The Seuso Treasure: Misdirection, Mayhem, and Murder Most Foul

In 1980, two magnificent pieces of Roman silver serving pieces dating from the late 4th to early 5th century CE were offered for sale in London by two antiquities' dealers from Vienna. Documentation supplied by the Lebanese embassy in Switzerland claimed a treasure hoard that included the two pieces had been found in the Tyre and Sidon regions of Lebanon. The complete hoard was subsequently acquired by a consortium headed by the 7th Marquess of Northhampton who then attempted to negotiate a sale to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles for $10 million. At that time, the Getty Museum had been recently endowed with the complete fortune of J. Paul Getty, who had died in 1976 and was aggressively expanding its collections. But when the deal fell through, the treasure was put up for sale in New York in 1990 by Sotheby's. That sale was halted when documentation was determined to be suspect. Soon the governments of Hungary, Yugoslavia and Lebanon each made claims of ownership. Hungarian authorities claim that the treasure was discovered by a young soldier, József Sümegh, in around 1975–76 near the town of Polgárdi in central Hungary. Sümegh's dead body was found in a nearby cellar in 1980. Although the official investigation at the time determined that he had committed suicide, later the police came to the conclusion that he had been murdered. (As of 2012, the murder had not been solved).

Yugoslavia's case was based on claims that the treasure had been originally found on 30 June 1960, in the village of Barbariga in Istria (present-day Croatia). The village is some 20 kilometres north of the city of Pula, an important city in Roman times. According to local witnesses, the treasure had been discovered in old trenches in a nearby Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) compound.[9] In the 1980s the JNA gave permission to local archeologists, led by Vesna Girardi-Jurkić, to further excavate the site. According to unconfirmed eyewitness reports of army excavations, the 14 known artefacts were only a small part of a much larger treasure trove as it took soldiers and police brought to the site six days to list all the items found at the site. However, very few details of the project were ever released to the public as the alleged site was entirely within a military area closed off to civilians.[9] Yugoslav archaeologists' efforts eventually failed to provide any conclusive evidence for the treasure's origin, although the soil residue found on the artefacts was proved to match the samples of soil from the area. After the breakup of Yugoslavia the newly independent Croatia pressed on with the case and included the results of the soil analysis in its formal ownership claim to a New York court.

In November 1993, the New York Court of Appeals rejected the claims, and found no case for removing it from the possession of the Marquess of Northampton. Meanwhile, the Marquess sued his solicitors for their failure to properly research the treasure's provenance and the Marquess was awarded £15 million in damages. In September 2006, London auctioneer Bonhams announced that it would exhibit the treasure privately, in a move seen as a prelude to a sale by private treaty or by auction at a future date. The Ministry of Education and Culture of Hungary, formally challenged any sale. In March 2007, The Art Newspaper reported that a further "187 silvergilt spoons, 37 silvergilt drinking cups, and 5 silver bowls", previously unknown, but part of the original hoard, were reputed to exist. Research presented in February 2008 by the Hungarian archaeologist Zsolt Visy strengthened the view that the origin of the treasure may be the Lake Balaton region of Hungary, evidenced by the presence of an inscription on the "Hunting Plate" reading "Pelso," the Roman name for Lake Balaton in Hungary, just west of the alleged place of discovery. Archaeologists also pointed to the discovery in 1873 of a Roman quadripod with very similar decoration near the lake. The similarities in workmanship and motif was so striking, archaeologists said it was very likely created by the same workshop.

The Roman occupation of what would become the Roman Province of Pannonia began under Octavian in 35-34 BCE following a series of campaigns he conducted against the Illyrians. Localized rebelliions cropped up periodically thereafter until the Dalmatian-Pannonian Revolt erupted in 6 CE, lasting for four brutal years. One of the rebel leaders, Batone the Dalmatian, captured by Tiberius, blamed the Romans for the unrest saying "You are responsible for this war, because in defense of your flocks you send wolves instead of dogs and shepherds, as custodians ." After ultimate Roman victory, the region was divided into Pannonia Inferior and Superior under the administrataion of a legatus Augusti pro praetor at the head of 3 legions: VIII Augusta , VIIII Hispana and XV Apollinaris.

Pannonia ultimately became a productive province of the Roman Empire, especially after the great forests were cleared by Probus and Galerius. Before that time, timber was one of its major exports along with oats, barley, and a kind of beer named sabaea. It was also famous for a breed of hunting dogs. Although no mention is made of its mineral wealth by the ancients, it is probable that it contained iron and silver mines, perhaps the source for the objects of the Seuso Treasure. By the late fourth century, though, the Quadi, in a coalition with the Marcomanni and Sarmatians plundered Pannonia. The initial raids were stemmed by Constantius II but another Quadi incursion in 374 CE forced Valentianian I to lead retaliatory campaigns in the region. By the beginning of the 5th century, Pannonia was no longer secure, exposed regularly to Gothic and Hun raids. The wealthy Seuso probably buried his hoard of silver during this period where it lay undiscovered for almost 1500 years.

Finally, on March 26, 2014 the Hungarian prime minister announced that seven items from the Seuso Treasure were being returned to Hungary upon the payment of €15 million. Then on July 12, 2017 Hungary announced another seven pieces would be repatriated. The Treasure is now on display at the Hungarian National Museum.

All images courtesy of the Hungarian National Museum.

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Death of a Hero: Meleager in Ancient Roman Art

 Meleager's body born away on a Roman sarcophagus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Meleager was a Calydonian prince as the son of Althaea and the vintner, King Oeneus, although in some versions of the myth, the god Ares. Like a number of mythological heroes, Meleager was fated to die young by the Moirai (the Fates) who predicted he would only live until a piece of wood, burning in the family hearth, was consumed by fire. Overhearing them, his mother, Althaea, immediately doused the hearth and hid wood.

When Meleager grew to manhood, his father, King Oeneus, ordered Meleager to gather up heroes from all over Greece to hunt the Calydonian Boar that had been terrorizing the area and rooting up the vinyards needed for the production of his father's wines. The boar was actually sent as a punishment by Artemis after King Oenus neglected to honor Artemis at a festival he held to honor other gods. In addition to the heroes his father named, Meleager also asked Atalanta, a fierce hunter who had been abandoned as an infant and raised by a bear, to participate as well.

Atalanta had taken an oath of virginity to the goddess Artemis but Meleager lusted after her even though he was already married. The other heroes, however, were angry that Meleager had invited a woman to join them. During the course of the hunt, two centaurs, Hyleus and Rhaecus tried to rape Atalanta and they were killed. They were the first to die in the bloodbath that would follow the death of the boar. Atalanta wounded the boar then Meleager dispatched it with his spear. But, Meleager awarded Atalanta the hide since she had drawn the first drop of blood.

Meleager's uncles, the brothers of his mother Althaea, became enraged and attempted to wrest the hide from Atalanta. Meleager jumped to her defense and ended up killing his uncles. When Meleager's mother heard how Meleager had killed her brothers, she snatched up the log she had hidden away all those years ago and cast it upon the fire and Meleager died, as prophesied by the Fates.

In art, the story of the Calydonian boar hunt first appeared on Greek pottery in the 6th century BCE. It remained popular into Roman times and the death of the hero is depicted on several extant marble sarcophagi and sculptures of the second century CE as well an intricately fashioned silver plate of the late 4th century CE found with the much contested Seuso Treasure originally claimed to have been found in Lebanon but in 2008 claimed to be Hungarian by archaeologists pointing to an inscription on the "Hunting Plate", that reads "Pelso", the Roman name for Lake Balaton.

I am always a bit unsettled by the dichotomous nature of Greek heroes. Meleager's story is peppered with the usual mythological aspects of noble lineage and dire prophesy but the tale of one of his main accomplishments, the Calydonian Boar Hunt, is, in the most popular version, really the story of an man overcome with lust for a woman he could not possess and his misdirected passion was so great he slew members of his own family. His defense of Atalanta appears to be very self-serving and not an intervention to protect a "weak" woman. Some versions of the myth even portray him as the actual father of Parthenopeus, Atalanta's son supposedly by Hippomenes, who won the famous footrace and was awarded Atalanta's hand in marriage. (Pathenopeus went on to become one of the famous "Seven Against Thebes.")

Like Achilles, Meleager's death was famous and perhaps that aspect alone warranted his depiction on Roman sarcophagi. Perhaps the deceased was a skilled hunter and that was the attribute being celebrated. But, some background information may shed a slightly different light on the hero's actions, though. Meleager's mother, Althea, was married to Oeneus to help settle a blood feud that had probably gone on for generations. While his uncles came to help with the boar, there still would have been a lot of tension between the Calydonians and Althaea's brothers. In an alternate version of the myth, the quarrel over the prize led to a new war between Curetes and Calydon. This put Meleager in a terrible position, as he had relatives on both sides. Without his leadership, Calydon was on the verge of losing. His wife, Cleopatra, appealed to Meleager to save the city. However, while leading Calydon, he killed his uncles. As a result, his mother cursed him and possibly burned the ill-fated stick of the Fates, condemning him to death by the Erinyes as revenge for his killing of blood relatives. The second version of Meleager's death would at least retain a modicum of its heroic nature. But which version was embraced by Romans decorating their sarcophagi is not known. Of course the distasteful aspects of marital infidelity and lust woven into the popular version of the myth would not necessarily have been viewed adversely by Roman males, whose extramarital philandering was usually tolerated, although their women (including Julius Caesar's) needed to be above suspicion for the preservation of family lineage.

Death of Meleager on a Roman sacophagus photographed at The Louvre, 

The Calydonian Boar hunt on a sarcophagus at The Capitoline Museum, courtesy of Wikimedia contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen

 A sculpture of Meleager and one of his hunting hounds, Roman copy of Greek Skopas original 340-330 BCE at the Antikensammlung in Berlin 

The "Hunting Plate" of the Seuso Treasure courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Elekes Andor.

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