The stone fabric and encased form of the sarcophagus are often understood to reflect a deeply human desire for permanence in the face of death: a need to protect and
preserve the physical remains of the deceased. Across the Roman world, this natural desire to preserve the deceased did not stop with the physical body. The occasion of death was simultaneously a physical event, occasioning a series of bodily rituals and practices dealing with the new fact of a corpse and the bodily transition from life to death, as well as a psychological one.50 The psychological needs occasioned by death are
diverse and variable, but two prominent ones that are generally reconstructed for the Roman world are memory and mourning.51 Recent scholarship on Roman sarcophagi
has suggested their sculptural programs were responsive to these psychological needs on many levels.
Memory relies on cultural practices that shape and reinforce narratives of the past, and on the active work of individuals. In the case of sarcophagus burial, this active work could be undertaken by the bereaved of course, but also sometimes by the deceased
50 On the ‘physical’ see especially Graham 2011; Hope and Marshall 2000.
51 These are the dual themes for instance of a recent edited volume edited by Hope and Huskinson (2011) on
themselves, who often made plans for their own funerary rites and memorials.52
Sarcophagi were but one example of Roman funerary monuments that responded to the psychological need to memorialize and remember the dead. They functioned as tools that patrons could employ to promote themselves or their family and to protect their memory.53
This function of funerary monuments was enshrined in Roman law,54 and not
withstanding its legal status, had the force of custom both before and for a long time after its codification. According to Carroll, a Roman funerary monument was
understood as a “physical and visible transmitter of memory.”55 As such, we might view
sarcophagi as a ‘memory object’ and the practices these objects are embedded in as part of the ‘memory work’ that surrounds the occasion of death.56 The sculptural programs
that decorated sarcophagi are often read along these lines.
Indeed, Roman sarcophagi were overwhelmingly utilized as spaces for visually expressing identity and commemorating the deceased; for presenting ‘narratives of the self.’57 The sculptural programs that decorated Roman sarcophagi were created as
"visual statements of deceased individuals that used allegories to plot lives and personal
52 See Hope 2011, xvi.
53 Hope 2011, xv.
54 Ulpian, Digest 11.7.2.6: “…monument est, quod memoriae servandae gratia existat…”
55 Carroll 2006, 32.
56 On memory work, see Hope 2011, xv.
memories against mythological and other idealized narratives.”58 As we will see, even
ready-made sarcophagi, whose sculptural programs were largely or completely determined without a specific patron in mind, could convey self-narratives, albeit in formulaic and conventional ways. This function of sarcophagus sculpture as a medium for self-representation has become an almost unassailable interpretative approach in current scholarship.59 Narratives of self, status and identity predominate in the
epitaphs—which often recorded not only the name of the deceased but also official positions, occupations and family connections—and the sculpture alike. Seen in this light, the epitaphs and sculptural programs that decorate these stone monuments appear to be a natural complement to the desire to preserve the physical remains of a loved one: a means to preserve the identity and memory of the departed as well.
For many Romans, preserving the memory of themselves or their deceased was also an opportunity to display (and contest) social status—a form of social competition.60
According to Hope:
“In the Roman world memory could be an area for competition and debate. Deciding who or what would be remembered was an aspect of power, authority and prestige. Memory was about controlling the past, defining the present and planning for the future.”61
58 Birk 2013, 12.
59 See Blome 1978; Elsner and Huskinson 2011; Ewald 1999; 2011; Fittschen 1992; Wrede 2001; Zanker 2000;
Zanker and Ewald 2004; Zanker and Ewald 2012.
60 Graham 2011, 22.
The competitive aspect of memorialization has been most extensively studied in relation to imperial imagery. At this scale the politics of power inherent in monumental displays played out in a grand and very public way, both in the valorization of events and individuals and in their censure through erasure via damnatio memoriae and other means.62 But memorialization as a means of social competition also extended to sub-
elites across the Roman Mediterranean.63 Both the need for memorialization, and its
potential to reflect social competition were enshrined in Roman laws, which tended to “define the purpose of a memorial as a means of preserving memory and as a vehicle for representing the ‘wealth and dignity’ of an individual.”64
The social competition explicit or implicit in Roman practices of memorialization probably factored in the public nature of sarcophagi and other funerary monuments across much of the Roman world. As Zanker explains, Roman tombs were generally not located in tranquil and remote locations; rather, they were strategically placed on “heavily trafficked arterial roads” so that they could be “seen by as many passersby as possible.”65 The public nature of earlier freestanding funerary monuments in the Roman
West was often raised in epitaphs which hailed the passerby,66 and was characteristic
also of Greek sarcophagi which were self-contained funeral monuments installed on
62 As Hope (2011, xiv) puts it succinctly, “the art of forgetting illustrates the art of remembering.” On
‘erasure’ in antiquity, see Wharton 2000.
63 See, for example, D'Ambra 2002. On sub-elites and the middle class, see Öğüş 2014, 119-22.
64 Carroll 2006, 19.
65 Zanker 2016, 1.
routes to and from cities. The highly visible nature of funerary monuments was true not only of earlier family tombs and monuments located around the city of Rome, but also of the communal catacombs and family hypogea in which sarcophagi were deposited from the 2nd century C.E. on. These later necropoleis were strategically positioned on
major routes to and from the city, and often had prominent entrances and forecourts that must have attracted the eye of the passerby. In this context, the primary audience of Roman sarcophagi and other funerary monuments was the “people who saw the tombs daily and who understood and responded to the ‘language’ of the tombs and what it represented visually and ideologically.”67
Unlike earlier funerary monuments, most sarcophagi in the late Roman world were deposited underground, in catacombs and other subterranean chambers. However, based on the longstanding association between funerary monuments and
memorialization, it seems unlikely that their sculptural programs were primarily intended to please the deceased. They were meant to be seen, to be viewed by visitors, families and friends; their inscriptions were meant to be read.68 Almost all sculpted
sarcophagi across the Roman Mediterranean were carved on their outer faces,69 and,
moreover, they were often carved only on those sides that would have been visible to a tomb visitor. The positioning of the sculptural programs suggests that they were
67 Carroll 2006, 95.
68 See Toynbee 1971, 275.
69 It is extremely rare to find a sarcophagus with internal decorations, and then only in a few provinces. See
intended to announce the deceased to the viewer and to memorialize them; to assist the audience in the act of remembering the dead. The content and inscriptions, as we will see, confirm this. In this, sarcophagi continued the function of other, earlier funerary monuments in the Roman world.