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The Victorious Charioteer on Mosaics
and Related Monuments*
KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
(Pls. 5-9)
Abstract
The
representations
on Roman mosaics of the victori-
ous charioteer of the circus
may
be
compared
with
similar
representations
in other forms of Roman
art,
both
major
and minor. Certain standard
types
are es-
tablished which are
repeated
with
only slight
variations
in different media and at
widely
different times and
places.
Common models must underlie these
types,
but
the individual craftsmen or
workshops evidently
exer-
cised their own choice over the details. These
types
include the charioteer
driving
his
quadriga
in
profile,
at a walk or at a
gallop,
and the same
turning
to face
the
observer, although
the horses are still in
profile,
as
well as the
standing figure crowning
himself. The most
common
type
on mosaics shows the frontal
quadriga,
with the horses
arranged
more or less
schematically
to
left and
right;
it is
first
found in the mid-third
century,
but becomes
especially
common in the fourth
century
and later. A similar schema is used for other
figures
in
Roman
art, especially
in the late
Empire,
most fre-
quently
for the chariots of Sol and of the
Emperor.
It is
mistaken, however,
to assume from the
similarity
of
pose
that the circus charioteer was intended to be iden-
tified
symbolically
with either of these
figures, despite
connections between the circus and both the
imperial
and the solar
iconography;
rather the
pose
comes to be
adopted
for numerous victorious and
triumphant fig-
ures. The
significance
of the charioteer is as an
image
of
victory,
as a
bringer
of
good
luck and
felicitas;
for
this reason it is common to find the charioteers from all
four factions
represented simultaneously
as victors.
The use of stock motifs in which a
figure
or
group
of
figures
is
repeated
in
nearly
identical form
on works too far removed in time or
space
for direct
imitation to be
possible
is one of the most charac-
teristic features of later Roman art. The artists and
craftsmen-painters, sculptors
of reliefs and sar-
cophagi, mosaicists,
workers in
pottery
and other
industrial
arts, gem engravers, designers
of coin and
medallion
types-frequently
shared a common
rep-
ertoire,
disseminated
throughout
the
Empire.
The
use of such a standard
repertoire
is most
easily
seen
in the common
patterns
followed for
mythological
scenes,
which are
normally
assumed to
go
back to
major
Hellenistic
prototypes. However,
the same
procedure
can be observed with
specifically
Roman
themes,
established in the
repertoire
at a much later
date.
Among
the most
popular
of these Roman
themes are
figures
and
episodes
from the
games,
widespread especially
in the western
regions
of the
Empire.
In what follows I
propose
to examine the
treatment on mosaics of one of these
themes,
the
representation
of the victorious charioteer of the cir-
cus races. This
subject
is
frequently
found on mosa-
ics in the western
Empire; analysis
of these mosaics
and of their
relationship
to works of art with the
same
subject
in other media should cast
light
on the
method of work of the Roman craftsmen and on the
use
they
made of their materials.
The
popularity
of scenes from the circus in Ro-
*
In addition to the standard abbreviations set forth in
AJA
82 dunaise, Belgique
et
Germanie (Paris
(1978)
3-10 and 84
(1980) 3-4,
the
following
are used here: 1909)
CMA
suppl. II
A. Merlin and R.
Lantier, Catalogue
Inv.Tun.
P.
Gauckler,
Inventaire des mosa-
du
Musie
Alaoui, supplement II ques
de
la
Gaule et de
l'Afrique II,
(Paris 1922) Afrique
Proconsulaire
(Tunisie)
Hafner, Viergespanne
G.
Hafner, Viergespanne
in Vorder- (Paris 1910)
ansicht
(Berlin 1938) Inv.Tun.suppl.
A.
Merlin,
Inventaire des
mosaiques
Inv.Alg.
F.G. de
Pachtere,
Inventaire des mo- de
la
Gaule et de
l'Afrique
II,
Afrique
saiques
de
la Gaule et de
l'Afrique
Proconsulaire
(Tunisie), supplement
III,
Afrique
Proconsulaire, Numidie, (Paris 1915)
Mauritanie (Algirie) (Paris 1911)
MRNA K.M.D.
Dunbabin,
The Mosaics
of
Inv.Gaule
I G.
Lafaye,
Inventaire des
mosaiques
Roman North
Africa
(Oxford 1978)
de
la
Gaule et de
l'Afrique I,i,
Nar- Reinach,
RPGR S.
Reinach, Ripertoire
des
peintures
bonnaise et
Aquitaine (Paris 1909) grecques
et romaines
(Paris 1922)
Inv.Gaule II A.
Blanchet,
Inventaire des
mosarques
The numbers in
parentheses, e.g. (no. 8),
refer to entries in the
de
la
Gaule et de
l'Afrique I,ii, Lug-
Appendix.
66 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
man art led to the
emergence
of a number of stan-
dard schemata for
representing
the victor. The driv-
er is
normally portrayed
in his
chariot, holding
the
palm
and wreath as emblems of
victory,
and
driving
a team which almost
always
on the mosaics consists
of four horses.' The first distinction to be drawn is
between scenes which show the race in
progress
in
the
arena,
with the leader marked out as
victor,
and
those where there is no scene of the race as a
whole,
but the victor is shown in isolation. Sometimes char-
ioteers from all four factions
(or
from
two)
are
rep-
resented as
victors,
but
they
are then
regularly
placed
in
separate panels
or
compartments.
An
ap-
parent exception,
with more than one victor shown
in a circus
setting,
is a mosaic from
Carthage (no.
3),
which is discussed below. A different set of crite-
ria
may
be used to
classify
the
iconography
of the
chariot and its driver. The chariot
may
be
repre-
sented
(W)
in
profile,
with the horses either at rest
or
galloping forward,
or
(X) frontally.
The chario-
teer himself
may
likewise be
(Y)
in
profile
or
(Z)
frontal,
but the schema
XY,
the
profile
charioteer in
the frontal
chariot,
does not occur in Roman art. In
schemata WY and
WZ,
various minor
divergencies
of detail are
possible,
for
example
in the
position
and
gait
of the
horses,
and an intermediate three-
quarter
view for the charioteer can be
adopted.
The
fully
frontal schema XZ is a
quite
distinct
type,
and
the one most common on
mosaics;
its
origins, paral-
lels,
and
sub-groups
are discussed more
fully
below.2
In two further schemata the charioteer is no
long-
er in the chariot. In one
(T),
he stands on
foot,
holding up
the wreath and
palm
or
placing
the
wreath on his head. This
type, though
common
elsewhere,
is rare on the mosaics. Also rare is a
schema
(V)
which shows the victorious charioteer
on horseback, as usual with wreath and
palm.3
Of the scenes
showing
the race in
progress
in the
arena,
the fullest version
appears
in the Great Cir-
cus mosaic at Piazza Armerina
(no. 13).
The victo-
rious charioteer still brandishes his
whip,
but has
reined in his
horses;
the
magistrate, accompanied by
a
trumpeter,
stands in front of him to hand him the
palm
of
victory (pl. 5, fig. 1).4 Both horses and
driver are
facing
forward in a natural
position,
to-
ward the
magistrate.
But in the mosaic of the Small
Circus at Piazza Armerina
(no. 14),
where the race
is
parodied by
children
driving pairs
of
birds,
the
victor is handed the
palm by
a child behind
him;
he
turns back to receive
it,
so that his
body
is
frontal,
while the chariot and birds are still in
profile.5
In
other
versions,
the
winning
charioteer
already
holds
one or both of the emblems of
victory,
as seen on a
small mosaic from
Carthage (no. 4),
which shows
the race inside the circus
building.
Three chario-
teers are still
racing
around the
spina,
the fourth
gallops
in the
opposite direction, holding
a
palm (pl.
5, fig. 2).6
He was
probably imagined
as
performing
his
victory lap
after
receiving
the
palm,
and he
faces,
in almost full
profile,
in the direction in
which the horses are
moving (schema WY).
The
schema
WZ,
with the charioteer frontal in a
profile
chariot, appears
on a mosaic from Sainte-Colombe
(no. 21).
Here the elements of the circus
setting
have
disappeared;
four chariots are
placed separate-
ly against
a
plain
white
ground.
Three are still
racing,
the fourth is at
rest,
its driver turned to face
the
spectators
and
holding
the emblems of
victory.7
There are few
examples
in other media of scenes
of the race in
progress
where the victor is
actually
being
awarded the emblems of
victory,
as at Piazza
I
Bigae
are found
occasionally
in scenes which show the whole
race in
progress,
but not on the mosaics which concentrate on the
representation
of the victor. Nor do we
find representations
on
the mosaics of the
exceptional
teams of six or ten horses which
are mentioned sometimes in
inscriptions, though
ten-horse chari-
ots do occur on works in other media:
see, e.g.
infra ns.
84, 110.
2
Pp.
70-78. The
system
of classification which has been
adopted
here is
inevitably
somewhat too schematic and
ignores
the
slight
variations in the
poses
of both charioteers and horses
which are used to
give greater vitality
to the
figures.
3I do not discuss here other charioteer motifs such as the
figure
on foot
leading
a
single horse, seen,
for
example,
on the
four mosaic
panels
from Baccano
(M.P. Tambella,
in G. Becatti
et
al., Mosaici antichi
in
Italia, Reg. 7a,
Baccano: Villa romana
[Rome 1970] 71-79,
nos.
26-29, pls. 22-25);
or the
half-figure
in
front of his
horse,
found on the contorniates
(A.
and E.
Alf6ldi,
Die
Kontorniat-Medaillons
I
[Berlin 1976] 156-64, pls.
193-
201),
but
not,
to
my knowledge,
on mosaics. With neither of
these motifs is the charioteer
normally
marked out as
victorious,
though occasionally
a
palm may
be added. Nor do I discuss the
numerous
representations
of the victorious race horse
by itself,
without its driver.
4
G.V.
Gentili,
La Villa Erculia di Piazza Armerina. I mosaici
figurati (Rome 1959) fig. 3, pl. 13; Gentili,
"Le
gare
del circo nel
mosaico di Piazza
Armerina,"
BdA 42
(1957) 7-27, fig.
5.
S
Gentili,
La Villa
(supra
n.
4) pl.
40.
6
L.A.
Constans,
RA 1916.
1, 247-59; probably beginning
of
the third
century. Tunis,
Mus6e
du
Bardo,
A.341.
7
Inv.Gaule
I,
217 and
plate;
the date seems
(from
the
style)
to
be late second or
early
third
century.
The
inscription
CLXXVI
beside the victor
perhaps
refers to the number of victories won
by
an individual charioteer.
8
An
exception
is the so-called
"Kugelspiel"
from Constanti-
nople,
on one side of which the victor of a race still
being
run
by
the other chariots behind him is
greeted by
a man with a
palm,
though
he himself
already
holds the wreath
(A. Cameron,
Por-
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 67
Armerina.8 Generally
the
circus-sarcophagi
and
other monuments that show the race in a realistic
setting distinguish
the victor
only by
the acclama-
tions of those around
him,
and
perhaps by
his
ges-
ture of
triumph.9
However,
on a child's
sarcophagus
in Mainz with Erotes
racing bigae against
a back-
ground
of the
principal
monuments of the
spina,
the
victor
already
holds the
palm
and radiate
crown;
he
turns to face the
beholder, though
his horses are
galloping
forward in
profile,
and the race is still in
progress
behind him.10 The victor also
appears
in
various scenes of the
racing
chariots which have a
more conventional
setting,
or none at
all;
for ex-
ample,
on several
glass cups
of the first
century
A.C. Here the
setting
is reduced to
extremely
sche-
matic
renderings
of the
metae,
the obelisk and the
porta pompae;
the
leader,
in the full
profile
WY
schema,
sometimes holds a
wreath, occasionally
also
a
palm."
And a
parodied
version
appears
in the
scene of Erotes
racing pairs
of
gazelles
in the frieze
from the House of the Vettii at
Pompeii;
the
victor,
whose team is at
rest,
holds the
palm
over his shoul-
der and turns his
body frontally.12
The charioteer
holding
the emblems of
victory
can also be seen as an isolated
figure,
without the
rest of the race. On a mosaic from Thuburbo Maius
(no. 24),
a
panel
contains the horses
standing
in
profile
and the charioteer
turning
toward the be-
holder in the WZ
schema.13
A
fragmentary
mosaic
from
Carthage (no. 5)
also had a central
panel,
in
which there survive
only
the
profile
heads of the
horses and an
inscription
above
giving
the name
Scorpianus; nothing
indicates how the charioteer
was
represented.14
The
single
charioteer is common
in
many
other forms of art in both the WY and the
WZ schemata.
Thus,
on the
funerary cippus
of T.
Flavius
Abascantus,
from the Flavian
period,
the
chariot of the
auriga Scorpus
is carved at the bot-
tom,
beneath the
inscription;
it is in the WY sche-
ma,
with the
horses,
all identified
by name, gallop-
ing
to the
right.15
Similar charioteers
appear
on
lamps
from the first
century
A.C. onward
(pl. 5, fig.
3),16
and form a standard
type
on relief
pottery,
where
wreath, palm
and
whip
seem to be added or
omitted at
will.17
But on later
lamps (late
second-
early
third
century)
the WZ schema
appears,
with
the charioteer
frontal, although
the horses still
gal-
lop
to the
right (pl. 5, fig.
4),l8
and a heroized
infant on a
sarcophagus-lid
of the mid-third cen-
tury, represented
in the
pose
of a circus
charioteer,
is also
nearly
frontal.19
By
the late fourth
century,
the variant versions are
repeated extensively
on the
contorniates,
with the WZ schema
predominating
over the WY.20
phyrius
the Charioteer
[Oxford 1973] 35, pl. 16).
9
For these,
see L.
Vogel,
"Circus Race Scenes in the
early
Roman
Empire,"
ArtB 51
(1969) 155-59;
M.
Lawrence,
"The
Circus Relief at
Foligno,"
Ricerche sull'Umbria tardo-antica e
preromanica. Atti
del II
Convegno
di Studi
Umbri, Gubbio 1964
(1965) 119-35;
G.
Rodenwaldt,
"Romische Reliefs. Vorstufen
zur
Spitantike,"
JdI
55
(1940) 12-43, esp.
22-24.
10 C.
Belting-Ihm, "Ein
r6mischer
Circus-Sarkophag,"
RGZM
8
(1961) 195-208, pls. 74-76,
dated ca. 270-280.
11
E.g.,
L.
Berger,
Rdmische
Gldiser
aus Vindonissa
(Basel
1960) 56-67, pls. 9, 10;
cf. D.
Harden, Archaeology
11
(1958)
2.
On the
glasses
which show the full
buildings
of the
spina
as a
background,
the victor does not
appear
to be
distinguished
in the
same
way.
12 L.
Curtius,
Die
Wandmalerei Pompejis (Leipzig 1929) 142,
fig. 91;
for an illustration of the
whole,
with
groups
of three trees
at either end
suggesting
the
metae,
see
Vogel (supra
n.
9) fig. 1,
p.
157.
13 CMA
suppl. II, A.376; J. Salomonson,
Romeinse
Mozaieken
uit Tunesie
(Leiden 1964)
no.
22, fig. 24;
the date seems from
the
style
to be third
century. Tunis,
Mus6e
du Bardo.
14
From the Maison de
Scorpianus, Inv.Tun.816. The date is
mid-second
century,
with a
probable
terminus
post quem
of A.D.
126.
15
F.
Cumont,
Recherches sur le
symbolisme fundraire
des ro-
mains
(Paris 1942) 457-62, pl.
45. The charioteer holds the
wreath forward in his
right hand,
the
palm
back over his shoul-
der;
on most other
examples
of this motif the
palm
is slanted
forward, probably
to make it stand out more
clearly.
16
E.g., D.M.
Bailey,
A
Catalogue of
the
Lamps
in the British
Museum
2,
Roman
Lamps
Made in
Italy (London 1980) Q 920,
pp. 173-74, pl. 16, fig. 58,
ca. 30-70 A.C.: the horses are walk-
ing
in
profile
to the
left,
the
charioteer,
also in
profile,
holds both
wreath and
palm
in front of
him;
behind is a
simplified
render-
ing
of the main monuments of the
spina.
17 E.g.,
F.
Oswald,
Index
of Figure-types
on Terra
Sigillata
(Liverpool 1936-1937)
nos.
1169, 1170, pl.
55
(both Antonine):
the horses
gallop
to the
right,
the charioteer is in
profile, holding
up
either wreath and
palm
or wreath
alone,
while the other hand
holds the reins. Cf. also
I. Huld-Zetsche,
Trierer
Reliefsigillata.
Werkstatt I
(Bonn 1972) 127, types
M 33a
(in profile
to
right,
horses
galloping, holding
wreath and
palm
in front of
him);
M
33b
(the
same
figure,
but without wreath and
palm, though
once
with
whip).
The
types
are used either
singly
or in
repeated
groups,
and
belong
to the second half of the 2nd
century.
On the
applique
medallions from the
Rh6ne
all
possible
variants are
found,
with the charioteers
galloping
to the
right (or occasionally
to the
left), holding
one or more of
palm,
wreath and
whip,
driving quadrigae
or
bigae (P.
Wuilleumier and A.
Audin,
Les
midaillons
d'applique gallo-romains
de
la vallee
du Rhone
[Paris
1952] 81-83,
nos.
117-25,
and
pp. 139-44,
nos.
252-68);
their
production
seems to extend from the late second to
approximately
the late third
century (Wuilleumier
and
Audin, 14).
18 E.g., Bailey
2
(supra
n.
16) Q 1366, pp. 356-57, pl. 79, fig.
60,
dated ca. 175-225 A.C. For a discussion of charioteers on
lamps
and further
parallels,
see
pp.
57-58.
I
am
grateful
to Dr.
Bailey
for his
help
on
questions concerning lamps.
19
Cumont
(supra
n.
15) 463, fig.
98.
20 Cf. Alfoldi and Alfoldi
(supra
n.
3) 207-209,
nos. 146-65.
The horses either
gallop
or walk to the
right;
the charioteer
68 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
When more than one victor is
shown,
different
schemata
may
be combined.
Thus,
on a mosaic from
Trier
(no. 26)
four
charioteers,
all with
palm
and
wreath,
are
placed
in
separate compartments.
One
is in the
fully
frontal XZ
schema,
but the others are
variations on the WY and WZ
schemata, although
there is a
tendency
to turn the charioteers to a
three-quarter
view
(pl. 6, fig. 9).21 More often,
however,
when several victors
appear,
all are in the
same
pose. Usually
this is the XZ schema discussed
below,
but in a
painting
from the
Caseggiato degli
Aurighi
at Ostia
(Reg. III,X,1)
two charioteers who
drive
bigae
are both in the WZ
schema; they
ad-
vance at the
gallop
towards one another
(pl.
5,
fig. 5).22
The schema classified as
WY,
the
profile
char-
ioteer in the
profile
chariot,
seems to be the oldest of
the
sub-groups
under
discussion;
both
galloping
and
standing
or
walking
horses are found with it. Sche-
ma
WZ,
the charioteer who turns
frontally
while
his chariot and team are still in
profile,
makes one
early appearance,
in the
gazelle-race parody
in the
House of the Vettii.
Otherwise,
he
appears
to be
confined to the late second
century
or after. His
popularity
at this later
period
is
clearly
a
product
of
the
general
Late
Antique
taste for
frontality.
Unlike
the full
profile renderings,
the frontal victor is much
more conscious of the
onlookers;
he
frequently
ne-
glects
the reins tied around his
waist,
as he holds
up
the wreath
ostentatiously
in his
right hand,
the
palm prominently
forward in his left. There
may
have been
originally
a distinction between the fron-
tal
pose
used with the horses at
rest,
when the
moment
represented
is
likely
to be that in which the
victor receives the
applause
of the crowd immedi-
ately
after he has been awarded the
prizes,
and that
where the horses are
galloping
forward. In the lat-
ter,
the sense is
probably
that of the
victory lap;
the
victor rides around the
course,
while the crowd
pelts
him with
flowers, garlands,
and sometimes more
substantial marks of favor.23 Since,
as is
argued
below,
one of the functions of the
figure
of the
charioteer on mosaics was often to serve as an
image
of
victory,
which should attract the
gifts
of
good
fortune and
prosperity,
the choice of this
particular
moment was
appropriate.
The two other schemata where the charioteer is
no
longer
in his chariot
may
now be considered.
The version
(T)
in which the charioteer stands on
foot
holding
wreath and
palm
is common in the
minor
arts,
and is found on
lamps,24 pottery
and
terracottas,25
and
gems,26
and
occasionally
on the
contorniates.27
It is
closely
related to a
type
used for
victorious
gladiators
and athletes.28 The charioteer
almost
always
looks back over his
shoulder, turning
his
body
almost
frontally;
he holds
palm, whip,
and sometimes wreath.
Frequently
he is
accompanied by
his name or
by
an acclamation.
See also infra n.
87,
for the frontal XZ schema on contorniates.
21 K.
Parlasca,
Die
r6mischen
Mosaiken in Deutschland
(Berlin
1959) 27, pl. 25,1;
see infra
pp.
72-73.
22 R. Calza and E.
Nash,
Ostia
(Florence 1959) 54, fig.
64.
The two who are shown are from the
green
and blue
factions;
Calza
suggests
that there
may originally
have been a
correspond-
ing painting showing
the other two factions. The
suggestion
that
the
building may
have been the seat of a
sporting association,
although attractive,
is not
necessary, given
the
frequency
of chari-
oteer
representations
in
quite
different contexts. The
painting
is
dated
by
Calza to the
period
of construction of the
building,
the
middle of the second
century,
but I do not know if this can be
regarded
as more than a terminus
post quem.
23 The
practice
of
pelting
victors at the
games
with
flowers,
garlands
and sometimes more substantial marks of favor such as
garments,
is recorded
by
a number of ancient
authors; many pas-
sages
were
already
collected
by I. Casaubon, commentary
on
Suet. Nero 25
(1611).
Eratosthenes
(FGH
241 F 14
=
sch. Eur.
Hec.
573), and,
from a similar
source,
Clem. Alex.
Paedag. II,
72,1,
describe this
victory
round
(lyeplypds),
and Plato mentions it
in the last sentence of the
Republic (X,
621 c-d: Kal'
ErE~Lsh rhT
a0Aa
avrfijs
KOJ.CcpeOa, W"OreIp oi
LLK#dPO
po
wEpLayeLpoLEvOL).
A number of ancient
grammarians
comment on the
Republic
passage; e.g.
Ael.
Dionysius
a30
Erbse; Timaeus, Lex.Plat. s.v.
7rEpLayEpdrLpEVr;
Photius Lex.
413,20
Porson = Suidas 7r1054
Adler; Ps-Didymus
in E.
Miller, Milanges
de littirature grecque
(Paris 1868)
403. On the
Byzantine practice,
see Cameron
(su-
pra
n.
8)
48 and references there.
24
E.g.,
D.
Ivanyi,
Die
pannonischen Lampen (Budapest 1935)
86,
no.
720, pl. 26, 5; J. Banko, OJh
25
(1929) 123,
n.
13, fig.
45;
R.
Zahn,
ZfN
24
(1904) 355-66, fig.
on
p.
357. On
Bailey,
Catalogue
2
(supra
n.
16) Q 1385, pp. 363-64, pl. 82, fig. 60,
of
the second half of the second
century,
Victoria stands behind the
charioteer and holds the reins of a horse
only
the
tip
of whose
muzzle can be seen.
25 On
a
money-box
from a Roman
workshop
of the late 1st-
early
2nd
century:
E.
Rohde,
CVA Gotha
2, 51, pl.
95. For
terracottas,
cf. H.
Goldman,
Excavations at Gdzliu
Kule, Tarsus
1,
The Hellenistic and Roman Periods
(Princeton 1950) 360-61,
nos.
424-25, pl.
244.
26
E.g.,
H.B.
Walters, Catalogue of
the
Engraved
Gems and
Cameos, Greek, Etruscan and Roman in the British Museum
(London 1926)
no.
2131, p. 221, pl.
26.
27
Alf6ldi
and
Alf6ldi (supra
n.
3) 212,
no.
199, pl. 201,2-4,
holding whip,
wreath and
palm.
On the columns or
cylinders
which surround the victor on several of these
works,
and the
big
jewelled
crown which sometimes
replaces
the
wreath,
see
J.
Meischner,
"Preiskrone und
Preiszylinder," JdI
89
(1974)
336-46.
28
Gladiator stelae are listed in L.
Robert,
Les Gladiateurs dans
l'Orient
grec (Paris 1940) 47-48;
a close
parallel
is his no.
34, p.
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 69
either holds the wreath
up,
or
places
it
(or
a
large
crown)
on his
head;
he is often surrounded
by
prizes, moneybags
or
coins,
with altars or small
columns in the
background,
and
may
be attended
by
acclaiming figures.
The moment illustrated is clear-
ly
that in which the victor has
just
been awarded
the
prizes,
and
displays
them to the
applause
of the
crowd. On the mould for a
large rectangular lamp
formerly
in the British
Museum,
the
standing
victor
is flanked on either side
by
a victorious charioteer in
a
quadriga moving
toward
him,
and the
major
mon-
uments of the
spina appear
in the
background.29
The schema seems to be rarer in the
larger
scale
arts,
but is found at least once on
mosaics,
at
Doug-
ga (no. 9).
Here the charioteer stands alone in a
circle in the
center, holding
the
palm
and
whip
but
no
crown,
while his horses are in
panels
around the
edge (pl. 6, fig. 6).30 In
sculpture
the schema
ap-
pears
on one late
monument,
on one side of the "old
base" of
Porphyrius
in
Constantinople:
the hero
holds wreath and
palm,
and is acclaimed
by putti.31
Less common is the schema
(V)
where the victor
appears
on horseback. Several of the
circus-sarcoph-
agi
show on their sides a
single
horseman brandish-
ing
a wreath.32 Cameron
has
argued
that this
fig-
ure,
who also occurs on the "new base" of Por-
phyrius,
must be
interpreted
as the victor
perform-
ing
his
lap
of
honor,
not in his chariot but mounted
on his lead-horse.33 The theme occurs
only once,
to
my knowledge,
on a mosaic: on the black-and-white
mosaic from Prima Porta
(no. 15).
Here the race
between two
bigae
is shown
below;
above the victor
gallops
to the
right,
his
body
turned almost frontal-
ly.
A
bystander
with a
whip
salutes
him,
and the
acclamation LIBER NICA is written above
(pl. 6,
fig. 7).34
The schemata so far discussed can be traced back
to the first or second centuries A.C.
They
could be
varied
through
a series of small
changes: whips,
wreaths and
palms
included or
omitted, subsidiary
figures
and
setting
combined in various different
ways, slight
alterations in
poses,
intermediate three-
quarter
views
adopted. Together they
made
up
the
stock-in-trade of craftsmen
working
in a wide vari-
ety
of
media,
and all over the western half of the
Empire.35 They
are so common in the industrial
arts,
for
example
on relief
pottery
and
lamps,
that it
seems
likely
that these
mass-produced objects played
a
major
role in their distribution. The
designs
for
larger
scale arts such as mosaic
might
have been
distributed
independently,
in the form of
special
copy-books,
or
simply through
the
training
of mi-
grant
craftsmen. But the
hypothesis
should also be
considered that there was
cooperation among
the
workers in the different
crafts,
and that the mo-
saicists derived their
patterns
also from those e-
volved for
pottery workshops,
or even from
copying
the
objects
themselves. The sources of the various
schemata must also be
hypothetical,
but monuments
to
popular
favorites and
possibly large
scale
paint-
94,
from
Philippoupolis.
For
athletes, cf.
some of the
figures
from the Baths of
Caracalla, M.E. Blake,
"Mosaics of the Late
Empire
in Rome and
Vicinity,"
MAAR 17
(1940) 111, pl. 28,
and
compare
the children
crowning
themselves on three child-
sarcophagi
with
palaestra scenes,
Cumont
(supra
n.
15) 469-70;
pl. 46,2,3,
and
fig.
100.
29 H.B.
Walters, Catalogue of
the Greek and Roman
Lamps
in
the British Museum
(London 1914)
no.
1398, p. 211, fig. 330,
apparently
now lost.
30 A. Merlin and L.
Poinssot,
"Factions du
cirque
et saisons
sur des
mosaiques
de
Tunisie,"
in
Milanges
Charles Picard 2
(=
RA
1949) 739-42, fig.
1.
Tunis,
Musee du
Bardo, Inv.
2749. A
similar
figure,
also
holding
the
palm
and
whip
but no
crown,
appears
on an inlaid bronze
diptych
leaf in the Louvre: K.
Weitzmann
ed., Age of Spirituality (New
York
1979)
no.
94, p.
103.
31 Cameron
(supra
n.
8) 43, pl.
13. The statue of the
standing
charioteer in the Vatican
holding
a
palm,
which Cameron
quotes
as a
parallel,
is so
heavily
restored as to be
unreliable;
the arms
are
entirely
restored
(G. Lippold, Skulpturen
des vaticanischen
Museums 3.2
[Berlin 1956]
no.
619, pp. 91-92).
But there is an
ivory
statuette in the British Museum of a charioteer
holding
a
palm
in a similar
position;
the
right
arm is
broken,
but
enough
remains to show that it was stretched out
(F. Baratte,
BAntFr
1971, 185-86,
n.
5; pl. 23,1).
32
E.g.,
C.
Belting-Ihm,
RGZM 8
(1961) 205-208,
nos.
9,
14,17,19.
33
Cameron
(supra
n.
8) 44-49, pl.
2.
34
Blake (supra
n.
28) 96, pl. 17.1;
Cameron
(supra
n.
8)
45.
Probably
Severan. In the scene of the race
below,
the leader is
named as
L[.... ],
and must be intended to be identified as the
victorious Liber
greeted
above.
3s
Two
fragmentary
mosaics from Greece show that the theme
was not unknown in the eastern
part
of the
Empire, though
on
neither is the charioteer himself
preserved.
In
Argos (no. 1)
four
horses in
profile survive,
with their names beneath
(Ch. Kritzas,
Deltion 29
[1973-74]
Chronika
242, fig. 157q, pl. 166b);
Kritzas
suggests
the end of the 4th or
beginning
of the 5th
century,
which seems to me too late. And at Thessaloniki
(no. 22)
an even
more
fragmentary panel
contained three horses in
profile,
and
the
inscriptions
aplpa
and
rvovppit;
one
cannot,
I
suppose,
ex-
clude the
possibility
that these
might
have
belonged
to a
mytho-
logical
chariot-scene
(M. Karamanoli-Siganidou,
Deltion 25
[1970]
Chronika
371-72).
70 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
ings
in Rome in the
early Empire
would have been
appropriate.36
Once the basic schemata were es-
tablished in the
repertoire,
the variations introduced
depended largely
on extraneous considerations or on
the whim of the craftsman.
However,
the most common schema for the victo-
rious charioteer on mosaics in the later
Empire
was
none of those so far
discussed,
but the schema classi-
fied as XZ: the charioteer
advancing full-face,
in a
frontal chariot. Before
examining
the works which
adopt
this
schema,
I must first
briefly
examine the
origin
of the motif of the frontal chariot and its
wider
history
in Roman art.
THE FRONTAL CHARIOT
The
representation
of a four-horse chariot ad-
vancing head-on,
with the horses seen in frontal
view,
is a familiar motif in archaic Greek art. Its
history
was traced
by
Hafner from the
extremely
schematic, rigidly
frontal and static treatment found
on
black-figure vases,
where the horses are lined
up
side
by
side with their
hindquarters invisible,
to the
more three-dimensional
renderings adopted
in art of
the classical
period.37
On the later
works, although
the chariot still advances
head-on,
the horses are no
longer
seen
absolutely frontally; instead,
a foreshort-
ened
three-quarter
view of the horses' bodies is
adopted,
and
they diverge
to
right
and left in two
symmetrical pairs, turning
their heads
alternately
outward and inward. In
general,
the frontal schema
was not
popular
in two-dimensional art in the clas-
sical
period,
and a
profile
or
three-quarter
view of
the chariot was
preferred.
In the Hellenistic
period
the frontal schema is
very rare,
but
enough
exam-
ples
survive to show its
persistence;
its main use
after the archaic
period
is for the chariot of Helios
(often
shown
rising
from the
waves),
and for that of
Nike.38
In Roman
art,
the motif
enjoys
a revival. It
is still rare
during
the
early Empire,
but Victoria in
a frontal
biga, holding up
crown and
palm, appears
on a
painting
from
Pompeii,39
and the
rising
Sol on
the
breastplate
of several
Julio-Claudian
cuirass-
statues,
in
place
of the more common
Gorgoneion.40
From the second
century on, Sol/Helios
in the fron-
tal chariot becomes
popular,
and is found on
gems,41 lamps,42 paintings43
and mosaics.44 With
the
adoption
of the cult of Sol
Invictus,
and its
importance
in the
imperial religion,
the motif un-
dergoes
a
great expansion,
and is found
frequently
on coins from the
beginning
of the third
century
36
For statues and monuments to charioteers in
Rome,
see ref-
erences in L.
Friedlander, Darstellungen
aus der
Sittengeschichte
Roms'?
2
(ed.
G.
Wissowa, Leipzig 1922)
26-27.
37
Hafner, Viergespanne
3-60
(archaic)
and 61-82
(classical
and
Hellenistic, "Flaichendarstellungen").
38
On the chariot of
Helios,
cf.
(in
addition to
Hafner)
K.
Schauenburg,
Helios
(Berlin 1955) 70,
n.
320;
and AntK 5
(1962) 58,
n.
80;
E.
Zervoudaki,
Deltion
30,1 (1975) 1-20, esp.
7-10.
Although
well attested monuments with the frontal
quadri-
ga
from the Hellenistic
period
are
rare, they
do
exist, e.g.,
the
Hellenistic
(ca.
200
B.C.)
relief from Larissa in the
Louvre,
with
the
rising
sun at the
top:
F.
Messerschmidt,
StEtr 3
(1929) 523,
pl.
58
(cited by Schauenburg,
Helios
39,
n.
354).
Hafner
argues
for the survival of the motif in the art of the Diadochoi on the
basis of its
appearance
in the art of the eastern Roman
Empire,
and of its
expansion
to the Indian art
produced
under Hellenistic
influence
(Viergespanne 73-76).
For its use in Iranian and Sasa-
nian art and in
India,
see M.
Bussagli,
"The Frontal
Represen-
tation of the Divine
Chariot,"
East and West 6
(1955)
9-25.
39 Reinach,
RPGR
144,
7
(=
W.
Helbig, Wandgemrniilde
der
vom Vesuv
verschiitteten
Stddte
Campaniens [Leipzig 1868] 185,
no.
939,
from the Casa di M.
Lucrezio); compare
the similar
figure
of Victoria in a frontal
biga
on a mosaic from the
frigidari-
um of the Baths of
Trajan
at Acholla
(Tunisia),
of the
early
second
century (G.
Ch.
Picard,
"Les
mosaiques d'Acholla,"
Etu-
des
d'Archeologie Classique
2
[1959] 85, pl. 21).
40 K.
Stemmer, Untersuchungen
zur
Typologie, Chronologie
und
Ikonographie
der Panzerstatuen
(Berlin 1978)
158 and nos.
V
1 (pl. 34, 1), VIIa
1 (pl. 64), VIIa
2
(pl. 65, 1-2); VIIa 3
(fragmentary; pl. 65,3).
41
E.g., P. Zazoff
ed., Antike Gemmen in deutschen Samm-
lungen
3
(AGD,
Wiesbaden
1970)
Kassel
157, p. 236, pl. 105;
AGD 4
(Wiesbaden 1975) Hamburg 81, p. 389, pl. 266;
both
2nd
century.
42
E.g., Walters, Catalogue (supra
n.
29)
no.
1052, p. 157, fig.
210,
of second
century type,
from Alexandria.
43 Thus
probably
in a
grave
in
Rome,
known from a
drawing,
F.
Weege, JdI
28
(1913) 185-86, fig. 28;
and at the center of a
vault from Hadrian's
Villa,
also known
only
from a
drawing
of
Ponce
(K. Lehmann,
"The Dome of
Heaven,"
ArtB 27
[1945] 7,
and
6,
n. 38 on the
question
of the
reliability
of the
drawing).
44 On the mosaic from
Mtinster-Sarnsheim,
of the mid-third
century,
where the chariot of the
Sun-god,
with the horses
pranc-
ing
forward and
upward,
is framed
by
the circle of the zodiac:
Parlasca
(supra
n.
21) 86-88, pls. 84,2; 85,2;
86-87. Similar
representations
of the
Sun-god
in his chariot in the circle of the
zodiac
appear
on
synagogue
mosaics in Palestine
(see
R. Hach-
lili,
"The Zodiac in Ancient
Jewish Art,"
BASOR 228
[1977]
65-66, figs. 2-6).
In the 4th
century synagogue
at Hammat-
Tiberias,
the
rendering
is still
recognizably
that of Sol
Invictus;
in the 6th
century synagogues
at
Beth-Alpha
and Na'aran he is
stylized
into an almost abstract
rendering,
and even more em-
phatically
frontal. On the vault of the Tomb of the
Julii
under
St.
Peter's,
the Christianized
Sun-god
drives his chariot in an
unusual conflation of the frontal and
profile
schemata: the driver
is
frontal,
but the two
surviving horses, although placed
in front
of the
driver,
are in
profile
to the
left,
a wheel of the chariot
visible behind their
legs; O. Perler,
Die
Mosaiken
der
Juliergruft
imrn
Vatikan
(Freiburg
in der Schweiz
1953) 13-32, 41-43, pls.
2-3.
45
Hafner, Viergespanne 73-74,
ns.
36-37,
lists
examples (cov-
ering
both Sol and the
imperial chariot)
from the late second
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER
71
on.45 The form in which it now
appears
is no
long-
er that of Sol
rising
above the
waves;
instead he
stands
full-length
in the
chariot,
one hand raised in
a
gesture
of
power,
the other
holding
a
globe, repre-
senting
the
power
of the ruler of heaven.46
The
triumphal iconography
of the
Empire
also
adopted
and
developed
the motif of the frontal char-
iot.
Again
the
profile
chariot is at first more com-
mon, although
the frontal chariot is
occasionally
found in the
early Empire
in
representations
of im-
perial victory.47
Here
again, however,
it is from the
late second
century
on that the
type begins
to be-
come
standardized,
and it is common on the
coinage
of the third and fourth
centuries.48 Not
only
is the
Emperor
shown in the frontal
chariot, accompanied
and crowned
by Victoria,
in
representations
of the
Triumph itself,
but he is also seen in this
way
in
scenes of the
pompa
of the circus.49 At the same
time,
the assimilation of the
imperial
chariot to that
of Sol Invictus also
begins, producing by
the late
third
century
the
type
of the
Emperor
alone in the
chariot,
his hand raised in the same
gesture
of
pow-
er as Sol himself.50
In these scenes several methods are
adopted
for
representing
the horses. A
fully
foreshortened fron-
tal view is
occasionally found,
but often the horses
are
split
into two
pairs
to
right
and left. Hafner dis-
tinguishes
three
types
in Roman art:
A,
where the
outer horses
converge
in a
type
of reverse
perspec-
tive; B,
where the horses
diverge outward,
but
only
the front halves of the horses are
shown, and the
hindquarters suppressed;
and C, the commonest,
where
the two
pairs diverge symmetrically
to either
side.51 In the last
schema,
the extent of foreshort-
ening varies,
and sometimes an
approximate
three-
quarter
view is
adopted; often, however,
the horses
are
parted
at an
angle
of 180
degrees,
with the
bodies of the inner
pair
in full
profile,
the
forequar-
ters of the outer
pair
visible
beyond
them. The
heads, although occasionally
also
foreshortened,
more often are turned in
profile
in a
symmetrical
grouping,
the outer
pair facing out,
the inner
pair
in. I
adopt
Hafner's
typology
in what
follows,
but
with a further distinction of his
Type
C into
C1,
where the horses are still foreshortened in three-
quarter view,
and
C2,
where the horses are
fully
deployed
to either side.
Not
only
is the
imperial triumphator represented
in this
way,
but the same schema is
adopted
for his
lesser
counterpart,
the consul
advancing
in his
biga
in the
pompa circensis,
as seen on the
opus
sectile
from the basilica of
Junius
Bassus in Rome in the
mid-fourth
century.52
Various deities are
similarly
represented
in
triumph
in this scheme:
Dionysus,53
Neptune,54 Venus,55 Mercury,56 Cybele.57
Their
chariots are often
drawn,
not
by horses,
but
by
other
century
on. For other
early examples
of the frontal
Sol,
see
G.M.A.
Hanfmann,
The Season
Sarcophagus
in Dumbarton
Oaks
(Cambridge,
Mass.
1951)
247-49 and references there.
46 H.P.
L'Orange,
"Sol Invictus
Imperator," SymbOslo
14
(1935)
86-114.
47 The frontal
representation
is used for
images
of the trium-
phal quadriga
mounted on a
triumphal
arch from the
very begin-
ning
of the
reign
of
Augustus:
H.
Mattingly,
Coins
of
the Roman
Empire
in the British Museum I
(London 1923) 102,
no.
624,
pl. 15,8 (29-27 B.C.;
from the
East).
Cf. also Gaius Caesar
crowned
by
Nike in a frontal
chariot,
on a coin of
Augustus
from
Apameia:
BMC
Phrygia (1906) 93,
no.
138, pl. 11,6.
Cf. T.
Holscher,
Victoria Romana
(Mainz 1967)
89 and
91,
n.
547, pl.
14,6.
48 See references in
Hafner, Viergespanne 73-74,
ns.
36-37,
and
p.
118. It
appears
on the
coinage
of the eastern
provinces
from the late second
century;
in the west
only
in the third.
49 A.
Alf61ldi, R6mMitt
49
(1934) 93-100, figs.
4 and 5
(medal-
lions of Gordian and
Philip);
Holscher
(supra
n.
47)
84-90.
50 L'Orange, SymbOslo
14
(1935) 98, fig. 6,b
&
e; L'Orange,
Studies on the
Iconography of
Cosmic
Kingship
in the Ancient
World
(Oslo 1953) 143-45;
R.
Brilliant,
Gesture and Rank in
Roman Art
(New
Haven
1963)
177-81. The
type
reaches its
fullest
development
under Constantine and his successors. Cf.
also H.
Seyrig, "L'attelage
d6ploy6," Syria
18
(1937) 43-51, (=
Antiquitis Syriennes, 2e Sbrie,
Paris
1938, 85-94),
on the
ques-
tion of the influence of Parthian and Sasanian art on the schema.
For the
history
of the motif in the
Byzantine period,
see Camer-
on
(supra
n.
8) 17-28, esp. p.
22.
51 Hafner, Viergespanne
115-20.
52
G.
Becatti, Scavi di Ostia
6, Edificio
con
opus
sectile
fuori
Porta Marina
(Rome 1969) 196-202; pls. 46, 1,2
and
81,2,
and
refs. there.
53 Frontal
representations
of the
Triumph
of
Dionysus
are
found on a mosaic from the Maison de Tertulla at El
Djem,
of
the
early
third
century,
where the
(fragmentary) tigers drawing
the chariot
diverge
to either side
(L. Foucher,
Decouvertes ar-
cheologiques
a&
Thysdrus
en 1960
[Institut d'Archeologie, Tunis,
Notes et Documents n.s.
4] 50, pl. 21);
on a stucco in the vault of
a
hypogeum
in Sousse
(L. Foucher, Karthago
4
[1953] 88, pl.
Ia);
on a mosaic from the House of the
Triumph
of
Dionysus
at
Antioch,
dated
by
Levi to the Antonine
period,
where the two
tigers
are
fully
frontal and foreshortened
(D. Levi,
Antioch Mo-
saic Pavements
[Princeton 1947] 93-99, pl. 16c);
on a mosaic
from Corinth
(0. Broneer, AJA
39
[1935] 61, pl. 17,2),
where
the odd
objects
in the
foreground (Broneer's
"cloud
effects"),
from which
emerge
the
foreparts
of the
panthers
and the
satyrs
flanking
the
chariot, suggest
to me a
possible
contamination with
the sea-creatures who draw the chariot of
Neptune,
whose tails
are sometimes rendered in a similar
way;
and on several
Egyp-
tian textiles
(V. Lenzen,
The
Triumph of Dionysos
on Textiles
of
Late
Antique Egypt [Berkeley
and Los
Angeles 1960]).
For the
more common
profile representation
of the
Triumph
of
Diony-
sus, see
Dunbabin,
BSR 39
(1971)
52-65.
54
Neptune
advances
frontally
in a chariot drawn
by
two or
four sea-horses on African mosaics from La Chebba of the sec-
72 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
animals or
mythological
creatures:
panthers
or ti-
gers
for the chariot of
Dionysus;
sea-horses or
Tri-
tons for that of
Neptune;
rams for
Mercury;
lions
for
Cybele; elephants
for the chariot of Venus on a
well known
painting
from
Pompeii (and
also used
sometimes for the
imperial chariots).
But the ani-
mals are
frequently
assimilated in
pose
to the horses
of,
a
quadriga,
even to the extent of
repeating
the
same
position
of the heads turned
alternately
out-
ward and inward in
Type
C2. So for one
figure
after
another,
the
early imperial
motif of the divine
chariot in
procession
in
profile yields to,
or at least
is
joined by,
that of the frontal
chariot."8
The taste
for
frontality is,
of
course,
one of the most marked
characteristics of Late
Antique
art-the motive un-
doubtedly
to
present
the
figure,
whether divine or
imperial,
in his most
impressive aspect
for the view-
er. But the forerunners occur well before the Late
Antique period,
as shown
by
the use of the frontal
pose
on the
Augustan Neptune
cameo and the ele-
phant quadriga
of Venus from
Pompeii.59
It is clear
that in Roman art the frontal
rendering
of the di-
vine and the
imperial
chariot is known from the
time of
Augustus on,
but its use is limited
during
the first two centuries of the
Empire;
from the
early
third
century
onward its
popularity expands
enor-
mously.
In the earlier
versions, moreover,
the ani-
mals
drawing
the chariot
may
be shown in fore-
shortened frontal
view,
or
converging
in Hafner's
Type A,
or in a still three-dimensional version of
the
diverging Type C1;
the
fully
schematic
Type
C2
is characteristic of most of the
renderings
from the
third
century
on.
THE FRONTAL CHARIOT
ON CIRCUS MOSAICS
The circus charioteer was also assimilated to the
frontal schema. His earliest
appearance
on mosaics
seems to be on a
pavement
from Trier
(no. 25).
It
comes from a house beneath the
Kaiserthermen,
and
is
dated,
on combined
stylistic
and
archaeological
grounds,
to around
A.D.
250
(pl. 6, fig. 8).60
A
single
frontal charioteer is shown at the center of an
ornamental
design,
with the
inscription
POLYDVS
COMPRESSORE, Polydus
with his lead-horse
Compressor.
The horses are
represented
with
fairly
naturalistic
foreshortening; although they
are
split
into two
pairs, they
are not
symmetrically displayed,
and the
angles
at which their heads are turned are
varied. The lower
part
of the chariot is visible be-
hind the horses'
legs,
and the wheels are in reason-
ably
correct
perspective. Compared
to
approximate-
ly contemporary
coins of the frontal chariot of Sol
or of the
Emperor,
the
impression
is much more
naturalistic and three-dimensional.
A second mosaic from Trier comes from a build-
ing
beneath the Landesmuseum
(no. 26; pl. 6, fig.
ond
quarter
of the second
century (Inv.Tun.86);
from the Mai-
son de
Neptune
at
Acholla,
of the third
quarter (S. Gozlan,
MonPiot 59
[1974] 116-19, fig. 51); and, accompanied by
Am-
phitrite,
from
Constantine,
of the first half of the 4th
century
(Inv.Alg.226;
F.
Baratte, Catalogue
des
mosai'ques
romaines et
paleochretiennes
du musee du Louvre
[Paris 1978]
no.
6, pp.
28-40, figs. 23-24).
On a
fragmentary
mosaic from
Adana,
in
Cilicia,
the same schema is
used,
with two frontal Tritons draw-
ing
the chariot
(L. Budde,
Antike Mosaiken in Kilikien 2
[Reck-
linghausen 1972] 24, pls. 29-30).
A version of the same schema
is found
already
on the Late
Augustan
Vienna
cameo,
where the
triumphant Augustus-Neptune
is drawn in his chariot
by Tri-
tons,
all
represented frontally:
H61scher (supra
n.
47) 181, pl.
1,12.
11
Venus in her
elephant-quadriga,
the animals
converging
to-
ward the center
(Type A),
on the
painting
from
Pompeii:
A.
Maiuri,
Roman
Painting (Lausanne 1953)
pl.
on
p.
147. Venus
also
appears
in a frontal
chariot,
this time drawn
by
four Erotes
arranged symmetrically
in two
pairs,
on a mosaic from Thubur-
bo Maius
(S. Gozlan, BAC n.s. 12-14
[1976-1978]
Fasc.
B,
43-4, fig. 11).
56 Mercury
in a chariot drawn
by
rams on a
gem
in
Berlin,
in
the
Type
A schema: A.
Furtwdingler, Beschreibung
der
geschnit-
tenen Steine im
Antiquarium (Berlin 1896) 112,
no.
2381,
pl.
22,
quoted by Hafner, Viergespanne 38,
n. 22.
17
P.
Friedlinder,
Documents
of Dying Paganism (Berkeley
and Los
Angeles 1945) 30-31,
pls.
10-11,
identifies as
Cybele
the central
figure
on two
Egyptian
textile
panels
in
Leningrad
and New York. This identification is
rightly questioned by
Len-
zen
(supra
n.
53),
who identifies the
figure
as
Dionysus. Cybele
in her lion-chariot
does, however, appear frontally
on a coin of
Cibyra
in
Phrygia
of A.D. 220:
(H. Seyrig, Antiquites Syriennes
2
[1938] 90; pl. 6,10),
and as an akroterion on the tribunal
represented
on the Great Circus mosaic at Piazza Armerina
(Gentili,
BdA 42
[1957] 23, fig. 22).
58
The frontal schema with the
symmetrically diverging
ani-
mals is also
adopted
in mediaeval
representations
of the chariot
of Alexander carried to heaven
by griffins; cf.
C.
Settis-Frugoni,
Historia Alexandri elevati
per griphos
ad aerem
(Rome 1973)
81-82,
147-207.
59
Supra
ns. 54 and 55.
60 W.
Reusch,
"Wandmalereien und Mosaikboden eines Peri-
stylhauses
im Bereich der Trierer
Kaiserthermen,"
TrZ 29
(1966) 216-22, pls. B,32-36;
for the
date,
see
pp.
220-22.
61
Parlasca
(supra
n.
21) 26-27, pl. 25,1. Parlasca
suggested
a
date in the Severan
period,
on the
grounds
of
style;
this must be
revised in the
light
of the
investigations
of K.-P. Goethert and K.
Goethert-Polaschek,
"Das Gebaude mit dem Monnus-Mosaik.
Die
Ausgrabungen
unter dem Rheinischen Landesmuseum Trier
von
1884-1962," Festschrift
100
Jahre
Rheinisches Landesmu-
seum Trier
(Mainz 1979) 69-96,
who conclude that it must
belong
to the
major building period
of the end of the third or
beginning
of the fourth
century.
For the state of
preservation
of
the mosaic
(now
reduced to a few
very
small
fragments),
and for
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 73
9).61 It contains
four
charioteers,
all with
palm
and
wreath, placed
in
separate compartments,
with the
bust of Victoria at the
center; they
are named SV-
PERSTES, EVPREPES, PHIL[ .... ]S,
and FOR-
TVN(atus).
All were
badly damaged,
but
enough
survived to show considerable variation in their
placing. One, Superstes,
is
frontal,
his two central
horses
apparently
in a
fairly
accurate foreshortened
frontal
view,
the outer horse on the left turned in
toward the center as if in
Type
A. The
compart-
ment with
Phil[....]s
was the most
severely
dam-
aged,
but
appears
to have been in the WZ
schema,
with
nearly
frontal charioteer and
profile horses,
except
that here the horse on the extreme
right
apparently converged inward,
as if in the frontal
Type
A. With the other
two,
both horses and driver
are in
three-quarter
view to the
right.
The frontal
XZ schema
appears
here
only
as a variant to the
older
profile
and
three-quarter views;
and in the
positions
of both men and horses there is a search
for
variety
rather than
repetitive symmetry.
Nor is
the frontal charioteer
singled
out in
any way,
since
all four are shown with the emblems of
victory.62
Another
example
of the theme has been found in
Britain,
at Rudston in Yorkshire
(no. 20; pl. 7, fig.
10).63
There is no
archaeological
evidence for the
date;
Smith
suggests
the second
quarter
of the
fourth
century.
The charioteer is in a circle in the
center,
surrounded
by
busts of the Seasons and
by
panels containing birds;
he is not named. The
horses
diverge symmetrically
in two
pairs,
in the
Type
C2
schema, though
some
degree
of foreshort-
ening survives;
the curved front of the chariot is
seen
clearly
above
them,
but the wheels are not
visible.
It is in the western Mediterranean
area, however,
that the theme
appears
most
commonly
on mosaics.
Three
examples
have been found in
Italy; two,
one
of them known
only
from a
drawing,
in
Spain;
at
least five in North Africa. It is
unlikely
that
any
is
earlier than the late third
century,
and most
belong
to the fourth or fifth. The earliest Italian version is
probably
a
polychrome fragment
from
Rome,
now
in the Museo
Arqueol6gico
Nacional in Madrid
(no. 17a; pl. 7, fig. 11).64
The horses are in fore-
shortened
three-quarter view,
with
slight
variations
in their
positions;
the
body
of the chariot is visible
behind the horses'
legs,
the wheels are foreshort-
ened. The charioteer holds the
whip
and
palm,
but
no
crown,
and is
accompanied by
two
men,
one of
whom acclaims him. The
companion piece
to this is
in the WY schema: the charioteer
facing
to the
left,
the horses all in
profile;
a
sparsor
and another man
acclaim him
(no. 17b).
The
figures
are mounted as
separate panels
in a frame which is
clearly
not
orig-
inal,
and
they
have
undergone
considerable resto-
ration. It is not clear how
they
are to be connected
with a
pavement
from the Via
Appia
in
Rome,
known from a
drawing,
which showed the race in
progress
in the arena.65 A
third,
and
similar, panel
in
Madrid, however, certainly belonged
to the Via
Appia pavement (no. 17c; pl. 7, fig. 12).66
It shows
the horses
galloping
to the
right,
with the charioteer
turned
frontally.
It is
possible, therefore,
that we
have here the remnants of a
pavement
in which the
figures
were shown in the
arena,
but all
holding
the
palm
branch
(no wreaths),
and in varied
poses,
frontal and
profile. However,
the state in which the
fragments
have come down to us
obviously prevents
any
definite conclusion.
A mosaic in the Museo Nazionale in
Rome,
from
the Via
Imperiale (now
the Via Cristoforo Colom-
its
reconstruction,
see L. Dahm in
Festschrift
100
Jahre
Rhein-
isches Landesmuseum
Trier,
107-10.
62
For this
representation
of four victors
simultaneously,
see
infra
pp.
82-83.
63
D.J. Smith,
Roman Mosaics
from Rudston, Brantingham
and Horkstow
(Hull 1976)
6 and
17, pl.
I and
cover;
a date
towards
350(?)
is
suggested by
Smith in
J. Munby
and M.
Henig, eds.,
Roman
Life
and Art in Britain. A Celebration in
Honour
of
the 80th
Birthday of Jocelyn Toynbee (Oxford 1977)
Part
1, 132,
no.
92,
with reference to a
forthcoming publication
of the Rudston mosaics. Now in the
Transport
and
Archaeology
Museum, City
of
Kingston upon
Hull. It is
possible
that there
was another British
example
on a
destroyed
mosaic at Colerne in
Wiltshire,
discovered in the 19th
century;
the
description speaks
of "a
chariot,
with a
charioteer,
and four horses
abreast,"
and
inscription above, possibly
SERVIVS or SEVERVS
(E.W.
God-
win,
ArchJ
13
[1856] 328-32).
64
A. Blanco Freijeiro, "Mosaicos romanos con escenas de circo
y
anfiteatro en el Museo
Arqueol6gico Nacional," ArchEspArq
23
(1950) 138-39, figs. 12-14; Madrid,
Museo
Arqueol6gico
Nacional no.
3,604;
the
companion piece
is no.
3,602.
65
T.
Ashby, "Drawings
of Ancient
Paintings
in
English
Col-
lections. Part
I,
The Eton
Drawings,"
BSR 7
(1914) 22-24,
nos.
35-40, pl. 10;
for the unreliable
drawing
of the
whole,
cf. Rei-
nach,
RPGR 292.
66
Museo
Arqueol6gico
Nacional no.
3,603;
Blanco
Freijeiro
(supra
n.
64) 138, fig.
13.
Blake,
MAAR 17
(1940) 113,
thinks
that the two
separate
charioteer
fragments may originally
have
formed
part
of the
larger pavement; certainly they
resemble
closely
the other Madrid
fragment
which does come from
it,
but
it cannot be
proved.
She also
suggests
a date in the third
century
or later for all the
fragments;
I should be inclined to
place
them
in the second half of the
third,
or
(at
the
latest)
the
very early
fourth.
74 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
bo),
is rather
crudely
executed in the black-and-
white
technique, except
that the charioteers wear
colored tunics
(no. 18; pl. 7, figs. 13,14).67
Four
quadrigae
race down each
side;
there is no
setting.
On one side three of the chariots are
racing
in
pro-
file,
but the first is shown
frontally.
The charioteer
holds
up
his
whip,
but
nothing
else. His name is
written above
him,
as are those of the
others,
some-
times
accompanied by
the name of the lead-horse.
On the
opposite
side three of the chariots
again
are
in
profile,
but the second one is shown
frontally,
and the charioteer holds the
palm
and a
crown;
he
is
greeted
with the acclamation AERI
NIK(a).
Here the frontal schema is used
deliberately
to iden-
tify
the
victor,
in contrast to the
racing
chariots in
profile.
The third Italian
example
is from the so-called
Palace of Theodoric in Ravenna
(no. 16).68
The
peristyle
here
contained, alongside
various
hunting
scenes and
venationes,
four
panels
with
quadrigae.
All are
badly damaged,
but the chariot of the
Greens is
sufficiently
well
preserved
to make it clear
that the usual
Type
C2 schema was followed. At
least one of the four charioteers held
up
a crown
and another held a
palm
and some other
object;
the
rest are too
fragmentary
to tell. Names are written
below the
horses;
one is
complete,
GENEROSVS
beside the chariot of the Greens.
In
Spain,
two charioteers are shown on a
pave-
ment from Merida
(no. 12; pl. 8, figs. 15,16).69
Both are
completely frontal,
with the horses
fully
deployed
in the standard
Type C2,
and the base of
the chariot and the wheels are seen behind the
horses'
legs.
The charioteers are in almost identical
poses,
and both hold a
large palm.
Both are accom-
panied by
acclamations: MARCIANVS NICHA
and PAVLVS NICA. All the horses have
palms
on
their
heads,
and those of Marcianus also wear bells
around their necks. Marcianus' lead-horse is also
identified
by
name as
INLVMINATOR,
and has
the stable mark
GETVLI;
his
fellow-iugalis ap-
pears
to be marked with a small krater on the flank.
The
style
both of the
figures
and of the ornament
makes a date in the second half of the fourth cen-
tury probable.
The second
Spanish example,
from
Italica,
is
known
only
from a
very inadequate drawing (no.
10).70
There were various
figured
and ornamental
motifs, including
the Seasons and
animals,
one
pan-
el with two horses and a rider who holds a
wreath,
and another with a charioteer in a frontal
quadriga.
The horses are
split
two and
two,
but all turn their
heads to the left. The details of the
drawing,
how-
ever,
cannot be trusted.
The area where the frontal charioteer was most
firmly
established in the mosaic
repertoire
was
North Africa. The best
known,
and most
detailed,
is
a mosaic from
Dougga (no. 8; pl.
8, fig. 17).7'
The
rendering
is a classic illustration of the basic
Type
C2 schema. The horses are
deployed symmetrically,
with the bodies of the two inner horses
only slightly
foreshortened,
their heads
curving in,
and the outer
horse in
profile.
Between them the curved rim of the
chariot can be
seen;
in it the
charioteer,
on a sub-
stantially larger
scale than the
horses,
is shown
from the
hips up.
His head is turned
slightly
to the
left. His costume is rendered with careful attention
to detail: a broad belt
lacing
across the front
(a
sub-
stitute
for the more usual
rib-bindings),72
a
pre-
dominantly green
tunic with
clavi
down the
front,
segmenta
on the
shoulders,
and rich bands of or-
nament on the
long
sleeves. On his head is a round
helmet with
padded
rim. In his raised
right
hand he
holds the
whip
and a laurel
wreath;
his left rests on
his
hip, holding
a
palm
branch
against
his shoulder.
The reins
pass
over the rim of the
chariot,
and then
around the charioteer's waist. The two inner horses
have their
names,
AMANDVS and
FRVNITVS,
67 Museo Nazionale
Romano, Inv.124-705;
K.
Parlasca,
in
Helbig4, III (1969) 52,
no.
2151, suggesting
a date in the middle
of the fourth
century.
68 G. Ghirardini, MonAnt 24
(1916)
cols.
752-55, fig. 10;
F.
Berti, Mosaici antichi
in
Italia, Reg. 8a, Ravenna I
(Rome 1976)
no.
15, pp. 41-42,
pls.
13-14,
A2. Berti
suggests tentatively
a
date in the mid-5th
century
for the mosaics of the
peristyle (the
penultimate period), partly
on the basis of the
presumed history
of the
building (p. 6); I do not think the
early
5th
century
should
be excluded. None of the
objects
held
by
the charioteers are
completely
clear in the
fragments;
Berti
suggests
that one
holds
up
his
helmet,
but it seems more
likely
that it is a crown.
69 A. Blanco
Freijeiro,
Mosaicos romanos de Merida
(Corpus
de
Mosaicos romanos de
Espana I,
Madrid
1978)
no.
43, pp. 45-46,
pls. 77-78,
104.
70
A. Garcia y Bellido,
Colonia Aelia
Augusta
Italica
(Madrid
1960) 135-36, pl. 18;
Blanco
Freijeiro, Mosaicos romanos de
Italica 1
(Corpus
de
Mosaicos romanos de
Espafia II,
Madrid
1978)
no.
41, pp. 53-54, pl.
76.
71 Inv.Tun. 540 and
plate;
A.
Merlin,
MelRome 22
(1902)
74-77, pl. 3;
cf. also A. Merlin and L.
Poinssot, Melanges
C.
Picard 2
(RA 1949)
732-38.
Tunis,
Mus6e
du
Bardo,
A.262.
The
style suggests
a date in the second half of the fourth
century;
I
suspect
that it
may belong
toward the end of this
period.
72 For a discussion of this
costume,
see H.
Sch6ne, "Statue
eines
r6mischen Wagenlenkers
im
Vatikan," JdI
18
(1903)
68-
71; M.P. Tambella,
in
G.
Becatti et al.
(supra
n.
3)
74-75.
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 75
written above their
heads;
all wear
plumes
of vari-
ous
plants,
and other
vegetal
motifs are scattered
around, notably
a
couple
of hederae
by
the chario-
teer's head and shoulder. In the
top
left-hand cor-
ner,
above the
charioteer,
is the
inscription
EROS
/
OMNIA PER
TE, presumably addressing
the
charioteer;
to the
right
is a schematic
rendering
of
the carceres.73
The
Dougga
mosaic is
probably
not far removed
in date from a mosaic from the Dermech
region
of
Carthage,
discovered and excavated
by
the Tunisian
Institut National
d'Archeologie
et
d'Art;
the sub-
sequent
excavations on the site
by
the
University
of
Michigan
have established a date for it around 400-
420 A.C.
(no. 3; pl. 8, fig. 18).74
Four
charioteers,
one from each
faction,
are here shown
standing
within arches formed
by
the
gates
of the
carceres,
with their names written above them in Greek: EY-
QYMOL, AOMNINOI, EYOYMIE,
and KE4A-
AON. All turn their heads towards the center in
two
balancing pairs,
but otherwise are in identical
pose.
Their raised
right
hands hold
only
the
whip,
the left the end of the
reins;
but a
jewel-studded
crown floats in the field beside them to the
left,
a
palm
branch to the
right.
The costumes are care-
fully rendered,
with both broad laced belts and
sep-
arate
lacings
around the
chests,
and round helmets
beneath which the hair shows. The lower
part
of
the
panel
is
destroyed,
and
nothing
is left of the
horses and chariots
except
the rim of one
chariot,
and traces of the
vegetal plumes
on the heads of two
of the teams of horses. If the horses were in the
fully deployed position,
the
discrepancy
in scale be-
tween them and the charioteers must have been
enormous, given
the
space available;
it is
possible,
of
course,
that the horses were foreshortened to an
extent without
parallel
on mosaics of this
date,
or
that
they
were in the abbreviated
Type
B
pose.
Four charioteers
appeared again
on another Car-
thage mosaic,
from the
Byrsa,
which is known
only
from
fragments
and a
drawing;
it can
hardly
be
earlier than the late fifth
century,
and could well be
sixth
(no. 2; pl.
8, fig.
19).75
The floor was divided
by
an interlace
pattern
into a series of medallions
and
"cushions,"
each with a different
subject.
The
majority
contained
hunting scenes,
but in the first
row was a
figure probably
to be identified as the
personification
of
Carthage, together
with the Sea-
sons(?).
In the next row were the
charioteers,
their
names
BENE[nat]VS, QVIRIACVS,
CIPRIANVS,
and
CE[le]RIVS
written above them. The
fragment
with
Quiriacus
is
preserved
in the
Louvre; Cipri-
anus is shown
clearly
in the
drawing;
the other two
were
badly damaged,
but it is clear that all followed
the same schema. All were
advancing frontally,
with
the horses
fully deployed
in the
Type
C2
pose.
The
top
of the chariot is visible between
them,
the
wheels behind their
legs,
detached and in
sideways
view with
only
the
slightest attempt
at foreshorten-
ing.
If the
drawing may
be trusted for the
details,
they
differed in their
depiction
of the emblems of
victory,
with
only Quiriacus holding
both crown
and
palm, Ciprianus
and Celerius
holding only
the
palm,
Benenatus
holding
neither.
Two other African
examples may
be added.
One,
from
Thina,
showed the four charioteers within
wreaths inside
compartments
of
guilloche (no. 23).
They
wore the faction colors and were
represented
frontally;
the
green
charioteer held a
crown,
the
blue "an unidentifiable
object."
Plants flanked
them,
perhaps
the
plants
of the
Seasons,
but the
descrip-
tions differ on this
point.76
The other is from Khen-
73
See infra
pp. 78-79,
81.
74 J.H. Humphrey ed.,
Excavations at
Carthage
1975 con-
ducted
by
the
University of Michigan
I
(Tunis 1976) 30-31, pls.
12-13,
color
pls.
1d,2. Though
the charioteer mosaic was lifted
before the
Michigan
excavations in the house
began,
the
frag-
ment of border
adhering
to its left side showed that it had formed
part
of the acanthus mosaic of the
triclinium,
dated
archaeolog-
ically
to ca. 400-420 A.C.
(slightly
later than the date
suggested
in
Humphrey, Carthage 1975, 8-9;
the latest
dating
evidence
will be
published
in
forthcoming reports
of the
Michigan
excava-
tions).
The use of Greek in
Carthage
at this
date,
and in a
context of this
nature,
is somewhat
surprising.
It is most
unlikely
that the mosaicist was a Greek
immigrant,
since in other
respects
the mosaic
belongs
in the tradition of the
Carthage workshops.
Whether the
patron
was of Greek
origin,
or the charioteers came
from the eastern
part
of the
Empire (as suggested by J.H.
Hum-
phrey, Carthage 1975, 13),
or there was some other reason for
the
choice,
I am unable to determine. Domninus and Euthumius
occur as charioteer names in Rome on the contorniates and on
curse-tablets
(e.g. Alfbldi
and Alf6ldi
[supra
n.
3]
nos.
149, 154,
164, 167, 172-76, 181, 185, 189, pp. 208-11;
R.
Wiinsch,
Seth-
ianische Verfluchungstafeln
aus Rom
[Leipzig 1898]
nos.
20-31,
pp. 23-44, 58-62;
Cameron
[supra
n.
8] 172-73); Euphumos
and
Kephalon
are
not,
to
my knowledge,
known in similar
contexts.
75 Inv.Tun.598;
A.
Rousseau,
RA 7
(1850) 260, pl.
143
(draw-
ing
of the
whole);
P.
Gauckler, MAntFr 63
(1904) 165-78, pl. 3;
for the
fragment
in the
Louvre,
Baratte
(supra
n.
54)
no.
38a, p.
77, fig.
70. The
very
debased
figure-style
is
impossible
to date
precisely,
but is
certainly
no earlier than the advanced fifth
century.
76 Inv.
Tun.
suppl.29a;
R.
Massigli,
Musee de
Sfax (Musees
de
1'Algerie
et de
la
Tunisie
17,
Paris
1912)
no.
16, p.
7.
Massigli
describes the
plants
as "des
roses,
des
palmes,
des
grappes
de
raisin,"
but in
Inv.Tun. "epis"
have
replaced palms,
and the
plants
are called seasonal.
Massigli
considers the mosaic later
76 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
chela,
a
crudely
executed work in
poor
condition,
for which a date after the mid-fourth
century
seems
to be
probable (no.
11).77
There is one
charioteer,
in
the usual
pose;
his
right
arm is held
high, although
it is not clear if he is
holding anything,
his left holds
the reins
against
the chariot
pole.
The horses are
splayed
out in full
profile
to either
side, against
a
background
scattered with roses.
From the mosaics
showing
the circus charioteer
in the XZ
schema,
one
may
conclude that the motif
was known from the middle of the third
century,
although
most of the
examples belong
to the fourth
or
fifth,
and at least one
(no. 2,
from the
Byrsa,
Carthage)
could be sixth. Most come from the west-
ern Mediterranean
area,
where artistic
repertoires
were in
general closely
linked
during
the later Em-
pire;
the northern
examples
form a
group apart.
On
the earlier
pavements,
an
attempt
is made to show
the horses more or less foreshortened or in three-
quarter view,
and to introduce some
variety
into
their
attitudes;
the frontal schema
may
be combined
with others shown in the
older, profile
view. On the
later
mosaics,
from about the mid-fourth
century
onwards,
the
fully deployed Type
C2 is
generally
adopted, usually
with the
symmetrical positioning
of
the horses' heads. Small variations are found in the
way
the three
attributes, crown, whip
and
palm,
are
held,
and one or even two
may
be omitted.
THE FRONTAL CIRCUS CHARIOTEER
IN OTHER MEDIA
The motif of the circus charioteer in a frontal
quadriga
was not invented for use
specifically
on
mosaics,
and its
appearance
in the other arts must
be considered before
any
conclusions can be drawn
about its
origins
or
significance.
It is rare in
sculp-
ture,
with two
notable, although
late
exceptions.
These are the two bases of
Porphyrius
from the
hippodromus
at
Constantinople,
dated around
500,
the
principal examples
extant of honorific charioteer
monuments
(pl. 9, fig. 20).78
The statues of Por-
phyrius
which crowned them are
lost,
but must
have
represented
him
standing.
On three sides of
the "old base" and all four of the
new,
the
large
upper
field of the relief is
occupied by
the
figure
of
Porphyrius advancing frontally
in his
quadriga,
usually accompanied by
one or more Victories
(who
sometimes crown
him),
or
by
a
Tyche,
and
holding
crown, palm
and
whip.
On the new
base,
and on
one
side of the
old,
the horses are
represented
in a
fully
foreshortened frontal
view;
on the other two
sides of the old base
they
are
deployed
in the
Type
C2
schema,
with their heads in the usual
symmetri-
cal
positions.
The fourth side of the old base shows
Porphyrius standing
with crown and
palm,
one of
the alternative schemata
(T)
examined above.79
Here we have
clearly,
as Cameron has
seen,
a sur-
vival in
Constantinople
of the western tradition of
circus
art;
both the versions of the frontal
quadriga
and the
standing
charioteer in fact
repeat
motifs
already
familiar for centuries. There must have
been
many
similar honorific statues of victorious
charioteers in Rome itself
(and probably elsewhere);
although
none have
survived,
it seems
plausible
to
suggest
that
they
made extensive use of the various
motifs which have been
examined,
and even that the
motifs
may
have been
originally developed
for such
a context.
In
painting
there is one
example
known from
Rome itself. In a cubiculum in the Catacomb of the
Jordani
was an arcosolium
containing
the bust of a
man framed in a laurel wreath on the end
wall,
between two women
(probably Muses) holding
ro-
tuli,
and
flying
Victories with
palm
and wreath on
either side of the front. Two frontal
quadrigae,
with
the charioteers
holding up
crown and
palm,
were
placed
one on each side of the lower
part
of the
vault,
and
winged horses, eagles
and other
figures
were also
represented (pl. 9, fig. 21).80
Most of the
details are known
only
from a
drawing,
but where
they
could be checked
they appeared
to be
accurate;
the
style
seems to
suggest
the late third or
early
fourth
century.
The charioteers
appear
here
entirely
outside the context of the actual circus
races,
in a
than the second
century;
I know of no evidence for
dating
it more
precisely.
77
J. Lassus, Recueil de Constantine 71
(1969-1971)
45-55
(esp. pp. 48-49).
Lassus
suggests
the
early
fourth
century
for the
mosaic of Venus from the same
house,
which is more
easily
datable on a basis of
style,
and considers the charioteer later than
this;
he believes it to be a later insertion into the decorative
pavement
in which it is set. The middle or second half of the 4th
century
seems the most
probable date,
but it could be still later.
The charioteer does not wear the normal circus
costume,
but a
richly
embroidered tunic.
78
Cameron
(supra
n.
8) esp. pp.
12-28.
79
Schema
T; supra pp.
68-69.
80 Hypogeum under the
vigna
Massimo
(Via
Salaria
Nuova):
Cumont
(supra
n.
15) 465-67, fig. 99; J. Wilpert,
Die
Malereien
der Katakomben Roms 1
(Freiburg
im
Breisgau 1903) 523-28;
2:
pl. 145,2.
For the location in the Catacomb of the
Jordani (not
of
Thraso),
see A.
Nestori, Repertorio topografico
delle
pitture
delle catacombe romane
(Vatican City 1975) 17-21,
no. 2.
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 77
funerary setting;
the
emphasis
is
simply
on
victory.81
Other
examples
of the motif are found in the
minor
arts, principally
on works associated either
with
Italy
or with North
Africa,
the two main areas
where it
appears
on mosaics. On the African
pottery
of the late
Empire
the motif has been found on two
different
types
of material. It is used as an
applique
on the interior of bowls of
sigillata
chiara
C,a;
one
good example
is in the
Louvre,
another in
Mainz,
and
fragments
with the same
subject
are in Berlin
and Sousse
(pl. 9, fig. 22).82
The execution is care-
ful: the
horses, although split symmetrically,
retain
a
slight degree
of
foreshortening,
and the wheels
appear
behind them. The head of the charioteer is
in
three-quarter
view;
he holds the wreath and
palm.
The date is the middle or second half of the
fourth
century.
As moulded
decoration,
the motif is
found in the interior of
rectangular
dishes of
sigil-
lata chiara D
(Hayes,
Form
56); examples
are in
Berlin and Hildesheim.83 The dates for these are
the second half of the fourth or
early
fifth
century.
The execution here is crude and
summary;
the
splayed
horses are
completely
in
profile,
in the full
Type
C2
arrangement.
All
attempts
at
perspective
rendering
of the chariot have been
abandoned,
so
that it is broken down into a series of unrelated
parts.
It is
noteworthy
that the usual schema is here
reversed;
the charioteer has his left hand raised with
the
whip (no crown),
the
palm
rests
against
his
right
shoulder. In the
mould,
the
arrangement
would have been the normal one.
Another
group
of
objects
enables us to take the
motif back to the third
century
in the minor arts
too. These are the terracotta matrices for the
pro-
duction of
objects
in some unknown
material;
the
greatest
number of these has been found in Ostia.84
Most illustrate scenes or
figures
from the
games
or
theatrical
performances,
and the
suggestion
that
they
were connected in some
way
with festivals
seems
plausible. Among them,
one
group
showed on
one side the victorious charioteer in a
quadriga,
frontal with crown and
palm,
the horses
split sym-
metrically
but
in
three-quarter
view
(Type C1),
ac-
companied by
a horseman to the left who
similarly
holds crown and
palm.
On the other
side,
the chari-
oteer was
represented
in a chariot drawn
by
ten
horses. He himself is frontal in the usual
pose,
but
the horses are all in
profile
to the left. On another
version,
the ten-horse chariot is itself
represented
frontally;
the schema is
exactly
that of the
quadriga,
with the
foreparts
of the other horses
simply
added
at either side. Material of similar
type
has been
found in Africa
(and
in other western
provinces),
and Salomonson has shown that some at least of the
matrices were
produced
in African
workshops;
how-
ever,
none of the charioteer
type,
to
my knowledge,
has been found in
Africa,
and the concentration in
Ostia
may suggest
a Roman
origin.85
The date for
the series
appears
to be the first half of the third
century.
Roman also are two
gold-glasses
on which the
group appears.86
On
both,
the horses are in
sym-
metrical
three-quarter view,
and the charioteer
holds the
whip (but
no
crown)
in his
right hand,
the
palm
in his left
(at
least on
one).
On one the chario-
teer and all four horses are
named,
on the other the
charioteer and one horse. In format
they
resemble
the
objects
on which the motif is found most fre-
quently,
the
contorniates,
which
again
are
produced
almost
entirely
in the
city
of
Rome.87
The frontal
charioteer is a common
figure
on the reverse of the
contorniates,
and
appears throughout
their
period
of
production
in the second half of the fourth and
early
fifth
century.
The charioteer is
frequently
identified
by name,
sometimes with the addition of his
faction,
sometimes in the vocative with the acclamation
NICA or
VINCAS; occasionally
one or more of the
horses are named as well. The same
figure-type
may
be used with different
names,
but the
types
are
81
For the
significance,
see infra
p. 83,
n. 117.
82 F.
Baratte, BAntFr 1971, 178-92,
pls.
31-32;
Louvre no.
CA
5920; cf. J. Salomonson, Voluptatem spectandi
non
perdat
sed mutet
(Amsterdam 1979) 42,
n. 56. For the bowl in
Mainz,
see Weitzmann
(supra
n.
30)
no.
98, p.
107.
83
J. Salomonson, Oudheidkundige Mededelingen
Leiden 43
(1962) 64,
pls. 17,1; 18,1.
Berlin Staatlichen
Museen, Inv. 4885;
Hildesheim,
Pelizaeus
Museum, Inv. 2200.
84 A.
Pasqui,
NSc
1906, 360-62, figs. 2-3;
M. Floriani
Squar-
ciapino,
"Forme
Ostiensi," ArchCl
6
(1954) 88-89; pls. 18,6;
19,1
a & b.
85 J. Salomonson, "Rimische
Tonformen mit
Inschriften,"
BABesch 47
(1972) 88-113;
for the
dates,
see
p.
100.
86
R.
Garrucci, Vetri ornati
di
figure
in oro
(Rome 1864)
180-
83; pl. 34,2-4 (pl. 34,3 gives
a
fragment
of a third
glass showing
part
of two horses
only).
For a
gold-glass
with the
profile
render-
ing
of the
quadriga,
the charioteer turned
half-frontally (Schema
WZ),
see
J. Engemann, Jahrbuch fiir
Antike und Christentum
11/12 (1968/1969) 15-16, pl. 3,b;
Weitzmann
(supra
n.
30)
no.
96, pp.
104-105.
87
Alf1ldi
and
Alf6ldi
(supra
n.
3) 209-11,
nos.
166-91,
dis-
tinguishing
27 different
types.
Cf. also A.
Alfildi,
Die Kontorni-
aten
(Budapest 1942-1943) 43-48,
for a discussion of the
signifi-
cance of contorniates with circus scenes.
78 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
not all identical. There are
slight
variations in the
pose;
the charioteer's head
may
be frontal or turned
to left or
right;
he
may
hold both
whip
and crown
or
only
one of the
two;
the horses
may
all be de-
ployed
in full
profile
to either
side, or,
more
often,
the inner
pair
turn their heads inward. All these
correspond
to the
slight
differences which have been
observed in the other
objects
discussed. The contor-
niates show
clearly, therefore,
the extent to which
the motif had become common
currency by
the late
fourth and
early
fifth centuries.
The motif survives in
Byzantine art,
as
shown,
not
only by
the
Porphyrius
monument
(and
the
Kiev frescoes discussed
below),88
but also
by
two
textiles
probably
to be dated in the
seventh-eighth
centuries.
One,
of which there are
fragments
in
Aachen and
Cluny,
shows the charioteer
holding
only
the
reins,
his horses
converging (Type A),
with
figures holding whip
and crown
approaching
from
either side.89 On the
other,
from
Miinsterbilsen
(in
Brussels),
the horses are
completely deployed
in full
profile
to either
side,
the charioteer has both hands
raised
holding
a
whip
in
each,
and Erotes
holding
crowns are on either side.90
Although
there are dif-
ferences of detail between the textiles and earlier
examples,
I think there is no doubt that it is the
charioteer of the
circus,
not the
Emperor
or a divine
figure,
who is shown on
both,
and that the motif is
directly
descended from the Roman versions of the
theme.91
The XZ
schema,
with the charioteer frontal in a
frontal
quadriga,
is set
clearly apart
from other
ways
of
representing
the victorious charioteer. In
the first
place,
it is
apparently
more common in the
larger
scale
arts, especially
on
mosaics,
than in the
minor
arts,
if we
except
the contorniates.
Moreover,
the
great majority
of the works on which it
appears
derive from a limited area:
Italy (especially Rome)
and North Africa
(principally
Africa
Proconsularis),
even
though
the earliest
surviving
mosaics come
from
Germany,
outside this area. The motif
goes
back to the third
century
both on mosaics and in the
minor
arts,
but
apparently
no
earlier,
and it is most
common on works of the fourth and fifth
centuries;
it survives in the
Byzantine
art of the
hippodrome
until a much later date. Here
again
we
may suspect,
although
we cannot
prove,
that
large
scale circus art
in the form of commemorative
monuments, paint-
ings,
and the
like,
in Rome itself contributed
largely
to the establishment of the
type
in the
repertoire.
It
looks as if it were the favor of the
patrons,
the
wealthy provincial
householders and the senatorial
classes who commissioned the
contorniates,
which
was
mainly responsible
for its
diffusion,
rather than
the
workshop practices
of the craftsmen themselves.
The
question
of the influence of the two
figures
whom the frontal charioteer most
closely resembles,
Sol and the
Emperor,
on the
development
of the
motif,
is considered further below.92
CHARIOT SCENES AND THEIR
ARCHITECTURAL SETTINGS
On two of the North African mosaics the frontal
victors are combined with elements of the arena
setting,
even
though
the race itself is not shown.
One is the mosaic from
Carthage,
Dermech
(no. 3;
pl. 8, fig. 18),
where the four charioteers are stand-
ing
beneath
archways
which are
clearly
intended for
the
gates
of the carceres. The arches are filled with
semicircular
grilles,
divided
by yellow
bars into five
sections which contain a scale
pattern
in
alternating
colors
of
red, black, yellow, green
and red.
They
rest on
columns,
two half-columns at the sides and
three
complete
in the
center,
with smooth
gray
shafts and Corinthian
capitals
formed of two care-
lessly
drawn rows of leaves
topped by
a
pair
of
volutes,
an abacus at the
top.
The bases of the
columns are
destroyed,
as are the
tops
of the arches
and the area above them. The carceres also
appear
on the mosaic of the charioteer Eros from
Dougga
(no. 8; pl. 8, fig. 17).
Here
they
are not related to
the
figure
of the
charioteer,
but run
slanting
across
the
top right
corner: five
archways, flat-roofed,
with
a small
pedimented
tribunal above them. The
88
See infra
p.
81.
89 Cf. H. Peirce and R.
Tyler, L'Art Byzantin
2
(Paris 1934)
46-47, 130, pl. 187a;
for the
date,
see D. Talbot Rice and
J.
Beckwith,
in
Masterpieces of Byzantine
Art
(Edinburgh-London
1958)
no.
56, pp.
28-29.
90 Talbot Rice and Beckwith
(supra
n.
89)
no.
49, pp. 25-26,
suggesting
a
Syrian origin.
91 This is the conclusion of Cameron
(supra
n.
8) 22-26, pls.
26-27.
92 Baratte, BAntFr
1971, 189-92, suggests (following
Salomon-
son)
that the
cups
and
plates
with charioteers were a
cheaper
equivalent
of missoria and
diptychs,
and commissioned in Africa
by
the same senatorial
patrons
who commissioned the contorni-
ates;
a model to be
copied
would have
accompanied
the commis-
sion. For Sol and the
Emperor,
see infra
pp. 84,
86.
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 79
arches contain
simple grilles;
the columns have
plain shafts,
slab-like
capitals,
and no
bases;
the
gates,
a
single-jambed railing,
stand
open.
These
renderings
of the carceres
may
be com-
pared
with those on scenes
showing
the race in
progress
in the arena.
Although many
monuments,
for instance most of the
circus-sarcophagi,
show
only
the
spina
with no further details of the
setting,
some show a fuller
setting,
with the carceres run-
ning
down one side. These features are
represented
with
slight
variations on a number of reliefs from
Italy
of the second and third centuries. On the well
known relief with a
magistrate
and his wife in the
Lateran
collection,
the carceres run slantwise across
the
right end,
while the center is taken
up by
a
chariot
racing
in front of the
spina.93
The arches
(four
in
all)
are filled with
gridded grilles,
and
above them is a
flat-topped masonry superstructure.
The
gates
are
double-jambed
and
latticed,
the col-
umns have
simple
block
capitals,
and the herms in
front are
clearly
rendered. On the relief from Foli-
gno
with a
lively
scene of
eight quadrigae racing
around the
spina,
the carceres run aslant across the
upper
left corner
(pl. 9, fig. 23).94 Eight
arches are
represented
here
(although
the farthest two are
largely
hidden behind the
metae),
and the
magis-
trate in his tribunal is seated above them. The lat-
tice-work of the
gates
is indicated
simply
with
squiggles,
and the arches now contain
curving
ara-
besques.
The herms are
again clearly portrayed,
and
completely
cover the columns. On a
fragmen-
tary
relief in the British
Museum,
with
part
of a
race of Erotes
driving bigae (the
team that survives
consists of a
pair
of
hounds),
the four carceres fill
the left
end,
at a
slight angle
to the main
plane.95
The
gates, apparently slatted,
are
half-open,
the
grilles
in the arches
again
form
arabesques,
the
herms cover the columns. Similar is a
fragmentary
relief from
Velletri,
where men are
operating
the
gates.96 Again
there are
arabesque-grilles,
slatted
doors,
and
large herms;
the race itself is not shown
on the
fragment.
A similar
rendering
is found on a
lamp
of the late
second or
early
third
century
in the British Mu-
seum.97
Within the confined
space
of the
top
of the
lamp
are
represented
four chariots
racing
in the
arena in the
center,
with the monuments of the
circus
ringing
them around. Beneath them are the
spina
and its
monuments;
on the left rows of
spec-
tators;
and to the
right
the carceres: four
arches,
their
upper part
filled with
grilles (shown
as a
grid),
the lower
by
the
double-jambed
lattice-work
gates.
The arches rest on
columns,
in front of which
are
placed
herms.98
Most of the circus-mosaics which show the race
in the arena include the carceres as
part
of the set-
ting,
with the details on most of them
differing only
slightly.
The small mosaic from the Hill of the Ode-
on in
Carthage, dating
around A.D.
200, places
the
race most
unusually
within a
completely
enclosed
oval
building
with a double-arcaded facade
(no. 4,
pl. 5, fig. 2).99
Down the
right side,
within the en-
closure,
run the
carceres,
four on either side of a
central
open archway.
The small scale
prevents
the
inclusion of much
detail,
but each is fitted with a
grille-type gate.
Much more detail is shown on two
large
fourth
century
mosaics. At Gerona in
Spain,
the carceres run down the
right
end of the
pave-
ment,
at
right angles
to the scene of the
race.100 In
the center the
magistrate sits, raising
the
mappa,
in
the
tribunal,
under a flat entablature
resting
on two
Corinthian columns. On either side are three
open-
ings, arched,
with a flat
superstructure
decorated
with a
vegetal
frieze. The arches contain no
grilles,
the
gates,
formed of
railings,
stand
open,
there are
low herms in front of the columns. The fullest
rep-
93
G.
Rodenwaldt, "R6mische
Reliefs. Vorstufen zur
Spitan-
tike," JdI
55
(1940) 12-22, pl.
I.
Probably Trajanic.
94
Rodenwaldt
(supra
n.
93) 23-24, fig. 9;
Lawrence
(supra
n.
9) 119-35, suggesting
a date in the mid-3rd
century.
95
A.H.
Smith, Catalogue of Sculpture
in the
Department of
Greek and Roman
Antiquities,
British Museum 3
(London 1904)
no.
2319, pp. 328-30, fig. 47;
it is broken at both ends.
Vogel,
ArtB 51
(1969) 158, argues
that it formed
part
of a frieze show-
ing
Erotes
racing bigae
drawn
by
various
animals,
of which
parts
survive in several
museums,
from the island villa in Hadrian's
villa.
96 K.
Zangemeister,
AdI 42
(1870) 262-63, pl. N,2.
97 Bailey
2
(supra
n.
16) Q 1349, p. 351, pl. 77, fig. 58,
dated
ca.
175-225
(not
1st
century A.C.,
as dated
by
Walters
[supra
n.
26]
no.
626, pp. 94-95).
For
parallels,
see
Bailey (supra
n.
16)
57.
98 Walters
(supra
n.
26)
calls them
Caryatids,
but the
parallels
with the other monuments to be discussed show that
they
are
herms.
99 Supra
n. 6.
100 A.
Balil,
"Mosaicos circenses de Barcelona
y Gerona,"
Bol-
lettino de la Real Academia de la Historia 151
(1962) 257-349,
esp. 258-70, pls.
24-37. The
closely
related Barcelona mosaic
also discussed
by
Balil
(pp. 270-83)
is
damaged
at the left
end,
and it is not
possible
therefore to tell if the carceres were
repre-
sented on it.
80 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA 86
resentation is
given
on the Great Circus at Piazza
Armerina
(no. 13).101
Here the carceres curve across
one
apsidal
end of the
pavement, leaving
a
space
behind them where the charioteers are
preparing.
One side is
damaged,
as is the
large
central arch-
way,
above which is the
temple-like
tribunal with a
gesticulating figure inside,
and the lion-chariot of
Cybele
in frontal view as an akroterion. There are
six arches on the
right;
their
superstructure
is flat-
topped,
with statues
along
the
top,
and decorated
with
stripes
of
red, yellow,
and blue. The arches are
all filled with a
grid-type grille,
and rest on smooth
Corinthian
columns;
the
gates,
a
simple lattice,
stand
open against
a
green ground.
The herms here
stand,
not
directly
before the
columns,
but a little
distance in front of them. A mosaic from
Italica,
known
only
from
drawings, clearly
had a similar
rendering, although
the details
may
not be
reliable.102 The carceres curve across one
end,
with
the tribunal in the center under a
gabled roof,
and a
flat roof above the rest. On the left side are five
archways,
on the
right six,
all filled with
grilles.
The
gates, apparently slatted,
are
open,
and the
herms
entirely
cover the columns. A debased render-
ing
of the theme is also found on a mosaic from
Gafsa in southern
Tunisia,
which is
probably
Byzantine.103
The
top
is
occupied by
the
spectators
framed in
arches,
and down the
right
side run four
smaller
arches,
slightly askew,
which are
presum-
ably
the carceres.
They
are shown
simply,
without
grilles
or
gates, resting
on columns with
spiral
shafts and
simple
slab
capitals.
Under them stand
nude
figures, apparently acclaiming
the
race,
though they might conceivably
be intended for stat-
ues.
In the "Palace of Theodoric" at
Ravenna,
the
theme of the circus with the carceres
appeared
on
mosaics at two successive levels in the
peristyle, both
of them known
only
from
tiny fragments.
The ear-
lier consists
only
of a thin
strip, preserving
a few
traces (arm, whips)
of the charioteers in the arena,
and, at one end, parts
of two of the arches of the
carceres, closed
by
lattice-work
gates (which appar-
ently
fill the curve of the arch as well); masonry
rises above them to a flat roof and there is no
sign
of the herms.104 The
fragments
from the
higher
level, part
of the same
pavement
as the frontal char-
ioteers
(no. 16),
are
only
a little more
extensive.105
There are remains of
figures
of horsemen and
ap-
parently
of
fighting
men in the arena, and several
fragments
of the carceres from one end. These show
arches filled with
arabesques,
and
lattice-gates
half-
open
with attendants
operating
the
opening
mecha-
nism. On one
fragment
a herm stands in front of the
pillars;
above is a tribunal
containing
two
figures,
and a tiled roof. Within one of the carceres can
just
be made out a
quadriga waiting
for the
start, al-
though
the details can
barely
be
distinguished.
Two other
representations
on mosaics
belong
in a
different tradition. On the circus-mosaic at
Lyons,
probably
of the last
quarter
of the second
century,
the whole structure is shown as made of
wood.106
The editor is in a small box over the central en-
trance,
and on each side are the four
flat-topped,
timber-framed
carceres, closed
by
wooden
gates.
And a mosaic from Volubilis with the
parodied
theme of the chariots drawn
by pairs
of birds has
across the left end a
curving
wall seen as if from
outside;
on the inner side five
grilled gates
stand
open,
with semicircular
protrusions
between them
for which there seem to be no
parallels.107
In
general,
most of these
representations
of the
carceres follow a common
tradition,
but there is
considerable variation in the details. Certain basic
101
Gentili,
La Villa
(supra n. 4) fig. 3, pl. 7; and BdA 42
(1957)
7-27.
102 Garcia
y Bellido
(supra
n.
70) 135, pl. 17;
and
ArchEspArq
28
(1955)
no.
xvi, p. 12, fig. 8;
Blanco
Freijeiro (supra
n.
70)
no.
43, pp. 55-56, pls. 61,
68.
103 Inv.Tun. 321 and
plate;
the crude and linear
style
is most
unlikely
to be earlier than the sixth
century.
104 Berti
(supra
n.
68)
no.
12, pp. 37-39; pl. 10,2;
she
suggests
the
beginning
of the 5th
century,
but it could be earlier.
105 Berti
(supra
n.
68) 17, pp. 43-45, pls. 16-18, A3;
she dates
this level to the mid-5th
century;
I
suspect
that this is too
precise.
The circus
buildings
were also
represented
on a
fragmentary
mosaic from Luni
(brief description,
with
photographs
of
details,
by
A.
Frova,
in
Archeologia
in
Liguria.
Scavi e
scoperte
1967-
1975
[Genoa 1976] 36, figs. 27-28);
the rows of seats and the
central tribunal were
shown,
but there is no mention of the
carceres.
106
Inv.Gaule II, 712;
H.
Stern, Recueil general
des
mosarques
de la Gaule, 2, Lyonnaise,
1.
Lyon (Paris 1967)
no.
73, pp.
63-69, pls.
47-54.
107 R.
Thouvenot,
"Maisons de
Volubilis," Publications du Ser-
vice des
Antiquites du
Maroc 12
(1958) 66-69, pl. 16,1;
for the
theme,
see R.
Hanoune, MelRome 81
(1969)
244-54. The date
cannot be established
precisely;
it could be late second or third
century.
It is
possible
that the carceres are also to be seen on a
mosaic from Seville with
racing
chariots: at the
top
of one
frag-
ment is a double
curving
line which could be meant for an arch
or a
gate.
But the
rendering
is so
schematic,
and the
present
condition so
fragmentary,
that it cannot be
clearly
understood
(Catdlogo
del Museo
Arqueoldgico
de Sevilla
[Gufas
de los Muse-
os de
Espania 7,
Madrid
1969]
58,
nos. 10 and
11,
pls. 19, 20.).
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 81
elements recur: the arches
resting
on
columns,
the
gates,
the
herms,
the
tribunal;
but one or more of
these
may
be
omitted,
and there is little
agreement
from one monument to another over such details as
the
grilles,
the form of the
gates,
the
relationship
of
herms and
columns,
and the nature and decoration
of the
superstructure.
It is most
unlikely, however,
that such differences were
inspired by
real build-
ings. Only
when a
work,
such as the mosaic from
Lyons
with its wooden
structure,
stands
completely
outside the main
tradition,
do there seem to be
grounds
for
supposing
that the model
may
be the
real local circus
itself.108
Otherwise what we see is a
set of free variations on a limited
range
of motifs.
The
original
model for most of these motifs was
doubtless the Circus Maximus in
Rome,
but their
dependence
on the
original
has become
extremely
weak with distance and the
passage
of
time,
and the
way
the motifs are combined shows little intention
of
reproducing
the actual
appearance
of
any specific
building.109
What is intended is
simply
to show a
generic circus setting;
the choice made
by
the artist
from
among
his motifs will have been
determined,
in
part by
such factors as the nature of the
space
available and the amount of detail
required by
his
patron,
in
part by workshop
tradition and his own
fantasy.
The two mosaics which combine the
figures
of
the victorious charioteers with the
representation
of
the carceres
clearly
derive their
rendering
of the
latter from the main tradition
just discussed,
with
the usual variations of detail. At
Dougga (no. 8)
the
carceres run
diagonally
across the
corner,
as on sev-
eral of the reliefs with circus scenes. But
they
act at
Dougga purely
as a
background,
to localize the ad-
vancing
victor more
securely
in a circus
setting;
there are no other elements of the
setting
or of the
race. On the
Carthage
mosaic
(no. 3),
the actual
rendering
of the carceres has most in common with
that on the Great Circus mosaic at Piazza Arme-
rina; they
share Corinthian
columns, grilles
in the
arches
(although
the method used to show them on
the
Carthage panel
is
original,
and
probably
decora-
tive in
inspiration),
and the absence of herms imme-
diately covering
the columns. But there is one
major
difference between the
Carthage
mosaic and all the
others which show the
setting.
The charioteers are
represented
within the
carceres,
as if at the
very
start of the race. Several scenes of the race show the
chariots
just
released from the
starting-gates,
but no
others
place
the chariots
actually
inside them.
Only
on the
fragments
from Ravenna was a chariot
glimpsed
within the
carceres,
but there as a minor
(and barely distinguishable)
detail of a more
general
view of the circus.
However,
one much later version
of the theme survives to show that it was not an
invention of the
Carthage mosaicist,
and that it
per-
sisted in
Byzantine
circus
iconography.
The
elev-
enth
century
frescoes which lined the staircase at
the church of S.
Sophia
at Kiev
represented
numer-
ous scenes from the
games
in the
presence
of the
Emperor
and
Empress. Among
them are the car-
ceres, represented
as four
arches, resting
on Corin-
thian
columns,
the arches themselves filled
appar-
ently
with a crescent in a disk. Under each arch
stands a frontal charioteer in his
quadriga,
with the
gates
still closed in front of him. As far as can be
determined from the
drawing,
the horses are in the
usual
pose;
the charioteers all raise their
right
hands,
but do not
appear
to hold
anything.'10
On the
Carthage
mosaic the charioteers are
rep-
resented with
whips raised, holding
the
reins, ready
loa On the
Lyons
mosaic and its individual
features,
see Stern
(supra
n.
106) II, 1, pp.
67-69.
I am not
convinced, however,
that the Volubilis mosaic is also intended to
reproduce
a real
building,
as
suggested
there: the
subject
is a
fantasy,
and the
peculiarities
of the
setting
seem rather to be the result of an
attempt by
an
inexperienced
local craftsman to handle a
design
with which he was unfamiliar.
109 E.
Billig,
Spiitantike Architekturdarstellungen
I
(Stockholm
1977) 11-30,
discusses the monuments
showing
the carceres and
tribunal
editoris,
and their
relationship
to real circus
buildings.
He shows that even monuments
produced
in or near
Rome,
and
which must be intended to show
games taking place
in the Circus
Maximus
(the
Lateran and
Foligno reliefs,
the
Lampadii dip-
tych),
differ on
points
of detail or introduce extraneous features.
The Great Circus at Piazza
Armerina,
with its wealth of detailed
information, probably
is intended to
give
a
recognizable
render-
ing
of the Circus
Maximus,
but this does not mean that all its
details should be taken
literally (Gentili,
BdA 42
[1957] 22-23;
S.
Settis,
MilRome 87.2
[1975] 956-60). I
am
grateful
to
J.H.
Humphrey
for his advice on the whole
question
of circus
repre-
sentations and their
relationship
to real
buildings,
which will be
treated in his
forthcoming
book on Roman circuses.
110 A.
Grabar,
"Les
Fresques
des escaliers a
Sainte-Sophie
de
Kiev et
l'iconographie imp6riale byzantine,"
Seminarium Konda-
kovianum 7
(1935) reprinted
in L'Art de
la fin
de
l'Antiquite
et
du
Moyen Age
1
(Paris 1968) 251-63, fig.
5. The
gates
here
reach to the
top
of the horses'
heads;
it is therefore conceivable
that
they might
have been shown in the same
way
on the Car-
thage mosaic,
where the horses do not survive. The chariot with-
in the carceres is also
represented
on a
gem
in the Cades Collec-
tion,
of which there is a
photograph
in the Deutsches
Archiolog-
isches
Institut,
Rome
(Inst.Neg. 5172,
no.
43, IV.F 143).
A
frontal ten-horse
chariot,
driven
by
a charioteer
holding
the
whip
but no crown or
palm,
stands within the
open gates
of the car-
ceres. The
tiny
scale here reduces the horses and driver to little
more than dots.
82 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
for the
start,
which
explains
another unusual fea-
ture of this
mosaic,
the
placing
of the emblems of
victory.
The crown and
palm
are
not,
as
normally,
held
by
the charioteers
themselves,
but float in the
field beside them. Yet there is an
apparent
contra-
diction between the moment at the
very
start of the
race
suggested by
the architectural
setting,
and the
presence
of these emblems.
Moreover, they
do not
serve to
identify
the future
victor,
but
accompany
all
four alike.
Any
sense of a
specific episode
in the
race is therefore
outweighed by
the more
general
allusion to
victory.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER
A number of
questions
remain about the
signifi-
cance of the
figure
of the victorious charioteer and
the function which he was intended to serve.
First,
how far was such a
representation
intended as an
honor to a real
individual, and/or
an allusion to a
real event? Such
specific
references are
undoubtedly
intended with some monuments
dealing
with the
circus;
for
example,
the two bases of
Porphyrius,
where the monument was of course an honorific
statue of
Porphyrius himself;"'
the
diptych
of the
Lampadii,
where the intention is to commemorate
the
games presided
over
by
the consul in his tri-
bunal;112
and
probably
some of the Roman
grave
reliefs with scenes from the
circus, commemorating
either an actual charioteer or an individual con-
nected with the circus.113 On the
mosaics, however,
the connection is less obvious than with a
grave
relief or honorific statue. It is
probable
that some of
the circus
scenes, especially
the more
complex
scenes
of the race in the
arena,
were intended to commem-
orate
specific games presided
over
by
the owner of
the house in which the mosaic was laid.
Although
no
inscription
states this
explicitly,
it seems the most
plausible explanation
for the race scenes of Barce-
lona and
Gerona,
and of Piazza Armerina. Where
the charioteers and horses in such scenes are identi-
fied
by name,
the
purpose
is
presumably
to
empha-
size the realistic allusions
by
the use of the actual
names of the main
figures.
It seems reasonable to
draw a similar conclusion in the case of the victori-
ous charioteer. When a mosaic shows a
single
victo-
rious charioteer identified
by name,
Eros with his
horses Frunitus and Amandus at
Dougga (no. 8),
Scorpianus
at
Carthage (no. 5), Polydus
with his
horse
Compressor
at Trier
(no. 25),
then it is
likely
that the scene is intended as a
compliment
to a real
popular
favorite: the
equivalent
of the
public
mon-
uments of
Porphyrius
and his
colleagues,
or of the
golden portraits
of
Scorpus
to which Martial re-
fers.114
But we cannot rule out the
possibility
that
the
names, particularly
when
they
have some
appro-
priate meaning,
were
simply
invented for the occa-
sion
by
the mosaicist to
give greater immediacy
to a
generic figure.115
And on
many
of the mosaics the
charioteer is
anonymous,
so that such an
explana-
tion cannot
apply.
The situation becomes more
complex
with the
mosaics which
represent
a number of victors simul-
taneously. Thus,
on the mosaic from the Landes-
museum at Trier
(no. 26),
all four charioteers hold
up
both crown and
palm;
on the mosaic from the
Byrsa
at
Carthage (no. 2),
one charioteer held both
crown and
palm,
two others the
palm.
At Merida
(no. 12),
both Marcianus and Paulus hold
palms,
and both are
greeted
with the acclamation NICA.
And at
Carthage,
Dermech
(no. 3),
the crown and
palm accompany
all
four, despite
the fact that
they
are shown at the start of the race. On all these
mosaics the charioteers are identified
by name,
and
they
are
always distinguished
as
belonging
to differ-
ent factions. These
cannot, obviously,
be the victors
of one
particular race; but,
if real
individuals, they
are
presumably
chosen for the fame and
frequency
of their victories. It is
noteworthy
that we never find
several victors from a
single
faction
represented,
de-
spite
the undoubted role of the
factions, endlessly
attested in the
literature,
as a focus for the
loyalties
"' Cameron
(supra
n.
8) 12-58;
and cf. his discussion of the
other charioteer monuments from the
Byzantine hippodrome,
with
conclusions, pp. 223-27.
112
R.
Delbriick,
Die
Consulardiptychen und
verwandte Denk-
midler (Berlin 1929) 56, p.
218.
113
E.g.,
the relief in the Lateran
collection,
where the
magis-
trate commemorated has
presumably
either
given games
or been
connected with their administration:
Rodenwaldt, JdI
55
(1940)
12-22. Cf. also the relief with three
racing quadrigae
and named
horses from the Via
Flaminia,
Rome: A.
Manodori, ArchCl 28
(1976) 179-97,
pls.
64-68. It has often been
suggested
that these
come from the tomb of the charioteer P. Aelius Gutta
(CIL VI,
10047),
but Manodori has shown that there is no evidence for
this identification.
114
Martial, Ep. V,25,9-10.
I
15Frequently the names have connotations of
good omen,
like
Eros at
Dougga (no. 8),
or the four on the Trier Landesmuseum
mosaic
(no. 26): Superstes, Euprepes, Fortunatus,
and
Phil[....]s
(generally
restored
Phil[ippu]s,
but
something
like
Phil[onicu]s
would also be
possible). Clearly
such names
might
either be
chosen for their
lucky
associations
by
real
charioteers,
or invented
as
appropriate by
the mosaicist.
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 83
of
enthusiasts."16
One
might
have
expected
that a
devotee of the
circus, wishing
to honor more than
one hero of the
contemporary arena, would
have
chosen the
leading
drivers from the faction of his
choice.
Instead,
care is
always taken,
when more
than a
single figure
is
shown,
to select one from
each faction.
Compliment
to the real individuals
may
be an element in these
scenes,
but it cannot be
the sole reason for their choice.
Where all four charioteers are
represented
as vic-
tors,
the main
emphasis
is laid
upon
the
victory
itself. This is
particularly
stressed on the Trier
Landesmuseum mosaic
(no. 26),
where the bust of
Victoria
appears
at the center
(pl. 6, fig. 9). Victory
in the circus
may
be used as a
metaphor
for
victory
in a wider
sphere,
and the role of the actual indi-
vidual charioteers becomes
secondary
to this
signifi-
cance;
all four
competitors
are victorious because the
intention is not to allude to a
particular race,
but to
evoke the
general concept
of victorious
competition.
This wider
significance
is seen most
clearly
in the
painting
from the Catacomb of the
Jordani (vigna
Massimo
hypogeum)
where the two victorious char-
ioteers
appear
in
company
with
flying
victories and
other motifs
(wreath, winged horses, eagles)
which
are associated with
concepts
of
apotheosis
and im-
mortality (pl. 9, fig. 21).117
In such a
funerary
con-
text,
there can be little doubt that the charioteers too
allude to a
victory
over death. However, the context
of the
mosaics,
most of which come from
private
houses, argues against
an
assumption
of
eschatolog-
ical
significance;"8
and we should view
victory
here
as an
aspect
of
earthly felicitas,
and the charioteer
image
as
functioning principally
as a
bringer
of
success and
good
luck. The
anonymous figures
of
victorious charioteers are
surely
to be
interpreted
primarily
in this sense.119 When names are added
they strengthen
the
efficacy
of the
image by
iden-
tifying
it as that of a real charioteer famous for his
victories;
the element of
compliment
to a real "star"
is
present
in such
cases,
but
secondary.120
There are
often, moreover, subsidiary
features which further
reinforce the
good
luck associations. The names
themselves
(both
those of the horses and the
profes-
sional names under which the charioteers
raced)
are
often chosen for their fortunate
connotations;2"' the
horses are often marked with brandmarks on
rump
or
flank,
some of which are
evidently stablemarks,
but which also include
lucky signs
such as a kan-
tharos,
a
palm
branch or a millet stalk. The horses'
heads are often decked with
plumes,
and
they may
wear collars made of
plants
such as
hedera,
or
hung
with bells or
crescents.122
Here
again,
as with the
names,
there is an allusion to the real
practice
of the
arena,
where horses were adorned in this
way
with
apotropaic
amulets or
luck-bringing charms;
but at
116
Cf. Friedlander
(supra
n.
36) 34-50;
A.
Cameron,
Circus
Factions
(Oxford 1976) passim, esp.
45-73. This seems to me to
argue against
the
suggestion
of
Calza (supra
n.
22)
that a
repre-
sentation like the
paintings
of two charioteers from the
Caseg-
giato degli Aurighi
at Ostia
may identify
the
building
as the seat
of a
sporting association;
one would
expect
such associations to
be
composed
of fans of one faction
only.
117 Cf. Cumont
(supra
n.
15)
465-67.
Wilpert,
unable to believe
that a
pagan
burial could be
joined
to a Christian
catacomb,
argued
for a Christian
interpretation
of the
paintings,
with the
charioteers
representing
the dead man's career in life:
(supra
n.
80)
523-28. Yet there is in fact
nothing specifically
Christian
about the decoration. See now the discussion of the
paintings,
and of the various
attempts
made to accommodate their
interpre-
tation to the
supposed
Christian
context, by J. Engemann,
"Altes
und Neues zu
Beispielen
heidnischer und christlicher Katakomb-
enbilder im
spditantiken Rom," Festschrift fiir
F. W. Deichmann
(forthcoming),
who shows that all the
paintings
of the arcosolium
fall within the
sphere
of normal
pagan funerary symbolism.
I am
grateful
to Professor
Engemann
for the
opportunity
to see his
manuscript
of this article before
publication,
and for a discussion
of the
paintings.
118
The
original
locations of
many
of the mosaics cannot be
identified,
but when
they can, they
seem almost
invariably
to be
private houses;
one or two
may
come from baths
(see Appendix,
infra
pp. 87-89).
The mosaic from the Via
Imperiale,
Rome
(no.
18)
is described in
Helbig4 III, p. 52,
as
having
been found "in
einem Grabbau."
However,
the account
given by
H.
Fuhrmann,
AA
1940, p. 447,
describes it as
coming
from the "atrium" of a
later
building,
with a
peristyle
and a small
bath-suite,
over the
tomb chamber where the third
century sarcophagus
of
Julius
Achilleus was found. Fuhrmann
suggests
that this
may
have been
a
public building,
but his
description
would suit a
wealthy pri-
vate house of the late
Empire.
119 Cf. also Cameron
(supra
n.
8)
245 and references there on
the role of the charioteer as a sorcerer in late
Antiquity.
120 Thus the named charioteers and horses on the contorniates
are
clearly
real
figures
from the Roman
circus,
some of whom
are known from other
contemporary
sources
(cf.
Wtinsch [supra
n.
74] 58-62).
But the function of the contorniates is much wider
than that of
compliment
to the
specific individuals; they belong
in
the
general
context of
lucky imagery
associated with the ludi. Cf.
Alf6ldi (supra
n.
87) 43-48, and,
for the
controversy
over Al-
fildi's interpretation,
S.
Mazzarino,
s.v.
Contorniati, EAA II
(1959) 787-91,
and references there.
121 See
supra
n. 115. For the names of
horses,
cf.
J.M.C. Toyn-
bee,
BSR 16
(1948) 24-37; J. Salomonson,
La
Mosaique
aux
chevaux de
l'antiquarium
de
Carthage (The Hague 1965)
80-89.
122 Cf.
F.J. Dilger,
"Profane und
religiose Brandmarkung
der
Tiere in der heidnischen und christlichen
Antike,"
Antike und
Christentum 3
(1932) 25-61;
also H.
Klumbach,
"Pferde mit
Brandmarken," Festschrift
des
RGZMainz 3
(1952)
1-12. I
thank Professor E.
Alfaldi-Rosenbaum for
bringing
the latter
article to
my
attention. For the use of bullae and similar orna-
ments on circus
horses,
see Tambella
(supra
n.
3) 76,
and the
literary
testimonia cited in her n. 21.
84 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
the same
time,
these attributes increase the felicitous
force of the
image
on the mosaic. Similar
lucky
signs, especially plants
such as hedera and
millet,
may
also be scattered around the
figures,
or dis-
tributed
against
the
background,
as on the mosaic of
the charioteer Eros from
Dougga (no. 8),
and ad-
ditional
palm
branches
may
be
added,
like those
that flank the chariot of Marcianus at Merida
(no.
12).
Figures
and scenes which
appear
in other
parts
of
the
pavement may
also contribute to this
general
fortunate
ambience,
without
necessarily having any
closer association with the circus scene. At Merida
(no. 12),
for
example,
the two charioteers accom-
pany
a
Dionysiac
scene and busts of the
Winds,
both of which
may
be associated with
concepts
of
prosperity
and
fertility.
On the mosaic from the
Byrsa, Carthage (no. 2),
the other
figures
include
hunting scenes, figures
of the
Seasons,
and a
figure
identified as the
personification
of
Carthage.
Here
the association could be either
realistic,
with the
stress on the real activities of circus and
hunting
field,
or
allegorical,
with all the
images contributing
to the
prosperity
of the
figure
of
Carthage.123
It is
necessary
at this
point
to ask how far this
connotation of
good
luck is
strengthened
and made
more
precise by
association with further
concepts.
To what extent is the charioteer identified with the
two
figures
to whom he bears the closest icono-
graphical relationship, particularly
when
represent-
ed in the frontal schema: Sol and the
Emperor?
Both these
questions
are
highly controversial,
and a
full discussion of their
implications
is
beyond
the
scope
of this article. Several
points, however, may
be made here.
The
allegorical interpretation
of the charioteer in
his
quadriga
as an
image
of
Sol,
of the factions as
representatives
of the
Seasons,
and of the whole
circus as an
image
of the
cosmos,
was
undoubtedly
known to late Roman and
Byzantine
writers.
Nev-
ertheless,
as I have
argued elsewhere,
most
attempts
to
interpret representations
of circus charioteers on
mosaics as
symbols
of the Sun
driving
the chariot of
the Seasons must be
regarded
as
mistaken; they gen-
erally depend upon pushing
the associations of the
supposed symbols beyond
what
they
can
reasonably
bear.124 In a few instances the association of season-
al
symbols
with chariots or horses is
possible,
but
normally
the two
types
of
iconography
are
kept
clearly separate. Though
both
Sun-god
and human
charioteer
may adopt
the same
pose,
the details are
distinct: the
long tunic,
radiate
crown,
and
gesture
of
power
of
Sol,
often also the orb and the
zodiac,
are not to be confused with the human charioteer in
his
clearly recognizable costume,
with
helmet,
chest-
lacings,
and tunic in the colors of the factions. I
know of
only
one
example
where there
may
be
conflation of the solar
iconography
with that of a
human charioteer. At
Conimbriga,
a mosaic with a
border of
hunting
scenes
(with
named
hunters),
and
with busts of the Seasons at the
angles,
contains at
its center a
medallion, supported by
four female
busts,
in which a charioteer drives a
quadriga
drawn
by
four white horses in
profile
to the
right,
against
a dark blue
background
studded with stars.
The
charioteer,
who wears a white
tunic,
holds
wreath and
palm,
and is bare-headed
(no. 7, pl. 9,
fig. 24).125
Who he
is,
is not
immediately
clear. The
starry background
and the four white horses seem
at first
sight
to
speak
for an identification with
Sol,
for whom the association with the Seasons would
also be
appropriate;
but the absence of a nimbus or
radiate crown
argues against
this
interpretation,
and
the wreath and
palm
are not normal attributes of
Sol. I find it most
unlikely
that a mosaicist who
wished to
represent
Sol
Invictus,
while
endowing
him with the
palm
and wreath to
emphasize
his
victorious
character,
would omit the crucial attri-
bute of the radiate
crown,
so
easily
and
effectively
rendered in mosaic.126 There
is, however,
no clear
123
Cf. Baratte
(supra
n.
54) 78;
P.
Gauckler,
"La Personni-
fication
de
Carthage; mosaique
du
Mus6e
du
Louvre,"
MAntFr
63
(1904)
165-78.
124
Cf. MRNA
88-89,
97-108. The
theory
of solar
symbolism
for charioteer and horses is
put
forward
particularly by
A. Mer-
lin and L.
Poinssot, "Factions du
cirque
et saisons sur des mo-
saiques
de
Tunisie," Melanges
Charles Picard 2
(=
RA
1949)
pp. 732-38,
and
applied by
them to two of the charioteer mosaics
discussed
above,
both from
Dougga:
one with a
standing
chario-
teer
(no. 9),
the other the mosaic of the charioteer Eros
(no. 8).
My
conclusion is that the
only
mosaic on which there does seem
to be a connection between charioteers and Seasonal
symbols
(although
even here the identification is not
certain)
is the mosaic
from Thina
(no. 23),
where the unnamed charioteers are
proba-
bly
the Seasons
themselves;
and that "our
present
evidence indi-
cates that the themes of the real circus and of its
allegorical
interpretation
were considered
by
artists as
mutually
exclusive"
(MRNA 108).
125 M.
Bairraio
Oleiro, "Mosaiques
romaines du
Portugal,"
La
Mosaique greco-romaine. Colloques
internationaux du Centre
National de la Recherche
Scientifique,
Paris 1963
(Paris 1965)
261-62, figs. 8,9.
On the
question
of the
identification
of the
charioteer,
see the discussion which
follows, p.
264.
126
F. de Camargo e
Almeida, "Consideraq6es
sobre o mosaico
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 85
identification of the
figure
as a circus
charioteer,
since he does not wear the habitual
costume;
the
wreath and
palm
are insufficient
by
themselves to
enforce the
identification,
since
they
are the
symbols
of
victory
in other fields than that of the circus
alone. It seems
possible
that here we do have an
example,
rare in a
domestic, non-funerary
context,
of the motif imbued with
eschatological significance:
the charioteer
driving
his horses to
victory
in a
higher sphere
than that of this
earth, against
the
stars of heaven.127 But the
starry background may
suggest
an alternative
interpretation:
that the chari-
oteer is intended for the actual constellation
Auriga,
perhaps
for some
personal astrological
reason.128 It
is
important
to note that there is no allusion here to
the actual circus: the
symbolic
and the real
catego-
ries of allusion are
kept clearly
distinct. In
general,
the resemblance between the chariot of Sol and the
ordinary representation
of the victorious circus char-
ioteer is confined to the use of similar schemata for
both,
and there is
normally
no closer
correspondence
or
explicit
association between the two
figures.129
The second
figure
whose influence on the icono-
graphy
and
interpretation
of the circus charioteer
may
be
suspected
is the
Emperor.130
It is well estab-
lished that there were close associations in both
Rome and
Constantinople
between the
circus/hip-
podrome
and
imperial ceremonial,
and that the vic-
tory,
whichever faction or individual won
it,
was
regarded
as
being
in a certain sense the
victory
of
the
Emperor, greeted
as such in the acclamations of
the
people.131
One should
not, however, argue
from
such associations that the
image
of the victorious
circus charioteer also served to evoke the
concept
of
the
imperial victory.
There is too much stress laid in
such
images
on the real
trappings
of the circus
games:
the four
figures,
the detailed
rendering
of the
costumes,
the
names,
sometimes the
setting.
No con-
fusion is
possible
in these
respects
between the
fig-
ure of the
triumphant Emperor
and that of the
circus charioteer. It is clear that an event like the
games
of the circus could be
regarded
on a number
of different levels: the same crowd which shouted in
ritual formulaic utterances its acclamation of the
divinely inspired victory
of the
Emperor
also con-
sisted of
passionate partisans
of one faction or an-
other, willing
to resort to violence in
support
of
their
favorites,
and even to make use of
magical
means such as
defixiones
to insure the
victory
of one
side and the defeat of the other.132 Where such a
wide
range
of associations
exists,
we can
hardly
ever
tell how
many
of the
possible
connotations were in-
tended to be
evoked;
but we
certainly
cannot as-
sume,
in the absence of
specific indication,
that the
whole
range
was
always
intended to be understood.
It is in the
pose (as
with the chariot of
Sol)
that
the
principal similarity
between the circus chario-
teer and the
Emperor lies,
particularly
in the use of
the frontal schema. The
question
therefore arises
whether this schema in itself constitutes a
similarity
sufficient to
suggest
a reference from one to the
other. The frontal chariot was not invented for the
imperial chariot,
and is
occasionally
used for other
figures
in the
popular
art of the
early Empire.133 It
das
Quatro Estaq6es
de
Conimbriga.
A
representaCao
do
Sol,"
Actas do II
Congresso
Nacional de
Arqueologia,
Coimbra
1970,2
(1971) 495-504, accepts
the
identification as
Sol, believing
that
the absence of the normal attributes is a local characteristic. This
seems to me to underestimate the
importance
of such attributes in
Roman
iconography,
where
they
form the normal means
by
which
figures
are
identified. Although
some of the
Conimbriga
mosaics show an
extremely provincial
local
figure-style,
in which
any peculiarities
can
easily
be ascribed to a
misunderstanding
of
the model
by inexperienced workmen,
this is not true of the
charioteer
mosaic,
which is
competently
executed.
127 Cf. Cumont
(supra
n.
15) 458-84, discussing
the chariot of
Scorpus
on the
funerary cippus
of T. Flavius
Abascantus,
for the
eschatological significance
of such
representations; there,
how-
ever,
the context is
funerary.
128 See ThLL s.v. cols.
1499-1500,
for the constellation.
129
There is one work on which
figures
and elements from the
circus are
explicitly
associated with solar
symbolism, although
the Sun is not here himself
represented
in his chariot. On a
wheel-cut
glass bowl,
found in a
grave
near
Cologne
dated ca.
320-340,
four
quadrigae
driven
by
charioteers in circus
costume,
with the
metae, obelisk,
and ova
showing
between
them,
drive in
a
ring
around a central medallion
containing
a radiate bust
holding
a
whip, against
a
background
of stars and
clouds(?):
A.
Frazer,
"The
Cologne
Circus Bowl: Basileus Helios and the
Cosmic
Hippodrome," Essays
in
Memory of
Karl Lehmann
(New
York
1964)
105-13. Frazer
identifies the
subject
as the
chariots of the Seasons
surrounding
the bust of the
Sun,
and
concludes that it is "an
apparently unique example
of an unmis-
takable artistic
representation
of the
allegory
of the cosmic cir-
cus,"
doubtless intended to have
eschatological significance appro-
priate
for its use in a
grave (p. 111).
130
A.
Grabar, L'Iconoclasme
byzantin (Paris 1957) 157-58,
as-
serts the
dependence
of the
image
of
Porphyrius
on the
imperial
triumphal iconography:
"le cocher
triomphateur
est honore d'une
image qui
aurait
pu
etre celle de son souverain."
See, however,
Cameron
(supra
n.
8) 19-27,
for a criticism of Grabar's conclu-
sions and a discussion of the antecedents of the
Porphyrius
reliefs.
131
Cf.
J. Gage,
Revue d'Histoire et de
Philosophie religieuses
1933, 375-79,
400.
Although
most of the evidence for the
prac-
tice of
acclaiming
the
Emperor
for the victories of the
hippo-
drome is
Byzantine, Gage
shows that its
origins go
back at least
to the late
Empire
in Rome. See also
Grabar, L'Empereur
dans
I'art byzantin (Paris 1936) 65-66;
Cameron
(supra
n.
8)
248-51.
132
Cf. Friedlander
(supra
n.
36)
42-43.
133 E.g., Venus and
Mercury,
in the works
quoted supra
ns.
86 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
was, however,
in the
imperial iconography
that the
type
became
firmly established,
and in the third and
early
fourth centuries it is indeed almost an identi-
fying
feature of the
imperial representation.
Partic-
ularly noteworthy
is a medallion of Gordian III
with scenes of the circus races and other
games,
where the diminutive
imperial
chariot
may
be dis-
tinguished
from the
racing
chariots next to the
spina
precisely by
the fact that it alone is shown
frontally,
with its six horses
formally arranged
in
groups
di-
verging symmetrically
to either
side,
their
hindquar-
ters
suppressed (Type B).134 In contrast
to such
formal
renderings
of the
imperial chariot,
the fron-
tal
schema,
when first
adopted
for the circus chario-
teers,
is used
only tentatively,
often
alongside
the
older
profile schemata;
the horses retain a more
naturalistic
perspective rendering
or
three-quarter
view until at least the end of the third
century.
There seems at first to be a clear distinction in the
minds of the artists between the ceremonial and
formal
frontality
used for the
presentation
of the
image
of the
Emperor,
and the more informal and
naturalistic
rendering
used for the
representation
of
lesser mortals. What follows is a
gradual
assimila-
tion of the circus chariot to the frontal
schema,
rather than a direct imitation of the
imperial
icono-
graphy.
The
increasing
use at the same time of the
frontal schema for the chariots of a whole
range
of
gods
shows that it had come to be
regarded
as the
appropriate rendering
for all scenes of
triumph,
in-
spired surely by
the
general
Late
Antique liking
for
frontality
as a means of
giving
a more
impressive
quality
to the
image.'35
The
victory
of the human
charioteer in the circus can be assimilated
visually
to these divine
triumphs,
not so much because of the
complex philosophical
connotations of
victory
in the
circus,
as because the common
emphasis
is
upon
victory
tout
court,
in whatever
sphere.
If there is
indeed one
specific deity
with whom the victorious
charioteer is to be
associated,
and whose
iconogra-
phy
lies
ultimately
behind all these
representations
of
triumphant figures,
it is
surely Nike/Victoria
herself;
the
goddess
who has an earlier claim even
than the
Sun-god
to the frontal
chariot,
and whose
constant attributes are the wreath and the
palm.136
I
find it therefore
highly unlikely
that the
figure
of the victorious circus charioteer on mosaics should
be
interpreted
as
bearing any
allusion to the com-
plex philosophical
or ceremonial associations which
linked the circus with either the
Emperor
or the
Sun-god,
unless such a reference is made
explicit
through
the addition of further and
unambiguous
attributes or detail. Mosaics such as those of Trier
(no. 26)
or Merida
(no. 12), Dougga (no. 8),
or
Carthage (Dermech,
no.
3),
seem to be intended to
serve two main functions.
They
honor the
popular
favorites of the
day,
identified
by name,
for their
individual
sakes,
as
contemporary
idols in the most
popular
of
sports.
At the same
time,
and more
sig-
nificantly, they
evoke
concepts
of
victory
and suc-
cess,
to
bring good
fortune to the house where
thay
are laid and to those who enter it.
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
McMASTER UNIVERSITY
HAMILTON,
ONTARIO
CANADA
55-56. Cf. also a
painting
from
Pompeii
known
only
from a
drawing, showing
a frontal
quadriga,
the horses in
fairly
natu-
ralistic
three-quarter view,
with a rider on a
nearly
frontal horse
beside it:
Reinach,
RPGR
290,8.
It is not clear who the chario-
teer is intended to
be,
and there is no
recognizable
allusion to the
circus.
134 F.
Gnecchi,
I
Medaglioni
romani 2
(Milan 1912) 90,
no.
27;
A.
Alf6ldi,
"Die
Ausgestaltung
des monarchischen Zeremoniells
am
r6mischen
Kaiserhofe,"
RomMitt 49
(1934
= Die monarch-
ische
Repriisentation
im
rimischen Kaiserreiche,
Darmstadt
1970) 94-95, fig. 4;
T.
H61lscher (supra
n.
47) 85, pl. 8,11.
"13 Similarly,
H61lscher (supra
n.
47) 89,
concludes that the
widespread adoption
of the frontal chariot in
imperial triumphal
art in the third
century
is not
necessarily
influenced
by
earlier
representations
of the chariot of the
sun-god,
but is the result of a
general stylistic tendency
towards
frontality.
136
For an earlier
example
of the
iconography
of the chariot of
Victoria
influencing
that of other
charioteers,
see H.
Mattingly,
"Some New Studies of the Roman
Republican Coinage:
Divine
Charioteers on Reverse
Types
of Coins of the Roman
Republic,"
ProcBritAc 39
(1953) 282-85,
where he concludes that the vari-
ous deities who drive their chariots
(in profile)
on the reverses of
the coins are derived from earlier
representations
of the chariot of
Victoria:
"Victory, then,
is the
key motive-Victory
seen above
all else in the successful driver at the circus
games" (p. 285).
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER
87
APPENDIX
Mosaics
Representing
Victorious Charioteers
Note The
following
abbreviations are used:
Schema WY Horses
profile,
charioteer
profile
Schema WZ Horses
profile,
charioteer
frontal
Schema XZ Horses
frontal,
charioteer
frontal
Schema
XZ, Type
A Outer horses
converging
toward center
Schema
XZ, Type
B Both
pairs
of horses
diverg-
ing outward; foreparts only
shown
Schema
XZ, Type C1
Both
pairs
of horses
diverg-
ing,
in foreshortened three-
quarter
view
Schema
XZ, Type
C2 Both
pairs
of horses
fully
diverging,
at
angle
of 1800
Schema T
Standing charioteer,
no
chariot or horses
Schema V Charioteer
riding single
horse,
no chariot
R
right hand;
L left hand
(of figure;
otherwise left
and
right
refer to the
viewer)
As indicated in the
text,
there is a certain amount of over-
lapping
between some
types (e.g.
a semi-frontal chario-
teer, halfway
between schemata WY and
WZ),
and of di-
vergences
of detail in the
poses;
these are indicated here
when
they
are substantial
enough
to affect the basic
type.
1. ARGOS
(Greece). House(?)
near
Agora. Fragmen-
tary panel
in
geometric setting, single
chariot. Char-
ioteer
destroyed.
Four horses in
profile (schema W),
walking
to
right.
Names beneath in tabulae ansatae:
EwvOovr, Aabas', Apc~KWV, IpWTEVr'.
A date at the end
of the 4th or
beginning
of the 5th
century
is
sug-
gested,
which seems to me
likely
to be too late.
Supra
n. 35.
2. CARTHAGE
(Tunisia). Large building
on
Byrsa,
possibly
baths
(see
F.
Baratte, Catalogue
des mo-
sarques
romaines et
palhochritiennes du
musec
du
Louvre
76).
Three
fragments, including
one chario-
teer
(Quiriacus),
in
Louvre;
rest known
only
from
drawing.
Pattern of
interlacing "cushions," containing
hunting scenes,
four
Seasons(?), personification
of
Carthage,
and four charioteers. All
frontal,
schema
XZ, Type C2. All named:
Bene[nat]us, Quiriacus,
Ciprianus, Ce/le]rius. Quiriacus holds
whip and
crown raised in R., palm in L. Other three known
only from
drawing: Ciprianus and Celerius held
whip and
palm raised in R., reins in L., Benenatus
apparently
held
only whip.
Late 5th-6th
century. Pp.
75, 82, 84; pl. 8, fig.
19.
3. CARTHAGE, Dermech
region.
House of Greek
Charioteers. Threshold
panel
at entrance to oe-
cus/triclinium.
Lower half
destroyed.
Four chario-
teers, all in schema XZ (with heads turned
slightly
towards
center),
within arches of carceres. Horses
destroyed,
but traces
suggest probably Type
C (? or
B).
Charioteers named in Greek:
Ei6vyoO
(blue);
Ao,.vivov (white);
EvO4~LP
(green); KEaAwcov (red).
All hold
whip
raised in R., reins in L.; crown and
palm
float beside them. Ca. A.C. 400-420.
Pp. 75,
78, 81, 82; pl. 8, fig.
18.
4.
CARTHAGE, Hill of Odeon. Panel
showing
race in
progress
in
arena,
with architectural
setting;
three
chariots still
racing.
Victor
(blue)
in schema
WY,
galloping
to
right, holding palm
and reins.
Beginning
of 3rd
century. Mus&e du Bardo, Tunis.
Pp. 66, 79;
pl. 5, fig.
2.
5. CARTHAGE. Maison de
Scorpianus, Oecus.
Frag-
mentary panel
at center of floral
design
with various
genre figures. Single chariot,
charioteer
destroyed,
horses in
profile (schema W). Inscription
above: Scor-
pianus
in adamatu. Second
quarter
of 2nd
century.
Pp. 67, 82.
6. CARTHAGE. Maison des Chevaux, Oecus. Check-
erboard of small
panels showing
circus horses accom-
panied by figures
and scenes
apparently representing
horses' names.
Only surviving panel
in
top
row con-
tains charioteer
(red)
on
foot, running
to
right,
hold-
ing palm
over L. shoulder, whip
and
wreath(?)
for-
ward in R. Salomonson
suggests
that
fragmentary
central
panel perhaps
showed charioteer in frontal
quadriga,
but
only figure acclaiming
at left survives.
Early
4th
century. (J.W. Salomonson,
La
Mosaique
aux chevaux de
l'antiquarium
de
Carthage [The
Hague 1965] 56, 94, fig.
5-6.
pl. 40.1-2).
7. CONIMBRIGA
(Portugal).
House
("Palace")
out-
side the walls.
Hunting
scenes and busts of the Sea-
sons
surrounding
central circle
supported by
female
busts. Circle contains
single
charioteer
(not
in circus
costume)
in schema WZ
(near three-quarter view),
galloping
to
right against starry background.
Holds
wreath in raised
R.,
reins in
L., palm against
L.
shoulder.
Probably
3rd
century. Pp. 84-85; pl. 9, fig.
24.
8. DOUGGA
(Tunisia).
House. Panel in center of or-
namental
pattern;
lower half and left
edge destroyed.
Single charioteer
(green), schema XZ, Type
C2. In-
scription above:
Eros/
omnia
per te; two central
horses named Amandus and Frunitus. Charioteer
holds
whip and wreath raised in R., palm against
L.
shoulder. Carceres in
background across
right corner.
88 KATHERINE M.D. DUNBABIN
[AJA
86
Second half of 4th
century.
Musie
du
Bardo,
Tunis.
Pp. 74-75, 78-79, 81, 82, 84; pl. 8, fig.
17.
9. DOUGGA. Floral motifs
surrounding
central circle
with
standing
charioteer
(blue),
schema
T, frontal,
with
whip
raised in
R., palm against
L. shoulder.
Four horses
standing separately
in
surrounding pa-
nels,
named
Pantarcus, Aureus, Terdiacus, Maprae-
ron. Second half of 4th
century.
Mus&e du
Bardo,
Tunis. P.
69; pl. 6, fig.
6.
10. ITALICA
(Spain).
Lost mosaic known
only
from
19th
century drawing.
One
panel
contains
single
charioteer,
schema
XZ,
Two of horses
apparently
in
Type
B
(foreparts only,
to
left),
two in
Type C2,
fully deployed
to
right (but
with both heads to
left).
Charioteer holds wreath in raised
R.,
reins in L.
Possibly
3rd
century.
P. 74.
11. KHENCHELA
(Algeria).
House. Panel in orna-
mental
pattern, damaged
at bottom.
Single charioteer,
schema
XZ, Type
C2
(or B?);
all horses' heads face
out. Raised R. holds
whip (not
clear if holds
anything
else);
L. holds reins. Late 4th
century
or
later.- Pp.
75-76.
12. MERIDA
(Spain).
Two charioteers in
separate pan-
els, flanking
circle with
Dionysiac
scene and busts of
Winds. Both in schema
XZ, Type
C2.
Inscriptions:
Marcianus Nicha and Paulus
Nica;
one horse named
Inluminator. Both raise
whip
in
R., palm
in
L.,
reins
pass
around waists. Two
palms
flank chariot of Mar-
cianus. Second half of 4th
century. Pp. 74, 82, 84; pl.
8, figs. 15,
16.
13. PIAZZA ARMERINA
(Sicily). Villa, palaestra
of
baths. Great
Circus;
scene of race in arena
setting,
with 12
competing quadrigae.
Victor
(green)
in sche-
ma WY
(driver
in
three-quarter view);
horses walk-
ing
to left. Charioteer holds
whip
in
R.,
reins in
L.,
offered
palm by magistrate.
Ca. 310-320.
Pp. 66,
79-80; pl. 5, fig.
1.
14. PIAZZA ARMERINA.
Villa;
room off
long
cor-
ridor. Small
Circus; parodied
scene of race in circus
setting (limited
to
spina);
four chariots drawn
by
pairs
of birds and driven
by
children. Victor
(green)
driving pair
of
pigeons,
in schema
WZ,
birds at rest
to
right.
Holds
whip
in
R.,
reins in L. and around
waist;
offered
palm by
children behind him. Ca.
310-320. P. 66.
15. PRIMA PORTA
(Italy). Baths, apsidal
room. Black
and white
mosaic;
two
bigae racing below,
inscribed
Ilarinus
Olypio
and
L[iber]
Romano. Above victor
on
horseback,
schema
V,
inscribed Liber Nica;
holds
wreath in raised R., palm
in L., acclaimed
by
herald.
3rd
century (?). P. 69; pl. 6, fig.
7.
16. RAVENNA
(Italy). "Palace of Theodoric," Portico
Al. Four
panels with charioteers, all
badly damaged;
other panels in
portico contain circus scenes and ve-
nationes. One charioteer
(green)
in schema
XZ, Type
C2,
with R. raised
(holding object
with
ribbons, pos-
sibly
a
crown), palm
in
L.;
Generosus written be-
neath horse. Other three
fragmentary,
but
probably
in same
scheme;
one holds crown and
whip
in raised
R.;
traces of names beside horses.
Early
to mid-5th
century.
P. 74.
17,
a & b. ROME
(Italy).
Two charioteers now mounted
in
separate panels; original arrangement
not known.
(a)
Schema
XZ, Type C1. Driver
(red)
holds
whip
in
raised
R., palm
in L.
(b)
Schema
WY,
to left. Driver
(blue)
holds
whip
forward in raised
R., palm against
L. shoulder. Horses
galloping.
17,
c. ROME. From Via
Appia. Fragment, originally
part
of scene
showing
race in
progress
in
arena,
now
mounted in
separate panel. Relationship
to
(a)
and
(b)
not
certain,
but
possibly
all
part
of same
pave-
ment. Charioteer
(green)
in schema
WZ,
to
right;
horses at
gallop.
Driver holds
whip
raised in
R.,
palm against
L.
shoulder,
reins around waist.
All three
probably
second half of 3rd or
early
4th
century.
Museo
Arqueol6gico Nacional,
Madrid. P.
73; pl. 7,
fig.
11
(17a)
and 12
(17c).
18. ROME. Via
Imperiale.
House
(?;
see n.
118).
Black
and white mosaic
(with
colored details for
tunics).
Race with four chariots on each
side,
no
setting.
On
one
side,
victor is second
chariot,
in schema
XZ,
Type
C2
(but
with all horses' heads
facing out);
holds wreath and
whip
in raised
R., palm
in L.
Inscription Aeri Nik(a) above,
Italo above horse.
One of other drivers in schema
WZ,
horses at
rest;
other two in schema WY.
Inscriptions Poliste(f)anus
Euticu and
Er[..]us Myri.
On
opposite side, leading
driver in schema
XZ, Type
C2
(with
horses' heads
facing out),
but without identification as
victor;
other
three all in schema WY.
Inscriptions Kalimorfus
Ra[...; Ebentius;
Eutatus
...]esilao; Eupropes
Anato-
lico. mid-4th
century?.
Museo Nazionale Romano.
Pp. 73-74; pl. 7, figs. 13,
14.
19. ROTTWEIL
(Germany). Orpheus
and the Beasts
surrounded
by hunting
scenes and
panels
with char-
ioteers;
three survive in
part,
all
very badly damaged.
One in WY schema to
right,
with driver
(in
three-
quarter view) holding
crown forward in
R.;
horses
walking
in
profile
to
right (W)
in
another;
frontal
head of charioteer
(probably
in WZ
schema)
in third.
End of
2nd-early
3rd
century. (K. Parlasca,
Die rdm-
ischen
Mosaiken
in Deutschland
99, pls. 12,1; 95,3:
96,2).
20. RUDSTON (Britain). House. Busts of Seasons and
panels with birds
surrounding
central circle with
single charioteer (red). Schema XZ, Type
C2. Driver
holds wreath in raised R., palm against
L. shoulder.
Second
quarter
of 4th
century. Transport
and Ar-
1982]
THE VICTORIOUS CHARIOTEER 89
chaeology Museum, City
of
Kingston upon
Hull. P.
73; pl. 7, fig.
10.
21. SAINTE-COLOMBE
(France).
Circle
containing
octagons
with Venus and
Erotes,
and Bacchic
figures,
and contained in
larger square. Spandrels
contain
four chariots
racing, separated
and without
setting.
Three in
profile galloping
to
right;
victor in schema
WZ,
horses at rest. Driver holds
up
crown in
R.,
palm
and
whip
in
L.; inscription
CLXXVI beside
him. Late 2nd or
early
3rd
century(?).
P. 66.
22. THESSALONIKI
(Greece). Triclinium.
Fragmen-
tary panel.
Three horses survive in
profile (schema
W)
to
right,
at rest.
Inscriptions aipla
and
ovvwpli.
Rest
destroyed.
P.
69,
n. 35.
23. THINA
(Tunisia).
Lost
mosaic,
with four chario-
teers in
separate
medallions. All in schema
XZ, type
not
identifiable;
at least one held crown. P. 75.
24. THUBURBO MAIUS
(Tunisia).
House. Panel in
geometric setting,
with
single
charioteer
(red).
Sche-
ma
WZ;
horses at
rest,
to
right.
Driver holds
whip
and wreath in raised
R., palm
in L. 3rd
century.
P.
67.
25. TRIER
(Germany).
House beneath Kaiserthermen.
Octagon
in
geometric frame,
with
single
charioteer
(red).
Schema
XZ, Type Cl;
horses' heads at various
angles.
Driver holds
whip
and wreath in raised
R.,
palm
in L.
Inscription Polydus Compressore.
Ca.
250.
Pp. 72, 82; pl. 6, fig.
8.
26. TRIER. House beneath Landesmuseum.
Damaged
mosaic, only fragments
now
surviving.
Four char-
ioteers in
separate compartments,
with bust of Vic-
toria at center. One
(Superstes)
in schema
XZ,
mix-
ture of
Types C1
and
A; whip
and wreath in raised
R., palm. Euprepes
in schema WY
(three-quarter
view);
horses
apparently
at rest. Holds wreath and
whip
forward in
R.; palm slopes
forward. For-
tun(atus)
in schema WY to
right (three-quarter
view);
horses at rest. Wreath held forward in
R.;
palm slopes
forward.
Phil[....]s badly damaged, ap-
parently
in schema
WZ,
but with horse on extreme
right turning
in toward center. Driver holds wreath
in raised
R., palm upright.
Late
3rd-beginning
of 4th
century. Pp. 68, 72-73, 82, 83; pl. 6,. fig.
9.
27. TRIER. Bath
building
beneath Gervasiuskirche
(area
of
Kaiserthermen);
mosaic room not
originally
part
of baths
(see Parlasca,
Die
r6mischen
Mosaiken
in Deutschland
24).
Remains of two medallions with
quadriga
in
profile
to
right (W);
no charioteers sur-
vive.
Inscription
in one Victor
[i]os (us);
in second
[Fu]lminatore.
Late
2nd-early
3rd
century.
ADDENDUM
After this
manuscript
was
completed,
M. Mohamed
Yacoub
very kindly
allowed me to see a
chapter
from his
unpublished
thesis on the Tunisian circus mosaics. In
addition to a detailed
study
of the mosaic of the charioteer
Eros from
Dougga (my
no.
8),
and of the Greek chario-
teers from
Carthage (no. 3),
he discusses an
important
unpublished
mosaic from baths at
Moknine,
where the
charioteer
(in
the frontal XZ
schema)
is
accompanied by
an
inscription bearing
a
challenge against
the
Envious,
and his four horses all have names of
good
omen. This
mosaic offers
striking
confirmation of the role of the char-
ioteer
image
as a
symbol
of success and
achievement;
I am
very grateful
to M. Yacoub for the information about
it,
and for
permission
to mention it here.
DUNBABIN PLATE
5
AMC
..... ...
.
-17
AS
Ilk,
ion",
ar
t rg
V?,,
41
k
zi,
.............. .... .
"I'MA 911"ll
'*-Illa
4.1i
FIG.
I.
Piazza
Armerina,
Great Circus
(no.
I3),
detail of victor.
(Photo Alinari)
-r Zm-
I-----:-::ii-~:-?
:::::- ?:::;:::-: Qi~o - ~iiiii~iii .- :~ ii~n- :-:-' ::i:l::?::: iil-ii-i9ii~ai9 -:11r? I~i-~i:.
i-:i:::::: :~1::: i .: -~i iai~: I~:--1: :::::Oft 47M:_ -_I_:AZOM",;:
r::-:
-i-
---:-- i--;:::
Ak?;::::::;:::
~""' l~i;:i~~*:~-~---:------:-?: -I?-~i1-4:
-i::''':: ia. :-~-___j~ii~i~~-:~ ?~~i ~ '--'-:-:-: i:~::: i:::::_::: ii::::i:-.-::~ -::::-_--:ID : ::
-wig~iii~i~g~
-----Wt:-: -l - _-:-?rWli
FIG. 2.
(left) Carthage,
circus scene
(no. 4). Tunis,
Mus&e du Bardo.
(Photo DAI, Rome)
i4
FIG.
4. Lamp
with victorious
charioteer,
schema WZ. British Museum
Q 1366.
(Courtesy
Trustees of the British
Museum)
I
FIG.
3. (above) Lamp
with victorious
charioteer,
schema WY. British Museum
Q 920. (Courtesy
Trustees of the British
Museum)
:~-I~-??'~_;-::-:-~,~:-i:::-lrii~_l~~: ai-~;ll:il:iiil:-: -_: i_-;: :::::: :- . ..
-i?i-i:i--:: :i:---iii-ii~i:
" ::-::
::i i:i:-i--'-i---
:-iii:- i' - i -I__:-:i::-i
i?
: .
: : :-- i--i::i-i-i-il-i:jii ii -ii::?-i: --
:::::ii:i::i:ii-::;::;:ii--:_-:;-i-:::i_
;-;:i:i:?i:-::_:-r ::-~_-::i:::_::::::
-ili - -:-~i 9":-i-
i-i .. -i- ---: -:
-I--i--;-I-::
:: --
ii iiiii:~
:?~p~
::::::::-:;:::: : :I:
-~il:-----i
i*iici;-ii~i-iiii
:: : ; :'::: : J
: :;-.....__ :-~'---_~:i .
.1
L~i
~ai
FIG.
5. Ostia, Caseggiato degli Aurighi,
charioteer
painting,
schema WZ.
(Fototeca Unione)
PLATE 6 DUNBABIN
Alk: :
FIG. 6.
Dougga,
mosaic with
standing
charioteer
(no. 9). Tunis, Mus&e
du Bardo.
(Photo DAI, Rome)
i~~iai-d~i:i~ii48E R
OMANO:
UARINVS
FIG.
7.
Prima
Porta,
mosaic with charioteer Liber
(no.
15).
(After Lovatelli,
MemAccLinc
I879, pl. 2)
UL
Je,
R
?j
I .0p
4
>y
-IJ
'N
"A -41
FIG. 8.
Trier,
mosaic of charioteer
Polydus (no. 25). (Courtesy
Rheinisches
Landesmuseum, Trier)
p Ci
s::
-.:::;::::
:::-:: I::::.-
-i.i::i:.iii'i-
-::::;-: :-:::::::::::
::
:: ::
.- ::-:;:
Z
FIG.
9. Trier,
mosaic with four charioteers
(no. 26).
(Courtesy
Rheinisches
Landesmuseum, Trier)
DUNBABIN PLATE
7
sI's
1
""Mak-:
?- ' V ?k,
IR #0
i*- 84-W
ONW-I
Aod, F
"i`L' ii:1 ~ '~ r~eB~: A
FIG.
o0. Rudston,
charioteer mosaic
(no. 20). Transport
and
Archaeology
Museum, Kingston upon
Hull.
(Courtesy City
of
Kingston upon
Hull
Museums and Art
Galleries)
~_i :i:_d~.:~.:-::'"""' :' -'-; ii; -::~:::::::;:::- :,::-:~~i-_
::~::::?si;;
:;::
I
r: ::
:: i
-:::?:-:
FIG.
I I.
Rome,
charioteer
panel (no.
17a).
Madrid,
Museo
Arqueol6gico
Nacional no.
3,604. (Courtesy
Museo
Arqueol6gico Nacional)
i-i
A
u::::
s _
: .a , AA~
*2 sung% V
FIG.
12. Rome, fragment
of circus mosaic from Via
Appia (no. 17c). Madrid,
Museo
Arqueol6gico
Nacional no.
3,603. (Courtesy
Museo
Arqueol6gico
Nacional)
_u p,~_:- _:;:,l:::,,~i: I:::::-I:All-
. . . . . . . . . . .
JW;
IS--::-
FIG.
13. Rome,
charioteer mosaic from Via
Imperiale (no. 18)
Museo Nazionale
Romano, Inv. I24-705. (Photo DAI, Rome)
law ,::
V A ~ ~ ~ --: :?:-il~~-
FIG.
14. Rome,
charioteer mosaic from Via
Imperiale (no.
I8).
(Photo DAI, Rome)
PLATE 8 DUNBABIN
I i:.:. i-; -~i~i~l::: : :::
~vw
idi
--. ?i~ie,-L
tw-:
???-~ae '.;i~:~ 5.
4M?-
75;: ::'i
'I
d
P', 604i
FIG.
15. Merida,
charioteer mosaic
(no. 12). (Photo D.
Fernindez-Galiano, courtesy
Merida
Museum)
4-
?
I' ~ ~ ?~I::
1: q 4 1
,
-It~
4-141'4i. 7
z?
"?
4vl l-
4 ; 7W7
FIG. 16.
Merida,
charioteer mosaic
(no. 12). (Photo
D.
Fernnindez-Galiano,
courtesy
Merida
Museum)
:WO
,vf :?
:i-.----
.
!
FIG.
17. Dougga,
mosaic of charioteer Eros
(no. 8). Tunis, Mus&e
du
Bardo.
(Photo KMDD)
g~~~~gp ~ . ::~~~$
FIG.
19. Carthage, hunting
and charioteer mosaic
(no.
2), fragment
with charioteer
Quiriacus.
Paris, Mus&e
du
Louvre,
MA
1788. (Photo Chuzeville)
v4
: :
4t,:
NI N
rx.,
FIG. 18.
Carthage,
mosaic of Greek charioteers
(no. 3). (Photo Kelsey Museum, University
of
Michigan)
DUNBABIN PLATE
9
iii:i~ii-T, 4i
11
-i
i-------~:o:
iii~~i~j--i i; i .iiiii
r
Li: Ot
FIG. 20.
Constantinople,
monument of
Porphyrius,
"old
base."
(Courtesy
Istanbul
Archaeological Museum)
too
FIG.
23. Foligno,
circus relief.
(Photo DAI, Rome)
.AThN
t
FIG. 21.
Rome,
catacomb of the
Jordani,
arcosolium
painting.
(After Cumont,
Recherches sur le
symbolisme funeraire fig. 99)
-iiii-i--:-i ::--:---
::: :::
: ii~iii - - :- ;: :-:: - : ---- : :
ii~ ii-i-lii-;:iii:i
FIG. 22. Bowl with charioteer.
Paris,
Mus6e
du
Louvre,
CA
5920. (Photo Chuzeville)
..
... ...
.
MA
"'A
sk
kk
'si
,
44?
,
em
11,^ Q.
MV.
Ills
xt
g .
'A
?Va
ox
W.
WAA.i
4,%rw
?k?wvn
51 ?q jg?
Ao
s:A
4
14,
FIG.
24. Conimbriga,
mosaic with celestial
(?)
charioteer
(no.
7). (Courtesy
A.
Alarcao,
Museu
Monografico
de
Conimbriga)