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The Caesareum at Cyrene and the Basilica at Cremna, with a note on the inscriptions of the Caesareum by J. M. Reynolds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

J. B. Ward Perkins  and
M. H. Ballance
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Extract

One of the most impressive surviving monuments of Roman rule in Africa is the Caesareum at Cyrené. It was excavated some thirty years ago by the Italian Archaeological Mission, led by the late Gaspare Oliverio, and skilfully restored some years later by the Superintendency of Antiquities for Libya; but owing to the other preoccupations of its original investigators and, subsequently to the accidents of war, it has remained substantially unpublished. Recently it has been the subject of comment by Erik Sjöqvist in his valuable study of the Kaisareion at Alexandria, published in the volume of the Acta of the Swedish Institute in Rome presented to Axel Boethius on his sixty-fifth birthday. The points raised by Sjöqvist are of considerable importance for the study both of the origins and of the later development of a rich field of Roman monumental architecture, and in the summer of 1956 the British School at Rome undertook limited supplementary excavations within the Caesareum with the specific purpose of clearing up some doubtful points of fact. The main purpose of the present article is to present the results of these excavations within the framework of a more detailed architectural description of the site than is at present available.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 26 , November 1958 , pp. 137 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1958

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References

1 Under the direction of Professor Giacomo Caputo. The architect responsible for the survey upon which the restoration is based was arch. Arrigo Buonomo, now Superintendent of Monuments for Ravenna.

2 Brief interim accounts appeared in Arch. Anz., 1938, c. 731 ff., and 1941, cc. 702–03; see also Romanelli, P., La Cirenaica Romana, Airoldi, 1943, pp. 90, 253Google Scholar; Perkins, J. B. Ward, Journal of Roman Studies, xxxviii, 1948, pp. 62–63Google Scholar; and most recently, Derek Buttle in Cyrenaican Expedition of the University of Manchester, 1952, Manchester University Press, 1956, pp. 33–34 (‘Forum of Proculus’).

3 Sjöqvist, Erik, ‘Kaisareion: a study in architectural iconography.’ Acta Instituti Romani Regni Sueciae, xviiiGoogle Scholar (= Opuscula Romana, i), 1954, pp. 86–108Google Scholar.

4 The survey upon which the illustrations in this article are based was undertaken in 1956 by Mr. and Mrs. C. I. Hobbis, revised and supplemented in 1958 by Mrs. Selina Tomlin, to all of whom the writer is deeply indebted; also to Mrs. Audrey Corbett, who made the original drawings for figs. 21–23. Much of the final drawing is the work of Mr. David Dickens; also Mrs. A. Rigby (fig. 13) and Mrs. Margaret Richards (figs. 15, 16). Our warm thanks are due to Mr. R. G. Goodchild, and to his assistants in the Department of Antiquities, for help and advice at every stage of the work.

5 Sjöqvist (op. cit. p. 98, n. 2) objects to the writer's previous use of the term ‘Forum’ in this context, since the building encloses a temple and should, therefore, rightly be called a temenos, not a forum. That the two terms are mutually exclusive is in fact questionable, cf. the contemporary Forum Iulium in the capital; but to avoid prejudging the significance of the building, it is perhaps wiser to use a neutral architectural term.

5a West of the south-west porch the set-back rises a course, to compensate for the gentle but steady rise in the street-level along this façade (see fig. 3).

6 The character of these pilasters has been falsified in the restoration of the south-west porch by showing them as capped by an independent moulding below the architrave block of the wal entablature (pl. XXX, a). In fact, it is quite clear at the west angle that they ran up to, and were capped by, an element projecting from the horizontal moulding immediately below the triglyphs.

7 In the restoration of the south-west porch, the character of these antae has been obscured by carrying the moulding that corresponds to the capitals of the inner porch-facade round the inner, south-west faces of the two piers. At this level they are, in fact, the broken outer ends of walls that stretched right across the portico above arch-height.

8 It is to be presumed that both porches were alike in this respect, although the sockets for the timbers are actually preserved only in the case of the south-west porch.

9 At this angle, only the lowest courses of the angle-pier survive, but the two outer walls have been re-erected to their full height and the masonry (most of it ancient) shows no trace of the sockets for the springing of the arches. It is difficult, however, to be sure, and one would certainly have expected the south and the west angles of the building to be treated uniformly in this respect.

10 For the profile of this base one is now dependent almost entirely on the restorations undertaken twenty years ago, before the excavated remains had disintegrated. Given the crumbling nature of the surviving remains, the present restored height of just under 8 m., including the capital, is bound also to be an approximation.

11 It is very likely that they projected from it as built-in half-columns. The masonry of the outer flank of the basilica apse now presents a shapeless, ragged face, the result partly of disintegration due to the uneven settlement of the apse foundations, partly of demolition in recent times, undertaken to facilitate the restoration of the Quadriporticus; it is certain, however, that the flank of the basilica was built right up to, and partly clasped, the angle pier. Two small doors in the outer north-west wall and a corresponding wall across the north-west portico date from late antiquity; but a small flight of steps up into what appears to have been a space (or staircase) behind the apse may well be an earlier feature.

12 An alternative solution, with a rounded external profile and somewhat lower roof, is suggested in the model that was prepared for the Mostra della Romanità of 1938 (pl. XXVII, c). There are several details of this model that require correction, e.g. the flat roof of the porticoes, the uniform pavement-level within the porches, the omission of pilasters from the facade on either side of the porches, and their inclusion in the outer south-east wall, opposite the ends of the basilica colonnades. The windows in this model are hypothetical; the clerestory lighting (if any) was probably far more widely spaced.

13 The vaulting is of the type illustrated and discussed by Ward Perkins in Rice, D. Talbot (ed.), The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors, vol. II, 1958, pp. 58–61Google Scholar.

14 Op. cit. (n. 3), p. 101.

15 The socket for such an arch can be seen in the north-west face of the north angle-pier; the north-east face is plain, i.e. there was no arch in this direction. At the corresponding point towards the east, neither the outer south-east wall, nor the east angle-pier of the colonnade is preserved to a sufficient height; but one may presume a symmetrical arrangement.

16 R. Murdoch Smith and E. A. Porcher, History of the Recent Discoveries at Cyrene, 1864, pp. 39–40.

17 ibid., p. 106. British Museum Catal. Sculpture, ii, 1900, nos. 1476, 1488.

18 I have to acknowledge with gratitude the help of Mr. R. G. Goodchild and Mr. J. B. Ward Perkins; and of all those whom I have pestered in Oxford and in Cambridge, especially Dr. S. Weinstock and Mr. A. G. Woodhead. J.M.R.

19 The blocks were discovered before the war by Italian excavators, who restored them, in what may 21 reasonably be taken to be their original positions, where they are inaccessible to close examination.

20 216.17 (see below, p. 177).

21 SEG, xi, 923, 28 ff.

22 Ditt. Syll. 3, 818.

23 CIL, iii, 10 (see also Sjöqvist, loc. cit., 99, wrongly). A further block was discovered before the war by Italian excavators, who restored it in its original position, where it is inaccessible to close examination.

24 Della Cella, , Viaggio da Tripoli di Barberia alle frontiere occidentali di Egitto, Genua, 1819, p. 141Google Scholar.

25 Pacho, , Relation d'un voyage dans la Marmarique, la Cyrénaique et les Oases d'Audjelah et de Maradia, Paris, 1827, p. 219, Pl. LXIIIGoogle Scholar.

26 CIL, xiv, 3576; IRT, 330, 331.

27 Inscr. Cret., iv, p. 328, no. 293.

28 Sjöqvist, loc. cit., has mistakenly printed an inscription from the Strategeion as that from the Caesareum. It is only the Strategeion text that is cut on an erased surface so that Sjöqvist's argument from the erasure to the earlier existence of the Caesareum is invalid. But the inscription in the Caesareum does prove the earlier existence of that building since it records its restoration.

29 Oliverio, G., Afr. Ital., iii, 1930, p. 198, fGoogle Scholar.

30 Polacco, L., Il Volto di Tiberio, Roma, 1955, p. 55Google Scholar.

31 Unpublished.

32 The edges have been cut away and the word praefectus is lost.

33 Romanelli, P., La Cirenaica Romana, Verbania, 1943, p. 192Google Scholar.

34 E.g. SEG, ix, 75, 99.

35 A reconstruction based on one block and a fragment was published by Applebaum, S., JRS xl, 1950, p. 90Google Scholar (the Latin text also in AE, 1951, no. 123). Various minor corrections can be made in the light of the more recent discoveries. It is to be noted that the ordinator did not attempt to secure a symmetrical effect at the line ends—11.1 and 4 especially extend well to the right of the rest. The letters are not monumental in size, although they are well shaped and cut; presumably the text stood near eye-level.

There are also three very similar fragments, two in Greek and one in Latin, probably giving parts of Hadrian's name and titles and possibly from a second copy: the Latin fragment has a moulding above.

36 Ghislanzoni, E., Notiz. Arch., ii, 1916, p. 207Google Scholar.

37 Published, but not quite correctly, by S. Applebaum, loc. cit., p. 89. Smallwood, E. M., JRS, xlii, 1952, p. 37Google Scholar, pointed out that the superscript bar above the figure giving Hadrian's consulate extended well to the left of the first surviving stroke, obviously in order to cover a preceding one.

38 For help with this identification I am indebted to Miss Evelyn Harrison.

39 So R. G. Goodchild (in a letter).

40 AE, 1946, no. 177.

41 S. Applebaum, loc. cit., p. 89.

42 ibid., p. 88, gives a reconstruction based on three fragments only.

42a Oliverio, G., Documenti Antichi dell' Africa Italiana, i (Cirenaica), 1933, pp. 181–182Google Scholar, no. 54. I owe this reference to Miss J. M. Reynolds.

43 Sterrett, J. R. S., “The Wolfe Expedition to Asia Minor,” Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, iii, 1884–1885, pp. 319–326Google Scholar; Lanckoronski, K., Niemann, G. and Petersen, E., Städte Pamphyliens u. Pisidiens, vol. ii, 1892, pp. 161–172Google Scholar.

44 Heurgon, J. in Mélanges a'Archéologie et d'Histoire, xlvii, 1930, p. 192, fig. 4Google Scholar.

45 Art. cit. (see note 3).

46 ibid. pp. 95–98.

47 Wace, A. J. B., Bulletin of the Faculty of Art, Farouk I university, iii, 1947, p. 2Google Scholar: …τὰ ἀγάλματακαὶ τὸν ναόν καὶ τ῾ἄλλα ἐντὸς ποũ τεμένους καὶ τὴν στοο[ὰ]ν …

48 Cited and discussed by Sjöqvist, art. cit., p. 90.

49 de legatione ad Gaium, 22, 150 f.

50 ILS, iii, 2, 9059. cf. also Mich. Pap. 766 (Classical Philology, xxii, 1927, page 429Google Scholar), an Alexandrian birth-certificate, dated A.D. 128: ‘descriptum et recognitum ex tabula professionum quibus liberi nati sunt quae tabula proposita erat in foro Aug(usti) …’

51 (ed. Dindorf) pp. 216, 17 ff.; 338, 19 ff. For a discussion of these passages, see Sjöqvist, art. cit., pp. 91–95; also Downey, Glanville, American Journal of Archaeology, xli, 1937, pp. 194–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar, some of whose conclusions now require modification,

52 I am indebted to Miss J. M. Reynolds and Mr. M. Frederiksen for many of these references.

53 art. cit., pp. 105–106. Both buildings were envisaged as early as 54 B.C. (Cicero, , ad Atticum, iv, 16, 8Google Scholar), but the plans were later extensively modified.

54 ibid., p. 108.

55 Naumann, R. and Kantar, S., ‘Die Agora von Smyrna,’ Istanbuler Forschungen, 17, 1950, pp. 69–114Google Scholar.

56 That these are the responding elements of an internal colonnade seems clear from the analogy of the identical pilasters (in this case opposite every second column) within the ‘Agora’ porticoes. Note also the obviously functional displacement of those at either end of the wall common to the two buildings.

57 Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 1940, pp. 237–249. M. Seyrig, in a recent letter, accepts the possibility that this building was the Caesareum of Palmyra, and points out that it was chosen as the site not only of a number of imperial statues but of the inscription giving the text of the well-known customs-edict (see Syria, xxii, 1941, pp. 155 ff.Google Scholar).

58 Mouterde, R., Syria, xii, 1931, p. 107Google Scholar: τεσσάρων άηδριάντων έν τῷ τετραδείῳ τῆς πόλεως έπὶ κειὸνων δημοσίοις άναλώμασι κατηξιωμένων.

59 The possible existence of an alternative name, Tetradeion, is no obstacle. Either name might have been applicable strictly to a part only of the monument and thence, by extension, to the whole; alternatively, like the Kaisareion (Sebasteion) at Alexandria it may have had both an official and a popular name.

60 Perkins, Ward, PBSR, xxii, 1954, pp. 76–77Google Scholar.

61 Perkins, Ward, Journal of Roman Studies, xxxviii, 1948, pp. 60–72Google Scholar; Proceedings of the British Academy, 1951, pp. 274–279.

62 IRT, 562, 566: forum (novum) Severianum. The basilica is nowhere explicitly named in the surviving texts, but figures by implication in the basilica vetus of IRT 467.

63 Lanckoronski, K., Städte Pamphyliens und Pisidiens, i, Vienna, 1890, pp. 96–98Google Scholar.

64 Caputo, G., Quaderni di Archcologia della Libia, i, 1950, pp. 7–28Google Scholar; Perkins, Ward, Reports and Monographs of the Department of Antiquities in Tripolitania, ii, 1949, p. 23Google Scholar. Also, now, Lucus Feroniae.