Death and Mythology in the Arena: Sculpture from the Amphitheater at Capua
The amphitheater at Capua was built immediately following and modeled on the Colosseum at Rome. Its decoration is much better preserved, however, and represents the best evidence we have on the sculpture that decorated an amphitheater in the Roman world. Of the exterior decoration we have 16 busts and 5 freestanding statues all of mythological subjects that demonstrate the sculptural program of the façade. From the interior there are a number of fragmentary marble relief panels dating to the mid-second century carrying commemorative and mythological scenes. The commemorative scenes show a variety of events including sacrifices and multiple images of the pompa, the parade that initiated the events in a day of games. These all share the use of the amphitheater as architectural context for the events establishing them as occurring immediately outside its walls.
The other scenes are mythological and include mythological figures boar hunting, the punishment of Prometheus, and the flaying of Marsyas. The myths portrayed are consistent with what Kathleen Coleman called fatal charades; the hunt may be a themed venatio while the Prometheus and Marsyas reliefs are similar or identical to prisoner executions performed as mythological enactments known from literary sources such as Martial, Strabo, Tertullian and Ulpian.
These self-referential decorations are designed to reinforce the activities in the arena and the value systems behind them while enhancing the experience for spectators.
Vergil at Sperlonga: Interior Decoration, Imperial Ideology and Roman Literary Culture
This lecture starts with a brief survey of Roman domestic space and the reliance of its decoration on Roman literature. Wall paintings, mosaics, and sculpture all show evidence of a deliberate basis not just on Classical mythology, but on the versions of myths found in Roman literature. These are found particularly in Roman dining spaces where hosts projected a self-consciously intellectual and cultured identity.
From this foundation, we turn our attention to the dining grotto of the emperor Tiberius at Sperlonga. With its dramatic colossal sculpture groups of Scylla and the Cyclops Polyphemus as well as smaller groups, the grotto was one of the grandest and best-decorated dining spaces in the Roman world. This lecture explores the subjects of the sculptures, the meanings behind their selection and concludes that the major groups illustrate scenes from Vergil’s Aeneid, not Homer’s Odyssey as long thought. In addition, the groups demonstrate a reliance on Roman literature directly with the major sculptures of Polyphemus and Scylla selected for Vergil’s reference to them in a dining context in the Aeneid. The use of the works as metaphors for imperial politics and as the foundations for ideological display in the imperial world is also explored.
Return to previous page
