 
 famous Horatian odes (Book iv. 4 and 14) which 
 celebrate the military valour of the stepsons of 
 Augustus. Poet and artist alike contrived to endear 
 the Imperial dynasty to the people by fostering 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 77 
 
 admiration for the prowess of individual princes. 
 
 Not the Emperor alone but his house is exalted in 
 
 these scenes as 
 
 tutela praesens 
 
 Italiae dominaeque Romae. 
 
 (c) Characteristics of Roman Art favourable to 
 Expression of the Imperial Idea 
 
 Before resuming our examination of the monuments 
 which commemorate the Emperor, I should like to 
 point out that outside the official art of Hellenised 
 Rome factors survived which were to gain in import- 
 ance as suiting the growing Imperial idea. Beside 
 the new Hellenic manner the intrusion or persist- 
 ence of principles long rejected by classic art, such as 
 frontality and the isolation of the figure, may be ob- 
 served. Both principles make themselves distinctly 
 felt in the stiff portraiture of Roman sepulchral monu- 
 ments,®^ and seem to govern such temple decoration 
 as survives. In pedimental composition the Greeks 
 had often been content with a frieze-like arrangement 
 of the figures, though the shape of the space demanded 
 a dominant central figure ; but the Romans seem to 
 have sought from the first to place a well-centralised 
 group or a frontal figure beneath the apex of the 
 triangle. This principle is already obvious in the 
 terra-cotta decorations of the ancient Latin temples.®* 
 The pediments from the temple of Apollo at Civita 
 Castellana {Faleri Veteres), to which belonged a fine 
 
78 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 torso of the god, must have been centraHsed in com- 
 position, to judge from the pose of the torso, which is 
 turned nearly full to the front and moves, so to speak, 
 out of its architectural setting (Helbig, 1784).®^ The 
 same remark applies to the two pediments from 
 Luni at Florence, where in the one a triad of divinities 
 with Apollo in the centre is placed facing the spec- 
 tator, while in the other, which represents the 
 slaughter of the Niobids, the desire to get a frontal 
 figure as central note is carried so far that a Niobid 
 on horseback is shown riding straight out of the 
 frame.^^ Even the curiously involved battle scene 
 on the pediment from the temple of Telamon shows 
 a tendency towards frontal composition. The same 
 laws of design make themselves felt in the temple 
 sculptures of Augustan Rome. The pediment of the 
 temple of Mars Ultor, preserved on a monument of 
 Julio-Claudian date walled into the Villa Medici, 
 shows a god in the centre {R.R., iii. 313, i). The 
 pediment of the temple of the Magna Mater from the 
 same series has the black stone from Pessinus placed 
 right in the centre of the pediment, with recumbent 
 figures at either side {R.R., iii. 313, 2),®' while the 
 pediment of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus 
 in the Capitol, though known to us only in an Antonine 
 version, must always have exhibited a strongly cen- 
 tralised composition, with the emphatic accent laid 
 upon the figure of Jupiter in the centre {R.R., iii. 203). 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 79 
 
 The monotheistic element in Roman religion, so 
 eloquently brought forward by Mr Warde Fowler in 
 his latest book, seems to confront us in these com- 
 positions. As we look at them we reflect that had it 
 not been for the stifling influences of Greek Olympian- 
 ism the old Capitoline Jupiter, who came so near 
 embodying a monotheistic religion, might have called 
 forth a centralised art type to set beside the Imperial 
 and the Christian Maiestates. As it was the Em- 
 peror and not Jupiter Optimus Maximus was re- 
 sponsible for bringing out the specifically Roman 
 element in antique art. 
 
 We shall now see that the growing necessity for 
 giving prominence to the figure of the deified Emperor 
 brought back by degrees the old frontal method of 
 composition, never, as we see, entirely discarded by 
 Italic art, even at the period when Greek influence 
 was at its height. 
 
 {d) Principles of Roman Design in the Service of 
 the Imperial Idea 
 
 On a series of five reliefs, once allotted to the Ara 
 Pads and now thought to belong to an altar erected 
 by a Julio- Claudian Emperor, perhaps Claudius him- 
 self, we have a processional scene and sacrificial 
 episode in the style of the Ara Pacis, but the figure 
 of the Emperor or leading Imperial personage is em- 
 phatically distinguished by its pose from his escort. 
 
8o APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 On the Ara Pads all the figures, not excepting the one 
 now usually identified as Augustus,^^ are either placed 
 in profile or else, as in the case of the so-called Livia 
 or Julia, though the body is given a frontal pose, the 
 profile idea is suggested or recaptured by the turn of 
 the head or the glance of the eye. On the later slab of 
 Julio-Claudian date the Princeps is placed in an 
 attitude which is almost frontal, the outward direc- 
 tion of which is emphasised by the searching outward 
 gaze {R.R., i. 235, 2). 
 
 On a charming altar to Augustus and the Lares in 
 the Uffizi, we see Augustus, flanked by Livia and one 
 of his grandsons, in a pose so far tending to the 
 frontal as to suggest that the Imperial figure is already 
 presented to the homage both of the personages at 
 either side of him and of the spectator {R.R., iii. 32).^^ 
 Augustus, who is represented as officiating augur, 
 clad in sacerdotal vestments, with the curved 
 augural rod in his right hand, the patera in his left, 
 and at his feet a bird picking at the sacred grain, is 
 here in the service of the gods ; but the isolation of the 
 figure and its self-involved character, combined with 
 the monolatric element contributed by the two 
 attendant personages, impart to the composition 
 the same grave dignity that we shall discover at a 
 much later date in the group of Septimius Servius 
 and lulia Domna sacrificing. 
 
 The great storied column found on the site of the 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 8i 
 
 ancient Celtic Moguntiacum, and now in the Museum 
 at Mayence {R.R., i. i86, 187), shows even more 
 directly than any monument of Rome or Italy the 
 force of the religious beliefs that were beginning to 
 centre about the person of the Emperor by the middle 
 of the first century. It was dedicated about 66 a.d. 
 to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, for the safety of the 
 Emperor Nero. I have recently offered a new inter- 
 pretation of certain of the figures of this column and 
 of its general intention, which was the glorification 
 of the Empire as represented by the Emperor ; and 
 it is unnecessary to resume the subject here.''" I will 
 only draw your attention to the position occupied by 
 the Emperor on the top drum but one, immediately 
 below the protecting figure of Juno Coelestis, who, in 
 her character of Queen of the Sky, is flanked by the 
 chariots of the Sun and Moon to show that the Orbis 
 Romanus is conterminous with the world. The 
 Emperor attended by the Imperial Lares stands in 
 simple frontal attitude, offering libation at an altar ; 
 his escort is formed by the ancient gods of Latium 
 and the allegorical figures of the Empire, who look 
 down at the sacrifice accomplished in their honour 
 at the altar in front of the column. The Emperor 
 is shown sacrificing to the gods, and is therefore not 
 as yet of their number ; but his emphatic position, 
 in line with Pax, Tellus and Victory, and surrounded 
 by ancient Latin divinities of fertility and increase 
 
 F 
 
82 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 marks him as dispenser of the blessings of peace.'^ 
 Nero — the Emperor — is represented here, in accord- 
 ance with the legend on one of his coins, as 
 o-corrjp T^<? olKovfiiv7)<; — Saviour of Mankind '^ — and the 
 Empire as the source whence flow the blessings which 
 he guards and dispenses. The column is dedicated 
 to Jupiter, Best and Highest, the builder-up of the 
 Roman Empire, protector and arbiter of the des- 
 tinies of the Roman world (see below, p. 85). But 
 even the numen of Jupiter had in time to make way 
 for the numen of the Augustus. On the column of 
 Mayence we look at the prologue, so to speak, of a 
 great drama, the last scene of which is carved on the 
 attic of the front face of the arch of Trajan at Bene- 
 vento, where the gods abdicate in favour of the 
 Emperor, to whom the old Jupiter of the Capitol 
 hands over the thunderbolt as time-honoured symbol 
 of his power (p. 85). Similarly, on the columns 
 which symbolised in the provinces the might of 
 Rome, a group representing the numen Augusti 
 trampling over the foes of the Empire supplanted in 
 time the statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. 
 
 Subjects akin in spirit to the reliefs of the column 
 of Mayence are very frequent at this period. I may 
 recall to you the beautiful silver dish from Aquileia 
 at Vienna {R.R., ii. 146, i), showing an Emperor 
 (Claudius ?) sacrificing ; Terra Mater reclines below 
 him ; above is Jupiter, and all around are divinities 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 83 
 
 of fertility and increase. The evidence of the monu- 
 ments goes far to show that the Augustan age which 
 saw the gradual degradation of the divinities of the 
 old Graeco- Roman Pantheon first definitely sought for 
 some visible expression of the monotheistic principle 
 which is at the root of the highest religions as of the 
 greatest art. The central formula by which Roman 
 art gradually sought to isolate the Emperor viewed 
 almost as a monotheistic source of life and prosperity, 
 acquired in time so exalted a character that it could 
 afterwards clothe the God-man of Christianity. 
 
 VII I. Centralisation of Design from the Flavians 
 TO THE Close of the Dynasty of the Severi 
 
 The reliefs of the arch of Titus, which date from 
 the latter end of the first century a.d., partake of 
 two distinct methods. The famous procession on 
 the panels of the archway reproduces a scheme 
 familiar to Greek art, but with the same emphasis 
 laid on the figure of the Emperor in the chariot that 
 we have already noticed in the figure of Augustus on 
 the cup from Boscoreale. The chariot with the 
 Imperial group is placed somewhere between a three- 
 quarter and a full view, and moves at a different 
 angle from the horses and from the rest of the pro- 
 cession {R.R., i. 274). Wickhoff, who first drew 
 attention to the artistic value of these reliefs, saw in 
 the position of the chariot a mere miscalculation of 
 
84 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 perspective ; I believe that we are here in presence of 
 an attempt to emphasise the Imperial personage by 
 bringing him full to the front. The relief on the 
 keystone of the vault, with the apotheosis of Titus, 
 leaves no doubt as to the artistic intention : here 
 the Emperor is no longer shown in profile, but is 
 twisted round somewhat uncomfortably on the eagle 
 that bears him upward to the heavenly spheres so 
 that both may be presented in full frontal aspect 
 {R.R., I 276, I). 
 
 As a proof of the strength and vitality of the more 
 purely Greek tradition, I should like to show you 
 immediately after these massive compositions from 
 the arch of Titus, a relief, likewise of the Flavian 
 period, which is in the Louvre ; it represents the pro- 
 cession of the Suovetaurilia — of the sacred pig, bull 
 and ram — led by a personage who has lately been 
 recognised as Domitian.'^ The sustained rhythm, 
 the evenly balanced composition and the studied 
 avoidance of over-emphasis at any point are obvious 
 Greek traits. Technically the work has considerable 
 merits : the relief is pleasing ; the modelling clear ; 
 the feeling for the tactile qualities of surface true. 
 The two laurel trees, which by the way are possibly 
 those that stood on each side of the Domus Augustana 
 on the Palatine, betray a close observation of nature 
 in the rendering of the shimmering leaves, of their 
 stiff texture, and crinkled edges. For all its quiet 
 
DIWS AVGVSTVS 85 
 
 beauty this type of composition was doomed, though 
 it died slowly and now and again flared up in a work 
 of real inspiration. 
 
 The whole interest of Roman sculpture or of sculp- 
 ture in Rome, whichever way you may prefer to put 
 it, now gathers increasingly about the deeds of the 
 Roman people and the person of the Roman Emperor. 
 We have only to think of the emphatic reiteration 
 of the Imperial figure on the reliefs of the Trajan 
 Column and of the Trajanic battle scenes removed 
 to the arch of Constantine {R.R., i. 252, 253). It 
 is, however, at Benevento, on the arch erected in 
 115 to glorify Trajan's home and foreign policy, that 
 we become definitely aware of certain changes of 
 political temper and religious thought which were to 
 invest representations of the Emperor with a pre- 
 dominating majesty. In each of the twelve episodes 
 represented on the arch the main stress is always on 
 the figure of Trajan ; concentration, not diffusion of 
 interest, is the order of the day. On the reliefs of 
 the attic the great Olympians receive Trajan, and the 
 old Jupiter of the Capitol, with his paredroi Juno 
 and Minerva on either side of him, hands over to 
 Trajan the thunderbolt, no longer to be the ephemeral 
 attribute of the Triumphator, but to hold as his own.'* 
 An eminent scholar has pointed out that Jupiter 
 marks by his act the intrusion of a new material and 
 spiritual order into the Empire.''^ Let us dwell for a 
 
86 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 moment longer on the extraordinary significance 
 of the scene. Mr. Warde-Fowler has recently ex- 
 pounded afresh the meaning of the great Roman 
 Jupiter, the numen praestantissimae mentis of Cicero 
 * protecting and controlling the destinies of the 
 Roman world ' — the god who rose above the Graeco- 
 Roman Pantheon to an exalted position comparable 
 to that accorded to the god of monotheistic peoples. 
 
 This deity was not for small things and small people 
 but for great ones ; there is a breadth and range about 
 his action which exceeds that of any Graeco-Roman god, 
 for he is indeed the reflection of the greatness of his 
 people, the religious interpretation of their amazing 
 strength. — Roman Ideas of Deity, p. 53. 
 
 Yet the great Jupiter, with something about him 
 of the Hebrew Jehovah, ruler, as Horace says {Odes, 
 i. 12, 17), of heaven and earth 
 
 unde nil maius generatur ipso 
 
 nee viget quidquam simile aut secundum, 
 
 had to yield before the numen Augusti. The reliefs of 
 the Benevento arch, like the allegorical group of the 
 Numen trampling over the foes of the Empire, sym- 
 bolised as a giant or other monster, which supplants 
 the image of Jupiter on the later * Jupiter and Giant 
 columns,' tell us in the direct and lucid language 
 of art of the god's abdication before the Emperor. 
 But the capitulation of Jupiter entailed that of all 
 the Olympians whom the old god brings in his 
 
PLATE X. 
 
 The Abdication" of Jupiter. 
 Benevento. 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 87 
 
 train, though he had never shown himself quite 
 capable of overruling them. The influence on design 
 was immediate. The Pantheon of gods, each claim- 
 ing his place in the scheme of representation, so long 
 the leading theme of sculpture, definitely vanishes from 
 the scene, and from henceforth a single figure bestows 
 on plastic composition a clear and dominant motive. 
 
 For these Beneventan scenes Oriental influences 
 might also be claimed ; something of the same idea 
 inspired the sculptor of those strange slabs that so 
 impressively crown the Nemrud Dagh between 
 Samosata and the Euphrates, and mark the sepulchre 
 of Antiochus i. of Commagene {R.R., i. 193-6). The 
 ruler and his ancestors are each grouped with a god : 
 in one instance the Oriental despot grasps the hand 
 of Zeus ; on another that of Heracles ; while a third 
 relief shows Antiochus and Apollo-Mithras standing 
 face to face on terms of equality {R.R., i. 195, 2, 3, 4). 
 It is the dawn of the idea, the fulfilment of which we 
 see on the Benevento arch. On the Syrian monu- 
 ment, erected about 40 B.C., the gods consent to admit 
 the monarch to equality with themselves ; on the 
 Roman monument, some hundred and fifty years 
 later, they yield their place to him as their successor 
 before they vanish for ever from the scene (plate x.) . 
 
 So true is it that the hybrid character which makes 
 much Roman art distasteful comes from the attempt 
 to ' adapt its indigenous inheritance of ideas to the 
 
88 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 different conception of the civilisation which came 
 from Greece,' that we are not sorry to see the Graeco- 
 Roman gods become subordinate and disappear. And 
 Delia Seta, from whom I quote, goes on to say 
 appositely : 
 
 Hence the peculiar characteristics of its literature and 
 its art, hence the diversity of its constituting elements, 
 a literature and an art non-original when they present 
 Greek myths, but original in form and content when they 
 give life to Roman ideas. — Religion and Art, p. 290. 
 
 It is doubtful whether Greece the perennial en- 
 chantress has not wrought as much harm as good 
 upon those who fall under her spell. 
 
 IX. The Principate of Hadrian to the Severi 
 
 From the Principate of Hadrian and of Marcus 
 Aurelius respectively we have two important reliefs 
 representing the Imperial Apotheosis. The first is a 
 panel in the Museum of the Capitol with the Apothe- 
 osis of the Empress Sabina in presence of the Emperor 
 Hadrian. The Diva is borne in her ascension by a 
 winged female genius personifying Aeternitas, holding 
 in her hand the flaming torch that kindled the fire, 
 or else, as seems to me more likely, introduced here 
 as symbol of the eternal light {R.R., i. 375, 2=Helbig, 
 990).''^ The character of the composition, however, 
 is historic rather than religious, the interest is focused 
 on the ceremony of the deification and not as yet on 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 89 
 
 the deified personage. The second, the principal 
 relief of the basis of the column of Antoninus and 
 Faustina, now in the Vatican {R.R., i. 291, i=Helbig, 
 123),'^ offers the most grandiose representation of 
 the Imperial Apotheosis so far known. On the right 
 side appears Roma — note the shifting of the interest 
 from the goddess to the divi. She is now spectator, 
 and they protagonists. In order further to localise 
 the scene, the Campus Martins in person, holding his 
 own obelisk on his knees, reclines on the left. Above 
 them the Imperial pair, deified as Jupiter and Juno, 
 are borne to heaven on the soaring wings of the Aion 
 or Spirit of Eternity,'® who here, like Aeternitas on 
 the former relief, usurps the function of the eagle as 
 vehicle of the Imperial transit, though an eagle with 
 outspread wings appears on either side to guard the 
 Imperial ascension. The composition as a whole is 
 not as yet entirely unified round a central theme. 
 The Emperor and Empress turn towards one another, 
 but even so the pose tends to be more frontal and 
 rigid than on earlier monuments, so that a more 
 direct relation is established between the deified pair 
 and the spectator. You will, I think, appreciate this 
 point if you turn back for a moment to the Augustus 
 recumbens of the Grand Camee de France. 
 
 The sculpture of the period of the Antonines shows 
 an increasingly strong centralisation. On a slab of 
 the Aurelian column, for instance,'^^ we find a com- 
 
90 
 
 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 position which might at first sight pass for a New 
 Testament scene by a mediaeval artist, the more so 
 that the Emperor raises his right hand in a gesture 
 afterwards borrowed for that of Christian benediction. 
 The highly centralised design flows from the group 
 of Marcus between two officers. They are standing 
 on an eminence or platform in the middle of a circular 
 camp, the walls of which frame and isolate the Im- 
 perial group. Through a gate in the foreground a 
 scout rushes into the camp to warn Marcus of ap- 
 proaching danger. Who, looking without prejudice 
 at this noble central group, resembling Christ between 
 two apostles in a fresco by Duccio, can fail to recog- 
 nise that new beliefs have invested art with a serious 
 emotion unknown to earlier periods, which marks 
 off this relief from the many weak contemporary 
 imitations of Greek models ? 
 
 But the Greek manner was by no means dead. It, 
 too, could receive fresh life by being brought into the 
 service of the Emperor. We have an example of its 
 superb vitality in the reliefs found in recent years 
 in the Roman Library at Ephesus, and now at Vienna 
 {R.R., i. 142-5), which represent the Apotheosis of 
 Marcus Aurelius, and are well worth studying as a 
 Greek rendering of the theme. The scene spreads over 
 two slabs. On the first, Selene, the moon, appears 
 in her stag-drawn chariot accompanied by the even- 
 ing star and heralded by the figure of Night, and drives 
 
PLATE XL 
 
 O ci 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 91 
 
 into the stream of Ocean, typified by a youth holding 
 a rudder. On the second (plate xi.), the chariot 
 of the Sun springs heavenward over the familiar 
 figure of Terra Mater, who reclines with the children 
 at her side. The composition is purely Greek, and 
 moves swiftly and equably from end to end without 
 any tendency to centralisation. But the new re- 
 ligious beliefs attaching to the Emperor pervade the 
 scene. He who rides in the solar chariot is not Sol 
 Sanctissimus but the Imperator, and Sol acting as 
 groom guides his own steeds in their course to the 
 starry spheres.^" Like Jupiter Optimus Maximus 
 on the arch of Benevento, the Sun has capitulated to 
 the Divus Augustus, and passed into his service. 
 Ideas are moving swiftly, and we have already got 
 beyond the conception of the Apotheosis revealed on 
 a papyrus at Giessen,^^ where Apollo announces that 
 after taking Trajan up to Heaven in his chariot, he 
 now reappears to present Hadrian to the world as 
 Trajan's successor. But now the fiery chariot is 
 vacated by its own master and filled with the radiancy 
 of the new Monarch God. Somehow this visible 
 subordination of the Sun to the Emperor, at a period 
 when the solar cult was invading the Empire, is more 
 striking even than that of Jupiter. That the Imperial 
 idea should prove stronger than the moribund cults 
 of Graeco-Roman paganism was natural, but that it 
 should resist and dominate, as on these reliefs, the 
 
92 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 victorious march of the Oriental creeds is a proof of 
 strength, the effects of which we shall again have 
 occasion to observe. 
 
 The portrait reliefs of the Imperial family on the 
 little Gate of the Silversmiths in the Velabrum, from 
 the principateof Septimius Severus (193-21 1), show the 
 new manner of presenting the Imperial personages 
 which was becoming current in Rome {R.R., i. 271-2). 
 Emperor and Empress no longer turn towards one 
 another as on the Antonine basis, here Septimius 
 and Julia Domna look straight out of the frame. 
 Placed side by side, almost like husband and wife 
 in Egyptian art, they seem unaware of each other's 
 presence, and are thereby brought into direct relation 
 to the spectator. It must not be supposed, however, 
 that this new method of treatment at once took the 
 place of the old. In a little known relief of the 
 Palazzo Sacchetti, which has been interpreted as the 
 presentation of Caracalla to the Senate in 197, we 
 see a curious combination of the old methods with the 
 new {R.R., iii. 319, i). Septimius Severus, accom- 
 panied by his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, and 
 attended by two of the great officers of State, receives 
 a deputation of senators. The processional scheme 
 is still Greek, but the massive group of the Emperor 
 and his companions has the monumental quality of a 
 fresco by Masaccio and superbly expresses the religious 
 majesty with which the Emperor was by now invested. 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 93 
 
 The period between Septimius Severus and Dio- 
 cletian is comparatively barren of great sculptured 
 compositions, owing, doubtless, to political unrest, 
 to the frequent changes of emperors and the depres- 
 sion caused by repeated military failures. Nor did 
 religion just then prove a stimulating factor. The 
 great Oriental religions which were predominant in 
 Rome during this period found little expression in 
 art, partly because of their aniconic principle, partly 
 also because artistic effort had been exhausted in 
 creating the type of the Emperor. A notable excep- 
 tion occurs, however, in a relief in the Forum relating 
 to the cult of the black stone of Emesa, which throws 
 a curious light on what has already been said of the. 
 effacement of Jupiter. On the arch of Benevento 
 we saw the Capitoline Jupiter despoil himself of his 
 insignia in favour of the Emperor ; soon his paredroi 
 Juno and Minerva desert the old god who from the 
 Capitoline heights had so long protected Rome, and 
 on the relief in question we actually see them guarding 
 the recently imported black stone Elagabal brought 
 from Syria by the young Emperor Varius Avitus 
 Bassianus, better known to history under the name 
 which he took from the object of his devotion.^^ The 
 composition is a good instance of the monolatric 
 scheme of design which so often corresponds to the 
 monotheistic idea in religion. 
 
94 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 X. The Period of Diocletian and Constantine. 
 The Christ gradually usurps the place 
 of the Emperor as the Central Theme of 
 Design 
 
 We are once more struck by the powerlessness of the 
 new Oriental cults to mould or inspire new or striking 
 art schemes by a carved basis of the period of Dio- 
 cletian that lies in the Roman Forum not far from 
 the arch of Septimius Severus. It was one of a pair, 
 which once stood on either side of the Curia or Senate 
 House, and supported columns that respectively bore 
 portrait statues of the two Augusti, Diocletian and 
 Maxentius, and the two Caesares, Constantine and 
 Galerius, each pair grouped perhaps somewhat after 
 the fashion of the celebrated porphyry * Tetrarchy ' 
 on St. Mark's at Venice. The columns were pre- 
 sumably set up in the year 303, to commemorate, as 
 the inscription tells us, the anniversaries of the acces- 
 sion of Diocletian and his colleagues.^^ One of the 
 bases has now disappeared. The second, in honour 
 of the Caesars, is now well-known. It was first pub- 
 lished by Riegl, who was interested in the technique 
 and the curious * black and white ' effect of the relief. 
 The subject represented has lately been acutely recog- 
 nised by Professor Frothingham — to whom the debt 
 of all students of Rome and Roman art increases 
 daily — ^as a sacrifice performed by Diocletian in 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 95 
 
 honour of Mithras who had been recently proclaimed 
 supreme god of the Empire. But see how little even 
 the emotion of a new cult could do for art at this 
 time. On the sides, priests and officials are deployed 
 in profile according to the time-honoured Hellenic 
 method, excepting that the movements are becoming 
 crystallised ; on the front face the Emperor, who 
 pours a libation at an altar, is surrounded by various 
 high officials and faces Mars, no longer the proud god 
 who stood in domineering fashion with one foot on 
 the step of the altar receiving a sacrifice in his own 
 honour, on the basis of Ahenobarbus, but a Mars 
 degraded to the position of a mere spectator. For 
 the sacrifice is no longer to do honour to one of the 
 old Latin or Greek gods. On the right sits the goddess 
 Roma, and within the arch of her veil as within his 
 own cave nestles the bust of the new god who wears 
 the rayed solar nimbus. But instead of facing 
 towards him, as we might expect, all the principal 
 personages turn their back upon Mithras — and no 
 clumsier arrangement could have been devised for 
 his introduction into the scene than this of thrusting 
 his bust into the angle above the right shoulder of 
 the goddess ; it is a direct and naive way of expressing 
 the fact that Mithras is now the chief divinity of the 
 Empire, and therefore under the direct protection of 
 the State personified by Roma, but there the merits 
 of the design begin and end. We know, now that 
 
96 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Mr. Frothingham has told us so, that the sacrifice is 
 for Mithras, but there is nothing in the composition 
 to indicate it. In fact, this Diocletianic basis is an 
 interesting instance of the failure of the new religious 
 conceptions to manifest themselves by means of the 
 old traditional forms. It is true that the actual 
 scene of the Mithraic sacrifice of the bull was still 
 finding grandiose expression in certain of the Mithraic 
 altar-pieces, but the type had been created as far back 
 as in the Pergamene school ; ^* moreover it was a scene, 
 an episode depicted by the means of narrative art. 
 To my mind, the solar cults, whether of Mithras or of 
 Sol Sanctissimus himself, failed to impress upon art 
 a new religious type because, as I have already in- 
 dicated, the creative effort was absorbed in giving 
 expression to the Imperial figure and his acts. When 
 we revert, in fact, to scenes where the Emperor is the 
 centre of interest, we are at once aware of a keener 
 grasp of the situations to be depicted, and a conse- 
 quent greater fulness of Inspiration. Conflicting 
 schemes of decoration long subsisted side by side, 
 though narrative art was gradually subordinated to 
 central motives of design. 
 
 The scene on a lead medallion of the Cabinet des 
 Medailles, dating from the Principate of Diocletian, 
 shows how matters stood at the beginning of the fourth 
 century .^^ The images of the two Emperors, Dio- 
 cletian and his colleague, who, with their solar 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 97 
 
 nimbi, resemble two enthroned apostles rather than 
 any figures familiar from the antique, are seated 
 facing the spectator ; but their heads are turned 
 towards the advancing procession of captives, and by 
 this movement the Emperors are drawn, as on a 
 Greek frieze, within the action of the scene repre- 
 sented. I cannot refrain from describing somewhat 
 more at length the interesting scenes of the medallion. 
 The landscape on the lower half, treated very much 
 as on early illuminated manuscripts, indicates the 
 locality. The scene is laid at Mayence, the old 
 Celtic Moguntiacum ; on the left is the splendid 
 old camp city with her great fortifications, and over 
 the gate is inscribed the city's name ; the gate leads 
 to the famous bridge over the Rhine (inscribed Fl. 
 Rhenus) and reaches at the other end the gate of 
 another fortified city, the Castellum, the memory of 
 which survives in the modern Kastell ; across the 
 bridge three Roman Victories escort a tiny captive ; 
 in the background of Mayence rise the hills of the 
 Taunus, whose wooded slopes are somewhat sparsely 
 indicated by a single tree. On the upper tier the 
 captives are brought into the Imperial presence, as 
 on the Boscoreale cup, by the dethroned Latin Mars ; 
 at the foot of the Emperor kneels the conquered pro- 
 vince ; on the right is a group of a father with his 
 children. All these are traditional motives long 
 familiar, but a comparison with the designs of the 
 
 G 
 
98 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Boscoreale cup or with the groups on the arch of 
 Benevento, shows that the Imperial figure was now 
 invested with a hieratic dignity which tends to iso- 
 late it from the other personages of the scene, while 
 these, on the other hand, are brought by the lines 
 of the design into the direct service of the Imperial 
 figure. It is the reappearance of the monolatric 
 principle. 
 
 With Diocletian we have got back to the period 
 of the friezes of the arch of Constantine, which I 
 took as the text of this lecture. If we now look at 
 these in detail we shall find more in them than mere 
 material centralisation. The gestures of the officials 
 have been compared to those of the Elders who in 
 early mosaics stand in monotonous rows and cast 
 down their crowns with the same fixed movements 
 before the Lamb of God.®^ The comparison meant 
 to be disparaging is, in fact, admirably accurate ; 
 in the one case as in the other this monotony arises 
 from the deliberate attempt on the part of the artist 
 to avoid any movement or gesture that could distract 
 attention from the central Personage, and in our 
 friezes the very identity of the gestures of the atten- 
 dants emphasises the importance of the Emperor, and 
 restores to art that monolatric value which had almost 
 disappeared under the influence of the Greek spirit. 
 It is instructive to compare these friezes with the 
 reliefs executed two centuries earlier or more, which 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 99 
 
 adorn the two famous balustrades in the Forum 
 known as the Anaglypha Traiani. They date from 
 the period of Trajan or, as I believe, from that of 
 Domitian, and represent various Imperial bene- 
 factions.*^ You at once perceive the different 
 aesthetic effect produced by the one and by the other. 
 On the earlier relief the various scenes are displayed 
 according to the Greek manner with equal distribution 
 of interest ; on the later every detail is so massed 
 and marshalled as to heighten the importance of the 
 central figure. 
 
 From the resemblance of these Diocletianic friezes 
 to those on the arch of Galerius at Saloniki, which 
 was put up to commemorate the same Persian vic- 
 tories, it seems probable that Graeco-Oriental models 
 were powerful factors in fixing these centralised 
 types of composition ; ** but here or there the inspir- 
 ing ideas emanate from the Imperator and his res 
 gestae. 
 
 'ifik It is surprising that Riegl, who so clearly understood 
 the significance of the technical and optical laws 
 observed in these reliefs, should barely comment on 
 this new and perfected centralisation ; especially as 
 he had recognised the same phenomena in the archi- 
 tecture of the period. In the course of time archi- 
 tecture had passed from the Hellenic stage, with its 
 feeling for the harmony of outward proportion, to 
 the Imperial phase, with its feeling for the harmonies 
 
100 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 of internal spaces,^^ Even as pagan architecture 
 had, in the normal course of its development, evolved 
 forms which, under the stimulus of new Christian 
 ideas, were to enter upon a new phase of life, so 
 sculpture had been transformed into a scheme that 
 could be naturally adapted to the monotheistic beliefs 
 of the religion now triumphing over the Empire. I 
 have already pointed out that Greek religious art had 
 no place for a single figure of supreme interest, 
 claiming to subordinate to itself all the details of the 
 composition. Had Christianity, with much of the 
 old Judaic horror of images clinging to its monotheism, 
 come into direct contact with Greek anthropo- 
 morphism, the shock would have been even more 
 violent than it was, and the victory of Christianity 
 might have brought with it the total extinction of 
 the formative arts, or at least of those which represent 
 the human figure. As it was, the Imperial idea 
 smoothed over the transition ; the place was ready 
 and by an almost unconscious change we find the 
 Christ enthroned or standing in the place of the 
 Imperator. On a beautiful sarcophagus at Verona, 
 the noble figures and harmonious composition are 
 arranged according to the same principle of design as 
 the Diocletianic * Proclamation,' save that the Im- 
 perial platform is transformed into the rock whence 
 flow the four rivers of Paradise.^*' The Gegenkaiser 
 conquered and ousted from its throne the central 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS loi 
 
 figure of the Imperial cult against which the Chris- 
 tians had waged so fierce a war, and the legend 
 Christus imperat imposed itself upon art as forcibly 
 as elsewhere. 
 
 I do not suggest for one moment that the art-type 
 of the Christ is derived from that of the Emperor. 
 The evolution I am dwelling on is of place alone, 
 of position, that is, within a decorative scheme .^^ 
 Here again the change was gradual ; the Emperor 
 himself yields his place only by slow degrees, and we 
 can watch the process of his gradual effacement 
 through many centuries. In the grand Barberini 
 ivory with the bust of the young Christ in the frieze 
 above the middle panel, rightly claimed, I think, for 
 the period of Constantine, the Emperor appears in a 
 new scheme. I have been derided for holding up this 
 ivory to admiration in my book on Roman Sculpture,^^ 
 and no doubt our aesthetic sense, trained to the irre- 
 proachable contours of Hellenic art, is vexed by the 
 constrained and difficult attitude of the horseman ; 
 yet we are in the presence of a gallant effort to express 
 a new ideal. The world has done with the splendidly 
 silhouetted horsemen of the Parthenon, with con- 
 ceptions like that embodied in the graceful stele of 
 Dexileos in the Athenian Ceramicus ; the aim of art 
 is now to restore communion between the worshipper 
 and the worshipped, between God and the suppliant 
 — to show the Emperor subordinate to the Christ, 
 
102 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 but to bring both into direct relation to the spectator 
 by means of the frontal position. 
 
 A curious panel in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum 
 at Berlin exhibits on one side of the group Our 
 Lord between the apostles Peter and Paul ; on the 
 other Our Lady crowning the young Emperor Leo vi. 
 (a.d. 886).^^ The latter scene shows how the Im- 
 perial figure in its subordinate position long held its 
 own by the side of the God of the new religion and 
 his saints. The beautiful design on the leaf of a 
 diptych in the Cabinet des Medailles (plate xii., 2) 
 represents the central figure of Christian art standing 
 on a high platform between a Byzantine Emperor and 
 Empress of the eleventh century, upon whose head 
 he lays protecting hands.^* Romanus (1068-71) is 
 a Byzantine Emperor, but his name and the epithet 
 Basileus Romaion show how proudly the old con- 
 nection with the Western Empire was cherished ; his 
 consort, on the other hand, bears the beautiful Greek 
 name of Eudocia, so that they appear almost sym- 
 bolic of the forces of East and West swept by now 
 into the service of the new religion. The Imperial 
 figures will soon vanish altogether, though the scheme 
 of the protecting figure and the dependent rulers will 
 in time be transformed in the service of new ideas, and 
 become the donors and protecting powers familiar 
 in pictures of the Renaissance. 
 
PLATE XII. 
 
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DIVVS AVGVSTVS 103 
 
 XL From Const antine to Justinian. Persist- 
 ence OF Imperial Figure as the Central 
 Motive of Design. Summary 
 
 With the introduction of Christian subjects a new 
 era had succeeded to the Antique. Art now gradu- 
 ally passes, as we have seen, from the service of the 
 Emperor and of the res gestae into that of the Christ 
 and of Christian subjects. But by the side of these 
 new themes the Imperial figure, in the frontal scheme 
 won for it by the doctrine of the Imperial Deifica- 
 tion, long retained its independence, and we must 
 follow its fortunes to the end. 
 
 It is on a monument once more wholly dedicated 
 to the glorification of the Emperor — the superb gold 
 medallion of Valentinian i. and his brother Valens 
 (plate xiii., i) — that the frontal presentment finds 
 what seems its most perfect form in Roman Imperial 
 art.^^ Were it not for the portrait of Valentinian on 
 the obverse with the inscription Gloria Romanorum, 
 we might mistake the two majestic figures with the 
 nimbus and the orb and raised right hand for the 
 Peter and Paul of a pontifical seal. It is Valentinian 
 (364-75) again whom we see on the beautiful silver disc 
 preserved at Geneva (plate xiii., 2=R.R., iii. 524, 2), 
 with the Emperor standing in a central and frontal 
 position haranguing his troops.^^ The large solar 
 aureole that encircles his head and the labarum in 
 
104 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 his left hand bring the Imperial figure very near to 
 that of the Risen Christ in many works of the Middle 
 Ages and the Renaissance. I shall violate chrono- 
 logy in order to place before you here the fine ivory 
 diptych of Aosta, which shows the Emperor Honorius 
 repeated on each leaf, in a pose very similar to 
 that of the Valentinian on the Geneva disc. This, 
 the earliest consular diptych known, dates from the 
 year 406 (plate xii., i).^' 
 
 The basis of Theodosius on the Atmeidan at 
 
 Constantinople shows frontal composition adopted 
 
 for practically all the personages involved in the 
 
 principal scenes.^^ On all four sides the Emperor, 
 
 his family and court, are shown en face within the 
 
 Imperial tribune, while the lower spaces are occupied 
 
 either by performances of dancers and musicians 
 
 arranged in animated groups, or else by groups of 
 
 barbarians bringing offerings {R.R., i. 1 12-13). The 
 
 composition of the main groups betrays the weak side 
 
 of this later Imperial art. The artist by placing all 
 
 the personages in a full-face position tends to cancel 
 
 the significance of the frontal figure in the centre, 
 
 which on the Diocletianic congiarium, for instance, 
 
 was heightened by the monolatric principle of the 
 
 attendant groups. Delia Seta, arguing from his own 
 
 point of view, puts the matter somewhat differently, 
 
 and draws attention to the deteriorating quality of 
 
 the design : 
 
PLATE XIII. 
 
 1. Valens and Valentinian. Vienna. 
 
 2. Valentinian with his troops. Geneva. 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 105 
 
 The path of decadence is shown ... in the reliefs of 
 the base of the column of Theodosius at Constantinople. 
 In these last reliefs the action has completely disappeared 
 and the figures are only present in the scene. They are 
 of course presented completely facing the spectator, so 
 that in the scene a sort of inertia and immobility is 
 established. — Religion and Art, p. 279. 
 
 On the other hand, the frontal composition of Theo- 
 dosius and his two sons, shown enthroned like a triad 
 of gods on the grandiose silver disc at Madrid {R.R., 
 ii. 195, i), is superbly effective (plate xiv., i).^^ Let 
 us analyse it somewhat in detail. Under an arcuated 
 pediment Theodosius appears in a purely frontal pose ; 
 he wears the diadem and his head is illumined by the 
 solar aureole ; he is flanked by his sons Honorius and 
 Arcadius, who sit, holding orb and sceptre ; in the 
 spaces between the columns, to either side the Im- 
 perial guards stand on duty with their long spears 
 and huge shields ; while immediately to the left of 
 the Emperor, a court prefect, whose inferior rank is 
 denoted by his small size, advances to do homage. 
 Classic tradition still triumphs in the subordinate 
 parts of the design. Within each angle of the pedi- 
 ment flits a love-god, and in the exergue the old 
 classic Terra Mater, turreted like Cybele the Great 
 Mother and holding a large cornucopiae, reclines amid 
 the flowers and plants, while children play around 
 her or bring her offerings of fruit. She represents 
 
io6 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 once more the power of the Imperial bounty to bestow 
 the gifts of peace and fruitfulness and wealth upon 
 the earth and her inhabitants. The idea is the same 
 as that which inspired the Augustan cameos or the 
 silver disc of Aquileia ; but while in the earlier scene 
 the Emperor appears as Mediator, so to speak, 
 between Heaven and Earth, the very scheme which 
 now clothes the Imperial Majesty announces that 
 its power is equal to that of the gods whom it has 
 supplanted. The idea of the Imperial beneficence is 
 borne out by the design. By the prominent position 
 ^iven to the Emperor under the arcuated pediment 
 which enframes his head, so to speak, like a second 
 aureole, he dominates the whole scene, for though 
 his sons — partners of their father's majesty — claim 
 homage as Imperial personages, their frontal pose, 
 owing to their subordinate place and lesser stature, in 
 no way detracts from the significance of the central 
 figure. The guards likewise, by their close grouping 
 and by the slight inward turn of the heads, introduce 
 the monolatric quality which enhances the spec- 
 tator's interest in the central part of the design. 
 Then observe how the solemn stillness of the Imperial 
 figure, removed like the Christ of Chartres (plate iv.) 
 from conditions of time and space, is further en- 
 hanced by the somewhat fussy action of the little 
 court prefect as he advances from the left with some 
 petition which leaves the Imperial personage undis- 
 
PLATE X/r. 
 
 1. An Imperial Triad. Theodosius and his Sons. 
 
 Silver Disc in Madrid. 
 
 2. The Marriage of David. Nicosia. 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS 107 
 
 turbed. The Madrid disc, like the medal of Valens 
 and Valentinian, shows Roman art — the art inspired 
 by the Imperial idea — at a level which it is generally 
 supposed was only reached by Christian compositions. 
 
 A proof of the rapid interchange of ideas that took 
 place at this time between pagan and Christian art 
 is afforded by the subjects from the life of David, 
 embossed on a series of nine silver plates from near 
 Kyrenia in Cyprus, and partly distributed between 
 the Pierpont Morgan collection in New York and the 
 Museum of Nicosia. In three of these the background 
 is formed by an arcuated construction similar to that 
 in the disc of Theodosius, though with the omission 
 of the line of the gable ; moreover in the * David 
 before Saul,' Saul sits enthroned like Theodosius ; 
 while the composition of the Marriage of David has 
 been well compared by Mr. Dalton to that of a coin 
 of Theodosius 11., showing this Emperor between 
 Valentinian iii. and Eudocia (plate xiv,, 2).^°° 
 
 Under the double influence of the Christ and the 
 Emperor a central composition was becoming the rule. 
 A striking example is afforded by the group of the 
 consular chariot on the splendid opus sectile at Rome 
 from the Basilica of Junius Bassus, now in the Palazzo 
 del Drago.^^^ The scheme of the frontal chariot may 
 be traced through art till it becomes the beautiful 
 composition of the Ascension of Alexander in his 
 griffin-drawn car on a relief of the exterior of St. Mark's 
 
io8 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 at Venlce.^"^ It is worth comparing with the kindred 
 compositions of the chariot Nyx-Selene on an Attic 
 cup and of the chariot of HeHos on the phalera from 
 EHs which we considered earher in this lecture 
 (p. 38). The design of the Alexander is really the 
 same in spirit and aim as that of the Helios. Just 
 as the Helios, in virtue of his apotropaic function, is 
 placed frontally in the design, so, too, Alexander, 
 because he is represented as deified, is given the fully 
 frontal pose which brings him into direct relation 
 to the spectator ; and in each case horses or griffins 
 are arranged to each side in a scheme which not only 
 does not detract interest from the central figure, but 
 actually tends to enhance its importance by imparting 
 to the design a monolatric value. But there is this 
 difference, that what in Greek art from the fifth cen- 
 tury B.C. onwards, only made a sporadic appearance 
 with a special purpose in view has now come definitely 
 to the surface and become the rule, while the narrative 
 scheme and self-involved design of the Selene are 
 now the exception, or only survive as traditional 
 motives of decoration. 
 
 Another monument of the silversmith's art must 
 close what I have to say about the Emperor as central 
 figure in design. The group engraved on the grand 
 shield or disc found in a tomb in 1891 at Kertsch 
 in the Crimea, and preserved in the Hermitage at 
 Petrograd, shows an emperor of the sixth century — 
 
DIWS AVGVSTVS 109 
 
 almost certainly the great Justinian — in the scheme 
 known as the Adventus Augusti, the Advent of the 
 victorious Emperor. ^°^ The Emperor, in splendid 
 panoply ,^°* is riding to the right, preceded by Victory 
 holding palm and wreath, and followed by an officer 
 of his bodyguard who carries the great round shield 
 with the monogram of Christ. The movement is 
 deployed in profile, as on a Greek frieze, but see how 
 the Emperor's head and shoulders are turned full to 
 the front towards the spectator, while the figures on 
 either side turn towards him and are interrelated 
 within the composition. There could be no finer 
 example than this exquisite composition of the weav- 
 ing of two opposite methods into a new and distin- 
 guished art scheme (plate i., i). The artist brings 
 before us an episode, the adventus, and yet so con- 
 trives to emphasise the Emperor, by giving a frontal 
 turn to his head and bust that Justinian at once draws 
 to himself the attention and homage of the spectator. 
 With this superb conception before us of the great 
 Emperor who is responsible for the Codex Juris 
 Civilis, and the Church of the Holy Wisdom, we may 
 pause for one moment to sum up the debt of the 
 antique to the Imperial figure. 
 
 In the period of Constantine we saw the antique 
 accomplish under its influence the last stage of a slow 
 artistic evolution. The Imperial figure, by claiming 
 for itself the chief place in design, had imposed upon 
 
no APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 art a frontal principle of centralised composition, 
 which, though not unfamiliar to preceding periods, 
 was not an integral factor of their decorative schemes. 
 Centralisation is thus the last gift of the declining 
 antique to the art that was to take its place, and it is 
 the peculiar gift of Rome. Only with the prestige 
 bestowed by Rome upon the central figure could a 
 mere decorative scheme become imbued with mean- 
 ing and emotion and take irrevocable hold upon 
 mankind as that best suited to clothe the Imperial 
 power, which after unifying the whole civilised world, 
 had given to it long centuries of peace and prosperity. 
 We have seen how the Olympian Pantheon checked 
 the development of a great religious art in Greece. 
 The same Pantheon when brought over to Rome 
 effectively stifled, through the conflicting claims of 
 each Olympian, the formation of a great religious 
 type that might have corresponded to the mono- 
 theism latent in the cult of the Capitoline Jupiter. 
 The whole weight of the Imperial Majesty, the fer- 
 vour of enthusiasm inspired by the Imperial Idea, the 
 belief that the Empire meant both protection and 
 prosperity, had to come into play before the Olympians 
 could be banished into the twilight that the Imperial 
 figure might reign in their stead. Only the image 
 of the Roman Emperor as the vivid embodiment of 
 the new centralised authority could have compelled 
 into his service alike the principle of frontality by 
 
DIVVS AVGVSTVS in 
 
 which primitive man sought to assure himself the 
 direct protection of his gods, and those schemes of 
 narrative composition by which the Greeks had striven 
 to illustrate the workings of the divine nature. Under 
 the influence of this dual conception, the artists 
 working for Rome succeeded in fusing into one har- 
 monious whole the res gestae of the Roman people 
 and the Maiestas of the Roman Emperor. The 
 primitive full-face pose of the god and the monolatric 
 distribution of the figures attendant upon him, 
 purified by the genius of Rome of the old magical 
 intention, passed into the service of Christianity, 
 and in its wake proved the paramount influence in 
 the art of both Middle Ages and Renaissance. 
 
 Delia Seta has lately argued that in the Renaissance 
 from the time of Dante art was captured anew by 
 the Greek spirit, and again turned to exemplify the 
 dealings of God with man by means of the narra- 
 tive style {Religion and Art, p. 364). But the secret 
 of centralisation and of the monolatric schemes 
 which belong to art in the service of a monotheistic 
 idea was never lost ; and if in his Paradiso Tinto- 
 retto could marshal figures innumerable into the ser- 
 vice of a central and dominant motive, this was 
 because centuries earlier, the necessity of unifying the 
 Emperor and the Imperial deeds in one compre- 
 hensive composition had called forth the centralised 
 scheme which we have been considering to-day. 
 
LECTURE II 
 
 THE SYMBOLISM OF THE AFTER LIFE ON LATE 
 ROMAN TOMBSTONES 
 
 Animula vagula blandula 
 Hospes comesque corporis 
 Quae nunc abibis in loca 
 Pallidula rigida nudula 
 Nee ut soles dabis iocos. 
 
 The Emperor Hadrian to his Soul. 
 
 I. The Subject 
 
 Were all other sources of evidence lacking, a study 
 of the monuments which man has set up from time 
 immemorial to mark the resting-place of the dead 
 would alone suffice to give us the measure of his 
 belief in a life beyond the grave. The subject in its 
 entirety has never yet been surveyed, though no 
 branch of archaeology is at once so fascinating and so 
 fertile. To-day it is only a small contribution to the 
 vast subject which I can hope to make. My purpose 
 is to discuss certain late Roman tombs which throw 
 light on the new beliefs in resurrection and immor- 
 tality which spread over the Empire in the first three 
 centuries of our era, in the wake of the Oriental 
 religions. If I read aright, I believe that Roman 
 
 112 
 
PLATE XV. 
 
 1. Sarcophagus of Haghia Triada. (Detail.) Museum of Candia 
 
 2. Two Scenes of Apotheosis. («) From the Chariot of MonteleSne. 
 
 of Haghia Triada. 
 
 {b) From the Sarcophagus 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 113 
 
 tombstones reveal a spiritual conception of death 
 and of the fate of the soul which is far in advance of 
 anything taught by any religious system before the 
 establishment of Christianity. Secondly, and as 
 the necessary corollary of my first proposition, I want 
 to make it clear that the symbolic imagery and 
 decoration taken over from the Greeks and the 
 Graeco-Oriental peoples by the Romans did not sink 
 among them, as is often argued, to the level of mere 
 ornament, but became on the contrary charged with 
 a new significance. Owing to the variety of the 
 phenomena represented, I shall limit myself to those 
 monuments which reveal more particularly the 
 influence of the beliefs underlying the doctrines of 
 the Apotheosis and of Mithraic, Orphic and cognate 
 cults. I take my examples, as a rule, from the pro- 
 vinces rather than from Rome, because the further 
 we get from the sophisticated and cosmopolitan art 
 of the capital, the more spontaneous is the expression 
 of popular belief ; yet even the most elaborate and 
 patrician Roman tombs, as we shall have occasion 
 to see, betray at times the same spirit of faith and 
 hope. In the provinces I shall lay special stress 
 on the monuments of Gallia and the lands bordering 
 on the Rhine and the Danube, not only because the 
 high level of civilisation attained in these regions 
 under the Roman rule results in their stelae being 
 more artistic than those of the other provinces, but 
 
 H 
 
114 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 because they seem to reveal a keener interest in 
 religious speculation. I have the more material 
 reason for the choice in that the funerary monuments 
 from the Rhine and Danube were admirably repre- 
 sented in the great Exhibition of the Provinces of 
 the Roman Empire held in 191 1, where many must 
 have realised for the first time the importance of the 
 civil and religious art of the Empire in the second and 
 third centuries of our era. Again, M. Esperandieu's 
 great volumes on Roman Gaul form a Corpus of 
 monuments in which we can read as in an open book 
 the vast strength of the religious movement which 
 inspired the iconography of the Roman Empire. 
 But the movement represented by the imagery of 
 the later Roman gravestones can scarcely be ap- 
 preciated at its right value unless we first glance 
 back, however briefly, at its origin and history in 
 Greece and in pre- Imperial Rome. I think also that 
 this way of approaching our subject may incidentally 
 help students to appreciate more clearly the points 
 at which the Romans came into contact with the 
 Greek world. 
 
 11. The Origin of the Gravestone traced 
 TO Fear of the Ghost 
 
 To us moderns — as, indeed, to the more cultured races 
 of antiquity — the tombstone has come to have little 
 more than a memorial significance. The dominant 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 115 
 
 motive of decoration or epitaph is regret for the 
 departed Hfe, coloured more or less vividly by the 
 hopes of a life beyond the grave ; and we are apt to 
 consider the sepulchral monuments of the past as 
 expressive of the sentiments that inspire our own. 
 The dolmens of the neolithic period ; the royal 
 pyramids of Egypt ; the delicate carvings of Athenian 
 stelae ; Etruscan canopi or Roman tombstones ; the 
 mausoleum that enshrines the grief of Artemisia ; 
 the column that marks the tomb of Trajan, and 
 carries up to the sky the imperishable record of the 
 Imperial campaigns ; the square pillar tombs of the 
 Roman Rhineland ; the sepulchral slabs of our 
 mediaeval cathedrals ; the pseudo-classic tombs of 
 the eighteenth century, with their pompous epitaphs 
 — all the forms that the tombstone has assumed from 
 remotest antiquity to our own times represent to us 
 as we look back from our own point of vantage, the 
 desire to gain, in the face of ineluctable death, some 
 assurance of the life to come, or some consolation in 
 the retrospect of the life that has been. But these 
 ideas are only arrived at by slow degrees ; they 
 presuppose an advanced state of culture of which 
 primitive man is wholly incapable. We think of the 
 tombstone as the last tribute of love and religion ; 
 but fear, rather than any of the nobler emotions, 
 appears to be the motive for which it is set up by 
 primitive man. 
 
ii6 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 In order to understand the primitive purpose of the 
 tombstone, we must bear in mind that every rite of 
 inhumation or incineration has its origin in the desire 
 to banish effectually a dreaded presence by placing 
 it deep under the earth or by reducing it to ashes. 
 In other words, it is inspired by fear of the Ghost, of 
 the revenant} Even when the corpse is finally dis- 
 posed of man's fears are not over, for the breath, 
 which he identifies with the principle of life, may 
 work harm to the living if it is allowed to roam at 
 large. A desperate effort must be made to prevent 
 the breath from escaping. The custom of closing 
 the mouth of the dead, of placing the hand over 
 mouth and nostrils,^ and of closing his eyes — that 
 last pathetic service which it is the privilege of his 
 nearest and dearest to render — all arise from the 
 attempt to prevent the breath from escaping through 
 mouth or nostrils or eyes. Still the mischance might 
 happen ; the breath or spiritus might give the sur- 
 vivors the slip ; so it became necessary to catch this 
 detached spirit, and to prevent it from wandering at 
 will. Then, just as the mound above the tomb kept 
 the body safe in the grave where it had been laid to 
 rest, so the rough stone upon the mound was at first 
 intended as a trap for the wandering soul, a place it 
 might be induced to enter ; in other words, primitive 
 man set up his first rough tombstones with a magical 
 intention, in order to provide the ghost of the 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 117 
 
 inhabitant of the tomb with a shrine or dwelHng- 
 place. This has been so admirably said by Sir 
 Arthur Evans in the epoch-making paper on Tree 
 and Pillar Cult, that I cannot do better than quote 
 what he says : ' The rites by which the medicine men 
 of primitive races the world over are able to shut up 
 Gods or Spirits in a material object show how easily 
 the idea of attracting or compelling . . . spiritual 
 occupation must have arisen. A proof of this is 
 found in the ideas attaching to the rude stone monu- 
 ments placed over graves. These have not merely a 
 memorial significance, but are actually a place of in- 
 dwelling for the ghosts.' ^ The sequel of the passage 
 we shall have occasion to return to. 
 
 The fear of the haunting dead, of the revenant, 
 which religion, philosophy, and even science have 
 been powerless to eradicate from uncivilised and 
 civilised races alike, is the natural counterpart of the 
 universal and persistent belief that death does not 
 and cannot mean the destruction of existence.* It 
 is because mankind is firmly convinced that the dead 
 live somewhere and somehow in a life in which the 
 living have no part, and over which they have no 
 control, that primitive man at once believes in their 
 return and fears it ; hence his idea that if the dead 
 are buried with due rites they will be appeased and 
 give up annoying or disturbing the living.^ The 
 ghost has been pictured by Pater as ' a dream that 
 
ii8 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 lingers a moment ... a flame in the doorway, a 
 feather in the wind,' but in its primitive phase it 
 wears no halo of romance ; it is a grim and oppres- 
 sive fact that has to be disposed of by fair means 
 or foul. Among highly cultured peoples this fear 
 of the dead is not incompatible with the most 
 passionate sorrow for their loss, or with the most 
 exalted hopes for their welfare in an ultramundane 
 existence. Primitive man, likewise, when once he 
 has made sure that the dead will not disturb his own 
 peace, will do everything in his power to further 
 their interests ; he will not only bring them offer- 
 ings in order to placate and keep them quiet, he 
 will also furnish their tombs with the counterparts 
 of the objects which he conceives to be necessary 
 to their welfare in another life, and as the concep- 
 tion of a world below the earth grows upon him, he 
 will provide the dead with the means of journeying 
 to its furthest ends. 
 
 A whimsical pathos attaches to much of the 
 elaborate equipment of the grave, so obviously is it 
 intended to keep the dead quiet and remote from 
 the seats of the living. When we lay aside sentiment 
 and face the truth we realise that the actual return 
 of the dead to this world has never been courted by 
 any religion, and that it is doubtful whether any one 
 ever seriously desired it. Primitive man's fear of 
 the dead becomes civilised man's recognition of the 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 119 
 
 fact that the great experience separates, and must 
 separate, us and them. ' I shall go to him, but he 
 shall not return to me.' 
 
 Even when the dead beneath the earth become 
 associated with the divine forces of Nature and are 
 held to exert an influence on the vegetation that 
 springs from the earth, we shall find that, though 
 man welcomes and courts the return of vegetation, 
 and tries to induce the dead man underground to co« 
 operate in the process, he does not court the return 
 of the dead himself. He welcomes in the growth of 
 vegetation the resurrection of a divine spirit ; he 
 trembles before the reappearance on earth of the 
 actual dead whom he has known as human beings 
 like unto himself. This has been expressed with 
 poignant if unconscious irony in the scene of the 
 famous sarcophagus of Haghia Triada,^ interpreted 
 as the return of the dead in his aspect of spirit of 
 vegetation (plate xv. i) : the dead man — conceived of 
 as something akin to Dionysus or Osiris — stands out- 
 side his own tomb wrapped in a sheath-like garment 
 which resembles the swathings of a mummy ; he has 
 come, it seems, in response to a thrilling and elaborate 
 ritual which is represented in great detail ; but lo ! 
 see how afraid they are lest he should be tempted 
 to tarry too long. Three men advance towards him : 
 one brings the boat in which he is to be invited to 
 return whence he came, and two men carry each a 
 
120 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 calf as provision for the boat, since the journey to 
 the next world is a long one.' 
 
 In the same way it may be noted that the fulfilment 
 of any hopes of final rebirth and resurrection, how- 
 ever ardent, are ever relegated to a distant and in-^ 
 definite future. Once the dead are thought of as 
 living in their own distant world, their return to earth 
 may be admitted, but it must be within certain well- 
 defined limits of time and space, as Boni's discovery 
 of the Palatine Mundus has lately reminded us.® 
 Whether their return be invited for the benefit of the 
 living, or permitted in order to appease the supposed 
 desire of the dead to revisit their ancient haunts, the 
 times when the spirits were allowed to return were 
 days of fear and warning. At times, as in cases of 
 prophecy, the dead is officially recalled, so that, from his 
 larger experience, he may give counsel to the living ^ ; 
 but here also his coming is a defined and limited act, 
 fraught with fear to the living, who look upon him as 
 an object of awe and wonder and dismiss him gladly 
 to the other world when his mission is accomplished. 
 The return of the dead invariably takes place, as on 
 the Haghia Triada sarcophagus, to the accompani- 
 ment of mysterious rites. Examples present to 
 every one's mind are the calling up of the ghost of 
 Samuel by the witch of Endor at the bidding of Saul ; 
 the apparition of Darius in the Persae of Aeschylus 
 in answer to the incantations of Atossa and her 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 121 
 
 companions ; the tremendous scene of the Odyssey 
 in which Ulysses after accompUshing the prescribed 
 sacrifices sits by the mouth of Hades awaiting the 
 spirit of Theban Teiresias. 
 
 We moderns have not rid ourselves of fear of the 
 ghost ; but the modern ghost, unlike his primitive 
 prototype, neither desires to haunt the living nor seeks 
 to return among them. In some distant sphere he 
 dwells beyond recall, or craves for silence and oblivion 
 within the grave : 
 
 Call me not back, O Love, when I am dead : 
 Call me not back with witchcraft of thy will : 
 
 Far beyond thought my spirit will have fled : — 
 Call it not back lest it obey thee still. 
 
 And when, at Fate's behest, I wake at last 
 To toil on earth, to laugh, to weep again — 
 
 Dense be the darkness that enshrouds the Past, 
 Deep be the draught of Lethe that I drain. ^" 
 
 III. Origin of Sepulchral Imagery 
 
 Like the gravestone or funeral monument itself, 
 the imagery of the gravestone has a magical function 
 which manifests itself in a great variety of forms. 
 Probably the one we first think of is that of the 
 funerary statue. Once endow a tombstone with 
 animistic vitality, and it becomes subject to endless 
 variations and modifications under the influence of 
 the beliefs that centre round the dead whose soul 
 
122 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 the stone is supposed to hold. At first the boundary- 
 line between the survivor's conception of the actual 
 dead, and of the stone which holds his spirit, is thin 
 and elusive. The shrine or prison-house of the dead 
 man's ghost may by a very natural interchange of 
 ideas be identified with the dead man himself. The 
 aniconic grave-stele or pillar, like the aniconic pillar 
 of the god, may be subject to an anthropomorphising 
 process, and, since the dead, or his soul, is conceived 
 as resident within it, the stone may by an easy tran- 
 sition be made to assume the visible form of the in- 
 habitant of the tomb. At times the transformation 
 may be only partial, and, owing to the early associa- 
 tion of the dead beneath the earth with the fertilising 
 powers of Nature, it may be limited to expressing 
 what to the primitive mind were the vital parts of 
 the human body. A curious figure in Berlin from 
 Sardis represents the double process .^^ On the one 
 side we see the sepulchral stone transformed into 
 the image of a man ; on the other the organs of 
 generation alone are indicated. A curious group of 
 pillars at Tamuli in Sardinia is interesting in this 
 connection. ^^ Each is roughly carved at the top in 
 the semblance of female breasts, and though it is not 
 certain that the pillars were placed over graves, they 
 stood near one of the big Sardinian tombs known as 
 'Tombs of the Giants.' Possibly they were magical 
 stones set up to ensure fertility and increase. 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 123 
 
 As sculpture developed, the function of the stele 
 might be usurped by a complete statue of the dead, 
 at first of the type commonly known as * Apollos,' 
 and by the middle of the sixth century these so-called 
 Apollos, now happily renamed Kovpoc, were habitu- 
 ally set up over the graves of men, and the corre- 
 sponding Kopai, over those of women .^^ Even the 
 funerary statue in its classic perfection, whether 
 treated as portrait or as idealised type, may, in a 
 sense, be regarded as preserving, besides its memorial 
 significance, a clear reminiscence of the time when 
 the dead was conceived of as dwelling within his own 
 stele. This, of course, was only one of the many 
 ways which account for the existence of the funerary 
 statue ; ^^ it is well not to dwell on this point too 
 insistently, or I might be accused of trying to revive 
 the old theory, now discarded, of the technical evolu- 
 tion of the statue from the pillar or the plank-like 
 stele.^^ One observation, however, occurs to me 
 with regard to the difficulty so many have experienced 
 in admitting that a large proportion of these ' Apollos,' 
 who are invariably young, who are Kovpoi in the 
 fullest sense of the word,^^ were grave statues. Did 
 only the young die ? were there no old men and no 
 gravestones of old men ? The answer is that whether 
 the occupant of the tomb were old or young, he would 
 be figured as young, the state of Kovpo'i being that 
 coveted for him and by him in an after life. Eternal 
 
124 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 youth has ever been one of the postulates of eternal 
 life, and to give to the funeral statue the lineaments 
 of youth was the best way, on the magical principle 
 of primitive peoples, of ensuring the perpetual youth 
 of the occupant of the tomb. To the Greek, moreover, 
 the body of the old was ever a thing of shame, and 
 the sight of it is rather quaintly given by Tyrtaeus 
 as a reason against old men going into battle : 
 
 Across the bleeding body lies clenched the wrinkled hand, 
 A sight to make men sick to see that by the dead shall 
 
 stand 
 And naked see the honoured forms. Though every- 
 thing in truth 
 Beseems the vahant man that wears the happy flower 
 
 of youth, 
 The lover meet for ladies' eyes, the wonder of all men, — 
 Yet, fallen foremost in the fight, fair is he truly then.* 
 {Tyrtaeus, 8, transl. K. A. Esdaile.) 
 
 The gravestone might also assume the shape, or 
 be adorned with, the figure of one of the innumerable 
 objects conceived as the seats of the soul after it had 
 
 * aiffxpov yap drj tovto fiera TrpoyudxotC' vecivra 
 
 KeiffOai irpoffOe viuiv dvdpa iraXaikrepov, 
 •fjSri \evKbv ix^f'''''' i«i'PV "toXiSv re yiveiov, 
 
 Ovfibv airoirvelovr' &\Ki.fiov ev kovItj, 
 alficLToevT' aidoia <pi\ats ev x^po'lv ^xpvra — 
 
 alcrxp^ "To-y' 6<f>9a\/j,oii Kal vefiecr-qTov I8e?v — 
 Kai x/)6a yvfipwdivra. vioiixt di irdLvr' inioiKev, 
 
 8^p' iparrji V^V^ dyXabv dvSos ?XV' 
 dvSpd(ri fiiv drjrjTbs ISe^v, eparbs Si yvvai^lv, 
 
 fwos eiby, KoXbs 5' ev Trpofia.xoL<n Trecrdiv. 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 125 
 
 departed from its human habitation ; the snake and 
 the ' soul-bird,' which already appears on the Haghia 
 Triada sarcophagus/' and which develops into the 
 siren of the Attic grave reliefs, are familiar instances. 
 Or again, the various apotropaic or prophylactic 
 figures — we might almost call them by the familiar 
 name of scarecrows — placed on tombs to ward off 
 the evil spirits might, as was indeed commonly the 
 case, be translated into stone in order to ensure their 
 permanent activity. Sepulchral art early betrays 
 two distinct points of view with regard to the after 
 life. The one remains concerned with the material 
 welfare of the dead in a sub-terrestrial existence ; 
 the other, with a more exalted conception of the 
 supreme adventure, seeks to provide the dead with 
 a vehicle or an escort to an ultramundane abode of 
 bliss. Man's various conception of this abode, 
 whether he places the habitation of the dead under 
 the earth, or beyond its confines, or in some misty 
 cloud-world above, depends in the first instance upon 
 his method of disposing of the dead.^^ Where in- 
 humation is prevalent, the dead are thought of as 
 below the earth ; where incineration, fire is conceived 
 as purifying and releasing the immortal part, which 
 is then borne aloft to the rarer air of some region 
 above the world. The different ways in which it was 
 conceived the dead might voyage to these distant 
 regions were productive of an especially rich imagery. 
 
126 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Already on the sarcophagus of Haghia Triada — dating 
 from a pre- or proto-Hellenic civiHsation — we beheld 
 the dead borne, like Elijah, on a winged chariot 
 through the flaming aether ^^; chariots winged and 
 unwinged {ad superos and ad inferos), winged steeds, 
 boats. Harpies, Sirens, eagles, sea monsters of every 
 description, are only a few of the many vehicles of the 
 soul's transit.^^ The conception is refined till it 
 attains to the exalted symbolism of the liberated soul 
 expressed in the group of Ganymede borne aloft by 
 the eagle on the monument of the Secundinii (p. 222). 
 
 Again, figures and scenes expressive of beliefs con- 
 cerning the future state of the dead when they had 
 reached their destination might be carved or painted 
 on the stele. Scenes of ultramundane bliss are of 
 specially frequent occurrence — always with the same 
 magical intention of perpetuating the state desired 
 for the dead by giving it a permanent and visible 
 form. The scenes of hunting, chariot-racing, and 
 revelling are familiar instances — the ' Funeral Ban- 
 quet ' which in one form or other is among the 
 commonest motives of ancient sepulchral imagery, 
 becoming in time the supreme expression of 
 Apotheosis.^^ 
 
 The furniture of the tomb, it may be noted in 
 passing, partakes in its origin of the same magic 
 character. In the beginning, at any rate, the tomb 
 is not furnished, as is popularly supposed, with objects 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 127 
 
 known to the dead while yet aHve or beloved by them 
 — a late and sentimental notion. The real function 
 of these objects, whether the doll of the child or the 
 armour of the warrior, is rather to obtain for the dead, 
 by a sort of sympathetic magic, the things which may 
 induce them to stay in another world. ^^ 
 
 Thus while the grave monument— simple slab or 
 elaborate tomb — marks the barrier which separates 
 the dead from the living, its imagery and its furniture 
 have primarily the function of securing for the living 
 immunity from the dead by giving definite and per- 
 manent form to advantages and privileges which the 
 survivors conceive of as conducive to well-being in 
 another life. It cannot be too strongly impressed 
 upon students of the antique that this attitude 
 towards the dead lies at the root of much ancient 
 religion and ritual, and consequently inspires ancient 
 art from the earliest times. For the dead, from 
 being objects of terror to be scared away and placated 
 at any cost, passed as we have seen to being objects 
 of awe, and so acquired the character of beings of a 
 superior order endowed with superhuman and magical 
 powers. In fact, they were divine ; and this concep- 
 tion of the dead as daemon or hero governs the for- 
 mation of all sepulchral art. The idea is presented to 
 us with crude and primitive directness on the early 
 Mycenaean and Spartan reliefs, which we shall now 
 consider. It is modified to vanishing point in the 
 
128 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 art of the Attic stelae, through the supposed indiffer- 
 ence to a future Hfe introduced, it is said, by the 
 Homeric poems. It persists in the lands least touched 
 by these influences, till in the Roman Empire, puri- 
 fied and modified by the influence of the Oriental 
 religions, it inspires the lofty symbolism of the soul's 
 destiny which appears on the stelae we are more 
 particularly to study here. The magic intention is 
 gradually suppressed, or relegated to a subordinate 
 role ; with the progress of time, the imagery of the 
 tombstone tends to concentrate more and more on the 
 adventures of the soul in the other world and to omit 
 or minimise the relation of the dead to this. But it 
 was long before thought could be thus focussed on 
 the more spiritual aspects of the After Life. 
 
 IV. Conceptions of the After Life on 
 Mycenaean and Peloponnesian Stelae 
 
 An example of the desire to secure for the dead 
 joyful pastimes in the life beyond, by carving repre- 
 sentations of these on the gravestone, is afforded by 
 the much discussed scenes of hunting and chariot- 
 racing on the famous stelae from the circle of graves 
 on the Acropolis of Mycenae.^^ These date at latest 
 from the tenth century B.C., and are the earliest 
 figured stelae found on Greek soil ; they are described 
 as follows by Sir Arthur Evans in the passage from 
 which I have already quoted : * The stelae of the 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 129 
 
 graves at Mycenae must themselves be regarded as 
 baetylic forms of the departed spirits of members of 
 the royal house ; and in the reliefs upon them . . . 
 we may recognise a compromise between the idea of 
 supplying a spirit with an aniconic habitation, and 
 that of pictorially delineating it in human form.' ^* 
 Who that looks at them, with this explanation in 
 mind, can help seeing that because it is the departed 
 spirit which is here delineated, the pastime in which 
 he is engaged refers to his life beyond the tomb ? 
 We have here, in fact, an anticipation of Pindar's 
 picture of the joys of the Blessed, who ' in the space 
 before their city . . . take their delight in horses and 
 games' (see below, p. 140). More directly than any 
 others found on the soil of Hellas do these stelae 
 enunciate an order of beliefs as to a blessed future 
 life, similar to that which inspires the sepulchral 
 imagery of the later Roman Empire more than a 
 thousand years after. 
 
 The scene in which the living bring offerings of 
 drink and food to the dead very early makes its 
 appearance on funerary stelae, with the magical 
 intention of making the scene doubly effective by 
 giving it the permanence of stone. A series of reliefs 
 from the neighbourhood of Sparta, for instance, 
 shows the dead man enthroned with his wife and 
 receiving offerings from the survivors, while he him- 
 self holds out the cup for the funerary libation 
 
 I 
 
130 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 {R.R., ii. 39 ; 376, etc.).^^ The idea that the dead 
 are alive within the tomb, or somewhere in the world 
 below it, whence they may be recalled, cannot be 
 more emphatically expressed than it is here. They 
 can emerge and meet the living who come to pro- 
 pitiate or placate them ; they are shown as of heroic 
 size by comparison with the living who approach 
 them ; they are majestically enthroned to indicate 
 the superior power with which they are now endowed. 
 Moreover, in the more famous and best preserved of 
 these reliefs (plate xvi. i, in the museum of Berlin), 
 a further idea is introduced, inasmuch as the man is 
 represented not only participating in the scene carved 
 within the relief, but with head and shoulders facing 
 outwards in a stiff frontal attitude, as though the 
 sculptor had wished to establish between the dead 
 man and his survivors or descendants a relation 
 equivalent to that between god and suppliant (above, 
 p. 31). The stelae are particularly interesting as 
 offering to the spectator a triple vision of the dead : as 
 spirits resident in the stele ; as souls dwelling in the 
 great snake which rears itself up behind the throne ; ^® 
 and as actual human presences whose more majestic 
 mien alone differentiates them from ordinary mortals. 
 The scene is clearly one of Apotheosis. The fact that 
 the dead are shown as participants in a solemn revel, 
 that the very cup they drink from has the shape of 
 the kantharos of Dionysus, shows that they have 
 
PLATE XVI. 
 
 
 O ;■;:. 
 
 o 
 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 131 
 
 been made the equals of the gods and share their 
 special joys. The offerings brought by the survivors 
 are also worthy of attention. The man carries a 
 cock ^'^ and an egg ; ^^ the woman the flower and the 
 fruit of the pomegranate,^^ all of them symbolic of 
 those powers of fertility and rebirth with which, as 
 I have already pointed out, the dead were early as- 
 sociated. Students cannot be too earnestly recom- 
 mended to master the whole of this series of Spartan 
 reliefs, the type of which persists down to the Pheidian 
 age, as on one of the Chrysapha reliefs, now at 
 Athens (R.R., ii. 366, 2), on which a man, resembling 
 in type the magistrates of the Parthenon frieze, feeds 
 from a deep kantharos the soul-snake that rears itself 
 in front of him.^° These Peloponnesian reliefs had 
 an influence which the art of the Attic stelae could 
 not entirely suppress. 
 
 V. The Attic Reaction. Character of Attic 
 Sepulchral Imagery 
 
 The clear and material conception of an ultra- 
 mundane existence of the dead which inspires the 
 Mycenaean stelae and the Spartan hero-reliefs is held 
 to have vanished from the sepulchral art of historic 
 Greece, or more correctly of historic Attica, or to 
 survive only as an underground current of which we 
 see occasional glimpses in the humbler arts that 
 minister to the superstitions of the less educated 
 
132 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 classes ; so rarely indeed does it exert any influence 
 on the major arts that the one or two examples of 
 its persistence are often neglected in a rapid survey 
 of the subject. A great deal has been written and 
 said of late to show that with the Homeric poems a 
 new conception of the after life was introduced, which 
 was to influence the funerary art of the Greek and 
 the Graeco-Roman world until the great reaction 
 brought about under the Empire by the intrusion 
 into the West of Oriental religions. In Homer the 
 dead lead a colourless existence as shadows in a dis- 
 tant Hades where their time is spent in futile regrets 
 for the past, and he knows of no influence which these 
 poor shades can exert over the living.^^ Since these 
 shadows or e'iScoXa are banished to the further con- 
 fines of the world, whence there is no return, the 
 living need have no fear of the haunting ghost when 
 once the dead have been laid to rest, nor do the ghosts 
 need to be placated with offerings. If the dead are 
 to live for the living it is in the verse of the poet. 
 Henceforward, therefore, by the power of art, the 
 dead cease to be terror-inspiring spirits and become 
 ideals for the guidance of mankind. In a sense, 
 therefore, Homer is the creator of the art-type which, 
 in Attica at least, after the official introduction of 
 Homer by Pisistratus, is to commemorate the dead.^^ 
 The sepulchral imagery of classical Athens is likewise 
 commemorative in character ; the deceased survives 
 
PLATE XVII. 
 
 
 ^ ^t^v! l h-HflM ' ^IAi.KJ<SS. ^ " j 
 
 I. Stele of Lyseas. 
 Athens. 
 
 2. Stele of Archippos. 
 Cook Coll. , Richmond. 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 133 
 
 only as a memory in virtue of his past state, or of his 
 past actions. The long series of Athenian funerary 
 stelae usually exhibits an episode from the past life 
 of the deceased, or some scene illustrative of his con- 
 dition in this world. An archaic stele from Velani- 
 dezza, signed by Aristocles, represents the dead man 
 in full armour standing quietly in profile, with no sug- 
 gestion, therefore, of any heroisation {R.R., ii. 373, 2). 
 On another of more recent date, in the Vatican, a 
 young athlete looks down at his little servant {R.R., 
 iii. 408, 4=Helbig, 246). On a stele at Athens a 
 youth with his pet rabbit in his hand, and his little 
 servant looking up into his master's face, is repre- 
 sented in the attitude which doubtless seemed char- 
 acteristic to those who survived him (Stele of Telesias, 
 R.R., ii. 387, 3). Hegeso likewise, who died in the 
 bloom of youth and beauty, is shown seated and 
 receiving from her maid a box of jewels {R.R., ii. 
 393> i) ; or a young warrior is commemorated, as on 
 the stele of Dexileos, by the episode in which he lost 
 his life {R.R., ii. 420, 2). A number of these reliefs 
 likewise refer to the dead man's trade or profession, 
 such as that of the shoemaker Xanthippos (British 
 Museum ; R.R., ii. 502, i),^^ or of Sosinos, who 
 appears to have been a worker in bronze (Louvre ; 
 R.R., ii. 290, 2),^* and those of|various actors and 
 poets.^^ Further, in studying the Attic stelae in their 
 historical sequence, a distinct change as regards the 
 
134 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 relation of the dead to the Hving may be observed. 
 In the earlier examples the interest still completely 
 centres round the dead man, who is represented alone ; 
 then we watch the gradual intrusion of the living till 
 in the stelae of the fourth century the interest is about 
 equally balanced between the dead and those who 
 survived him.^^ We may even go so far as to say that 
 the spectator's sympathy is claimed rather for the 
 sorrow of the survivors than for the fate of the dead. 
 Thus by the influence which the Homeric poems 
 exerted upon the Attic genius the old magical purpose 
 had vanished from the stele and its imagery. 
 
 {a) Traces of Beliefs in an After Life in certain 
 Attic Stelae 
 
 All this is not so much my own theory as a fair 
 statement, I believe, of the views now currently held 
 of Attic sepulchral art.^' They require modifying in 
 not a few important particulars. Professor Gardner 
 had already pointed out in his Sculptured Tombs of 
 Hellas ^^ that Attic stelae retain considerable traces 
 of beliefs identical with those which inspired the 
 Spartan tombstones. In the archaic period, indeed, 
 the Athenian funerary reliefs are permeated by that 
 primitive faith in an ultramundane existence which 
 continues in force in the sepulchral art of Hellenised 
 Asia Minor and its islands. Consider, for instance, the 
 beautiful painted stele of Lyseas in Athens (plate 
 
PLATE XV III. 
 
 ^.V^\ 
 
 S o 
 H 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 135 
 
 xvii. i), where the dead man is seen holding a deep 
 drinking-cup, not in the least as some have supposed 
 because he had been a priest of Dionysus, but because 
 the Dionysiac kantharos is given him, as to the heroised 
 Spartan ancestors, for a sign that he has attained to 
 the status of god. Then again, the galloping horse- 
 man on the socle of this stele seems in the spirit of 
 the Mycenaean stelae, and refers to after- wo rid joys 
 rather than to the man's racing triumphs in this life.^^ 
 Symbols such as we saw in the Spartan stelae, and shall 
 see again in Hellenistic and Roman times, are by no 
 means of rare occurrence on Attic grave imagery. 
 On the stele of a hoplite at Athens, for instance, which 
 must be earlier than 478 B.C., since it was found in 
 the wall of Themistocles, a running Gorgon is carved 
 on the socle with evident prophylactic intention 
 {R.R., ii. 373, i).*° On another of the Pheidian 
 period from the Peiraeus, a man lays his hand on the 
 head of a tiny siren on his left, while on the socle 
 Tritons shouldering their oars and blowing their horns 
 are depicted, in clear allusion to the journey to the 
 Isles of the Blessed {R.R., ii. 388, 4). On the stele, 
 inscribed with the name Eutamia, likewise of the 
 fifth century, the dog which appears alone on the ledge 
 above the figures of Eutamia and her daughter or 
 attendant {R.R., ii. 389, 2) is plainly more than a 
 household pet ; the place assigned to it is that given 
 to the horse on one of the Chrysapha reliefs, and the 
 
136 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 dog here is certainly the underworld guardian.*^ The 
 same may be said of the dog which not unfrequently 
 appears seated under the chair of the deceased, as 
 in a lovely relief in the museum of the monas- 
 tery of Grottaferrata (plate xvi. 2). The bird, very 
 commonly a dove, so frequently interpreted as a mere 
 gift to the dead, is in its origin quite certainly a seat 
 of the departed spirit, and to my mind probably 
 retains to the last an allusion to the soul-bird.*^ 
 The lion which appears as the guardian of tombs in 
 Phrygia from remote antiquity,*^ and the bull who 
 later plays so significant a part in the sepulchral 
 imagery of the Empire, are all known to the art of 
 Attic tomb reliefs, though there is an undeniable 
 tendency to keep their symbolic value in the back- 
 ground of interest, and to assign to them a value which 
 as time goes on becomes more and more decorative.** 
 Finally, we must note a mingling of contradictory 
 ideas in Attic sepulchral imagery : on a stele of the 
 Dipylon {R.R., ii. 392, 3), for instance, Pamphile and 
 Demetria, for all the * modern ' everyday character 
 of their poses and draperies, are enshrined as solemn 
 presences within a nmskos or chapel, in a manner 
 reminiscent of those archaic stelae where the dead 
 are presented as objects of homage and worship. 
 Again, the stelae where the dead are seen surrounded 
 by survivors, recall that earlier conception of the 
 dead as a god, enthroned and reverently approached 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 137 
 
 by the survivors. But the magical value of the scene 
 has vanished, leaving us with what represents an 
 episode of daily life, in which, as I have already 
 pointed out, the interest often centres about the 
 anguish of the living rather than about the fate of 
 the dead now passed beyond recall. 
 
 (b) After Life Beliefs in Attic Vase Pictures 
 
 From the first the humble products of the potter's 
 art are more explicit than the gravestones. No 
 figured stelae adorned the early graves outside the 
 Dipylon Gate at Athens, but their place appears to 
 have been taken by the vases of geometric style 
 found above the tombs and richly decorated with 
 various scenes pertaining to death and burial.*^ 
 Among them the elaborate picture of a funeral ** 
 calls for special mention here, for we do not find 
 processions depicted on so extensive a scale or with 
 such a pomp of mourners and display of grief, until 
 we come to Roman times ; and even then they are 
 restricted to few examples (p. 175). A funeral pro- 
 cession has no necessary reference to belief in an After 
 Life, but the vase shows on the part of the ancient 
 inhabitants of Athens a preoccupation with death 
 which was banished out of sight by their descendants. 
 The funeral is a comparatively rare subject on later 
 vases ; but we find the laying out of the corpse, the 
 lowering of the coffin, the passage in Charon's boat, 
 
138 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 and, above all, the offerings by survivors at the tomb. 
 The subjects are specially common on the class of 
 vases with paintings on white ground, known as 
 lekythi, exclusively made for the service of the tomb, 
 and justly ranking among the most exquisite pictures 
 that Greek art has left us. One in the splendid 
 vase collection of the museum of Boston displays a 
 scene of appealing beauty : on the left a mourner 
 half kneels on the steps of the grave ; the fully 
 draped figure of a man on the other side is probably 
 intended for the dead himself ; from the figures of 
 athletes which decorate the stele, it has been thought 
 that the grave was that of a young athlete. It seems 
 to me quite as probable that the figures carry the 
 usual allusion to the joys and pastimes of an After 
 Life*^ (plate xviii.). 
 
 (c) General Trend of Attic Thought with regard to 
 Death 
 
 The sepulchral art of Attica was not, as we have 
 just seen, so devoid of all reference to a future exist- 
 ence as many archaeologists have represented. At the 
 same time it has to be admitted that when we survey 
 the gravestones of Athens as a whole and mark the 
 overwhelming number that contain no reference 
 whatsoever save only to the past life of the dead, we 
 may say of Attic grave reliefs as a whole, with Ales- 
 sandro della Seta, that they do not represent death. 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 139 
 
 hut immortalise life. A human melancholy not un- 
 naturally pervades them, a tender regret for what 
 has been and is no more, but we look in vain for any 
 indication of the recompense that may await the dead 
 beyond the grave. So, too, the funeral speech over 
 those who fell in the first year of the Peloponnesian 
 War, put into the mouth of Pericles by Thucydides, 
 has no word about the reward in after life for bravery, 
 nor does the speaker attempt to console the survivors 
 by the suggestion of future reunion.^^ 
 
 In this art of the Attic stelae we find everywhere 
 the frank acceptance of the impenetrable mystery of 
 death ; no effort is made to lift the veil that separates 
 the now from the hereafter. It seems worth calling 
 attention to the fact, not, I think, observed so far, 
 that the Platonic doctrine of the immortality of the 
 soul, promulgated in Athens in the fourth century, 
 has left no traces in the grave reliefs of the period. 
 It is stranger still that the Orphic doctrines, with 
 their theory of a future life, which had come into 
 vogue two centuries earlier, and which now, in its 
 purer Pythagorean form, gave a new turn to the 
 mysticism of Plato,*^ practically found no expres- 
 sion on sepulchral reliefs before the days of the 
 Roman Empire.^*' Yet the influence attributed to 
 the Homeric poems, if paramount in Athens, was not 
 universal, and Pindar — a mere Boeotian to be sure — 
 was possessed of a definite vision of the After Life 
 
140 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 and its joys which he takes more than one occasion 
 to dwell upon. One remarkable passage — the noble 
 fragment already referred to, beginning Tolat Xafjuirei 
 /ji€v a-devoq aeXtov^^ — I cannot resist quoting here, in 
 Andrew Lang's beautiful translation : 
 
 Now the light of the Sun, in the night of the Earth, on 
 
 the souls of the True, 
 Shines, and their city is girt with the meadow where 
 
 reigneth the rose ; 
 And deep is the shade of the woods, and the wind that 
 
 flits o'er them and through 
 Sings of the sea, and is sweet from the isles where the 
 
 frankincense blows : 
 Green is their garden and orchard, with rare fruits golden 
 
 it glows, 
 And the souls of the Blessed are glad in the pleasures 
 
 on Earth that they knew. 
 And in chariots these have delight, and in dice and in 
 
 minstrelsy those. 
 
 And the savour of sacrifice clings to the altars and rises 
 
 anew. * 
 
 {Rhymes a la Mode, ed. 2, p. 119.) 
 
 * Toi<n XdfjLirei 
 
 nip (rdivos deXlov rdv 
 ivOdSe vtJKTa Acdrw, (f>OL- 
 viKopodoLS 5' ivl Xet/tw- 
 veffffi irpodcrTLOP avruv 
 Kat Xi^dvip (TKiapov /cat 
 Xpvff^ois Kupirots /3e| 
 
 Kat Toi fiev iTTTTOLffi <T€> yv- 
 fwaclais <T£>, Toi Si irecraois, 
 
 Toi 5e (popfjilyyeffffi ripirov- 
 Tot, irapd 5^ (X^iitlv evav — 
 dTjs liTras riBaXev SX^os' 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 141 
 
 The vision endured, for we meet it again in Vergil five 
 centuries later — with this great difference, that the 
 Latin poet definitely makes Orpheus, the long-robed 
 priest, its central figure. 
 
 But the Orphism which inspired the eschatology 
 of Pindar and of Plato long failed to affect the attitude 
 of the educated Greek towards a future state. How- 
 ever expressed — whether in literature or art — this 
 attitude remains one of imperturbable resignation. 
 The influences emanating from Attica, clothed in the 
 matchless Attic form, permeated the whole ancient 
 world, moulded the scepticism fashionable in the 
 philhellene circles of Republican Rome, and every- 
 where opposed an obstinate resistance to the beliefs 
 in an ultramundane existence which were to conquer 
 in the end. Before we return to the monuments, 
 allow me, as a contrast to Pindar, one more quotation 
 in illustration of my meaning. It is from the elegy 
 on the death of Bion, long attributed to Moschus, 
 but now recognised as the work of an Italo-Greek 
 poet of the age of SuUa.^^ The passage alal toI /xa- 
 Xd^ai, familiar from Leigh Hunt's charming version, 
 
 Alas, when mallows in the garden die. 
 Green parsley, or the crisp luxuriant dill. 
 They live again and flower another year ; 
 
 65^0. 5' iparbv Kara, xdpov Kidvarai. 
 aid — 6va /j.eiyv6v- 
 
 T(j)v irvpl T7]\e(pavei trav- 
 
 Toca deuv iirl ^wfjLoti. 
 
142 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 But we, how great soe'er, or strong, or wise, 
 When once we die, sleep in the silent earth 
 A long, unending, unawakeable sleep, * 
 
 shows how completely the educated Graeco-Roman 
 world of the first century had lost — or affected to 
 have lost — the very conception of a life beyond the 
 grave. While humble worshippers in Asia Minor 
 were drawing consolation from the rites of Adonis, 
 Cybele, and Attis, and perceiving in the yearly resur- 
 rection of the spring a parallel and a hope for their 
 own future life, the Greek saw in that same yearly 
 miracle only a contrast between the unchanging 
 and eternal processes of Nature and the inevitable 
 hour that awaits mankind at the last. 
 
 VI. The Sepulchral Imagery of Asia Minor 
 
 (a) General Character 
 
 Fortunately for the greater happiness and consola- 
 tion of mankind there were other Greek countries 
 where belief as to an After Life was never so completely 
 obscured as in Attica, and where it continued to find 
 direct expression in art. The Attic stelae practically 
 came to an end between 317-307 B.C., as a consequence 
 
 * aial, rat /iaXdxai fiev, iirav Kara kSlwov 6\o}VTai, 
 rjSk TO, x^w/ja ffiXiva to t' eiidaXh odXov S.v7)6ov 
 ijffTepov aB ^wovtl /cat els ^ros &\Xo <pvovri' 
 &Hfies 5' oi fieydXoi Kal Kaprepoi, oi ffocpol dvdpei, 
 owbTe vpara 6dvu3nes, dvdKOOL iv x^ovl KoiXai 
 eiidofies ed /xAXa fji,aKpbv dripixova vriyperov vvvov. 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 143 
 
 of the sumptuary laws passed by Demetrius of 
 Phaleron against the excessive luxury of sepulchral 
 monuments. After that period the use of any 
 elaborate tomb imagery seems to have been effectively 
 checked. For the most part the graves are now 
 marked by simple pillars or slabs ; practically the only 
 subject which we find carved on these later Attic 
 gravestones being the funeral banquet, or rather, as 
 we should call it, the ' Banquet of the Apotheosis.' 
 The subject was of rare occurrence in the great period 
 of Attic art, and its new frequency betokens a revival 
 of faith in the glorified condition of the dead — a fact 
 which it may some day be possible to explain by 
 reference to the predominance at this time of Pytha- 
 gorean Orphism. 
 
 From the close of the fourth century we have to turn 
 to the stelae of Asia Minor for the later history of the 
 grave-relief. It is usually held that the Asiatic stelae 
 derive from the Attic. This is true of their archi- 
 tectural forms as a whole, but only very partially 
 so of the subjects represented. Rather does their 
 elaborate symbolism derive in an unbroken line from 
 those more primitive customs and beliefs which we 
 have seen rejected by Attica and Athens under the 
 influence of the Homeric poems. A glance at the 
 imagery of the earlier tombs and other sepulchral 
 monuments of Asia Minor and the neighbouring 
 islands soon makes this clear. 
 
144 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 (b) Scenes of Apotheosis and After Life on Sarcophagi 
 from Cyprus and from Clazomenae. The Chariot 
 of Monteleone 
 
 First we will select from the Metropolitan Museum 
 of New York the sarcophagus from Golgoi in Cyprus, 
 recently published by Professor Myres of Oxford,^^ 
 to whose catalogue of the Cypriote monuments in 
 New -York we are all looking forward. The scenes 
 of hunting and of chariot-racing embody, as do the 
 reliefs of the Mycenaean tombs, the promise of noble 
 pastimes in a life to come ; the spirit is that of the 
 Pindaric description of ultramundane bliss. The 
 banquet scene combines the sacramental expression 
 of the rewards and joys awaiting the Blest with the 
 notion of Apotheosis ; while the figure of Perseus 
 running with the head of the Gorgon is quite certainly, 
 to my mind, figured here with apotropaic intention, 
 to ward off evil spirits from the occupants of tomb 
 and sarcophagus.^* We shall find the same prophy- 
 lactic character attaching to this image some eight 
 hundred years later on the tomb of the Secundinii at 
 Igel near Treves (p. 222). Whether we can follow 
 an earlier interpreter of this sarcophagus in seeing in 
 the Perseus a portrait of the deceased,^^ thought of 
 therefore as deified, I am not at present prepared to 
 say, though there is little doubt that in the Hellenised 
 East there was a tendency to regard the dead as a 
 
PLATE XIX. 
 
 < ^ 
 
 I 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 145 
 
 being of a superior order, which led soon to his Apothe- 
 osis in the form of various heroes and gods. This 
 is a further point which distinguishes the funerary 
 art of Asia Minor from that of Hellas. 
 
 The celebrated sarcophagi from Clazomenae in 
 Lydia, which come well within the circle of Ionian 
 influence,^^ exhibit, in the paintings of the interior, 
 hunting and warlike scenes similar to those on the 
 example from Golgoi and a number of apotropaic 
 motives, the most striking of which is that of the 
 young man holding a cock in each hand and with two 
 dogs fawning upon him. Both cock and dogs render 
 here the service of warding off evil spirits from the 
 wayfarer to the underworld, while a degree of Apothe- 
 osis is implied by showing the young man as master 
 of the hounds.^' I wish we had time to discuss the 
 wonderful friezes which decorate the interior, upper 
 rims, and lid of the sarcophagus in the British Museum, 
 and seem like a pictorial commentary on Pindar's 
 visions of a Blessed After Life (plate xix.). Along the 
 rim and on the end panels are figured the exploits 
 which win for the dead man participation in the noble 
 pastimes which make up the rest of the figured decora- 
 tion. I must dwell one moment on the winged 
 figures — some bearing branches — which hover above 
 the chariots on the lid. They are the same K^pe?^^ 
 — Greek Angels of Death we may call them — who are 
 figured in battle-scenes on early red-figured Attic 
 
 K 
 
146 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 vases, hovering above the dead and dying warriors, 
 as in an incomparably beautiful fragment now 
 at Palermo.^^ The dread Krjp ©avdroio, the cruel 
 vampire who sucked the blood of the brave, has 
 another side to its nature ; it can also close the eyes 
 of the hero in battle, and bear away his soul to the 
 radiant spaces. The K-^p is thus a conception akin 
 to one aspect of the Siren, with whom it appears 
 alternately above the reclining revellers on a lovely 
 kylix from Cyrene in the Louvre, justly interpreted 
 as a Banquet of the Blessed — a avfjiTrocrtov rwv oaiav.^^ 
 In the same way the scene on the sarcophagus is a 
 joust of the Blessed, and over them, as over the 
 revellers of the Cyrenean cup, hover the K?7/369 as 
 ministrant spirits. 
 
 The lion, likewise, continually appears on this class 
 of sarcophagi and on the tombs of Asia Minor, an 
 important fact for us, since the lion is one of the most 
 frequent of sepulchral emblems on the tombs and 
 gravestones of Rome, and, as we shall see, on those of 
 Roman Gaul, Britain, and the Roman provinces of 
 Central Europe. The presence of the lion on the 
 tombs of Asia Minor has been explained by his con- 
 nection with Cybele as protectress of graves, for 
 Cybele in her aspect of mother-goddess of the earth's 
 fertility is by an easy transition of thought connected 
 with the underworld whence vegetation springs, and 
 so with the dead, while the lion as the highest expres- 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 147 
 
 sion of the vital forces of Nature early appears as her 
 companion. ^1 Probably several conceptions unite in 
 the symbolism of the lion, and we shall also be able 
 to recognise in him the emblem of the solar forces that 
 destroy the flesh and so liberate the soul. The transit 
 of the dead to the upper spheres again is depicted 
 on the magnificent bronze chariot of Monteleone, 
 no doubt part of the furniture of a tomb, which like 
 the sarcophagus of Golgoi is now among the treasures 
 of the New York Metropolitan Museum. It may be 
 dated in the early part of the sixth century, and 
 though found in Umbria, is certainly Ionian work.*^^ 
 On the front panel we see a gallant exploit of the dead 
 warrior, while the reward of his prowess appears on 
 the panel of one side, where we see him borne upwards 
 in the winged chariot over the recumbent figure of 
 Mother Earth (plate xv. 2(a)) ; the chariots in early 
 times were generally winged, being a usual vehicle 
 of the soul's transit to heaven.®^ We have twice 
 met with this scheme before, once on the sarco- 
 phagus of Haghia Triada, to which, however, I made 
 only passing allusion (plate xv. 2(b)), and again on 
 the relief from Ephesus where the Emperor Marcus 
 Aurelius ascends heavenward in the chariot of the 
 Sun over the recumbent Earth (plate xi.) ; in all 
 three cases the scene is one of Apotheosis, and in all 
 three the soul is caught up, so to speak, in a mystic 
 chariot, like Heracles and Elijah. 
 
148 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 (c) Sepulchral Imagery of Lycia 
 
 The tombs of Lycia, which very early betray in the 
 character of their art the influence of Ionia, are 
 specially instructive for the force of the belief in an 
 After Life which inspire their imagery. Let us run 
 rapidly through the splendid examples preserved in 
 the British Museum. The Harpy Tomb is, of course, 
 the classic example. It dates from the end of the 
 sixth or beginning of the fifth century, when in Athens 
 stelae of the type recording the everyday life of the 
 deceased (p. 133) were already in vogue ; from its 
 manifold subjects it seems to have been the burial- 
 place of several generations of the same family. A 
 happy reaction has set in lately against the perverted 
 notion that saw in the carvings of its four sides mere 
 genre scenes from everyday life ; they are obviously 
 in the same line of belief and of thought as the Spartan 
 gravestones.^* The friezes of all four sides reveal an 
 elaborate ritual of the grave, combined with scenes 
 of Apotheosis and of ultramundane existence {R.R., i. 
 470-1). The pictorial expression of the Soul's ad- 
 venture is as varied here as on the sarcophagus from 
 Haghia Triada : winged female figures, who partake 
 both of the nature of the Harpies, or body-snatchers, 
 and of a vehicle of Apotheosis, tenderly bear away the 
 souls ; between them a warrior offers his armour to 
 a god of the underworld, who is doubtless a heroised 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 149 
 
 ancestor ; another of these underworld divinities 
 receives the offering of a dove ; while on the entrance 
 side two gracious women, mother and daughter per- 
 haps, seated outside their own tomb, receive the 
 offering of their living female descendants, who 
 approach with no less stately a mien than the Athenian 
 maidens on the frieze of the Parthenon. On the 
 corresponding relief at the back we see a third male 
 ancestor between two groups of women receiving, 
 like the Spartan heroised ancestors, the offering of an 
 egg and a cock. Outside Christian art it would be 
 difficult to match these moving and poetic scenes. 
 The rape of the soul by the Harpies has, in fact, a 
 remarkable parallel on a scene carved in the portal 
 of S. Trophime at Aries, where an angel advances 
 from the left with a soul in his hand into the presence 
 of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who are seen seated 
 in Paradise, each already holding two souls in his 
 lap, in vivid illustration of the New Testament 
 phrase, ' Abraham's bosom.' The analogy may be 
 something more than a mere coincidence, since two 
 other reliefs from S. Trophime offer curious analogies 
 to two famous Greek works recently claimed as 
 Ionian : the scene where the soul of a martyred saint 
 as it leaves his body is lifted by bending angels into 
 the presence of God, and that in which a great winged 
 angel, placed frontally, weighs the souls in the scales ; 
 both recall the so-called 'Nativity of Aphrodite' 
 
150 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 of the Ludovisi Throne, and the ' Weighing of the 
 Souls ' of its supposed counterpart at Boston.^^ It 
 would be strange indeed if the central Ludovisi scene, 
 so long associated with theories of physical birth, 
 should in fact be connected with the spiritual rebirth ; 
 stranger still if the Christian subjects of a mediaeval 
 church should be the means of throwing light on the 
 mystery still attaching to the subjects of the * thrones,' 
 but to discuss this interesting parallel further would 
 take us too far afield.®^ 
 
 This Lycian sepulchral art is a rich mine of infor- 
 mation which would repay working out in great 
 detail. I must be content here to give a few 
 indications. A beautiful and pathetic relief in the 
 British Museum shows a funerary column, on which 
 the apotropaic Siren stands with extended wings ; 
 on either side sit the dead ancestors, who here, as on 
 the Spartan reliefs, are conceived both as spirits resi- 
 dent within the stele and also in their human shape.^' 
 The relief is, moreover, one of the most exquisite com- 
 positions left us by Greek art (plate xx.), and shows 
 what might have been accomplished by the lonians 
 in the way of centralised monolatric design, had not 
 their inspiration been diverted into other channels by 
 the influence of the Attic schools with their Homeric 
 mythology. Funeral scenes, on the same grand scale 
 as on the sarcophagus from Golgoi, are also very 
 frequent {R.R., i. 469, i, 2). The funeral procession. 
 
PLATE XX. 
 
 5 ^ 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 151 
 
 though not unknown to Attic art, remains character- 
 istic of Ionian, or more probably Graeco-Asiatic art, 
 whence it may have influenced that of early Latium. 
 (below, p. 168). At a later date a splendid example 
 occurs on the long sides of the lid of the Sarcophagus 
 of the Mourners from Sidon {R.R., i. 406). The 
 Lycian tombs also frequently exhibit the motive of 
 the guardian lions. An impressive tomb in the British 
 Museum {R.R., i. 466-7), from the acropolis of Xanthos, 
 is cut in one block and adorned on the south side with 
 a lion holding the head of a bull between its paws, and 
 on the opposite by a lioness and her cub ; while on 
 the west side to the right of the door a warrior appears 
 in contest with a lion which faces him erect ^^ (Catalogue 
 of Sculpture, No. 80). I have already referred to the 
 probable meaning of the lion as guardian of the 
 tomb ; the group of the lion devouring a bull or other 
 animal so common in Eastern and Graeco-Oriental art, 
 which afterwards acquires a definite mystical inten- 
 tion on the tombs of the Roman Empire, represents, 
 I believe, from the beginning the notion of a power 
 of light devouring the terrestrial body, since the lion 
 early appears as emblem of the sun.^^ Other familiar 
 motives are the Sirens and lions placed heraldically 
 on the panels of the doors on the gable ends of a 
 certain type of Lycian tomb {R.R., i. 469, 4). 
 
 All the sepulchral art of Lycia is strongly influenced 
 by Ionia, and later came under the overwhelming 
 
152 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 influence of Attica, but even then the forms in which 
 belief in the After Life has found expression were never 
 entirely obliterated. The superimposed friezes which 
 adorn in typical fashion the inner face of the walls 
 of the Heroon at Gjolbaschi-Trysa proclaim the belief 
 in a logical and sustained form (R.R., i, 443-64). 
 Probably the tomb was destined for various members 
 of one family whose exploits, thrown into a succession 
 of legendary forms, already point to a degree of 
 Apotheosis. There followed long banqueting scenes, 
 at which recline those who, released by death from 
 their earthly labours, have attained a blessed life, 
 while on the left of the entrance we see the act of 
 Apotheosis pictured, as it constantly is in Lycia, by 
 the ascension of the hero in a chariot.'" Such, of 
 course, is the meaning of the chariots, so far always 
 inadequately explained, carved on each side of the 
 roof of the Lycian tombs of Payava and Merehi, in 
 the British Museum {R.R., i. 487-8), '^ wonderful 
 monuments which deserve closer study than has 
 yet been accorded to them. The same chariots of 
 Apotheosis occur on the tomb of Deirmis and Aes- 
 chylus at Vienna, which stood just outside the 
 Heroon at Gjolbaschi.'^ Such also is the meaning of 
 the chariot, whether empty or containing the statues 
 of Mausolus and his consort, that crowned the 
 Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, where, moreover, the 
 chariot races on one frieze of the great podium 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 153 
 
 continue the tradition of the scenes on the sarcophagi 
 of Cyprus and of Clazomenae. 
 
 Lycian art recognised various other vehicles of 
 the soul's ultramundane journey. The Nereids, for 
 instance, of the slightly earlier monument from 
 Xanthos, what are they but souls borne to another 
 sphere by the marine monsters which we see beneath 
 the feet of the gracious maidens ? These are the 
 same creatures of the deep that escort the soul on 
 countless Roman tombs. This so-called Nereid 
 monument is of especial interest as combining in the 
 manner of the later Roman tombs of the Rhineland 
 the commemoration of the deeds of the dead while 
 yet alive, with a representation of the funeral cere- 
 monies and the imagery symbolic of the destinies 
 of the soul — another example of the influence which 
 Hellenised Asia was constantly to exercise on Rome. 
 The arrangement of the figures in the pediment 
 {R.R., i, 486), it may be noted in passing, seems 
 directly derived from that of the ancestors who face 
 one another on each side of the pillar in the Siren 
 tomb from Xanthos'^ (plate xx.). 
 
 (d) Chios. The Sarcophagi of Sidon. Character 
 of Ionian Art 
 
 The whole of Graeco-Asiatic sepulchral art bears 
 witness to similar ideas of ascension or Apotheosis, 
 and of eternal bliss in later times also. At Chios, for 
 
154 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 instance, in the fourth century, we find the motives 
 of the Clazomenae sarcophagi repeated on the marble 
 slab of one Metrodoros "^^ (now in Berlin) , as well as a 
 number of tombs adorned with the figures of Sirens, 
 assuredly not, as the learned assert, because the dead 
 man had musical tastes, but as token of his soul's 
 survival, and also probably to guard his tomb from 
 evil influences. If we pass to Hellenised S^^ria we 
 meet with the same or similar beliefs and traditions. 
 On the sarcophagus of the Satrap from Sidon {R.R., i. 
 411, 2, 413), we have the banquet scene, in the sar- 
 cophagus aptly surnamed ' Lycian ' {R.R., i. 409-11, 
 i) — since though found in the royal necropolis of 
 Sidon it has all the characteristics noted above in 
 Lycian sepulchral art — we find the apotropaic Siren, 
 the grifiins, vehicles of the soul's transit ; the frontal 
 guardian lions on the sides of the lid and on the friezes 
 of the case, a weakened ' mythologised ' version of 
 the triumphal chariot of the soul.'^ On the sar- 
 cophagus of the ' Mourners ' the scene of hunting 
 and the funeral pageant reappear, and on the pedi- 
 ments what is usually taken for a group of women in 
 Hades or El^-sium {R.R., i. 404-8). In this context 
 I should like to call your attention to an exquisite 
 pedimental relief, to my mind undoubtedly Ionian, 
 formerly in a private collection at Munich, in which 
 its first interpreter saw the introduction of a dead 
 woman by Hermes to the Underworld where other 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 155 
 
 women are seen sitting and mourning in the Elysian 
 fields {R.R., i. 42).'^ You must keep in mind the 
 persistence of these views of a blessed future exist- 
 ence among the races most strongly influenced by the 
 intellectual lonians, that highly gifted people who, 
 as Mr. Hogarth has reminded us, were associated 
 with le printemps de la Grece,''^ the importance of 
 whose civilisation as superior and certainly anterior 
 to that of Greece proper is now universally recognised. 
 ' The rise of the Ionian civilisation,' says Professor 
 Gilbert Murray, ' is in many ways the most wonderful 
 phenomenon in Greek history. Every kind of in- 
 tellectual advance seems to have its origin in Ionia. 
 The greatest works of colonisation and commerce ; 
 the first bank, the first maps, and the first effective 
 Greek fleets come from there.''' These wonderful 
 people are also those among whom the loftiest as- 
 pirations of mankind gained the mature expression 
 that helped their world-wide diffusion. Ionia was 
 the fatherland of * Homer,' but it was likewise the 
 first centre of Orphism in its westward advance, and, 
 under the banner of Orphism, two of Ionia's illustrious 
 sons, Pythagoras of Samos and Xenophanes of 
 Colophon, were destined, each in his different way, to 
 be leaders of revolt against Homeric authority and 
 Homeric theology. We students of Rome must 
 never forget that it was to Pythagoras, who established 
 himself at Croton towards 530 B.C., and to the Pytha- 
 
156 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 gorean school, that first Southern Italy and then 
 Rome and the Empire owed initiation into the exalted 
 mysticism which, as we shall see, permeates much of 
 the later Roman sepulchral imagery. I need hardly 
 remind you that at all times of her history Rome 
 received Greek ideas from Ionia — directly or through 
 Magna Graecia — rather than from Greece proper. 
 
 Scenes of Apotheosis, especially of the transit in 
 the chariot, are well known in Attic art also, but 
 here they are limited to the cycle of mythological 
 gods and heroes, as in the familiar case of Heracles 
 who often appears on black-figured vases, and vases 
 of the fine period, riding to Olympus with Athena 
 at his side, as in the fine red-figured pelike in 
 Munich, to quote one example out of many.* Man 
 is not pictured as entering the courts of heaven ; if 
 the denizens of those courts wish to come in contact 
 with man they are brought down to him, as on the 
 frieze of the Parthenon. It is striking how few 
 representations in the Greek art of the fifth to the 
 third centuries are concerned to represent another 
 world — whether Heaven or Hell — how little the 
 artistic imagination allowed itself to play round 
 the unknown which by the Attic mind was simply 
 accepted as unknowable. Polygnotos, it is true, 
 painted a great Underworld pageant at Delphi,'^ 
 which has left many traces in contemporary and later 
 
 * Furtwangler-Reichold, plate 109, 2. 
 
PLATE XXI. 
 
 1% 
 
 c 5 
 
 ■A 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 157 
 
 art, but he was a native of Thasos, and the people 
 by whom he was commissioned to execute the picture 
 were Cnidians, i.e. Graeco- Asiatics. Thasos, it may 
 be noted, produced in an exquisite reHef, now in the 
 museum of Constantinople (R.R., ii. 166, i), one of 
 the great masterpieces of antique sculpture, and one 
 of the grandest conceptions of the dead in his glorified 
 existence (plate xxi.).''^ Like the pediment of the 
 Mourning Women and the earlier Harpy Tomb, this 
 relief is a noble example of the sacramental function 
 of art in giving visible form to the Soul's Adventure. 
 
 VIL Graeco-Asiatic Stelae of the Hellenistic 
 
 Period 
 
 We return, after this somewhat lengthy excursus 
 on the earlier sepulchral art of Ionia and Lycia, to 
 the Graeco-Asiatic stelae of the Hellenistic period .^° 
 Their usual shape is that of a niche or little chapel 
 adorned with pictorial accessories, intended, it seems, 
 to reproduce the main features of an actual cemetery. 
 Within this sepulchral landscape the dead, who as 
 often as not is represented by his portrait statue, is 
 seen beside his own tomb. But since a statue is gener- 
 ally meant to be looked at from the front, the intro- 
 duction of the portrait figure brings back the frontal 
 pose of the dead, and tends to make the dead man, 
 whose effigy is sometimes raised on a pedestal, once 
 more the centre of interest. There is a corresponding 
 
158 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 tendency to suppress the survivors, or to let them 
 appear only on a diminutive scale, so that by degrees 
 we work back to a heroised representation of the dead. 
 A good example of these various characteristics may 
 be seen in the stele of Archippos in the Cook collection 
 at Richmond (plate xvii. 2 ; R.R., ii. 532, i) . What we 
 observe in the sculptured stelae is borne out by epi- 
 graphical evidence, such as the celebrated testament of 
 Epicteta of the second century B.C. in the museum of 
 Verona, found on the island of Thera,which gives all the 
 circumstances and regulations for the cult of a heroised 
 family {I.G.,XU. iii. 330 {Inscrr. Insul. Maris Aegei)) .^^ 
 In addition symbols are now abundantly introduced, 
 at times with their full significance, at others so repre- 
 sented as to impart to the scene the character of genre : 
 a child, for example, offers to his dog the Dionysiac 
 grapes, symbolic of resurrection ; or, on another stele, 
 a cock, a common offering to the dead, greedily makes 
 for the fruit which a frightened little boy tries to hold 
 out of the bird's reach {R.R., ii. 294, 3). Both dog 
 and grapes contain a symbolic reference to the under- 
 world, but this is softened by the motive of the picture 
 as a whole. In Alexandria the stelae of the Hellen- 
 istic period exhibit a similar imagery.^- It need not 
 detain us here, as it offers no very striking variants, 
 and dies without leaving any traces, overwhelmed, 
 as was all Greek art in Egypt, by the persistence and 
 strength of Egyptian traditions. 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 159 
 
 VIII. Figured Tombstones in Greek Lands 
 OUTSIDE Asia Minor and Attica 
 
 It would be a fascinating and a fruitful task to trace 
 the sepulchral imagery of other Greek lands outside 
 Hellas proper, and of those remoter parts of Greece 
 where Attic influence was not all-prevailing, but a few 
 examples must suffice. In Boeotia, rich from early- 
 days in the 'graves of the worshipped dead,' the people 
 continued, as we learn from their rough but interesting 
 sepulchral imagery, to be preoccupied with the life 
 after death, and the same was the case in Macedonia. 
 In the celebrated stele from Orchomenos {R.R., ii. 
 373 > 3)> signed by the Naxian Alxenor, showing a man 
 and his dog springing up at him, we have not so much 
 the record that the man was a huntsman, as that the 
 deceased is pictured here in a scheme, modified by 
 Attic influence, which derives from that of the heroised 
 dead as Master of the Hounds. There is at Athens 
 another interesting Boeotian grave relief from Thebes 
 {R.R., ii. 403, i) clearly, as far as style goes, a work 
 in the Attic manner, but, as we shall see, if we look 
 closely into the composition, strongly influenced by the 
 old scheme of the heroised ancestors and their descen- 
 dants. The former sit facing one another, much as on 
 the Harpy Tomb and on the pediment of the Nereid 
 monument in later lonio-Lycian art (above, p. 153). 
 In Thessaly likewise we remain within a cycle of 
 
i6o APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 beliefs suppressed in Attica, as on that curious stele 
 from Saloniki, now in Constantinople {R.R., ii. 169, 
 i), on which the heroised dead sit facing their own 
 tombstone round which twines the soul-snake. It 
 drinks from a cup held out by the woman, while the 
 man holds in his left hand a long burgeoning staff, 
 sure symbol of resurrection. 
 
 Again in Macedonia we find subjects on late stelae 
 that remind us of Asia Minor rather than of Attica. 
 A good example of a Macedonian tombstone is in 
 the Devonshire collection at Chatsworth {R.R., ii. 
 444, 5), dedicated to one Herennia Syrisca and her 
 son. The lady, though wrapped in the graceful 
 draperies of the third century, is seated stiffly on 
 the left like a heroised ancestress of earlier date, on 
 a throne-like seat, with her feet on a high footstool ; 
 towards her advances a smaller female figure with 
 offerings. On the opposite side, the standing figure 
 of the son is likewise approached by a male figure 
 much smaller than himself. A tree — symbol of re- 
 birth or resurrection — forms an arch over the whole, 
 and, most important of all, on either side a snake 
 twines itself round its branches. We evidently have 
 here, as on the Spartan reliefs, a duplication of the 
 dead in human and in snake form. In the empty 
 space between the heads of the personages appears 
 the head of the underworld horse, and on a ledge to 
 its left a tiny bird, which can scarcely be other than 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES i6i 
 
 the soul in bird form. It is in Macedonia, likewise, 
 that we find as late as the third century a remarkable 
 type of sarcophagus with reclining figures on the lid 
 unknown to classic Greece, though familiar in Etruria 
 and Latium, and among Phoenician peoples.^^ 
 
 In conclusion, one word must be said about the 
 sepulchral art of the Greek cities of Southern Italy. 
 In default of actual monuments, we can learn a great 
 deal for Tarentum and Nola and Capua from the 
 tombs and stelae represented on vase paintings.^* 
 The kinship with the Asiatic examples is evident. 
 Simple gravestones and columns and the like are 
 indeed found, but the dominating form is that of the 
 na'iskos, or chapel, within which stands or sits the 
 dead man — once more the heroised dead conceived 
 as a being of superior order. 
 
 This survey of the sepulchral imagery of Greek 
 lands, however incomplete, will serve to show that from 
 the Proto-Hellenic period onward beliefs as to a future 
 existence found expression in art, and that, although 
 suppressed or thrown into the background of interest 
 in Attica by the influence of the Homeric conception 
 of the dead, which ruled in Athens from the time of 
 the official introduction of Homer into Athens by 
 Pisistratus at the end of the sixth century, they yet 
 persisted in other parts of Greece. As frequently 
 happens, the lamp of faith was kept burning among 
 the humbler and less gifted peoples. Nor, as we 
 
 L 
 
i62 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 have seen, was it at any time as completely extin- 
 guished in philosophic and super-intellectual Athens 
 as certain scholars would have us believe, while out- 
 side Greece, in the Graeco- Asiatic countries open to 
 Ionian art and culture, we find from the earliest times 
 a rich sepulchral imagery, which, side by side with 
 the more primitive symbols of the ritual of the dead, 
 finds expression for the loftier beliefs in Apotheosis 
 and the definite joys of a future life. The considera- 
 tion of the Graeco-Asiatic stelae had already brought 
 us to the very threshold of our subject and the art of 
 the tombstones of the Roman Empire. But here 
 again, we shall first have to consider in a fresh section 
 what were the Roman conceptions of death in pre- 
 Augustan times, and how far these conceptions had 
 succeeded in finding plastic expression. 
 
 IX. The Sepulchral Art of the Romans, from 
 Primitive Times to the Augustan Era 
 
 (a) Prehistoric Rome and Latium 
 
 It has been said that the primitive Romans had 
 no sense of life after death, and made little or no effort 
 to pierce the gloom that envelops the state beyond 
 the grave ; their misty conception may be compared 
 to that of the Hebrew She'ol, the underworld where 
 dwell good and bad without distinction.^^ To the 
 Romans likewise the dead were long a vague ' un- 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 163 
 
 individualised mass of spirits,* the manes who crowded 
 up periodically to the opening of the mundus, the 
 ' gibbering ghosts ' who at fixed intervals had to be 
 propitiated and banished from the homes that had 
 once been theirs.^^ The Romans had in consequence 
 little or no native sepulchral art ; and if we except 
 the patrician custom of keeping wax images of their 
 ancestors in their halls, ^' it was not till the period of 
 Greek influence that they began to evolve anything 
 like a sepulchral imagery. 
 
 Let us turn at once to the evidence of the monu- 
 ments. In Rome itself from primitive times we have 
 little or nothing outside the famous Sepolcreto, or 
 burial-ground, discovered by Boni in 1902 in the 
 Roman Forum near the site of the temple of the 
 deified Faustina.^^ The objects found in these early 
 tombs although, artistically speaking, mean and rough, 
 yet indicate a care for the future well-being of the 
 dead. At this early period they are in the nature of 
 amulets,^^ and are placed on the dead with the inten- 
 tion of protecting them from malevolent influences. 
 The cabin urns, imitated from the capanne or round 
 huts of primitive Italy, show the desire to secure for 
 the dead a permanent habitation similar to that 
 which he enjoyed in life. 
 
 These burial customs of ancient Latium can best 
 be studied in the great museum of the Villa Giulia, 
 where the extensive finds from the numerous necro- 
 
i64 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 poleis in the immediate vicinity of Rome have lately 
 been rearranged with minute care and in chrono- 
 logical order.^'' It is not a subject which I can discuss 
 here except in so far as to point out to students who 
 are looking round for ' fresh woods and pastures new,' 
 that there is, I believe, no branch of archaeology so 
 little explored and so rich in promise as this of the 
 burial-grounds of ancient Latium and the adjacent 
 Faliscan territory. From Falerii itself you will find, 
 in the rooms on the first floor of the museum, an in- 
 comparable series of objects from the tombe a pozzo, 
 a fossa, and a camera, arranged in order of time. The 
 graves in the shape of pits are the oldest ; they are 
 followed by those in the shape of a trench for the 
 reception of the cofhn ; here at Falerii follows a third 
 series, that of the chamber tombs, which lasted, it 
 seems, into the period of the Roman occupation. 
 These tombs were hollowed out as chambers in the 
 rock, and here the dead were placed either on couches, 
 or else within the superimposed recesses cut in the 
 walls much as in a Christian catacomb. 
 
 All these tombs, from the earliest to the latest, 
 reveal a variety of objects which clearly have in view 
 the protection and well-being of the dead in an ultra- 
 mundane existence : it is sufficient to point to the 
 amulet- jewellery and kindred objects, and to the 
 Greek vases which make their appearance from the 
 sixth century onward. The stupendous finds from 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 165 
 
 the Barberini and Bernardini tombs at Palestrlna, 
 and from the Tomba RegoHni-Galassi at Cervetri in 
 Southern Etruria, only a few miles from Rome,®^ 
 reveal on a much richer and grander scale the same 
 care for the dead that we noted among the humbler 
 finds of the primitive Sepolcreto in the Forum, and 
 the same desire to equip his last habitation, on the 
 magical principle so often noted, with every kind of 
 object the permanence of which is considered essential 
 to his well-being. It would seem, however, that these 
 desires and conceptions are as yet limited in scope. 
 There is no clear vision of a life beyond the grave, of 
 an ultramundane existence in the true sense of the 
 word. These tombs reveal nothing beyond the desire 
 of keeping the dead in a state closely modelled on 
 his earthly life ; therefore we find no rich sepulchral 
 imagery to illustrate or symbolise the soul's supreme 
 adventure. Neither the closing slabs, nor the walls 
 of the tombs, nor again the urns or sarcophagi, are 
 painted or carved as are the sides of the Haghia Triada 
 larnax, for instance, with any scenes that definitely 
 formulate a belief in a life beyond and in a possible 
 intercourse between the living and the dead. The 
 ornament of the different objects of furniture or of 
 personal adornment found in these tombs has an 
 immense iconographic interest, but its character seems 
 to me mainly magical or apotropaic, though on this 
 point opinions are divergent. There are scholars 
 
i66 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 who maintain that the rich symboHsm of the orna- 
 ments^ — sphinxes, griffins, Hons, chimaeras, and their 
 hke — are used merely with a decorative intention, 
 and thus afford a proof of a weakened religious belief 
 on the part of the Latins, who, on this theory, are 
 content to use as mere decoration imagery which, 
 among the Greek and Eastern peoples from whom 
 it appears to be borrowed, had a distinct religious 
 value. I, myself, on the contrary (and I think there 
 must be others of the same opinion, or would be, 
 were the early art of Latium not so much neglected) , 
 believe that all this decoration is part of a carefully 
 thought out sepulchral imagery, mainly, if not entirely, 
 protective in character. The question is one which 
 it is beyond my present scope to consider in detail. 
 
 {b) From the early Fifth Century to the E^nd of the 
 Republic 
 
 It is in Southern Etruria, at Veii, even nearer to 
 Rome than Cervetri, that we find from the beginning 
 or middle of the sixth century certain sepulchral 
 images which bring us back to the same cycle of beliefs 
 proclaimed on the paintings of the Cretan sarco- 
 phagus and the carvings of the Mycenaean royal 
 stelae. On the walls of the famous yet too rarely 
 visited Tomba Campana at Veii,^^ the group of a 
 horseman escorted by figures on foot may be inter- 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 167 
 
 preted, I think, as the progress of the dead man to 
 the other world ; he is preceded by a man armed 
 with an axe presumably to cut down obstacles 
 in the path. It seems certain that scenes of 
 this character were introduced into Latium from 
 Etruria, which in turn had them from the Greeks of 
 Ionia. The journey of the dead to the underworld, 
 or the transit of his soul to the eternal spheres, are 
 especially common subjects in the Latin art of a later 
 date when Latium and Rome had themselves fallen 
 directly under the spell of Ionia. From about the 
 middle or end of the sixth century we begin to find 
 a type of funeral procession with chariots whose 
 steeds are sometimes winged like those of the Apothe- 
 osis chariots on the sarcophagus from Haghia Triada 
 and the chariot of Monteleone (plate xv, 2). It is by 
 no means certain that these processions, which have 
 survived in immense numbers,^^ always have a fune- 
 rary import ; but this can certainly be claimed for the 
 numerous pieces found in tombs. Here again,, while 
 some argue that the return from the funeral games is 
 intended, and that wings are only given to distinguish 
 the horses of the victorious chariot, others maintain 
 that the scene actually represents the journey of the 
 dead to his home beyond this world. The analogy of 
 the Haghia Triada chariots seem to me to favour the 
 second interpretation. Here also the winged chariot 
 is the vehicle of Apotheosis, and the heroised or 
 
i68 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 quasi-deified dead is escorted by the members of his 
 family. My own impression is that these processions 
 partake of the mystic character of certain early 
 Oriental and Greek pompai connected with the rites 
 for the renewal or resurrection of the yearly vege- 
 tation. Such was the famous vegetation-ritual in 
 ancient Babylonia, when the gods were solemnly 
 brought in summer from the temple of Marduk in 
 Babylon to that of Nebo in Borsippa, and taken back 
 again in winter from Borsippa to Babylon.^* There 
 are numerous parallels to this custom in Egypt and 
 Cyrene, in India, in China, and recent scholarship 
 goes so far as to identify the four-horse chariot of 
 the Roman triumphator with the vehicle of the sun- 
 god's progress through the skies.^^ The funeral 
 pageantry of the Romans was from early days most 
 elaborate in character, but it does not seem to have 
 attained to any more striking expression in art than 
 these unpretending little friezes till we come to a 
 much later date. 
 
 The fragment of a wall-painting from a tomb in the 
 neighbourhood of S. Eusebio on the Esquiline, now 
 in the Museo dei Conservatori, is the earliest example 
 on Roman soil of the decoration of a tomb (Helbig, 
 967). It dates from the third century B.C., and 
 represents an unknown episode from Roman history. 
 Rough as it is, it reveals Graeco-Ionian influence in 
 its superimposed bands of decoration, an influence that 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 169 
 
 may have filtered through Campania, since the 
 technique has various points in common with South 
 ItaHan vases. In the upper frieze is the remnant of 
 a battle-scene ; in the lower two generals, unknown 
 to history, although their names, Quintus Fabius and 
 Marcus Fannius, are inscribed above their heads, are 
 seen engaged in parley. This Esquiline fresco is a 
 curious and instructive example of the early importa- 
 tion into Rome of a narrative method of composition 
 which developed into the famous ' continuous style ' 
 of the Empire. The modest fragment announces 
 already what is to be the leading characteristic of 
 the great art of Rome — the commemoration of the 
 deeds both of the people and of individuals. 
 
 It is characteristic of Roman conservatism and of 
 Roman stubbornness in matters of art that sepulchral 
 imagery made its way so slowly into Rome. The 
 decoration of the peperino sarcophagus of L. Cor- 
 nelius Scipio Barbatus, consul in 298 B.C., which 
 was removed from the family vault of the Scipiones 
 on the left of the Via Appia, and is now in the 
 Vatican, is severely architectural (Helbig, 125) ; 
 it exhibits no imagery, unless indeed the rosettes 
 in the spaces between the triglyphs — presumably 
 conventionalised blossoms — have the prophylactic 
 significance which so often attaches to flowers and 
 plants, and accounts for their introduction into the 
 ritual and imagery of the tomb: 
 
170 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 (c) From the End of the Republic to Augustus 
 
 Till we come to the last century of the Republic 
 there is little funerary art in Rome. The motive 
 which rises to most people's memory when they think 
 of Roman tombstones is that of the dead man or the 
 dead couple facing the spectator in a stiff frontal 
 attitude, with the frequent addition of one or more 
 children and other members of the family, arranged 
 stiffly side by side. All who have been to Rome will 
 remember the many examples still in situ on the Via 
 Appia. The type is doubtless influenced by the 
 stark wax imagines that stood in the hall of great 
 Roman houses, and, though we may not go so far as to 
 assert that the pose carries with it a reminiscence of 
 ancestor worship, yet it shows that the Roman was 
 primarily interested in presenting his dead to the 
 homage of the survivors. A good illustration of this 
 type of monument is furnished by the tombstone in 
 the shape of a niche holding the two portraits of a man 
 and his wife in the Capitoline Museum {Gall. 48*).^^ 
 It is usual to neglect this class of monuments, or else 
 to criticise them severely after comparing them with 
 the accomplished workmanship of the Attic stelae of 
 the fifth and fourth centuries ; but the comparison is 
 devoid of value, since the Roman craftsman, for we 
 need call him by no grander name, is trying to ex- 
 press quite another idea. What he desires is not, 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 171 
 
 like the Greek, to represent beautiful scenes of part- 
 ing and reunion ; his sterner purpose is to estab- 
 lish, by means of an almost hieratic pose, a direct 
 relation between the living and the dead.^" The 
 same principle governs the design of the Roman 
 military tombstones of the provinces, which often 
 resemble mediaeval rather than what is usually known 
 as classical sculpture, and predominates in the sculp- 
 tures of the monument at Adamklissi in the Dobrud- 
 sha, which is of course nothing but a memorial to the 
 soldiers who had fallen, probably in the campaign 
 of Grassus in 29 b.c.*^^ At times the rigid pose is 
 slightly modified, and the figures are made to bend 
 towards one another and clasp hands ; but the isolated 
 representation of the deceased remains characteristic 
 of Roman funerary portrait art as a whole. This 
 stiff frontal pose blended admirably with the art of the 
 Asia Minor stelae, one main characteristic of which, 
 as we have seen, was the introduction of the statue 
 of the deceased in a frontal attitude ; from the 
 fusion of these two types derive the statuary groups 
 within niches of the Imperial period. 
 
 The funerary statue had an important develop- 
 ment practically unknown to great Greek art in the 
 recumbent figures placed upon the lids of sarcophagi, 
 
 * These tombstones, which exist in great numbers in Rome and 
 throughout Italy and the provinces, need collecting into a Corpus; 
 among them are to be found the best examples of the portraiture 
 of private individuals, as distinct from the Imperial and official portrait. 
 
172 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 which went back to a high antiquity, and were pro- 
 bably introduced into Rome through the influence of 
 Etruscan art and custom. We have already seen 
 that these figures, which are represented as reclining 
 at a banquet, derived ultimately from the banqueting 
 groups of Ionian art. From the archaic period we 
 have three well-known examples in terra-cotta from 
 Cervetri, two in the Louvre and British Museum 
 respectively, and the fine group at the Villa Giulia. 
 The art is distinctly Ionian, and the attitude is one 
 accepted as symbolic of the attainment of Apotheosis.^^ 
 Other reclining statues, of which there are numerous 
 examples, are shown simply lying down, and the 
 scheme is very popular in both Etruscan and Roman 
 funerary art. As an example I place before you the 
 recently discovered tombstone of a boy, now in the 
 Terme Museum(plate xxii.) }^^ The boy lies quietly on 
 his side, with eyes wide open ; nothing save the poppies 
 on the couch and the egg of immortality in his hand 
 indicates that life has left the fair young body. The 
 highly bred lines of the face, the sweet curves of the 
 mouth, the curling tips of the hair which resembles 
 that of Augustus, recall the beautiful portraiture of 
 the children of the Julio-Claudian house. Nowhere 
 outside the Latin races do we find that strong, square 
 structure of the head which even in extreme youth 
 is apparent beneath the firm elastic flesh. The boy 
 might be the elder brother of the child whose portrait, 
 
PLATE XXII. 
 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 173 
 
 found at the Imperial Villa of Prima Porta, is now 
 in the Museo Barracco, or of that other boy, who, 
 masquerading as Cupid, rides his dolphin so proudly 
 by the side of the great Augustus from the same Villa. 
 On the right side are traces of a small Eros, present as 
 the ministering Genius of death, intended perhaps for 
 the boy's own Genius now parting from him, or for a 
 later version of the winged Ker (p. 145) . The delicate 
 technique reveals a Greek chisel ; none of the in- 
 numerable reclining statues of Roman funerary art 
 again touched this height of pure loveliness : 
 
 ' Lie still, and be 
 For ever more a child ! 
 Not grudgingly 
 Whom life has not defiled 
 I render thee.' 
 
 From the close of the Republic onward we also find 
 a number of grave reliefs, which represent some 
 episode, generally connected with his trade, in the 
 life of the dead man. The classic example is the 
 frieze which adorns the monument of the baker 
 Eurysaces outside the Porta Maggiore, along the 
 friezes of which run reliefs representing the various 
 operations of the bakery {R.R., iii. 236). Again, 
 on a tombstone (in the Galleria Lapidaria of the 
 Vatican) put up to a cutler of the name of L. Cornelius 
 Atimetus, we see on the one side the workshop where 
 the cutler grinds his knives, on the other a scene in 
 
174 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 the front shop where a dignified customer in the toga 
 and an obsequious assistant are seen one on each side 
 of the counter {R.R., iii. 404, i and 2). It has, how- 
 ever, been observed, not unjustly I think, that these 
 and similar scenes are not inspired so much by the 
 memory of the past as by the desire to impress the 
 future with the importance and success of the occu- 
 pants of the tomb. A recent writer has drawn up 
 an exhaustive list of the reliefs which represent trades, 
 and shows that the feeling which inspires them is 
 distinctly Roman.^"^ It has little or nothing to do 
 with the generalised view of the past life of the de- 
 ceased current on Attic stelae, but a wave of belief 
 from the Orient had to permeate this class of subject 
 before, as in the monument of Igel, effort and toil 
 could be conceived as the prelude to a higher and 
 more blessed state. 
 
 The doctrines of resurrection and of immortality 
 which began to occupy men's minds from the end of 
 the Republic onwards, as a result of the infiltration 
 into Rome of Oriental religions and of Pythagorean- 
 ism, both of which taught that the soul once released 
 from its corporeal bondage could rise into ethereal 
 realms, were soon to regenerate and transform all the 
 old sepulchral imagery. The new beliefs and the art 
 they inspired overspread every region of the Empire 
 with a rapidity which showed the greatness of the 
 need they came to satisfy. 
 
PLATE xxrir. 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 175 
 
 In the last century of the RepubHc, when Rome 
 was falling under the spell of later Greek mystical 
 speculation, we begin to divine on the part of the 
 Romans, as Mr. Warde-Fowler has pointed out, 
 ' some mystical yearning to realise the condition of 
 the loved ones gone before, and the relation of their 
 life to that of the living.' ^"^ This quickening among 
 the Romans of a sense of the divinity of the soul has 
 been traced back, in measure at least, to the influence 
 of the famous Posidonius of Apamea,^"^ whose teach- 
 ing inspired, it is thought, Cicero's ' Dream of 
 Scipio,' written in 54 B.C., and ten years later may 
 have helped to soften his grief for the death of his 
 daughter. We can, I believe, detect a first reflex of 
 these new beliefs as to the destiny of the soul in a 
 curious funerary relief in the museum of Aquila 
 (plate xxiii.). It was found at Preturo in 1879, 
 near the Sabine Amiternum, and had, doubtless, 
 adorned one of the tombs which bordered the ancient 
 Via Caecilia. The relief may belong to the last years 
 of the Republic, or even be as late as the Augustan 
 period. It reproduces a great funeral procession, 
 with a love of pomp and detail which recalls the 
 similar displays on early Dipylon vases (p. 137). In 
 later Greek art the scene has scarcely a parallel, and 
 in Roman art it may be said to be unique.^"* In the 
 centre of the procession, on a gorgeous catafalque 
 {lectus funebris), surmounted by a baldacchino em- 
 
176 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 broidered with the crescent moon and the constella- 
 tions, lies the dead man ; at the head of the cata- 
 falque is placed what appears to be his helmet. 
 Eight bearers carry the bier, which is preceded by 
 groups of musicians followed by a long train of 
 mourners. Though this interesting relief has been 
 repeatedly published, little attention has been paid 
 to the stellated carpet of the canopy .^''^ The design 
 is probably looked upon as ' purely decorative,' yet 
 even a slight knowledge of the beliefs as to the soul's 
 astral destiny, which were spreading over Italy under 
 the influences referred to, suffices to show that this 
 canopy embroidered with the signs of the moon and 
 of the stars is simply the mantle of Heaven, the tent 
 of the sky, the great cosmic envelope of the universe, 
 the significance of which throughout the whole history 
 of religion and ritual has been brought forward of 
 late in a book as learned as it is inspiring.^"^ The idea 
 of the cosmic mantle is familiar to all of us from the 
 wonderful simile in Isaiah (xl. 22), that stretcheth out 
 the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a 
 tent to dwell in. Even more vivid is the simile in the 
 Psalms (civ. 2) , Who coverest thyself with light as with 
 a garment ; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. 
 The conception so beautifully expressed by Isaiah and 
 the Psalmist is common to all ancient Eastern re- 
 ligions, and early penetrated into Greece and thence 
 to Italy. According to an ancient Semitic legend 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 177 
 
 this ' garment of light ' calls into being by the magical 
 action of its astral signs the whole material universe. 
 It became an attribute of Zeus as of Jupiter Capito- 
 linus ; it is worn on occasion by Sol, and by Solar 
 divinities like Mithras and Attis-M^n, by Apollo and 
 Dionysus, by Aphrodite as Urania, by the Ephesian 
 Artemis ; as the stellated aegis of Athena it is familiar 
 from a number of monuments ; finally it appears in 
 Christian art as the blue, star-embroidered mantle of 
 Our Lady and of Christ as Kosmokrator. Alexander 
 adopted a great starred talismanic mantle, doubtless 
 endowing the wearer with power over the universe. 
 The same idea attaches to the stellated mantle worn 
 by the Roman Emperors, from whom it passes to the 
 rulers of the Holy Roman Empire. The mantle, in 
 fact, is a talisman of victory, and as such acquires 
 high spiritual significance as clothing the soul in its 
 ascent to Heaven. It becomes, so to speak, a vehicle 
 of Apotheosis, a meaning possibly attaching to it in 
 the present instance.^*'" 
 
 Thus the star-spangled canopy spread above the 
 dead on the relief from Amiternum has the same sym- 
 bolic value as the starry firmament painted on the 
 vault of Mithraic caves and churches. The absence 
 of the Sun among the heavenly bodies represented 
 on the canopy is a significant proof of that persistent 
 supremacy of the cult of the Moon to the exclusion 
 of the fiercer Star which is so characteristic of popular 
 
 M 
 
178 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 astral religion in hot countries where, as Cumont has 
 pointed out, the moon with its gentler light was looked 
 upon as the more beneficent of the two luminaries. 
 We must likewise bear in mind that within this same 
 cycle of ideas the Moon was looked upon as the special 
 abode of spirits who, if exiled awhile to our sub-lunar 
 sphere, would return to their original seats after a com- 
 plicated ascent through the superimposed zones of 
 heaven, during which they gradually despoiled them- 
 selves of their earthly faculties and passions. ^^^ 
 
 This idea of a descent and reascent of the soul, so 
 common in the astral eschatology of the East, at once 
 puts one in mind of the noble passage in Cicero's 
 Somnium Scipionis, at the close of the Republic, now 
 generally thought, as previously stated (page 175), 
 to have been inspired by the mystical teaching of 
 Posidonius : 
 
 omnibus qui patriam conservaverint, adiuverint, auxe- 
 rint, certum esse in coelo definitum locum, ubi beati aevo 
 sempiterno fruantur ; nihil est enim illi principi deo, qui 
 omnem mundum regit, quod quidem in terris fiat, acceptius 
 quam concilia coetusque hominum iure sociati, quae 
 civitates appellantur ; harum rectores et conservatores hinc 
 profecti hue revertuntur. — Cic, de Rep., vi. 13, 
 
 The personage on the Amiternum relief — whether 
 local magnate or known to a larger fame — is likewise 
 presented as deserving of the sempiternal beatitude ; 
 as ranking with Scipio and those great men of the 
 
SYMBOLISM ON ROMAN TOMBSTONES 179 
 
 State who return to the heavenly seats whence they 
 had descended for the benefit of humanity ; as par- 
 ticipating in the astral honours accorded to Caesar in 
 his Apotheosis, and looking down on earth de excelso 
 et pleno stellarum inlustri et claro quodam loco. The 
 starred canopy under which the great man reclines is 
 thus of cardinal importance as the earliest expression 
 in Roman Western art of those beliefs in an astral 
 eschatology which received official sanction in the 
 myth of the sidus Julium, of the astrum Caesaris, of 
 which we have already spoken, which were to play 
 so preponderating a role in the religious develop- 
 ment of the Empire,^"^ and to leave such vivid traces 
 in its art. ^-' The picture of the transit of the soul to the 
 stars, brought into the service of the Imperial Apothe- 
 osis, continued to gain in power and vividness till it 
 assumes the form given it on the celebrated ivory in 
 the British Museum (plate xxxi.), where the Divus is 
 borne aloft to his eternal home by the winged figures 
 of Sleep and Death, in a scheme that might be used 
 for the Ascension of a Christian Saint. 
 
 The relief of Amiternum, with its pompous funeral 
 procession, smiled at by the commentators as the 
 expression of provincial vanity, marks the intrusion 
 into the Roman world of beliefs destined to revolu- 
 tionise man's outlook on his destiny in an After Life. 
 Henceforth it is not only Greece or Ionia that feeds 
 the spiritual imagination of ancient Italy ; for an 
 
i8o APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 explanation of the new creeds we must look beyond 
 Ionia to the Asiatic Hinterland, to those ancient 
 Oriental civilisations where Orphism itself had had its 
 birth, and where from the beginning of things the 
 astral bodies were thought to hold the secret of life 
 and death. 
 
 Tournons done, comme la religieuse Chaldee, nos yeux 
 vers le del absolu ou les astres, en un inextricable chiffre, 
 ont dresse notre acte de naissance, et tiennent greffe de 
 nos pactes et de nos serments.* 
 
 * Paul Claudel, La Connaissance du Temps, p. 46. 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 THE AFTER LIFE {continued) 
 
 Af) t6t€ (Te npos "OXvfiTTou ayei TTvpiXafiiris o;f»7fJia, 
 aficfn BveWeirjcri KVKwiievov iv crrpocfiaXiy^i, 
 Xv(ra.[j.evov ^porecov pedeav ttoXvtXijtov dvlriv 
 rj^eis 8'aWepiov (f)aeos narpaiov avKrjV, 
 evOev aTTOirXay^Oeis fieponTjiov es Sefias fjXdes. 
 
 The Oracle to the Emperor Julian. 
 
 I. Symbolism of the Apotheosis of the Soul. 
 The Eagle and the Wreath 
 
 We saw at the close of the last lecture that the belief 
 in the soul's return to the starry spheres was already 
 familiar to the Rome of the Late Republic, and we 
 discovered in the relief of Amiternum a striking 
 illustration of the doctrine. I propose now to pass 
 from general considerations to the more detailed 
 examination of certain of the images and symbols 
 which now appear on the gravestones of the Empire. 
 The belief in the soul's immortality, sanctioned as it 
 was by the Apotheosis of the Ruler, had received fresh 
 lustre, and it is not surprising to find that the two 
 main symbols of the Imperial Deification — the eagle 
 and the wreath — are also among the most popular of 
 sepulchral images. We have seen that they were 
 
 131 
 
i82 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 borrowed from the East, and their origin and meaning 
 has been lately explained in the light of certain Syrian 
 monuments. In the epoch-making paper already 
 referred to, Vaigle funeraire des Syriens ei Vapo- 
 fhSose des Empereurs,^ Cumont, our leader here as in 
 everything pertaining to the history of the Oriental 
 religions, has traced back the Imperial eagle to the 
 Eastern belief according to which the eagle, as mes- 
 senger of the Sun, is entrusted by his master with 
 the mission of bearing back to the heavens the soul 
 that has thrown off the bondage of the body ; while 
 the wreath, later a familiar emblem of victory, was 
 in the same circle of beliefs symbolic of the ultimate 
 triumph of the soul. The two emblems appear con- 
 joined on a number of sepulchral slabs found at 
 Hierapolis and other Syrian sites, on which the eagle 
 is shown with outspread wings, bearing a wreath in 
 his beak or in his talons {op. cit., figs, i ff.). A relief 
 carved on the face of the arch of a rock tomb at 
 Frikya, near the Syrian Apamea, offers an illuminating 
 commentary on the meaning of this eagle and wreath 
 motive (ibid., fig. i6). Over the keystone is a bust 
 of the dead within a laurel- wreath, immediately above 
 which once hovered an eagle, now much broken. The 
 motive is repeated, so to speak, in another and major 
 key : for at one side a Victory bearing a wreath 
 reaches out to offer it to the dead, while on the other 
 Sol Sanctissimus looks on and seems to protect the 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 183 
 
 transit of the soul. We cannot doubt that the same 
 meaning attaches to a group of funerary monuments 
 found in the ancient Pannonia and Noricum, interest- 
 ing not only for their iconography but for the vigorous 
 quality of their art.^ The finest of the three is the 
 medallion of a centurion in the Museum of Graz, 
 (plate xxiv. i ; R.R., ii. 126, 3). The officer wears the 
 metal cuirass adorned on the breast with the Medusa 
 head to avert evil influences, and girt at the waist 
 with the cingulum ; the end of the cloak or sagum is 
 visible on the left shoulder. In his left hand he holds 
 the sword with a pommel in the shape of an eagle's head ; 
 in his right is the short vine staff that marks his office ; 
 in the background to the left appears his shield (the 
 parmula). The figure, cut off below the waist, is 
 placed within a medallion formed by a laurel-wreath, 
 upon which stands a small eagle with outspread wings. 
 Here again we have the idea of the eagle bearing back 
 to the celestial spheres the soul whose victory is sym- 
 bolised by the wreath. It is possible, however, that 
 two conceptions meet and mingle in this symbolism 
 when found on a soldier's grave, for the wreath was 
 likewise the military corona triumphalis, and the eagle 
 was the sign of the legions ; but the manner in which 
 the two emblems are combined is clearly influenced 
 by their Syrian prototypes. When the wreath adorns 
 the medallion of a civilian, especially if he is repre- 
 sented with his wife, then any military allusion is 
 
t84 apotheosis AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 out of the question, and the wreath can only be the 
 crown of immortality. At Graz and in the Museum 
 of Klagenfurt respectively are two fine instances of 
 medallions in the portraits of a bearded man wrapped 
 in the toga, and his wife, placed within a laurel wreath. 
 
 The symbolism of these stelae must not cause us 
 to overlook their artistic value. They are master- 
 pieces of portraiture which would long ago have 
 attracted admiration had they adorned mediaeval 
 Christian tombstones in a church. Being Roman 
 works of the second century, they have only been 
 discussed from an antiquarian standpoint, with 
 scarcely an allusion to their style ; yet we are far 
 enough from the insipidity of Graeco- Roman art ; 
 we already feel ourselves among men who in time 
 will contribute to the great sculptures of mediaeval 
 Europe. And in the drawing of the faces there is a 
 vigour of line that is worthy of Holbein. Each of 
 these medallions was once surmounted by a pine- 
 cone, now broken, the symbol, as we shall presently 
 see, of resurrection. 
 
 Examples of these wreathed medallions are common 
 throughout the Empire, though they rarely attain 
 such excellence. From Rome comes the beautiful 
 double medallion of Antistius, a Salian priest of Alba, 
 and his wife Antistia (now in the British Museum). 
 The character of the portraits and the fine lettering of 
 the inscription show that the date is Augustan. Each 
 
PLATE XXIV. 
 
 1. Tombstone of a Centurion. Graz. 
 
 2. Tombstone of Flavian Period. British Museum. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 185 
 
 medallion is wreathed in a heavy crown of laurel ; 
 between them lies what appears to be the staff with 
 which the Salian priest struck his shield in the sacred 
 dance. It is now sheathed in laurel leaves and further 
 protected by an elaborate knot against the malign 
 attacks of evil spirits. In each of the spandrels is 
 a quatrefoil rosette.^ A striking example of Flavian 
 date, recently acquired by the British Museum and 
 published here for the first time,^ shows a fine portrait 
 of a middle-aged man within a deep circular recess 
 heavily wreathed with laurel (plate xxiv. 2) . 
 
 The oak-wreaths which appear on a small group of 
 funerary altars are generally explained as a fashion 
 influenced by the oaken corona civica, which usually 
 adorns one face of altars dedicated to the Lares, and 
 which was bestowed as a reward for valour.^ Here 
 again, as in the medallion of the centurion described 
 above, there may be a contact of two ideas. When, for 
 instance, the altar was set up for a magistrate or high 
 official, the wreath may have been understood as 
 combining in itself a double allusion to the civic worth 
 of the dead and to his spiritual victory. On the other 
 hand, when the altar is dedicated to the Manes 
 (Altmann, 244), or is put up to a woman, the wreath 
 of oak-leaves can only stand, I think, for the corona 
 immortalis, though the use of the leaf of the oak may 
 be determined by the vogue which the corona civica 
 enjoyed in Augustan times, owing to its bestowal 
 
i86 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 on the Emperor himself. The trailing wreath sup- 
 porting an eagle with outspread wings, which so 
 frequently adorns Roman sepulchral altars, has, of 
 course, the same significance as the wreath and eagle. 
 At other times the space above or below the wreath 
 is filled by a Nereid or some fantastic escort of the soul 
 in its voyage to the Isles of the Blest. The history 
 of the wreath which adorns Roman monuments 
 admirably illustrates the power of religion in bending 
 to a high purpose symbols and emblems that have 
 their origin in the timid outlook and puerile fears of 
 primitive man. In the beginning it was a mere 
 amulet, a magic device worn to protect the head 
 against evil influences, and therefore especially needed 
 by personages so important to the welfare of the com- 
 munity as kings or priests.^ From these humble 
 beginnings it was destined to become in time the 
 sign of life eternal. 
 
 The wreath as emblem of immortality occurs on 
 the impressive frieze that runs round the interior of 
 the octagonal tomb of Diocletian in his palace of 
 Spalato, just below the dome.' The frieze represents 
 love-gods engaged in hunting-scenes and chariot-races, 
 to symbolise the conflict between the powers of dark- 
 ness and of light ; heads within medallions and masks 
 break at intervals the continuity of the design; one, on 
 the central space on the left as one faces the window, 
 represents Hermes with wings, no doubt as psycho- 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 187 
 
 pontpos or escort of the soul ; the second is the ideal- 
 ised portrait of Diocletian himself (plate i. 3), patron 
 and protector of the cults of Sol and of Mithras, who 
 is here imagined as borne aloft to the celestial sphere 
 within the crown of immortality that represents his 
 final Apotheosis ; a similar portrait of the Empress 
 on the other side balances that of the Emperor.^ 
 Finally, I may note that the image of a boy carried 
 upward by an eagle as on a stele at Grado (R.R., ii. 
 126, 4), generally interpreted as Ganymede, is more 
 probably an image of the triumphant soul borne aloft 
 to heaven by the eagle symbol of the soul's victory. 
 
 II. Influence of Mithraism on Sepulchral 
 Imagery 
 
 (a) The Mithraic Legend 
 
 The influence of Mithraism in the formation of the 
 funerary imagery of the Empire was all-powerful. 
 The legend of the Persian sun-god, besides offering in 
 the translation of Mithras to the heavens an archetype 
 of the Apotheosis, was also rich in episodes capable of 
 interpretation as mystic parallels of the sufferings and 
 trials which prelude a blessed immortality. The cult 
 of Mithras had spread with lightning rapidity from 
 the moment of its introduction into Italy by the 
 Orientals in the army of Pompey. Its monuments 
 have been found in every part of the Empire, though 
 
188 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 nowhere in greater number than along the Danube 
 and in Germania. Both they and the Mithraic re- 
 ligion have become very famiUar through the great 
 work of Franz Cumont,^ who has also popularised 
 his researches in a small volume which every student 
 should read. The majority of Mithraic reliefs are 
 large altar-pieces that were placed above the altar at 
 the end of the Mithraic church or chapel. The central 
 scene of the front face is invariably the Mithraic 
 sacrifice : at the bidding of a higher Power Mithras 
 slays the Sacred Bull of Ormuzd, from whose body 
 spring the vine and corn — to be transmuted later 
 into the wine and the bread of the holy mysteries — 
 while his blood fertilises the earth that she may bring 
 forth plants and animals for the service of man. The 
 scene is watched by two torch-bearers, the one with 
 raised, the other with inverted, torch, emblems of heat 
 and life, of cold and death. The four elements also 
 are present in symbolic form : the fire that purifies 
 all things, and whose r61e in the Mithraic cult is pre- 
 eminent, is figured as a lion ; water is indicated by 
 an over- turned jar ; while the figures of the winds that 
 appear in the spandrels of the altar-slab at once 
 represent the element of air, and the cardinal points 
 of the sky. The scene thus acquires a cosmic signi- 
 ficance, which is further heightened by the signs of 
 the zodiac placed round the arch of the cave, while 
 the cave itself was painted to imitate the starry vault 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 189 
 
 of heaven. It is In vain that loathly reptiles sent 
 by the Powers of Evil try to frustrate the divine pur- 
 pose of the sacrifice, and attack the vital organs of 
 the bull ; the faithful dog of Mithras keeps watch, 
 and protects the soul of the dying beast in its ascent 
 to heaven. 
 
 The central scene is often surrounded by a number 
 of panels which represent various episodes of the 
 Mithraic legend : the miraculous nativity of Mithras, 
 for instance, in the presence of the astonished shep- 
 herds ; his victorious encounter with the Sun ; his 
 pursuit and capture of the Bull ; and his ascension 
 into heaven in the Sun's fiery chariot. The back of 
 the altar-piece was likewise occasionally carved ; on 
 the reverse of a Mithraic altar-piece at Wiesbaden, 
 for instance, Mithras and Sol contemplate the slain 
 victim,^" while that of a very roughly carved example 
 at Serajevo exhibits the rare and curious scene of the 
 Mithraic communion, celebrated by the Mithraic 
 adepts in memory of a Last Supper, of which, before 
 their common ascension, Mithras and Sol partook 
 in company with their disciples. I will not repeat 
 here what I have said in my book on Roman Sculp- 
 ture, of the artistic merits of many of these Mithraic 
 altar-pieces — of the exalted expression and noble 
 gesture of Mithras ; of the contrast which his im- 
 passioned beauty offers to the pensive attitude of 
 his torch-bearers ; of the observation of nature re- 
 
190 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 vealed in the rendering of the bull's agony ,^^ The 
 type of Mithras was, it is thought, inspired by Per- 
 gamene models ; in any case it represents the last effort 
 of Pagan art to create the type of a divinity out of 
 its own imaginings. The religion that was to make 
 the next appeal to formative art was to meet it half- 
 way by offering to it the reality of a god incarnate. 
 
 Mithraism spread in time to every rank of society, 
 and coalesced with cognate cults like that of the 
 Magna Mater. But as it was originally introduced 
 and propagated by the army, so it remained to the 
 last an essentially military cult, which left its traces 
 wherever the Roman legions penetrated. Its popu- 
 larity among the soldiery is easily accounted for by 
 its direct appeal to their naive faith and piety. In 
 distant lands, on forced marches, and among the 
 privations and discomforts of camp life, the Northern 
 recruits under the parching heat of the Eastern sun, 
 the Southerners and Orientals amid the unfamiliar 
 frosts and fogs of the North, would be inspired with 
 fresh courage by the contemplation of the wanderings 
 and sufferings of Mithras, and gather strength from 
 the central scene of the legend for the soldier's 
 supreme sacrifice : 
 
 Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies. 
 Look on thy children in darkness. Oh, take our sacrifice ! 
 Many roads Thou hast fashioned : all of them lead to the Light, 
 Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright ! 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 191 
 
 (b) Miihraic Symbols on Roman Tombstones 
 
 We can watch the gradual infiltration of Mithraic 
 symboHsm into Roman sepulchral imagery from the 
 time of Augustus onwards. It will repay us to 
 examine one or two examples in detail, and we shall 
 find these to be most instructive where different 
 strata of symbolism have run together. An excellent 
 instance of this process is afforded by the stele of one 
 Tiberius Julius and his daughter at Walbersdorf,^^ 
 which shows a combination of at least three types 
 of funerary decoration. The design falls into two 
 halves : an aedicula between twisted columns rests 
 upon a carved base ; this upper part is supported 
 upon the inscription slab, which is framed by Corin- 
 thian pilasters, and rests upon a second base with a 
 sunk panel likewise carved in relief. Within the 
 niche the portraits of Tiberius and his daughter 
 are seen side by side in the isolated frontal pose 
 characteristic of Roman sepulchral portraiture ; the 
 relief immediately below represents an episode in the 
 dead man's career. He is shown in the uniform of 
 the mounted auxiliary, charging at an enemy who 
 awaits his attack crouching behind a large shield ; 
 behind is a second fallen enemy ; in the empty 
 space above this figure flies the eagle of victory, 
 significant in this case of earthly glory rather than of 
 spiritual triumph. On the sunk panel of the lower 
 
192 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 socle two armed men thrust at one another with long 
 spears in front of a figure of Eris ; the man on the 
 right, who is placed frontally and raises his right 
 hand, has been interpreted as a lanista or umpire. 
 It were straining our instrument to breaking-point to 
 read a mystic intention into either relief. At a later 
 period battle and combat scenes might be taken to 
 refer to the battles and perils of the soul ; but both 
 portraiture and names show the stele to belong to the 
 Augustan period. At so early a date such scenes 
 are more likely to represent, in the Greek manner, 
 episodes of the dead man's career, though the choice of 
 subject may be influenced in a measure by the desire, 
 which seems to have animated every true Roman, of 
 handing down his deeds, his res gestae, to the admira- 
 tion of posterity. 
 
 It is otherwise with the carvings above the niche, 
 which have been admirably interpreted by Cumont. 
 The winds on the spandrels are the same that appear 
 on Mithraic monuments to mark their cosmic setting. 
 The tritons blowing their horns, and facing one another 
 on the frieze, are the mystic escort of the soul as it 
 voyages to the Isles of the Blest ; the running lions, 
 placed heraldically within the pediment, represent 
 the element of fire, which, as we shall see more clearly 
 in the monument we shall consider next, purifies the 
 soul preparatory to its ascent. 
 
 On a small sepulchral shrine at Maros-N6m6ti in 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 193 
 
 Hungary, are combined a number of scenes and sym- 
 bols which throw light on our subject : ^^ on the inner 
 central wall the family of the deceased is carved in 
 relief ; other personages appear on the external face 
 of the side walls. On each of the uprights of the 
 same aedicula, a snake gliding upwards figures, I 
 believe, the progress of the soul towards the celestial 
 regions, even as in the solar cults the snake sym- 
 bolises the sinuous course of the sun across the sky. 
 Thus the snake, already a familiar emblem of the soul 
 in Greek and Roman religion and ritual, is endowed 
 with a new meaning. On the roof, lions devour 
 the Mithraic bull, characterised by the sacrificial sash, 
 the while they guard the pine-cone of resurrection 
 which crowns the monument. The frequency with 
 which the lion appears on the later Roman tombs, 
 either alone, or devouring an animal, is not sufficiently 
 explained by calling the lion the protector of the tomb, 
 or (in the case of the graves of soldiers) an emblem of 
 valour. When in the solar cults the image became 
 associated with the igneous element, it was charged 
 with a mystic significance, which, as we have seen, 
 may already have been attached to it, in some degree, 
 in Lycian and Ionian sepulchral art. In my opinion, 
 the idea which it is designed to convey is that the 
 purifying fire expressed by the lion must consume the 
 earthly tenement, represented by the bull, giver of 
 earthly fertility, before the liberated soul can attain 
 
 N 
 
194 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 immortality.^* At this period the motive of a lion 
 overpowering a bull or some other animals can scarcely 
 be otherwise explained. At times we even find a man 
 in place of the bull. This substitution of an actual 
 human figure for the symbolic animal makes the inter- 
 pretation I propose practically certain. We must 
 bear in mind that in the East, whence all these beliefs 
 and cults derive, not only was fire regarded as an all- 
 powerful purifying agent, but death by fire was looked 
 upon as ' an apotheosis which raised the victim to 
 the rank of the gods.' ^^ I need not dwell further 
 here on the purificatory powers appertaining to fire in 
 Eastern belief, for the subject has been treated by 
 Sir J. G. Frazer in a masterly passage of Adonis. 
 You should consider more particularly the follow- 
 ing quotation from lamblichus, translated by him, 
 since it appears to be the direct expression of the 
 idea expressed symbolically in the group of the lion 
 devouring or holding his prey on Roman sepulchral 
 monuments : 
 
 ' Fire,' says lamblichus, ' destroys the material part of 
 sacrifices, it purifies all things that are brought near it, 
 releasing them from the bonds of matter and, in virtue of 
 the purity of its nature, making them meet for communion 
 with the gods. So, too, it releases us from the bondage 
 of corruption, it likens us to the gods, it makes us meet 
 for their friendship, and it converts our material nature 
 into an immaterial.' — De Mysteriis, v. 12. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 195 
 
 A kindred significance probably attached, as we 
 have seen, to the Graeco-Oriental prototypes of the 
 group. 
 
 The pine-cone appears almost as constantly or 
 these tombstones as the cross on Christian graves. 
 As an emblem of fertility the pine-cone was certain 
 to acquire, under the influence of the new beliefs in an 
 After Life, fresh value as an emblem of resurrection, 
 since it was the fruit of the tree specially sacred to 
 Attis,^® the youth who from a self-inflicted death 
 awoke to new life and to perfect union with the 
 divinity : ' Just as Attis died and came to life every 
 year . . . believers were to be born to a new life after 
 death.' This cult of Attis, which came from the East 
 with that of the Great Mother, gathered fresh force 
 under the influence of Mithraism, and Attis — a young 
 man in Oriental costume leaning dejectedly upon a 
 knotted staffs' — is not an uncommon figure on 
 gravestones. A good example occurs on a stele 
 from Klausenburg, now in Vienna ^^ : on the front 
 are portraits of the deceased surmounted by the 
 apotropaic gorgon ; on the left is a figure of Attis ; 
 to the right, above a dolphin, emblem of the soul or 
 of its transit, is a female figure, probably another 
 deceased member of the family ; above her again 
 appears an eagle bearing a wreath ; and the whole 
 is crowned by the pine-cone. 
 
 It has been suggested that the pine-cone is so 
 
196 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 frequently used to adorn graves because of its likeness 
 to the grave conus, which is itself derived from the 
 omphalos-shaped tumulus or tholosP Further, it has 
 been argued that the conical stone placed over the 
 tumulus is simply the phallic emblem of life ; such a 
 stone crowned the Tomb of Tantalus in Phrygia, and 
 appears times without number in Etruscan and 
 Graeco- Roman tumuli derived from Graeco-Asiatic 
 models. I imagine that this sepulchral conus was 
 never regarded as purely architectonic and ornamental, 
 but that it owed its popularity as a funerary emblem 
 to the fact that its original meaning, though modified, 
 was not entirely forgotten. Nothing would be more 
 natural than definitely to represent the emblem of 
 generation by means of the cognate shape of the 
 fruit which from time immemorial had itself been 
 regarded as an instrument of fertility. Then, again, 
 this primitive symbol becomes, by the purifying 
 influence of religion, the visible pledge of a spiritual 
 resurrection. 
 
 A curiously interesting and little heeded instance 
 of the use of the pine-cone in pre-Augustan times 
 occurs in a cemetery at Praeneste (Palestrina) first 
 excavated in 1855.^** It dates from a time anterior 
 to the Roman conquest of the town by Sulla in 82 B.C. 
 Each of its graves was surmounted by a square block 
 supporting a plinth upon which rose a cone. The 
 name of the dead, with no sort of addition, is simply 
 
E S E R V E D 
 
 e 
 
 (Print last name first) 
 
 ASE RETURN THIS BOOK 
 ) RETURN DESK IN THE 
 JADING ROOM. 
 
 erence books and recent volumes 
 
 riodicals may not be reserved, 
 
 re to be returned to the desk in 
 
 leading Room on the same day 
 
 ire taken from the shelves. 
 
 lier volumes of periodicals are 
 
 illy not reserved beyond two 
 
 and exceptions to this rule must 
 
 iiorized. 
 
 ;ion and genealogical material 
 
 lot be reserved. 
 
 reserved books are subject to 
 
 on demand. 
 
 limit for reservation is ordi- 
 
 three days. 
 
 JEE BOOKS ONLY may be 
 'ed. 
 
PLATE XXV. 
 
 A Family Group. 
 Museum of Arlon. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 197 
 
 inscribed on base or cone. These primitive tomb- 
 stones, degraded though they now are from their 
 function, and thrown together in a neglected heap 
 outside the Httle local museum of Palestrina, still 
 have the perfume of faith lingering about them ; 
 they proclaim by means of the naive emblem the 
 belief in resurrection held by the ancient race whose 
 last resting-place they mark. 
 
 III. Orphic and Dionysiac Symbolism 
 
 It is among the Roman provincial tombstones of 
 the Imperial period that the myth of Orpheus defi- 
 nitely makes its appearance as a sepulchral theme. 
 The origins of Orphism are still wrapped in mystery, 
 but there seems reason to believe that, like Mithraism, 
 it came from the East, though it had appeared in the 
 West and established itself firmly both in Greece 
 and Italy many centuries before the Persian Sun- 
 god — leaving Greece untouched — had been brought to 
 Italy by Pompey's Oriental soldiery. Apparently 
 Orphism had its rise in Persia, whence it spread to 
 Ionia and, in the sixth century, to Attica.^^ I called 
 attention in the last lecture to the apparent absence of 
 Orphic influence on the sepulchral imagery of Attica 
 and Hellas in the fifth century, but in Southern Italy, 
 where Orphism, bringing with it the astral eschato- 
 logy of the East, had become the basis of Pytha- 
 gorean doctrines, we often find the myth itself, and 
 
198 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 more especially the episode of the Descent into Hell, 
 figured on vases. Orphism, more vividly than any 
 other ancient creed, brings the consoling hope that the 
 passage from this world is to a happier state ; psychic 
 immortality is the pledge of the high promise attaching 
 to Orphic initiation, for what else is death itself but 
 the supreme initiation ? * To die,' says the mystic 
 writer whose fragment on the immortality of the 
 Soul has been attributed to Plutarch, * is to be 
 initiated into the Great Mysteries.' Orpheus became 
 the Great Mediator, the supreme witness that death 
 is not an irrevocable fact, and it is in this aspect that 
 his figure makes its appearance on the tombstones of 
 the Empire. Who better than the prophet-priest 
 who had taught the doctrine of immortality, and was 
 pictured in later legend as the lover who descended 
 to Hades to obtain the release of a beloved soul, 
 could express the hopes of an After Life ? Nor can we 
 forget that Orpheus in his double aspect of priest and 
 lover was endeared to popular imagination by the 
 poetry of Vergil, who in the Fourth Georgic has told 
 in pathetic lines the quest of Orpheus for Eurydice 
 — dulcis coniux, — and in the Sixth Aeneid enthrones 
 Orpheus as impressive central figure — longa cum 
 veste sacerdos — in the Elysian fields. 
 
 The monument in the market-place at Pettau, with 
 scenes from the Orphic legend, is worth examining in 
 detail {R.R., ii. 130, 2).^^ It is a tall stele six metres 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 199 
 
 high, surmounted by a mask which, Hke the Medusa 
 face so often placed on graves, has the apotropaic 
 function of warding off evil spirits ; the lion devour- 
 ing the head of an animal at each corner symbolises 
 the purifying fire which consumes the earthly dross 
 — an interpretation as much in harmony with Orphic 
 as with Mithraic belief. According to the former 
 ' the Soul,' to quote a recent writer, ' in its pure state 
 consists of fire like the divine stars from which it falls : 
 in the impure state throughout the period of re-incar- 
 nation, its substance is infected with the baser 
 elements and weighed down by the gross admixture 
 of the flesh.' ^^ The flesh, therefore, must be con- 
 sumed by fire, as the bull is by the lion, before the 
 liberated soul can rise to the firmament of stars ; the 
 notion is identical to that of baptism by fire, * which 
 burns all sins.' -* 
 
 On the central frieze we see Orpheus playing to 
 the beasts ; on the lower Orpheus has w^on to the 
 very courts of death, and plays before Pluto and 
 Proserpina. In the pediment a female figure reclines 
 by the side of a youth : it is Venus reunited to Adonis, 
 whose death and resurrection, followed by his mystic 
 reunion to the divinity, was to mark him out, like 
 Attis, as a popular symbol of resurrection. On the 
 side of the monument are represented Dionysiac 
 figures, Maenads with bunches of grapes, to symbolise 
 the joys that await the Blessed in their eternal dwell- 
 
200 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ing. Were these taken literally, it might be urged 
 that they represented a too purely material concep- 
 tion of the after-joys of the Blessed ; but, by this time, 
 the whole cycle of Bacchic beings and attributes — 
 including the grape and its juice — had acquired a 
 purely mystic significance. Did not the vine, as 
 Cumont points out, spring from the back of the sacred 
 bull that it might afterwards give the fruit for the 
 wine of the mysteries ? Dionysus himself ranks with 
 the most ancient and venerable nature-powers ; he 
 is a * vegetation god with annual appearances and dis- 
 appearances,' in his earliest Thracian home 'a great 
 nature god of the living earth, working especially in 
 its vitalising warmth and juices,' ^^ who, as Sabazius, 
 is not unfrequently identified with the Phrygian 
 Attis. The story of Dionysus, like other nature 
 myths, became in the course of time a parable of that 
 more mystic resurrection which is the spiritual form 
 of the ancient TraXiryryevea-ia, already an article of faith 
 in primitive Thrace, where, from the earliest times, 
 Orpheus appears closely akin to Dionysus ; it is 
 therefore only natural to find Dionysiac beings com- 
 bined with Orphic scenes, as on the monument at 
 Pettau. On the right side of the beautiful stele of 
 Albinius Asper and his wife Restituta in the museum 
 of Treves {R.R., ii. 91, 4), we see a grandly drawn 
 Maenad holding up a bunch of grapes, and a similar 
 figure doubtless adorned the lost left side. A still 
 
PLATE XXVI. 
 
 Satyr and Maenad. 
 Museum of Arlon. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 201 
 
 more striking instance is in the museum of Arlon 
 (Esperandieu, 4040) : within a curtained recess stand 
 two men and two women, probably two brothers 
 and their respective wives ; at the sides are a dancing 
 Bacchante clapping the castanets, and a Satyr holding 
 up a bunch of grapes (plates xxv., xxvi.). Smaller 
 Bacchic figures adorn the panels of the angle pilasters, 
 and may be compared to the putti on the uprights of 
 the I gel monument. At Treves there is a good 
 example of the group of Dionysus leaning on a Satyr, 
 which not unfrequently crowns the tower-like monu- 
 ments of the Mosel and Rhine districts.-*^ 
 
 IV. The Dioscuri, Heracles and Aeneas, as Em- 
 blems OF the Wanderings and Triumph of 
 THE Soul. Death conceived as a Sacred 
 Marriage. Retrospect 
 
 The Dioscuri, likewise, who alternately participate 
 in life and death, must be understood as emblems of 
 future life. They appear on one side of a little 
 funerary aedicula in the museum of Mayence,-^ for 
 instance, while on the other is represented one of 
 the Labours of Hercules, to remind the living of the 
 probation which precedes reward. ^^ The myth of 
 Hercules {vagus Hercules) , whose labours and wander- 
 ings are frequently represented, has thus come to 
 symbolise the trials and victories of the soul ; and the 
 same meaning must have been attached to the figure 
 
202 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 of the wandering Aeneas, so frequently found on the 
 graves of the districts along the Danube and Rhine 
 {R.R., ii. 120, 1-2).^^ In the selection of the episode 
 of the exiled Aeneas, bearing on his shoulders his aged 
 father and leading his little son by the hand, the 
 Roman provincial was, we may feel certain, proud 
 to link what seemed to him the heroic counterpart of 
 his own toilsome life in a distant land with the noblest 
 legends of the origin of Rome. 
 
 The same preoccupation with life after death may 
 be studied in a number of stelae whose decoration is 
 drawn from a restricted group of Graeco-Roman myths 
 reproduced as susceptible of spiritual interpretation 
 rather than for any interest in their art-forms, which 
 are clumsily imitated in a poor or rough technique. 
 The story of Rhea Silvia and of Mars, which occurs, 
 for instance, on the front face of a sarcophagus from 
 Aquincum, now in the museum of Buda-Pest {R.R., 
 ii. 120, 4),^*^ and on the west pediment of the Igel 
 column, near Treves, has a doubly symbolic force. 
 The Soul awakes to a vision of the divine, even as 
 Rhea awakes from her weary slumber to behold the 
 immortal lover swiftly descending to comfort her, 
 for death itself is but a sleep which leads to a 
 blessed awakening and consolation. At the same 
 time it seems to me certain that the story of Mars 
 and Rhea on these reliefs may be interpreted as a 
 Sacred Marriage, a hierogamy between the Soul 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 203 
 
 and God. And the many incidents of rapes — those 
 of Proserpina, of Ganymede, of Hylas, and of the 
 daughters of Leucippus — and the myth of Cupid 
 and Psyche, forecast a wedded union with the Divine 
 Love.^^ 
 
 By the second century a.d. the sepulchral art of the 
 Roman Empire was everywhere in possession of a rich 
 imagery, but nowhere better than on the provincial 
 stelae can we follow the spiritual ideals that were 
 spreading from the East to the Western provinces of 
 the Empire. Like that of the Christian tombs of a 
 somewhat later date, their iconography is an illumi- 
 nating commentary on the beliefs of the time. How- 
 ever crude their symbolism, however naive their 
 images or rude their art, these stelae consistently 
 offer to the living the supreme guarantee that death 
 is not irrevocable. Their distinctive note is the 
 defiance of death, the assertion of life beyond the 
 grave. We seem to read here the challenge of the 
 apostle, * O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, 
 where is thy victory ? ' They forcibly bring home 
 to us the change that had passed over the spiritual 
 temper of mankind since the Greeks of the fifth and 
 fourth centuries B.C., in their uncertain apprehension 
 of things future, had been content to sink the mystery 
 of death in the memory of life, and had adorned their 
 stelae with scenes of meeting or farewell. They are, 
 as it were, the visible pledge of that definite reaction 
 
204 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 from the cultured philosophy of the later Republic, 
 which was announced in clear tones by the poetry 
 of Vergil. The Vitae summa hrevis spem nos vetat 
 inchoare longam of Horace might still express in 
 pointed phrase the fashionable scepticism of his day, 
 and remain typical of a certain section of society far 
 down into the Empire, as countless inscriptions testify. 
 But the message conveyed by the humble imagery of 
 our provincial tombstones is quite other. Here the 
 same sense of the shortness of life bids us seek an 
 infinite hope and fix our gaze on the illimitable 
 stretches of the life beyond the grave. A higher 
 hope, a nobler faith soon began to stir in all classes. 
 Not long after the elder Pliny, at the beginning of 
 his second book, had repudiated all belief in immor- 
 tality {Nat. Hist., ii. § i8 ff.), Tacitus addressed the 
 shade of Agricola in words that seem like the distant 
 echo of the Dream of Scipio : 
 
 If there be a place for the shades of the good, if, as 
 those who know will have it, great souls are not extin- 
 guished with the body, rest in peace, and recall us thy 
 family from our unworthy longing and the lamentations 
 of the women, to the contemplation of thy virtues, for 
 which it beseems us neither to mourn in private nor to 
 lament in public* — Agricola, 46. 
 
 * Si quis piorum manibus locus, si, ut sapientibus placet, non cum 
 corpore extinguuntur magnae animae, placide quiescas, nosque, domum 
 tuam, ab infirmo desiderio et muliebribus lamentis ad contemplationem 
 virtutum tuarum voces, quas neque lugeri neque plangi fas est. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 205 
 
 A few years later a wistful note is struck in the 
 charming lines in which the Emperor Hadrian ad- 
 dresses his soul : 
 
 Soul, tiny sweet and wandering, 
 The body's guest and friend, 
 To what strange regions dost thou tend ? 
 
 Poor shivering naked death-pale thing, 
 Now must thy wonted jestings end.^^ 
 
 But while the Imperial sage thus mused half-play- 
 fully on his soul's destiny, the soldiers of his legions 
 and the officials of his provinces had alread}^ lifted the 
 veil which separates the now from the hereafter. Like 
 the higher creed of Christianity, for which they un- 
 consciously prepared the way, the beliefs reflected on 
 our stelae first gathered force among the poorer and 
 humbler classes, and only penetrated by degrees to 
 the upper strata of society. 
 
 V. Excursus on the Imagery of Tombs 
 IN Rome 
 
 I should like at this point to say something, in the 
 nature of a parenthesis, of a class of funerary decora- 
 tion, the symbolic meaning of which has been neg- 
 lected of late years, and which deserves to be studied 
 anew — the paintings, namely, and the stucco deco- 
 rations of the many tombs in Rome and its neigh- 
 bourhood. Besides being precious reUcs of ancient 
 decorative art, they are of paramount importance for 
 
206 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 the study of the After Life behefs of the Graeco- Roman 
 world. Numbers of them were copied and engraved 
 with more or less fidelity in the eighteenth century, 
 by Piranesi among others, but owing to the general 
 discredit attaching to Roman art during the second 
 half of the nineteenth century, when the attention 
 of archaeologists was concentrated on discovery in 
 Greece, the paintings were allowed to fade often 
 beyond recognition and the stuccoes to deteriorate. 
 Others, again, were looted for the benefit of foreign 
 museums and collectors, and whole tombs, which 
 must have been of great beauty and interest, 
 like one near the Via Flaminia and the Acqua 
 Acetosa,^^ disappeared sine vestigiis. Lately, owing 
 to the recent revival of interest in Roman art and 
 architecture, what remains of these tombs has begun 
 to attract attention once more, though too much still 
 remains neglected and unrecorded. 
 
 The best known and preserved of these tombs are 
 the two on the Via Latina, dating from the second half 
 of the second century.^* Both their paintings and 
 stuccoes show the high level of excellence maintained 
 by art in the period of the Antonines. The walls and 
 the barrel-vault of the so-called Tomb of the Valerii, 
 on the right of the road as we come from Rome, are 
 entirely decorated with stucco, which was apparently 
 left white. The decoration of the ceiling is composed 
 of twenty-five circles, connected by a strip of mould- 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 207 
 
 ing. Squares are placed free within each of the 
 spaces thus formed, and each of the circular panels is 
 adorned by some figure or group emblematic of the 
 After Life. In the central compartment a veiled 
 female figure rides a griffin, to symbolise the transit 
 of the soul. The others are filled alternately by 
 groups of Nereids riding sea-monsters, or by the rape 
 of a nymph by a satyr, a subject which signifies, as 
 we saw just now, the rape of the soul. The lunette 
 of the central wall facing the entrance is decorated 
 with an exquisite design : from a bunch of acanthus 
 leaves spring fantastic tendrils, held down on either 
 side by a caryatid-like figure, whose feet rest on the 
 acanthus leaves. On her head she supports a rect- 
 angular panel, within which dance the Seasons — the 
 fleet Seasons that indicate the swift coming and going 
 of all earthly life. 
 
 The so-called Tomb of the Pancratii on the opposite 
 side of the road offers a more elaborate example of 
 decoration in stucco and painting, and I can only 
 touch on the principal subjects of the complicated 
 design. On the rectangular stucco panels of the 
 ceiling are modelled the following scenes : above the 
 entrance, Priam before Achilles ; to the right, Ad- 
 metus, Alcestis and Pelias. Opposite the door is 
 the Judgment of Paris ; on the left, the admission of 
 Heracles to Olympus, where the hero celebrates his 
 final victory by playing the lyre in the presence of 
 
208 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Dionysus, Athena and Artemis ; while in the central 
 medallion the veiled figure borne aloft by the Eagle 
 symbolises the ascent of the Soul to its final Apotheosis. 
 Though the two episodes from the Trojan cycle can 
 scarcely be interpreted with reference to the other life, 
 it is probable that like the legendary scenes depicted 
 on the friezes of the Heroon at Gjolbaschi, they give 
 mythical expression to traits in the character or the 
 life of the deceased. If we knew more about the 
 family to whom the tomb belonged we might under- 
 stand why the Judgment scene that accords pre- 
 eminence to Venus, mythical ancestress of the Julian 
 race and tutelary goddess of Rome, was chosen to 
 decorate the panel facing the entrance, or why it was 
 balanced by the episode with the Ransom of Hector. 
 The choice of this latter scene was perhaps influenced 
 by the desire to recall in allegorical form the possession 
 by the occupants of the tomb of the quality of mercy, 
 which Vergil regarded as an Imperial virtue. It 
 may be also that in the mystic language of the second 
 century the Ransoming of Hector stands for the 
 Ransoming of the Soul, and that the Judgment of 
 Paris represents the choice which every mortal has 
 to make on his entry into life. But I should not like 
 to press the point. 
 
 I may note briefly the subjects found in a few other 
 tombs which refer to After Life beliefs. In the central 
 panel of the stuccoes that adorned the ceiling of the 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 209 
 
 now vanished tomb near the Acqua Acetosa were 
 figures of the Dioscuri with their horses, whose mean- 
 ing in the sepulchral imagery of the period we have 
 already discussed. The funerary intention is here 
 emphasised by the two genii in the space above the 
 horses ; as on Mithraic monuments, they carry, the 
 one an upright, the other an inverted torch, as symbols 
 respectively of life and death. The panel in a niche 
 of the left wall contained an allegory of purification 
 and resurrection or re-birth ; a figure of a maiden 
 holding in her hand a winnowing-fan or vannus, a 
 well-known instrument and symbol of purification, 
 which she partly rests on a short rectangular pillar ; 
 inside the vannus, closely wrapped and veiled, we 
 perceive the phallic emblem of generation and life.^^ 
 In the once famous Tomb of the Arruntii, in the region 
 between the Porta Maggiore and the * Minerva 
 Medica,' ^^ which has now disappeared, were other 
 and no less interesting decorations ; the vault was 
 covered with stuccoes representing in the centre the 
 Rape of the daughters of Leucippus — like other scenes 
 of rape in tombs of post- Imperial date, used to sym- 
 bolise the Rape of the Soul or Death as a Sacred 
 Marriage — while winged genii filled the diamond- 
 shaped panels on either side of the central medallion. 
 Within the panels of the border we find the griffins of 
 Apollo, which not only symbolise the god of light, 
 but are among the fantastic animals which bear away 
 
 o 
 
2IO APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 the soul to the Empyrean. Again, the subjects that 
 adorn the stuccoed ceiling of the octagonal chamber 
 near Tor de' Schiavi * show, in my opinion, that Piranesi 
 was right in identifying this structure as a tomb,^^ 
 though Canina and others have taken it to be part 
 of some thermae. The design is formed by intersecting 
 circles ; and in the interspaces float various winged 
 creatures, which we may interpret as usual either as 
 the escort of the soul, or as its means of transit to the 
 upper spheres ; the winged bull is in the centre ; above 
 him appears the winged sea-horse ; below the dolphin ; 
 on the right a griffin and a winged lion ; on the left 
 a winged boar and a winged horse.^^ 
 
 The tomb discovered under the pontificate of 
 Alexander vii. in a vigna belonging to S. Gregorio 
 on the Via Appia just outside the Servian wall, must 
 have offered a sort of compendium of sepulchral 
 decora tion.^^ In the centre was the medallion por- 
 trait of husband and wife ; at the four corners similar 
 portraits of their children ; in the spaces between the 
 central design and the wall a series of scenes which 
 are continued in the arch above the wall-niche, and 
 seem to refer to a ver sacrum ; while scattered over 
 every available space is every kind of symbolic bird 
 and beast. 
 
 The Tomb of the Nasonii, on the left of the Via 
 Flaminia as we go north from Rome, was a perfect 
 
 * On the left of the Via Praenestina Antica. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 211 
 
 mine of sepulchral imagery ; but its beautiful decora- 
 tion has been in part hacked away and taken to 
 foreign museums, though more remains in situ than 
 is usually supposed.*" Here, among the numerous 
 scenes emblematic of the adventures of the soul in 
 the Underworld and After Life, were the Rape of 
 Persephone (now in the British Museum) ; the Rape 
 of Hylas by the nymphs ; and the so-called Judgment 
 of Solomon — really a Hades and Persephone enthroned 
 as judges. There are charming paintings of the 
 Augustan period, which retain their vivid colouring, 
 within the famous Pyramid of Cestius, set up towards 
 the close of the first century B.C. by one Caius Cestius 
 Epulo on the Via Ostiensis, near what is now the 
 Protestant cemetery ; *^ the main themes represented 
 are winged figures carrying wreaths and garlands. 
 Among the too little known wall-paintings of the 
 Augustan columbarium in the Villa Pamphili*^ we 
 see a company of the Blessed feasting in the Elysian 
 fields — -eight persons seated in a half-circle in a green 
 meadow ; in the midst of them is a large dish with 
 eggs (as symbols of immortality), in the foreground 
 a jug and a cup.* The columbarium of Pomponius 
 Hylas, near the Porta Latina, is rich in expressive 
 imagery. On a frieze of the central niche we see an 
 episode from the legend of Orpheus (above, p. 197) ; 
 on another, carried out in coloured stucco, which 
 
 * Left of Via Aurelia Antica. 
 
212 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 adorns a side-niche, the underworld story of Ocnus 
 and his ass.*^ Finally, we may note as worthy of 
 careful study the fine stuccoes in a tomb in the Vigna 
 Nardi,** a few minutes from the Porta S. Sebastiano, 
 on the right of the Via Appia ; and further on, on the 
 same side of the road, within a vigna belonging to 
 the Trappists, a fine sepulchral chamber, which was 
 excavated, I believe, as recently as 191 1. I have 
 visited it twice, but cannot find that it is published. 
 Among its painted decorations which are still vivid, 
 we find the peacock, one of the most popular symbols 
 of resurrection. By the church of S. Sebastiano 
 itself is a recently discovered tomb with fine archi- 
 tectural decoration.*^ If we glance through a publi- 
 cation — like that of Engelmann — of ancient Roman 
 paintings recorded in illuminated manuscripts, we are 
 struck by the number which came from tombs that 
 have now entirely disappeared. Another similar 
 collection of copies of paintings has been preserved 
 in the Topham volumes in the Library of Eton, and 
 has just been described by the Director of the British 
 School at Rome.'*^ Here again some of the most 
 valuable have disappeared along with the monuments 
 which they adorned. The loss of so many tombs with 
 painted decoration is truly lamentable, for, besides 
 the undoubted beauty of much of their art, these 
 paintings are the key to the history of painting in the 
 Roman Empire, and offer, as we have seen, a com- 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 213 
 
 mentary of the first order on the beliefs of the Romans 
 regarding the After Life. That there is a great awaken- 
 ing of interest is, however, plain from the attention 
 which was immediately bestowed on the curiously 
 interesting paintings of the Tomb of Trebius Justus, 
 discovered three years ago on the Via Latina, though 
 the learned seem scarcely yet agreed as to whether 
 the subjects represented are Pagan or Christian. 
 A fascinating theory connects the building scene of 
 one picture with the building of the walls of Rome 
 under Aurelian.*' 
 
 Sepulchral monuments of stone, though less liable 
 to destruction, have likewise not been sufficiently 
 studied. Let me at least call your attention to the 
 Tomb of P. Vibius Marianus, popularly known as the 
 Tomba di Nerone, on the left of the Via Cassia as 
 we go north.*^ On the relief facing the road the 
 Dioscuri are represented on each side of the inscrip- 
 tion. On either side a grifiin indicates the transit of 
 the soul, and in the field below a bull's head repre- 
 sents the abandoned earthly tenement. 
 
 I have said enough, I think, to show what great 
 results might be obtained from a systematic publi- 
 cation of the Roman tombs, and what an irreparable 
 loss is inflicted upon science when they are allowed to 
 deteriorate or to disappear.^'' After this excursus 
 among the tombs of the Eternal City we now return 
 to our northern gravestones. 
 
214 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 VI. Minor Symbolism of the Stelae. Scenes 
 FROM Daily Life 
 
 The minor ornament of our stelae, like their main 
 decoration, is more often than not a carefully thought- 
 out symbolism. We have seen how pine-cone, lion 
 and snake, already familiar on Greek tombs, acquire 
 fresh value on these Roman provincial stelae, under 
 the influence of Mithraism and cognate Oriental re- 
 ligions. The Medusa mask or Gorgoneion, perhaps 
 the commonest ornament of the grave, whether alone 
 or in conjunction with other symbols, retains its 
 ancient function of warding off evil spirits.^" The 
 cock also may often have been placed on tombs, as in 
 Greece, with an apotropaic intention. Ghosts are 
 as effectively scared by crowing cocks as by ringing 
 bells, or baying hounds. The belief that evil spirits 
 fly at cock-crow is universal : 
 
 Ferunt vagantes daemones 
 
 laetos tenebris noctium 
 
 gallo canente exterritos 
 
 sparsim timere et cedere. — Pfudentius, i. 37. 
 
 The idea is equally familiar in our own legends and 
 poetry. The dead sons of the wife of Usher's Well 
 must leave her at cock-crow : 
 
 Up then crew the red, red cock, 
 
 And up and crew the gray ; 
 The eldest to the youngest said, 
 
 Tis time we were away.^^ 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 215 
 
 Two or more fighting cocks, as on the grave of 
 Nertus at Buda-Pest,^^ are sometimes explained as 
 emblems of combative and watchful instincts, and 
 they may also be prophylactic, but a deeper mean- 
 ing than any of these attaches, as a rule, to their 
 presence on later gravestones. Just as the eagle 
 may originally have been looked upon as the habitat 
 chosen by the soul of a dead monarch, so it has been 
 pointed out that the cock might be appropriately 
 regarded as embodying the soul of a departed warrior. 
 It is doubtless in more than one aspect that the 
 cock, like the Siren or the Harpy, makes his entry 
 into sepulchral iconography. He becomes an emblem 
 of Hermes psychopompos, in token of which a cock 
 holding a caduceus in his beak is seen on the pedi- 
 ment of the gravestone of Mussius in Turin, on the 
 right of the portrait bust of the older boy.^^ But the 
 great vogue of the cock on later Roman tombstones 
 is due, I think, to the fact that as herald of the sun 
 he becomes by an easy transition the herald of re- 
 birth and resurrection. 
 
 The dolphins and marine monsters, another fre- 
 quent decoration, form a mystic escort of the dead 
 to the Islands of the Blest, and at the same time carry 
 with them an allusion to the purifying power of water 
 and to the part assigned to the watery element in 
 Mithraic and solar cults. This type of sepulchral 
 decoration arises from the belief in a place of habi- 
 
2i6 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 tation of the dead, which the Greeks placed across the 
 river Oceanus, beyond the confines of the world. The 
 dead man — or his soul — might be conveyed thither 
 either by boat, or on the back of a sea-monster, a 
 dolphin, sea-horse, or triton. The boat was one of 
 the earliest forms of transit ; it occurs in Egypt, and 
 we saw it on the sarcophagus of Haghia Triada ; 
 it remained emblematic of the last journey down to 
 late times, and was eventually taken over into 
 Christian iconography. Both boat and sea-monsters 
 are commonly found on provincial tombstones, not 
 unfrequently in combination ; on a stele in the 
 museum of Aries, for instance, a two-oared boat, 
 adorned on the prow with the effigy of a swan, is seen 
 between two dolphins {C.I.L., xii. 800).^* Some- 
 times there may be a doubt as to whether the boat is 
 for the dead man's use in the other world, or merely 
 refers to his occupation in this. On a large rect- 
 angular monument at Treves a compromise of the 
 two ideas is eftected : the cornice of the socle is carved 
 to represent the stream of Oceanus, within which 
 swim the soul's fantastic escort ; but at each side of 
 the socle and upon it is placed a boat full of wine- 
 casks {R.R., ii. 90, 5).^^ These boats, which are 
 manned by six lusty oarsmen, certainly represent the 
 trade by which the occupants of the tomb had been 
 enriched. Every inhabitant of the district of the 
 Mosel seems, then as now, to have been engaged 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 217 
 
 either in the wine or in the cloth trade. The sculp- 
 ture is by no means contemptible ; the face of the 
 pilot of one boat, with its kindly, jovial expression, 
 usually explained, let me add, as the effect of liberal 
 draughts of excellent ' Moselle,' has long been justly 
 admired. 
 
 Far more delightful than this somewhat ornate 
 monument of a pious merchant are the simple stelae 
 that marked the tombs of ordinary boatmen. They 
 are of frequent occurrence in lands with great rivers, 
 where much of the traffic and commerce by water 
 depended upon the boatmen. An excellent example 
 is in the museum of Mayence, set up by a boatman of 
 the Rhine, named Blussus, for himself, his wife, and 
 a son {R.R., ii. 71, 1-2). The portraits of the three 
 appear on the front face of the monument ; on the 
 back is carved a boat manned by two oarsmen ; the 
 light river craft resembles that of the Nile so closely 
 that we must suppose it derived from an Egyptian 
 model. Below runs the inscription which records 
 the age of Blussus and the years of his service.^*^ A 
 singular charm attaches to another stele, put up, as 
 is recorded in the pathetic inscription, by one Marcus 
 Antonius Basilides, frumentarius of the Legio X. 
 Gemina, for the tomb of his wife and his infant son : 
 
 To the holy shade of Augustania Cassia Marcia, my 
 peerless wife, who lived thirty-four years eleven months 
 and thirteen days, and, v/hile she fulfilled the suffering 
 
2i8 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 appointed for her, met life's end in the hope of better 
 things : and to my innocent child, Marcus Antonius 
 Augustanius Philetus, who lived three years eight months 
 and ten days, and whose little life a ruthless fate, not 
 heeding the prayers of his parents, took from him.* 
 
 In the same spirit that modern Italian boatmen 
 christen their craft La hella Italiana or La bella 
 Genovese, Basilides has named his boat the Felix 
 Itala in honour of Italy. In the Felix Itala he sits, 
 facing posterity bravely in characteristic frontal 
 attitude, flanked by his two mates,^' or, as Dr. Ashby 
 suggests to me, it would be quite consistent with the 
 spirit of the time to suppose that the three figures in 
 the boat stand symbolically for Basilides and the 
 wife and child he had lost. The line between reality 
 and allegory is at this time elusive, and it may well 
 be that the boats carved on these tombstones carry 
 with them an allusion to the ship in which, sooner or 
 later, all must sail to the far-away shore. Their simple 
 imagery, the naive but manly language of the inscrip- 
 tions, anticipate the prayer of the English poet : 
 
 Sunset and evening star, 
 
 And one clear call for me ; 
 And may there be no moaning of the bar 
 
 When I put out to sea. 
 
 * Die Manibus Augustianae Cassiae Marciae coniugi incomparabili 
 quae vixit annos xxxiiii menses xi dies xiii, quae, dum explesset fati 
 sui laborem, meliora sibi sperans vitam functa est, et Marco Antonio 
 
PLATE XXVIl. 
 
 Two Family Repasts. 
 Museum of Arlon. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 219 
 
 Scenes from everyday life are also found on the 
 tombstones by the side of subjects which refer to the 
 After Life ; they occur more especially as friezes on 
 the tall pyramidal monuments of the Rhineland, the 
 architecture of which is derived from that of Graeco- 
 lonian prototypes, like the Mausoleum of Hali- 
 carnassus and the Nereid Monument. A number of 
 excellent examples may be seen in the rich museum 
 of Treves. From one of them comes the well-known 
 relief with a scene in a schoolroom : a bearded Greek 
 pedagogue, got up to resemble the traditional philo- 
 sopher, sits with a pupil at each side, while a third 
 small boy enters, satchel in hand {R.R., ii. 91, i).^^ 
 On another we see depicted a * Rent-day Scene,' 
 where a number of sturdy farmers are paying in at a 
 counter the moneys due to the ground-landlord 
 {R.R., ii. 91, 2).^® The clerks who receive the money 
 are dressed in a short sagum, while the farmers have 
 in addition a warm hood attached to the sagum 
 to draw over the head ; they carry their money-bags 
 hanging from a broad strap, and hold a stout stick. 
 On a third monument a frieze on the right shows the 
 familiar Greek subject of a lady's toilet. The lady, 
 no longer young, sits in a high wicker chair surrounded 
 by her tiring-maids, one of whom holds up the mirror 
 
 Augustanio Phileto filio innocentissimo qui vixit annos iii menses viii 
 dies X, cui dii, nefandi parvulo contra votum genitorum vita privave- 
 runt ; Marcus Antonius Basilides frumentarius legionis x geminae 
 coniugi et Ulio pientissimis. 
 
220 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 to her mistress. The uncompromising reaUsm of the 
 wrinkled face, the introduction of individual details, 
 mark the work as distinctly Roman in spirit. Balanc- 
 ing the scene from the life of the mistress of the 
 house, we see on the other side the master going out 
 hunting. These familiar episodes are generally ex- 
 hibited — as here — on narrow friezes at the side of the 
 monument ; the front is more often than not occupied 
 by life-size portraits of the man and his wife, and the 
 back of the tomb is often covered with patterns of 
 rosettes, once brilliantly coloured. Among other 
 subjects of everyday life we find the family repast, 
 treated at times with Teutonic naivete (cf. R.R., ii. 
 90, 2).^° The scene on the relief at Mayence has 
 something of the solemn grandeur of Uhde's picture 
 of ' Saying Grace ' (' Komm', Herr Jesu, sei unser 
 Gast'). A delightful Family Repast occurs in the 
 rich collection at Arlon (plate xxvii.=Esperandieu, 
 4097). On the upper half of one face we see the 
 older members of the family sitting round a table 
 upon which is a trussed fowl. On the lower is the 
 children's dinner : three lusty infants eating out of a 
 soup tureen ; to the left an elder sister seems to repri- 
 mand them for their manners ; on the right an elder 
 boy plays the flute, and one of the small children 
 holds back a dog who has thrust his nose into the 
 soup. Sometimes the repast is treated purely as a 
 genre subject ; at others it assumes the character of 
 
PLATE XXV III. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 221 
 
 a sepulchral banquet, influenced, no doubt, on the 
 one hand by the Mithraic communion and the other 
 sacred repasts which were so characteristic a feature 
 of the Oriental religions ; on the other by the After 
 Life Banquet which from early times had been the 
 highest expression of Apotheosis. In these later 
 reliefs the two ideas probably coalesce, and the ban- 
 quet partakes of the nature of a communion scene 
 uniting the living and the dead. 
 
 The mention of the ritual banquet leads me to say 
 a word concerning the vessels of various shapes which 
 often adorn the pediments of tombs, and which are 
 usually explained as conventional ornaments. The 
 chief of these are the patera or sacrificial platter, the 
 amphora, the krater or mixing-bowl, and the kan- 
 tharos or chalice. Most of these already appeared 
 with ritual significance on Greek tombs ; and to 
 suppose that in centuries so charged with religious 
 emotion as those we have been studying, or among a 
 people so * superstitious ' as the Romans, they sud- 
 denly lost all meaning and became purely decorative, 
 as most modern scholars assert, seems utterly in- 
 admissible. Rather do I believe that they are the 
 record of the mysteries deemed most holy alike by 
 the occupants of the tomb and their survivors. The 
 pair of amphorae, like the twin cruets of the mass, the 
 kantharos, like the Christian chalice, were emblematic 
 of the mystic sacrifice and communion ; but at present 
 
222 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 the various utensils of the pagan mysteries have not 
 been sufficiently studied. The kantharos was par- 
 ticularly beloved as a motive, and when foliage or 
 flowers grow out of it, it comes within the circle of 
 resurrection emblems. Birds often appear drinking 
 from the top of a vase, to indicate the soul's thirst 
 for the ' waters of life ' ; at other times the Apolline 
 griffin guards the sacred vase. Within the pediment 
 of the stele of the shepherd (pecuarius) Jucundus at 
 Mayence we see just such a vase, with long branches 
 growing out of it and spreading to either side.^^ 
 There are peculiarly good examples of this class of 
 decoration on several urns in the British Museum 
 {R.R., ii. 471, 5-7; 512, 4 ; 513, 8 ; 515, 4), one of 
 which is reproduced here (plate xxviii. 2). 
 
 VII. The Monument at Igel. Summary and 
 Conclusion 
 
 The splendid monument, still in situ, at Igel, near 
 Treves, with all its sculptures intact, offers us in 
 visible form the synthesis of the beliefs which inspired 
 the hopes of an ultramundane existence lifted far 
 above this present world, combined with pictures of 
 the life on earth of the occupants of the tomb. This 
 grand family tomb was put up in the third century 
 A.D. by the Secundinii, wealthy cloth-merchants of 
 the country of the Treveri. From its size, and the 
 beauty both of its architecture and sculpture, it is 
 
PLATE XXIX. 
 
 The Igel Monument near Tkenes. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 223 
 
 one of the most important monuments of Roman 
 Germania ; it now stands in solitary grandeur in the 
 charming village of Igel, beside the line of the Roman 
 road from Treves to Rheims. In antiquity it was one 
 of many similar monuments, which may still be 
 studied in the fine drawings and reconstructions 
 attempted in the museum of Treves. Their tower- 
 like structures with pyramidal roofs may, like the 
 tomb of S. Remy in Provence, be traced back to 
 Graeco-Asiatic prototypes of the type of the Mauso- 
 leum of Halicarnassus and the Lycian tombs of 
 Merehi and Payava (above, p. 152). In the Gallo- 
 Roman tomb, likewise, every available surface is 
 covered with a profusion of carving (plate xxix.). 
 
 As far back as 1792 the Igel tomb excited the ad- 
 miration of Goethe, who saw it as he travelled from 
 Treves to Luxemburg to join the allied armies ; he 
 not only admired the column, but expressed a hope 
 that it might be drawn and measured. More than a 
 centur^^ has elapsed and Goethe's countrymen have 
 not as yet adequately fulfilled his wish.^^ Both 
 iconography and art throw a vivid light on the 
 civilisation of this land of the Treveri with its mixed 
 Ionian, Roman and Celtic elements. The pleasant 
 everyday scenes of the friezes and podium reflect 
 the spirit in which the Romans of all lands and 
 periods loved to record their res gestae, whether public 
 or private ; the principal fagade brings before us the 
 
224 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 picture of a Gallo-Roman family ; the rest is given up 
 to the rehgious symbolism of the age, of which it is 
 the splendid and convincing epitome. The inscrip- 
 tion declares the tomb to have been erected, in the 
 first instance, for the wife of one of the Secundinii 
 and the two children of the other. The survivors 
 are portrayed on the principal panel of the front face ; 
 above them are three medallions with busts of the 
 deceased. In the pediment, the rape of Hylas by the 
 water or wood nymphs — creatures of mystery and 
 terror like the noonday Pan — symbolises the rape 
 of the soul through the dread powers of death. Ah 
 dolor ! ibat Hylas, ihat Enhydryasin. And the further 
 allusion to the Rape as prelude of the Sacred Mar- 
 riage is obvious. To the right, on the large panel of 
 the west face, we find two scenes from the legend of 
 Perseus, {a) The liberation of Andromeda, emblematic 
 of the release of the soul from its earthly chains 
 through divine intervention ; it is interesting to note 
 the novel motive of the half-figure of Athena, seen 
 emerging from the clouds to protect the heroic deed. 
 The epiphany of the goddess is represented in like 
 manner on the panel with the Apotheosis of Heracles. 
 {h) The scene where Perseus shows to Andromeda 
 the Medusa's head reflected in the water, an allusion 
 to the apotropaic power of the Gorgoneion to ward 
 off evil spirits from the tomb. In the west pediment 
 the story of Mars and Rhea Silvia carries, as we have 
 
PLATE XXX. 
 
 Apotheosis of Heracles. 
 Igel. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 225 
 
 seen, the promise of awakening from the sleep of death 
 to a life of blessedness, with the further assurance 
 of wedded union with the god. These scenes are 
 balanced on the large panel of the east face at the 
 top by the scene of Thetis dipping Achilles into the 
 waters of Styx to make him invulnerable. The 
 allusion to the purificatory rite of baptism, which 
 was among the ideas introduced by more than one 
 of the Oriental religions, is evident, yet the allusion 
 to baptism by water is so rare that I think it must 
 be interpreted in this case by reference to a practice 
 prevalent among Teutonic and Celtic races of plung- 
 ing infants into cold river water immediately after 
 birth, partly for the purpose of purification, and 
 partly also because water was looked upon among 
 certain northern peoples as the habitat of beneficent 
 powers, under whose influence it was desirable to place 
 the new-born child .^^ The ritual words spoken by 
 the magician in the Havamal, ' This I can make sure 
 when I suffuse a man-child with water : he shall not 
 fall when he fights in the host, no sword shall bring 
 him low,'^* come very near indeed to the belief that 
 Achilles was made invulnerable by being dipped in 
 the waters of Styx. If our Treveri were among the 
 Celtic tribes who used these rites to purify the new- 
 born child and also to assure his immortality, we can 
 see why this special scene of the ' Baptism of Achilles ' 
 was chosen to adorn one face of the Igel tomb. The 
 
 p 
 
226 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 lower half of this panel is unfortunately undecipher- 
 able. In the pediment Luna — in Mithraic and solar 
 monuments the inseparable companion of Sol Sanc- 
 tissimus — drives her chariot, while Sol himself in his 
 quadriga appears, as we shall immediately see, on 
 the pediment of the adjoining face. On the rear wall 
 of the tomb is a representation, rare at this period, of 
 the Apotheosis of Heracles, who is shown in his chariot, 
 mounting upwards along the path to Heaven, within 
 the circle of the zodiac (plate xxx.) . Minerva no longer 
 rides by the hero's side, as in earlier Greek represen- 
 tations of the scene ; she emerges from the clouds 
 to meet him and extends her hand to help his ascen- 
 sion, a motive that recalls the hand of the Biblical 
 God stretched out to the Christian emperor on later 
 Roman medallions of consecration. In the spandrels 
 appear the heads of the wind-gods, emblematic of the 
 four cardinal points that divide the sky. The winds, 
 we must remember, were likewise looked upon as 
 fertilising and generative powers of Nature, and more- 
 over are peculiarly in place on a funerary monument, 
 since the souls of the departed might become wind- 
 spirits. The allusion in the images of this panel is 
 evidently to the triumphant progress of the soul after 
 it has, like Heracles, accomplished its cycle of earthly 
 labours. But we are no longer in presence of a Graeco- 
 Latin Heracles. He has acquired an Oriental char- 
 acter from being identified by the Greeks themselves 
 
PLATE XXXI. 
 
 Apotheosis of a Roman Emperor. 
 British Museum. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 227 
 
 with the Tyrlan Melkarth, part of whose legend he 
 absorbed into his own. At Tyre, at one of the great 
 festivals, this Heracles- Melkarth was burned in efhgy, 
 and Sir J. G. Frazer surmises that the festival was 
 identical with the ' awakening of Heracles ' held in 
 January, acutely inferring that the ceremony con- 
 sisted in a dramatic representation of the death of the 
 god, followed by a semblance of his resurrection : *^ 
 so we get back by yet another path into the same 
 cycle of resurrection emblems. The splendid com- 
 position of the chariot of the Apotheosis as it rushes 
 upward amid the winds through the aether to the stars, 
 recalls the promise of Apotheosis which that ardent 
 mystic, the Emperor Julian, received from the oracle : 
 
 Then when thou hast put off the grievous burden of 
 mortal limbs, the fiery car shall bear thee through the 
 midst of the eddying whirlwinds to Olympus ; and thou 
 shalt come into that ancestral home of heavenly light, 
 whence thou didst wander to enter the body of man. — 
 Eunapius, Hist., fr. 26. 
 
 And even more vividly does it bring to mind the 
 chariot of fire and the horses of fire which parted 
 disciple and master asunder, and Elijah ascending 
 ' by a whirlwind into heaven ' (2 Kings ii. 11). The 
 chariot as vehicle of Apotheosis appears again in 
 the striking scene of an ivory leaf in the British 
 Museum with the deification of Constantius Chlorus, 
 the father of Constantino (plate xxxi.).^® The motive 
 
228 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 has a long history, from the chariot borne through the 
 flaming aether on the sarcophagus of Haghia Triada 
 down to the time when it passes into Christian art in 
 scenes with the ascension of Elijah ; but nowhere does 
 it convey a more impressive sense of spiritual triumph 
 than here on the monument of Igel. 
 
 Two monuments have lately come to my notice 
 which offer interesting parallels to these notable scenes 
 of triumph and ascension through the cosmic universe 
 to the spheres. The first is a sarcophagus of late 
 second-century date long in the Palazzo Barberini 
 in Rome, but so far unpublished (plate xxxii.). In the 
 centre we have what at first sight seems an ordinary 
 Roman medallion group {imago clipeata), but the 
 medallion is itself merely a corona triumphalis decked 
 out with the signs of the zodiac, so that the transit 
 here again is through the celestial spheres. The 
 medallion is held by two of the four Seasons arranged 
 on either side of the medallion, to mark the swift 
 alternations of time, while below it is a busy vin- 
 taging scene with the love-gods piling up the luscious 
 grapes — emblem, as so often in Christian art, of the 
 vintaging of the souls. ^^ 
 
 The next is a much humbler monument, a little 
 stele lately found at Carnuntum, which tells with 
 even more vivid force the same story as the more 
 lavish imagery of the Roman sarcophagus. On the 
 upper part of the stele within the corona triumphalis is 
 
PLATE XXXII. 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 229 
 
 an eagle with outspread wings ; the winds occupy 
 the four spandrels ; the image of Sol crowns the pedi- 
 ment, within which are two dolphins. ^^ So here again 
 we are confronted with the triumphant faith in the 
 attainment, after purificatory rites, of a life of blessed- 
 ness at harmony with the cosmic universe. 
 
 To return to the Igel monument : in the frieze above 
 the Apotheosis of Heracles a genius bridles two 
 griffins, sacred to Apollo and other solar gods, a sub- 
 ject peculiarly appropriate here, just below the pedi- 
 ment in which the ' Giver of Life,' Sol Sanctissimus 
 himself, appears in his quadriga in a time-honoured 
 scheme which recalls that of the Elean phalera (plate 
 V. 2) , The crown of the monument is a capital adorned 
 with four heads framed by the intertwining coils of four 
 snake-footed figures ; on the analogy of a fragment 
 at Treves, I take it that these heads represent the 
 Seasons, the anguipedes being symbolic of the earth. 
 This capital supports four half-figures holding up the 
 terrestrial sphere which has the oviform shape given 
 to it in the Orphic cosmogony : in these figures I in- 
 cline to recognise the same divisions of the day and 
 night that appear on the capitals of the ' giant ' 
 columns. Finally, above earth and the material 
 universe, the eagle soars upward to the stars bearing 
 with him Ganymede, symbol of the liberated soul. 
 
 The picturesque scenes from daily life that enliven 
 the rest of the surface need no comment here. Study, 
 
230 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 however, the supper scene of the central face ; no 
 Dutch master could have conceived it in a spirit 
 more naturalistic, and the same applies to the scenes 
 at either end. On the right we are introduced to the 
 kitchen where the servants are cooking or polishing 
 the dishes ; on the left other servants are occupied in 
 the wine-cellar. A frieze of the podium shows big 
 wagons laden with goods. Evidently the commerce 
 of the Secundinii spread to distant parts, for on one 
 panel we see their wagons crossing a mighty range 
 of mountains, perhaps intended for the Alps. On 
 another frieze again is a river scene ; the boats are 
 piled with bales of cloth, and are rowed by sturdy 
 oarsmen. The meaning of the dolphins and other 
 creatures of the deep on the upper and lower friezes 
 of the podium is clear from what has already been said 
 of other representations. Thus, the imagery is taken 
 from the same cycle as that of the sepulchral stelae, 
 but is treated with greater freedom and mastery of 
 expression. The beauty of the design comes, indeed, 
 as a surprise to those who think of Roman provincial 
 art as decadent or worse. The exquisite putti, for 
 instance, that adorn the uprights on all four sides 
 would not be unworthy of a master of the Tuscan 
 Quattrocento. 
 
 I am aware that in stating this I am running 
 counter to general opinion. It is the fashion to con- 
 demn the art of the Igel monument. May the ex- 
 
THE AFTER LIFE 231 
 
 planation attempted above of its iconography at least 
 dispel the charge of ignorant vulgarity brought against 
 the Secundinii by a recent writer.*^^ They may have 
 shown themselves a little over-emphatic and over- 
 elaborate, a little too anxious to surpass their neigh- 
 bours alike in the expression of their piety and in the 
 record of their commerce. But the eagle, which to 
 those who overlook the Ganymede represents only the 
 vulgar ambition of a nSgociant proprietaire to appro- 
 priate to himself ' the emblem of military force and 
 of armed victory,' shows at least that the Secundinii 
 believed in a world beyond, where they too might be 
 liberated from their earthly cares. In these reliefs 
 the wish for personal fame, perhaps also for individual 
 survival, seems satisfied by those simple scenes which 
 record the successful earthly career of the deceased. 
 The carved panels and the statuary that adorns the 
 more important parts of the edifice seem rather to 
 proclaim joy in the soul's release from the shackling 
 forces of the flesh and of personality. The awfia <TTjij,a 
 doctrine seems here to have attained its apogee. 
 We are already within measurable distance of the 
 faith that inspires the New Mysticism : 
 
 Ici commence la pleine mer, ici commence I'admirable 
 aventure, la seule qui soit egale a la curiosite humaine, la 
 seule qui s'eleve aussi haut que son plus haut desir. 
 
 We have travelled far from the primitive tomb- 
 stones set up with magical intention to entrap the 
 
232 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ghost. The dead man no longer lives in an obscure, 
 uncertain region, propitiated by acts of adoration 
 born of fear. Magic had sought to imprison the soul ; 
 religion had effected her liberation and sent her soaring 
 above the earth into the radiant spaces of heaven. 
 A new era was to bring with it a still higher revelation 
 of the soul's exalted destiny, but we have reached the 
 goal of our present studies, and it is well to close 
 them upon the vision of what Rome, by holding to 
 spiritual ideals all but repudiated by classic Greece, 
 contributed towards the emancipation of mankind 
 from the haunting fear of death. 
 
NOTES 
 
PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS 
 
 A.J. A. : American Journal of Archaeology. 
 
 Aphaia : Furtwangler, Aegina das HeiUgthum der Aphaia. 
 
 Arch. Anz. : Archdologischer Anseiger {^I'^^G.B.rs at end oi Jahrbuch). 
 
 Ath. Mitt. : Athenische Mitteilungen. 
 
 B.C. II. : Bulletin de Correspondance Hell^nique. 
 
 B.S.R, : Papers of the British School at Rome. 
 
 B.Z. : Byzantinische Zeitschrift. 
 
 C.I.L. : Corpus Inscriptionuin Latinarum. 
 
 E.R.E. : Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. 
 
 Esperandieu : E. Espdrandieu, Bas-Reliefs de la Gaule Romaine. 
 
 Helbig : W. Helbig, Fiihrer durch die Oeffentlichen Sammlungen 
 
 Klassischer Altertiimer in Rom, 3rd ed., 191 2, 1913, 2 vols. 
 Jahrb. : Jahrbuch des K. Deutschen archdologischen Instituts. 
 J.H.S. : Journal of Hellenic Studies. 
 J.R.S. : Journal of RojJian Studies. 
 R.A. : Revue ArcMologique. 
 R.H.R. : Revue de PHistoire des Religiofts. 
 R,M. : Roemische Mitteilungen.. 
 R.R. : Reinach, Repertoire des Reliefs Grecs et Remains, 3 vols. 
 
NOTES 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
 
 ^ Strzygovvski's theories up to the year 1907 are summed up in the 
 Introduction to my Roman Sculpture, pp. 12 fif. with references. In the 
 intervening seven years his activity has been unremitting. His most 
 important recent work is ^oss\h\y Amida (Heidelberg, 1910), written in 
 collaboration with Professor von Berchem and Miss Gertrude Bell. In 
 it he discusses afresh the Oriental origin of all mediaeval European art. 
 The preface is of special importance, as aifording the author's review 
 of his own work since 1885, in which he shows how his studies took 
 him from Italy to Constantinople and Asia Minor, and thence to 
 Persia and the further East. Strzygowski's recent attacks are mainly 
 directed against the school represented by Professor Heisenberg, 
 who look upon Byzantium as the direct heir of Greece, and more 
 especially of Athens. See Strzygowski's last article in Supplement 
 Band xix. (191 3) of the Rihnische QuartalscJirift, and his numerous 
 articles and notices in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift. His views 
 largely colour the important book of Oskar Wulff, AltchristUche und 
 Byzantinische Kunst (vol. i. 191 3); cf. also L. Brehier, 'Etudes sur 
 I'histoire de la Sculpture Byzantine,' in Nouvelles Missions Scienti- 
 figues, 191 1. 
 
 ^ In the article 'AltchristUche Kunst,' contributed to vol. i. of the 
 handbook Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenivart (1908). 
 
 2 This was the view of Wickhoft" in the epoch-making monograph 
 translated into English under the title Rofnan Art{igoi). In the text 
 oi Rojnan Sculpture (1907) I showed reason for modifying this view, 
 though the opening lines of the preface might lead to the supposition 
 that I adhered to it. 
 
 * The relation of Chateau Gaillard to Syrian models is well known, 
 but students will do well to read the inspiring article of M. Dieulafoy 
 
 236 
 
236 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 in Mdmoires de VlnsHtut de France, 1898 (vol. 36), pp. 325-86, 
 'Le Chateau Gaillard et I'architecture militaire au Xlllme Si&cle,' a 
 masterly handling of the question of the debt of Western Europe to 
 Eastern art in the Middle Ages. 
 
 ^ Palace and Mosque of Ukhaidir, by G. Lowthian Bell, 1914. See 
 also the following passages, pp. 72 ffi, no, 128, on the debt of Eastern 
 to Roman architecture. 
 
 6 E. March-Phillips, The Works of Man, pp. 131 ff. This high- 
 handed abuse of Rome seems 'opportune and refreshing' to the 
 anonymous r&vie.\y&rinfournaI of Helleftic Studies, 1912 (xxii.), p. 202. 
 A similar alternately violent and ' saucy ' style of writing spoils a far 
 more important book. Art, by Clive Bell (1914)- Mr. Bell certainly 
 puts his finger on the weak spot of Greek art from the Parthenon 
 downward and in Hellenistic and Roman times, but he fails to see 
 that what he so justly and eloquently praises in Byzantinism (see Art, 
 pp. 121 fif.) begins in the early Empire ; is, in fact, the ' ascending line ' 
 which, as Riegl first perceived, makes its appearance in Rome by the 
 side of decadent Hellenism. 
 
 ^ A Wandering Scholar in the Levant, 1896, p. 163. 
 
 * W. R. Lethaby in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries oj 
 London, 1912 (xxiv.), p. 293 ; cf Strzygowski in Byzantinische Zeit- 
 schrift, 1913 (xxii.), p. 624. 
 
 ^ Cf. Professor Gilbert Murray, Four Stages of Greek Religion, 
 p. 108 : ' Rome herself was a Polis as well as an Empire. And 
 Professor Haverfield has pointed out that a City has more chance of 
 taking in the whole world to its freedoms and privileges than a Nation 
 has of making men of alien birth its compatriots.' Cf. also the 
 brilliant appreciation of the Roman Empire and of its policy by 
 Professor Lake, The Steivardship of Faith, pp. 8 ff. 
 
 '■^ R. W. Livingstone, The Greek Genius and its Meaning to us, 
 1912, p. lOI. 
 
 ^^ Cf. T. R. Glover, Conflict of Religions, pp. 28 ff. : ' No Roman poet 
 had a more gentle, sympathetic love of Nature ; none ever entered so 
 deeply and so tenderly into the sorrows of men.' For Vergil's religious 
 feeling and its exalted character see also Ferdinand Postma, De 
 numine divifio quid senserit Vi?gilius, Amsterdam, 19 14. 
 
 " See Wickhoff, Roman Art, p. 45. 
 
NOTES 237 
 
 ^^ Mr. J. W, Mackail, in his article 'Virgil and Roman Studies' in 
 J.R.S., 1913 (iii.), pp. I ff., brings out with his usual vivid touch 
 this aspect of the poet. See especially p. 2 : ' So, too, with Virgil. 
 Admiration of his poetical genius is only heightened by the fuller 
 knowledge we are gaining of him as the voice and interpreter of the 
 Latin civilisation in all its aspects. We no longer study him as mere 
 literature ; or rather literature, with him, as with others, has grown 
 into a new meaning. It is not a picture drawn and coloured on the 
 flat, but an organic solid, attached everywhere to a three-dimensional 
 world. At every point Virgil's work throws light on Roman studies, 
 and has light thrown on it by them. The beautiful pattern, with 
 which we have long been familiar, becomes stereoscopic ; the polished 
 reflecting surface becomes translucent. We see deep into its structure, 
 and have always the hope of seeing deeper ; we can trace layers of 
 growth ; here and there we can watch the poetry coming into 
 existence. And as we do so, point after point in the poetry kindles 
 into new meaning, because it is seen in organic relation to an actual 
 world.' 
 
 1* J. W. Mackail, Latitt Literature, p. 99. 
 
 ^" Gilbert Murray, Rise of the Greek Epic, 2nd ed., pp. 113 fF. 
 
 " See, for instance, Mr. Warde-Fowler, Rome, p. 7 ; and even 
 Professor Haverfield, Romanization of Roman Britain, 2nd ed., p. 9. 
 
 LECTURE I 
 
 1 The so-called 'law of frontality' was first put forward by the 
 Danish sculptor Julius Lange in his epoch-making book, Darstellung 
 des Menschen in der dlteren griechischen Kunst (German ed. with a 
 preface by A. Furtwangler, and a summary of the views in French, 
 Strassburg, 1899). But what Lange christens 'frontality' involves a 
 great deal beside the frontal pose. Accordingly E. Loewy, in his 
 Rendering of Nature in Early Greek Art (English tr. by J. S. 
 Fothergill, London, 1908), substituted the term iinifaciality for 
 frontality. For a useful resume of Lange's and Loewy's views see 
 P. Gardner, Principles of Greek Art (ed. 1914), ch. vii. 
 
 2 Strictly speaking, the frontal pose of primitive art is restricted to 
 statues in the round, while in relief the difficulty of drawing or carving 
 figures and, above all, faces on a background, led to the adoption of 
 the profile view. But the profile poses are stiff, and the figures in 
 
238 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 relief are subject to the law of parallelism which flows from that of 
 frontality, and deprives them of any real mobility. 
 
 ^ Alessandro della Seta, Art and Religion, London, 1914. His 
 earlier monograph, La Genesi dello Scorcio nclP arte Graeca, 1907, 
 should be read by those interested in the technical processes by which 
 the Greeks liberated themselves from the yoke of frontality (for which 
 della Seta substitutes the expression parallelism) by the discovery of 
 foreshortening, which enabled them to interrelate the various actions 
 in a scene. 
 
 * A. L. Frothingham in American Journal of Archaeology, 191 2 
 (xvi.), pp. 368 ff. ; 1913 (xvii.), pp. 487 ff. ('Who built the Arch of 
 Constantine?')- 
 
 ^ E. Strong, Roman Sculpture, pp. 328 ff. A good description of the 
 reliefs of the arch, and of their relation to those in the contemporary 
 arch of Galerius at Saloniki, by O. Wulff, Altchristliche Kunst, 
 pp. 160 ff. 
 
 ^ A. J. B. Wace in B.S.R., iv. pp. 270 fif., pis. xxxv., xxxvi. (plate iii. 
 by permission after his pi. xxvi.). But I see no reason for thinking 
 that the figures of the north and south sides do not belong to the 
 same period. The differences of technique are not greater than can be 
 accounted for by the employment of more than one sculptor. 
 
 ^ Alois Riegl, Die Spiitrlimische Kunstindustric in Oesterreich- 
 Ungarn, Vienna, 1901. 
 
 * For both S. Trophime and Chartres see P. de Lasteyrie's mono- 
 graph in Monuments Plot, 1902 (viii.), 'Etude sur la Sculpture 
 Fran<;aise au Moyen Age'; plate iv. is after his plate iii., 'Tympan 
 de la Porte Centrale de la Facade Royale.' 
 
 ^ Maiestas Christi — the name given to the scheme which shows 
 the Christ as here enthroned within the mandorla. According to 
 Strzygowski and Lethaby the type of the Maiestas Christi is of 
 Egyptian origin. The mandorla 'encloses the figure of the infant 
 Christ in his mother's arms in the Gospels of Etchmiadzin and in 
 frescoes at Bawit ' (Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology, 191 1, 
 p. 683 and references). 
 
 ^'^ I find myself paraphrasing here a sentence from Winoton 
 Churchill's novel. Inside the Cup, p. 62. The passage in which the 
 American writer describes what the effect would be upon the 
 Christian conception of the Christ were a natural instead of a 
 
NOTES 239 
 
 supernatural birth attributed to Him, almost exactly expresses what 
 happens when the image of the divinity, instead of being shown 
 independent of any relation to other figures or objects, is made to 
 participate in a common action : ' If we attribute to our Lord a 
 natural birth, we come at once to the dilemma of having to admit 
 that He was merely an individual human person — in an unsurpassed 
 relationship with God, it is true, but still a human person. That 
 doctrine makes Christ historical, some one to go back to, instead of 
 the independent pre-existent Son of God and mankind.' 
 
 ^' The sculptures were discovered in the spring of igio, south of the 
 town of Corfu, near the convent of Garitza, during excavations begun 
 by the Archaeological Society of Athens and continued by the 
 German Emperor. The relief is very flat ; the style is non-Attic and 
 recalls Sicilian (Selinos) rather than Greek sculpture. Published 
 Praktika, 191 1; cf. Arch. Anz., 191 1, p. 135; 1912, p. 247; 1913, 
 p. 106 ; P. Gardner, Principles of Greek Art (1914), p. 122. 
 Several architectural fragments of the temple were also found, as 
 well as a long altar adorned with a frieze of metopes and triglyphs 
 that stood in front of the temple. The pedimental fragments are now 
 in the local museum at Corfu. For the reconstruction of the pediment 
 see Sir Arthur Evans mJ.H.S., 191 2, p. 286, fig. 2 {Addenda). 
 
 12 On the apotropaic character of the Gorgon, and on the probable 
 derivation of the whole group with its flanking lions from a Hittite 
 model, see Ed. Meyer, Reich tind Kiiltur der Chetiter., 19^4) P- 113, 
 with note and fig. 83. Sir Arthur Evans {loc. cit.\ on the other hand, 
 inclines to derive the type from Cretan art. 
 
 13 Delia Seta, figs. 67, 68. 
 
 1^' Loe\vy, Rendering of Nature., fig. 19. 
 
 1-^ The most important discussion of Greek pedimental construction 
 is Furtwangler's in Aegina das Heiligtuvi der Aphaia., pp. 316-41. 
 Cf. my paper \n Journal of the Brit, and Anicr. Society of Rome, 19 10,- 
 IV. p. 395. 
 
 i« A. B. Cook, Zeus, 1914, pp. 293 ff. and notes, explains the partiality 
 of early Greek sculpture for fish-tailed and snaky monsters to fill up the 
 angles of pediments, by supposing that they were originally used to 
 guard the apotropaic solar symbol which was so frequently placed 
 in the centre of pediments, or above the gable as acroterion. See the 
 examples given by Mr. Cook, figs. 212-18. For the Acropohs pedi- 
 ments see G. Dickins, Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum, 19 12, 
 Nos. 35 ff". 
 
240 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ^^ Furtwangler, Aphaia^ fig. 254. 
 
 1^ Furtwangler, Aphaia^ plates 104, 105 (for the general effect of 
 the two compositions). 
 
 1" Furtwangler, Aphaia, figs. 259-61. 
 
 "''^ It is important to study the correct reconstruction which brings 
 the Peirithoos and the Theseus close to the Apollo. Although both 
 figures move away from the centre and from the god, the lines are so 
 arranged as to link centre and lateral groups together. For the two 
 Olympia pediments, see Apkaia, figs. 262-3. 
 
 2' Furtwangler, Aphaia, figs. 265-7. 
 
 ^* Four Stages of Greek Religion^ p. go. 
 
 "^ Both are self-involved compositions. The Hermes is lost in 
 sensuous dreams, and the Demeter in her grief. Neither statue is 
 conceived in relation to the spectator. 
 
 -■* Principles^ p. 118. 
 
 2^ To Greek archaeologists, and indeed to many others, those 
 statements will appear pure heresies. Dr. Deissmann, for instance, 
 who shows a deep feeling for art, says of the Eleusis relief that it is 
 ' the most deeply religious work of ancient sculpture ' which he has 
 ever seen {Light from the Ancient East^ p. 286). 
 
 2'* Furtwangler-Reichold, Griechische Vasennialerei, i. pi. 36. 
 
 2^ We might judge differently of the principles which govern 
 Greek composition if we knew more of the art of Asia Minor. For 
 instance, the pedimental sculptures of the so-called Monument of 
 the Nereids from Xanthos (Brit. Mus.), clumsy though they are in 
 certain respects, show a finer sense of centripetal construction than 
 most of the pediments found in Greece. The reason for this is the 
 nature of the subject. The dead of the central group — a man and 
 his wife with their children — are still imagined as beings of a 
 superior order, as enjoying a state something between the human 
 and the divine. Hence the tendency, not altogether neutralised by 
 the obvious Attic influences, of placing the images of the dead in an 
 attitude suggestive of them as recipients of homage. The poses are 
 not frontal, it is true, but the lines flow towards the centre, focus 
 the attention at that point, and lead one to look there for the 
 dominant motive of the composition. 
 
 ^^ Diodorus Siculus, xviii. 26, 27. 
 
NOTES 241 
 
 ^' According to a recent theory the lustratio exercitiis represented 
 is presumably that performed in B.C. 115 by an ancestor of Domitius 
 (see Sieveking in the Austrian Archaeological y(a:.'^r^i-/^i?/if^, 1910, xiii. 
 pp. 95 ff. ; 'das sogenannte Altar des Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus '). 
 If that is the case, the instance is almost unique, for the Romans 
 had no historical art in our modern sense, i.e.^ as I have already 
 pointed out in Roinan Sculpture^ p. 38, they hand down their present 
 deeds, their res gestae^ for the admiration of the future, but rarely 
 search the past for those of their ancestors. 
 
 ^^ I had discussed the problem of the introduction of the crowd 
 into Roman relief, Roman Sculpture^ pp. 46 ff. Delia Seta {pp. cit., p. 
 278) says further : ' The problem had not yet been propounded in the 
 case of the altar of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, for the figures, though 
 placed singly facing the spectator, do not form a compact mass, but 
 are distinctly separated from one another against the background. 
 This had already been indicated ... on the Ara Pacis . . . for some 
 of the figures of the cortege, who, instead of moving like the rest, 
 seem to have stopped, as if to be better in view of the spectator.' 
 
 ^^ See my Roman Sculpture, p. 57, and the remark quoted from 
 Riegl. 
 
 ^2 ' L'aigle funeraire des Syriens et I'Apotheose des Empereurs,' in 
 Revue de Vhistoire des Religions, 19 10 (Ixii.), pp. 119-64. 
 
 ^^ For the Imperial Apotheosis and cognate cults see art. ' Apotheose' 
 by Gaston Boissier in Saglio's Diet., and also the chapter in his 
 Religion Romaine dAuguste aux Antonins {■p'p. 122-208); W. Drex- 
 ler's art. ' Kaiserkultus ' in Roscher ; arts. ' Apotheose ' by H. von 
 Gaertringen, and ' Consecratio ' by G. Wissowa, both in Pauly- 
 Wissowa ; art. ' Deification ' by E. Bevan, in Hastings' Encyclopaedia 
 of Religion attd Ethics ; Kornemann, Zur Geschichte der Antiken 
 Herrscherkulte, in Klio, 1901 (i.), pp. 51-146 (§ 3, 'Die romische 
 Staatskulte der Kaiserzeit,' etc.) ; L. Purser's art. in Smith's Diet, 
 of Ant. (a competent resujne of facts and theories) ; Marquardt, 
 Siaatsverwaltung, iii. pp. 91 ff. ; pp. 463 ff., pp. 275 ff. {consecratio) ; 
 V. Ga.rdtha.usen, Augustus und seine Zeit, i. pp. 466 ff. ; J. Toutain, ch. 
 iii. o{ Les Cultes paiens dans P Empire Romain; C. Pascal, Credenze 
 dOltretombe, ch. xxv. E. Beurlier's Le Culte Impirial {iZZ\) is still 
 the most complete work on the subject. The entire documentary 
 evidence for the Imperial Deification between the years 48 B.C. and 
 14 A.D. has lately been brought together in chronological order by 
 Hubert Heinen in Klio, 191 1 (xi.), pp. 129 ff. ('Zur Begriindung des 
 romischen Kaiserkultes '). Paul Wendland's Hellenistische-rbmische 
 
242 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Kultur, 1912 (sections ' Kaiserkult,' 'Sinn der Apotheose,' and the 
 preceding sections on the temples of the Augustan age), contains the 
 most illuminating pages that have yet been written on the Augustan 
 period, its aspirations and cults. See also Warde-Fowler, Roman 
 Ideas of Deity (Lecture v., 'Deification of Caesar '^ — the preceding 
 chapter on the ' Idea of the Man-God ') ; and O. Gruppe, Griechische 
 Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, ii. pp. 1503 ff. Professor Ad. 
 Deissmann's estimate of the antagonism of the early Christians to the 
 Deification of the Caesars should likewise be read {Light from the 
 Ancient East, 19 10, pp. 344 ff.). 
 
 ^* For Caesar's policy and desires in the direction of Apotheosis see 
 Kornemann, op. cit., p. 95 ; Teney Frank, Roma7i Imperialism, p. 342. 
 Mr. Warde-Fowler, Roman Ideas of Deity, p. 113, seems to consider 
 Caesar to have been indifferent to the idea of his own Deification. 
 
 ^^ The idea of the King-God developing as it did out of that of the 
 Man-God, long proved equally repugnant to writers of the most diver- 
 gent opinions — all of them apt, till lately, to stigmatise the cult of the 
 ruler as gross idolatry or degrading servility, or else to sneer at it in 
 the spirit of Seneca's spiteful satire on the Deification of Claudius. 
 Christian writers naturally inherited the antipathy to the Imperial 
 cult felt by the early Christians, who in this were probably also 
 influenced by the monotheism of the Jews (see Ad. Deissmann, loc. 
 cit.\ while writers of a freethinking stamp condemned it along with 
 every other form of ritual. Of late years, however, a growing know- 
 ledge of the religious and political spirit which gave rise to the cult 
 has issued in a saner view. ' Time,' says Professor Wight Duff, in 
 a fine page on Augustan Imperialism, 'placed Augustus among the 
 greater public divinities, and Caesar-worship attained a universality 
 which prepared a way for the ultimate predominance of Christianity ' 
 {Literary History of Rome, p. 525). Mr. Warde-Fowler, who owns 
 that Emperor- worship, as equivalent to ' worship of a man,' was at one 
 time abhorrent to him, handles the subject with sympathy and toler- 
 ance, and goes so far as to admit that ' its contribution to the idea of 
 deity was wholesome rather than the contrary ' {Roman Ideas of Deity, 
 pp. 123 ff.). Dr. Farnell (art. 'Greek Religion' in E.R.E.) says, in 
 alluding to the deification of great men generally, that ' for better, for 
 worse, it was a momentous fact belonging to the higher history of 
 European religion ; for it familiarised theGraeco-Roman world with 
 the idea of the incarnation of the Man-God.' Professor G. Murray like- 
 wise, while condemning with characteristic vehemence the ' worship 
 of the Man-God with its diseased atmosphere of megalomania and 
 blood-lust,' in his discussion of Hellenistic deification points to the 
 
NOTES 243 
 
 inspiring character of the ' potential divinity of man ' {Four Stages of 
 Greek Religion, pp. 82, 139). Finally, two American historians, 
 Professor Scott Fergxisson in his Greek hnpen'alism (1913) and 
 Professor Teney Frank in his Roman hnperialis^n (1914), show a far- 
 seeing appreciation of the aims and motives which were at the root 
 of both Hellenistic and Roman Apotheosis. The Hellenistic cult of 
 the ruler is treated by J. Kaerst in an Appendix to vol. ii. pt. i. (1909) 
 of Das Hellenistische Zeiialter, p. 374. 
 
 ^ For the derivation of the Imperial Apotheosis from the Hellen- 
 istic cult of the ruler, and for the influence upon the Imperial cult of 
 the form of monarchy introduced by Alexander, see J. Kaerst, Studien 
 2ur Entwickelung unci theoretischen Begriindung der Monarchie im 
 Altertum, 1898, ch. v. pp. 80-102 ('das romische Kaisertum') ; p. 90 
 for the Augustan Apotheosis. 
 
 ^^ See Seneca, Epist., 108, 34. 
 
 ^ Cicero, letter to Atticus, xii. 36. 
 
 39 At the end of the De Republica. 
 
 ^ Plutarch, Vita Flaminini, ch. xvi. 
 
 *^ Anthologia Palatina, ix. 402 (epigram attributed to the Emperor 
 Hadrian). 
 
 *2 Letter to Atticus, v. 21. Cf. the passage In the famous letter to 
 his brother Quintus {ad Quint, fratr., i. i. 26) written ten years earlier. 
 
 *2 Cicero, Verres, ii. 21, § 52 2indi passim. 
 
 ^ C.I.G., 2927, 2369, etc.; Boissier, Religion Romaifte, i. p. 121. 
 
 *^ On the triumphator, see Eisler, Weltemnantel und Himmelzelt, 
 p. 40 ; cf J. G. Frazer, Early History of the Kingship, 1906, pp, 
 198 ff. 
 
 *^ On the chariot of the triumphator —Xh^ chariot of Sol, see 
 p. 168. 
 
 *^ J. M. Cornford, in From Religion to Philosophy, p. 162. 
 
 ^^ Cumont, E aigle funeraire, p. 157. 
 
 *9 Furtwangler, Antike Gemmen, iii. p. 324, fig. 168. 
 
 *" Indian sardonyx, worked in very low relief, as a rule in three 
 layers and sometimes five. The most general view is that it com- 
 
244 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 memorated the departure of Germanicus in A.D. 17 on the Parthian 
 expedition. The figure facing Tiberius is explained as Germanicus 
 between his mother Antonia (for whom the figure appears too young ; 
 it is more probably an allegory) and his wife Vipsania Agrippina with 
 the boy Caligula. The group on the right is interpreted as Drusus 
 Minor, son of Tiberius, with his wife Drusilla. Of the deified princes 
 to either side of Augustus, the one riding the winged horse is probably 
 Marcellus, the other Drusus Major. Tiberius holds the augural 
 staff to indicate that the campaign is entered upon under his aicspicia 
 (Stuart- Jones, Companio7t, p. 426 ; Strong, Roman Sculpture^ pp. 89 fif.). 
 
 ^^ Cumont, op. cit.^ p. 152. 
 
 ^^ Some editions prefer to read bibet ; but does the present bibit really 
 strike a false note, as maintained by Mr. Warde-Fowler {Roman Ideas 
 of Deity., pp. 128, 152, etc.)? 
 
 ^^ J. Kaerst {Studien, p. 88) seems, however, to date the worship of 
 the living Emperor from Augustus, and to consider that Augustus 
 was actually worshipped under the name of different gods (cf Gardt- 
 hausen, Augustus, i. p. 885 and ii. pp. 517 ff.). 
 
 ^* Temple of Ancyra, C.I.G., 4039. Temples at Pergamon and 
 Nicomedia, Dio Cassius, 51, 20. For the ara in Lyons, see C.I.L., 
 xiii. p. 227. On the cult of Roma and Augustus, see Kornemann, 
 op. cif., p. 99, and the numerous examples given by Marquardt, 
 Siaatsverwaltiing, iii. p. 464, note 4. On the cult of Rome before 
 the Empire, see Warde-Fowler, op. cit.., pp. 129 fif. The oldest instances 
 seem to be at Smyrna as far back as 195 B.C. {Porcio consule, 
 Tac, Ann., iv. 56). 
 
 ^5 On this episode, see the comments of Warde-Fowler, Roman 
 Ideas of Deity (1914), P- 87. 
 
 ^^ Arabian sardonyx. The scene is generally referred to the 
 Pannonian triumph of Tiberius in A.D. 12, when, before ascending the 
 Capitol, he alighted from his car to do homage to Augustus. To the 
 right of the car stands Germanicus, the adopted son of Tiberius, who 
 shared in the glory of the Pannonian exploit. (Suetonius, Tiberius, 20 ; 
 Gardthausen, Augustus, i. p. 1228 ; Stuart-Jones, Companion, p. 424 ; 
 Strong, Roman Sculpture, pp. 88 ff.) 
 
 ^" The frequent use of this emblem is clear evidence of the 
 astrological leanings of the Emperor, who, like Tiberius, was versed 
 in the occult sciences. The Capricorn appears on the reverse of 
 the gold coins of Augustus inscribed signis receptis ; see Gabrici, 
 ' Numismatica di Agusto,' in Milani's Studi e Materiali, ii. p. 151, fig. i. 
 
NOTES 245 
 
 ^^ Roman Sculpture^ plates xxvii., xxviii. ; R.R.^ i. 93-96. 
 
 ^^ Warde-Fowler, op. cit, p. 143. 
 
 '^ See on all this P. Wendland, op. cit., pp. 142 ff. 
 
 *^ See Wight Duff, Literary History of Rotne, pp. 524 ff. 
 
 ®^ E.g. Warde-Fowler, op. cit.., p. 136, asserts that in Rome 
 ' worship had not . . . the advantage of being combined with a 
 genuine feeling for the plastic arts.' On what evidence does the same 
 writer tell us of the sculptures of the Ara Pacis and the corslet of the 
 Prima Porta Augustus, that these would not ' have been religiously 
 impressive for the beholders, as well as interesting to the sculptor and 
 his employer' {op. cit.., p. 138)? 
 
 ^^ A curious example of the influence of the stiff Roman grave 
 portraiture on Imperial art may be seen in the large cameo let into 
 a book now in the Library at Treves (Furtwangler, Antike Gemtnen, 
 iii. p. 323, fig. 167), showing an Emperor of the first century — possibly 
 Claudius — and his family, facing frontally and tightly packed side by 
 side as on a tombstone of the Via Appia. 
 
 ** In the archaic period the pediment was left open, but figures or 
 groups adorned its upper cornice. An interesting series of figures of 
 warriors now scattered between Berlin and Copenhagen survives 
 from an early temple at Cervetri. It is interesting to note that the 
 central warrior, who stood over the apex, is placed with the torso 
 turned frontally, though his legs appear in profile in order doubtless 
 to unite him, partially at least, with the rest of the composition. For 
 the figures, see Arndt, Glyptothek Ny Carlsberg., plate 171 ; and 
 Wiegand, 'Terres Cuites Architecturales d'ltalie' (in Arndt's text). 
 
 ^^ The terra-cottas from the Faliscan temples are in the museum of 
 the Villa Giulia. See my article in Journal ofRofnan Studies, 1915, v. 
 
 ^^ L. Milani, Museo Archeologico di Firettse, 1912, plate c. 
 
 ^'' Better seen in Roman Sculpture, plate xliii. (after Petersen's 
 Ara Pacis), where the modern pieces of the sides are omitted. 
 
 ^® Roman Sculpture, plate x., fragment on right. 
 
 ^^ W. Amelung, Filhrer durch die Antiken in Florenz, No. 99 ; 
 Alinari photo, 1163. 
 
 "^^ Burlington Magazine, June, 1914. 
 
246 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 '^^ Lucan's exhortation to Nero to fix his seat hereafter in the 
 precise middle of the sky, assuring him that otherwise he will upset the 
 equilibrium of the heavens {de Bella Civili, i. 45 fif.), reads now like 
 fulsome flattery, but as a fact it probably reflects current belief as to 
 the place assigned to the deified Emperor in the cosmic system. 
 Likewise when Gains and Nero were adored in the East as the New 
 Sun, or when Nero is said to have introduced the radiate crown, 
 derived through Hellenistic monarchs from Eastern sun-worship, they 
 were but developing the religious policy of Augustus, who, if not yet 
 exactly identified with the Sun, was, as Wendland {op. cit, p. 147) points 
 out, considered as endowed with parallel power (see what has been 
 said above of the scene of Apotheosis on the Vatican altar of the Lares); 
 Horace, Odes, iv. 5, 5 : Lucem redde litae, dux bone, patriae, etc. ; 
 cf. i. 12, 46. Cumont, in commenting on the passage of Lucan cited 
 above, and on the similar praises bestowed by Statins on Domitian, 
 denies that they are mere flatteries : ' Non ; les rites et les representa- 
 tions de I'apotheose prouvent que les louanges des poetes expriment 
 tres exactement les croyances du culte Imperial. Cest fnoins de leur 
 part de P adulation que de r adoration {Uaigle funeraire, p. 156). 
 
 72 Eckhel, D.N., vi. 278. 
 
 7^ The identification is, I believe, due to Mr. H. Stuart-Jones ; for 
 the relief, see his Companion, plate 1. It was published by E. Michon 
 in Monu77ients et Metnoires, 1909 (xvii.), plate xvii. 
 
 "'^ Roman Sculpture, plate Ixiii. 
 
 '^^ Domascewski in the Austrian Jahreshefte, 1899 (ii.), pp. 173 ff. 
 See my Roman Sculpture, pp. i\\fi.. For monotheism and Jupiter 
 in Vergil, see F. Postma, p. 153 of the monograph cited, n. 11. 
 
 ''^ Roman Sculpture, plate Ixxi. 2. On coins, Sabina, and likewise 
 Faustina, are represented borne upward by the eagle or by the peacock, 
 against a stellated mantle which represents the starry firmament, and 
 also perhaps carries with it the notion of a vehicle of Apotheosis 
 (see Lecture II., p. 177). The two types of coins are shown on 
 plate ix. 2. 
 
 "* Roman Sculpture, plate Ixxiii. and p. 216. 
 
 ''^ The identification of the winged figure as the Aion is due to 
 L. Deubner, Rom. MittJi., 191 2 (xxvii.). The Aion carries in his hand 
 the orb or globe encircled by the zodiac, and with the snake as 
 symbol of Eternity. 
 
 7^ Roman Sculpture, plate Ixxxix. 
 
NOTES 247 
 
 *" Cf. F. Cumont, L'aigle funeraire, p. 155. 
 
 *^ This important document has been published by Kornemann, 
 Klio, 1907 (vii.), pp. 278 ff. (Papyrus Gissensis 20) ; the opening lines 
 are specially interesting in the present context. 
 
 apfjiUTi \evKOTra)X(o apn T paiav\Sii\ 
 (TvvavaTeikas ^kco croi^ a 8rjiJ.[^e\ , 
 ovK ayvcocTTOs ^ol^os Qeos ava- 
 KTa Kaivov 'Khpiavov dyye'XX[Q)j/] 
 hi TTCLVTa hovka[hX\ dpeTTjV K[aY\ 
 Trarpbs TV)(rjf Oeov ^aipovres. 
 
 As Kornemann (p. 280) suggests, it is evident that Apollo has mounted 
 to heaven with Trajan on the Sun chariot, and then himself announces 
 Hadrian's accession to the throne. The idea is the same as on the 
 Vatican altar with the Apotheosis of Caesar. 
 
 *2 Ro7nan Sculpture, plate xciv. and p. 308 ; the identification is 
 Studniczka's. The same stone guarded by the Imperial eagle appears 
 enthroned in solitary splendour on a chariot guided by a star as 
 solar emblem on the reverse of coins of Elagabalus (Cohen, iv. 
 p. 240). 
 
 *^ Riegl, Spdtromische Kunstmdustrie, p. 81, with illustration ; 
 Thedenat, le Forum Romain, pp. 262 ff. ; Huelsen, The Roman 
 Forum, 2nd ed., pp. 98 ff. It is also illustrated by von Sybel, Christ- 
 liche Antike, ii. fig. 20. For the interpretation of the relief as a 
 sacrifice in honour of Mithras, see Frothingham in A.J.A., 1914, 
 pp. 146 ff. 
 
 ** See Cumont, Mysteries of Mithras, pp. 209 ff. 
 
 ^^ Reproduced by Koepp, Die Rotner in Deictschland, 2nd ed., 1912, 
 p. 141, fig. 112. 
 
 ** Venturi, Storia delP Arte Italiana, i. p. 54- 
 
 *'^ Roman Sculpture, pp. 151 ff. and plate xlv. I now find a 
 further confirmation for the Domitianic date from the affinities of 
 style between these reliefs and the friezes of Domitian's Forum of 
 Minerva ; it is a point I discuss in my new book on Art in the 
 Roman Empire. Huelsen's idea (Rofuan Forum, 2nd ed., p. 104), 
 that these reliefs were once introduced into the balustrade of the 
 rostra, now seems to me untenable. Dr. Carter has shown that the 
 background is continuous from one relief to the other, and this fact, 
 together with the arrangement of the animals on the front face — 
 
248 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 placed as if moving towards one another and towards the same 
 point — tends to show that they were simply placed on each side of 
 the entrance to some sacred enclosure {A.J.A., 1910, xiv. pp. 310 fF.). 
 I should like to suggest tentatively that this was the space surrounding 
 the equestrian statue of Domitian near to the site of which the reliefs 
 were found. The mutilation of the head of the Emperor is one point 
 in favour of this view ; and the background of notable buildings seems 
 in the spirit of Statius, Silvae, i. pp. 22 fif. (for Carter's view see op. cit, 
 P- 317)- 
 
 ** O. WulfF, Altchristliche und Bysantinische Kunst, i. pp. 160 ff. 
 
 ^^ This is a characteristic of later Roman architecture which has 
 been often dwelt upon. See H. Stuart-Jones in Quarterly Review for 
 January 1905, pp. 136 ff. 
 
 ^ For this class of sarcophagi, see Garrucci, vol. v., plate 339 ; 
 example in Verona, ibid., plate 333, i ; von Sybel, ii. p. 155 ; Kraus, 
 Geschichte der Christlichen Ku?tst, i. p. 11 2. 
 
 ^1 On the other hand, to represent all Christian art, and much 
 Christian literature and ritual as a mere development and trans- 
 formation of the antique, is an old view which many are now com- 
 bating (cf p. 10 of my Preface to Delia Seta's Religion and Art). 
 Rather must we admit with von Sybel {Christliche Antike, i. pp. 10, 
 181, and often), that within the sphere of the later antique were two 
 independent developments, the heathen and the Christian ; but there 
 were points of contact as in the present instance. 
 
 ^2 See the criticism of S. Reinach in Revue Archeologique, 1907? ii- 
 p. 184 n. This leaf of a diptych or book cover is variously assigned 
 to Theodosius and to Constantine, and the balance of opinion seems, 
 on the whole, in favour of the first attribution. See O. M. Dalton, 
 op. cit., p. 199 and note i. I incline to retain Strzygowski's view that 
 the ivory represents Constantine (cf. Roman Sculpture, p. 345 and 
 plate cv.), though he does not, it seems, necessarily think the date 
 Constantinian {B.Z., 1913, p. 281). 
 
 ^'^ Ch. Diehl, Manuel cPart Byzantin, fig. 307; Dalton, Byzantine 
 Art and Archaeology, p. 224 and fig. 138 ; Voge, Berlin Catalogue, 
 i. No. 7. 
 
 ^* Ibid., fig. 308 ; Dalton, p. 227 and fig. 139 ; Molinier, Ivoires, 
 p. 197. 
 
 ^^ Kubitschek, Ausgewdhlte Romische Medallions in Wien, 1909, 
 plate xxi., from which plate xiii. i is reproduced. 
 
NOTES 
 
 249 
 
 ^ Reproduced here from a photograph kindly sent to me by 
 M. Naville. The disc was found in the Arve, near Geneva, in 1721. 
 No. 4 of the list given by Strzygowski in the article cited note 103. 
 For the style see F. de Mely in Monuments Pi'ot, 1900, vii. p. 74. 
 
 '*'■ The long series of ivory diptychs afifords splendid examples of the 
 new principles of frontal composition, and should be carefully studied. 
 The fine plates of Molinier's great work make the task easy, and 
 von Sybel in his Christliche Antike, ii. pp. 232 ff., has given a valuable 
 classification based on the dated examples. I may rapidly mention 
 here a few of the more remarkable pieces in the hope of attracting 
 students to these exquisite little monuments of later Imperial art 
 which are so consistently neglected by classical archaeologists and 
 left to enrich the repertory of early Christian art. I have already 
 mentioned the diptych of the consul Probus with the figure of the 
 Emperor Honorius. The one leaf of the diptych of Felix of the year 
 428 in the Cabinet des Medailles shows the consul standing frontally 
 between the looped-up curtains of a baldachino with the sceptre 
 in his left hand and his right upon his breast (von Sybel, ii. p. 432 and 
 fig. 67). The diptych of the young consul Orestes of the year 530 in 
 the Victoria and Albert Museum is a good example of the later style 
 of ornate diptych (O. M . Dalton, op. cit.., fig. 1 20). The consul is seated 
 on an elaborate chair between the figures of Roma and Constantinople; 
 in his right hand is the ffiappa, the napkin to be thrown as a signal for 
 the commencement of the games : in the open space below are 
 servants with sacks of money for distributing the consular largesse. 
 In the spaces above the inscriptions are medallion portraits of the 
 reigning Emperor and Empress. A lovely ivory at Monza (R.R., 
 iii. 62) shows on its left-hand leaf the portrait group of a Roman 
 lady and her young son, and on the opposite leaf the portrait of her 
 husband in the military accoutrement which betokens a soldier of 
 rank (Dalton, op. at, p. 194 ; Molinier, Ivoires, plate ii.). The per- 
 sonages have been called Stilicho, Serena and their son Eucherius, 
 and Galla Placidia, Valentinian and Theodosius ll., but none of these 
 identifications are in the least certain. (Cf. Delbrueck, ' Portrats 
 Byzantinischer Kaiserinnen,' in Rom. Mitth., 1913 (xxviii.), p. 335.) 
 The massive composition of a diptych at Halberstadt suggests monu- 
 mental sculpture rather than the delicate technique of ivory : in the 
 centre stands a consul with a high official on either side of him ; on 
 an upper frieze the Emperor and his son are seen enthroned between 
 Roma and Constantinople, each with the solar nimbus ; this group of 
 four, who are shown seated with their feet on a bench, is flanked by 
 an Imperial guardsman at either side(i?.7?., ii. 65 ; von Sybel, ii. fig. 68 ; 
 
250 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Dalton, fig. Ii8, consular group only). Good examples of diptychs 
 are given by Venturi, Storia dell' arte Italiana, vol. i. ; a number are 
 reproduced under various Museums in Reinach's Repertoire ; see also 
 art. 'Diptychon' in Saglio's Z?zW., and Hans Graeven's monograph 
 'Heidnische Diptychen' in Rom. Mitth., 1913 (xxviii.). 
 
 ^* I see absolutely no reason for following Mr. Wace m dating these 
 reliefs in the epoch of Constantine (J.H.S., igog, p. 64). On the 
 contrary, the adoption of the symmetric full-face position for all 
 the personages of the Imperial group points decisively, I think, to a 
 later date, and generally the style is later than that of the Diocleti- 
 anic reliefs on either the arch of Constantine or the arch of Galerius 
 at Saloniki. See O. Wulff, op. at., p. 166 ; from WulfFs plate the 
 composition seems to me more impressive than I had supposed. 
 
 ^^ Dalton, p. 569 and fig. 356 ; see p. 10, No. 5, of the article by 
 Strzygowski and Pokrowski cited in note 103. 
 
 ^o" These discs are illustrated by O. Dalton, Byzantine Art and 
 Archaeology, figs. 57-62, 358. 
 
 ^°i Archaeologia, 1879 (45)) plate xix. A fine example of the frontal 
 chariot occurs on a fragment of silk preserved at Cluny (Diehl, 
 p. 259, fig. 133). 
 
 ^<^^ Dalton, fig. 34, v/ho dates the relief at about the eleventh century. 
 I should like to note here, in view of making it better known, the 
 Ascension of Alexander in a cage drawn by griffins which appears in 
 one of a series of fourteenth-century Burgundian tapestries with the 
 story of Alexander and Bucephalus, in the possession of Prince 
 Doria (Alinari photos, 29737-29742). 
 
 103 Plate i. I, after the fine coloured plate given by Strzygowski and 
 Pokrowski, ' der Silberschild aus Kertsch,' in Materiaux pour servir a 
 r Archeologie Russe, 1892 (with a list of the nine extant silver discs of 
 this class). See also O. M. Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology, 
 p. 569 ; Ch. Diehl, Manuel, p. 290, fig. 150. A good example of the 
 Adventus Augusti, the Emperor returning or arriving as triumphator, 
 familiar from many coins and reliefs, is in the Terme Museum 
 (Paribeni, Guida, No. 103). A similar composition (but with the 
 figure of the officer omitted) to that of the Kertsch disc occurs on a 
 gold medallion of Justinian stolen from the Bibliotheque Nationale in 
 1 83 1, but of which a cast exists in the British Museum. See Diehl, 
 op. cit., p. 292 ; Cat. of Byzantine Coins in B.M., vol. i., frontispiece ; 
 Strzygowski and Pokrowski, p. 34 ; the medallion is illustrated here 
 from a cast kindly supplied by Mr. G. F. Hill (plate i. 2). 
 
NOTES 251 
 
 ^"^ He wears the pearl diadem with jewelled clasp, as we see it in 
 the statue of Barletta now claimed as a portrait of Valentinian, and 
 the pendant pearl-drops. His tunic is embroidered with the davi. 
 
 Ill 
 LECTURE II 
 
 Bibliography. — The literature which deals with the different aspects 
 of ancient beliefs in the After Life is immense, and it is doubtless only 
 very partial justice that I have been able to do to it in the bibliography 
 upon which these lectures are constructed. Works that throw light 
 on special points will be mentioned in connection with these, but a 
 few general considerations may be of assistance to students. 
 
 (i) General. — The books dealing with the magical origins of art 
 and of the gravestone and with sepulchral imagery are legion. The 
 early chapters of S. Reinach's Orpfieus will be found invaluable. 
 See also Hubert and Mauss's article ' Magia ' in Saglio's Dictionary. 
 Delia Seta in his Religion and Art deals comprehensively with the 
 subject, not only as regards the sepulchral art of Greece and Rome, 
 but that of all the ancient races. It will be seen in the sequel that I 
 take a less exalted view than his of the art of Attica, of its mythological 
 tendencies and spiritual values. This is said that students who read 
 his book, as I earnestly recommend them to do, may not be confused 
 afterwards by my remarks. 
 
 (2) Greek. — For the sepulchral monuments of the Greek period 
 nothing has yet been written to surpass in value and interest Furt- 
 wangler's masterly introduction to his description of the SabourofF 
 Collection (Adolf Furtwangler, La Collection Sabourqff, Berlin, 1886). 
 Here students will find an exhaustive discussion of the meaning and 
 origin of the gravestone as eSos of the soul ; of the cult of the dead 
 and the cult of the hero to which it gives rise ; of the bearing of both 
 upon the development of the later ritual of the gods. In this preface, 
 written nearly thirty- six years ago, Furtwangler put forward ideas on 
 which researchers in that line have worked ever since. At the same 
 time his theory, based on Fustel de Coulanges' La Cite' Antique, ch. i., 
 that ' among the Greeks as elsewhere the cult of the souls contains a 
 very primitive fund of beliefs anterior to any adoration of the gods,' 
 possibly requires modifying, or should at least be held in suspense. 
 The question is debatable ; for a lucid and recent resume of opinions 
 see R. Dussaud, Introductio?t a PHistoire des Religions., 1914, PP- 
 
252 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 197-214. Conze's Attische Grabreliefs (3 vols., Berlin, 1893-1906) 
 forms the indispensable basis for all study of Attic sepulchral art. 
 A selection of Greek sepulchral monuments is conveniently grouped 
 together in Professor Percy Gardner's Sculptured Tombs of Hellas^ 
 which has the one drawback, however, that it was written as far back 
 as 1896, and that much has been discovered since. M. Collignon's 
 Statues Funeraires de la Grece^ though the title leads us to suppose it 
 restricted to statuary, fortunately contains much also about sepulchral 
 reliefs. For Greek ideas as to death Rohde's great book Psyche^ 
 now in its fourth edition (1909), and Gruppe's Griechische Mythologie 
 u. Religionsgeschichte, must be continually consulted, and read 
 through by those who have the time ; also Gruppe's various articles 
 in Roscher's Lexikon, as well as in Bursian's Jahresbericht. 
 
 (3) Roman. — For Roman monuments there exists as yet no com- 
 prehensive history or handbook. Aitmann's Die romischen Grab- 
 altdre der Kaiserzeit deals with the important class of grave altars ; 
 C. Robert's huge Corpus of antique sarcophagi {^Die antiken Sarko- 
 phagreliefs, 3 vols. ; still in continuation) must be continually referred 
 to for Roman art ; but I am mainly concerned with stelae, and only 
 refer incidentally to altars or sarcophagi. A. de Marchi, Culto 
 Privato de" Romani, two volumes full of curious information for the 
 cult of the dead ; V. Macchioro's ' II Simbolismo nelle figurazioni 
 sepolcrali Romane ' in Societa Reale di Napoli, Memo7'ie delta Reale 
 Accademia di Arckeologia, vol. i. (191 1); the pages dealing with 
 the cult of the dead in Warde- Fowler's Religious Experience of the 
 Roman People, and F. Cumont's Les Ide'es du Paganisnie Romain 
 sur la Vie Picture, 19 10, are of the first importance. So are the 
 following : (i) For Roman tombstones with scenes from trades : 
 H. Gummerus, ' Darstellungen aus dem Handwerk auf romischen 
 Grab und Votivsteinen,' in Arch. Jahrbuch (1913), pp. 63-126. (2) 
 For the tombstones in the provinces {a) Br. Schroder, ' Studien zu 
 den Grabmalern der Romischen Kaiserzeit'; [p) R. Weynand, 'Form 
 und Dekoration der romischen Grabsteine des Rheinlandes' — these 
 two in Bonfier fahrbUcher for 1902; [c] A. Furtwangler, 'Das 
 Tropaion von Adamklissi und Provinzialromische Kunst,' in 
 Abhandlungen der K. Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 
 1903, with full references to previous literature on the subject. The 
 articles ' Funus ' by Ed. Cuq and ' Sepulcrum ' by E. Cahen in 
 Saglio's Dictionary are admirable compilations of the Greek and 
 Roman material. Cumont's Religions Orientates dans le Paganisme 
 Romain, his smaller book on Mithras (both translated into Eliglish, 
 the first with a suggestive introduction by Professor Grant Shower- 
 man)j and his Astrology and Religion atnong the Greeks and Romans, 
 
NOTES 253 
 
 should likewise be consulted for the After Life beliefs of the ancient 
 world. 
 
 ^ A distinction should be drawn between ghost and revenant ; or 
 rather, if the revenant ='■ ^osl^ then 'spirit' should be reserved for 
 the excarnate soul. The fear of the ghost is a subject that has 
 been treated many times, see especially J. G. Frazer, The Belief 
 in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, 191 3 (full of curious 
 information from all parts of the world) ; J. C. Lawson, Modem Greek 
 Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion (19 10), deals fully with fear of the 
 ghost in ancient and in modern Greece. For the ' mischievous freedom 
 of the ghosts,' see Warde-Fowler, Religious Experiettce, p. 85. The 
 literature on the subject is almost interminable. Gruppe, op. cit., ii. 
 pp. 75 ff., is a valuable introduction. For the salutary effects of the 
 fear of the ghost in historic Greece, see Farnell, Higher Aspects of 
 Greek Religion (1912), pp. 88 ff. ; cf ibid., p. 54. 
 
 ^ The gesture is often seen on sarcophagi — for instance, on a 
 sarcophagus at Ostia (Castello) with the Death of Meleager (Vaglieri, 
 Guida, p. 149, No. 4). The soul can leave the body through the 
 mouth (Crusius, Untersuchungen zu Herondas, pp. 53 fif.), as on the 
 fragment of an early Attic vase to which I shall return later (p. 145), 
 where it is received by a Ker or winged daemon. 
 
 ^ See A. J. Evans, 'Tree and Pillar Worship,' y.^.^S"., 1901, p. 119. 
 On the tombstone as eSos or seat of the soul, see also Weicker, Seelen- 
 vogel, p. 9 ; Furtwangler, Coll. Sabouroff, Preface. For theories 
 kroncerning the origin of the sepulchral stele, see also Deonna, 
 U archeologie, sa valeiir, ses methodes, i. p. 208. 
 
 * See J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and the Wild, Preface, p. vi : 
 'This refusal of the savage to recognise in death a final cessation of the 
 vital progress, this unquestioning faith in the unbroken continuity of 
 all life, is a fact that has not yet received the attention which it seems 
 to merit from enquirers into the constitution of the human mind as 
 well as into the history of religion ' ; and Furtwangler, Coll. Saboiiroff, 
 loc. cit. ' La question de savoir s'il y a ou non une existence apres la 
 mort n'a ete soulevee que par la philosophie des peuples civilises. 
 L'ancienne croyance, commune a tous les peuples, meme aux plus 
 grossiers, ne connait que I'etre au delk du tombeau ; elle salt que la 
 mort n'est pas aneanti, qu'il continue a vivre sous telle ou telle forme 
 k I'etat d'ame et qu'il conserve comme genie une puissance qui n'est en- 
 fermee dans aucune limite visible, ce qui lui permet d'exercer son 
 influence sur les vivants.' 
 
254 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ^ So great was the fear of a return of the dead that sometimes, in 
 the case of inhumation, to make matters doubly sure, the corpse was 
 huddled together and tied up : examples of this practice occur in 
 almost every Italian prehistoric museum, from the early cemeteries of 
 Italy, in what is called the cadavero ranicchiato ; few anthropologists 
 believe now in the once captivating theory that the huddled-up pose 
 was intended to imitate the human foetus, and that the body was thus 
 placed in expectation of re-birth. Belief in the necessity of destroying 
 beyond recall what we dread and consequently hate, underlies not 
 only a whole series of beliefs and superstitions connected with the 
 dead, but also a number of practices, such as the burning of witches 
 and the auto-da-fc, which, springing from what were conceived by 
 primitive man as necessities, afterwards, when their original intention 
 had been forgotten, survive as apparently senseless and cruel prac- 
 tices. In addition to the fear of the revenant^ we have, in studying 
 the origin of burial customs, to reckon with the belief which makes its 
 appearance very early, that unless the body be entirely destroyed the 
 dead cannot find their rest. Hence perhaps originates the custom of 
 cremation and other attempts, such as despoiling the dead body of its 
 flesh and leaving the bones painted red, which has been observed in 
 certain Neolithic burial caves of North Italy ; the obvious breaking of 
 the bones in other cases, e.g. the cadavero raniccJiiato already alluded 
 to, to do away finally with the flesh. Cf J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek 
 Folklore (especially pp. 412 ff".), and Warde-Fowler, Religious Experi- 
 ence of the Ro?nan People, p. 91. 
 
 ^ Found in 1903 by the Italian excavators about two miles from 
 Phaistos, in a tomb of a type otherwise unknown in Crete, but familiar 
 in Lycia, i.e. a walled square chamber with a door (cf. the Harpy 
 Tomb), R. Paribeni, Monumenti Antichi dei Lincei, 1908 (xix.), pp. 1-86 
 (plate XV. I, 2 {b) after his plates). See also F. von Duhn, 'der Sarko- 
 phag aus Hagia Triada,' in A7'chivfiirReligions'wissenschaft., xii. (1909), 
 pp. 161-85 5 Karo, ibid., vii. (1904), p. 130, n. i. ; Lagrange, La Crete 
 Ancienne (Paris, 1908), pp. 61-67, whose theories are discussed and 
 disputed by A. J. Reinach, R.A., xii. (1908), ii. pp. 278-88 ; E. Petersen, 
 'Der Kretische Bildersarg,' m Jahrb., 1909, p. 162; R. Dussaud, 
 Les Civilisations Pre-Helleniques dajis le bassin de la Mer Ege'e, 2nd 
 ed., 1914, pp. 402 ff.; J. E. Harrison, Themis, 1912, pp. 158 ff. ; 
 A. J. Reinach, art. 'Themis,' in Rev. Hist. Rel., 1914, Ixix. 3, p. 342. 
 The sarcophagus which is in the Museum of Candia is dated at about 
 1400-1200 B.C. (see C. H. H. Hawes, Crete the Forerunner of Greece, pp. 
 86 ff.). It is a small chest or \dpva^ of a type commonly found in 
 Crete, see A. J. Evans, Prehistoric To?nbs of Knossos, 1906, pp. 9 ff. : 
 
NOTES 255 
 
 ' They are narrow and short, but apparently the body was laid in them 
 with the knees drawn up' (cf. the cadwvero ranicchiato above, note 5). 
 For the symbohsm of the cult scene on the sarcophagus, as also for 
 the symbolic shape given to certain Minoan tombs, see A. J. Evans 
 in Archaeologia, 191 4, pp. 54 ff. 
 
 " This interpretation of the scene follows in the main Petersen, 
 op. at. 
 
 ® Professor Boni's own report is, I believe, not yet published. For 
 ih.& mzmduspatet, see Warde-Fowler, Roman Festivals, pp. 211 ff. ; the 
 same mJ.R.S., 1912, i. p. 25, and J. E. Harrison in Essays and Studies 
 ■presented to William Ridgeiuay, 1913, pp. 143 ff. 
 
 ^ Furtwangler, Pref Coll. Sabouroff: ' On a attribue aussi a I'ame 
 la connaissance de I'avenir et recherche les moyens de I'interroger 
 sur cet avenir.' 
 
 I'' First and last stanzas of a poem by Edmond Holmes, in The 
 Quest, vol. ii. (No 4, July 191 1) pp. 762 f. 
 
 1^ Berlin Cat. Sc, 883 ; Deonna, Les Apollons Archaiques, p. 17 ; 
 L. Curtius, Antike Hernie, p. 18, figs. 12-14; cf. Pfuhl in Jahrb., 
 1905 (xx.), p. 79. 
 
 ^" For Tamuli and the Sicilian tombs of the giants cf Pinza in 
 Monumenti Artichi, Lincei, xi. i (1901), and see Addenda. 
 
 ^^ Lechat, Sculpture Attique avant Phidias, p. 251 ; cf. Deonna, 
 op. cit., p. 17. 
 
 ^* Collignon, Statues Funeraires, pp. 16 ff. 
 
 ^" Deonna, op. cit., p. 34 and references. 
 
 ^^ On the /co{;poy = the 'initiate youth,' see Gilbert Murray, Four 
 Stages of Greek Religion, pp. 42 ff. G. Lippold, Griechische Fortrdt- 
 statuett, igi2, takes a different view ; while admitting (pp. 13-15) the 
 overwhelming number of sepulchral statues of Kovpoi, he seems to 
 consider that all these were actually for the graves of young men, 
 and that old men were commemorated by draped statues, in support 
 of which he also quotes Tyrtaeus. The difficulty lies, as Lippold 
 himself admits, in the almost total absence of draped male statues 
 in the early archaic period. 
 
 ^'' On the short side with the winged chariot, cf. below, note 63. 
 For the soul-bird, see the exhaustive monograph by E. Weicker, 
 Seelenvogel, 1902. 
 
256 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 IS The influence of modes of burial upon eschatological beliefs 
 has been well put by von Sybel, ChristUche Atztike, vol. ii. pp. 38 fF., 
 ' Jenseitsgedanken des Altertums.' It would seem as if the belief in 
 the resurrection of the flesh and the belief in the immortality ot 
 the soul, which, though not mutually exclusive, represent radically 
 different conceptions of ultramundane survival, spring respectively 
 from the rite of inhumation which keeps in view a possible or even 
 an ascertained activity of the dead under ground, and from cremation 
 which by effectively destroying the body leaves the soul free to ascend 
 or reascend into the upper air. Mr. Lawson {op. cit., p. 489) remarks 
 of funeral methods in ancient and modern Greece 'that a preference 
 for cremation, considered as a means to the single religious end {i.e. 
 the destruction of the body), has been manifested ' ; and although in 
 his opinion inhumation equally aimed at destruction, there is no doubt 
 that it left a loophole for the introduction of the doctrine of a resur- 
 rected body. Probably cremation is in measure responsible for the 
 Orphic assertion that the body is the prison of the soul {aa^ia a-rjfia). 
 
 1^ For the red colour as representing the aether, see Deubner, 
 J?om. Mitth., 191 2 (xxvii.), pp. 11 ff. 
 
 ^^ The various modes of conveyance to heaven are enumerated by 
 A. Dietrich, Eine Mithras Liturgie., pp. 179 ff". 
 
 2^ Cf. V. Macchioro, Siinbolistno, p. 124. 
 
 ^2 This idea was held by E. P. Biardot among others, Terres 
 Cuites grecques fimebres dans leiir rapport avec les Tnysteres de 
 Bacchus., Paris, 1872, who, however, after the fashion of the time, 
 went on a false track of mythological interpretation in his desire to 
 see in every object some allusion to Dionysiac mysteries. 
 
 ^^ For the Mycenaean stelae from the shaftgraves, see literature 
 cited by E. v. Mercklin : Rennwagen bei de7i Grieche7t, pp. 7 ff. ; 
 S. Reinach, R.R., ii. p. 316,6; p. 317, 2; Perrot, vi. pp. 762 ff". ; 
 Drerup, Omero, pp. 31, 205 ; P. Gardner, Sculptured Tombs of 
 Hellas, figs. 18, 19, 20. 
 
 2* Tree and Pillar Cult, loc. cit. 
 
 2^ The best that has yet been said on these Spartan reliefs is by 
 Furtwangler, Coll. Sabourqff{t&xt to plate i., example in Berlin). See 
 also M. N. Tod and A. J. B. Wace, Catalogue 0/ the Sparta Museum, 
 pp. 102 ff"., with references to recent literature ; P. Gardner, Sculptured 
 Tombs, plate ii., pp. 76 ff". ; Collignon, Statues Funeraires, pp. 71 ff". 
 Students are likewise recommended to read the earlier articles on 
 
NOTES 257 
 
 these stelae by Milchofer in Arch. Zeit.^ 1881, p. 294, and in the earlier 
 volumes of the AtheniscJie Mittheilungejt ; also Furtwangler, Ath. 
 Mitth., 1882, vii. pp. 160 ff. For the 'banquet of the dead,' see 
 Deneken, art. ' Heros,' in Roscher's Lexikon ; and W. H. D. Rouse, 
 Greek Votive Offerings^ pp. 3-36. 
 
 2® The snake is the dead man's ' spirit in another form,' as 
 P. Gardner puts it, op. cit, p. 82 ; it is what Professor Gilbert Murray 
 calls the 'old superhuman snake, who reappears so ubiquitously 
 throughout Greece, the regular symbol of the underworld powers, 
 especially the hero or dead ancestor' {Four Stages, p. 33). 
 
 ^'' Furtwangler, Coll. Sabouroff, text to plate i., where see references to 
 earlier literature, has pointed out that the cock, like the dog, was held 
 in Persian beliefs to ward off evil spirits. The cock, moreover, is 
 said to have been introduced from Persia ; but this, as the Spartan 
 stelae, which cannot from their style be later than the seventh century, 
 show, must have been earlier than is generally supposed (Furtwangler). 
 For the apotropaic function of the cock, see Conze, Attische Grabreliefs, 
 i. p. 10. The beautiful frieze of cocks and hens from a monument at 
 Xanthos {Brit. Mus. Sculpt. Cat.., 82) is certainly apotropaic, it being 
 consistent with archaic custom to surround a monument, whether temple 
 or tomb, with a band of protective influences. For the symbolism of 
 animals see art. ' Animals' by N. W. Thomas in E.R.E. ; O. Keller's 
 Thiere des Altertums, 1887-1912 (2 vols.) ; and Gruppe, op. cit., pp. 
 792 ff. Below, note 57, and Lecture III. note 50. 
 
 2^ The offering of eggs to the dead has a magical intention, since, 
 as Dr. Nilsson has pointed out (' Das Ei im Totenkult der Alten,' in 
 Arch, fiir Religions wissenschaft, 1908 (xi.), pp. 544 ff.), the ^'g'g is an 
 apparently inanimate and inert substance which contains within itself 
 a potent principle of life, and that which has a special vital power 
 must perforce awake or enhance the vital powers of those to whom 
 it is offered. See also A. Dietrich, Mutter Erde, p. 103. 
 
 ^^ The pomegranate is likewise held by the enthroned female 
 figure ; for its meaning on the Spartan reliefs, see Furtwangler, Coll. 
 Sabourqffi, i., text to plate i. ; Milchofer in Ath. Mitth., ii. pp. 464, 
 469, etc. The pomegranate would be thought to contain in its 
 myriad seeds the principle of life, and, like the Qgg, became an easily 
 understood instrument of re-birth. It possibly appears in this sense 
 on the garments of the priests in Exodus, xxviii. : ' And upon the skirts 
 of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of 
 scarlet.' Cf E. Benzinger in the Jewish Cyclopaedia, art. ' Pomegran- 
 ates,' who remarks that throughout the East the pomegranate is the 
 
 R 
 
258 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 general symbol of luxuriant fertility and life ; see, however, the 
 various explanations of these pomegranates given by Flinders Petrie 
 in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (art. 'Bell '), i. p. 269, and ibid., 
 art. 'Art' ('lotus and bud in the shape of pomegranates, misnamed in 
 Palestine "bell and pomegranate"') ; Eisler, Weltenmantel, p. 25. 
 
 '" The interesting relief in Lansdowne House {R.R., ii. 519, 3), so 
 quaintly interpreted as ' Homer meditating on the Iliad,' comes 
 within the same category. It represents the dead man seated 
 leaning on a staff; under his seat, in the place often occupied by a 
 dog, appears the griffin as vehicle of the soul ; opposite him is a tree 
 stem around which twines the snake-soul ; on the top a bird and 
 branching foliage- — all emblems of survival and resurrection. The 
 real provenance is unknown. The same influences pervade the stele, 
 said to come from Saloniki, in Constantinople, where the dead couple 
 seated are faced by the snake which feeds from a cup held by the 
 woman, while the man holds in his hand a burgeoning staff 
 (Mendel, Catalogue, No. 91). 
 
 ^^ J. A. K. Thomson, Studies in the Odyssey, Oxford, 19 14, p. 93 : 
 'For the Homeric religion the world of the dead hardly exists any 
 more than it did for the religion of Israel.' The comparison does not 
 seem altogether exact (see below, note 85). 
 
 ^' The Homeric conception of death, and its subsequent influence 
 on the Greek mind and on Greek art, have been admirably summed 
 up by von Sybel in the Introduction to his Christliche Antike, from 
 which my own summary in the text is largely paraphrased. Cf also 
 Delia Seta, Religion and Art, pp. 179 ff. ('the funerary conception in 
 Homer'), and Carlo Pascal, Le Credenze d'Oltre Tomba, i. ch. xii. 
 ('L'oltre tomba Omerico'). 
 
 ^^ Stele of Xanthippos, from the monastery of Asomatos, near 
 Athens ; generally interpreted as the stele of a shoemaker, unless 
 indeed it is a votive offering to Asclepios for the cure of a bad foot 
 {Brit. Mus. Sculpt. Cat., 628). The bird held by the girl is the symbol 
 of the soul. 
 
 ^* Style of the Pheidian period. 
 
 ^^ Actors, e.g. the Attic stele at Lyme Park {R.R., ii. p. 520, 3 ; 
 first published by me mJ.H.S., 1903, plate xiii.). 
 
 36 Cf. Delia Seta, Religion and Art, p. 229. This is true, on the 
 whole ; yet occasionally on an archaic stele {e.g. Villa Albani, of a 
 mother and her children = i?.i?., iii. 153; Helbig, No. 805) the 
 interest is as equally distributed between the dead and the living as 
 
NOTES 259 
 
 on the stele of Hegeso. For an example in which the dead is almost 
 forgotten in the crowd of sorrowing relatives, see R.R., ii. pp. 402, 
 403, etc. Furtwanglefs view, Coll. Sabotcrqff] Pref., that all the 
 persons represented on these stelae are either already dead or 
 thought of as dead, is, I think, untenable. 
 
 ^'' See Delia Seta, op. cit., pp. 227-31. 
 
 ^^ Pp. 84, 1 84, and passim. Gardner's 'views largely represent 
 those of the scholars cited in note 25, who first interpreted the Spartan 
 reliefs. 
 
 ^" Plate xvii. i, after Conze, AttiscJie Grabreliefs^ pi. i. (see text for 
 references to the older literature). A new drawing by Gillieron 
 shows that only one horseman is depicted on the socle, not two as 
 formerly surmised (Loeschcke, Arch. Ans., I9i3) P- 64, who explains 
 the picture as that of the 'heroised dead'). The dead man is 
 frequently represented as rider, e.g: on the socle of the stele No. yi, in 
 Coll. Barracco ; the action of galloping suggests the further notion 
 of racing or riding as a noble pastime ; for the discarded notion of a 
 scene of mortal racing see AtJi. Mitth., iv. pp. 44, 291. 
 
 *" The socle in the archaic period seems to have been not un- 
 frequently reserved for symbolic scenes or objects ; see, among others, 
 the archaic Ionian stele from the island of Symi in the Museum of 
 Constantinople, G. Mendel, Cat.., 14, where the boar on the socle is 
 assuredly introduced as a prophylaxis ; cf. Loeschcke in Jakrb., 
 1887 (ii.), p. 223 ; and the Barracco stele mentioned in note 39. 
 
 ** For the meaning of both dog and horse in Greek sepulchral 
 imagery see Furtwangler, Atk. Mittli.., vii. 163, and his introduction 
 to Coll. Sabouroff.,^. 26 ; and cf the articles of Milchofer and Loeschcke, 
 quoted in note 25. P. Gardner {/.U.S., v. 131) suggested that a 
 mortal horse and dog were intended in these reliefs, but this view 
 is untenable. For the underworld dog see Erwin Rodhe, Psyche, 
 ed. 4, ii. p. 83 (dog of Hekate) ; i. p. 242, etc. ; Gruppe, op. cit., 
 pp. 803 fif. For the dog on the Chrysapha reliefs, Tod and Wace, 
 op. cit., No. 10 ; see below, note 56. On the stele of Eutamia the 
 guardian dog may likewise be intended to convey an allusion to the 
 lady's name. L. Malten's exhaustive article 'das 'Pferd im Toten- 
 glauben' in Arch. Jahrbiich., xxix. (pub. Jan. 30, 191 5) only reaches me 
 as I revise these notes for press. Malten treats most fully of the 
 horse as ISos of the soul and in the ritual of the dead, of the dead as 
 horseman, and also discusses the dog, the bird in its many forms, etc., 
 in relation to the same cycle of beliefs. Malten postulates more 
 definitely than has been done so far, that dog, horse, snake, so often 
 
26o APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 accumulated on grave reliefs as underworld symbols, are originally 
 habitats or forms in which the soul appears {Erscheinungsfornien). 
 
 ^"^ Numerous examples in Gardner, op. cit., who, however, does not 
 go beyond seeing in these birds votive offerings or gifts. For the 
 birds = souls which the dead hold in their hand on archaic grave 
 reliefs, especially in Cyprus, see Weicker, p. 26, note 5, who admits the 
 duality of representation ' as human being and as soul.' 
 
 *^ The lion, to whom we shall often have occasion to return, occurs 
 at a very early date in Phrygia as guardian of the tomb, P. Gardner, 
 Scidptii7-ed Tombs, fig. 25, pp. 64 ff., and Sir William Ramsay in 
 J. U.S., 1888, 1889, and 1890. A good instance in Greece, at Corfu, 
 from the tomb of Arniadas (Gardner, p. 200) ; the classic examples are 
 the lion of Cnidus in the British Museum, which was set up on the tall 
 pyramidal structure on the promontory to commemorate the victory 
 of Conon in B.C. 394 (Gardner, pp. 225 ff., fig. jy), and the cele- 
 brated lion of Chaeronea still in situ. For other examples see 
 Gardner, pp. 130 ff. ; Collignon, Statues Fum'raires, figs. 147-53. 
 The three first all in Athens ; of these, fig. 148 is especially interesting 
 as showing the Graeco- Oriental motive of a lion holding between his 
 paws the head of an animal which he has overcome (see p. 151). At 
 a later date aetiological stories (Lais, Leaina, etc.) were invented to 
 account for the lions on certain tombs, when their apotropaic and 
 other more primitive functions had been forgotten. For the lion and 
 its meanings and mythology, see, further, Gruppe, Handbuck, p. 380. 
 The basis for all study of the symbolism of the lion on graves remains 
 Usener's de carmine quodaiii PJiocaico (in his Kleine Scht'iften, iii. 18}. 
 See below, note 69. 
 
 "** The splendid stele of Dionysus of Kollytes, surmounted by a bull, 
 in the Athenian Ceramicus, is present to every one's mind, Collignon, 
 fig. 154, also fig. 155 and fig. 156 (bull in British Museum). 
 
 ""^ See A. Bruckner and E. Pernice, ' Ein Attischer Friedhof ' in 
 Ath. Mitth., xviii. pp. 73-191, and the more recent work of Frederick 
 Poulsen, Die Dipylongrdber tind die Dipylott Vasen, Leipzig", 1905 ; 
 for the vase placed Oft the actual grave, ibid., p. 19. 
 
 *® Saglio, sub. vac. fumes, fig. 3342. 
 
 *'' Plate xviii. after Fairbanks, White-figured Lekythoi in the Museum 
 of Boston, plate vi. As a class they can best be studied in E. Pottier's 
 ' Lecythes blancs attiques ' (in Me'langes des Ecoles Fj-angaises 
 dAthcnes et de Rome), whose classification is important to the 
 
NOTES 261 
 
 student of sepulchral ritual. Without seeking for examples outside 
 P. Gardner's ch. ii. ('Worship of the Dead'), I should like to show 
 briefly how closely the scenes on the lekythoi reflect the same beliefs 
 as to the other life that we note in connection with the most primitive 
 grave monuments. For instance, there can be no doubt, to my mind, 
 that in fig. 8 (lekythos from Eretria) the bunch of grapes which a lady 
 hands to a boy at her feet is symbolic of immortality. What Pro- 
 fessor Gardner calls a ' curious convention,' i.e. the introduction of the 
 actual dead into the scenes, is simply a proof of the belief that the 
 dead is immanent in his o\^^l stele (fig. 9). When the dead are repre- 
 sented as playing the l}Te, it is probably in allusion to their ultra- 
 mundane pastimes {R.R.., ii. 373, 4, at Athens, but it is noteworthy 
 that the stele comes from Acarnania, i.e. is non-Attic). Most 
 significant of all is fig. 11, from a red-figured vase in the British 
 Museum {Cat. Vases, iv. plate 4), where the pathetic central figure 
 standing on the grave is well explained by Gardner as the dead ' her- 
 self in spiritual presence.' As a rule, the scenes of the cult of the 
 tomb are confined to lekythoi. Besides the one mentioned in the text, 
 specially beautiful examples are Fairbanks, pp. 203 and 283, in Athens 
 and Paris respectively. On the whole question of votive offerings at 
 graves see Furtwangler in Coll. Sabouroff, ii. pp. 16 ff. 
 
 ** See R. W. Livingstone, The Greek Genius audits Meaning to us, 
 p. 86. 
 
 *^ I use the words 'gave a new turn . . .' advisedly — as it is 
 impossible to look upon Plato as anything but a mystic by tempera- 
 ment, though his acceptance of the mystical faith of Pythagorean 
 Orphism may have been a later development in him. Neither 
 Orpheus nor the Orphic beliefs find any direct expression in Attic 
 sepulchral art, though Orpheus with his lute appeared, as a purely 
 mythological figure, in the Nekuia of Polygnotus at Delphi (Paus. 
 X. 30, 3, and cf. ix. 30, 3). 
 
 The allusions to the Orphism of Plato on p. 141 and the first part of 
 this note were written before I had become fully aware of the debated 
 question whether Plato was initiated into the Orphic doctrines by 
 Socrates — on this supposition himself an Orphic — or after his master's 
 death, and independently of the teaching of Socrates. (See F. 
 M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy, §§ 126-9, who in § 129, 
 ' Plato's Conversion to Pythagoreanism,' seems to state the problem 
 very clearly ; A. E. Taylor, Varia Socratica, ic)ii, passim ; J. Burnet, 
 Greek Philosophy f?'om Thales to Plato, 1914, pp. 151 fif.) Pisistratus 
 is credited with the introduction into Attica, alike of Homer and of 
 Orpheus ; (for Orpheus see Gruppe, Handbiich, p. 1034 ; Roscher, 
 
262 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 iii. 1 196 and 1132 ; Burnet, op. cit, p. 32); of the two religious currents, 
 therefore, which are generally held to be antagonistic and irreconcil- 
 able. But their existence side by side, though Homer long kept the 
 upper hand, may account in measure for the persistence of resurrec- 
 tion and After Life symbolism noted on certain Attic stelae. Presum- 
 ably the Orphism so often scoffed at by Plato (e.g. Rep.^ p. 363, C, 
 etc.) is a popular form of Orphism full of naive superstition, while the 
 Orphism for which, as some now have it, Socrates was put to death 
 (see A. E. Taylor, op. cif., pp. 30 fif. ; J. Burnet, pp. 180 ff.) must have 
 represented a reformed faith introduced by the Pythagoreans of 
 Magna Grecia (cf. Adam, Religious Teachers of G^^eece^ p. 191). All 
 hese are questions of vital importance for our sepulchral imagery. 
 
 "^ See Lecture II L p. 197. 
 
 ^^ For the sentiment cp. also Pindar's second Olympian ode, 57 fif., 
 131 fif., and especially the passage beginning tv6a naKapav vda-os 
 oiKeavides. See J. Adam, Religious Teachers (Lecture vi., ' Pindar '). 
 
 ^2 Wilamowitz,j5«(r^/zVz Graeci^ p. 94. C£ Christ, Griechische Litera- 
 turgeschichte, ii. i, 151, for the authorship. 
 
 ^^ Antike Denhniiler, iii. plates v.-vi. 
 
 ^* C. M. K.?inixa2Lrm,JeftseitshoJf7tujtgen, pp. 11 ff. 
 
 ^^ Colonna Ceccaldi, Monuments Antiques de Chypre, 1882, p. 71. 
 
 '"^ Antike Denkmdler., 1SS9, i. plates xliv.-xlvi. for the specimens in 
 Berlin, Vienna, and Smyrna, and the London fragment mentioned below 
 in note 57 ; for the example in Constantinople see Man. dell '' Inst. xi. 
 plate liv.; S. Reinach, Rev. des Etudes Grccques.ii%<^^., p.i6i, enumerates 
 as man)' as eighteen of these sarcophagi scattered among various 
 museums. A complete list of examples known up to 1901 in A. Joubin, 
 de Clasomeniis Sarcophagis. For the splendid example in the British 
 Museum see A. S. Murray, Terracotta Sarcophagi Greek and Etruscan 
 in the British Museum., 1898, plates i.-vii.; for examples recently 
 acquired by Berlin, Afit. Denkmdler, ii. plates xxv.-xxvii. and plate 
 xxviii. My plate xix. is after Murray, op. cit. pi. iii. (detail of interior). 
 
 •''" The young man with the two dogs occurs on a fragment in the 
 British Museum ; see Ant. Denkm.., \. 46, 3. For its interpretation see 
 Furtwangler in Arch. Anz. (1889), p. 147, who shows that the youth 
 between two dogs, signifying that he is their master, is in a sense a 
 symbol of Apotheosis. Furtwangler also recalls here that in Persian 
 belief dog and cock protect the soul from evil spirits on its way to the 
 underworld, c£ Loeschcke, 'Aus der Unterwelt' in Dorpatcr Programm, 
 
NOTES 263 
 
 1888, and the criticism of his views by O. Immisch in Roscher, 
 art. ' Kerberos,' pp. 1 127 fif. I abide by the view expressed in the text 
 that the cocks are anoTpoTrala. Cf. Lecture III. p. 214. For this 
 function of the cock see especially Gruppe, op. «'/., ii. pp. 794 ff. 
 
 ^^ See the epoch-making" article ' Ker,' by Otto Crusius, in Roscher, 
 ii. pp. 1 150 ff., and Weicker, Seelenvogel (1902), pp. 2-7, who discusses 
 the origin and nature of Keres, Erinyai, Sirens, etc., and shows their 
 cognate characters, and how the Ker, for example, from being a 
 daemon of the vampire class that sucks from the dead the blood 
 which is the principle of life, and so draws out his soul, can also be 
 identified with the soul (cf. O. Crusius, loc. cit., who conjectures that 
 the soul was thought to take on wings at the moment of separation 
 from the body). In this way the Ker, as Weicker points out, sheds 
 its character of death daemon to put on that of ' angel of death.' 
 
 ^^ Published by P. Yi2LXt\v\%^ Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1891, xii. 
 p. 340. 
 
 ^^ Bull. Corresp. Hellcnique., iSqS? P- 238, fig. 6 ; Weicker, op. cit, 
 fig. 9, pp. 14 ff., who gives the interpretation followed above. 
 
 ^^ See above note 43 ; and below, note 69. 
 
 ^2 The Chariot of Monteleone, first published by Furtwangler in 
 Arndt Bruckmann, Denhndler, pi. 586-587 -(his Kleine Schriften, ii. 
 pp. 314 ff., pi. xxx.-xxxii.) Plate xv. 2 {a) from a recent photograph. 
 
 ^^ So also in Roman times ; cf. the winged chariot that bears the 
 deified Caesar on the Vatican altar, above, p. 67. 
 
 ^* E. hoe^y va. Melanges Perrot, 1903 ('Zum Harpyien Monument'), 
 pp. 223-225, shows that the pre-eminent position accorded to the 
 women of the family on the principal face of the monument points to 
 the matriarchal customs of Lycia where the leading position of 
 women, spoken of by Herodotus (i. 173) is borne out by the 
 inscriptions. Milchofer had likewise regarded the scenes of the 
 Harpy Tomb as homage or worship rendered to the heroised dead 
 {Ath. Mitth., 1879, iv. p. 168; Arch. Zeit., 1881, xxxix. p. 53). 
 Gardner, Sculpt. Tojnbs, p. 72, regards the little kneeling female 
 figure below the Harpy on the west side to be that of the donor or 
 dedicator of the tomb. Winged figures similar to those of the 
 Harpy Tomb occur on the archaic fragments from Ephesus {Brit. 
 Mus. Sculpt. Cat.., p. 37, Nos. 36-45), cf. Weicker, op. cit., p. 126, 
 and note i. 
 
264 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ^^ We are here confronted with a fresh proof of the close connection, 
 so often pointed out, between the inhabitants of Southern Gaul and 
 the lonians. Marseilles had been colonised by the Phocaeans, and 
 other towns of the littoral may well have been of Ionian origin. 
 The resemblance between the ' Nativity of Aphrodite ' and the 
 relief of a martyrdom at S. Trophime is noted by Dom Leclerq in 
 the admirable article 'Anges' in the Dictionnaire iFArcheologie 
 Chretienne. Dom Leclerq likewise quotes the scene of the weighing 
 of the souls by the angels, but could not at the date of his article 
 have known of the Boston Throne. 
 
 •"^ The parallelism between the stooping angels and the stooping 
 nymphs is as remarkable as that between the nude kneeling souls in 
 the trays of the one balance, and the nude standing souls of the 
 other. On the other hand, the cloth held in front of the ' Aphrodite ' 
 may have the same significance as that in which in Christian art the 
 angels receive and clothe the spirits as they pass to another world ; 
 cf. the ivory in the British Museum with the martyrdom of S. Menas, 
 above whom hovers an angel spreading" out his mantle to wrap about 
 the newborn soul of the saint {Cat. Early Christian Antiq.^ No. 297, 
 and plate iv.). It is in the same order of ideas that on the relief of 
 the Death of Our Lady in S. Maria in Trastevere (above the tomb of 
 Cardinal d'Alengon), the soul in the form of a swaddled babe is held 
 up by S. John. 
 
 "'' Weicker, Seelenvogel., p. 96, fig. 25. 
 
 ^^ The art types of this tomb are discussed by Fr. Poulsen {der 
 Orient und die friihgriechische Kunst, 191 2, pp. 150 ff., figs. 179-80), 
 who consider that they belong to the Phoenicio-Cypriote cycle. 
 See Poulsen, ibid., figs. 182, 183, for a fragment of relief from Isinda 
 in Lycia, now in Constantinople, with men, horses, and dogs moving 
 to the right. It resembles in style the Lycian processional reliefs in 
 the British Museum. 
 
 ^^ On the lion in Asia Minor, see Cumont, Oriental Religions., 
 p. 224, note 2, and references. A. B. Cook, Zeus, p. 238 : ' Greeks 
 and Romans alike, therein agreeing with the Egyptians and the 
 nations of the nearer East, looked upon the lion as an animal full of 
 inward fire and essentially akin to the sun.' Both bull and lion, from 
 their tawny or reddish colour, were early connected with the idea of 
 fire (Gruppe, op. cit., ii. pp. 797 ff.) ; the sacrifice of bulls to the Sun 
 ( = Fire) was of extreme antiquity, and, as Gruppe points out, at the 
 back of this ritual we doubtless have the conception of Fire or Sun 
 reabsorbing the jsarticles (bulls) once detached from it. As the lion 
 
NOTES 265 
 
 represents fire, the meaning of the lion devouring the bull is evident. 
 Butthebull, as we shall see (Lecture III. p. 194), is something more than 
 the divine fiery particles to be reabsorbed ; it also represents, I take 
 it, at least on the tombs, the earthly tenement within which the particles 
 are imprisoned ; hence the bull must be devoured before the particles 
 can be liberated. I propose shortly to deal with the imagery of the 
 group of lion and bull at greater length than is possible here. 
 
 ™ O. Benndorf, Das Hereon vo7i Gjolbascki-Trysa, Vienna, 1889. 
 I may briefly indicate those of the scenes that bear most im- 
 mediately on the present subjects : — {a) Over the entrance, outside : 
 four heads of winged lions, and between them in the centre the 
 mask of the Medusa, all apotropaic ; beneath each pair of lions 
 the heroised couple facing, {b) Over the door, inside : the row of 
 dwarf-like figures is again apotropaic ; the dancing figures on each 
 side are emblematic of After Life joys, like the Bacchic figure on 
 Roman tombstones (pp. 199 ff.). {c) On the left of the doorway the 
 chariot of the Apotheosis (B. plate xxii.) here combined with the episode 
 of Bellerophon and the Chimaera. Behind the group of Apotheosis 
 is a long banquet scene with the Blessed reclining, etc. Cf. Koepp, 
 Jahrb.^ igoy, p. 70, and H. Thiersch, ibid., p. 265, for the reinter- 
 pretation of certain subjects at Gjolbaschi which show the con- 
 tinued predominance of women in Lycia (cf. note 64 on Harpy 
 Tomb). 
 
 ^^ Brit. Mus. Sculpt. Cat.., 950. Tomb of Payava. On each side of 
 the arched roof a chariot drawn by four galloping horses. Not the 
 horses but the chariot itself is winged. The two huge heads of lions 
 looking out frontally on either side are, of course, prophylactic ; the 
 hunting scenes of the frieze carry the usual reference to After Life 
 pastimes ; the reliefs at either end comprise in the two upper panels 
 guardian sphinxes, and in the lower panels portraits of the heroised 
 dead. The reliefs on the chamber of the tomb which resembles a 
 sarcophagus in house form, represent on one long side a combat scene, 
 probably an exploit in the life of the deceased ; on the second long 
 side a judgment scene, unexplained. On one short side two armed 
 warriors leaning on their spears stand side by side ; on the other, 
 a venerable draped man places a crown on the head of a nude 
 youth. 
 
 British Museum Scupt. Cat.., 951. On the tomb of Merehi we have 
 on each side of the roof the chariot of the Apotheosis, and in place of 
 the apotropaic lions of the tomb of Payava, a chimaera on the one 
 side, and a panther on the other, used with similar intent to ward off 
 evil spirits. On the friezes along the crest of the roof — {a) Combat 
 
266 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 scenes ; {b) a judgment scene, the figure of an old draped man 
 placing a crown on a nude youth ; {c) the banquet of the Blessed. 
 The chariot group, which, of course, can be no other than the chariot 
 of the Apotheosis, occurs frequently in Lycia. The most important 
 parallels are on the reliefs with the Apotheosis from Gjolbaschi 
 already noted. 
 
 "^ Benndorf, Heroon, plates i., ii. of text, and plate xxxii. of atlas ; 
 tomb with apotropaic lion and banquet of Apotheosis. Cf. the 
 reliefs from the facade of a tomb at Tlos in valley of the Xanthos, 
 cast in British Museum, No. 260 — R.R., ii. 112, 5 ; in the centre of 
 each panel of door apotropaic heads ; on relief to left Bellerophon as 
 emblem of victory and Apotheosis (though I am not unmindful of 
 Pindar, Pythian, ii. 39). Another sarcophagus from Gjolbaschi is 
 in Constantinople (Mendel, Cat., no). The representation is not so 
 'enigmatic' as the commentators make out. Along the crest are 
 represented the joys of the After Life (?) ; on each side of the lid, 
 within a panel, is the chariot of the Apotheosis. In the smaller 
 lower panel, a lion passant with head turned apotropaically to the 
 front ; the lion has his paw on the head of a bull — already, I believe, 
 to indicate the consummation of the earthly body ; at each side two 
 huge apotropaic gorgon heads in high relief; apotropaic also are 
 the heads of animals that projected from the shorter ends, and the 
 mask projecting from the long frame of the roof. Within each of the 
 oval panels of the short ends appear the dolphins as vehicle of the 
 soul's transit. On the panels of the chest protective garlands hang 
 between boiikrattia. This Lycian tomb is as well guarded against 
 the attacks of evil spirits as any primitive Latin temple with its 
 coronal of protective gorgoneia and other emblems in terra-cotta, 
 see my article in/.R.S., 1915, v. p. 164. 
 
 ''' I cannot help reminding students in connection with the Mausoleum 
 and the Nereid monument, which each show statues placed in the inter- 
 spaces of the columns, that the famous Niobids of Florence probably 
 represent a similar decoration from one of the large temple tombs 
 which became increasingly fashionable in Greek Asia Minor ; cf. 
 CoUignon, Statues F'z^neraires, p. 264. 
 
 73a Yor the grave reliefs from Chios, and the stele of Metrodoros, 
 see Studinczka in At/i. Mz'tt/i., 1888 (xiii.), pp. 192 ff. On the imagery 
 of the Siren, see the first part of Weicker's Seele7tz>ogel. The Siren 
 appears first as a Jiabitat of the Soul and then becomes a Mourner. 
 
 "* Mendel, Cat., 63. The contest scenes (Centaurs, death of 
 Kaineus, etc.) are, as Mendel points out, borrowed from Attic motives, 
 
NOTES 267 
 
 but I imagine they are used with symbolic content. The sculptor is 
 certainly under the spell of Pheidian influence, and almost hypnotised 
 by its suggestion, so that he has transformed into somewhat meaning- 
 less scenes the bold sepulchral imagery of the Lycian tombs. 
 
 ^^ Furtwiingler in AbhandliDJgen der K. Bajerische?i Akademie der 
 Wissenschaften, xxii. (1902), pp. 99-105, Das Heiligtuni der Aphaia, 
 fig. 268 ; Collignon, Statues Funeraires, fig. 56. The relief, said 
 to have been found in Rome, was, when I first knew it, in the 
 possession of Dr. Hommel in Munich. Furtwangler pronounced it 
 Attic ; it seems to me decidedly Ionian. For the motive of Hermes 
 placing his hand on the shoulder of the woman to introduce her to 
 the underworld Furtwangler compares the Ildefonso group in Madrid, 
 Avhich is also probably sepulchral. The motive of the mourners 
 sitting in the Elysian fields seems borrowed from the Nekida of 
 Polygnotus. 
 
 "^ D. G. Hogarth, Ionia and the East^ p. 7. 
 
 "'"^ G. Murray, Rise of the Greek Epic, 2nd ed., p. 276. 
 
 '^ For an attempted reconstruction, see C. Robert, 16 Winckehn. 
 progr., 1892, and cf Schoene in Arch. JaJirb.., 1893, viii. 213. 
 
 "^ Revue de PArt for 1910, i. pp. 404 fif., and Jahrb., 1913, p. 309 
 and plate xxvi., from which plate xxi. is taken. 
 
 ^^ These reliefs have been exhaustively studied by E. Pfuhl in 
 Jahrbuch., 1905, pp. 47 ff. and pp. 123 fF. (see also op. cit., 1907, 
 pp. 113 ff.), with analysis of the many symbolic objects represented 
 upon them (sirens, chests or Xapvauss, baskets, altars, tables, double 
 horn of abundance with fruits ; cf. British Museum yo4 = R.R., ii. 503, 
 i) ; three fine examples of these stelae are in the Cook Collection at 
 Richmond (R.R., ii. 532, i, 3, 4), and the Ashmolean at Oxford is 
 specially rich in examples from Smyrna. Collignon, Statues Fune- 
 raires, pp. 270 ff. 
 
 *^ For the testament of Epikteta see Benndorf, Heroon., pp. 45 ff. The 
 shrine appears to have been to the Muses and to the heroised family 
 of Epikteta, i.e. she founded a hero cult for her husband Phoinix and 
 two dead sons Andragoras and Kratesilochos, into which Epikteta 
 was herself admitted. The articles of the dedication, consisting of 
 the testament of Epikteta, and the statutes of the confraternity which 
 she established for the administration of the cult, were engraved on 
 eight columns on a great marble podium which was set up on the site 
 and carried the statues of the foundress and her dead. 
 
268 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ^2 The Alexandrian stelae have been described by E. Pfuhl in Ath. 
 Mitth., 1901, XX. pp. 258-304. 
 
 *^ W. Altmann, Architektur und Ornainentik dcr Antiken Sarco- 
 phage, pp. 31 ff., with references ; cf. M. Collignon, Statues Funcraires, 
 pp. 347 ff- 
 
 ** See Rudolph Pagenstecher, Unteritalische Grabdenkmaeler, 1912. 
 
 ^* On the Hebrew She'ol see C. F. Burney, Israel's Hope of Immor- 
 tality^ pp. 7 ff. 2Ln^ passim ; also Dr. R. H. Charles, Religious Develop- 
 ment between the Old and New Testament^ 1914 (ch. iv. 'A Blessed 
 Future Life '). It is usual to compare the Hebrew She'ol to the Greek 
 or rather the Homeric conception of existence after death (Burney, 
 p. 14), but the resemblance to the Roman view seems to me much 
 closer. She'ol and the Roman Manes alike represent a stage where 
 the dead were neither differentiated nor individualised. The Homeric 
 conception, on the other hand, seems rather the outcome of a feeling 
 of discouragement and helplessness on the part of a people who had 
 tried to lift the veil and solve the supreme mystery, and failed in the 
 attempt. The Nekuia of the XI. Odyssey represents a falling-away 
 from substantial and positive beliefs to a negative state of mind 
 which looks upon the dead as strengthless and powerless, the mere 
 shadows of their former selves. Yet these strengthless dead are in 
 possession of their human faculties and mindful of their life on earth, 
 a fact which differentiates them by a whole world of thought and 
 experience from the dim underworld of She'ol. It would seem as if 
 the action of memory in framing any conception of the dead were not 
 sufficiently taken into account. The living perforce tend to think of 
 the dead in the terms of this life, and to imagine them very like what 
 they were on earth. This process by which the other world becomes 
 peopled with highly individualised images issued in the 'unlimited 
 individualism ' with which Dr. Charles reproaches the Greek doctrine 
 of immortality. Different religions or different phases of the same 
 religion may tend to check or to promote this action of the memorj', 
 and our stelae afford interesting indication of the fluctuations of belief 
 with regard to a future state. In Greece a definite picture of a future 
 existence is first attempted ; then, under Attic influence, the vision 
 is lost sight of, and in its place we get a mythological or historic view 
 of the dead, though outside Attica the belief in a future state was 
 never completely suppressed, and reasserted itself in later antiquity. 
 In Rome, on the other hand, in the beginning, everything seems 
 obscured by a magic mist, but when once under the influence of the 
 later Greek mysticism belief as to a future state had definitely 
 emerged, it was never again lost sight of. 
 
NOTES 269 
 
 ^^ For the Roman view of death, and the cult of the dead, see, 
 especially, J. B. Carter, in E.R.E., under 'Ancestor-worship — Roman ' ; 
 G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Rlinier, 2nd ed., 1912, pp. 232 ff. ; 
 Warde-Fowler, Religious Experience, pp. 84 ff. and passim ; Cyril 
 Bailey, Religion of Ancient Rome, pp. 49 ff. 
 
 ^" Saglio's Dicfioftary, art. ' Imago,' by Ed. Courbaud, pp. 409 ff., 
 and art. ' Imagines Maiorum,' by H. Meyer in Pauly. In the exclu- 
 sively patrician right of the iics imaginum, which points to so different 
 a conception of the dead from that of the mass of the people of 
 Rome, we may perhaps see the trace of beliefs introduced by a 
 conquering race. 
 
 ^^ See Hiilsen, Rovimt Fofitm, trans. Carter, 2nd ed., 1909, pp. 
 222-229, for an account of the Sepolcreto. 
 
 ^^ On early jewelry as amulets see Deubner in E.R.E. (' Charms 
 and Amulets '). 
 
 ^^ Now well described by Dr. Weege in Helbig's Fiihrer, vol. ii. 
 pp. 312-355. In speaking of the Villa Giulia, however, we must not 
 forget the excellently arranged collection in the Museo Kircheriano, 
 with finds from the necropoleis of Latin sites (Castel Gandolfo, 
 Albano, etc.). 
 
 ^^ Tomba Barberijii \n Museo di Villa Giulia, Helbig, ii. No. 1766 ; 
 and see the excellent article by Delia Seta in Bolletino d'Arfe, 1909, 
 iii. pp, 161 ff. Totnba Bernardiiii in Museo Kircheriano, see 
 Helbig, ii. pp. 259-271. Tomba Regolini-Galassi in Museo Gregoriano 
 of Vatican, Helbig, i. pp. 352, 387, and the new book (1914) by 
 B. Nogara and A. Pinza, La Tomba Regolini Galassi e gli altri 
 viateriali coevi del Museo Gregoriano- Etrusco. 
 
 ^- Delia Seta, fig. 133 and p. 250, puts this more tentatively. 
 
 ®^ A number of these friezes are mentioned by Mrs. van Buren 
 in her article on terra-cottas, J.R.S., 1915, v.; see also Giuseppe 
 Moretti in Atisonia, igi2, vi. pp. 147 ff. 
 
 ^* See C. Fries, ' Studien zur Odyssee,' in Mittheilungen der 
 Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, 19 10, pp. 4 ff. 
 
 ^^ C. Fries, op. cit., p. 19. This is the passage which I had In 
 mind in describing the Roman triujnphator on p. 64. With regard 
 to the triumphal chariot. Fries remarks that chariot and horses were 
 the attributes of the Sun, and recalls H. Winckler's theory that their 
 nvimbtr four possibly represented the four Seasons. 
 
270 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ^^ Catalogue of the Museo CapitoUno^ by members of the British 
 School at Rome, p. 122, Galleria, No. 48« ('Sepulchral Monuments 
 of the Rupilii ')• 
 
 "'' Delia Seta, Religio7i and Art, p. 231, gives a different reason for 
 the reappearance of the frontal figure in Hellenistic and Roman times, 
 and thinks that it was consciously adopted as affording more scope 
 for the reproduction of individual expression. 
 
 ^^ Furtwangler in his discussion of the Adamklissi monument has 
 well shown the importance of this class of sculpture as representing 
 an old Italian strain, but he believed that this art was limited to the 
 provinces and to those cities where the Roman legionaries had set up 
 the tombs of their comrades. In point of fact this military or 
 provincial sculpture, as Furtwangler called it, is simply the art of the 
 Roman tombstone as we find it in Rome itself from the last century 
 of the Republic onward. 
 
 ^'■^ CoUignon, Statues Fimerai7-es, pp. 346-78, ' Figures couchees.' 
 See my article on the terra-cottas in the Museo di Villa Giulia, 
 J.R.S., 191 5) V. p. 161, for the group on a sarcophagus from Cervetri. 
 
 i*"^ The statue was found in 191 1, behind the Abbey of Tre Fontane, 
 and published by Ghislanzoni, Notizie Scavi, 191 2, p. 38. For a 
 similar sarcophagus lid, with a boy reclining on a bed, from Torre 
 Nuova, see Rizzo, Notizie Scavi, 1905, p. 408. It is a lifelike portrait 
 of the second century (incised pupils) ; the boy, with his chubby round 
 face and short nose, has none of the aristocratic beauty of our little 
 Augustan prince, though here again the excellence of the workman- 
 ship suggests that the portrait is that of a boy of illustrious parentage. 
 
 1"! Gummerus in Arch. Jahrbuck, 1913, pp. 63-126. 
 
 102 Warde-Fowler, Religious Experience of the Romaft People ; the 
 chapter on ' Mysticism ' is of capital importance. 
 
 103 Yox the influence of Posidonius see Warde-Fowler, The 
 Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 382 : 'The person 
 really responsible for the tendency to this kind of mysticism was 
 undoubtedly the great Posidonius, philosopher, historian, traveller, 
 who more than any other man dominated the Roman world of 
 thought in" the first half of the last century B.C., and whose writings, 
 now surviving in a few fragments only, lie at the back of nearly all 
 the serious Roman literature of his own and indeed of the following 
 age.' • Cumont, Oriental Religions, p. 164 : 'The works of that erudite 
 and rehgious writer influenced the development of the entire Roman 
 
NOTES 271 
 
 theology more than anything else.' Again, the influence of 
 Posidonius not improbably filtered to Vergil, and helped him to 
 remould the old traditional conception of an underworld. 
 
 ^"^ I ought perhaps to say ' unique ' as a funeral procession. I do 
 not forget the elaborate funeral rites depicted on the tomb of the 
 Haterii (7?./?., iii. 285, 286). 
 
 105 jtqj. ^jjg literature see my article in /.R.S., 191 5, v. pp. 153-156. 
 
 ^"^ Robert Eisler, Weltemiimitel und Himmelzelt^ 2 vols., Munich, 
 1911. 
 
 1"^ The starred mantle is seen floating behind the deified Empresses 
 Sabina and Faustina, who, on the coins struck in honour of their 
 Deification, appear mounting to Heaven — the one on the peacock, the 
 other on the eagle (plate ix. 2, from casts kindly given to me by 
 Mr. G. F. Hill). 
 
 ^*'* See F. Cumont, ' Les idees du paganisme romain sur la vie 
 future' in Bibliothcque de Vulgarisation du Musce Gui)>iet, 19 10 
 (xxxiv.), and the same writer's Theologie Solaire du Paganisme^ p. 3. 
 
 ^"^ These ideas were by no means limited to the official circles of 
 benefactors of the State. Cicero, when planning a tomb for Tullia, 
 wished to avoid the appearance of a mausoleum, so that nothing 
 might detract from the idea of her ' Apotheosis ' : ' Fanum fieri nolo, 
 neque hoc mihi erui potest. Sepulcri similitudinem effugere non tam 
 propter poenam legis studeo quam ut quam maxime adsequar 
 dvodecoa-tv' (ad Att, xii. 361) ; i.e., in other words, Cicero did not wish 
 for the ordinary type of tomb, but for a shrine which might proclaim 
 the idea of Tullia's admission among the gods. 
 
 IV 
 
 LECTURE III 
 
 ^ Before the eagle became messenger of the Sun he may have been 
 regarded as eSos of the soul, more especially of the souls of departed 
 monarchs. What more natural than to suppose that the majestic and 
 solitary bird with its piercing vision and grandiose swoop was chosen 
 as his habitat by the soul of the departed sovereign ? The eagle's 
 long flight till he becomes a mere speck and then disappears in the 
 upper regions of the air might well suggest the flight of a royal soul 
 
272 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 to the stars. In time it was only natural to modify this cruder con- 
 ception of the eagle as the actual soul into that of the messenger that 
 carries the soul back to a Divine Master. At a later date, the eagle 
 would pass, like the whole doctrine of Apotheosis, into the service of 
 lesser personages also. 
 
 ^ I have discussed these medallions inJ.R.S., 191 1, i. pp. 16 ff., 
 where see references. See also the Catalogue of the Mos/ra Archeo- 
 logica nelle Tenne di Dioclesiano, pp. 52, 60, 61. 
 
 ^ See my article on Antistius and Antistia m J.R.S., 1915, v. pp. 
 147-152. 
 
 * By the great kindness of Mr. Arthur H. Smith. The medallion 
 was acquired in 1914, with a number of other objects formerly in the 
 collection of General Montresor of Denne Hill, near Dover, in Kent, 
 and is said to have been brought to England from Rome in the middle 
 of the eighteenth century. 
 
 ^ These altars can be conveniently studied in Altmann, Romische 
 Grabaltdre der Kaiserzeit, 1905. 
 
 ® Frazer, Adonis, Attis and Osiris, p. 419. 
 
 ^ M. Franz Cumont drew my attention to this instance of Apothe- 
 osis. The meaning of the Spalato frieze has been overlooked. 
 
 ^ Niemann, der Palast Diokletians in Spalato, 1910, plate iv., also 
 fig. vi. I, p. 115. 
 
 " Students who have no time for Cumont's large work are referred 
 to his smaller Mithras (Eng. ed. 191 2), from which I have mainly 
 drawn my short account of the Mithraic cults and monuments. 
 ' The mysteries exerted a powerful influence in fostering some of the 
 most exalted aspirations of the human soul : the desire for immor- 
 tality and the expectation of final justice. The hopes of life beyond 
 the tomb which this religion instilled in its votaries were one of the 
 secrets of its power in these troublesome times when solicitude for 
 life to come disturbed all minds ' {Mithras, p. 148). See also H. 
 Stuart- J ones in Quarterly Review, 19 14. 
 
 ^^ This piece which comes from Heddernheim is of great import- 
 ance for its imagery (see the references in Reinach). The cap on a 
 pole between Sol and Mithras has been correctly explained by Eisler 
 as the do-repcaros ttiXo? — the emblem of the sky or the cosmos. The 
 animals pictured as rushing upward, on the surface of the monument 
 above the cave, are conceived as springing from the blood of the slain 
 bull. 
 
NOTES 273 
 
 " Roman Sculpture, pp. 309-312 (plate xcv. for the fine stele from 
 Osterburken). 
 
 ^^ Published Oesterr. Jahreshefte, I909> xii. fig. 114 (Hofmann) ; and 
 Beiblatt, p. 213, for Cumont's interpretation of the reliefs above the 
 niche ; cf also his Astrology and Religion, pp. 192 ff. 
 
 ^' J.R.S., i. p. 19 and references. 
 
 ^* See above, p. 151, and note^ 43, 69 to Lecture II. The lion motive 
 is very common, but I may mention here two striking examples : 
 A stele at Mayence (Weynand, 124) with the apotropaic Medusa in 
 the pediment ; beneath, a crouching lion on each side of a pine cone. 
 Another from Aumale in Algeria (R. Cagnat in Strena Hellbigiana) 
 shows a husband and wife and two children, and above two lions 
 guarding the sacred banquet. Cumont, Textes et Monuments, ii. p. 
 527, inclines to recognise these groups as Mithraic (though see ibid.^ 
 p. 440). The lion and bull motive was, as we have seen, very ancient, 
 and was current in Asia Minor, etc., long before the introduction of 
 Mithraism from Persia ; but it seems reasonable to suppose that its 
 extraordinary vogue on later Roman tombstones was due to the 
 popular Mithraic cult where the lion had so prominent a role. 
 
 ^^ Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris (3rd ed., 1907), p. 146. 
 
 ^^ For Attis see Hepding, Attis und seine Mythen, 1903 ; Cumont 
 in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Attis. 
 
 1" Cumont, Oriental Religions, p. 59. 
 
 1* J.R.S., i. p. 17, note 3. 
 
 13 For the connection between omphalos and tholos see Rohde, 
 Psyche, 4th ed., i. p. 132 ; against it, Di^ls in Miscellanea Salinas (1907), 
 p. 14. For the pine cone over graves see Pfuhl in Jahrb., 1905, 
 pp. 88 ff. In the relief at Munich, of a peasant driving his cow to 
 market, the pine cone over the gate of the Priapic Sanctuary must 
 be placed there as emblem of generation. At the same time it cannot 
 be asserted that all cones and conical emblems necessarily derive 
 from the pine cone or the phallus, cf G. F. Hill in Church Quarterly 
 Review, 1908 (Ixvi.), p. 131. For the phallos on graves see examples 
 cited by Gruppe, ii. p. 266, note 2. 
 
 20 C.I.L., xiv. 3046-3310 ; dixid Ephemeris Epigraphica, ix. pp. 449 ff., 
 Nos. 79-871. The material is a local calcareous stone. In a few 
 cases, always of women's tombs, the cones are replaced by statues, in 
 one or two by pillars. A reconstruction of this ancient cemetery 
 would form an admirable college thesis. 
 
 S 
 
274 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ^* The Persian origin of Orpheus seems now fairly estabUshed by 
 R. Eisler in Weltemnantel u. Hinimelzelt. This book contains an 
 expose of Orphic doctrine, its origins and its ends. The same author's 
 four papers on 'Orpheus the Fisher,' in the Quest, vols. i. and ii., 
 1909 and 1910, are full of curious information and theory which bear 
 on the eschatology of Orphism, and therefore indirectly on late Roman 
 sepulchral imagery. The literature that has gathered round Orpheus 
 of late years is immense, and the subject daily gains in attraction ; 
 but the book that shall bring together all the evidence, monumental 
 and literary, and also draw conclusions therefrom — somewhat on the 
 plan of Cumont's great work on Mithras — is still lacking. I myself 
 hope to make an insignificant contribution to the subject by a list of 
 all Roman sepulchral monuments representing Orpheus or affected 
 by Orphic beliefs. In the present lectures I have had perforce to 
 content myself with giving the barest indications. All study of 
 Orphism must necessarily be based on the monumental work of two 
 German scholars, E. Rohde in Psyche, and Gruppe in his Religions- 
 geschichte and in the exhaustive article ' Orpheus ' contributed by him 
 to Roscher's Lexikon ; for the Orphic hymns see Dieterich, Hymni 
 Orphici ; the latest discussion of the Orphic tablets is by Delatte in 
 the Musee Beige for 191 2, where references to previous literature are 
 given ; the various papers on Orpheus by S. Reinach in Mythes, 
 Cultes et Religions, and his paper on Orphic eschatology in Strena 
 Helbigia7ia should likewise be consulted. In England a good deal 
 of interesting work, based in a measure on foreign research, has lately 
 been done. See especially an eloquent and lucid resume in James 
 Adam, Religious Teachers of Greece, p. 92 (Lecture v., ' Orphic Religious 
 Ideas'), and F. M. Cornford's paper on Orphism and the Pytha- 
 gorean Schools in From Religion to Philosophy, p. 160 onwards (espe- 
 cially Section vi., 'The Mystical Tradition'). The Asiatic Dionysos, 
 by G. W. M. Davis, suffers from the author's failure to cite original 
 authorities — not even Eisler being mentioned for the Persian deriva- 
 tion of Orphism. Recently Orpheus and Orphism have been brought 
 into fresh prominence by the researches of the St. Andrews school — 
 and notably of Mr. A. E. Taylor — into the sources of Platonic or, 
 according to these scholars, Socratic mysticism and eschatology. In 
 his Varia Socratica (Oxford, 191 1), p. 268, Taylor has the following 
 striking passage : ' Behind Socrates ... we dimly discern the half- 
 obliterated features of Pythagoras of Samos, and behind Pythagoras 
 we can only just descry the mists which enclose whatever may be 
 hidden under the name of Orpheus. And behind Orpheus, for us at 
 least, there is only the impenetrable night.' If the role played by 
 Orphism, in what the world will doubtless continue to call the 
 
NOTES 275 
 
 Platonic philosophy, is as great as the St. Andrews school claims, the 
 religion of Orpheus is likely to prove the greatest known to the ancient 
 world, and we shall not be surprised to find the reflection of its 
 eschatology on the tombstones of the late Roman or Graeco-Roman 
 period. That its role in the religions of the later Empire was very 
 important we must all be convinced — though not enough has been done 
 towards defining it and correlating it to kindred cults. Of these the 
 principal was Mithraism, which, owing to Cumont's brilliant series of 
 books, has perhaps held the field too exclusively of late years. 
 
 22 Mostra Archeologica Cat, p. 56 ; y.T?.^'., i. p. 18. 
 
 2^ F. M. Cornford, From Religio7i to Philosophy, p. 197. 
 
 2* Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, p. 294. 
 
 25 Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, pp. loi ff.; on Orpheus and 
 Dionysus see further Gruppe in Roscher, iii. pp. mo ff. On the 
 connection of Attis and Dionysus see Cumont, Oriental Religions, 
 p. 48; on the Thracian Dionysus see especially the monograph of 
 Foucart, 'Le Culte de Dionysos en Attique,' in Mem. de I'Acad. des 
 Inscrr., 1904 (xxxvii.), pt. 2, pp. i ff. ; and Gruppe in Roscher, iii. 
 p. 1084 f. 
 
 2^ See the excellent reconstructions of these tombs in E. Kriiger's 
 Kurzer Fiihrer durch das Provinziahnuseum in Trier, 191 1. 
 
 2" J.R.S., i. p. 22 ; Koepp, Romer in Deutschland, 2nd ed., fig. 133. 
 The Dioscuri are favourite figures, on sepulchral reliefs, as is natural 
 from the fact that their cult is developed out of that of the heroised 
 dead (Furtwangler in Coll. Saboiiroff, and in Roscher), and that they 
 never lost their connection with the underworld ; a good instance is 
 R.R., ii. 129, 2 — on the lower half the Dioscuri with their horses ; above 
 the bust of Sol or Mithras within a wreath between two genii. In 
 an age of syncretism they seem to get confused with the mysterious 
 Thracian riders, who are beings of similar origin, since one of the 
 commonest forms in which the dead were conceived was as horsemen. 
 The Thracian horsemen appear on certain stelae at Sofia (G. Kazarno 
 in Archiv. fiir Religionswiss., 1912 (xv.), Nos. 4 and 8), where 
 the riders stand on each side of a female divinity trampling over 
 a fallen figure — in symbol of victory over the powers of evil rather 
 than over any mortal foe. The sanctity of the scene is emphasised 
 by the woman on the left with her hand to her lips {favete Unguis). 
 The Dioscuri appear carved on the funeral chariot of a relief of 
 Constantinian date in British Museum {R.R., ii. 509, i). The connec- 
 tion of the Dioscuri with the purifying forces of fire (Gruppe, ii. p. 727) 
 also accounts in measure for their popularity as emblems on graves. 
 
276 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 ^^ Koepp, fig. 134. Appositely enough, the labour is the chaining of 
 Cerberus. On the front of the aedicula between two hangings appear 
 the deified figure of the deceased — a woman — with a Hbation cup in 
 her hand and the peacock at her feet. 
 
 ^" Aeneas : J. R.S., i. p. 18, note 3. It is remarkable that on the 
 other face of the Intercisa stele we have the subject of Bellerophon, 
 the old Lycian symbol of Apotheosis. 
 
 ^^ Rhea Silvia, Mostra Archeologica Cat., p. 69. 
 
 ^^ On the sacred marriage of the soul, cf. Gruppe, ii. p. 865 ; C, 
 Pascal, Credense, i. pp. 99 fif.; also Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore^ 
 pp. 547 ff., on the conception of death as a lepos yajmoy. 
 
 ^^ The translation of these lines has baffled Prior, Pope, Byron, 
 Merivale, and Christina Rossetti. To all these versions I prefer the 
 one given in the text kindly done for me by Mr. Hugh Dorrell, a 
 student of our school. There seems no reason to doubt, as some 
 have done, the genuineness of the lines or their attribution to Hadrian, 
 cf. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, p. 293. 
 
 ^^ J. H. Cabott, Stucchi figiirati esistenti in un antico sepolcro 
 fuori delle mitra di Ro7iia, 1795. 
 
 ^■* The best publication is still that of Petersen in Annali delP Isii- 
 tuto ArcheoL, i860, p. 384 ; 1861, p. 190. For certain details of the 
 stucco decorations see Ronscewski, Gewolbeschmuck, plates xvii., xviii., 
 XX., and fig. 17, p. 30 ; fig. 20, p. 34. 
 
 ^^ See the plates in Cabott (above, note 33). 
 
 ^^ C.I.L., vi. p. 3418, and references. 
 
 ^'' AyiticMta di Roma, ii. plate xxx. Cf Ashby in B.S.R., i. pp. 
 156 fif. : ' Stuccoes from the ceiling of a tomb octagonal above, circular 
 below, near Tor de' Schiavi.' 
 
 3^ Ronczewski, Gewolbeschmuck, plate xxiii. ; Piranesi, ii. plate xxxiii. 
 
 ^' Ashby in B.S.R., vii. pp. 19, 20, 34 ; cf. Amelung in Atti delta 
 Reale Accadeviia Ponteficia for 19 10, pp. 203 fF. 
 
 *•* P. S. Bartoli, Picturae antiquae cryptarmn Romanorum et 
 Scpulcri Nasiojiioruni. The pictures in the British Museum appear to 
 have been purchased from George Richmond, R.A., in 1885 ; see my 
 article in B.S.R., 1915, vii. p. 316, note 3. 
 
 *^ Pyramid of Cestius : Piranesi, Antichita, iii. plate xlviii. ; cf. 
 Nardini, Roma Antica, iv. plate i. 
 
NOTES 277 
 
 *^ Von Sybel, Christliche Ajitike, i. p. 187 ; E. Samter in Rom. 
 Mitth. 1893 (viii.), p. 134 ; Nilgson, Archiv. fiir Religionsiuiss., p. 543. 
 
 ^^ Ashby and Newton in B.S.R., and my notes, ibid., pp. 469 ff. 
 
 ** Vigna Nardi, Studi Romania \. pp. 355 ff. (Fornari). 
 
 *= Tomb near S. Sebastiano. 
 
 ■^^ See B.S.R., 1914 (vii.), pp. 1-62 and plates i.-xxiv. 
 
 *" Discovered in 191 1, and published, with elaborate commentary, 
 by O. Marucchi in Bidletino di Archeologia Cristiana, i()i i, pp. 201 ff. ; 
 cf. Delbrueck in Arch. Ans., 1912, pp. 293 ff., figs. 12, 13, 14. 
 
 ** Photo Moscioni ; Piranesi, Antichita, iii. plate xiv. ; Canina, iv. 
 plate 277. 
 
 ^^ I cannot help recalling here the many beautiful tombs at Poz- 
 zuoli, the ancient Puteoli, near Naples, which, like so many of the 
 Roman tombs, have been allowed to perish miserably and to dis- 
 appear. Even when the tomb still exists, the subjects represented 
 have become undecipherable. Fortunately a number were engraved by 
 Paoli in his Antiquitates Piiteolanae ; see especially plates xxxii., xxxiv. 
 Here also were to be seen the familiar winged figures, friezes of sea 
 monsters, the rape of the soul, and the sacred marriage typified by 
 Rhea Sylvia. See also Charles Dubois, Poszuoles Antiques., Tombeaux., 
 pp. 349-355. For the fine painted decorations of tombs in Naples see 
 Alonuineftti Antichi., 1898 (viii.). 
 
 ^'' For the cock on tombs see note 27 to Lecture II. The lines from 
 Prudentius are quoted from Weicker, Ath. Mitth., xxx. p. 301. The 
 symbolism of the cock persists into Christian times. On a fragmen 
 of tissue (sixth century imitation of a Coptic model) from the treasury 
 of the Sancta Sanctorum, now in the Library of the Vatican (see P. 
 Lauer in Momnnents Piot, 1906 (xv.), plate xvii.), we see the cock 
 wearing the nimbus as herald of resurrection (?) within a corona 
 triumphalis (.?). M. Lauer appositely recalls the two ' cocks facing ' on a 
 tissue of the thirteenth centurj'^, explained by Madame Isabelle Errera 
 {Collection d anciennes c'tojfes, p. 10, No. 16) as symbols of the sun. 
 In Japan the cock is likewise held to symbolise the sun. Possibly no 
 emblem combines more meanings into itself. A good instance of the 
 apotropaic cock, with further allusion, it may be, to resurrection and 
 to this bird's connection with the sun, occurs on the stele of Antiphanes 
 at Athens (star or sun ? in background). Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire 
 dc P Art antique., viii. p. 661, fig. 339. 
 
278 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 *^ English and Scottish Popular Ballads^ ed. Child and Kittredge, 
 p. i68. 
 
 52 Mostra, p. 65 ; J.R.S., i. p. 19 ; C.I.L., iii. 10,514. 
 
 5^ Stele of Mussius, C.I.L., vi. 22763. 
 
 5* Bruno Schroder in Bonner Jahrbiicher, 1902, p. 67 and note 3. 
 
 5° Hettner, Illust7'ie7'te Fiihrer durch das Provinzialnmseuni in 
 Trier, 12% 12^, 12"= (pp. I3ff.); Koepp, Bo?ner in Deutschland, 2nd ed., 
 fig. 98 and p. 161. 
 
 *'' Blussus, Koepp, figs. 138, 139 ; inscr. C./.L., xiii. 7067. 
 
 5'" /.B.S., i. p. 14 ; Mostra, p. 59. The interesting inscription is 
 now probably published in the last Bericht des Vereins Cartiuntum, 
 which I have not seen. 
 
 ^^ See also Koepp, Romer in Deutschland, 2nd ed., fig. 96 and p. 
 161. 
 
 5^ Koepp, op. cit., fig. 97. 
 
 ^^ Cf. Koepp, op. cit., fig. 94. 
 
 ^^ The naive shepherding scene which adorns the base of this stele, 
 and the quaint epitaph which turns from verse to prose in the writer's 
 evident despair of mastering the metre, are also worthy of attention. 
 The stele is given by Koepp, fig. 140 and p. 158 ; inscr. C.I.L., xiii. 
 7070. For a similar stele, of a suarius, see Notizie Scavi, 1898, p. 479 
 and fig. 3. On the upper part appears the inscription ; on the lower 
 the suarius, wearing a tunica succincta, drives seven pigs to graze. 
 
 ^2 The only German publication of the whole monument seems to 
 be that by C. Osterwald of the year 1829 (with preface by Goethe). 
 The best reproductions remain those by Laborde in the Monuments de 
 France. 
 
 ^^ See E. Mogk's ' Baptism ' in E.R.E. For its significance in 
 Mithraism and the later Gnostic sects see Bousset, Hauptprobleme 
 der Gnosis, ch. vii. (baptism 'originally a magical rite for freeing the 
 soul from evil influence,' ibid., p. 294). 
 
 ^ Havdmdl, v. 158, quoted by E. Mogk, art. 'Baptism — Teutonic,' 
 p. 140 in E.R.E. 
 
 ^■^ J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 2nd ed., p. 85. 
 
NOTES 279 
 
 ^^ Every detail of the curious scene has now been made clear by 
 Hans Graeven, Jio/u. Mitt.^ 1913 (xxviii.), pp. 271 ff. and plate vii. 
 The figure in the funeral chariot drawn by elephants is the Emperor, or 
 rather his imago ; the youthful figure in the chariot above the rogus 
 is Sol, with the appropriate arching drapery above his head ; above 
 again, the Emperor is seen carried from the rogus to heaven by the 
 twin brothers Sleep and Death, and is received by five divinities (?) 
 who emerge from the clouds at his approach. Graeven has further 
 shown it to be more than probable that the deified Emperor is 
 Constantius Chlorus. 
 
 *'" Matz-Duhn, Antike Bildiuerke in Rom, 1881, ii. p. 301, No. 
 3016. 
 
 ®* This stele has been pointed out to me by M. Cumont ; it is 
 probably published by now in the last Bericht des Vereins Carnuntum.^ 
 which I have not seen. 
 
 ^^ See Camille Jullian in his small book Gallia, p. 204 ; cf. J.R.S., 
 i. pp. 14 ff. It is satisfactory to note that the beauty and importance 
 of the sepulchral art of the land of the Treveri, and its influence over 
 later cathedral and other sculpture, is beginning to be acknowledged ; 
 cf. H. Thiersch, An den Riindei^n des RomiscJien Reiches, 191 1, pp. 128 
 ff. See also the recent discussion of several of these monuments 
 (especially from Arlon) by F. Cumont, ' Comment la Belgique fut 
 romanisee,' in Annales de la Socicte Royale d'Arckeologie de Bruxelles, 
 1914, pp. 82 ff. 
 
ADDENDA 
 
 p. 7. '• Doinus Flavia'' of Palatine. — Dr, Ashby points out to me 
 that, in view of the great interest now attaching to the Palatine and 
 its palaces, it may be well to add that even if (as I think probable) 
 Vespasian and Titus are responsible for the plan of the Domus 
 Flavia, they themselves apparently lived in the old Domus Tiberiana, 
 which was simply refaced on the side of the Forum (west), while 
 Domitian seems wholly responsible for the great palace connected 
 with the name of his dynasty, and left untouched from his time till 
 Septimius Severus and Julia Domna added to it on the south. 
 Whether Domitian worked on plans already approved by his father 
 and brother, and the exact share of Rabirius in the plan, are questions 
 that cannot be yet completely cleared up. 
 
 P. 40. For the sculptures from Corfu see also Martin L. d'Ooge in 
 Art and Archaeology, 191 5? vol. i. pp. 153-158, with excellent illustra- 
 tions. Plate vi. is after his figs, i, 2. 
 
 P. loi. The Art-type of the Christ. — Since writing the above, it 
 has become evident to me that the iconography of Christ, especially 
 that of the early beardless type, brings us by another road into the same 
 cycle of ideas as those developed in my lecture. It is the merit of 
 H. Diitschke to have called attention to the resemblance between the 
 type of the youthful beardless Christ and the portraiture of Alexander 
 {Ravennaiische Studien, 1909, pp. 104 fif., a book I regret not having 
 read earlier). The kinship between the two which seems undeniable, 
 will cease to surprise us when we remember the beliefs and hopes of 
 an apocalyptic-messianic character that centred about Alexander 
 looked upon as the ' Prince of Peace ' who was to return and unite 
 all mankind under his rule in a brotherhood of love. Thus Alex- 
 ander was offered to the imagination of the ancient world as a divine 
 
 280 
 
ADDENDA 281 
 
 being at once diftering from the gods of the Graeco-Roman Pantheon, 
 and in a sense exalted above them to a monotheistic position. What 
 wonder that his portraiture, ideaUsed into a type, should influence the 
 plastic conception of the Christian God for whom his followers would 
 naturally av'oid borrowing the features of any of the abhorred Pagan 
 deities. In the matter of the actual central figure, then, as well as in 
 the pose and place of that figure, we find the idea of the Monarch- 
 God influencing the artistic formulas of the new religion. I may add 
 here as an instance of the influence exerted by the Alexander idea 
 upon ancient religious imagery, the frequency with which the Roman 
 Emperors (Augustus, Nero, Caracalla, Gallienus, and others) were 
 represented in the pose of Alexander, or with features actuall}' 
 assimilating to his. These ' Alexandroid ' images of Emperors, long 
 thought to reflect the madness of the one or the impudent audacity of 
 the other, were in absolute conformity with the beliefs of the Roman 
 world and implied the attainment of Apotheosis, expressed in this 
 case by identifying the deified monarch with the Monarch-God par 
 excellence. In another order of beliefs, Commodus is portrayed as 
 Heracles, as in the well-known bust of the Conservatori, in sign of 
 Apotheosis through identification with Heracles. It is a striking 
 thought of Diitschke, and one which throws considerable sidelight on 
 the subject of Apotheosis, that the bearded type of our Lord first 
 appeared in the scenes of His earthly career, while the youthful 
 beardless type was reserved, in the beginning at any rate, for the 
 glorified Christ {RavennatiscJie Studien, pp. 120 ff.). 
 
 P. III. The '■Paradiso ' of Tintoretto. — I have often been questioned 
 as to this final illustration of my thesis. It was chosen not in the 
 least because I personally feel any extraordinary admiration for this 
 colossal work, but because so well-balanced and well-constructed a 
 grouping of myriad figures around a central motive would, I believe, 
 have been impossible in Greek art, or in any art previous to the 
 introduction of the centralised principle of composition which first 
 appeared to stay in the art of the Roman Empire. 
 
 P. 114. Sepulchral Imagery. — In this connection my cordial thanks 
 are due to Professor Haverfield and the Editors of the Journal of 
 Roman Studies for allowing me to quote freely from articles con- 
 tributed by me to vol. i. and vol. v. of Xht. Journal (especially i., 'The 
 
282 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Exhibition illustrative of the Provinces of the Roman Empire, at the 
 Baths of Diocletian' ; and v., 'The Decorated Screen on a Relief from 
 Amiternum.' See above, pp. 177-180. 
 
 P. 122. Pillars at Taviiili in Sardinia. — I am indebted to Dr. 
 Ashby for calling my attention to these. 
 
 P. 129. The Spartan Reliefs. — In addition to the literature quoted 
 in the notes, see also Erich Kiister, Die Scklange in der Griechischen 
 Kunst und Religion., Giessen, 1913, pp. 76 ff. I regret that this 
 excellent monograph was not known to me before. It is the most 
 comprehensive treatise that has yet appeared on the beliefs attaching 
 to the snake in Greece, on the cult of the hero and the sepulchral 
 iconography pertaining thereto (see especially p. 78 for the ^%^ and 
 the cock ; p. 75 and p. 82 for the pomegranate). I also note with 
 interest that Kiister dismisses the old mythological explanation of the 
 Magoula basis {R.R., ii. 362), marked by the snakes on the narrow 
 sides as the stele of a 'hero,' and rightly surmises that the scenes of 
 the two principal faces refer to events now unknown in the life of the 
 occupant of the tomb. 
 
 P. 141. Vergil and Orpheus. — -See on this important point 
 Diitschke, op. cit, p. 185. 
 
 P. 1 54. The Sirens as token of the SouPs Survival. — The Sirens, 
 as later the Muses which so often appear on Roman sarcophagi, are 
 possibly placed on the tomb to ensure to the dead participation in the 
 'minstrelsy' which Pindar reckons among the joys that await the 
 Blessed (above, p. 140). In the case of the Roman sarcophagi of the 
 second century A.D. with figures of Muses, Diitschke {Ravennatische 
 Studie?t, 1909, p. 185) shows the absurdity of continuing to explain 
 the presence of the Muses by reference to the learned or musical 
 attainments of the dead. 
 
 P. 197. Orphic Symbolism. — See also Diitschke, op. cit., pp. 179 iif., 
 pp. 185 ff. I would ask those who think I go too far in attributing 
 mystic or symbolic meanings to the imagery of the Roman tombs to 
 read Diitschke's learned and eloquent pages. I deeply regret that 
 his book was not known to me when I prepared or revised the 
 lectures. 
 
ADDENDA 283 
 
 Pp. 201, 207. The Diosatri in Sepiclchral Imagery. — For the 
 original connection of the Dioscuri with the underworld see now 
 Kiister, op. cit, pp. jy ff. 
 
 P. [213 and p. 277, note 47. To7nb of Trebius Justus. — These 
 interesting paintings, unique of their kind, are rapidly becoming 
 celebrated ; see O. Wulff, Altchristliche Kimst, 1914, i. p. 69 and fig. 
 71 ; C. M. Kaufmann, Handbicch der Christlichen Archdologie, 1913, 
 pp. 427 fif. and figs. 164, 165. 
 
 P. 215. Marine monsters as mystic escort of the dead. — Cf. Diitschke, 
 op. cit., p. 181. 
 
 P. 222 and plate xxviii. Owing to an error due to the present 
 difficulties of postal communication, the relief of Selene in the British 
 Museum (Cat. 2166) has been substituted on plate xxviii. i for a sepul- 
 chral relief of the same type as the one reproduced on plate xxviii. 2. 
 The monument is votive, and therefore does not fall within the 
 category of sepulchral reliefs described in the text ; it has, moreover, 
 been published by M. Delatte in the Musce Beige., 19135 PP- 321-337. 
 Yet in view of its charm and interest I let it stand here. The back- 
 ground with the seven planets and the crescent moon recalls the 
 stellated canopy of the relief at Amiternum (above, p. 177), while the 
 frame adorned with the signs of the Zodiac is very familiar in Mithraic 
 altar-pieces (above, p. 188) and in the whole religious and sepulchral 
 imagery of the period (above, p. 226 ; p. 228). 
 
 The sepulchral relief from the urn of Cossutia Prima, plate xxviii. 2 
 (i?.i?., ii. 671, ^=Brit. Mus. Cat. Sc. 2364), exhibits an interesting 
 imagery (pine-tree, eagle, snake, and eagle holding in his beak the 
 butterfly as symbol of the soul ; on the front face, Eros driving a 
 quadriga, and on the pilasters vine branches springing from vases, in 
 addition to a rich and delicate ornamentation which points to the 
 Flavian period). 
 
 P. 224. Ah dolor I ibat Hylas.,ibat Enhydryasin. — Propertius, I. xx. 
 22. {Corpus Poetarum Latinorum., ed. J. P. Postgate.) 
 
 Pp. 278, 279, notes 57 and 68. I regret that these and certain 
 other notes must remain incomplete. But I, in common with many 
 others in Rome this year, labour under the great disadvantage of 
 
284 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 having no adequately equipped archaeological library, now that we 
 are cut off by political circumstances from the great library on the 
 Monte Tarpeo, for so many years the hospitable centre of our studies. 
 No city perhaps is so rich as Rome in libraries and in books bearing 
 on art and archaeology, but much has to be done in the way of 
 co-ordination — a work, I may note, which has been undertaken by 
 Commendatore C. Ricci in the library which he has begun to 
 organise in connection with the Ministry of Fine Arts. Meanwhile 
 the difficulties of hunting up and finding books are great ; and even 
 in preparing notes of so modest a compass as the present I was often 
 baffled in my researches, nor could I always verify the references 
 I had taken down in England. I am once more reminded of my 
 debt to Miss Hutton, who with her well-known and often-tried 
 liberality has made herself responsible for so much beside the weari- 
 some bringing together of the illustrations. 
 
 Note to Plate II. — The Brescia medallion is now dated by C. 
 Albizzati {R.M. 1914, xxix., pp. 247 ff. and fig. 3) in the second quarter 
 of the third century A.D., by analogy with the portraiture of the period. 
 For the women cp. Julia Domna, Julia Mamaea, Otacilia, etc. ; for the 
 boy, Gordian ill., Philippus Junior^ etc. The proposed dating is 
 confirmed by the lettering of the inscription. 
 
INDEX 
 
 ADAMKLISSI, monument of, 171. 
 
 Adventus Augusti, 109. 
 
 AEGINA, temple of Aphaia at, 41, 
 
 44. 
 Aefernitas, 88. 
 Ahenobarbus, Gn. Domitius, basis of, 
 
 58. 
 Aion (Spirit of Eternity), 89. 
 
 Alcantara, bridge of, 25. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 56 ; ascension 
 of, 107. 
 
 Alexandria, stelae from, 158. 
 
 Alxenor of Naxos, stele by, 159. 
 
 AMITERNUM, relief from, 175, 179. 
 
 Amulets, 163, 164. 
 
 ANCYRA, temple at, 71. 
 
 Antiochus of Commagene, 87. 
 
 Antistius, funeral slab of, 184. 
 
 AOSTA, ivory diptych, 104. 
 
 APAMEA. See Frikya. 
 
 Aphrodite, 177. 
 
 Apollo, 177. 
 
 Apollo-Mithras, 87. 
 
 ' ApoUos.' See Kouroi. 
 
 Apollodorus, 28. 
 
 Apotheosis: of Alexander, 108; of 
 Heracles, 147, 226 ; Imperial, 30, 
 61, 65 ; of Julius Caesar, 67 ; of 
 Sabina, 88 ; of Antoninus and 
 Faustina, 89 ; of Marcus Aurelius, 
 90 ; of Constantius Chlorus, 227. 
 
 AQUILEIA, silver disc from, 82, 106. 
 
 Ara Pads Augustae, 59. 
 
 Arcadius, 105. 
 
 Arch : of Constantine, 33 ff. ; of Titus, 
 83 ; of Galerius, 99. 
 
 Archermos, Nike of, 41. 
 Architecture : American, 27 ; Roman, 
 
 Aristocles, stele by, 133. 
 
 ARLES, S. Trophime, 36, 149. 
 Museum : stele, 216. 
 
 ARLON (Museum), tombstones, 201, 
 220. 
 
 Art : Alexandrian, 7 ; Antiochene, 7 ; 
 Byzantine, 4 ; Christian, 33, 38, 
 60 (see also Mediaeval) ; Etruscan 
 (see Italic) ; Etrusco-Roman, 65 ; 
 Greek, 38, 39-58; Hellenistic, 11, 
 56-60 ; Italic, 1 1 ; Latin (see Italic) ; 
 Mediaeval, 50, 60 (see also Chris- 
 tian) ; Pergamene, 7, 9, 57 ; 
 Seleucid, 7. 
 
 Artemis, 177. 
 
 Ashby, Dr. T,, 212, 218. 
 
 Athens : 
 
 Acropolis : archaic temples on, 42. 
 
 Ceramicus: stele of Dexileos, loi, 
 133 ; stele of Hegeso, 133 ; stele of 
 Pamphile and Demetria, 136. 
 
 Dipylon : graves, 137. 
 
 National Museum : stelae : by Aris- 
 tocles, 133; by Alxenor, 159; 
 from Chrysapha, 131, 135 ; from 
 Peiraeus, 135; from Thebes, 159; 
 from wall of Themistocles, 135 ; 
 of Eutamia, 135; of Lyseas, 134; 
 of Telesias, 133. — Relief from 
 Eleusis, 54. 
 Attis, 195 ; fruit of pine tree sacred to, 
 
 195- 
 Attis-Men, 177. 
 
286 
 
 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Augustus, 6, 7, 13 ; deified on Grand 
 Camee de France, 69, 70 ; and 
 Lares, altar in Florence, 80 ; and 
 Roma enthroned, 71. 
 
 Aurelian, 13, 213. 
 
 Babylon, temple of Marduk at, 
 168. 
 
 Baptism (of Achilles), 225. 
 
 Barberini ivory, the, 18, loi. 
 
 Basilica Nova, 25, 28. 
 
 Baths : of Caracalla, lo, 25 ; of Dio- 
 cletian, 10. 
 
 Bell, Miss G. Lowthian, quoted, 8 ff. 
 
 Benevento, arch of Trajan at, 85, 93, 
 98. 
 
 BERLIN : 
 Royal Museum : stelae : from 
 Chrysapha, 41, 130; of Metro- 
 doros, 154. 
 Antiquarium : sepulchral stone from 
 Sardis, 122; cylix v^^ith Selene 
 sinking, 38. 
 Kaiser Friedrich Museum : ivory 
 with coronation of Leo vi., 102. 
 
 Blessed : banquet of the, 146 ; joys of 
 the, 129; Isles of the, 135, 186, 
 192, 215. 
 
 Blussus, stele of, 217. 
 
 Boatmen, stelae of, 216-218. 
 
 Boeotia, cult of dead in, 159, 
 
 Boni, Comm. Giacomo, 120. 
 
 BORSIPPA, temple of Nebo at, 168. 
 
 Boscoreale, cups from, 73. 
 
 Boston (Museum), Boston throne, 
 150; Attic lekythos, 138. 
 
 Brescia (Museum), portrait (on 
 glass) of Imperial lady and her 
 children, 29. 
 
 British Museum: bronze phalera 
 from Elis, 38, 229 ; ivory with Apo- 
 theosis, 179 ; Parthenon, pediments 
 of, 47 ; frieze of, 54 ; Harpy tomb, 
 148, 149, 157,159; Nereid monu- 
 ment, 153, 219; sculptures of 
 Mausoleum, 219 ; Lycian stele, 150; 
 steleof Xanthippos, 133 ; tombs of 
 
 Merehiand Payava, 152, 223 ; from 
 acropolis of Xanthos, 151 ; sarco- 
 phagi from Clazomenae, 145, 154; 
 medallion portraits : of Antistius 
 and Antistia, 184 ; of Flavian 
 period, 185; Selene relief from 
 Argos, 283. 
 
 Bud A-PEST, sarcophagus from Aquin- 
 cum, 202 ; stele of Nertus, 215. 
 
 Bull, Mithraic, 188 ff. 
 
 Caesar, Julius, Apotheosis of, 61, 
 
 67 ; divine honours rendered to, 64. 
 Cameos : with Apotheosis, 67 ; Grand 
 
 Camee de France, 68, 89 ; Gemma 
 
 Angus tea, 71. 
 Campus Martins on Antonine basis, 
 
 89. 
 Canopy, starred, 177. 
 Capanne, 163. 
 Capricorn, sign of, 72. 
 
 Capua, i6i. 
 
 CarNUNTUM : stele of Marcus An- 
 
 tonius Basilides at, 217; Mithraic 
 
 stele at, 228. 
 CERVETRI, Tomba Regolini-Galassi, 
 
 165. 
 CHALCIS (Museum), pediment from 
 
 temple of Apollo at Eretria, 46. 
 Chariot : of Elijah, 126, 147, 227 ; of 
 
 Sun, 64, 91, 168, 226 ; of Heracles, 
 
 226 ; of trinmphator, 64, 168 ; 
 
 transit of the soul in, 126. 
 Chartres (Cathedral), tympanum 
 
 of, 36, 106. 
 
 Chateau Gaillard, 8. 
 
 CHATSWORTH, stele of Herennia 
 Syrisca, 160. 
 
 Chicago, station of, 27. 
 
 Choisy, A., quoted, 10. 
 
 Christ : on the Barberini ivory, loi ; on 
 the tympanum of Chartres, 36, 
 106; on a sarcophagus at Verona, 
 100. 
 
 Christianity, 205. 
 
 Chrysapha, stelae from, 41, 129- 
 131. 135- 
 
INDEX 
 
 287 
 
 Cicero, shrines offered to, 63 ; ' Dream 
 
 of Scipio,' 62, 178, 204. 
 CiVITA CASTELLANA, temple of 
 
 Apollo at, 77. 
 Claudius, 22 ; on Julio-Claudian relief, 
 
 79- 
 
 CLAZOMENAE, sarcophagi from, 145, 
 
 154- 
 Columbarium : of Pomponius Hylas, 
 
 211 ; at Villa Pamphili, 21 1. 
 Columns : of Antoninus and Faustina, 
 
 89 ; of Marcus Aurelius, 90 ; of 
 
 Nero at Mayence (see Jupiter) ; of 
 
 Trajan, 23, 85. 
 Communion, Mithraic, 189, 222. 
 Congiarium, on arch of Constantine, 
 
 35> 104. 
 Constantine, arch of, 85 ; period of, 109. 
 
 Constantinople, basis of Theo- 
 
 dosius at, 104 ; Santa Sophia, 10, 
 
 109. 
 Museum : frieze from temple of 
 
 Lagina, 57; sarcophagi f rom Sidon: 
 
 of Alexander, 49, 55 ; of mourning 
 
 women, 151 ; of the Satrap, 154; 
 
 stelae: from Saloniki, 160; from 
 
 Thasos, 157. 
 Corfu, pediment from temple at, 40, 
 
 280. 
 Corona: civica, 185; immortalis, 185; 
 
 triumphalis, 183, 228. 
 Crusades, influence of, on art, 8. 
 Cumont, Franz, quoted, 4, 61, 1S2, 188, 
 
 192. 
 Cybele, 105, 146. 
 Cyprus (Nicosia), silver plate, 107. 
 
 Dalton, O. M., quoted, 107. 
 
 Dante, and Imperial Idea, 2. 
 
 Death, an initiation, 198 ; as hiero- 
 
 gamy, 202. 
 Defensor Fidei, 17. 
 Delia Seta, Alessandro, quoted, 30, 31, 
 
 32, 88, 105, III. 
 Delphi, treasury of Cnidians, 43. 
 Diocletian : period of, 13 ; on basis in 
 
 Forum, 94 ; on lead medallion. 
 
 96 ; commemorated on arch of 
 Constantine, 34 ; portrait of, 187. 
 
 Dionysus, 54, 177, 200. 
 
 Discs : of Theodosius, 105 ; Valen- 
 tinian, 103 ; Justinian, 108. 
 
 Domitian on relief in Louvre, 84. 
 
 Domus Flavia (Palatine), 7, 280. 
 
 Diirer, Albert, Sudarium by, 52. 
 
 Elagabal, 93, 
 
 Elijah, 126, 147, 227. 
 
 ELIS, phalera from, 38, 229. 
 
 Empire, Rome's ideal of, 17. 
 
 Engelmann, R., 212. 
 
 Ennius, 62. 
 
 EPHESUS, relief with Apotheosis of 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 90. 
 Epikteta, testament of, 158. 
 ERETRIA, temple of Apollo at, 46. 
 Esperandieu, Comm. Emile, 114. 
 Esquiline, fresco from, 168. 
 ETON College, Topham collection 
 
 of drawings at, 212. 
 Eurydice, 198. 
 Evans, Sir Arthur, quoted, 117, 128. 
 
 FALERI VETERES. See Civita 
 
 Castellana. 
 Fire, purifying force of, 192, 194, 199. 
 Flamininus, 63. 
 Florence, Uffizi, altar of Augustus 
 
 and Lares, 80. 
 Frazer, Sir J. G., quoted, 194, 227, 
 FRIKYA, tomb at, 182. 
 Frontality, 31, 36. 
 Frothingham, A. L,, quoted, 32, 94. 
 Furniture of tomb, 126. 
 Furtwangler, Adolf, quoted, 43. 
 
 Galerius, arch of, 99. 
 
 Ganymede, 187, 229. 
 
 GARD, Pont du, 25. 
 
 Gardner, Prof. P. G., quoted, 53, 134. 
 
 Gegenkaiser, the, lOO. 
 
 Geneva, silver disc of Valentinian at, 
 
 103. 
 Ghost, 116, 117, 122. 
 
288 
 
 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 GlESSEN, papyrus of, 91. 
 GJOLBASCHI-TRYSA, Heroon at, 
 
 152, 208. 
 Gorgon, on pediment at Corfu, 40. 
 GRADO, stele of boy at, 187. 
 Grave reliefs. See Stelae. 
 GRAZ (Museum), medallion portrait 
 
 of centurion, 183 ; of man and 
 
 wife, 183. 
 GROTTAFERRATA, Greek stele at, 
 
 136. 
 
 Hadrian, Emperor, 28, 88, 112, 205. 
 
 HAGHIA TRIADA, sarcophagus from, 
 119, 120, 125, 148, 165, 167, 228. 
 
 HALICARNASSUS, Mausoleum of, 
 115, 219. 
 
 Harpy tomb, 148, 157, 159. 
 
 Helena, portrait of, 24. 
 
 Helios on phalera in British Museum, 
 38, 108. See also Sun. 
 
 Hellenism, fate of, in Rome, 13. 
 
 Heracles, Apotheosis of, 156, 226. 
 
 'iri.exm.&s psyc/ioj>o?>ipos, 186, 215. 
 
 HIERAPOLIS, 182. 
 
 Hierogamy, 202, 209. 
 
 Hogarth, D. G., quoted, 13, 155. 
 
 Holbein, 184. 
 
 Homer, 155, 161; conception of under- 
 world, 132. 
 
 Homeric poems, influence of, 132, 139. 
 
 Honorius, on ivory diptych, 104 ; on 
 silver disc at Madrid, 105. 
 
 Horace, quoted, 70, 76, 77, 86, 204. 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, quoted, 141. 
 
 Hylas, rape of, 224. 
 
 Iamblichus, quoted, 194. 
 
 Igel, tomb at, 144, 222 fif. 
 
 Immortality, 139, 181, 187, 198, 211. 
 
 Incineration, 125. 
 
 Inhumation, 125. 
 
 Ionia, 151, 155, 157. 
 
 Isles of the Blest, 186, 215. 
 
 Judaic monotheism, loo. 
 Julia Domna, 80, 92. 
 
 Julian, 227. 
 
 Juno on column of Mayence, 81. 
 
 Jupiter, 64, 74, 78, 82, 85, 93; mono- 
 theism latent in, 79, 86, 1 10; 
 column of, at Mayence, 81 ; * and 
 Giant columns,' 86 ; abdication 
 of, to emperor, 85; supplanted by 
 Elagabal, 93. 
 
 Justinian, 109. 
 
 Kers [Keres], 145, 173. 
 KLAGENFURT (Museum), medallion 
 
 portrait of man and wife, 184. 
 Koiiroi, 123. 
 
 LAGINA, temple of Hecate at, 57. 
 Lamb of God, on early mosaics, 98. 
 Lang, Andrew, quoted, 140. 
 Lares, cult of, 66, 80; on column of 
 
 Mayence, 81. 
 Latium, art of, 11. See under Art. 
 Livia, enthroned, on Grand Camee, 69; 
 
 on altar of Lares, 80. 
 Livingstone, R. W. , quoted, 19. 
 London. See British Museum. 
 Ludovisi throne, 37, 53, 149. 
 LUNI, pediments from, at Florence, 
 
 78. 
 Lycian tombs, 150 ff. 
 
 Macedonia, cult of dead in, 159. 
 
 Mackail, J. W., quoted, 21, 24. 
 
 Madrid, silver disc at, 105. 
 
 Magna Mater, 190. 
 
 Maiestas, Christian, 17, 32, 36, 79, III. 
 
 Mandorla, 36. 
 
 Manes, altar to, 185. 
 
 Mantle, starred, 177. 
 
 Marcellus, deified, 69. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 34 ; column of, 89. 
 
 Marduk, temple of, 168. 
 
 MAROS NEMETI, sepulchral monu- 
 ment, 192. 
 
 Marriage of David, on silver plate at 
 Nicosia, 107. 
 
 Marriage, sacred, death as. See Hiero- 
 gamy. 
 
INDEX 
 
 289 
 
 Mars, 74, 95, 97 ; on basis in temple 
 
 of Neptune, 58. 
 Mars Ultor, temple of, 78. 
 MAYENCE (Mainz) : 
 
 Museum: column of Jupiter, 61, 81 ; 
 
 stele of Blussus, 217 ; stele with 
 
 family repast, 220 ; sepulchral 
 
 aedicula, 201. 
 Picture of, on lead medallion, 97. 
 Medallions : of Valens and Valentinian, 
 
 103 ; of Justinian, 109 ; of city of 
 
 Mayence, 96. 
 Melkarth, 227. 
 Mithraic banquet, 189, 22 1 ; bull, 1 88 ff. , 
 
 193- 
 Mithraism, 187-197. 
 Mithras : wears cosmic mantle, 177 ; 
 
 ascension of, 189; cults of, 113; 
 
 on Diocletianic basis, 95. 
 Moguntiacuni. See Mayence. 
 Monolatric principle in art, 32, 41, 98. 
 Monotheism, Judaic, 100 ; in Jupiter, 
 
 79, 86, 1 10 ; in Zeus, 51. 
 MONTELEONE, chariot of, 167. 
 Moon, cult of, 177, 178 ; on column of 
 
 Mayence, 81. 
 Moselle (river), 216. 
 Mundtfs (Palatine), 120, 163. 
 MUNICH : 
 Gljrptothek : sculptures from temple 
 
 at Aegina, 44. 
 Antiquarium: pelike with Apotheosis 
 
 of Heracles, 156. 
 Murray, Prof. Gilbert, quoted, 21, 51, 
 
 155- 
 Museums. See undernames of different 
 
 localities. 
 Mycenae, tombs on Acropolis of, 
 
 128, 166. 
 Myres, Prof. J. L., 144. 
 
 Naples (Museum), vase with sacri- 
 fice to Dionysus, 54. 
 
 Nativity of Aphrodite, 37, 53, 150. 
 
 Nebo, temple of, 168. 
 
 NEMRUD DAGH, tomb of Antiochus 
 of Commagene, on the, 87. 
 
 Neolithic peoples, 12. 
 Nereids, Monument of, 219. 
 Nero, on column of Mayence, Si. 
 New York : Pennsylvania station, 
 
 27 ; Grand Central station, 27. 
 Metropolitan Museum : chariot 
 
 of Monteleone, 147 ; plate from 
 
 Cyprus, 107 ; sarcophagus from 
 
 Golgoi, 144. 
 Nola, 161. 
 Nicnun Augusti, 74. 
 
 Oak-wreaths, 185. 
 
 Oikoumene, the, on Gemma Augustea, 
 
 72. 
 OLYMPIA, temple of Zeus at, 41, 
 
 46 ; Apollo of W. pediment, 47. 
 Olympian religion, character of, ^o- 
 Orbis Romanus, 81. 
 ' Orient or Rome,' cry of, 4. 
 Ormuzd, bull of, 188. 
 Orpheus, 198. 
 
 Orphic doctrines, 1 13, 139, 141, 180, 197. 
 Orphism. See Orphie Doctrines. 
 
 Paintings of Roman tombs, 205-213. 
 
 PALESTRINA. See Praeneste. 
 
 Palestine, Flavian conquest of, 7. 
 
 Pan-Orientalists, 4. 
 
 Pantheon, 12; dome of, 25; the 
 Olympian, 50, no, 
 
 Paris : 
 Cabinet des Medailles : cameo with 
 Apotheosis of Julio- Claudian 
 prince, 67 ; Grand Camee de 
 France, 68 ; diptych with Christ, 
 Romanus and Eudocia, X02 ; lead 
 medallion of city of Mayence, 96 ; 
 of Justinian (stolen), p. 250, n. 102. 
 Louvre : basis of Gn. Domitius 
 Ahenobarbus, 58 ; Flavian relief 
 with sacrificial scene, 84 ; stele of 
 Sosinos, 133 ; portrait of Helena, 
 24 ; the Barberini ivory, 18, loi ; 
 cylix from Gyrene, 146. 
 Rothschild Collection : cups from 
 Boscoreale, 73. 
 
290 
 
 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 Parthenon, pediments of, 47 ; frieze of, 
 
 54. 
 
 Pater, W., quoted, 117. 
 
 Pax on column of Mayence, 81. 
 
 Pediment, arcuated, 105, 106. 
 
 PETROGRAD, silver disc at, 108. 
 
 Pheidias, 48. 
 
 Pillar cult, 117. 
 
 Pindar, quoted, 129, 140. 
 
 Pisistratus, 132, 161. 
 
 Plato, quoted, 139. 
 
 Pliny, quoted, 204. 
 
 Plutarch, quoted, 198. 
 
 Polygnotos, 156. 
 
 Pompey, 7, 63. 
 
 Portraits : 'Aesop ' of Villa Albani, 24 ; 
 Flavian, 24 ; Antonine, 24 ; of 
 Helena, 24 ; late Imperial, 28. 
 
 Portraiture, early Roman (sepulchral), 
 
 77. 
 Posidonius of Apamea, 63, 175. 
 PRAENESTE, cemetery at, 196. 
 Prudentius, quoted, 214. 
 Pythagoras, 139, 155, 174. 
 
 Rabirius, 28. 
 
 Rapes (of Proserpina, etc.), 203, 209, 
 
 211, 224. 
 Raphael, Madonna di S. Sisto, 52. 
 Rss gestae in art, 30, 99, iii, 192, 
 
 223. 
 jReve7iant, 116, 117. 
 Rhea Silvia, 202, 224. 
 Rheims, Beau Dieu of, 51. 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, 8. 
 Richmond : Cook Collection, stele 
 
 of Archippos, 158. 
 Riegl, Dr. Alois, quoted, 94, 99. 
 Rivoira, G. T., 10. 
 Roma, the goddess, 7l> 95- 
 Romans, as foil to Greeks, 19. 
 ROME: 
 Arches :ofConstantine, 33; of Titus, 
 
 83. 
 Basilicas : of Junius Bassus, ofus 
 sectile from, 107 ; Basilica Nova, 
 25, 28. 
 
 Bridges : Pons Milvius, 9 ; Ponte di 
 
 Nona, 9. 
 Forum : Anaglypha Traiani, 99 ; 
 
 Diocletianic basis with relief to 
 
 Mithras, 95 ; Sepolcreto, 163. 
 Collections : 
 
 Villa Albani : portrait of ' Ae- 
 sop,' 24. 
 
 Palazzo Barberini : sarcopha- 
 gus w^ith Apotheosis, 228. 
 
 MusEO Barracco : portrait of 
 child, 173. 
 
 Capitoline Museum : tomb- 
 stone of Rupilii, 170. 
 
 CoNSERVATORi MusEUM : fresco 
 from Esquiline, 168. 
 
 Palazzo del Drago : opus sec- 
 tile, 107. 
 
 Villa Giulia : Etruscan sarco- 
 phagus, 172; contents of Falis- 
 can tombs, 163 ff. 
 
 Lateran : relief of ' Medea and 
 Daughters of Pelias,' 54. 
 
 Villa Medici : relief with temple 
 of Mars Ultor, 78. 
 
 Palazzo Sacchetti : relief of 
 period of Severus, 92. 
 
 Terme Museum : Ara Pads, 59 ; 
 Ludovisi throne, 37, 53, 149 ; 
 sarcophagus of boy, 172. 
 
 ToRLONiA Museum: relief of 
 ' Theseus, Heracles and Peiri- 
 thoos,' 54. 
 
 Vatican (Galleria Lapidaria) : 
 tombstone of L. Cornelius 
 Atimetus, 173. 
 
 (Giardino della Pigna): basis 
 
 of Antoninus and Faustina, 
 89. 
 
 — — (Braccio Nuovo) : Augustus 
 from Prima Porta, 173. 
 
 (Belvedere) : sarcophagus of 
 
 L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatns, 
 169 ; altar with Apotheosis of 
 Caesar, 66. 
 
 (Galleria delle Statue) : stele 
 
 of athlete, 133. 
 
INDEX 
 
 291 
 
 Vatican (Rotonda) : Genius of 
 Augustus, 70. 
 
 (Museo Gregoriano) : Tomba 
 
 Regolini-Galassi, 165. 
 
 Temples : of Jupiter Capitolinus, 
 78; ofMarsUltor, 78; of Neptune, 
 58; Pantheon, 12, 25; of Vesta, 
 12. 
 
 Tombs : near Acqua Acetosa, 206 ; 
 of the baker Eurysaces, 173 ; of 
 'Arruntii' and 'Pancratii' on 
 Latin Way, 206, 207 ; of Nasonii, 
 210 ; of P. Vibius Marianus, 
 213; of Trebius Justus, 213; 
 of Pomponius Hylas, 211 ; at 
 Villa Pamphili, 211; Pyramid of 
 Cestius, 211 ; near S. Gregorio, 
 210; near S. Sebastiano, 212; in 
 Vigna Nardi, 212 ; in Vigna of 
 Trappists, 212 ; of the Scipiones 
 on Via Appia, 169. 
 
 Velabrum : Gate of Silversmiths, 
 92. 
 
 SaBAZIUS, 200. 
 
 Salian priest, 185. 
 
 SALONIKI, arch of Galerius at, 
 
 99- 
 Sarcophagi : from Clazomenae, 
 
 145; from Golgoi, 144 ff.; from 
 
 Haghia Triada, 119, 148, 165, 
 
 228 ; Etruscan, at Villa Giulia, 
 
 172 ; Phoenician, 161 ; of L. 
 
 Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, 169. 
 From Sidon in Constantinople : 
 
 of Alexander, 49; of the Mourners, 
 
 151 ; of the Satrap, 154. 
 Christian, at Verona, 100. 
 Sardis, sepulchral stone from, 122. 
 Scorpion, sign of the Zodiac, 72. 
 Secundinii, tomb of (see also Igel), 
 
 222. 
 Selene, on relief from Ephesus, 90 ; 
 
 on relief from Argos, 280 ; on 
 
 cylix in Berlin, 38, 108. 
 Selinos, temple at, 40. 
 Sepolcrelo in Roman Forum, 163. 
 
 Septimius Severus, on Gate of Silver- 
 smiths, 80, 92 ; on Sacchetti re- 
 lief, 92. 
 
 Sepulchral Imagery: 
 
 {a) Symbolic Objects and Animals : 
 amphorae, 221 ; birds, 222 ; blos- 
 soms, 169 ; boar, winged, 210 ; 
 boat, 137, 216; bull, 136, 193; 
 cock, 131, 145, 214, 215; dolphins, 
 229, 230; dog, 136, 145; eagle, 183, 
 189 ; egg, 131 , 1 72, 21 1 ; foliage, 222; 
 four elements, 188 ; Gorgoneion, 
 183, 224 ; grapes, 199 ; griffin, 151, 
 209, 213, 221 ; horse, 135 ; horse, 
 winged, 69 ; kantharos, 221 ; lion, 
 146, 192, 193 ; lion and bull, 
 151, 192-195 ; Medusa head (see 
 Gorgoneion) ; pine-cone, 193, 196; 
 pomegranate, 131 ; rosette, 169, 
 185 ; sea monsters, 216; Seasons, 
 201, 228; Siren, 115, 146, 150- 
 154 ; snake, 130, 193 ; vannus, 
 209 ; winds, 192, 226, 229; wreath, 
 186. 
 
 {b) Figures : Aeneas, 202 ; Attis, 
 195; Bacchic figures, 199, 210; 
 Dioscuri, 209 ; Eris, 192 ; Gany- 
 mede, 229 ; genii, 209 ; Maenads, 
 199 ; Nereids, 186, 207 ; putti, 
 230; Orpheus, 198, 211; triton, 
 192, 216. 
 
 (c) Symbolic Myths : Admetus and 
 Alcestis, 257 ; Hector, ransoming 
 of, 208 ; Heracles, apotheosis of, 
 207, 226 ; Labours of, 201 ; Hylas, 
 rape of, 224 ; Perseus and An- 
 dromeda, 224 ; Perseus with head 
 of Gorgon, 144 ; Pluto and Proser- 
 pina, 199 ; Orpheus and Eurydice, 
 198 ; Rhea Silvia and Mars, 202, 
 224 ; Thetis and Achilles, 225. 
 
 (,d) Symbolic Scenes: banquet, 126, 
 146; baptism, 225; chariot racing, 
 126 ; hunting, 126 ; Judgment 
 scenes, 207 ; revelling, 126 ; vtr 
 sacrum, 210. 
 SERAJEVO, Mithraic altar-piece, 189. 
 
292 
 
 APOTHEOSIS AND AFTER LIFE 
 
 She'ol, the Hebrew, 162. 
 
 Sky scrapers, 27. 
 
 Sol. See Sun. 
 
 Santa Sophia, Constantinople, 10, 
 109. 
 
 Soul, Ransom of, 208. 
 
 SpALATO, Mausoleum of Diocletian 
 at, 186. 
 
 Statues : Augustus from Prima Porta, 
 173 ; Augustus from Via Labicana, 
 22 ; Beau Dieu of Rheims, 51 ; 
 Demeter of Cnidos, 51 ; Genius of 
 Augustus, 70 ; Hermes of Olym- 
 pia, 51 ; Zeus of Olympia, 51. 
 
 Stelae : Alexandrian, 158 ; Asia 
 Minor, 143 ; Attic, 131-142 ; Boe- 
 otian, 159; Macedonian, 159; 
 Mycenaean, 135 ; Peloponnesian, 
 129-131 ; Roman, 191-201, 214- 
 222; Thessalian, 159; of Archip- 
 pos, 158; of Blussus, 217; from 
 Chios, 153 ; of Demetria and 
 Pamphile, 136; of Eutamia, 135; of 
 Herennia Syrisca, 160 ; of Lyseas, 
 134; of Metrodoros, 154; of 
 Nertus, 215 ; from Orchomenos, 
 
 159- 
 
 Strzygowski, Josef, quoted, 4. 
 
 Stuccoes of Roman tombs, 205-213. 
 
 Sun, capitulation of, to emperor, 91 ; 
 chariot of, 64; guides imperial 
 chariot, 91 ; encounter with 
 Mithras, 189 ; on column of 
 Mayence, 81 ; on Igel monument, 
 229. 
 
 Tamuli (Sardinia), 122. 
 
 TARENTUM, 161. 
 
 TELAMON, pediments of, at Florence, 
 78. 
 
 Tellus. See Terra Mater. 
 
 Temples : of Ancyra, 71 ; archaic, on 
 Acropolis of Athens, 42 ; round, 
 12; of Selinos, 40; of Sibyl at 
 Tivoli, 12. See also under 
 Rome. 
 
 Terra Mater on the Gemma Augiistea, 
 
 72 ; on silver dish in Vienna, 
 
 82 ; on disc in Madrid, 105 ; on 
 
 column of Mayence, 81. 
 THASOS, relief from, at Constan- 
 tinople, 157. 
 Theodosius : with his sons on silver 
 
 disc at Madrid, 105 ; basis of, at 
 
 Constantinople, 104. 
 Thermae. See Baths. 
 Thessaly, cult of dead in, 159. 
 Tiberius, enthroned, on Grand Camee, 
 
 68, 71. 
 Tintoretto, ill, 281, 
 Titus, arch of, 83, 
 Toga picta, 64. 
 Tomb, at S. Remy, 223 ; of Tantalus, 
 
 195 ; of Trajan (see column of 
 
 Trajan). 
 Tombs : from Acropolis of Xanthos, 
 
 151 ; of the Nereids, 153. See 
 
 also under Rome. 
 Tombstones or gravestones. See Stelae. 
 Topham collection of drawings, 212. 
 Torch-bearers, Mithraic, 188. 
 Trajan, 7, 13, 23 ; column of, 23, 8$, 
 
 lis. 
 Treves (Trier), Museum: tombs: 
 
 of Albinius Asper and Restituta, 
 
 200; adorned with boats, 2x6; 
 
 reliefs from tombs : lady's toilet, 
 
 219; 'Rent-dayScene,' 219; family 
 
 repast, 220. 
 Triumphator, 64, 65, 69, 168. 
 Turin, steleof Mussius, 215. 
 Tyrtaeus, quoted, 124. 
 
 UKHAIDIR, palace of, 8. 
 
 Valentinian I. and Valens, 103. 
 VEII, Tomba Campana at, 166. 
 
 Venice : 
 
 San Marco : Ascension of Alex- 
 ander, 107; 'Tetrarchy,' 28, 
 
 94- 
 Palazzo Ducale : Assumption of 
 Tintoretto, iii. 
 Vergil, 20, 73, 74, 76, 198. 
 
INDEX 
 
 293 
 
 Verona, testament of Epikteta, 158; 
 Christian sarcophagus, 100. 
 
 Verres, 64. 
 
 Vienna : cameo with Augustus and 
 Roma {Gemma Augustea), 71 ; 
 medallion with Valentinian and 
 Valens, 103 ; relief from Ephesus, 
 90 ; silver dish from Aquileia, 
 82, 106 ; stele from Klausenburg, 
 195- 
 
 WALBERSDORF, stele of Tiberius 
 
 Julius, 191. 
 Warde- Fowler, W., quoted, 79, 86. 
 
 Washington (U.S.A.), Hall of 
 
 all the Americas, 27. 
 Wax images, 163. 
 Wickhoff, 83. 
 Wiesbaden, Mithraic altar-piece, 
 
 189. 
 
 XANTHOS, Nereid monument, 153 ; 
 
 tomb from Acropolis of, 1 5 1 ; Harpy 
 
 tomb from, 148. 
 Xenophanes, 155. 
 
 Zeus, monotheism latent in, 51. 
 Zodiac, 188, 284. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constablk, Printers to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press 
 
J'