It has been a most delightful couple of weeks. It has been a great opportunity to connect some dots, one of my favorite activities.
It began with our visit to some of the finest fine art museums in the world, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, and then the Getty Villa and the Getty Center in west Los Angeles.
The Getty Villa had a special exhibit while we were there: from around the world 12 sculptures of Commodus.
The Getty Villa
Commodus was a Roman emperor in the second century after the birth of Christ. He was the son of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the “five good emperors” as described by Prince Machiavelli in 1503. Commodus probably preferred being remembered as a gladiator; he was said to have been particularly proud of his physical prowess. He thought of himself as being the reincarnation of Hercules, and he frequently emulated the legendary hero’s feats by appearing in the arena to fight wild animals.
One of the first pieces of art that J. Paul Getty bought when he settled in west Los Angeles was a larger-than-life sculpture of Herakles, the greatest of Greek heroes who most of us know better as the Roman Hercules. That particular sculpture inspired Getty to build a Roman villa overlooking the Pacific Coast in Pacific Palisades, west Santa Monica.
Of the 12 sculptures in the Getty Villa special exhibit, three busts of Commodus came from Toronto, three from England, and, perhaps the most intriguing, one from the Vatican. Only two were from the Getty collection itself.
And as exciting as the sculpture from the Vatican, even more exciting for me personally was a sculpture of Septemius Severus. Yes, that’s how the Getty spelled this emperor’s name, though every other source has the spelling Septimus. [February 9, 2009: I note that the Oxford Companion to British History, editor John Cannon, c. 1997, spells it Septemius. So, I stand corrected.]
It has been my contention for years that Virginia Woolf named Mrs Dalloway’s doppelgänger, the shell-shocked soldier in the novel whose suicide preceded Virginia Woolf’s, after this Roman soldier, gladiator, and emperor. Virginia Woolf would have known the story of Septimus Severus well. Septimus was considered the “soldier’s soldier.” Beginning in 200, Septimus undertook a number of military actions in Roman Britain, reconstructing Hadrian’s Wall and campaigning in Scotland, before falling ill and dying in Yorkshire in 211.
I visited Hadrian’s Wall a couple of years ago, and to see the bust of one of the men instrumental in maintaining that wall was very pleasing. So many dots were connected: my visit to Yorkshire, Hadrian’s wall, Septimus Smith, Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf, and the Getty Villa.
Oh, by the way, the Getty Villa is modeled after a villa in Herculaneum, destroyed by Mt Vesuvius along with Pompeii. I visited the latter thirty years ago while hitchhiking through Europe one summer. Yes, connecting the dots is very satisfying.
Addendum, verbatim from wiki.com:
"Roman occupation was withdrawn to a line subsequently established as one of the lines of the empire (i.e. a defensible frontier) by the construction of Hadrian's Wall. An attempt was made to push this line north to the River Clyde-River Forth area in 142 when the Antonine Wall was constructed. However, this was once again abandoned after two decades and only subsequently re-occupied on an occasional basis. The Romans retreated to the earlier and stronger Hadrian's Wall in the River Tyne-Solway Firth frontier area, this having been constructed around 122. Roman troops, however, penetrated far into the north of modern Scotland several more times. Indeed, there is a greater density of Roman marching camps in Scotland than anywhere else in Europe as a result of at least four major attempts to subdue the area. The most notable was in 209 when the emperor Septimus Severus, claiming to be provoked by the belligerence of the Maeatae tribe, campaigned against the Caledonian Confederacy. He used the three legions of the British garrison (augmented by the recently formed 2nd Parthica legion), 9000 imperial guards with cavalry support, and numerous auxiliaries supplied from the sea by the British fleet, the Rhine fleet and two fleets transferred from the Danube for the purpose. According to Dio Cassius, he inflicted genocidal depredations on the natives and incurred the loss of 50,000 of his own men to the attrition of guerrilla tactics before having to withdraw to Hadrian's Wall. He repaired and reinforced the wall with a degree of thoroughness that led most subsequent Roman authors to attribute the construction of the wall to him. It was during the negotiations to purchase the truce necessary to secure the Roman retreat to the wall that the first recorded utterance, attributable with any reasonable degree of confidence, to a native of Scotland was made (as recorded by Dio Cassius). When Septimus Severus' wife, Julia Domna, criticised the sexual morals of the Caledonian women, the wife of a Caledonian chief, Argentocoxos, replied: "We consort openly with the best of men while you allow yourselves to be debauched in private by the worst." The emperor Septimus Severus died at York while planning to renew hostilities, but these plans were abandoned by his son Caracalla."
Data Points
The “Five Good Emperors” is a term that refers to five consecutive emperors of the Roman Empire who represented a line of virtuous and just rule — Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. Their reigns lasted from 96 to 180 AD. The term was coined by the political philosopher Prince Niccolò Machiavelli in 1503.
Hadrian: 117 – 138. Following a two-year rebellion in Roman Brittania (119 – 121), Hadrian traveled to Brittania and began constructing whtat is now known as Hadrian’s Wall in 122 (the Latin name for the wall has been lost). The wall marked the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire. Hadrian was the third of the “Five Good Emperors.”
Antonios Pius: 139 - 161
Marcus Aurelius: 161 – 180. Last of the “Five Good Emperors.”
Commodus: 180 – 192 (named co-emperor by Marcus in 177). Commodus was the first emperor "born to the purple;" i.e., born during his father's reign. He was generally acknowledged to be extremely handsome. Commodus was extremely proud of his physical prowess, and is often referred to as Commodus the gladiator. He ordered many statues to be made showing him dressed as Hercules with a lion's hide and a club. He thought of himself as the reincarnation of Hercules, frequently emulating the legendary hero's feats by appearing in the arena to fight a variety of wild animals. He was left-handed, and very proud of the fact.
Septimus Severus: 193 – 211. A general and emperor. According to historians, he was “at heart a soldier.” Starting from 208, Severus undertook a number of military actions in Roman Britain, reconstructing Hadrian's Wall and campaigning in Scotland, before falling severely ill in Eburacum (York). He died there on February 4, 211.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment