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Sepulchral Relief of a Priest of Bellona

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

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The relief of a priest of Bellona, reproduced on Plate XXVI., is to be seen on the top landing of the staircase of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana— the ancient library of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, which is now the seat of the Società Romana di Storia Patria. During the summer of 1917 when working almost daily in this library I repeatedly studied the interesting slab, and by the courtesy of the Assistant Librarian, Signor Cordella, was able to have it photographed, with a view to publication in the present volume of our Papers.

The relief was discovered in the year 1729 in the Vigna Mellini on Monte Mario which belonged at the time to the Fathers of the Roman Oratory. It is of a sepulchral character, and adorned a tomb situated between the second and third milestone of the ancient Via Triumphalis.

Type
Faculty of Archaeology, History and Letters
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1920

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References

page 205 note 1 C.I.L. vi. 2233; Rossi, I. B. de, Inscriptiones Christianae, ii. p. 205Google Scholar; Tomassetti, , La Campagna Romana, iii. p. 12Google Scholar f.

page 205 note 2 The Via Triumphalis ran northwards from the Pons Neronianus, and after traversing the flat ground now known as the Prati di Castello, ascended the southern slopes of the Monte Mario to the right of the modern road, till it joined the Via Clodia at La Giustiniana. On the road and its name see the evidence collected by Morpurgo, L., Bull. Com. xxxvi. 1908, p. 125Google Scholar ff., Tomassetti, loc. cit., Lanciani, , Storia degli Scavi iii. p. 129Google Scholar for the inscr. C.I.L. vi. 10247 discovered in 1554 under Julius III. The road was under the same curator as the Via Aurelia and the Via Cornelia (C.I.L. xiv. 3610, etc.), but the origin of the name is unknown. (Nissen, Landeskunde, ii. 563). The road is the subject of new researches by Dr. Ashby, to be published in some future volume of these Papers. See also the late Schneider-Graziosi, Bull. Com. xli. (1913), p. 54Google Scholar ff.

page 206 note 1 Full reff. to the earlier literature in C.I.L. loc. cit. The illustrations in Zoega and Millin seem to be repeated from the earlier publications. So also Pottier-Saglio, fig. 815 (art. Bellona) is after Muratori; fig. 1986 (art. Corona) after Gori-Doni.

page 206 note 2 I have examined Bianchini's own detailed and learned description of relief and inscription which still exists in MS. in the Bibl. Vallicell. (under T.1 ‘Selva per la Dissertazione di Lucio Larzio Anto Cistoforo Bellonario’); cf. Lais, Cenni Storichi della Bibl. Val. (1875), p. 12, and de Rossi, loc. cit.

page 206 note 3 In Dissertazioni dell' Accademia di Cortona, vol. i. p. 735, p. 3 ff.

page 206 note 4 See, however, Addenda, p. 3307, where the present locality is given.

page 206 note 5 Briefly referred to by G. Wissowa, Religion u. Kultus der Römer, 2nd ed., p. 350 and n. 4. Also Graillot, Culte de Cybele, p. 134, n. 4 and passim; Cahier and Martin Mélanges d'Archéologie, iv. p. 5 (cf. Wüscher-Becchi in Roem. Quartalschrift, xiii. 1899, p. 94Google Scholar, n. 2).

page 207 note 1 Jordan-Hülsen, Topographie, p. 554, and note 131; Platner, Top. and Monum. of Anc. Rome (2nd ed. 1911), p. 243 f.

page 207 note 2 Wissowa, op. cit. p. 349; Th. Reinach, Mithridate Eupator, p. 241; Graillot, op. cit p. 99.

page 207 note 3 C.I.L. vi. 3674a; cf. Graillot, p. 100; Wissowa, p. 350. Cumont, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscr. 1918, p. 19.

page 207 note 4 Montfaucon, Antiquité Expliquee, i. Pl. 4 = Reinach, S., Répertoire de la Statuaire, iiGoogle Scholar. 506, 6.

page 208 note 1 Poor cuts in Saglio-Pottier s.v. Gallus, fig. 3482, and Reinach, S., Rép. de Reliefs, iii. 207Google Scholar, 1. The relief, the most interesting of its kind, will be published in the forthcoming vol. ii. of our Catalogue of the Municipal Collections of Rome. Lafaye (loc. cit.) is probably right in doubting the correctness of Chabouillet's identification of the seated and veiled figure in a cameo of the Bibliothèque Nationale (Chabouillet's Cat. No. 123) as that of an archigallus, but I have not been able to verify the facts.

page 208 note 2 The figure at Cherchel (Musée de Cherchel, xv. 3 = Reinach, , Rép. Statuaire, ii. 506Google Scholar), formerly considered to be that of a priestess, has lately been interpreted as a priest of Cybele; but it has no distinguishing insignia save the crown, and fillets common to all priesthoods. The figure on the tombstone of a priest-of Isis and the Magna Mater, from Ostia in the Lateran Mus. (Benndorf-Schoene, No. 80; Paschetto, ‘Ostia,’ in Atti dell' Accad. Pontif. 2nd ser. x. ii a, 1912, p. 165 = Graillot, Pl. VI.) seems attired as an Attis, and may be Attis himself, but scarcely a priest.

page 208 note 3 Graillot, p. 236, p. 297, etc.

page 208 note 4 The galli wore long hair. (C.I.L. vi. 2262. Religiosus a Matre Magna capillatus; Ovid, Fasti iv. 238, etc.) in common probably with most Oriental priesthoods, e.g., of a priest of the Syrian goddess: fanatico furore simulato dum Syriae deae comas iactat. Floras ii. 7 (iii. 19). M. Cumont, to whom I owe this ref., also points out that the hair of the galli was held back by a net, Anthol. Pal. vi. 219. 4 (στρϵπτῶν ἅμματι κϵκρυΦάλων) a detail not visible in the monuments. The figure from Anzio in the Terme, which I continue to regard as that of a boy, likewise wears long hair knotted over the forehead.

page 209 note 1 This is how they seem interpreted in Gori-Doni. Even with the help of a strong magnifying glass it is difficult to make out the heads very distinctly on the original slab.

page 209 note 2 Graillot, p. 237, for long hair, wreath and tore, and note 1 for the gold wreaths (cf. p. 351). Cf. the medallions on the wreaths of countless priestly busts from Palmyra; for crowns adorned with busts in the round see Hill, G. F. in Oesterr. Jahreshefte (1899), i. p. 241 ffGoogle Scholar. (portrait head found at Ephesus).

page 209 note 3 Cf. the passage from Theon of Smyrna quoted by J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena, Ed. 2, p. 593, note 1.

page 209 note 4 Cumont in Comptes Rendus de l'Acad. des Inscr., 1919, p. 256.

page 209 note 5 Cf. Wissowa, art. Arvales fratres in Pauly-Wissowa, p. 1470. The attempt made by Wiischer Becchi (Röm. Quartchriftals, xiii. 1899, p. 105Google Scholar) to derive the appendages of a Bishop's mitre (fasciae, penduli, infulae, etc.) from the vittae of the pagan priesthoods is contested by J. Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, p. 460.

page 209 note 6 Amelung, , Vat. Kat., ii. p. 614Google Scholar, and Plate 58. No. 403 (Gall, delle Statue), Dessau II 4160.

page 209 note 7 The species of animal is difficult to make out. It seems to be clearly a wolf in the tore of the priest of Bellona to whom possibly wolves were sacrificed as it is conjectured they were in the cult of Mithras (Cumont, Mithras II. p. 69); the heads of the torc of the Conservatori Archigallus are perhaps those of dogs. Cf. Graillot, p. 237, n. 6. The torc is usually taken to be identical with the occabus (C.I.L. x. 3698,1. 23: occavo (sic) et corona: also the inscription at Lyons of the year 160 A.D., C.I.L. xiii. 1751, l. 15Google Scholar: occabo et corona). Cf. Lefaye in Pottier-Saglio, s.v. ‘Gallus.’

page 210 note 1 Graillot, p. 99 f. So, too, in the procession of Isis described by Apuleius, a priest is described as holding a golden branch most delicately worked (attollens palmam auro subtiliter foliatam) in one hand, and in the other the caduceus (Apul. ed. Eyssenhardt, xi. ch. 10, p. 211).

page 210 note 2 Owing to the inaccuracy of the old illustrations this has frequently been described as an ornament in the shape of a crescent!

page 210 note 3 Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions, 1918, p. 312. Since then M. Cumont has accepted M. Stéphane Gsell's reading [CI]STHIFERORUM for the earlier emendation [HA]STHIFERORUM, Comptes Rendus de l'Acad. des Inscr., 1919. In either emendation the aspiration of the T would be explained as a provincialism.

page 210 note 4 I.e. de suo fecerunt.

page 210 note 5 For the [exedras] originally suggested, Cumont now proposes [qui aras].

page 211 note 1 Graillot, p. 179; cf. Gruppe, , Griechische Mythologie, ii. p. 1552Google Scholar.

page 211 note 2 J.R.S. vii. 1917, p. 284 ffGoogle Scholar. The altar is in the possession of Mr. G. A. Warren, of Streatham Hill.

page 211 note 3 Reinach, , Reliefs iii. 321, 1Google Scholar.

page 211 note 4 Cumont, op. cit. p. 9. The inscr. was published by R. Cagnat in Année Epigraphique, 1898, p. 61: Deae pedisequae Virtutis (i.e. Virtuti) Bellonae lecticam cum suis ornamentis et basem C. Avianus Amandus, augur d(onum) d(edit) et consecravit. Cumont makes it clear that lectica is used here in the sense of ferculum.

page 211 note 5 See the examples, s.v. ‘Anthus,’ in Forcellini's Onomasticon new ed.

page 212 note 1 On the other hand, in the procession of Isis described by Apuleius (ed. Eyssenhardt, xi. ch. 11) both the cista secretorum capax, and the little urn that contained the ‘ineffable mystery’ were carried by priests. Allowance must also be made for differences of usage within the same cults. In Catholic processions, too, the Monstrance, though generally carried, may sometimes be seen placed on a car, as in processions of the ‘Corpus Domini’ in Spain.

page 212 note 2 The Cognomen Rufinus is one of the commonest (see Deane, Cognomina of Soldiers in the Roman Legions, p. 46 and p. 466) or else it might be suggested that Rufinus, = blood-red, had some connexion with the cult of Bellona, one of whose epithets Rufilia some have attempted to explain in allusion to the ‘blood-red’ character of her cult, though as Aust (l.c.) points out, the epithet Rufilia more probably represents the name of the dedicator (cf. Fortuna Flavia. C.I.L. vi. 187).

page 212 note 3 This shrine has nothing to do with a supposed templum Apollinis in the ager Vaticanus mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis, see Duchesne, Lib. Pont. i. p. 193, where it is shown as against De Rossi (loc. cit.) that a temple of Apollo in the Vatican region probably never existed at all. Cf. Jordan-Huelsen, p. 659.

page 212 note 4 Schneider-Graziosi in Bull. Com. xli. 1913, p. 54Google Scholar ft., on C.I.L. vi. 29967 (ab Apolline Argenteo) and C.I.L. vi. 21861. Cf. C.I.L. vi. 26, aedes cum sigillo Apollinio.

page 212 note 5 On their functions, which he takes to be those of δορυΦόροι, see Cumont's paper referred to above; also Hepding, Attis, p. 169; and Gruppe. loc. cit.

page 213 note 1 See especially C.I.L., xiii. 1751, l. 10Google Scholar, and what Huelsen says (Jordan-Huelsen. p. 659, n. 93.

page 213 note 2 Jordan-Huelsen, p. 554, n. 131.

page 213 note 3 Cf. Wissowa, Religion u. Kultus (2nd ed.), p. 349 f