El Mundo Físico
7.2 El Origen de las Especies
i) Greek precedents and the ideological basis for personification
The personification of abstract concepts such as provincia, whether through the idealised female or the captive male, was not a native practice at Rome. Indeed, the key catalyst for its uptake perhaps came only with the widespread institution of cults dedicated to Roma throughout the east from the beginning of the second century BC, transforming Roma from a mere geographical term into a personified deification of the collective Roman people.2 Subsequently Romans became enthusiastic purveyors of this form of expression, providing as it did a useful means of depicting the subjugated.3 Its origins, however, lay with the Greeks, who had embraced such concepts in both literature and the visual arts as early as the Archaic
1 Zanker, 1988:185; 187. 2
Concerning Roma, see esp. Mellor, 1981.
3 Note Ostrowski (1990a:566), who states that we should view personifications as ‘peoples’, as the Romans did, Simulacra Gentium or Nationes, rather than provinces. See also Ostenberg, 2009:229-230.
77 period.4 Fundamentally, personifications offered a medium with which to forge new and cohesive political identities,5 something perhaps to be remembered when considering its use for provincia. This being the case the rise of democracy at Athens and the years of her glory during the fifth century BC added impetus to the practice, with an increasing use of allegory to depict developing civic concepts and collective bodies, like Demokratia and the Demos,6 and of course, places and their populations. Subsequently, Athens’ ultimate defeat in the Peloponnesian War spread the practice further amongst her victorious enemies.7 Personifications initially remained largely indistinct, identification often dependent on the context of the scene or its explicit labelling, but such images became less ambiguous during the Hellenistic period, and with the arrival of Rome.8
It is crucial to remember that for the Greeks the female personification had a real religious aspect, its origins ultimately lying in the depiction of gods and heroes. A small number of abstract concepts ultimately came to enjoy their own cults, though this was very rare. Yet every personification, from aspects of political thought to sovereign states, was thought to encapsulate the spirit of the concept that was depicted, investing such images with a quasi-religious quality and genuine emotional potency.9 Furthermore, when using such practices to depict peoples or communities the Greeks were as likely to use such imagery in a positive sense as they were in a negative, as expressions of friendship, alliance or the spirit of one’s own city as well as, conversely, conquest and subservience.10
The transition of the practice to Roman culture, however, brought a change in tone. Rome, unlike most Greek states, to quote Kuttner, was not and had never been a member ‘of a body of equals’; Rome ‘dominated a corporate body’ comprised of her clients, most of which she had conquered by
force of arms.11 Perhaps as a consequence Romans generally favoured a more realistic style of depiction than the idealized females offered by the Greeks,12 one which was initially at
4 Concerning the Greek practice of personification and its development from the archaic period onwards, see esp. Pollitt, 1987; Shapiro, 1977; 1993; Lawton, 1995; Smith, 1997; 2011; Stafford, 2000; Glowacki, 2003. Examples of Greek personifications from Classical Athens include that of Messana and Salamis upon Attic treaty reliefs (see Lawton, 1995:59 with nos. 66; 120). Meanwhile, Pausanius (10.10.6; 13.6; 15.6; 18.7) describes various examples of such personifications raised at Delphi. See further examples reported by Athenios (201 C).
5 Hölscher, 1998:157.
6 See Pollitt, 1987; Lawton, 1995:55-9; Smith, 1997; 2011:esp. 11-26; 29-39; 91-107; Hölscher, 1998:156-7. 7
Hölscher, 1998:174. 8 Stafford, 2000:14.
9 Pollitt, 1987; Smith, 1993:134; 187; Stafford, 2000:25-6.
10 See Arce Martínez (1980:77), citing Gardner (1888); Kuttner, 1995:73-4. 11
Kuttner, 1995:78.
12 Arce Martínez, 1980:78. On the developing depiction of the ‘barbarian’ at Rome in general, see Demougeot, 1984.
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78 least usually negative, a symbol of savagery on the part of the personified peoples or of their conquest by Rome, tied to the Roman conception of devictae gentes. As time passed the personifications associated with particular peoples and places could become largely favourable, celebrating loyalty to Rome as much as harsh domination. Yet no province, no foreign city or people, would ever be portrayed as an equal of their Roman mistress.
Such depictions were not without their Greek precedents.13 Yet in the Roman context they are irrevocably related to the triumph; a ritual of immense importance for the manner in which Rome viewed herself and the ‘other’, the triumph was likely the occasion prompting the first, and subsequently most common, appearances of personifications in the Republican and early imperial periods. The figure of Hispania, or personifications of her constituent parts or models of her towns, undoubtedly appeared in such a context long before they feature in the surviving record.14 Perhaps anachronistically, Silius Italicus (Pun., 17.636-42) imagined the triumph of Scipio Africanus as having contained images of Spanish cities, whilst we are perchance on safer ground with reports that Tiberius Gracchus in 179 (Str., 3.4.13) and Q.Fabius Maximus and Q.Pedius in 45 (Cass. Dio, 43.42.2; Quint., Inst., 6.3.61) made use of such personifications during theirs. Iberian captives would have marched alongside Hispania or her constituent parts on such occasions, spectacles that doubtless created a certain prejudice in the mind of the viewer concerning external peoples and their juxtaposition with Rome, which in turn would have fed into subsequent personifications; as Arce Martínez states, the ‘humanitas of Rome’ versus the ‘ferocitas’ or ‘inhumanitas’ of her enemies, and the submission and faithfulness of the latter to the military and political power of the former.15 Personifications, even when apparently positive, would never lose these triumphalistic overtones. The triumphal procession would also witness piles of weapons belonging to the vanquished enemy, a powerful symbol of their defeat and of Roman expansion that was carried over into the visual arts.16
Furthermore, great efforts were made to ensure that during triumphal processions the ethnic attributes of the various barbarians and their personifications/objectifications were
13 Arce Martínez (1980:78) notes the major influence of the Pergamene school, with its Dying Gauls, for which see Marszal, 2000. Note Boube (1996:41-2), highlighting the Pergamene influence on the Saint- Bertrand-de-Comminges trophy in particular.
14 On further notifications of the inclusion of personifications of peoples or models of towns in the triumph in ancient literature, see Toynbee, 1934:11; Arce Martínez, 1980:79; Holliday, 2002:104; 112; Edwards, 2003:65; Beard, 2007:147-8; Ostenberg, 2009:200-1; 219.
15 Arce Martínez, 1980:80; Ostenberg, 2009:276. 16 Beard, 2007:150-1.
79 correct and this translated into monumental art.17 This is not mere ethnographical pedantry, but rather central to the wider ideological themes and a key part of the entire iconographical purpose of personifications like Hispania.18 In the first place, appearance was important in establishing the relative civility or barbarity of a people. We have already highlighted Strabo’s (3.3.7; 3.4.17) focus on the long hair and ridiculous (as he saw them) hair ornaments of the northern Spaniards, whilst Livy (38.17.2-4; cf. Tac., Germ., 31.1) explicitly equates the long hair of captives marching in triumphal processions with their wildness and barbarity.19 Meanwhile, variations between the appearance, dress and weaponry of different peoples spoke of the length and breadth of Roman power. Indeed, it was a mark of distinction to display a multiplicity of ethnicities among one’s defeated foes, challenging the claims of cosmocracy amongst previous triumph holders.20 Prior to the Principate the Asian triumph of Pompeius represented perhaps the most pertinent example (Plut., Pomp., 45.2; Pliny, HN,
7.26.98; App., Mith., 116-117; Diod. Sic., 40.4), and it is in this context that one should consider Virgil’s (Aen., 8.715-31) description of Octavian’s grand triple triumph upon the Shield of Aeneas, with its exotic captives from distant lands; the oikoumene marched in procession before the triumphator Octavian, the ultimate cosmocrat without rival, living or dead.21 The same concerns applied to his monuments, which translated the temporal influence garnered from conquest into long term power and prestige.22
The use of personification and objectification in this way set Augustan victories in an easily understandable geographical framework, allowing conflicts in distant places like Iberia to be transmitted to audiences throughout the Roman world; like the triumphs in which they were often carried, they are a physical manifestation of Roman expansion.23 Cicero (Font.,
12) articulated this well when he stated that the Gauls had been made known to the people of Rome by way of triumphs and monuments.24 One is reminded of the literature discussed in Chapters 1 and 2. Just as Livy, Strabo and the poets had invoked the exotic periphery to exalt Augustan conquest so the RG, but also the Sebasteion, the ForumAugustum and the Porticus ad Nationes, to name but a few, as we shall see, gloried in the extension of Rome’s
17 Arce Martínez, 1980:80; Kuttner, 1995:78-9; Ferris, 2000:23.
18 Indeed, often, as on the coins of Carisius (see below), they were the central focus of the images themselves. 19
Ostenberg, 2009:155. 20 Beard, 2007:122-3; 160; 175.
21 Hardie, 1986:355; Ostenberg, 2009:147. On the cosmocratic pretentions of Pompeius, see esp. Nicolet, 1991:31-8. Further, on his triumph, see Beard, 2007:7-41.
22
Hölscher, 2006:27. 23 Beard, 2007:133. 24 Hölscher, 2006:35-6.
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80 boundaries by displaying personifications of the distant edges of the empire - not least in Spain. Thus the personifications discussed in this chapter are triumphal monuments, reminiscent of the praefatio of the triumph processions, and testament to the worldwide reach of the princeps.25 Indeed, in this context it is fitting to recall the funeral of Augustus, where personifications of the empire he had conquered were carried in procession, witnesses to his achievements in the service of Rome (Cass. Dio, 54.28.5; Tac., Ann., 1.8.4).26
Thus the representations of the provinces and their people held real ideological meaning. Note, for instance, Ovid’s (Tr., 4.2.43-8) hope for a future triumphal procession for a defeated Germania; enchained with loose hair, overcome with grief and fear, she is the living embodiment of her subdued people. Later Suetonius (Ner., 46) powerfully evokes the personified provinces surrounding the terrified Nero in the emperor’s dreams, an allegorical manifestation of very real rebellion gripping his empire. We are not dealing with mere inanimate objects.27 As with their Greek forerunners, there is a quasi-religious value to these depictions, originating as they did with cultic personifications, or in the case of the male captive, with battlefield trophies raised in thanksgiving to the gods; to capture the conquered in stone was to capture them in reality, and in perpetuity.28 So the captive male tribesman, reminiscent of those defeated foes compelled to march in the triumph, and often set before a trophy bearing his seized weaponry, remains inactive and unable to resist in a state of eternal impotence.29 The female personifications, meanwhile, offer the use of a woman’s body as an analogy for conquered territory, particularly potent when appearing bare breasted (as at Saint- Bertrand-de-Comminges, below); dishonoured in defeat, they are dominated by the victor,30 and as above, captured in stone their shame would be eternal. Furthermore, personifications
25
Carey, 2003:55; Kuttner, 1995:80.
26 Note that Dio claims Augustus organised Agrippa’s funeral as he did his own; were the nations conquered by Agrippa thus included at his funeral, including a constituent of Hispania? See Kuttner, 1995:81. Certainly a similar procession occurred during the funeral of Pertinax in AD 193 (Cass. Dio, 74.4.5).
27 Edwards, 2003:48-9; Ostenberg, 2009:225-7. 28
Edwards, 2003:68; Hölscher, 2006:43; Ostenberg, 2009:219-220. Note Appian’s (Mith., 117) description
of the personifications carried in Pompeius’ triumph as ‘barbarian gods’. On the development of trophies, see Picard, 1957; Pritchett, 1974:246-76; 1979:277-96; Rabe, 2008.
29
Ferris, 2000:40; Beard, 2007:175-6. Ostrowski (1990b:567) goes so far as to state that it is conceivable that each representation of the barbarian in official state art who isn’t in a multifigural scene, but is isolated before the emperor, a victory or a trophy is a personification of a conquered nation. See also Calo Levi, 1952. Bradley (2004) examines such scenes, though his concern is to find evidence for the physical capture of prisoners of war rather than the ideological repercussions of their depiction. On the Greek practice of dedicating arms, see Pritchett, 1979:277-296.
30 Rodgers, 2003:82. Picard (1957:273) offers an alternative, seeing the exposure of the breast not as a sign of domination by the victor but, like Roma, an allusion to the nourishing role of the national goddess. Certainly we must allow for a plurality of meanings, yet the individual contexts of personifications seem crucial; one would perhaps expect the bare breasted Hispania from Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, for example, to convey a different message to that suggested by Roma.
81 Fig. 1 of both women and children effects a strong symbolism, since their removal from a people produces consequential effects on their reproductive abilities, and can represent the sterility of a tribe, their impotence in the face of Roman power.31
In time, as triumphs became rarer after 19 and the provinces increasingly integrated, the negative portrayal of the peoples of the empire would decline. Personifications would stress inclusion rather than barbarity, the realistic Roman depiction of provincia capta and
devicta giving way to a Hellenised and idealised provincia pia.32 But we cannot impose too rigid a chronological division, as will become apparent. Crucially the visual imagery of Spain, like the literary portrayals, was intrinsically entwined with the geo-political conditions in Iberia. This is true in every period, and was certainly established prior to the Principate. Republican precedents will provide a useful frame to assess that which follows under the first
princeps.
ii) The denarii of A.Postumius Albinus
As above, images of the personified Hispania, or her constituent parts, almost certainly appeared during early Spanish triumphs. Yet the oldest surviving representation, indeed the oldest for any province, appears in 81 on the denarii of
A.Postumius Albinus (Fig.1, RRC 372-2; BMCRR II 352, 2839- 2843).33 Africa and Sicily would soon follow, the development of the imagery of the western provinces corresponding with that of Roman historiography, particularly concerning the Punic wars34 and perhaps also the long and brutal first century BC conflicts in
Spain. As it was Albinus sought to commemorate his ancestor, L.Postumius Albinus, who celebrated a triumph from Ulterior in 178.35 Albinus was an acolyte of Sulla, aligned against Sertorius and his forces in Spain, many of whom were drawn from the very tribes overcome
31 Kellum, 1996:171-2; Ferris, 2000:40; 166. Note that Suetonius (Aug., 21.2) reports that Augustus sometimes bound tribes to their oaths by demanding female hostages.
32 Arce Martínez, 1980:78-9; Ostenberg, 2009:224. 33
Salcedo, 1994:183. Personified Africa and Sicily follow ten years later (RRC 401; 402). 34 Torregaray Pagola, 2004:299.
35 See MRR I:395.
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82 by his ancestor. His Hispania appears loose haired and resolutely barbarous in nature.36 By invoking ancestral victories over Spanish ‘barbarians’ Albinus thus implicitly casts similar aspersions upon Sulla’s current Iberian enemies.37
This is highly significant, since from the outset there is a direct correlation between the contemporary political situation and the portrayal of the Spanish provinces in visual media. A precedent was set.38
iii) The denarii of M.Poblicius and M.Minatius Sabinus
Subsequently Hispania would grace the coins of both sides during the Civil War, her portrayal changing with the fortunes of that conflict. The Iberian provinces were a Pompeian stronghold and this is reflected in a number of Iberian denarii issued in this period. Thus in 46-45 a denarius of M.Poblicius (Fig. 2) displayed on its reverse a woman, likely Hispania,39
welcoming Cn.Pompeius to Spain.40 She wears a long chiton, with neat hair, and carries a caetra (a small shield) and two spears (RRC
469, 1a-d, e; BMCRR II, 364-5, 72; 74-76; Toynbee, 1934: pl. 15, 5; Sear, HCRI 48). These were the weapons of the Celtiberians (e.g. Diod. Sic., 5.34), the use of which in iconography by now had apparently expanded to denote a generic ‘Spanish’ identity. Hispania is now a civilized ally of the Republic. Civil War politics has necessitated a change of imagery. This is further reinforced in a series of four denarii issued by M.Minatius Sabinus (RRC 470, 1a-d).41 The first (1a (Fig. 3)) features an armed female personification, bearing the
corona muralis amidst a heap of arms, greeting a Pompeian soldier. The same image, with slight variations, is essentially offered on the remaining three coins (1b-d (Figs. 4-6)), with the addition of a second female personification. The identity of these women has been debated but all are agreed that they represent personifications, either of civic or provincial status, the most likely candidates being
36 Though Toynbee (1934:98), whilst acknowledging that the loose, unbound hair denoted the wild tribes of
the north-west, believed that an element of civility was denoted by the idealised features of the female personification.
37 Salcedo, 1994:182-3.
38 See Alfoldi, 1956:94-5; Salcedo, 1994:183. 39
See Arce Martínez (1980:82) for a full description on the varying opinions up to his publication date. See also Toynbee, 1934:98; Salcedo, 1994:183-4; Chaves Tristán, 2005:229. Note that Sear (1998:35) believes that Hispania Ulterior is depicted. On Poblicius, see MRR II:302. García Bellido (1997:344-5) hypothesises that the female figure is a local deity fused with Roma-Bellona, though this has seemingly not found wide acceptance.
40
Salcedo, 1994:184.
41 For clarity’s sake I follow Arce Martínez in using Crawford’s numbering here, though see also BMCRR II, 366, 77-79; 366-7, 80-83; Toynbee, p98, pl. XV, 6, 7-8; Sear, HCRI 49-52. On Sabinus, see MRR II:309. Fig.2
83 combinations of Hispania, Hispania Ulterior, Corduba and New Carthage.42 Clearly, just as the Sullan regime moulded Spain’s image to reflect contemporary politics during the Sertorian War, so the Pompeians, mindful of Spanish support, presented an alternative, positive depiction.43 Nonetheless, Hispania was still subordinate to the auctoritas of Rome and her magistrates. Noble she may have been, but she still paid homage to Rome.
iv) Caesarian denarii
Caesar vanquished Cn.Pompeius at Munda in 46, an event celebrated on two Iberian denarii (RRC 468, 1-2; BMCRR II, 368-9, 86-92; Sear, HCRI
58-9 (Figs. 7-8)). The reverse of these coins both display a central military trophy, decorated with an oblong shield and carnyx. Either side sits a captive Gaul, hands bound in typical pose, and an idealised woman. She sits in long robes, clutching her head in despair. Whilst devoid of particular distinguishing attributes, she is generally identified as Hispania,44 her presence alongside Gaul, as we shall
see, becoming a recurring theme under Augustus, from the trophies at Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, to the Boscoreale cups and the
RG (12.2, 25.2, 26.2, 29.1).45 Hispania is dejected and subjugated but perhaps not entirely barbarous; Salcedo sees perhaps an acknowledgement of the civility of southern and eastern Spain and
42 Arce Martínez, 1980:83-4; Salcedo, 1994:184; Chaves Tristán, 2005:229. Note the views of Grueber, Toynbee, Crawford and Sear in their respective catalogues (see refs above).
43 Chaves Tristán (2005:223-4) notes similarly positive contemporary allusions elsewhere to Africa, a further shelter for Pompeians.
44 Toynbee, 1934:99; Arce Martínez, 1980:84; Salcedo, 1994:186-7. Though Crawford identified her as Gallic, linking the issue to another series that features similar trophies decked with Gallic shields and the carnyx, RRC 452, 1-5; BMCRR I, 3953; 3955; 3959; 3961.
45 Kuttner, 1995:71.
Fig.4 Fig.5 Fig.6
Fig.7
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84 the possibility of her rehabilitation now she is back in the Caesarian fold.46 Nonetheless, Hispania’s pained appearance expresses her sorrow for her former Pompeian allegiance,47
the central trophy representing her subordination to Caesar. This is Hispania capta, Hispania devicta, and the iconography this establishes will remain, and be expanded, under Augustus.48