From The Culture of Spolia To The Cult of Relics. The Arch of Constantine and The Genesis of Late Antique Forms

From the Culture of Spolia to the Cult of Relics: The Arch of Constantine and the Genesis of
Late Antique Forms

Author(s): Ja Elsner
Source: Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 68 (2000), pp. 149-184
Published by: British School at Rome
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FROM THE CULTURE OF SPOLIA TO THE CULT OF
RELICS: THE ARCH OF CONSTANTINE AND THE
GENESIS OF LATE
ANTIQUE
FORMS
THE MONUMENT
The Arch of Constantine
(Figs
1 and
2)
has
occupied
a
singularly
controversial
posi-
tion in the
historiography
of Roman
art,
since the
painter Raphael
wrote a famous
report
on
antiquities
for
Pope
Leo X in about 1519. In
Raphael's
words:
Although literature, sculpture, painting,
and almost all the other arts had
long
been
declining
and had
grown
worse and worse until the time of the
last
emperors, yet
architecture was still studied and
practised according
to
the
good
rules and
buildings
were erected in the same
style
as before ... Of
this there are
many
evidences:
among others,
the Arch of
Constantine,
which is well
designed
and well built as far as architecture is concerned.
But the
sculptures
of the same arch are
very
feeble and destitute of all art
and
good design. Those, however,
that come from the
spoils
of
Trajan
and
Antoninus Pius are
extremely
fine and done in
perfect style.
The
Arch,
or more
particularly
the contrast of its
fourth-century sculpture
with the
spolia
from the second
century incorporated
on
it,
has come to
signify
the onset of
late
antiquity
and the
emergence
of medieval
styles.
In a rhetorical tradition reach-
ing
back from Berenson in the 1950s via Gibbon and Vasari to
Raphael himself,
the
arch has been the
paradigm
for the
study
of
stylistic
decline
(Berenson (1954)
with
Eisner
(1998),
Gibbon
(1776: 428),
Vasari
(1568:
224-5
{Proemio
delle
Vite, 5))
with Haskell
(1993: 118-21)).
Today,
the notion of
decline,
and with it the
very practice
of
style
art
history,
are rather out of fashion
(pace Spivey (1995)).
As
early
as
1901, Riegl
had
attempt-
ed to rehabilitate the Constantinian reliefs of the Arch in a formal
analysis
which
accepted,
their radical difference from earlier Roman
images
but attributed that
styl-
istic transformation to the
emergence
of what he called a 'late Roman Kunstwollen'
(Riegl,
1901:
chapter
2
(= Riegl,
1985:
51-7, 77-8, 91-5, 101-2)).2 Effectively,
Riegl accepted
the formal
differences,
first
signalled by Raphael,
between the late
antique sculptures
and the earlier
spolia
included on the
Arch,
but
put
them down
not to the
judgmental (and
in his view
anachronistic) concept
of decline but rather
1
Raphael's
letter
(translation:
Goldwater and
Trves,
1945:
74-5;
Camesasca and
Piazza,
1993:
257-322).
The reference to Pius is
wrong:
modern
scholarship
attributes the
sculptural spolia
to the
reigns
of
Trajan,
Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. Positive attitudes to the Arch before
Raphael's
letter:
Massini,
1993.
2
On 'Kunstwollen':
Olin,
1992:
129-53; Iversen,
1993: 71-90.
149
150 ELSNER
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ARCH OF CONSTANTINE 151
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152 ELSNER
to a set of choices
governed by
a new late Roman aesthetics.
Recent
scholarship
has
sought
to
reintegrate
the
sculpture
of the Arch into the tra-
dition of
Imperial
state reliefs set
up
in the
city
of Rome. The reuse of
spolia
from
monuments
originally
dedicated
by Trajan,
Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius has been
analysed
in terms of a
specifically
Constantinian
programme
of
Imperial propaganda:3
the
usurping conqueror
of 312
justifies
his
appropriation
of Rome in a monument ded-
icated in
315,
4
which
simultaneously
celebrates his victories over Maxentius in
312,
his decennalia of 315 and the new Constantinian
golden age
evoked in the
images
of
'good' emperors
from the second
century
ad.5 This
approach
is an
important
correct-
ive to the
exaggerated
rhetoric of
stylistic
decadence which characterized earlier liter-
ature
(Kleiner,
1992:
454-5),
and one can
hardly deny
the
ideological
effect of the
Arch's
programme
of
pro-Constantinian propaganda.6
But the risk of
emphasizing
the
Arch's essential
continuity
with the
past (against
both
Riegl
and the adherents of
'decline'
(for example,
Brilliant
(1984: 122)
and Pierce
(1989: 416))),
is that we lose
sight
of the
key
cultural
insight
embodied in
Raphael's sharp
distinction of
styles,
whether this leads to the Berensonian lament over decline or a
Rieglian
celebration of
early
medieval form. That
is,
the Arch did
precipitate
a fundamental and radical set of
changes
in Roman visual
practice
which the
'style
merchants'
may
have identified in
ways
that now seem outmoded and
inappropriate,
but which none the less did
happen.
Much remains controversial about the monument.7
Indeed, every
time a scaf-
folding
is erected to restore the
Arch,
close visual
analysis persuades
some that it
was
really
erected earlier than Constantine
-
by Domitian,8
for
example,
or
by
Hadrian,9
or that even its
apparently
Constantinian
sculpture
is in fact
spolia (Wace,
1907; Knudsen, 1989; 1990).
In addition to these
debates,
we need to remember that
the Arch is no
longer
in its final state of
completion
in Constantinian times.10 It has
3
On the late
antique
materials:
L'Orange
and von
Gerkan,
1939. On the earlier
sculpture: Trajanic
-
Leander
Touati, 1987; Kleiner,
1992:
220-3, 264;
Hadrianic
-
Boatwright,
1987:
190-202; Evers,
1991; Oppermann, 1991; Turcan, 1991; Kleiner,
1992:
251-3, 265; Schmidt-Colinet, 1996;
Aurelian
-
Ryberg, 1967; Angelicoussis, 1984; Kleiner,
1992:
288-95,
314. For a
general bibliography:
De
Maria, 1988: 318-19. Photographs: Giuliano, 1956. Post-antique
illustrations:
Punzi,
1999.
4
For discussion of the dates see
Buttrey (1983: 375-80); pace
Richardson
(1975),
who
argued
for
ad 325-6.
5
For the
programme
and
ideology: Brilliant,
1984:
119-23; Pierce, 1989;
Pensabene and
Panella,
1993-4: 125-7. For a
cogent critique
of the view
effectively
assumed
by L'Orange
and his successors
that the
spolia
of the Arch
posit
a
'particular diplopia
...
[that] postulates
an ideal viewer with historic-
ally specific knowledge',
see
Kinney (1995: 57).
The
ideological argument
is not
necessarily opposed
to the
pragmatic
case for the reuse of older
marbles as a
cost-cutting
exercise:
Ward-Perkins,
1999: 227-33.
7
For discussion of the architecture see Wilson Jones
(forthcoming)
and of the
archaeology
Pensabene and Panella (
1
999).
8
Domitian:
Frothingham (1912-15) opposed by
Walton
(1924)
and
L'Orange
and von Gerkan
(1939: 4-28).
9
Hadrian: Melucco Vaccaro and
Ferroni, 1993^; Steiner,
1994. This view has been
opposed by
Pensabene and Panella
(1993-4: 174-5, 217-20).
10
On the
archaeological
context:
Panella, 1990;
Panella et
al,
1995.
ARCH OF CONSTANTINE 1 53
lost the
sculptures
which once adorned its
top (Magi, 1956-7),
and it has lost most
of the coloured stones which were inlaid both round the Hadrianic tondi and in a
now
entirely
vanished frieze which ran all the
way
around the
top
of the arch's
middle section beneath the cornice on which the attic
storey
stands.11
In this
paper,
I
explore
the cultural
implications
of the Arch of Constantine in
its
fourth-century context,
to see if we can redefine its
meanings
and its innovations
more
precisely.
I focus on two central
aspects
of the Arch's construction:
first,
its
function as a collection of
spolia (and
as a
carefully designed object
for the
display
of
spolia), and, second,
the
implicit
meditation on the nature of
history
and the
past
embodied in the
juxtaposition
of
objects
from different
periods
on a
new, compos-
ite,
monument. What I have to
say
assumes
inevitably
that
any
lost materials would
not have transformed
substantially
the issues of
spoliation
and
iconography
which
will be discussed.
Also,
I assume that once the Arch reached its final state under
Constantine it constituted a Constantinian
monument,
whatever the
previous history
of
supposed
earlier arches on the site.
SPOLIA
Much has been written about the
incorporation
within the Arch of Constantine
-
alongside
its
fourth-century friezes, arch-spandrels
and
pedestals
-
of four
portions
of a
great
frieze
celebrating Trajan, eight
roundels from what was
possibly
a
Hadrianic
hunting monument,
and
eight
relief
panels
from a lost arch commemorat-
ing
Marcus Aurelius. The Arch is not the first monument in Rome to use
spolia.
Enough fragments
survive from the Arcus Novus of
Diocletian,
erected in 293-4 on
the Via Lata in Rome
(Laubscher, 1976; Koeppel,
1983: 79 and
102; Buttrey, 1983),
to show that it
incorporated
reliefs from a Claudian or
possibly
Antonine monument
(these
now
being
in the
faade
of the Villa Medici in
Rome) alongside
tetrarchie
sculpture (including
some
pedestals subsequently
removed to the Boboli Gardens in
Florence) (De Maria,
1988:
312-14; Kleiner,
1992:
409-13; Torelli, 1993b).
Possibly
also from the third
century (though many
have dated it to the
fifth)
are the
remains of the so-called 'Arco di
Portogallo' (Torelli, 1993a),
which
incorporated
second-century
relief
panels, probably
Hadrianic.12
Likewise,
in
architecture,
the so-
called
'temple
of Romulus' erected on the Via Sacra
by
Maxentius after 307 used
architectural
sculpture
culled from a series of earlier
buildings (Cima, 1980).13
The
11
Penabene and Panella
(1993^: 184, 191-2)
have
suggested
a frieze of
green porphyry,
but one
might
also
envisage
a small
figurai opus
sedile frieze. This
was,
after
all,
the
great age
of
opus
sedile
in Rome, as demonstrated by
the
surviving panels
from the Basilica of Junius Bassus from the 330s.
12
The
fifth-century
date was
proposed by
Stucchi
(1949-50: 122)
and
repeated by,
for
example,
De Maria
(1988: 325). Third-century
dates have been
proposed by
Bertoletti and La Rocca
(1987:
21-32) (the 250s)
and Torelli
(1992: 122-3) (the 270s).
Maxentian context:
Cullhed,
1994:
45-67, esp. pp.
52-5. Pre-Constantinian architectural
spolia:
Pensabene,
1993:
762-8;
Pensabene and
Panella,
1993^: 112-25.
154 ELSNER
Arch of Constantine combines these two kinds of
spolia
-
not
only
the
figurai
reliefs,
but also
many
architectural elements such as
capitals, bases,
column shafts
and
entablature,
are
gathered
from
previous
monuments
(Kahler,
1953:
28-36;
De
Maria,
1988:
316; Pensabene, 1988).
None the
less,
while the Arch of Constantine was not
original
in
constructing
its visual and aesthetic
messages
in
spolia,
it was the
beginning
of a veritable flood
of
spoliation
in Constantine's own
reign,
which was to create
fundamentally
new
patterns
in late
antique
and
early
medieval art.14 Even before the Arch was com-
pleted,
Constantine had
begun
the construction of the Lateran Basilica in 313.
Its double side-aisles rested on
green-speckled
verde antico
columns,
while the red
columns of the nave itself were also
spolia (Krautheimer,
Corbett and
Frazer,
1977:
64-5, 79-80; Pensabene,
1993:
750-2;
Pensabene and
Panella,
1993^:
127-8,
166-70).
Most of the
column-shafts, bases, capitals
and entablatures used in the
building
of Saint Peter's on the Vatican Hill
(319-24) appear
to have been
spolia
(Krautheimer,
Corbett and
Frazer,
1977:
237-8; Pensabene,
1993:
753-6;
Pensabene and
Panella,
1993-4:
170-4).
In Saint
Peter's,
even the six
spiral
columns which adorned the shrine of the saint himself were
explicitly
recorded as
being brought
from the Greek east in the
sixth-century
Liber
Pontifcalis,
a
judg-
ment modern research has
upheld (Ward-Perkins, 1952; Toynbee
and Ward-
Perkins,
1956:
204-5; Nobiloni, 1997).15
The habit of
using spolia
for the
making
of churches
rapidly
became a standard method
-
as the
fifth-century
interiors of
Santa Maria
Maggiore,
Santa Sabina and Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome
amply
attest
(for example: Pensabene, 1995; Brandenburg, 1996; Brenk, 1996).
However,
the
raiding
of old
stockrooms, dilapidated buildings
and
perhaps per-
fectly repairable
monuments in Rome was
nothing compared
with the remarkable
act of
collecting
via
spoliation
which
accompanied
the
inauguration
of
Constantinople
in the 320s and 330s. In the words of Saint
Jerome, writing
60
years
later, 'Constantinople
was dedicated
by
the virtual
denuding
of
every city'
(Chronicon
314
(p. 232, Helm)).
All kinds of
antique
statues
-
from honorific ded-
ications
(like
the
tetrarchs,
now in
Venice)
to cult
images
from
pagan temples
-
were collected from the cities of the east and
brought
to adorn the new
capital
(Mango,
1963:
55-9;
Guberti
Bassett,
199
1).16 According
to Eusebius
(Vita
Constantini III.
54):
14
On
spolia
in
general: Esch, 1969; Deichmann, 1975; Brenk, 1987; Alchermes, 1994;
de
Lachenal, 1995; Poeschke, 1996; Kinney, 1997; Mathews,
1999. On Constantinian
spolia:
Pensabene
and
Panella,
1993-4:
125-37; Kinney, 1995;
1997:
126-8; Pensabene,
1999.
15
The relevant
passage
from the Liber
Pontificate
is at the
entry
for Silvester 34. 16
(ed.
T.
Mommsen
(Berlin, 1898),
vol.
1, p. 57;
ed. L. Duchesne and C.
Vogel (Paris, 1955),
vol.
1, p. 176;
but
given
as 34. 19 in ed. I. Forchielli and A.M. Strickler (Rome, 1978), vol. 2, p. 60).
16
Responses
to such
pagan
monuments:
Saradi-Mendelovici, 1990; James,
1996.
Spoliation
in
Byzantium: Saradi, 1997; spoliation
in Rome:
Strong,
1994:
19-20; Curran,
1994.
Proud statues of brass were
exposed
to view in all the
public places
of the
imperial city.
Here a
Pythian,
there a Sminthian
Apollo
excited the con-
tempt
of the
beholder,
while the
Delphic tripods
were erected in the
Hippodrome
and the Muses of Helicon in the
palace.
In
short,
the
city
which bore his name was
everywhere
filled with brazen statues of the
most
exquisite workmanship,
which had been dedicated in
every
province,
and which the deluded victims of
superstition
had
long vainly
honoured as
gods
with numberless victims and burnt
sacrifices, though
now at
length they
learned to think
rightly,
when the
emperor
held
up
these
very playthings
to the ridicule and
sport
of all beholders.
What is
striking
is the
particular
kind of
antiquarianism by
which a distin-
guished
classical
heritage
was
literally
amassed for Constantine's new
city through
objects gathered
and
displayed
within it.
Throughout
the
following century,
em-
perors
and their ministers
(who
avowed far more
stringently anti-pagan policies
than
Constantine)
continued to
pack
the
city
with
antiquity's pagan masterpieces. By
the
late fifth
century,
a collection of 81
antique statues, mostly bronzes,
had been
gath-
ered in the Baths of
Zeuxippus.17
In the
early years
of the fifth
century, Lausus,
a
senior minister in the
government
of Theodosius II
(406-50),
assembled a
spec-
tacular collection of ancient
originals
in his
palace
in
Constantinople.
Its
gems
included Phidias's
chryselephantine Olympian Zeus,
removed after the
suppression
of the
Olympic
festival in
394,
and Praxiteles's marble Cnidian
Aphrodite,
as well
as works
by Skillis, Dipoenus, Bupalus
and
Lysippus (Mango,
Vickers and
Francis,
1992;
Guberti
Bassett, 2000).
These
antiquities
are not the same as the bulk of the Roman
spolia,
in that
they
were
free-standing
works rather than architectural ornaments or relief
sculpture.
But the Arch of Constantine included a series of
eight free-standing
Dacian
pris-
oners
(probably Trajanic) (Waelkens,
1985:
645,
nos.
3-9),
which were
placed atop
its four
projecting
columns on each of the
long
sides
(Fig. 3).
The Dacian
prison-
ers,
like the
antiquities gathered
in
Constantinople (in
so far as we can reconstruct
their conditions of
display),
were divorced from their
original
contexts and made
to serve
entirely
new
fourth-century
architectural
settings
and
purposes.18
All this
spolia represents
an
urge
to turn to the material culture of the
past
in order to bol-
ster the
present.
The distinction and
authority
of a new
dynasty
and a new
capital
were underwritten
by
an intense visual
programme appealing
to and rooted in the
past.
In
many ways
this
strategy
is reminiscent of earlier
Imperial programmes
-
such as the
propaganda
of
Augustus
-
but in its wholesale and
systematic uproot-
ing
of some of
antiquity's
most venerable
masterpieces,
it was
startlingly
innov-
ative.
17
See
Christodorus,
Palatine
Anthology II,
with Guberti Bassett
(1996)
who has stated that
Constantine himself was
responsible
for the collection of these statues
(491
and
505),
which is
poss-
ible but not
provable.
18
Packer
(1997: I, 437-8)
has
argued
that
they
were
originally
in the Basilica
Ulpia.
156 ELSNER
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There
is, however,
one final
aspect
of the cultural
history
of Constantinian col-
lecting
which was
ultimately
to be
by
far the most
significant
of Constantine's in-
novations in this field. On his death on 22
May
337
(Fowden, 1993; Woods, 1997;
Hunt,
1998:
1-2),
Constantine was laid to rest in a lavish mausoleum described at
length by
Eusebius
(Vita
Constantini IV.
58-60).
Whether this
building
was a cruci-
form church
-
the first Church of the
Holy Apostles
in
Constantinople
-
or a
mausoleum
(circular
or
octagonal)
of the kind
typically
erected
by
the tetrarchs and
later
emperors
in the first half of the fourth
century,19
has been an issue of debate for
nearly
a
century (Heisenberg, 1908; Krautheimer, 1971; Dagron,
1974:
401-8;
Mango,
1990a:
esp. 53^; Leeb,
1992:
93-120;
Cameron and
Hall,
1999:
337-8).
What is
significant
are Constantine's intended
companions
in this tomb
(Vita
Constantini IV.
60):
Such were the
emperor's offerings
with a view to
making
eternal the
memory
of the Lord's
apostles.
He
was, however, pursuing
this construc-
tion with another
purpose
in
mind,
which
escaped
notice at first and
only
later became evident to
everyone.
For he reserved for himself that
spot
for
such time as was
appointed
for his own
demise, providing
in advance in
the
surpassing eagerness
of his
faith,
that after his death his
body
should
share in the invocation of the
apostles
with a view to
benefiting,
even after
his
demise,
from the
prayers
that were
going
to be offered here in honour
of the
apostles.
For which reason he ordained that services should also be
performed here, having
set
up
an altar-table in the middle.
Indeed,
he
erected 12 coffins
(Gtikocc)
-
as it were sacred statues
-
in honour and
resemblance of the
apostolic
choir and
placed
in the middle of them his
own
sarcophagus,
on either side of which stood six of the twelve
apostles.
Such, then,
as I have
said,
was his
purpose,
conceived with a sober
mind,
as
regards
the
place where,
after his
death,
his
body
was to
repose
in dec-
orous fashion.
This
passage
is
sufficiently
obscure to have
engendered
numerous debates
about Constantine's intentions and the mausoleum's final form.
Apart
from
emphas-
izing
the
emperor's piety,
Eusebius has left a host of issues which can be
interpret-
ed in several
ways.
Was the site
originally
conceived as a memorial for the
apostles
(as
Eusebius
implies)
or for the
emperor?
Was the
building
a mausoleum
unusually
equipped
also to be a church? Or was it a church
unusually designed
to be also a
mausoleum? And what on earth are the twelve coffins which were somehow also
twelve statues? Since the Church of the
Holy Apostles (substantially
rebuilt
by
Justinian in the sixth
century)
was razed to the
ground by
Mehmet the
Conqueror
when he used the site for the erection of the Fatih
Mosque
in
1462,
the
complete
lack
of
archaeological
evidence
hardly helps.
But it is
abundantly
clear that Constantine
19
For
example,
the mausolea of Diocletian at
Split,
Galerius at
Gamzigrad
and
Thessalonike,
Maxentius on the Via
Appia
outside
Rome,
Helena on the Via
Labicana,
Santa Costanza on the Via
Nomentana and Centcelles in
Taragona.
158 ELSNER
was buried as the thirteenth
apostle
in a sacred shrine constructed also to commem-
orate the twelve
apostles,
each of whom was built a tomb.
As controversial as the
questions surrounding
the
building
is the date for the
translation of
apostolic
remains to the tombs. 21 June 336
(that is, during
Constantine's
lifetime)
and 3 March 357 or 360
(that is, during
the
reign
of his
son,
Constantius
II)
are attested
by fourth-century
sources for the
bringing
of the relics
of Saints Andrew and Luke to
Constantinople (Mango, 1990b; Woods, 1991).
However this conundrum is to be
resolved,
what is
again
clear is that sometime after
the erection of the
empty apostolic
tombs
(and possibly very
soon
after, during
Constantine's own
lifetime) they began
to be filled with a new kind of
spolia
whose
significance
as a model for medieval
patterns
of
piety
can
hardly
be overrated.20
By
the end of the fourth
century
and
throughout
the
fifth, emperors
and
bishops
would
vie in an intense
competition
for the bones of what have been called 'the
very spe-
cial dead'
(Brown,
1981:
69):
The cult of relics
-
apparently inaugurated
in
Constantine's later
years
-
was
already
in full flood.21
I want to
suggest that,
in the
development
of Constantinian
collecting
and dis-
play,
the Arch of Constantine was the first
step
in a set of
experiments
which would
ultimately
result in the
Holy Apostles.
Unlike the earlier
collecting
of
emperors
such
as Hadrian or the Severans
(exemplified
in the
surviving sculptures
from the Villa
at Tivoli
(Raeder, 1983)
and the Baths of Caracalla
(Marvin, 1983; DeLaine,
1997:
265-7)),
the Arch of Constantine was a collection of earlier
originals,
not of
copies.
In
this,
as I have
remarked,
it was
anticipated by
the Arcus Novus of Diocletian and
emulated
by
the statues in
Constantinople.
But the arch differs from the Arcus
Novus in
focusing specifically
on the
portrait
reliefs of earlier
emperors,
into whose
bodies Constantine's own head was reut
(see,
for
example, Figs
4-6
and, below,
Fig. 8).
While we cannot reconstruct the
programme
of Diocletian's
arch,
there is no
doubt that the Arch of Constantine has a
singularly imperial
theme
(in
contrast to the
themes of
victory
and
triumph paraded
in the other
surviving
arches in Rome
-
those of Titus and
Septimius Severus).
Unlike the other
arches,
Constantine's Arch
focuses on the iconic
doings
of
emperors
-
hunting, dispensing justice, addressing
the
populace, entering cities, distributing largitio,
even
performing
the act of sacri-
fice
-
and
emphasizes
the historic
antiquity
of such activities
through looking
back
to earlier
emperors.
In
effect,
the Arch of Constantine collects around the
emperor
the
images
of his own
distinguished predecessors
into whose
very
forms he has been
merged by replacing
their features with his own.
20
Constantine seems
responsible
also for the translation of Lucian of Antioch in 327 or 328 to
Drepanum
in
Bithynia
-
the
birthplace
of his
mother,
which was renamed
Helenopolis
in her honour:
Chronicon Paschale I 527
Bonn; Barnes,
1981:
221; Maraval,
1985:
367; Pohlsander,
1995: 3. In the
last month of his
life,
Constantine went to
pray
there before
dying
at Nicomedia: Eusebius Vita
Constantini IV. 61; Barnes, 1981: 259; Pohlsander, 1995: 22.
21
Cult of the saints:
Delehaye,
1912:
60-119;
1927:
196-207; 1930; Brown,
1981. On the rise of
translation after 350:
Mango,
1990a:
51-2,
60-1.
Pilgrimage: Krting,
1950: 330-42.
Fig. 4. The Arch of Constantine. Detail of the head of Constantine
(reut
from a head of
Trajan)
from
the section of the
great Trajanic
frieze on the west wall of the
passageway
in the central
opening.
Photo:
DAI, Rome,
Inst.
Neg.
82.1106.
(Reproduced courtesy of
the Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome)
By
the end of the 330s
-
after the dedication of
Constantinople,
after the
Council of Nicaea and the firm establishment of
Christianity
as the
preferred (if
not
yet
the
only exclusive) imperial
cult
-
Constantine's mausoleum reformulated the
tropes
of visual rhetoric we find on the Roman arch in Christian terms.
By appro-
priating
the
images
of the saints rather than those of the
emperors,
instead of his
imperial predecessors,
Constantine
inaugurated
the collection of his
apostolic
fore-
fathers. Whether he was himself
responsible
for the first translation of relics to the
tombs set
up
in the
mausoleum,
or whether it was his
son,
is less
significant
than the
fact that the tombs were
prepared
and that their
space
was the
space
of his own
entombment.
Christianity
had no
spolia,
no visual or architectural
remains,
to be
culled from the
places
of its
scriptural past.
Its
only spolia
were the bones of its
160 ELSNER
(reut
from a head of
Trajan)
from
the section of the
great Trajanic
frieze on the east wall of the
passageway
in the central
opening.
Photo:
DAI, Rome, Inst.
Neg.
32.51.
the Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome)
dead. Where the Arch of Constantine embedded the
emperor's image
in the midst of
his chosen
imperial antecedents,
the mausoleum
placed
his
body
within a collection
of
infinitely
more
significant
ancestors
-
at least for
anyone
who
professed
the faith
of Jesus Christ.
The
adaptation
of the culture of
spolia
to the cult of relics was a brilliant and dar-
ing leap.
Its
spectacular
effect
may
be seen in the rate at which late
fourth-century
bishops
like Ambrose of Milan or Damasus of Rome discovered the bodies of lost
martyrs
and used their bones in the
founding
of churches
(Ambrose: McLynn,
1994:
(reut
from a head of
Hadrian)
from the Hadrianic medallion
showing
a boar
hunt,
on the eastern end of the north front
(for
the
whole
view,
see
Fig. 1)
. Photo:
DAI, Rome,
Inst.
Neg.
32.36.
the
Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome)
211-17, 230-5, 347-50, 363-4;
Damasus:
Pietri,
1976:
529-57; Charlet, Guyon
and
Cadetti, 1986).
Its
politics
in the
Holy Apostles
were as
potent
as those of the Arch of
Constantine in 315. While the arch had
attempted
to
justify
the
rightful
succession of
a
conqueror
in a
city
he had
just
taken
by force,
the mausoleum affirmed for all to see
that
-
whatever ambivalences of
religious policy
the
long years
of Constantinian
gov-
ernment had
displayed
-
the
emperor's
final
position (and,
still more
significant,
that
of his
heirs,
who oversaw his
burial) lay unambiguously
with
Christianity. But,
as in
the case of the
Arch,
the immediate
politics
are much less
significant
than the cultur-
162 ELSNER
al
impact
of these monuments' creation and continued existence. The arch
helped
to
establish an aesthetic of
spolia
which has been of the essence not
only
to medieval art
in
general
but to successive refurbishments of the
city
of Rome itself. The mausoleum
took this
antiquarianism
of material
objects
and
applied
it
(by
360 at the
very latest)
to the excavation and
display
of
saintly
bodies. Both monuments were concerned with
the
collecting
and
display
of
originals
-
whether
original sculptures
or authentic
bones. In one sense both were
very
much of their
time,
rather than ahead of
it,
since
theirs is
ultimately
conceived as a culture of whole remains
(complete sculptural
panels
or
tondi,
whole bodies of
important saints). Very rapidly,
both the
culling
of
spolia
and the cult of relics would become a culture of
fragments
as
(in
both
cases)
demand
swiftly
came to exceed
supply.
Fig. 7. The Arch of Constantine. Detail of the head of a tetrarch
(reut
from a head of
Hadrian)
from
the Hadrianic medallion
showing
a sacrifice to
Apollo,
on the eastern side of the north front. Photo:
DAI, Rome,
Inst.
Neg.
32.39.
the Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome)
PAST AND PRESENT
Let us examine more
carefully
the
juxtaposition
of reliefs from different
periods
on
the Arch of Constantine. It is this confrontation of
objects
which has
always
occa-
sioned the
principal
debate
-
whether to reflect on issues of
style (for example
-
L'Orange
and von
Gerkan,
1939:
192-219; Berenson, 1954; Kitzinger,
1977:
7-9,
15-16; Strong,
1988:
276-8),
or on
questions
of
propaganda
and
ideology (for
example
-
Pierce, 1989; Ruysschaert, 1962-3).
With the
possible exception
of the
eight
Dacian
prisoners,
none of the reused
spolia
on the arch was installed in the
fourth
century
without modifications
(Hannestad,
1994: 59-63
(Hadrianic tondi),
86-92
(Trajanic frieze)).
In
particular,
the
imperial
heads were reut
(von Sydow,
1969:
23-5; Rohmann,
1998:
265-7): Trajan
to become Constantine
(Figs
4 and
5)
(Leander Touati,
1987:
91-5; Koeppel,
1985: 174
(no. 13),
179
(no. 49)),
Hadrian
to
represent
Constantine and one other tetrarch
-
whether his
co-emperor
Licinius
(whom
he
eventually
overthrew in
324)
or his father Constantius Chlorus has been
much debated
(Figs
6 and
7).22
The heads of Marcus
Aurelius,
reut or
possibly
replaced
in the fourth
century (probably by
heads of
Constantine) (Stuart Jones,
1906:
251-2),
were restored in 1732
(see Fig. 3).23
In
effect,
all the
spolia
were
marked as
contemporary
in the fourth
century by
the insertion of Constantine 's fea-
tures and
possibly
those of his deified father into the bodies of earlier
emperors (cf.
Kinney,
1995:
57-8).
Whatever
qualms
critics have felt about the
style
of the
Constantinian
friezes,
there is little doubt about the excellent
quality
of these reut
heads.24 The act of
making
venerable works from the
past contemporary by chang-
ing
the
portraits
was not in itself new in the Roman world
(Blanck, 1969).25
But the
arch
develops
this
practice by making
it a
systematic
and coherent feature of the aes-
thetic of a
complex public
monument. The effect is to
compress time,
so that the
past
-
the eras of
Trajan,
Hadrian and Marcus
-
becomes assimilated into the
present.
The
spolia,
all
incorporated
into the
upper
levels of the arch
(except
for the two
panels
from the
Trajanic
frieze which
occupy
the central
passageway, Fig. 8),
are
22
Generally: Evers,
1991: 786-93. For Licinius:
L'Orange
and von
Gerkan,
1939:
165-7;
Berenson,
1954:
48, 54; L'Orange,
1984:
40-9, 116-17; Kleiner,
1992:
446; Rohmann,
1998: 263-73.
For Constantius Chlorus
(instead
of
Licinius): Calza,
1959-60:
145-54; Ruysschaert,
1962-3:
81;
von
Sydow,
1969:
24-5; Boatwright,
1987:
194; Pierce,
1989:
412; Evers,
1991:
790; Turcan,
1991: 56. I
find the
arguments
in favour of Licinius weak and those for Constantius
stronger though
not com-
pelling.
If Smith
(1997)
has identified the
portrait
of Licinius
correctly,
then the Licinius
hypothesis
for the Arch of Constantine must
finally
be laid to rest.
According
to the
sculptor
Pietro
Bracci,
the
eighteenth-century
heads
(now
in
situ) represent
Constantine and not
Trajan,
as
reported wrongly by Angelicoussis (1984: 142),
Kleiner
(1992: 288)
and
Capodiferro(1993).
See
Gradara,
1918: 161.
'Superb'
-
Hannestad
(1994: 92);
'almost
worthy
of the best Attic
traditions'(l)
-
Berenson
(1954: 55-7).
25
The
archetypal
case is the Colossus of
Nero,
which
appears
to have been reut
(or
at least
rededicated)
with some
frequency: Lega,
1989-90
(with
a
repertory
of sources
pp. 364-8); Bergmann,
1994: 7-17.
164 ELSNER
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'S
presented
as a series of discrete icons. Each
panel
of the
spolia
evokes a
canonical,
even a
normative, activity
associated with
emperorship. Together, they represent
a
visual
synopsis
of the
emperor's
role as
envisaged
in the
public sphere, grounded
in
the
heritage
of the
glorious imperial past.
In the attic
storey
are the Aurelian
panels.
These
show,
on the north side from left to
right,
scenes of
adventus, profectio,
lib-
er aUtas and the
dispensing
of
justice;
on the south
side,
the
presentation
of a bar-
barian
prince
to the Roman
army (Fig. 3),
the
granting
of
clemency
to
prisoners (Fig.
3),
the
emperor addressing
his
troops (adlocutio)
and the ritual
purification
of the
army by
sacrifice
(lustratio) (Angelicoussis,
1984:
145-58; Koeppel,
1986:
56-75).
The order follows no
particular
narrative
sequence
and bears no obvious or recov-
erable
relationship
to the
original
monument on which these reliefs were
displayed.
Below the
attic,
above the two smaller arches on either side of the central
opening,
are the
eight
Hadrianic tondi
representing
scenes of
hunting
and sacrifice. These
were embedded in a thin veneer of
porphyry (Turcan,
1991:
53;
Pensabene and
Panella,
1993^:
184;
Melucco Vaccaro and
Ferroni,
1993-4:
29),
which
provided
a
purple ground
for the
imperial
action
displayed.
The two short sides of the arch boasted
large panels
from the
Trajanic
frieze in
the
attic,
both
showing
scenes of
fighting
between Romans and
Dacians,
and below
these a Constantinian tondo on each side
(imitating
the Hadrianic tondi of the
long
sides) showing
the
rising
sun on the east and the
setting
moon on the west
(Figs
9
and
10).
In the central
passageway
are two sections of the
Trajanic
frieze with
images
of the
emperor (his
head recarved as
Constantine)
victorious over the bar-
barians. Above these
scenes, respectively
on the eastern and western sides of the
bay,
are the Constantinian
inscriptions
FUNDATORI
QUIETIS
and LIBERATORI
URBIS
(see Fig. 8) (L'Orange
and von
Gerkan,
1939:
187; Giuliano,
1956:
8).26
By
contrast with what I have described as the iconic
quality
of these
images
-
all
sufficiently
removed from their
original display
and the time of their first
cutting
to have
acquired
a heroic
aura, symbolic
of what it meant to be an
emperor
-
is the
Constantinian frieze
(L'Orange
and von
Gerkan,
1939:
34-102; Koeppel,
1990:
38-64).
This is a narrative
reading
around the
Arch,
from west via south and east to
the north
side,
which
represents,
in
fairly general terms,
Constantine's advance from
Milan
(Fig. 9),
the
seige
of
Verona,
the battle of the Milvian
Bridge,
the
emperor's
victorious
entry
into Rome
(Fig. 10)
and his
subsequent
activities in the
city,
includ-
ing
an adlocutio to the
people
from the rostra in the Roman forum and a liberalitas.
What seems
aesthetically
the odd choice of
having
the frieze
spill
over the end-
corners of the
arch, beyond
the last
projecting pilaster
on each of the
long sides,
is
26
It is a sad reflection on the
scholarship
of the Arch of Constantine that the
inscriptions
-
surely
one uncontroversial feature of the Arch's structure and decoration
-
so often have been
reported wrong-
ly, especially
in the
English
literature. Pierce
(1989: 411)
and
Iacopi (1977: 5)
have turned the dative
into a nominative
(and
hence turned Constantine from
being
the
recipient
of the Arch into its
initiator).
Kleiner
(1992: 444)
and Brilliant
(1984: 122)
have
given completely inexplicable
variations.
166 ELSNER
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168 ELSNER
Fig. 1 1. The Arch of Constantine. Detail of the northeast
corner, showing
the eastern frieze
(Constantine's approach
to
Rome) turning
the corner on to the north front. Photo: DAI, Rome,
Inst.
Neg.
5636.
the Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome)
an effective visual marker of the
continuity
of the frieze's narrative action around
the arch
(Brilliant,
1984:
121; Pierce,
1989:
414; Koeppel,
1990:
40, 43, 52, 56), by
contrast with the self-contained icons above
(Figs 11-14).
That
continuity
both
ges-
tures to the
specific
historical narrative related
by
the frieze
(Constantine
's defeat of
Maxentius)
and undercuts this
story by continuing
back to the
beginning again.
The
north face of the arch contains both the
beginning
and the end of the frieze's narrat-
ive. In
fact, history
was to
prove
the frieze correct: after the
triumphant entry
into
Rome,
there would indeed be another
profectio,
another set of
sieges
and battles and
Fig. 12. The Arch of Constantine. Detail of the Constantinian frieze at the east end of the north front,
showing
the two
leading
soldiers of Constantine's
army approaching
the
city
of Rome. Photo: DAI,
Rome, Inst.
Neg.
32.46.
the Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome)
finally
the
overthrowing
of Licinius."
For
my purposes,
in
relating
the artistic
dynamics
of the arch to a late
antique
culture of
spoliation
which was to find its most
developed expression
in the cult of
relics,
what is
significant
is the relation of
past
and
present
in this careful set of
jux-
tapositions
and
recuttings
of the Arch's
sculptures.
Their
meaning
is not in
any
respect Christian, although
a
good
case has been made for the
workshop
involved in
carving
the frieze
being responsible
for both Christian and
pagan sarcophagi
27
The
general
and timeless
quality
of the frieze is well described
by
Richardson
(1975), though
in
aid of a mistaken view of the date.
170 ELSNER
Fig. 13. The Arch of Constantine. Detail of the northwest
corner, showing
the
opening
of the west-
ern frieze
(the
advance from
Milan)
at the west end of the north front. Photo:
DAI, Rome,
Inst.
Neg.
5642.
the Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome)
(L'Orange
and von
Gerkan,
1939:
219-29;
Brandenburg,
1981:
71-4).
But there is
a
parallel
with Christian
typological pairings
of Old and New Testament scenes in
the
presentation
of a Constantinian narrative of
victory against
the
backdrop
of the
glorious
deeds of earlier
emperors,
in
particular Trajan,
and the iconic actions of
Marcus and Hadrian in
fulfilling
the
imperial
role
(Malbon,
1990:
150-1; Eisner,
1995:280).
Let us examine some of the effects of this visual
compression
of
past
and
pres-
ent
by looking
at the total effect of the
sculptural display on,
for
example,
the two
shorter sides of the Arch. This has
hardly
been
attempted,
since
scholarship
has been
concerned more to discuss the different elements of
spolia according
to their
sup-
posed original
interrelations and
provenances
than to elucidate the
setting
which the
ARCH OF CONSTANTINE
171
Fig. 14. The Arch of Constantine. Detail of the Constantinian frieze at the west end of the north
front, showing
the last two soldiers of Constantine's
army leaving
Milan. Photo: DAI, Rome,
Inst.
Neg.
32. 45.
the Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome)
Senate's
designers
chose for them in celebration of Constantine.28 The west side
(Fig. 15) has,
at its
centre,
the Constantinian medallion of the
setting
moon
with,
2S
I am conscious here that I am
imputing
intention to both the Arch's
programme
and to the Senate
as its
inaugurators.
Both these
assumptions might
be criticized
(Kinney,
1995:
57);
but
(at
least in the
case of the
dedicators)
it seems
perverse
to
deny
the Senate a role
proclaimed loudly by
the Arch's main
attic
inscription
and
implied
also in the datives of the
passageway inscriptions.
The Arch's
propa-
ganda,
therefore, represents
not Constantine
justifying
himself
(as suggested by,
for
example,
Brenk
(1987:
105)
and Pierce
(1989: 388, 391, 415))
but rather the Senate
presenting
their new
emperor
with a
visual
programme
that constructs him in the
way they hoped
he would turn out. This allows the Arch to
appear
as a
highly
traditional Senatorial monument
(like
the Ara
Pacis)
with the
emperor
as
recipient
of
externally
bestowed honours. Of course,
the
placing
of the Arch at the
endpoint
of Maxentius's
great
building programme
to the east of the forum
(on
which see Cullhed
(1994: 49-55))
allows it to
cap
and
make Constantinian the whole Maxentian
project.
172 ELSNER
immediately
below,
the
inauguration
of the
fourth-century
frieze
showing
the
emperor
and his
army leaving
Milan for the war
against
Maxentius
(see Fig. 9).
Above,
in the
attic,
a
fragment
from the
great Trajanic
frieze sets the Constantinian
war in the historical context of a
virtually
endless
cycle
of
imperial
warfare
(as
endless,
in the context of official art in the
city
of
Rome,
as the helical friezes on the
columns of
Trajan
and
Marcus).
On either side of the attic
storey
are set two of the
free-standing
defeated Dacians
(perhaps originally
from
Trajan's forum),
while on
the bases of the
pilasters
on each side of the bottom of the western end of the arch
are two
fourth-century
scenes of defeated enemies
(male
and
female)
between
Roman
victory
standards.
Fig. 15. The Arch of Constantine. General view of the west front
(for
detail of the central section,
see
Fig. 9).
Photo: DAI, Rome, Inst.
Neg.
38. 701.
the Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome)
The
sculptural imagery
on the main
body
of the west end is thus framed at each
corner of the
longitudinal
field
by
an
image
of
imperial triumph
over barbarians. The
specific inauguration
of Constantine's
campaign
to overthrow
Maxentius,
and its
setting
in
parallel
with
Trajan's
Dacian
Wars,
is valorized
by
the broader
picture
of
Roman
imperialism
-
the
conquest
and maintenance of the
provinces
-
that is
implicitly
made
possible by
such hard but
responsible
choices as that of Constantine
to make civil war
against
what the Arch's attic
inscription {CIL
LXI 1139:
Grnewald,
1990:
78-86; Hall, 1998; Kuttner, forthcoming)
-
repeated
in the centre
of both the
longer
sides
-
describes as
'tyranny'.
The
danger
to the
state,
to
Constantine,
even the defeat of
Rome,
are fore-shadowed
by
the
image
of the set-
ting
moon
-
which serves also to set the historical theme within a
cosmological
dispensation.
By
the time the viewer reaches the eastern side
(assuming
a
progress
round the
Arch which follows the directional
injunctions
of the
frieze),
after the victorious
battles of the southern
friezes,
the theme is
unalloyed triumph.
In the Constantinian
frieze,
the
army
marches
triumphantly
towards Rome in
preparation
for
Constantine's adventus into the
city,
while the
rising
sun and a
torch-bearing genius
fly
above in the tondo
(Fig. 10).
The theme of
sunny victory
is echoed in the
Trajanic
scenes on the
attic, showing
Roman
troops blowing trumpets
and
galloping
over
fallen barbarians.
Again
the four corners of the visual field are framed
by
the
image
of defeated Dacians at the
top
and
conquered provincials
on either side of a Roman
standard below.
Implicitly,
the civil war has become a
great victory
over Rome's
enemies,
with the visual
emphasis significantly turning
on
foreign
enemies.
Within this
typological programme
of
saving
the
state,
the choice to reut the
imperial
heads of
Trajan,
Hadrian and Marcus as
portraits
of Constantine
(and per-
haps
his
father) signals
a
significant
break with
previous patterns
of
recutting
(Figs 4-7).
The elimination of an
emperor's portrait
often
signalled
an act of damna-
tio memoriae
(Vittinghoff, 1936; Pekary,
1985:
134-42; Stewart, 1999),
in which a
Domitian,
Nero or Commodus was made to
vanish,
in what
might
be described as
the ancient
equivalent
of
airbrushing!29
Such removals can be
seen,
for
instance,
in
the Cancellaria reliefs
(Koeppel,
1984:
24, 29-30; Bergmann
and
Zanker,
1981:
388-9),
where Nerva
replaces Domitian,
or the
triumph panel
of Marcus Aurelius in
the Museo
Conservatori,
where Commodus has been removed and reut into an
extension of the
temple
in the
background (Koeppel,
1986:
50-2).
Under
Caracalla,
this traditional
attempt
to make the absence of a
figure
vanish was
replaced by
the
use of a
violently empty space signalling
the total eradication of the condemned
-
as witnessed
by
the
gouged-out
hollows
replacing
the
images
of Caracalla's brother
Geta,
his wife Plautilla and his father-in-law Plautianus on the Gate of the
Argentarii
in Rome
(Haynes
and
Hirst,
1939:
20-3).
29
For discussion of the effects of this on
surviving images: Bergmann
and
Zanker, 1981; Pollini,
1984;
Born and
Stemmer,
1996: 101-17.
174 ELSNER
But the
recuttings
on the Arch of Constantine reverse these
patterns
in several
ways. Firstly,
the reut
panels
are not left in
situ,
as were most
major recuttings
fol-
lowing
damnatio
memoriae,
such as the Colossus of Nero or the
Argentarii
reliefs.
Secondly,
the act of
recutting
in the case of the Arch of Constantine
represents
not
a
rejection
of these
previous emperors (who
in fact
topped
the list of
good rulers)
but rather a
bolstering
and
elevating
of Constantine
through literally putting
him in
their shoes.30 In
effect,
as the Arch searches for methods of
creating
a
typological
relationship
between
Constantine,
the
fourth-century usurping conqueror,
and his
great second-century predecessors,
it does so
by simultaneously exploiting
and
transforming
time-honoured
patterns
of Roman
image-making.
The reut head
-
for centuries a
signal
of the condemnation of the
figure
whose face has been
destroyed
-
now becomes a mark of honour for the
emperor
whose face has been
inserted,
in
part
because of the
praiseworthy body
into which his head has been
put.
In
this,
the reliefs of the arch emulate traditions of the honorific reuse of
statues
(Blanck, 1969; Jucker,
1981
(on
an earlier
period)),
as well as the
leaving
of
unfinished heads and the later insertion of
portrait
heads into
mythological
scenes
common in
non-imperial
Roman art
(Huskinson, 1998),
for
example
on
sarcophagi
like the
splendid
Ludovisi
sarcophagus
now in the Palazzo
Altemps
in Rome
(L.
de
Lachenal in
Giuliano,
1983:
56-67).
31
Here a
mythological
or a battle scene of a
fairly
standardized
type
has the
portrait
of the deceased inserted in the
figure
of the
main
protagonist
-
who is
simultaneously
commemorated
through
his
portrait
and
elevated
by
virtue of the
grand military
or
mythical
narrative in which he
figures.
This
strategy, extremely
common in Roman art
generally,
is
rarely
attested in
pub-
lic
imperial art, though Pliny
recorded the case of two
paintings
of Alexander
by
Apelles, brought
to Rome
by Augustus
and
displayed
'in the most
frequented parts
of his
forum',
in which Claudius substituted the
portrait
of
Augustus
for
Apelles's
head of Alexander
(Pliny,
Natural
History
35.
36.94). Effectively,
the reliefs of the
Arch of Constantine clothe the
emperor
in the
virtually mythologized
deeds of his
Roman forebears
-
as the Ludovisi
youth
is clothed in the
grandeur
of Roman
victory
and Claudius's
Augustus
was clothed in the frame
-
both aesthetic and
myth-historical
-
of
Apelles's
Alexander.
The
recuttings
of the reused reliefs on the Arch
posit
a novel kind of visual
pro-
paganda
which is both
utterly
traditional in its treatments of earlier
imagery
and at
30
Here I differ from
Kinney (1997: 146)
who has insisted that
'recutting literally
effaced ... ori-
ginal
referents. Claudius with the face and name of Diocletian was Diocletian.
Trajan
with the face and
epithets
of Constantine was Constantine'. The
problem
with this
position
-
which affirms the tradi-
tional attitude to
imperial
damnatio memoriae
upheld
not
only
in first- and
second-century objects,
but
also in numerous texts
-
is that the
recutting
of faces on the Arch of Constantine
(and
its third-
century predecessors)
was not an
example
of damnatio. That the visual
language
of damnatio should
have been
appropriated
to
imperial praise
in the Arch is
perhaps
evidence
that,
as in the case of the
Colossus of Nero, the original referent was in fact never whollv effaced.
The
frequent attempts
to
identify
the
portrait inevitably
have been central to the
arguments
about
dating,
but a date in the second half of the third
century
is
agreed generally.
the same time
radically
new. The methods of damnatio memoriae
(as practised
in
the first and second centuries rather than under the
Severans)
are
used,
but without
the
condemnatory
intentions. The
highly
traditional
practice
of
adding portrait
heads
to bodies
engaged
in
military
or
mythical
narratives
(or
to statue
types
like
Doryphorus
or the
athletes)
is
again pressed
into
service,
but with the
revolutionary
twist that it is earlier state reliefs of
previous 'good' emperors
which
provide
the
mythical
context into which Constantine 's
image
is cut.32
CULTURAL CONTEXT
The visual
strategies
of the Arch of Constantine were
hardly
isolated within late
Roman culture.
Strikingly,
the Arch's aesthetic of
bricolage
-
its
syncretism
of
fragments
from different
periods
and
styles
as the basis of a new monument which
puts
a certain
interpretative
onus on its viewers
-
reflects similar
patterns
in late
antique poetry (Roberts,
1989:
66-121; Miller, 1998).
The
figurative poems
of
Optatian,
for
instance,
whom Constantine made Prefect of Rome in 329 and
again
in
333,
are so written that certain
letters, highlighted
in
red,
form a
geometrical pat-
tern whose
sequence
makes
syntactical
and semantic sense and reads as a
poem
within a
poem (Levitan,
1985:
254-63; Miller,
1998:
123-6).
Like the Hadrianic
medallions and the Aurelian
panels,
not to
speak
of the Constantinian frieze
-
whose formal and
stylistic
affinities mark them as
particular groups
within the over-
all visual
programme
of the Arch with their own
specific
narratives
(of hunting
and
sacrifice,
of traditional
imperial triumph
and of the Constantinian
conquest
of
Rome)
-
one of
Optatian's patterns,
while
formally segregated
from the rest of his
poem,
functions both within the
larger poem's
context and
separately.
Just as a
knowing
viewer
might
choose to read the
iconography
of
Trajan
or
Marcus, say,
against
the
pro-Constantinian interpretation
of
positive
historical
precedent (and
hence see Constantine as a
usurper,
for
example),
so
Optatian's
readers could choose
to
interpret
the
figurai poem
either in
harmony
with the
larger poem
or
against
it.
While
Optatian
does not
play
on the
past thematically,
he none the less
develops
the
fundamental traditions of Latin verse to
radically
new ends
(Levitan,
1985:
168-9),
just
as the arch makes considerable innovations out of the most traditional
practices
of Roman art.
32
It
may
be that
something
of the
novelty
of these
recuttings
on the Arch of Constantine and its
predecessors,
the Arco di
Portogallo
and the Arcus
Novus,
was
presaged
in
third-century imperial
statu-
ary.
A colossal nude in
Naples (Museo
Nazionale
5993) appears
to
represent
Severus Alexander reut
from
Elagabalus.
In this
case, although Elagabalus
had suffered damnatio
memoriae,
it is also true that
Alexander was his
adopted
son and heir. The statue can thus be read as both
effacing
the
memory
of a
hated
predecessor (the
traditional use of
recutting
in
imperial art)
and as a new kind of filial
genuflec-
tion to a deceased ancestor
(anticipating
the much more
developed typological
use of
recutting
on the
Arch of
Constantine):
Fittschen and
Zanker,
1970.
176 ELSNER
Meanwhile, poets
from before the end of the third
century, exploiting
the
verbal
quarry
of the
past,
ransacked the canonical works of Homer and
Virgil
to create
centos in Greek and Latin
-
new works
(often
but not
invariably
on Christian
themes)
made
up entirely
from the classic lines written
by
the hallowed masters
(Crusius, 1899; Lamacchia, 1984;
Grtner and
Liebermann, 1997; Hoch,
1997:
1-^42; Usher, 1998).
While Ausonius's
spectacular description
of sexual intercourse
(entirely
in
juxtaposed
lines of
Vergil) may hardly compare
with the
sobriety
of
Trajan,
Hadrian and Marcus transformed into Constantine
(let
alone Proba's
retelling
of the Bible in
Virgilian centos!),
the aesthetic of
appropriation
and trans-
formed
meaning
is an ironic version of the same
process.33
Such centos could
again
be read on
(at least)
two levels: as narrative
poems
in their own
right
and as clever
'cut-and-paste' jobs, playing
with the canon.
Again,
the
parallels
with the Arch are
obvious
-
not
only
on the formal level of reuse of
spolia
and
making
a new work
of
art,
but also on the more
complex interpretative
level of
offering
readers and
viewers different
positions
and
possibilities
for
exegesis,
whose thrust could not be
wholly
controlled
by
the arch's makers.
On the more thematic
level, philosophers, grammarians
and
bishops
vied to
reinterpret
the substance of Homer and
Virgil (for example: Lamberton,
1986:
144-232; 1992; MacCormack,
1998:
1-88).
Constantine himself
gave
a sermon
pre-
senting
the Messianic child of
Virgil's
Fourth
Eclogue
as Christ
(Benko,
1980:
671-2;
Lane
Fox,
1986:
649-52; MacCormack,
1998:
23-7).
This kind of
typolo-
gical exegesis
-
much more
commonly
of course
employed
to show how Old
Testament themes
prefigured
the events of the New Testament
-
underlies the
great
flowering
of visual
typology
in the Christian arts of the third and fourth centuries
(Schrenk, 1995; Eisner,
1995:
271-87).
Like the
typology
of the
Arch,
the use of
scenes
-
such as Jonah's encounter with the whale or the sacrifice of Isaac to fore-
shadow the Christian narrative of Jesus 's Resurrection
-
conflated
past
and
present,
and
displayed
the
past only
in so far as the
past
is validated
by,
fulfilled in and made
meaningful through
the
present.
While the Arch's
typological imagery
had no overt
exegetic underpinning
in a canonical text such as
scripture
or even
Virgil's poetry,
the heroic
precedent
of
previous imperial example
was a
staple
of
fourth-century
history
and
panegyric {Historia Augusta Elagabalus
1.
1-2,
Claudius 2.
3,
18.
4,
Aurelian 42.
4,
Tacitus 6.
9; Panegyrici
Latini IL
4.5, 11.6,
IV 24.6
(with
Nixon
(1990: 30-3)).
These
fourth-century
models of verbal or visual
juxtaposition
-
variously
described as an 'aesthetic of
discontinuity' (Roberts,
1989:
61),
'the
production
of
meaning by fragmentation' (Miller,
1998:
188)
and the
product
of 'a
remarkably
paratactic imagination' (Miller,
1998:
199)
-
have a resonance with the cult of
relics
(Miller,
1998:
123, 126, 130-3),
'a 'cult' better described as an aesthetic'
33
Ausonius:
Nugent,
1990:
37^1; Malamud,
1989:
35-9; Slavitt,
1998: 47-75
(for
a brilliant
translation into a
Shakespearean cento);
Proba: Clark and
Hatch,
1981.
(Miller,
1998:
123).
For
relics,
the
fragments
of once whole
bodies, possessed by
synecdoche
the
active,
even
magical, power
of the whole in the
part. They belonged
to the
past
but were assimilated to
present
needs
-
in
liturgy,
in church
building,
in
commemorative monuments. Like an Old Testament
type,
or one of Constantine's
predecessors
on his
Arch,
their resonance oscillated
constantly
between their ori-
ginal meaning
and their new
significance
in whatever context
they
were
deployed.
Within the realm of state
art,
the
designers
of Constantine's monuments
employed
this new
style
of
syncretistic bricolage
to brilliant and incremental effect.
While his tetrarchie
predecessors
had
justified
their
imperial lineage through
Jovian
and Herculean
dynasties (Liebeschuetz,
1979:
240-4),
the Arch's use of
spolia
realigns
Constantine
away
from the traditional
gods
and towards an
equally
idealiz-
ing
succession of
'good emperors'.
The
building
of
apostolic
tombs in the mau-
soleum at
Constantinople (itself
a transformed
imperial family
mausoleum such as
those of
Augustus
and Hadrian at
Rome)
used a
regime
of
images
to
proclaim
a fur-
ther and fundamental
change
of
lineage:
Constantine and his heirs now traced their
succession
by
virtue of the successors of Christ as well as
(and ultimately
rather
than)
those of
Augustus.
The
placing
of relics in the mausoleum
(whether by
Constantine soon after its
founding
or
by
Constantius a
generation later) supple-
mented and affirmed the
change
of
lineage through
the addition of actual
spolia
from the
scriptural past,
imbued with all the active
power
of the saints. Relics
-
like
the
spolia
on the Arch
-
added a material discourse of the actual hallowed sub-
stances of the
past
to that of visual
representation.
One
interesting
difference
between the Arch and the mausoleum is that the former's method of
conflation,
in
which Constantine
eclipses
his
predecessors by being
carved into their
bodies, gives
way
to a
supplemental
mode where the
image
of Constantine is added to those of
the twelve
apostles,
and
ultimately
their bodies are
brought
to
accompany
his.
In the context of
surviving sculpture
and architecture in
Rome,
the Arch of
Constantine stands out. Whether we focus on the uses of
spolia,
on the innovative
juxtaposition
of
stylistically
and
chronologically
diverse relief
sculptures
on a
high-
ly
traditional architectural structure
(this
was
Raphael's original point
of
interest),
on issues of
recutting,
or on the
typological potential
of the Arch's
imagery,
it
embodies fundamental
changes
in Roman visual
practice.
But these are cast in
high-
ly
traditional
-
even conservative
-
forms. The arch is so traditional as to be
hardly new,
and
yet
its innovations are
-
and
signal
future
-
ruptures
with
previ-
ous
practice
which are little short of
revolutionary.
Alone of all Roman
emperors except Augustus,
Constantine
occupied
the
throne for over 30
years.
Like
Augustus,
he
engineered political changes
which
transformed the
empire
to an extent no other ruler achieved. One
aspect
of this
process
of
political
transformation
-
as Zanker
(1988)
has shown with such com-
pelling elegance
in the case of
Augustus
-
was the
development
of a rhetoric of
images adapted
to the needs of
imperial power
at the time. Of
course,
the evidence
(including
the visual
evidence)
for the
reign
of Constantine is much less than that
for the
reign
of
Augustus. But,
if we examine the
great
Constantinian
projects (from
178
ELSNER
the Arch to the
building
of churches to the foundation of
Constantinople
and the
mausoleum), looking
at them not in isolation but as
aspects
of a concerted and
developing
visual
strategy
over three
decades,
it is
quite
clear that Constantine 's
spin
doctors were as
masterly
and creative as those of
Augustus.
That the medieval
cult of relics and the medieval aesthetic of
spoliation
owes so much to this
pro-
gramme
is
(at
least from the
viewpoint
of those in the
early
fourth
century)
fortu-
itous;
but it is also a tribute to the bold and brilliant uses of
art, spolia
and relics in
the state
propaganda
of Constantine.34
Jas Elsner
34
The research for this
paper
was conducted
during my
tenure of a
Hugh
Last
Fellowship
at the
British School at Rome in 1997. I thank Paul Zanker for
lending
me his own advance
copy
of the
Rendiconti for 1993^
(almost entirely
devoted to the Arch of
Constantine)
over two
years
before this
volume reached
any library
in
London,
as well as Dale
Kinney,
Peter
Stewart, Bryan
Ward-Perkins and
Mark Wilson Jones for
generously letting
me see their work in advance of
publication.
Versions of this
paper
have been delivered at seminars in the universities of California in Los
Angeles, Cambridge,
Chicago, Oxford, Reading
and the Courtauld Institute: I am
grateful
to
everyone
who took the trouble
to
interrogate
me and make me think
again.
I owe a number of
particular improvements
to the Editor
(Bryan Ward-Perkins),
Michael
Allen,
Dale
Kinney,
Neil
McLynn
and the
anonymous
readers.
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