ARACHNE REVISITED: HUBRIS AND TECHNOLOGICAL SOPHISTICATION IN THE FRIEZES
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-11-18

This paper focusses on the frieze of the temple of Minerva in the Forum Transitorium, conceived under Domitian. The identification of the frieze’s main motif as the weaving contest between Minerva and Arachne (elaborately described in Ov. Met. 6.5-145) is still debated: D’Ambra’s identification of the crouching woman in the central panel as Arachne is only tentatively accepted in J.P. Wild’s discussion of Roman loom types, and mentioned as unsubstantiated in the LIMC article on Arachne. By looking beyond Ovid to the Astronomica of Manilius (4.128-139), this paper assesses the contemporary appreciation of the Arachne story as a cautionary tale as well as the purpose of repetitive features in the large number of process-focussed frieze panels depicting various stages of cloth preparation. The paper suggests that the prominent display of the motif of wool-work, alongside the cautionary tale of Arachne’s hubris, offers an imperial response to an emerging stoic paradigm of uxorial loyalty, where wives supporting or outshining their husbands in moral strength are lauded despite transgressing normative female behaviour. Domitian’s renewed emphasis on wool-work as a paradigmatic female activity here instead reinforces the prominent statebearing role of Roman wives. Yet the frieze also showcases the economic value of traditional textile work. The detailed depiction of textile tools (scales measuring the amount of wool to be spun, spindles, distaffs, pin-beaters, etc) and the repeated display of a loom-type rarely parallelled at the time focus on the potential output of female industriousness, expertise, and technological development.

 D’Ambra, E. 1993. Private lives, imperial virtues, the frieze of the Forum Transitorium in Rome. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.
Szilágy, J. G. 1984. “Arachne”, LIMC II.1: 470-471.
Wild, J. P. 1992. “The Roman Loom in the Western Europe: The Evidence of Art and Archaeology”. Vlaamse Vereniging voor oud en hedendaags Textiel Bulletin 12-16.

Author(s): Öhrman, Magdalena (University of Wales Trinity Saint David; Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen)