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Anthony Majanlahti

@anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social

890 followers 82 following 760 posts

Historian living in Rome. 🏳️‍🌈Author of "The Families who Made Rome, a history and a guide" (Chatto, 2004). Currently writing a single-volume urban history of Rome for OUP. The ALT text reproduces the text written on the images I post.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4h

My vote is worse, based on past experience.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4h

I would've dated this well later than the reign of Augustus - why do the Wienerdoktors think it's him?

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 5h

For #ReliefWednesday we're in the #MuseodeiForiImperiali in #TrajansMarkets, to look at an exquisite fragment showing a #relief of #Erotes from the temple of #VenusGenetrix in the Forum of #Caesar, rebuilt by #Trajan. #AncientBluesky 🏺

FRIEZE/ARCHITRAVE, 113 CE. TRAJAN'S MARKETS

This huge piece of Luni marble comes from Trajan's rebuilding of the temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum of Julius Caesar. In fact the construction of the Forum of Trajan required a major reconstruction of the Forum Iulii and of the streets and neighbourhood behind it, including major structures like the Atrium Libertatis where the ceremony of manumission was held and the records of the freeing of slaves were kept. As a result, the already magnificent temple of Venus the Ancestress, Caesar's divine antecedent, was rebuilt in even grander style. Here we have a wonderful procession of Erotes, multiplications of the son of Venus and therefore a direct reference to Caesar's ancestry. At left an Eros is pouring wine from an amphora into a large bowl held by another Eros, while at centre two more cherubs are struggling with the arrows of Apollo and at right two more are holding the shield of Athena, with the Gorgoneion on it. This frieze once adorned the first order of an interior wall of the temple. A mirror below shows a decoration of coffers containing rosettes on the underside.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 12h

I'll read it!

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 12h

But I don't wanna!

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 1d

Perhaps he just has resting privileged face.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 1d

#EpigraphyTuesday introduces us to one of the soon-to-be indispensable figures of #Roman public life, the #apparitor or bureaucrat. This Marcus #Claudius was possibly a lesser member of the gens Claudia, one of the ruling class of #Rome. #AncientBluesky 🏺

FUNERARY INSCRIPTION OF M. CLAUDIUS, C. 25-1 BCE. BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN

M(arcus) Claudius M(arci) F(ilius) scr(ibarum) mag(ister) q(uaestorum) et aed(ilium) cur(ulium). Arbitratu
Philarguri maioris l(iberti)

"Marcus Claudius, son of Marcus, President of the association of scribes for the quæstors and Curule ædiles. [This was set up] by the direction of Philargurus, senior freedman (of Claudius)". This large, almost completely intact block of marble was found along the via Casilina about 12 km outside the city walls. It records one of the army of apparitores or "assistants", a class of public servants amounting to a nascent bureaucracy by the end of the C2 BCE. There were four colleges of apparitores, namely, in ascending order of prestige, the præcones or heralds, the lictores or bodyguards of magistrates, the viatores or messengers, and the scribæ, responsible for taking and keeping public records. This Marcus Claudius, son of Marcus (the designation indicates that he was a freeborn citizen) was one of the scribæ working for the quæstors and curule ædiles, one of the bigger cogs in the vast imperial machine.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 1d

It's not a philosopher, in such a central position, in a Christian Ostia. I think this was the house of a chief state official. It's gotta be Jesus.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2d

It's definitely Jesus, but strangely bearded in a period of beardless Jesi. There's also another portrait on the same wall, of a young man (the owner?). All rather mysterious.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2d

#MosaicMonday once again draws us back to the #MuseodelleCiviltà in the #EUR in the south of #Rome to marvel at the #domus of #PortaMarina from #OstiaAntica, where a central alcove imitates humble brick and #tufo, complete with shadows, in costly #opussectile. #AncientBluesky 🏺

OPUS SECTILE OF THE DOMUS OF PORTA MARINA, 385-388 CE. MUSEO DELLE CIVILTÀ

This central alcove of the domus of Porta Marina is decorated in an extraordinary, indeed unique way. Instead of the figurative and geometric designs of the larger part of the hall, this area, which was found without a floor, has two registers. The lower one is composed of a small diagonal grid of mosaic that resembles a mosaic pavement without a discernable pattern. The upper, larger register imitates in opus sectile a brick structure with four arches at centre on the back wall flanked by two flat-topped sections. Behind, within, above, and below the giallo antico "brick" is a backdrop of marble "opus reticulatum", a style of construction that had ceased to be used long before this was made. This strange wall reminds me irresistibly of the opus mixtum tombs outside Porta Romana at the other end of Ostia's Decumanus Maximus. In the foreground is the magnificent pavement of the main hall.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2d

That's absolutely not 327 g. It's a multiple of 327 g, though I can't guess how many.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3d

#SpoliaSunday takes us up the #Aventine hill in #Rome to the splendid though brutally over-restored #palaeochristian basilica of #SantaSabina, where an ancient weight measure does service as a relic of diabolic frustration. #AncientBluesky 🏺

LAPIS DIABOLI, C3-C4. S. SABINA

In the corner between the counterfaçade and the base of the belltower inside the beautiful early Christian basilica of S. Sabina (425-432) on the Aventine hill stands a reused partial column with spiral fluting. Atop it is a smooth, fairly regular round black stone, flat on top and underneath. This was an ancient Roman counterweight or lapis aequipondus of a determined number of libræ, a standard unit of weight equivalent to 327 grams. Other Roman churches have further examples, possibly because churches were protected places to keep standard measures. However they became reused as relics and their original use forgotten. This one is known as the lapis diaboli or devil's stone, which was meant to have been thrown by the devil himself at the head of St Dominic, who was praying in this church at the time, after failing to tempt him. To me it looks like a stone used in the sport of curling, and with its now-missing metal handle it would have looked even more so.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4d

#SarcophagusSaturday brings us to a modest #fountain near the foot of the #Pincio in #Rome, next to the #SpanishSteps. In 1570 this was meant as the site for a grand fountain celebrating the entrance of the #AcquaVergine into the city, to no avail. This was installed in 1967. #AncientBluesky 🏺

STRIGILLATE SARCOPHAGUS, C4 CE. VIA DI S. SEBASTIANELLO

This elegant sarcophagus with its syncretic decoration dates from 320-350 CE. Its origins are lost in the archives of the Sovrintendenza. It shows two large symmetrical panels of strigilation on either side of a female figure with an unfinished head making a blessing sign with her right hand as it emerges from her stola. She stands in front of a knotted cloth or peripetasma which indicates her as the deceased. On the right and left corners of the sarcophagus front are shown two Good Shepherds, lambs over their shoulders in the traditional way. Here there was once a small shrine to St Sebastian, but it was destroyed in 1728 when the wall collapsed after a heavy downpour, only two years before the Spanish Steps next to it were completed. A large niche took the place of the shrine, with a frame that once contained the saint's image. In 1967 the niche was restored and the sarcophagus was installed as a fountain, with three jets shooting water from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 5d

The babe, with a cry brief and dismal
Fell into the water baptismal.
Ere they'd gathered its plight
It had sunk out of sight -
For the depth of the font was abysmal.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 5d

On the last day, the mayor and city council throw two bound and gagged sacrificial tourists into the river, one man and one woman.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 5d

#FrescoFriday leads us into the dreary suburban sprawl of the #Portuense quarter in #Rome, where the delightful surprise of a #tomb with #fresco decoration awaits our discovery in the basement of a former supermarket, now a little museum. #AncientBluesky 🏺

FUNERARY FRESCO, 130-170 CE. TOMB A, DRUGSTORE MUSEUM

The chamber tomb of which this image shows a detail was hewn out of the tufo hill off the ancient via Campana-Portuensis and rediscovered in 1967 when an ugly apartment building was erected atop it. The tomb's original construction date was somewhere between 80 and 120 CE, and continued to be used for burials until around 230 CE. Sometime in the mid C2, frescoes of food were put into the niches, and holes were cut for libations to the spirits of the dead. Here we see three fish, two small red mullets at top and a sea bream at centre, against a white background. Food was a natural subject as it formed part of a major annual celebration of the dead, the Parentalia and Caristia. During the 9-day Parentalia which started on 13 February, food and wine were offered to the manes or departed souls of dead relatives, followed by the Caristia, a feast at the tomb on February 23.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 6d

So were the Goths just Goths from Gotland? Where were they from, what were they if not Germanic? I hope they were Finnish. "Yes, I live in Rome, but I consider my stay here as a sort of Gothic conquest."

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 6d

Not Germanic?

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 7d

😂

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 7d

For #ReliefWednesday we're in the small museum at the site of #Pompeii, where a rather wonderful #relief in #tufo (a friable stone that usually doesn't hold detail well) is on display after its temple was bombed into view during the Second World War. #AncientBluesky 🏺

PEDIMENT RELIEF, 250-200 BCE. POMPEII ANTIQUARIUM

This pediment in tufo comes from a temple discovered outside the main archaeological area of Pompeii, when an Allied bomb hit a hill near the church of S. Abbondio in the countryside nearby. It took the top off the hill and revealed the ruins of a small temple with an unusual banqueting area in front of it, on either side of the main stairs. It was a C3 BCE temple to Dionysus which was probably later rededicated to Liber, the Senate-sanctioned version of Dionysus whose cult was banned in 186 BCE. The relief, which bears traces of white paint, shows Dionysus at centre left, holding grapes as he reclines shoulder to shoulder with Aphrodite/Ariadne at centre right, who has lost her face. A thyrsus separates them at centre. At far left is a panther, and between it and the god is an almost vanished figure of Silenus. The female divinity is attended by an Eros and a goose or swan, and is lifting her veil seductively: an air of languid sex pervades the relief.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 8d

The Comune says yes, but a more reliable source would be a Magic 8-Ball.

a woman says " don 't count on it " while mixing something

Alt: A character from the sitcom "Friends" shakes a Magic 8-Ball and reads the result to her friends. "Don't count on it."

media.tenor.com

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 8d

The thing is, once the dress comes off and the saint sees whatever Chicken Lady stuff is going on underneath, the question of temptation disappears like a mirage. Unless he was into it, obviously.

a woman in a white wig is dancing in front of a comedy sign

Alt: The odd, off-putting Chicken Lady, clearly part chicken, in the throes of orgasm in a sketch from the Canadian comedy show The Kids in the Hall

media.tenor.com

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 8d

Oh the things we do for that sweet sweet Athenian love.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 8d

I'm well out of my comfort zone here, with this archaic Latin/Volscian/Faliscan? inscription with its duplicating syllables (Valesiosio), and I didn't address the possible interpretations of the first letters of the inscription, so please read this post as a distillation of the essential.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 8d

For #EpigraphyTuesday we're diving into the archaic past to find an #inscription from well outside #Rome that may be primary- source evidence of one of the two consuls who founded the #Roman Republic. The Latin might be Volscian and the #epigraphy is unclear. So buckle up, y'all. #AncientBluesky 🏺

LAPIS SATRICANUS, C7 BCE. BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN

[3 or 4 letters missing] IEISTETERAI POPLIOSIO VALESIOSIO / SVODALES MAMARTEI

This slab of tufo comes from the acropolis of the ancient town of Satricum, founded by the Latins according to Livy, but subsequently taken by the Volsci and then a military flashpoint between the Romans and the local tribes for much of the middle Republic. The town was destroyed twice, sparing only the temple of Mater Matuta. This stone slab was sliced from a monumental base, perhaps for a statue group, and reused in a late C6/early C7 BCE restoration of the foundations of the temple. The inscription has been the subject of lively debate, especially over the first letters. These two lines refer to the "suodales Mamartei" (=sodales Martis) or soldiers under one Poplios Valesios (=Publius Valerius in classical Latin) via the archaic genitive Popliosio Valesiosio. This may be P. Valerius Publicola, who, along with M. Junius Brutus, was one of the two first consuls of the Republic.

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