Julia Domna and the Severan Prophecy

Julia Domna was born in Emesa (present-day Homs) in Roman Syria, the youngest daughter of the high priest of Baal, Julius Bassianus. The family had enormous wealth and was promoted to Roman senatorial aristocracy. Before her marriage, Domna also inherited the estate of her paternal great-uncle, Julius Agrippa, a former leading centurion. 

In 187 CE, she married Severus, who at the time was governor of the Roman province of Gallia Lugdunensis. The Augustan History relates that, after losing his first wife around 186 CE, Septimius Severus heard a prophesy of a woman in Syria who would marry a king. So Severus sought out Domna from one of Syria's most prominent families as his wife.

As empress, Domna was famous for her political, social, and philosophical influence. She received titles such as "Mother of the Invincible Camps" because, unlike most imperial wives, Domna remarkably accompanied her husband on his military campaigns and stayed in camp with the army. After the elder of her sons, Caracalla, started ruling with his father, she was briefly co-empress with Caracalla's wife, Fulvia Plautilla, until the latter fell into disgrace. Following the death of Severus in 211, Domna became the first empress dowager to receive the title combination "Pia Felix Augusta", which may have implied greater powers being vested in her than what was usual for a Roman empress mother. 

Domna is said to have committed suicide in 217 CE upon hearing of her son Caracalla's assassination in the course of his campaign against Parthia, on which she had accompanied him as far as Antioch (present-day Antakya, Turkey).

Image: A Severan Period mold-made lamp, 2nd century CE, terracotta, at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Villa).  This unusual moldmade lamp depicts  a woman dressed in a long-sleeved garment standing next to a truncated column, playing a harp, which leans on her shoulder. Her hairdo is similar to a style worn by Empress Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus . The Filling-hole is on top of the instrument and the wick-hole pierces its base. 

 

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Africans in Greek and Roman Art

 The Bronze Age Minoans of Crete were probably the first Greeks to come into contact with Ethiopians, a Greek name meaning those with "burnt" faces.  The tomb of Rekhmire, governor of Thebes and vizier during the reigns of the pharaohs Thutmosis III and Amenhotep II, circa 1400 BCE, includes one of the earliest depictions of both African and Aegean peoples, thought to be Nubians and Minoans.  However, the collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age severed Greek connections with Egypt and even the Near East.

Trade between the Greeks and the northern periphery of Africa finally resumed in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE including the establishment of trading centers along the Nile and at Cyrene on the northern coast of Africa. Then depictions of Africans began to appear in Aegean art.

All black Africans were known as Ethiopians to the ancient Greeks, as the fifth-century BCE historian Herodotus tells us, with their black skin color being the primary identifying physical characteristic. The black glaze central to Athenian vase painting was ideally suited for representing black skin and archaeologists have also recovered black African comic masks used in the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

By the 4th century BCE, Ethiopians were regularly featured in Greek vase painting, especially on the highly decorative red-figure vases produced by the Greek colonies in Magna Graecia, although depictions of Ethiopians in scenes of everyday life were still rare.  However, after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, knowledge of Nubia became more widespread as Greeks and Africans lived together in metropolitan centers like Alexandria.

As a result, African imagery in Greek art expanded  and Ethiopians were frequently depicted as athletes and entertainers. African artisans became subjects of artwork, too,  as well as some African slaves captured during wartime or through piracy.  Images of "Ethiopians" began to appear on gold jewelry and fine bronze statuettes like the one included here from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Read more about it and view additional artifacts at:

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/afrg/hd_afrg.htm

Bronze lamp in the shape of a Nubian head Pompeii Roman 1st century CE that I photographed at "Pompeii: The Exhibition" at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, Oregon.

Roman portrait of a man with African attributes carved with a turned head and redirected gaze in the style of Caracalla 230-240 CE photographed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Bronze lamp in the shape of a Nubian head found near the Porta Nola in Pompeii Roman 1st century CE that I photographed at "Pompeii: The Exhibit" at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington.

Head of a Man with tight, curly hair, Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 100 BCE Marble that I photographed at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York.

Terracotta vase in the form of a sleeping African boy Cypriot 3rd-2nd century BCE from Cyprus that I photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Terracotta vase combining the distinctive neck of the Shape VII oinochoe with a naturalistic head of a young black-African boy Etruscan 4th century BCE  that I photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Terracotta vase with janiform heads (left) and terracotta mug in the form a black African boy's head Etruscan late 4th century BCE that I photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Head of a Young Roman Boy probably from North Africa 150-200 CE Marble that I photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Bronze statuette of an African (known as Ethiopian) youth, 3rd–2nd century BCE courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The distinctive garment is characteristic of artisans, especially those working in the heat of a foundry, forge, or brazier. If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Eros, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest with his glittering wings, depicted on a bronze lamp holder, 1st century BCE, at the Dallas Museum of Art

 Eros, the Greek god of love, is shown as a beautiful youth with both male and female characteristics. The figure was originally part of a lamp holder and would have had an oil lamp on the tendril he holds in an outstretched hand. The sculpture shares in the expressive, dynamic qualities of later Greek Hellenistic art; it appears to be flying on the beautifully detailed wings. The lamp from which the figure came was probably made in the eastern Mediterranean for a wealthy house or villa in Italy. The bronze has been associated with a trove of Greek luxury goods recovered from an ancient shipwreck near the town of Mahdia on the coast of Tunisia. - Anne Bromberg, Dallas Museum of Art.

A cult of Eros existed in pre-classical Greece, but it was much less important than that of Aphrodite. However, in late antiquity, Eros was worshiped by a fertility cult in Thespiae. In Athens, he shared a very popular cult with Aphrodite, and the fourth day of every month was sacred to him (also shared by Herakles, Hermes and Aphrodite). The Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries portrayed Eros as the child of Night (Nyx).  Influenced by Orphism, 5th century BCE playwright Aristophanes described his birth:

  "At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night (Nyx), Darkness (Erebus), and the Abyss (Tartarus). Earth, the Air and Heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Darkness, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Love (Eros) with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in the deep Abyss with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light."

Images: Eros, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest with his glittering wings, depicted on a bronze lamp holder, 1st century BCE, that I photographed at the Dallas Museum of Art.

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Oil Lamps: Bringing Light To The Ancient World

Cross post from my blog "Antiquities Exhibits." The first manufactured red pottery oil lamps appeared during the Chalcolithic Age (4500-3300 BCE. These were of the round bowl type. These evolved into wheel-made lamps during the Bronze Age (3200-1200 BCE). These lamps were essentially a shallow bowl with slight pinches on four sides for the wick and featured little or no decoration. In the Iron Age (1200-560 BCE) lamp rims became wider and flatter with a deeper and higher spout and shapes began to vary. Lamps also became more closed to avoid spilling.

During the early Roman period, molds were used to produce lamps in large scale factories. The lamp was produced in two parts, the upper part with the spout and the lower part with the fuel chamber. Most were round with nozzles of different forms (volute, semi-volute, U shaped), with a closed body and with a central disk decorated with reliefs and its filling hole. However, more simple factory-made lamps, known as Firmalampen, made in factories in Northern Italy and Southern Gaul between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE featured a channeled nozzle, plain discus, and 2 or 3 bumps on the shoulder, and were exported to the provinces.

 By the early imperial period, lamps sported spiral, scroll-like ornaments (volutes) extending from their nozzles, a wide discus, a narrow shoulder and no handle, elaborate imagery and artistic finishing, as well as a wide range of patterns of decoration. A regional lamp in the shape of a frog was exclusively produced in Egypt between c. 100 and 300 CE. The frog (Heqet) is an Egyptian fertility symbol. By the late Roman period , lamps known as the high imperial type with multiple nozzles began to appear. However, lamps produced for the masses were characterized by wider shoulders, but with a smaller discus and fewer decorations. The lamps still had handles but featured short plain nozzles with less overall artistic finishing. By the Byzantine period, slipper-shaped, highly decorated oil lanterns became more widely used and the use of multiple-nozzles continued.

Roman bronze oil lamp 1st - 2nd century BCE photographed at the British Museum in London.

Bronze lamp in the shape of a Nubian head in the collections of the Museo Archaeologico di Napoli in Naples, Italy photographed at "Pompeii: The Exhibit" at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

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