D.M. Bailey, Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum, vol.2 - Roman Lamps (London, 1980).

D.M. Bailey, A Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum, vol. 3 - Roman Provincial Lamps (London, 1988). 

J. Shaya, “The Public Life of Monuments: The Summi Viri of the Forum of Augustus”, American Journal of Archaeology 117, 2013, 83-110.

2012.09

Roman Lamp

Purchased in Syria and on loan from Emeritus Professor Graeme Clarke 

Length 9cm; width 8.5cm; height 2.5cm

Lamp body intact but nozzle missing; some cracking extending from nozzle break. Mould-made discoid lamp, concave discus depicting Aeneas in short tunic leading his son Ascanius with right hand and carrying his father Anchises on left shoulder. Flat base. 

From the early Imperial period onwards, Roman lamps were frequently moulded with relief scenes on the concave upper surface (the discus). The scene of the significant mythological figure Aeneas fleeing from Troy was a popular choice. Virgil (Aeneid 2.946-1009) vividly describes the flight of Aeneas from Troy with his father on his shoulder and his son clutching his right hand, and this configuration was a common composition on lamps manufactured throughout the Roman Empire from the first to the third century AD (D.M. Bailey, Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum, vol. 2 (London, 1980) 40). 

Lamp manufacturers of this period were not generally artistically innovative and tended to model lamp scenes on existing art in other media. D.M. Bailey proposes that lamp depictions of Aeneas’s flight were undoubtedly influenced by a sculptural grouping of Aeneas with Anchises and Ascanius displayed in the Forum of Augustus (Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum, vol. 2 (London, 1980) 6 and 40). The sculpture depicted Aeneas leading Ascanius with his right hand and carrying Anchises on his left shoulder. Provincial lamp makers often copied the designs of lamps made in Italy, so the trio of figures perhaps first appeared on lamps manufactured closer to Rome. For an example of another provincial lamp with a composition very similar to the present item, see D.M. Bailey, A Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum, vol. 3 (London, 1988) 161 and pl. 3, no. 1531.

For an interesting comparison, see the denarius of Julius Caesar (1974.06) depicting Aeneas with Anchises on his shoulder. Ascanius is absent but the hero holds another element that is common in scenes of the flight from Troy, the palladium. The palladium was a guardian statue of the goddess Minerva (Athena) in full battle dress. Representations of Aeneas saving his family and/or this sacred object emphasise his piety. See 1974.06 for a discussion of the Aeneas statue grouping in the Forum of Augustus, and of the way the Aeneas myth was used politically by Roman emperors. See also an instructive survey in J. Shaya, “The Public Life of Monuments: The Summi Viri of the Forum of Augustus”, American Journal of Archaeology 117, 2013, 83-110.

On loan from Emeritus Professor Graeme Clarke (received 9 March 2012)