[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
What happens when objects pass into enemy hands? The authors of the book address the theme starting from the meaning of appropriation, interpreted not from a military and imperialistic point of view[1], but from a perspective that considers how the incorporation of objects from one culture leads to innovation: when spolia are incorporated, they lead to innovative cultural changes, in which the mechanisms of appropriation (or repulsion) and the active role or agency of the objects in these processes can also be traced.The book is divided into three parts, each of which has a clear focus. The last part consists of a “conclusion”, which in fact are stimulating remarks by Caroline Vout on aspects previously discussed in Part 1 and 2.
The editors’ introduction provides the necessary coordinates for investigating spolia. The objective is clear: starting from the appropriation process, which determines the reuse and transformation of objects in a new context, the aim is to investigate the impact of these objects in terms of cultural changes and innovations. This category not only includes material objects of conquest, but also, as Christoph Pieper underlines, the term spolia extended to literary contexts. It deals with a reuse of histories or anecdotes, now employed in a new literary text by Roman authors as exempla to convey moral messages to contemporary readers.
The theoretical approach to “appropriation” first appears in Miguel John Versluys’ paper. “Material appropriation,” “Objectification,” “Incorporation,” and “Transformation,” four phases identified by Hans Peter Hahn,[2] are adopted as a framework to investigate how spoliation worked as a process of appropriation within the historical context of the Late Republic. As Pieter Ter Keurs also points out, the appropriation of something is not a simple and automatic process but, on the basis of the Self-Other dichotomy, an object perceived as “different, alien” needs to be “domesticated” ritually in order to be incorporated. On this basis, Versluys argues that the Roman triumph itself was the ritual through which the spolia were “neutralized,” and thus became “Roman.” But how this transformation would have happened is not clear. Would this “domestication” have been needed only for sacred objects or items used in sacred contexts?[3] Or was this process necessary for other objects as well?
Part 2 presents significant spolia exempla from Latin and Greek literature. Irene J.F. de Jong explores Herodotus’ account on the objects coming from the battlefield of Plataea in 479 BCE. She recognizes some of the four phases relating to “appropriation” by focusing on the Persian gold and Greek appetite for Persian luxury. She notes the negative impact of these objects mainly through the behavior of the Spartan general Pausanias, who was first suspicious and then became a fascinated consumer of them. The next paper by Janric Z. van Rookhuijzen deals with Herodotus’ interest in Persian spoils from a historical and archaeological perspective, focusing on the incorporation of these objects on the Acropolis of Athens. Literary information from ancient authors is compared with the inventories of the Athenian Acropolis Treasuries and, thus, the scholar plausibly argues that some of the Persian spoils could have been stored in the Parthenon, which, according to the author, was located in the western part of the Temple of the Caryatids. Some of the objects stored here may have had a historical significance to the Athenians, who stored them in the temple as in a “museum”. According to van Rookhuijzen the storage of objects of perceived historical significance was not uncommon in ancient Greek sanctuaries; he quotes the case of Rhodes and the Chronicle of Lindos but the comparison does not seem appropriate, as Caroline Vout also points out. In her contribution, she doubts the historical and museological value of objects displayed in the “Karyatid Temple” and she disagrees with the understanding of the Lindian Chronicles as an inventory of what was in the temple. In this sense, can literary references to objects preserved in temples be sufficient to interpreted them as “museum”? These considerations show the problematic nature of temples as repositories of historical memory, an aspect that needs to be investigated in more depth.
Concerning the relationship between spolia and the Roman world, Rutger J. Allan investigates the Roman act of sacking Syracuse (and its consequences) from the perspective of Polybius, highlighting how he used the moralistic aspects of his account to “educate” contemporary readers. Suzan van de Velde’s article, instead, focuses on the Ludovisi Acrolith as potentially part of the spoils from Marcellus’s Sicilian military campaign in 211 BC. She carries out an in-depth historical-archaeological investigation, offering an interesting interpretation that merits further exploration. However, whether or not the Ludovisi Acrolith was part of the collection of looted statues of M. Claudius Marcellus, this paper represents an appreciable attempt to trace the impact of foreign objects on Rome through a careful historical-archaeological investigation. The next article by Lidewij van Gils and Rebecca Henzel, instead, warns about the rhetorical use of Livy (and in general of ancient authors) of events such as the introduction of the luxuria peregrina in Rome by Vulso.[4] The analysis takes into consideration the literary evidence, but focuses on the available archaeological data, which show how Livy’s peregrine luxuria was part of a broader and continuing socio-economic development. The scholars stress the spread of bronze couches or the entertainment at banquets started before 187 BCE, as wall paintings and reliefs on tombs in various sites of Italy show; further, they discuss animal bones, tableware and furniture from well-defined archaeological contexts (i.e., Musarna in Etruria). Even though the archaeological data are limited, the scholars highlight the growing importance of culinary practices from the second century BCE onwards in order to demonstrate that luxuria peregrina started later 187 BCE.
Starting from the narratological and linguistic analysis of the triumphal procession of Aemilius Paullus in Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus by Michel Buijs, Rolf Strootman analyzes the Roman general’s loot by focusing on the weapons present in the procession and valuable objects, such as drinking cups, both expressions of the power of the Antigonid dynasty. The aim is not to classify these objects, but to understand how they were incorporated into the new context and how they were “transformed” in the new context. He underlines how these objects were changed from symbols of power to symbols of defeat and submission but, at the same time, served as proof of the appropriation of an imperialist ideology.
Part 2’s last two contributions deal with the Roman triumph over Judea in 71 CE. Luuk Huitink comments on Flavius Josephus’ description of the triumphal procession in Rome highlighting that, unlike Flavius Josephus, the Romans did not perceive the religious importance and value of this triumph, since, as uneducated spectators, they had only a limited understanding of the sacred objects from the Jerusalem Temple. But how were these objects integrated and transformed in imperial Rome? This is the topic of the last paper in the section by Eric M. Moormann, who reads Josephus’ account of the triumph by means of a comparison with the reliefs of the arch of Titus on the Summa Sacra Via on the Velia. The combined reading of the archaeological and literary data allows one to understand how the representation of the sacred objects on the monument was intended to represent the full subjugation of Judea. The choice to place them in the Templum Pacis transformed them from sacred objects to symbols of Roman power over Judea.
The volume ends with Caroline Vout’s stimulating reflections (Part 3). She suggests an alternative interpretation to some arguments discussed by previous authors, for instance on how much the Persian booty transformed Athens in the fifth century or to what degree the Roman triumphal procession served to “domesticate” foreign objects. However, one of the most interesting aspects is the remark on the term “appropriation”, widely used by authors in the book, and that of “incorporation,” preferred by Vout. She believes that the term “appropriation” used by scholars is reductive, since Romans were part of a world in which objects and people were already considered portable; the incoming objects that were incorporated into Rome participated in a relationship with objects from other cultures, so it is reductive to interpret them as spolia in terms of simple “appropriation”. These considerations enrich the book and contribute to further stimulating thoughts.
Authors and Titles
Preface, Irene F. de Jong and Miguel John Versluys
PART 1: Introduction
- Innovating Objects? Spolia and the Question of Appropriation, Irene J.F. de Jong and Miguel John Versluys
- How to Deal with ‘Things from Outside’: an Anthropological Perspective, Pieter ter Keurs
- Triumphus and the Taming of Objects: Spoliation and the Process of Appropriation in Late Republican Rome, Miguel John Versluys
- Spolia as Exempla / Exempla as Spolia: Two Cases Studies on Historical (Dis)Continuity and Morality, Christoph Pieper
PART 2: Case Studies
- Herodotus’ Framing of the Persian Spolia at Plataea, Irene J.F. de Jong
- Herodotus and the Persian Spoils on the Acropolis of Athens, Janric Z. van Rookhuijzen
- “A City Is Not Adorned by What Comes from Outside, but by the Virtue of Its Inhabitants”: Polybius on the Pragmatics of Spoliation, Rutger J. Allan
- Spoils of Sicily and Their Impact on Late Republican Rome: an Archaeological Perspective, Suzan van de Velde
- Luxuria Peregrina (Livy 39.6): Spolia and Rome’s Gastronomic Revolution, Lidewij van Gils and Rebecca Henzel
- Showing and Telling Spolia: the Triumphal Procession of Aemilius Paullus in Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus, Michel Buijs
- ‘The Glory of Alexander and Philip Made Spoil by Roman Arms’: the Triumph of Aemilius Paullus in 167 BCE, Rolf Strootman
- Between Triumph and Tragedy: Josephus, Bellum Judaicum121-157, Luuk Huitink
- Judaea at the Tiber: Sacred Objects from Judaea and Their New Function in Imperial Rome, Eric M. Moormann
PART 3: Conclusion
- ‘Spolia’ as Category: Greek and Roman Perspectives, Caroline Vout
Notes
[1] On these topics see more recently Spoils in the Roman Republic, Boon and Bane, edited by Marian Helm and Saskia T. Roselaar (Franz Steiner Verlag), 2023.
[2] H. Peter Hahn, “Global Goods and the Process of Appropriation”, in P. Probst, G. Spittler (eds.), Between Resistance and Expansion. Explorations of Local Vitality in Africa (Münster 2004), 211-229.
[3] For instance, the College of Pontiffs was in charge to distinguish res sacrae from res religiosae in Republican Rome (Liv. 26.34)
[4] See also M. Cadario, “L’ostentazione del lusso nel trionfo di Cn. Manlio Vulsone e la funzione di abaci e kylikeia nel mondo ellenistico e romano,” AnalRom 40-41, 2016, 7-20.