John Hunyadi

The Role of Wax Imagines in the Culture and Cult of Memory

The tradition of the ancestral mask and the contexts in which it was displayed are important in understanding the Roman concept of memoria (“remem- brance"), particularly with regard to the collective memory of the community.31 In order to preserve their kind, all living organisms develop strategies to sur- vive, reproduce, and pass on characteristics and traits. Only human beings, painfully aware of their mortality, have devised various mythologies and ritu- als in the hope of surviving beyond the grave. It is perhaps the ultimate irony that man, the so-called rational animal, has difficulty rationally accepting the finality of death. Some religions envision the deceased either enjoying places of bliss, where they will continue a happy existence in some form, or else suffer- ing in eternal torment. The business of death clearly has important ramifica- tions for the way man interrelates with his fellow man and the way private and social memory is constructed and transmitted to future generations. Although cremation or inhumation was intended as a way of disposing of the dead safely, funeral ceremonies and rituals were created for the living in an attempt to make sense of death and to give it-and, conversely, life-meaning.

Unlike certain monotheistic and/or mystery religions that hold out the hope of a better life to come, traditional Greek and Roman religion, based more on nature and a practical view of reality, had little sense of a well-defined hereafter. What passed for an afterlife was rather nebulous and was not eagerly sought. In the Odyssey (11.487-91), for example, the great Greek hero Achilles declares in effect that he would rather be a serf among the living than lord of the dead. And instead of the sort of immortality in the next world that we find in the polytheistic beliefs of the ancient Egyptians and other peoples of the Near East, what mattered in the case of heroes and other worthies of the Greek world were imperishable kleos (“fame/glory”) and remembrance.32

For the Romans, too, the way to survive death and to live on in human memory was through the perpetuation of the individual's gloria as a result of achievements in life. The accomplishments of Augustus, for example, stood as a testimonial before gods and men of his right to be eternally remembered, as he makes clear in his own record of his achievements, the Res Gestae. The Roman poet Ennius once commented (Epigram 10) that there was no need to mourn his death because he would continue to live through his literary accomplish- ments. More well known perhaps is Horace’s famous prediction (Carm. 3.30) that his literary works would be more lasting than bronze and more lofty than the pyramids. As a result of his literary accomplishments, Horace believed that he would not altogether die: a mighty part of him would escape death. The pres- ervation of accomplishments in memory was the essence of true immortality for the Romans, as evidenced also in Polybios (6.54.2):

Accordingly, because the reputation for virtue of good men is continuously being renewed, the glory of those who performed something noble becomes immortal, while the repute of those who performed services for the fatherland becomes well known to many and is transmitted to posterity.

In the highly structured and status-conscious society of ancient Rome, there was a hierarchy of remembrance intimately bound to a hierarchy of power in the hereditary nobility. As Paul Connerton aptly put it, “Power speaks through blood.”33 And in ancient Rome it was this hierarchy of power that largely con- trolled and conditioned the collective memory shared by a given group or community.34 Roman nobles who distinguished themselves in life by their achievements, especially in behalf of the State, were entitled to live on not just in the private memory of their individual families but also in the shared mem- ory of the community. This memorialization took different forms, ultimately leading to the consecration and deification of the leader of the Roman State, beginning with Julius Caesar in 42 B.C.E., the year of his official deification (see chapter III). But long before these late Republican developments, the Roman nobility had created for themselves a form of collective memory that found expression in the tradition of the wax ancestral masks.

Connerton maintains that“remembering”is “not a matter of reproduction but construction; it is the construction of a ‘schema,' a coding, which enables us to distinguish and, therefore, to recall.”5 However, reproduction and con- struction of memory are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one of the most effec- tive ways in which recollected knowledge is learned, shared, and passed on to future generations-the essence of what we mean by “culture"-is through reproduction, which often takes the form of ritualistic performances. By their very nature, rituals are repetitive and establish a continuity involving the past, present, and future. Funerary rites function in the same way, but with the continuity being between the living and dead, with implications for future generations." The interconnection of past, present, and future in establishing ancestral linkage in aristocratic Roman culture is perhaps nowhere better demonstrated in Roman literature than in Vergil's famous review of Roman heroes in book VI of the Aeneid (752-892)38 and in Roman art in the program- matic display of portrait statues in the Forum Augustum.39

Remembering and memorializing the dead is a temporal experience that creates a collective solidarity within societies and legitimizes and perpetu- ates the power of the ruling elite. The reiterative aspect of the Roman nobili- ty's funereal rituals, in which wax masks were paraded before the community, gave the past a sense of presentness with implications for the future.4" This elite funerary ritual was one of the Republic's established institutions, which not only were shaped by the collective gaze of Roman society, whether patrician or plebeian, but also served to validate and perpetuate aristocratic power.4l Through such rites the Romans created, we might say, their own ideology and rhetoric of ritualistic reenactment.+2 In his discussion of death rituals, Rich- ard Wollheim offered a psychoanalytic explanation for them and stressed that such rites are coded representations.43

The performative nature of the Roman wax ancestral mask tradition in the context of public funeral rituals was certainly a way of encoding, as well as of reproducing, collective memory. That these rites were at public expense is also important;\*\* in being sanctioned by the Roman Senate, they became not only a shared cultural experience, involving the participation of the community in the funeral, but also a means of reinforcing the hereditary nobility and con- necting in a highly personalized communal manner with the deceased. In all these ways, we may say that Roman aristocratic funereal rituals were politi- cized.45 Politics is one of the reasons why human societies carry out funeral rites, especially at the top of the social order.46As a part of the ideology of burial rituals, John Robb pointed out, “Funerary rites furnish a locus for legiti- mization of social order, or for struggle and contestation of one."47

In modern Western cultures we tend to emphasize the uniqueness of the individual, whereas in the strongly clan- and family-oriented society of ancient Rome an individual was regarded as an extension of the family(familia) and the clan (gens). And given the intricate Roman client-system, it is not difficult to understand the Roman State itself as an extended family of sorts.48 The laudatio funebris that Marc Antony delivered at Caesar's funeral in the Roman Forum is instructive in conveying the importance of lineage and dynasty, as well as the strong sense of a familial communality in Roman society.4" As reconstructed by Cassius Dio (44.37.3), the following words are attributed to Antony:

Truly I praise Caesar now, not so much because of his recent descent, on the one hand, from many noble men, and, on the other hand, his ancient origins from kings and gods, but because . . . he is a kinsman of our whole city, for he is a descendant of those who also founded our city.

Also indicative of the notion of a communal kinship is the way the Roman people are addressed in Antony's speech, as they are by other authors deliv- ering solemn addresses, appeals, and prayers. The Romans are called Quirites, that is, descendants of their common founding ancestor Romulus, who accord- ing to tradition was called Quirinus after his translation into heaven. In prayers offered on the occasion of the Ludi Saeculares (“Secular Games”) (CIL V1.32323= ILS 5050), Augustus made frequent use of the term Quirites in the context of the Roman people, himself, his house, and his extended family in order to stress the past, present, and future in terms of a common national bond. In a similar vein Vergil speaks of the Romans as the Aeneades, the descendants of their common ancestor Aeneas, and as nepotes, literally“grandchildren”of Aeneas.5" Patronymics like Quirites and Aeneadae are more than mere sur- names for Romans; they qualify and stress the Romans'common descent and evoke the concept of a “national family.” Hence, the Roman public's participa- tion in mourning the death of a high officeholder is an expression of familial loss, while the achievements of the deceased enter the common conscience to be preserved in collective memory.

The official title of Parens Patriae (“Parent of the Country”) that the Senate accorded Augustus during his lifetime, an honor that underscored his rela- tion to the Roman people as, in effect, their paterfamilias (“father of the fam- ily"), illustrates the idea of a communal kinship. The title Pater Patriae was also recorded among the tituli on the stone base of Augustus'statue that stood in the center of his monumental Forum Augustum in Rome (RG 35.1) (fig. 1.3 and plate I). This sculptural composition represented him standing in a triumphal chariot drawn by four horses. Such an image was also borne in his funeral pro- cession and most likely adorned his mausoleum.52

Over time, funereal ritual performances became more ostentatious as members of the aristocracy competed to outdo one another. In this sense, too, the funeral procession came to be like a Roman triumph. In fact Seneca, commenting on the funeral of Tiberius’ brother Drusus Maior, notes how the throngs of officials and people gave it more the dimensions of a triumph than of a funeral (De Consolatione ad Marciam 3.1).54 With Augustus, moreover, the desire for “memory dominance”became “memory appropriation, for he was the first to include in his funeral procession not only the wax masks of his own ancestors but also those of other noble families (Cass. Dio 56.34.1-3).55 Many of the wax imagines displayed in Augustus' funeral procession would in all like- lihood have served as the basis for the portrait features of the statues of the summi viri (“leading men”) of Rome arrayed in niches in the Forum Augustum(fig. 1.3; plates I-II).s6 Set in such architectural framings, with their individual tituli and elogia inscribed beneath, these statues must likewise have reminded viewers of the wax ancestral imagines that were set in the cupboards of a noble- man's home and identified with painted inscriptions.

The portrait images in the back wall of the lateral porticoes of the Forum Augustum flanked Augustus' own great quadrigate statue in the center (RG 35)(see further chapter IV). This imposing sculptural composition stood equidis- tant from the images of two of Rome's founding fathers in the central niche of each of the great pendant hemicycles (fig. 1.3).58 In the right hemicycle was a

statue of Romulus, founder of the City; in the left hemicycle was a statue of Romulus, founder of the City; in the left hemicycle was a statue group of Aeneas, father- founder of the Roman people, carry- ing on his shoulders his aged father Anchises, who symbolized the Tro- jan past (plate II). By Aeneas’side was his small son Iulus, the ancestor of the Gens Iulia (Julian Clan/ House), who symbolized the Roman future. The invented wax imago of Romulus and undoubtedly also that of Aeneas were borne along in Augustus’ funeral.5 In his forum and in his funeral Augustus there- fore visually extended the concept of dynasty beyond that of the individ- ual gens. He symbolically claimed kinship with both Rome's founders and other illustrious noble families, especially in his role as Alter Conditor (“Second Founder”) of Rome." In so doing, he not only underscored the con- cept of a Roman communality but also created for the first time in his forum, as well as later in his funeral, the concept of a “dynasty”of the Roman State.

Just as wax ancestral masks were intended to inspire the youth of the Roman aristocracy to emulate the virtues and fame of illustrious ancestors (Polyb.

6.53), so too the portrait statues of the summi viri of the Forum Augustum were meant to inspire Rome's young men-especially the nobiles-who came to the Forum of Augustus to assume the toga virilis (“manly toga”) when they came of age and were formally enrolled in the military (Cass. Dio 55.10.2).6 The portrait images with their catalogue of tituli and elogia were also undoubtedly intended as exempla both for the senators who met in the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum Augustum to decide on the awarding of triumphs (Cass. Dio 55.10.3) and for military leaders setting out from there to take up their commands in the provinces (Cass. Dio 55.10.2). In much the same way, a commander during the time of the Republic sought inspiration and precedents in his own ances- tors' acta maiorum (“ancestral deeds”),62 the records of which were stored in the tablinum (“master's study/reception room”) of his home in close proximity to the wax imagines in the atrium.

The Forum Augustum was, in effect, a composite “atrium-peristyle”com- plex-a domus forensis (forumlike house), so to speak, of the Augustan State and a National Gallery of Honor, all rolled into one. And as in an individu- al's home, with its domestic shrine and focus on the worship of the paterfamil- ias' divine procreative spirit, the genius, the portrait imagines of Rome's new state dynasty were set in a religious context in the Forum Augustum with its great Temple of Mars, further underscoring the connection of imago and reli- gio. Located at the far end of the left portico, in close proximity to the tem- ple, was a highly embellished room that is called today the Aula del Colosso(“Hall of the Colossus”) because of a colossal statue that once stood on a mar- ble reveted base against the back wall of this room (plate III).63 The footprints of this huge figure are still to be seen on the surface of the base.64Also found in this hall were fragments of colossal left and right hands that once held a staff- like object.65

In this hall Claudius may have acted as a judge during his Principate, based on a passage in Suetonius (Claud. 33.1) in which Claudius, struck by the aroma of the meal being prepared for the Salii in the Temple of Mars Ultor next door, left the tribunal to join them in their meal. If Claudius did dispense justice in this hall, it may have served the same purpose during the Principate of Augus- tus. And since oaths were sworn by the Genius of the living Princeps, a statue of the Genius Augusti may originally have been set up on the existing base or near what served as a tribunal for a judge.67 Such a Genius statue would have looked like the colossal figure of the Genius Augusti said to be from Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli) now in the Sala Rotonda of the Vatican's Museo Pio Clementino (fig. I.4a-b).68 The left hand

of the statue from Puteoli holds a cornucopia that is largely original; the right forearm is restored holding a patera (shallow sacrificial bowl), since the Genius Augusti typically holds either a patera or acerra (incense box) in that hand. The fact that the right hand found in the hall apparently held a stafflike object, not a sacrificial bowl or an incense box, indicates that it did not belong to a statue of the Genius Augusti.

It has been suggested recently that the colossal figure once would have held a lituus, the crook-shaped staff of an augur (plate III),6 an important priest- hood that Augustus held.?" Although this is a possibility, it seems more likely that the right hand held a ruler's staff or a spear.?' If it held a staff, the hand may have belonged to a seminude statue of Divus Augustus, analogous typo- logically to those found at Herculaneum (cf. fig. I.24) and Thessaloniki (fig. III.4).?? An image of the deified Augustus might have been set up in the Hall of the Colossus after his death, possibly by Claudius. It may even have replaced a statue of the Genius Augusti, since Claudius had, after all, changed the facial features of Alexander to those of Augustus in two paintings by Apelles that decorated the walls of this hall (Plin. HN 35.27, 93-94).

Another possibility has not been considered: the fragments of the colossal right hand may have had nothing to do with the statue that was set up on the base in the Aula del Colosso but instead belonged to the cult image of Mars Ultor that once stood nearby in the apse of his temple. Fragments of statues are often found in locations in which they were not originally displayed. If the right hand belonged to Mars, the hole would have been for a spear, as in the case of the upraised hand of Mars in a relief from Carthage, now in the Archaeological Museum in Algiers, generally thought to reflect the statuary group that stood in the apse of the Temple of Mars Ultor in Augustus' Forum.4 Similarly posed with a spear is the colos- sal, partly restored Flavian marble statue of Mars Ultor in the Musei Capitolini in Rome, which is probably a marble copy of the original cult image (fig. I.5), only on a considerably smaller scale.75 The other hand would have held his shield, resting against him.