ROME AS AN ART EMPORIUM
Rome an art emporium--Every rich man is more or less a collector--
Chrysogon, Sulla’s freedman, competes with patricians--Scaurus’
extravagant display--The type of a crack collector as described
by Petronius Arbiter--The Roman palaces have special rooms for
art gatherings--The Pinacotheca, the Library, the Exhedra,
etc., according to the rules of Vitruvius--Fashion creates new
distinctions in the appreciation of art and curios--The craze
for Corinthian bronze and the classification of bronze “patine”
--The hobby of murrhines and citrus tables.
We do not know how many private collections there were in Rome when
the collectomania finally took the city by storm. A list of Roman
collectors in the fashion of the modern work (_Ritz-Pacot_) would
be most interesting and enlightening. However, judging from the
statues and the public buildings we know to have been replete with
objects of art, we gather that as an emporium of art Rome must have
attained a magnitude unequalled in past or present times. Why this
great collection of art did not transform the Romans into the most
artistic people the world has ever seen, is a mystery only to be
solved by hypothesis. Either the Romans were innately refractory to
the refinements of true art, or, like to all _nouveaux riches_, the
field of art merely afforded room for faddists, hobbyists and fashion
seekers, and, only as sporadic cases, a few real lovers of good art.
However this may be, without discussing the causes, the effect was
certainly gigantic: art from every land found its way to Rome, which
by force of circumstances thus became a monumental synthesis of art.
Even at the time of Constantine, Rome counted 10 basilicas, 11 forums,
11 thermes, 18 aqueducts, 8 bridges, 37 city gates, 29 military roads
leading to all parts of the known world, 2 arenas, 8 theatres, 2
circuses, 37 triumphal arches, 5 obelisks, 2 colossal statues, 22
equestrian statues, 423 temples with statues of the gods--eighty of
these being in solid gold and seventy-seven in ivory.
It is easy to understand that the above statistics only give a faint
idea of the magnificence of Rome, for the 423 streets and 1790 private
palaces noted in the same statistics as existing in Rome at the time
of Constantine were in a measure respectively open-air museums and
repositories of private collections of art, as no patrician mansion,
according to Vitruvius, was complete without a place where paintings
and objects of art could be exhibited with advantage.
Cicero allows us a peep at the collections and gorgeous palaces owned
by notable Romans as well as their style of living. In his oratio (_Pro
Roscio Amerino_) he speaks of Chrysogon in these words:
“Look at Chrysogon when he comes down from his fine mansion on the
Palatine! He owns a charming villa, where he goes to rest, just at the
gates of Rome. He also owns extensive domains, all magnificent and all
near the city. His palace overflows with vases of Delos and Corinthian
bronze. He keeps there the famous _authepsa_ bought by him some time
ago at such a price that on hearing the auctioneer’s voice repeat
the bid, the passers-by imagined a farm was being offered for sale.
What shall we say of his chiselled silver? his precious stuffs? his
paintings? statues? marbles? How many of such things do you think he
owns? Just imagine what has been pillaged from so many opulent families
in times of trouble and rapine; and all for the repletion of one single
palace.”
When one thinks that this Chrysogon, Sulla’s freedman, had the chance
to amass such an accumulation of art, it is not difficult to imagine
the artistic wealth that must have been acquired by Scaurus, the
terrible Sulla’s unscrupulous son-in-law, the embezzler, the deplored
and deplorable Roman Ædile whom Cicero defended before the tribunal
with the inconsistency of his easy eloquence.
According to Pliny (XXXVI), Scaurus not only owned one of the most
magnificent palaces on the Palatine, but had his mansion crowded with
rare things in true Roman fashion. With a Sulla for father-in-law, a
Metella, the purchaser of proscribed citizens’ goods, for mother, a
Scaurus, the _magna pars_ of the Senate and Marius’ former friend and
helper in the spoliation of provinces, for father, he can have had no
difficulty, as Pliny informs us, in gathering the unequalled treasures
that were stored in his palace. The wonders of the treasures of his
art emporium are all the more easily explained, too, when we consider
that he not only inherited a large fortune, but more than doubled it by
speculations.
To give some idea of his fatuous munificence, we may state that
this Roman multi-millionaire built, for one month’s performance, a
theatre in the city, to hold eighty thousand spectators, and adorned
the edifice with three thousand statues and three hundred and sixty
columns. Among the precious things of Scaurus’ collection were a great
number of paintings by Pausias, works intended by the artist for
his native town of Sycione, if the Romans had had milder methods of
collecting art.
Even those Romans, and they were many, who were not considered
collectors in the proper sense, owned fine works of art. The Servilius,
who had large gardens on the Palatine near the present Porta San
Paolo, had what a modern connoisseur might call a few extra pieces.
There was a Triptolemus, a Flora and a Ceres by Praxiteles, a fine
Vesta with two Vestals by Scopas and an Apollo by Calamis. It may be
mentioned, by the way, that it was to this famous garden Nero retired
on the day preceding his death, it was here in the Servilian mansion
that he was abandoned by his servants, parasites and courtiers, here
that he wandered desolate and despondent before resorting to flight.
On the spot formerly occupied by the Servilian gardens a mosaic was
discovered, now in San Giovanni in Laterano, representing an unswept
floor with the remains of a luxurious dinner. One might fancy this
mosaic to have belonged to one of those Roman Triclinia and their
noted orgies, or, having the imagination of Ampere, the historian,
to the place where Servilia had supped with her lover, Julius Cæsar.
History tells us that this matron, the mother of Brutus, was of the
pure blood--one might use the modern expression, blue blood--of the
_gens_ Servilia.
For the sake of the colour, we cannot refrain from giving the
description of a true collector of art as related in all its suggestive
reality in the _Satyricon_, the only known fiction of Roman times, a
work which, though fiction, seems close to nature and a most faithful
interpretation of the artistic merits and oddities of Roman life.
“I entered the Pinacotheca, where marvels of all kinds were gathered.
There were works by Zeuxis which seemed to have triumphed over all
the affronts of age, sketches by Prothogenes that appeared to dispute
merits with nature herself, works that I did not dare to touch but with
a sort of religious fear. There were some monochromes by Apelles which
moved me to holy reverence. What delicacy of touch and what precision
of drawing in the figures! Ah! the painter of the very soul of things.
Here on the wings of an eagle a god raising himself higher than the
air; there innocent Hylas repulsing a lascivious Naiad; further on
Apollo cursing his murderous hand....”
At a certain moment the owner of the collection, apparently, arrives.
He is of a type not yet extinct: the man who lives for his collection,
the man so engrossed in his cherished objects as to forget and neglect
other pleasures in life, social obligations, etc.
“A white-haired old man arrived,” the author of the _Satyricon_ goes
on to relate, “his tormented expression seemed to herald grandeur. His
garments were of that neglected character which is often distinctive of
literary people who have not been spoilt by wealth....
“I thought of questioning him. He was more of a connoisseur than myself
in the epochs of the paintings and their subjects; some of the latter
incomprehensible to me. ‘What is the reason,’ I asked him while we
were speaking of painting, ‘for the weakening, the great decadence of
the fine arts nowadays; more especially of painting which seems to have
disappeared and to have left no trace of past glory?’ He answered, ‘The
passion for money, that is the cause of the great change. Years ago
when merit, though left to starve, was glorified and appreciated, art
flourished.... Then, only to mention sculpture, Lysippus was perishing
of hunger at the feet of the very statue he was intent upon perfecting;
Myron, that marvellous artist who could cast in bronze the life of men
and animals, Myron was so poor that at his death no one was to be found
to accept his inheritance. We of our time, given over to orgies, wine
and women, have no energy left to study the fine art pieces under our
very eyes. We prefer to abuse and slander antiquity. Only vice nowadays
finds great masters and pupils!... Do you believe that in our day any
go to the temple to pray for the health of their body? Before all else,
even before reaching the threshold of the temple, the one will promise
an offering to the gods if his rich relation dies and makes him his
heir, the other, if he discovers a treasure, and another if he shall
achieve the dispersal of his third million in health and safety....
And are you surprised that painting languishes, when in the eyes of
every man an ingot of gold is a masterpiece that cannot be equalled by
anything that Apelles, Phidias and all the crack-brained Greeks have
been able to produce.’”
[Illustration:
Photo] [Alinari
MARCUS AURELIUS.
A XVIth Century copy by L. Del Duca of the equestrian statue in Rome
(Campidoglio).]
With the growth of fashion, a collection of art became the necessary
complement of a wealthy mansion. The need then arose to give this
collection the noblest place in the palace, a room apart to enhance
its importance. This new view brought about a new architectural
distribution of the Roman patrician mansion, not only on account of the
family life and obligations of a wealthy class of citizens, but because
the well-to-do Roman had obligations towards art and antiquity. In the
Roman mansion we thus find first the _atrium_, a large hall open to
friends, clients and visitors at large. The _peristyle_ is the second
courtyard, and is reserved for the family. In the _atrium_ the
domestic gods were generally placed and records concerning the family,
including genealogical trees (_stemmata_).
With time these _atria_ became regular museums, as they were excellent
places for decoration and the display of art, being the open central
part of the house girded by a colonnade.
An idea of the importance of these _atria_ may be gathered from that
of Scaurus’ palace, which had thirty-eight columns 12½ yards high,
made of the same kinds of rare marble that faced the walls--Egyptian
green, old yellow or Oriental alabaster, African marble and other rare
kinds brought from Syria and Numidia. Scaurus’ _atrium_ appears to have
been hung round with tapestries, embroidered with gold, illustrating
mythological scenes. Alternating with these rare tapestries were
_panopliæ_ and family portraits.
Though perhaps the favourite spot, the _atrium_ was not the only
place for the artistic display of the Romans. Their palaces also
contained _Oeci_, magnificent galleries used for receptions, and the
_Exhedræ_, which were rooms for conversation, generally of a more sober
decoration. In the _Triclinia_ there were kept works in precious metals
and the finest pieces of furniture. There was also the _Sacrarium_, a
private shrine where precious pieces of art were often hidden. Verres
found his famous _canephoros_ (basket-bearers) by Polycletus, the Cupid
of Praxiteles and the Hercules of Myron in the _sacrarium_ of Heius of
Messina.
There was also a room in Roman mansions set apart for the library, and
some had special nooks for such collections as gems and cameos. The
place where the best paintings were shown was called the _Pinacotheca_,
and was always built towards the north so that the light from the
windows should be without much variation, and above all because a
northern exposure left no chance for the sun’s rays to enter and spoil
the effect of the painting.
The Roman collector of books very often went in for elegant bindings
and all the showy and decorative side of a library. Seneca deplores
the fact that while every elegant house in Rome contained a library,
many of these collections of books were simply for show. Too many
collectors, not dissimilar in this from our bibliomaniacs of to-day,
had quantities of works they did not care to read. “What is the use
of having so many thousand volumes,” cries Seneca, “the lifetime of
their owners would hardly suffice to read the titles of the works....
There is a man with scarcely the literary knowledge of a serf, and
he is buying volumes, not to read them, but as an ornament for his
dining-room! There is another who is proud of his library only because
it is in cedar and ivory; he has the mania of buying books that no one
looks for. He is always gaping among his volumes, which he has bought
solely for their titles. Lazy people, who never read, are likely to be
found with complete collections of the works of orators or historians,
books upon books. One could really forgive this mania if it had
originated in a real passion for reading, but all these fine works, the
great creations of divine genius, works ornamented with the portraits
of their authors, do but serve to decorate the walls” (Tranq., IX).
A large library was the desire of Horace. He wrote to Lellius:
“Do you know my daily prayer?--Great Gods! let me keep the little I
own, less if it is your pleasure; let me live according to my choice
the days your indulgence has granted me; let me have plenty of books,
one year’s income in advance that I may not be obliged to live day by
day from hand to mouth.... As regards the peace of my heart and my
happiness, that is my affair” (_Sat._, II, 6).
Such contrarieties have a genuine echo in our society where the
bibliomaniac is rarely a literary man or even slightly interested in
literature. Bibliomaniacs collected volumes for the most part either
because some of them were considered rare, and therefore advertised
the high price paid for them, or because they might serve as a
decorative show, but the collecting of general art and curios, with
a few exceptions, appears to have been vacuous and freakish. Even
specialization, which is held to be progress in modern times, but as a
matter of fact more often merely represents the triumph of erudition
over art and taste, exercised in Rome the momentary tyranny of fashion.
An example of this specialization is given us by the craze in Rome for
Corinthian bronze. Without entering into a discussion about the legend
of its origin, and simply hinting that there are strong proofs that the
alloy existed long before the siege of Corinth, we are safe in saying
that the craze in Rome for Corinthian bronze was one of those freaks
of fashion that has had, perhaps, no echo in all the after-history of
“collectomania.” Every amateur was at that time bound to have at least
one vase of the coveted metal. According to Pliny (XXXIV, 1, 2, 3) in
his time this metal was equal to gold in value. In order to obtain two
vases of this precious metal Mark Antony ordered the assassination of
the owner, and it must be borne in mind that Mark Antony was accused
of using golden vessels for the lowest services of his household.
Octavianus, supposed to be a collector of mild passions and a man who
certainly did give up all such hobbies on becoming emperor, was also
very fond of the fashionable metal--_corinthiorum præcupidus_--and did
not scruple to adopt the methods of Sulla and Mark Antony to gratify
his ultra-fashionable taste.
Times were then ripe for all forms of degeneration. Connoisseurs,
like those of to-day, began to discuss _patina_. As it required years
for Corinthian bronze to assume the proper patina--_Nobilis ærugo_,
Horace calls it--it was natural that this alloy should have the
preference over all other kinds of bronze. But there were gradations
of colour even in this metal and value was discriminated according to
the quality of the _patina_. Of these _patinæ_ the Roman collector
recognized five different kinds. Apart from these varying degrees of
merit, the connoisseur, Pliny tells us, could tell the quality of the
alloy from its weight and determine the excellency of the _patina_ by
its smell.
Another craze in Rome that greatly fostered imitation and forgery was
that of murrhines, cups of a mysterious material which was more valued
than any other rare stone or rock crystal, though a cup of the latter,
according to Pliny (XXXVII), easily fetched 150,000 sesterces, an
amount equivalent to £1200. As a rule, always according to Pliny, for
one of these cups a bigger price was paid than for a slave.
If the Romans, unlike the Americans, had no detectives at festivals and
banquets, they certainly took precautions to guarantee the safety of
the treasures displayed and to guard against the possible greed of some
guest.
“Whereas Virro drinks from pateras of beryl,” remarks Juvenal, speaking
to a parasite, “no one would trust you with even a simple golden cup,
or, if perchance they do let you use one, be sure a guardian near you
has previously counted the precious stones studding it and follows with
his eye the movements of your fingers and your sharp nails.”
One can really not refrain from giving this gorgeous patch of Roman
colour as Juvenal himself puts it:--
... Ipse capaces
Heliadum crustas et inæquales beryllo
Virro tenet phialas: tibi non committitur aurum;
Vel, si quando datur, custos affixus ibidem,
Qui numeret gemmas unguesque observet acutos (V. 38).
One may be sure that the man charged with watching was likely to do
his duty with the utmost solicitude. Carelessness in handling these
precious pieces that were used to decorate Roman tables was not easily
overlooked. An anecdote will illustrate this. Vedius Pollio, a Roman
nobleman, possessed one of the most esteemed collections of these
crystals. One day when Augustus was dining at this favourite’s house,
a slave broke one of the precious crystal cups. Vedius immediately
ordered the slave to be thrown alive into the pond of lampreys.
Disgusted at such an order, Augustus not only made a freedman of the
slave but ordered that Vedius’ whole collection of crystals should be
broken before his eyes and thrown into the pond of lampreys.
But as we have said above, the craze for murrhines surpassed the craze
for the precious crystal, though comparing the two, we are bound to
add, with no artistic justification.
What these murrhines were made of is not exactly known. Some of the
scholars of our day believe they were artificial, a mixture of clay
with myrrh, hence, perhaps, the name. Winkelmann is inclined to
think they were made of a kind of agate, and Mariette and de Caylus
respectively believe them to have been mother-of-pearl, or fluor-spar,
or porcelain.
In further illustration of the peculiar substance of the murrhines we
quote from Pliny:
“The material of the murrhines is in blocks no larger than an ordinary
glass, and a stratum no thicker than the marble of a small console.
There is no real splendour in this material, but instead of splendour
what one might call brilliancy. What gives the murrhines their price is
the variety of their tints, the colour of the veining, either purple
or pure white, sometimes shading off into nuances, reaching in some
species the hue of blazing purple. The white samples shade into roseate
or milky tones. Some amateurs are fond of freakish accidentalities
or reflex iridescent changes like the rainbow, others prefer opaque
effects. Transparency and pale hues are considered defects, as also
opaque grains inside even if they do not alter the surface, like
tumours, spreading in the human body. The quality of the odour helps to
set the price on the stuff” (XXXVII, 8).
It is to be noted that while this rather vague description of Pliny’s
would seem on the one hand to point to the agate or any fluor-spar, the
addition of the odour tends to destroy this hypothesis.
In any case murrhines became the rage of the Roman collector, and the
fashion being, as usual, imperative, no one was considered elegant or
correct who did not own at least one sample of the precious cups. One
of these cups which, according to Pliny’s estimate, could not contain
more than a measure of liquid, less than half a gallon, had cost the
large sum of 70 talents (£15,400). Adding that the cup had belonged to
a consul, and that the edge of it was nibbled, Pliny remarks that “such
damage is the reason of the increased price, there is not in all Rome a
murrhine which can boast of a more illustrious origin” (XXXVII, 7).
This consul, who loved his cup so much as to nibble it on putting it to
his lips, this collector, whose name is unknown to us, used up all his
patrimony on his hobby of collecting murrhines. He possessed so many
of them, Pliny adds, that “one might have filled with them the private
theatre that Nero had constructed in his gardens on the other bank of
the Tiber.”
Perhaps one of the most esteemed murrhines was that which was
considered the gem of Petronius’ collection. He had paid 300 talents
(£66,000) for it. Knowing how much Nero coveted this precious cup
and wishing to baffle his plans, before destroying himself Petronius
ordered his slaves to break it to pieces, so that it should not fall
into the hands of the man he detested.
A rival craze in Rome to that of murrhines was the passion for tables
of _citrus_. Here too there is uncertainty as to the nature of this
rare wood called _citrus_. Apparently it grew at the foot of Mount
Atlas in Africa, and was in all probability a _thuja_. To obtain the
proper grain it was felled at the root and cut into planks of a length
to furnish the board of the table.
Pliny seems to think that Cicero--the snob collector--set the
example of extravagance in these tables. The one he bought at the fancy
price of 4000 English sovereigns was still in existence in Pliny’s time
and went under the name of the _Ciceroniana_. Cicero’s price, however,
was surpassed by Asinius Gallus and Cethegus, the former paying
1,100,000 sesterces for his citrus table and the latter 1,400,000
sesterces. Yet according to Cicero, the citrus table that Verres had
placed in his triclinium was the finest and most valuable Rome had ever
seen.
Needless to add that in this article, too, collectors had their
preferences, that there was citrus and citrus, that the precious tables
were valued according to the grain of the wood and the _patina_. There
were four qualities among the most appreciated. The _tigrines_, the
_pantherines_ and the _pavonines_ were those tables of which the grain
and knots of the wood resembled the coats of the two animals in the
case of the two first, whereas the wood of the last showed knots like
the eyes of a peacock’s tail. The fourth quality was called _apiates_,
for in these tables the wood looked like a mass of dark seeds, or more
accurately a swarm of bees--hence the name.
The collectomania and thirst for display must have not only favoured
the trade in spurious pieces of cheap imitation but, have caused in
the chaos of tastes at times an equal confusion in general reasoning.
Thus wise men and philosophers appear to have indulged in--what shall
we say?--rather amateurish considerations, indicating the reasoning
powers of a dilettante. Cicero at one time gibes at collectors and at
another boasts of being a collector himself. Seneca, the wise Seneca,
the cool-headed philosopher, was no better. Forgetting that his
triclinium was adorned with five hundred fine, tripod-like tables with
ivory feet, he writes as a comment:
“I like a simple table with nothing remarkable about its grain, one
that is not celebrated in the city for having belonged to a succession
of lovers of fashion.” And then “... material considerations to which a
pure soul mindful of its origin should give no weight.”
At one time fashion demanded that citrus should be used in veneering,
an art in which the Romans were extremely skilful, using all kinds
of rare woods, ivory and tortoise-shell. Furniture veneered with
tortoise-shell, especially, fetched an extremely high price and was
in considerable vogue for a time. The fact was sufficient to prompt
Seneca to this odd comment: “Is it possible that people are so ready to
pay most extravagant prices for the shell of such an unclean and lazy
animal!”
The prices paid for art were only too often created by fashion, as
shown by the artistic _milieu_ of Rome we have been trying to outline,
and yet the characters we have passed in review in our reconstruction
of the past do not seem altogether dissimilar from some of our
present-day lovers of art.