Elsner, 'Ara Pacis Augustae and the Imagery of Abundance in Later Greek and Early Roman Imperial Art', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9508
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9508-elsner-ara
@@@@95.9.5, Castriota, Ara Pacis/Imagery of Abundance
David Castriota, The Ara Pacis Augustae and the Imagery of
Abundance in Later Greek and Early Roman Imperial Art.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Pp. xviii & 253. B.
& w. illus. 91. $45.00. ISBN 0-691-03715-9.
Reviewed by Jas Elsner, Courtauld Institute of Art
Despite the horrendously large bibliography which has now
accumulated on the Ara Pacis, there has been no monograph in
English (except for a translation of Erika Simon's 1967 Tuebingen
volume--not very widely available, at least in the U.K.). So a
new book on what is perhaps the premier of all the surviving
Augustan monuments in Rome, is not a bad idea. As Castriota
correctly claims in his introduction, "the altar remains a
touchstone for the study of early Roman imperial monuments, and
rightly so" (p. 3). However, (despite its title) this book is
not about the Ara Pacis: it is single-mindedly devoted to
the altar's admittedly abundant floral decorations. Likewise,
there exists no up-to-date systematic study of the history and
iconography of such floral ornament in Classical antiquity,
though "what may well have constituted the single most widespread
mode of ancient decorative art" (p. ix) certainly deserves to be
treated seriously. But this book, which is a narrowly-focused
study of floral ornament in one (albeit very significant)
monument and its antecedents, does not quite fill that gap
either. In short, despite the formidable learning and scholarship
amassed in Castriota's more than fifty pages of minuscule
endnotes, despite the coherence and force of his closely argued
text, and despite the intrinsic value of the subject, I think
The Ara Pacis Augustae and the Imagery of Abundance
doesn't quite live up to all it promises in both the areas of its
focus because it draws that focus too tightly.
The book has two methodological axioms. First, "the
consideration of sources [is] vital to any real understanding of
a monument like the Ara Pacis" (p. 55, c.f. p. 8)--that is, the
monument is only fully intelligible in terms of its Classical and
Hellenistic precedents. Second, "to the ancient spectator
familiar with the accepted lore and tradition of divine symbols
and attributes, it was the various plants and other emblems ...
that really disclosed the sense and nuance
of the monument" (p. 25, my italics). This is a very important
(and in fact far reaching) thesis which governs much of
Castriota's interpretative strategy throughout the book. If it
were to command assent in the manner in which it is developed in
this book, it would have significant implications as a call for
the close-reading and assessment of every iconographical nuance
of every monument in antiquity (and every other period).
In his first axiom, clearly Castriota is right that the
exploration of antecedents is essential to a full understanding
of the creation and initial impact of a state monument like the
Ara Pacis. He is very proficient in tracing the Hellenistic
roots of the altar's floral imagery (pp. 13-33), of the altar's
form in relation to now lost altars from Pergamon and Athens (pp.
33-41), and of the altar's animal imagery (pp. 41-57). On a
less specifically art-historical level, he makes a good case for
the Hellenistic origins of that archetypally Augustan concept,
"the Golden Age", of which the Ara Pacis was a prime celebration
(pp. 124-44). All this is excellent, and leads to the convincing
conclusion that the Ara Pacis represents not a new beginning but
"the summation of centuries of Greek efforts", with Augustan
classicism a "veneer that masks" other Greek traditions which the
art of the altar drew upon and syncretised (pp. 55-6). Yet the
impact of this discussion of the altar in the context of its
iconographic, formal and cultural sources is significantly
weakened by being so partial. Why is there no space devoted even
to recapitulating (let alone re-examining) "the Classical and
Hellenistic precedents that informed the design and content of
the allegorical panels and the processional reliefs" (p. 8)? Why
is there no discussion of the religious and sacrificial
precedents of a building with the Ara Pacis' functions? An
understanding of the Ara Pacis as a reformulation of its sources
can only be complete if it is complete in treating all those
antecedents.
Castriota's second thesis concerns the interpretation of
detail. He argues that "the highly naturalistic vegetal or
floral additions were intended to go well beyond a generalized
evocation of efflorescent terrestrial life and wealth. This
usage was a distinct iconographic strategy that signified ... the
cooperative involvement and blessing of the specific divinities
responsible for such prosperity" (p. 21-2). To this end, he
includes long discussions of the divine associations of plants
(pp. 15-21), lists exhaustively various floral epithets for
Apollo and Dionysos (pp. 26-7), and ultimately finds the
naturalistic imagery of the entire lower zone of the Ara Pacis'
outer walls to be an "harmonious assemblage of visual metonyms"
(p. 86) nudging the Roman viewer towards "their significative
function" (p. 31). The call, then, is for a minute and loving
analysis of every visual detail of a part of the altar long
dismissed as very pretty but merely decorative. This call is not
simply answered in the main thrust of Castriota's discussion but
it is justified as being part of what the ancient spectator knew-
-that aspect which "really disclosed the sense and nuance of the
monument" (p. 25).
But the problem is whether all the associations which
Castriota traces in such careful detail ever really had the force
and impact on a viewer's mind which the crescendo of his argument
suggests. To put the issue in terms of an old saying, when is a
spade a spade and when is it a "visual metonym"? By excluding
most of the images which art history has always taken as central
in the Ara Pacis--the imperial processions, the mythical scenes
at the altar's entrances, the images of sacrifice around the
altar-table itself--Castriota's discussion focuses on what has
always been seen as marginal (or at least as ornamental) but with
all the care and detail which would normally be accorded not to
the margin but to the centre. Implicitly, he is claiming that
all parts of all works of art must be viewed with equal care to
every reverberance of their potential meaning. Implicitly a
spade is never a spade--it is always to be treated as a
full "visual metonym". Certainly, this is a possible position to
hold in the history of art, but I cannot say that this reviewer
agrees with it. Surely, it must be always possible for
spectators to "space out", and a well conceived work of art may
build such possibilities for less attentive viewing into its
structure. In the end, despite the force and often compelling
weight of Castriota's argument, I still suspect that the great
floral friezes of the Ara Pacis were an ornamental backdrop (full
of possible symbolism, to be sure) to the main imperial, mythic
and sacrificial themes of its prime images.
Finally, a few words about Castriota's cultural view of the
Augustan period. His is yet another contribution to the
art-historical side of this subject which has been expanding with
extraordinary speed since Zanker's seminal contribution in 1988.
Promised or very recently published books include new studies by
Sauron (1994), Kuttner (1995), Pollini, Rose (both forthcoming).
Castriota makes a strong case for the floral friezes of the Ara
Pacis propagating an ideology of "beneficial concord" (p. 86)--a
version of Augustan ideology owing much to Zanker. He has a
problem in that the "apparent preponderance of Dionysian elements
[associated with Antony and not Augustus] over those of Apollo is
nothing less than shocking" (p. 88), but manages to find evidence
for Dionysos and Apollo as a "numen mixtum" (esp. pp. 106-23)
which only reinforces "the overall theme of concord" (p. 119). I
am not wholly convinced by the current tendency among art
historians to read Augustan art and propaganda so smoothly as an
affirmation of a blissful "golden age". Castriota himself
rightly says that "beneath the surface is a patchwork comprised
of the very contradictions and alternatives that propaganda
strives to contain or suppress" (p. 89). It may be that giving
more room to a reading of the non-floral imagery of the Ara
Pacis--its sacrificial themes, for example--would have discovered
a less consistently "seamless and unequivocal" (p. 89)
propagandist thematics.
References:
Kuttner, A. (1995), Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus:
The Boscoreale Cups, Berkeley and Los Angeles
Pollini, J. (forthcoming), The Image of Augustus: Art,
Ideology and the Rhetoric of Leadership
Rose, C. B. (forthcoming), Dynastic Art and Ideology
Sauron, G., (1994), Quis deum? L'expression plastique des
ideologies politiques et religieuses a Rome a la fin de la
republique et au debut du principat, Rome
Simon, E. (1967), Ara Pacis Augustae, Tuebingen
Simon, E. (1968), Ara Pacis Augustae, New York
Zanker, P. (1988), The Power of Images in the Age of
Augustus, Ann Arbor