the pompeii calendar medallions

The Pompeii Calendar MedallionsAuthor(s): Charlotte R. LongSource: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 96, No. 3 (Jul., 1992), pp. 477-501Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/506069 .

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The Pompeii Calendar Medallions

CHARLOTTE R. LONG

Abstract

The 18 calendar medallions from Pompeii now in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples are placed in their original order on the basis of the 1760 excavation accounts. The series began on the left wall with the weekday gods probably followed by the signs of the zodiac. The Olympians as patrons of the months and the zodiac occupied the center of the composition on the back wall and were immediately succeeded by the seasons and months, beginning with Spring on the back wall and continuing along the right wall. Thus, the gods presided over the orderly progress of the year both in heaven and on earth. The subject matter of the individual medallions is related to south Italy and Rome of the late Republican and Augustan eras. The program may have been devised for some building sponsored by Augustus such as the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera on the Aventine.*

THE DISCOVERY

On 26 April 1760, in his weekly report on the excavations at Pompeii, Karl Weber mentioned the

discovery in situ of four strips of painted medallions.'

According to the scholarly account published by the Accademia Ercolanese d'Archeologia that same year, the medallions were situated in a band around the walls of a room approximately six palms (or about 1.50 m) above the floor.2 The room was otherwise painted a uniform yellow color. The greater part of the medallions had either lost their colors or had themselves been lost together with the wall surface. Weber seems to have listed the strips in the order in which the workmen encountered them as they dug along the walls: first a set of three contiguous medallions (October, November, and Winter Hora), then a

single one (Autumn Satyr), another single (Liber/ March), and finally a band of six contiguous medallions of which two were poorly preserved (one probably being Diana), two had flower wreaths (Spring Hora and Satyr), and two a "dagger at the chest"

(Jupiter and Juno, who hold scepters). This news brought Camillo Paderni out from the

Royal Museum to decide which should be cut out of the walls, as Weber duly reported on 2 May.3 Paderni

* My warm thanks to F. Zevi and E. Pozzi, both of whom while serving as Soprintendenti della Soprintendenza Ar- cheologica delle Province di Napoli e Caserta in 1981 and 1989 enabled me to examine and photograph the medallions as well as related material in the Museo Nazionale Archeo- logico di Napoli and to the staff of the museum. I am grateful as well to S. De Caro, current Soprintendente, who supplied photographs of the medallions. My research was greatly facilitated by the staff of Freiberger Library of Case Western Reserve University, the library of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Special Collections of Kent State University Library. J. Neils kindly examined the photographs with me and confirmed some of my identifications. I would like especially to thank AJA's anonymous readers, whose astute comments have improved the article, and my daughter, Sally Long Stambaugh, for retyping the entire article with revi- sions.

I have used the following abbreviations for frequently cited works: Crawford M.H. Crawford, Roman Republican

Coinage (Cambridge 1974). Hanfmann G.M.A. Hanfmann, The Season Sarco-

phagus in Dumbarton Oaks (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 2, Cambridge 1951).

Helbig, W. Helbig, Wandgemilde der vom Vesuv Wandgemilde verschiitteten Stadte Campaniens (Leip-

zig 1868). Long C.R. Long, The Twelve Gods of Greece

and Rome (EPRO 107, Leiden 1987). PAH G. Fiorelli ed., Pompeianarum antiquita-

tum historia (Naples 1860).

Parrish D. Parrish, The Season Mosaics of Roman North Africa (Archaeologica 46, Rome 1984).

PdE Le pitture antiche d'Ercolano e contorni incise con qualche spiegazione II (Le antichit& di Ercolano esposte, Naples 1760).

Reinach S. Reinach, Rgpertoire de peintures grecques et romains (Paris 1922).

Schefold, WP K. Schefold, Die Wdnde Pompejis. Topo- graphisches Verzeichnis der Bildmotive (Berlin 1957).

1 PAH I.i.106-107 (26 April 1760). The relevant por- tions of Weber's reports are transcribed as appendix no. 2. Weber was a subaltern engineer, assistant to Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre, who was in charge of the excavations on behalf of the King of the Two Sicilies. Weber made up his reports from the lists of finds submitted by the workmen. Consequently the descriptions leave much to be desired, but Weber recorded the dimensions carefully and indicated the order in which the sections of medallions were found. I thank an anonymous reader for AJA for providing addi- tional information on Weber and his colleagues, Paderni and Canart.

2 PdE 257 n. 1, pl. 50, here transcribed as appendix no. 3. The 18th-century accounts give measurements in Nea- politan palms and once: 12 once comprise 1 palm, and 1 palm measures 0.2513 m in length. Information courtesy of an anonymous reader for AJA.

Camillo Paderni was a painter and engraver who served as curator of the royal antiquities.

American Journal of Archaeology 96 (1992) 477



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Fig. 1. 1760 engraving of Pompeii calendar medallions. (From PdE, pl. 50)

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1992] THE POMPEII CALENDAR MEDALLIONS 479

chose 10 of the 11 medallions, the five in the first three strips and five of the six on the fourth, ordering that the latter be cut as two pairs (Spring Hora and

Satyr, Jupiter and Juno) and a single (probably Diana). That same week the diggers, continuing along another wall of the yellow room, uncovered a well-

preserved band of seven contiguous medallions (the weekday gods). Weber also reported finding another

painting showing a "woman playing the harp with both hands." He did not, however, state that this was another bust in a medallion nor even that it was found in the room with the medallions.

The following week, as Weber reported on 10 May, Canart's assistants cut out eight pieces of plaster from the walls comprising 18 medallions.4 Before the end of the year, the eight pieces had been combined in four frames just as they are now exhibited, had been numbered CMXCII-CMXCV, and published in the second volume of paintings of the Accademia with an

engraving (pl. 50, here fig. 1) on which it was carefully indicated which medallions had been cut out together and which separately.

The room in which the medallions had been

painted was refilled immediately and its exact location lost. We know, however, that the excavation took place on the farm (masseria) of Diego Cuomo adjacent to the Irace farm.5 Hence Helbig placed it on the south- west side of the Strada (Via) Consolare, and Schefold in VI Insula Occidentalis.6 On the map of Pompeii recently published by Eschebach, entry 31 on the Via Consolare is identified as the masseria of Cuomo.7 This is a thermopolium, an unlikely location for paintings of the quality of these. More recently H.B. Van der Poel has identified one area excavated in 1760 as the Casa della Diana (VII.6.1-4), an atrium-style house on the Strada (Via) delle Terme, southeast of VI Insula Occidentalis and west of the Forum baths.8

Unfortunately the excavation in this house took place in July 1760 whereas the medallions, as we have seen, were found in late April and early May of that year.

For the present, the exact location of the yellow room remains a mystery, but the medallions themselves may offer some clues to its solution.

Obviously, much information that would be helpful was not recorded. We are not told the dimensions of the room nor provided with its plan, nor do we learn the exact placement of the extant medallions. No mention is made of anything else that might have been found in the room. We do not know the rela-

tionship, if any, between the room with the painted medallions and the entranceway, presumably on the Via Consolare, where Paderni recorded a campaign appeal.9

Weber lists 18 medallions found in the room, 11 uncovered the first week, from which Paderni selected 10 to be cut out for the Royal Museum, plus the seven

weekday gods. On 10 May, however, he reported that 18 had actually been cut out, which must be the set now in the National Archaeological Museum in Na-

ples. The 18th of these, probably the one depicting Vulcan, was certainly found in the same room as the others. Both Diana and Vulcan are identical with the other medallions in size, frame, and background colors and were mounted and published with them in 1760.

Of these two medallions, Vulcan is much better

preserved than Diana and also than Jupiter, who is

securely placed in the strip of six. Hence it appears that Diana must be the "scarcely recognizable" single medallion from the strip of six and that Vulcan was found elsewhere in the room. It seems unlikely that Vulcan could be the "woman draped in a mantle

playing a harp with both hands." Quite apart from the incompatible description, this painting was said to be 1 palm by 10 once (44 x 21 cm) whereas the single medallions measured uniformly 1 palm 2 once (29.3 cm) square. In any case, Vulcan had been uncovered

by the time the medallions were cut out. Presumably he belongs somewhere in the series between the strip of six and the set of the weekday gods.

4 Joseph Canart was a sculptor in Portici. He served as conservator of the finds and in this capacity was responsible for mounting the plaster pieces in frames. On the process used, see M.P. Rossignani, "Saggio sui restauri settecenteschi ai dipinti di Ercolano e Pompei," Contributi dell'Istituto de

Archeologia (Milan) 1 (1967) 7-134 (reference courtesy of an anonymous reader for AJA).

5 PAH I.i.108 (2 May 1760) = appendix no. 2; PAH I.ii, Addenda iv. 140 (2 May 1760) = appendix no. 1.

6 Helbig, Wandgemdilde 200, 481; Schefold, WP 161. Hel- big 30, 67, and 73 gives the location more precisely as masseria (farm) of Cuomo, probably on south side of Strada Consolare.

7 H. Eschebach, Die stidtebauliche Entwicklung des antiken

Pompeji (RM-EH 17, Heidelberg 1970) 135 and folding plan plus excerpt on plan 2. Neither this entry nor entry 33, which Eschebach identifies as the masseria of Irace, appears on the plan by the La Vega brothers that purportedly shows the areas excavated between 1748 and 1763: H.B. Van der Poel, Corpus Topographicum Pompeianum V: Cartography (Rome 1981) plan between 116 and 117.

8 Van der Poel (supra n. 7) V, 113; II: Toponymy (Rome 1983) 282.

9 PAH I.i.107-108 (2 May 1760) = appendix no. 2; CIL IV, 1167 soliciting votes for Gavius Rufus, candidate for duumvir. Since Weber does report epigraphical material of this sort, we can assume that he found no traces of calendars or labels with the medallions.



480 CHARLOTTE R. LONG [AJA 96

THE MEDALLIONS

As reported in 1760, the extant medallions were

painted on a yellow background. They have a uniform interior diameter of 22 cm, matching yellow frames with a fictive beaded molding, and each contains a bust set against a blue ground. On two of the original pieces of plaster, to the right of Vulcan and to the

right of the Winter Hora, there are traces of painted decoration that might be part of the rim of an adjacent medallion. Otherwise Canart's assistants cut out or trimmed the plaster so close to the edges of the medallions that all indications of the original setting have been lost. By the juxtaposition of the medallions on the plaster or their separation, however, some indication of the original arrangement has survived. I shall consequently present the medallions for the most

part in the order in which they were first listed by Weber. I begin, however, with the weekday gods because they are the best preserved, best known, and form a complete unit in themselves.

The Weekday Gods1' This group (figs. 2a-2c) was immediately recog-

nized as the gods of the days of the week and has since attracted attention as their earliest extant rep- resentation." The gods are uniformly lighted from the left. In accordance with the system outlined by Dio Cassius 37.18, they begin with Saturn.'2

Saturn. The god's head is turned three-quarters right (fig. 2a, left). His hair and beard are streaked with white. On his head he wears a yellow skullcap, and he has a yellow mantle draped over both shoulders. Though damaged, his falx or harpe, a curved

iron sickle set with long teeth or spikes and notched at the end, can be discerned at the left side of the medallion.

This type of Saturn with short, curly hair and beard is found on Roman denarii of the early first century B.C. together with a similar toothedfalx. 3 At Pompeii and in the sets of the weekday gods Saturn usually has his head covered or veiled by a fold of his mantle, but cups found in Wettingen and Mainz show him bareheaded as on the Roman coins, and a fragment of a parapegma or peg calendar in Trier provides him with a cap.'4

Saturn's falx with its concave tip and teeth may be

compared to the falx messoria used for harvesting grain as identified by K.D. White.'15 A specimen from

Pompeii has a slightly concave tip that could be ex-

aggerated into the form shown in the Pompeii medallion.'6 A second kind of sickle, the falx veruculata, is known only from Columella's De Re Rustica 2.20.3, which was published in the mid-first century A.C.'7 Columella described this as a widely used implement that might be rostrata (beaked) or denticulata (toothed). These terms precisely fit the implement depicted in the Pompeii medallion. Thus, Saturn seems to be provided with an Italian sickle actually in use at the time when the medallions were painted.

Sol. The youthful god gazes upward (fig. 2a, center) with his head turned three-quarters left toward Sat- urn. The nimbus behind his head is white with a

yellow rim, pierced by pairs of rays streaming from his golden curls. He is nude but for a reddish scarf over his right arm and has a whip against his left shoulder.

10 Naples, MN 9519. " A. Ribau, PAH I.ii., Addenda iv.140 (2 May 1760) =

appendix no. 1; PdE 257-61, pl. 50; Helbig, Wandgemoilde, 200 no. 1005; RE 14 (1912) 2547-78, esp. 2574, s.v. Heb- domas (F. Boll); F.H. Colson, The Week. An Essay on the Origin and Development of the Seven-Day Cycle (Cambridge 1926, repr. Westport 1974) 32; P. Meyboom, "Un monument 6nigmatique 'Dusan Sacrum' a Pouzzoles," in M.B. de Boer and T.A. Edridge eds., Hommages a MaartenJ. Vermaseren II (EPRO 68, Leiden 1978) 782-90, esp. 786 n. 25, pl. 162; LIMC II (1984) 505-80, esp. 541 no. 319, s.v. Ares/Mars (E. Simon); IV (1988) 592-625, esp. 610 no. 270, s.v. Helios/ Sol (C. Letta).

12 Colson (supra n. 11) 43-45; RE 40 (1950) 2017-185, esp. 2143-47, s.v. Planeten (W. and H. Gundel); R. Beck, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mith- ras (EPRO 109, Leiden 1988) 8-9, n. 21. The order of the planets in their supposed distance from the earth was Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. If Saturn is taken as the god of the first hour of the first day of the week and the planets are rotated in this order through the 24 hours of the day for a week, then the god of the first hour of the second day will be Sol, of the first hour of the third day Luna, of the first hour of the fourth day Mars, etc. Thus, whenever the deities for whom the planets were named are

arranged in this order, they represent the weekday gods. 13 Crawford no. 330/1, pl. 42; J.P.C. Kent, Roman Coins

(New York 1978) no. 37. Issued by the quaestors Piso and Caepio, Rome 100 B.C.; Crawford no. 349/1, pl. 46. Issued by L. and C. Memmius Gal., Rome 87 B.C.

14 For representations of the weekday gods see F.J. D61- ger, "Die Planetenwoche der griechisch-r6mischen Antike und der christliche Sonntag," AuChr 6 (1941) 202-38; RE 36, 3 (1949) 1295-366, esp. 1361-66, s.v. Parapegma (A. Rehm); Meyboom (supra n. 11) 782-90; and A. Sadurska, "Rzymskie kalendarze manipulowane oraz ich uwarunko- wania historyczne," ArcheologiaWar 30 (1979) 69-86.

Examples cited: Wettingen: Silver cup found 1633, sub- sequently lost and known only from drawings. D61ger 207, pl. 6; drawings distrusted DarSag II, 1 (1892) 172, s.v. Dies (S. Reinach). Mainz, Roman grave: D61ger 208, pl. 7.2. Trier, Landesmuseum, inv. no. 12014: Dl1ger 202, 205-206, pl. 4.1; Rehm 1366 no. 14; Meyboom 785, pl. 169.1; Sadurska 73 no. 1:4-5, fig. 5.

15 K.D. White, Agricultural Implements of the Roman World (Cambridge 1967) 80-81, 82-83, figs. 52-54.

16 White (supra n. 15) 80, fig. 52; 183. This has a plain, unserrated edge.

~7 Discussed by White (supra n. 15) 81-82, 206-208 with earlier scholarship.




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Fig. 2a. The weekday gods: Saturn, Sol, and Luna. Naples, Museo Nazionale 9519. (Courtesy Museum, neg. no. 6149)

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Fig. 2b. The weekday gods: Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter. Naples, Museo Nazionale 9519. (Courtesy Museum, neg. no. 6149)

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Fig. 2c. The weekday gods: Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus. Naples, Museo Nazionale 9519. (Courtesy Museum, neg. no. 6149)

Wall paintings from Pompeii and Stabiae show Sol with a similar nimbus and rays.'8 In the sets of the

weekday gods, he seems to have the rays alone without

the nimbus but is customarily young, generally nude but for a chlamys, and frequently provided with a

whip. In later Imperial art Sol has a nimbus pierced

18 House of the Silverware (VI.7.20): Naples, MN 9819. Helbig, Wandgemilde 187 no. 947; Schefold, WP 102; Letta (supra n. 11) 599 no. 90. Vespasianic. House of Apollo (VI.7.23): Helbig, Wandgemiilde 187 no. 948; Schefold, WP 102; Letta (supra n. 11) 599 no. 91. House of Gavius Rufus

(VII.2.16): L. Richardson, Pompeii. The Casa dei Dioscuri and Its Painters (MAAR 23, 1955) 120, pls. 19, 21.1; Sche- fold, WP 170. Stabiae: Naples, MN 8839. Helbig, Wand-

gemilde 193-94 no. 948; Letta (supra n. 11) 603 no. 160. A.D. 40-60.




by rays on a gem in Copenhagen, a mosaic found in

Bingerbruck, Miinster, and the cosmological mosaic of M6rida, Spain.19

Luna. In contrast to Sol, the moon goddess gazes downward (fig. 2a, right), her head turned toward Mars. Her dark hair is silhouetted against a plain white nimbus, fainter to the left than to the right, suggestive of the phases of the moon. She wears a

filmy white garment through which her breasts show, and her attribute is a slender white shaft, either a

scepter as suggested in the original publication or the handle of a whip.

Luna is more commonly identified by a crescent

placed above or behind her head, but the Luna driv-

ing her biga in the Orbe (Bosc6az) mosaic has a nimbus.20 In Greek art the nearest equivalent would be the disks containing a profile female head, which Brom- mer identified as Selene.21 This motif is also found on a Hellenistic (Gnathia) vase from Tarentum.22

At Pompeii busts of Sol and Luna were paired with those of Jupiter and Mercury in a room to the right of the atrium in the Neronian House of the Ancient Hunt (VII.4.48) and on the facade of a shop in the House of M. Vecilius Verecundus (IX.7.1).23 In neither place were the weekday gods present as a group, and on the shop facade both the order of the deities and the types used differ from those of the calendar medallions.

Mars. The god of war (fig. 2b, left), young and beardless like Sol, turns toward Luna. He wears a utilitarian iron muscle cuirass and a bronze helmet

with a brim and a crest-holder, fastened by a chin

strap. On his left arm is a round bronze shield, and he presumably grasped with his left hand the slender spear that slants in front of him toward the left edge of the tondo. Except for the turn of his head, his pose is quite similar to that of a bust of Mars painted in the House of the Epigrams (V. 1.18) in Pompeii.24

In Greek art Ares is usually nude and bearded,

though he commonly does wear a helmet and carry a round shield and spear like the Mars of the Pompeii medallion. The first clean-shaven Ares wearing a cuirass appears in the Gigantomachy on the west frieze of the Hekateion in Lagina, dated to the first century B.C. when Rome dominated the area.25 In Italy, on the other hand, the Mars of Todi, a beardless youth wearing helmet and cuirass, is dated to the fourth

century B.C.26 Roman Republican coins also depict Mars as a beardless youth wearing an Italic helmet with a broad brim." Despite the dominance of the bearded Mars Ultor type in Imperial times, a youthful cuirassed Mars persists in the "Alexander" of the Capitoline Museum in Rome, in small bronze statuettes and busts, and, on a larger scale, in the marble

imago clipeata of Mars in Aquileia.28 In Pompeii, in addition to the bust in the House of

the Epigrams, a kitchen shrine of Mars and Venus in the House of the King of Prussia (VII.9.33) shows Mars nude and beardless with his muscle cuirass set on the ground beside him.29 He may also be compared to the Roman soldier standing in a magistrate's court depicted in the House of the Doctor(?) (VIII.5.24).30

'9 Copenhagen, Nat. Mus. inv. no. 243, from Italy: Letta

(supra n. 11) 603 no. 161. Bingerbrtick: Bonn, Rheinisches Landesmuseum inv. no. 31.184-85. Letta (supra n. 11) 611- 12 no. 291. Sol driving frontal quadriga within circle of zodiac. M6rida, Plaza de Toros: Letta (supra n. 11) 615 no. 341.

20 V. von Gonzenbach, Die r6mischen Mosaiken der Schweiz (Basel 1961) 181-94, pls. 60-67; T. Kraus, Das romische Weltreich (Berlin 1967) 269-70, pl. 347. First quarter of third

century. 21 F. Brommer, "Selene," AA 1963, 680-87; LIMC II

(1984) 904-27, esp. 913, 915, nos. 41-47, 67, s.v. Astra (S. Karusu).

22 K. Schauenburg, "Gestirnbilder in Athen und Unter- italien," AntK 5 (1962) 51-64, esp. 60, pl. 21.3; Karusu

(supra n. 21) 913 no. 46. 23 House of the Ancient Hunt: Helbig, Wandgemiilde 186-

87 nos. 946, 949; Schefold, WP 180. House of M. Vecilius Verecundus: M.J. Vermaseren, Corpus cultus Cybelae Atti- disque IV (EPRO 50, Leiden 1978) 17-19 no. 42, pl. 10; Letta (supra n. 11) 610 no. 271.

24 K. Schefold, Vergessenes Pompeji (Bern 1962) pl. 179 top left. See also Minerva in the same set of medallions, pl. 179 center right.

25 LIMC II (1984) 479-92, esp. 490 no. 109, s.v. Ares (P. Bruneau). The bronze coins with a beardless Ares illustrated by Bruneau all belong to the second or third century

A.C.: 480 nos. 13, 14, 18, 21, 22. 26 Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, Vatican, inv. no. 13886,

found 1835 at Monte Santo near Todi. F. Roncalli, Il"Marte" di Todi (MemPontAcc III.9.2, 1973); Helbig4 I, 551-52 no. 736 (T. Dohrn); Simon (supra n. 11) 509-10 no. 1.

27 Crawford no. 319/1, pl. 42, issued by Q. Minucius M.f. Thermus, Rome 103 B.C.; no. 320/1, pl. 42, issued by L. Iulius Caesar, Rome 103 B.C.; and esp. no. 497/3, pl. 60, issued by Octavian, 42 B.C. This helmet type differs from the one in the medallion in having an upright "feather" on each side.

28 "Alexander": Museo Capitolino, Stanza del Fauno no. 12. Most recently M. Siebler, Studien zum augusteischen Mars Ultor (Miinchener Arbeiten zur Kunstgeschichte und Archdolo-

gie 1, 1988) 196-97, cat. A4, pls. 9-10. Statuettes and busts: Simon (supra n. 11) 520 no. 93, 521 no. 95, 520 no. 102, 523 nos. 151-54. Aquileia, Museo Archeologico, inv. no. 351: Simon (supra n. 11) 522 no. 140.

29 Helbig, Wandgemiilde 23 no. 70, pl. 3a; G.K. Boyce, Corpus of the Lararia of Pompeii (MAAR 14, 1937) 68 no. 303, pl. 25.2; Schefold, WP 197. Vespasianic.

30 Naples, MN 113197. Schefold, WP 227; A.J. Toynbee, Crucible of Christianity (London 1969) 340 top (in color); H.R. Robinson, Armour of Imperial Rome (New York 1975) 16, fig. 18, identifying the helmet as late Montefortino type F.




Among the weekday gods, Mars is generally beardless and helmeted and may be provided with a round shield and spear. The cuirass is optional.

Efficient as it looks, Mars's armor seems to be based on artistic conventions rather than contemporary fighting equipment. Actual muscle cuirasses are well represented in Italy, but, according to Waurick, none can be securely dated later than the fourth century B.C.31 In art, as noted previously, they are a common attribute of Mars, and they are also a favorite costume for portraits of Roman emperors.32 The helmet seems to be a composite, similar in form to a relief fragment in Rome and to the crested helmets worn by soldiers in the census relief of the "Altar of Domitius Aheno- barbus," which Waurick sees as variants on Hellenistic types.33 In any case, the Mars of the Pompeii medallion is clearly an Italian type predating the Mars Ultor.

Mercury. The god wears a broad-brimmed petasos with a tiny wing set against the front of the crown

(figs. 2b, center; 2c, left). He turns his head away from Mars toward Jupiter. Like Mars and Sol he is youthful with short brown hair and like Sol nude except possibly for a red chlamys(?) on his right shoulder. Against this shoulder can be made out the shaft of his caduceus with a white bow at the top of the shoulder. Above there are faint traces of the brown snake loops, which seem to have been attached to the top of the shaft. Mercury's right thumb and forefinger are pinched together as if holding something, but they do not seem to be in line with the caduceus shaft.

For the caduceus, the Punishment of Ixion painted in the House of the Vettii (VI. 15.1) provides a parallel, though this has wings instead of a bow.34 The bust of Mercury in the House of the Epigrams (V. 1.18) has a

similar broad-brimmed hat but a different caduceus.35 There is a caduceus with a bow on an early Roman bronze ingot.36

The tiny wing on the petasos is peculiar, for Mer- cury's wings are usually stressed. On Roman Repub- lican coins they are placed on top of the petasos or above his ears, in his hair if he is hatless, but they are always large.37 Among the weekday gods, however, there is an almost exact parallel for this tiny wing on an octagonal inkwell now in the National Archaeolog- ical Museum in Naples.38

Jupiter. The king of the gods is similar to Saturn in type, a mature god with short hair and streaks of white in his beard (figs. 2b, right; 2c, center). He turns toward Mercury. A red chlamys covers both shoulders, and he holds a short, knobbed silver scepter in his left hand.

A denarius issued by L. Rubrius Dossenus at Rome in 87 B.C. offers a good parallel for the head of Jupiter and for his knobbed scepter.39 In sets of the weekday gods Jupiter often lacks any attribute, but he is provided with a scepter on the Bir Chana mosaic and also (among the planetary gods) on the Orbe (Bosceaz) mosaic.40

Jupiter is commonly shown either nude or wearing a himation draped over the left shoulder and leaving the right shoulder bare. Mantles draped over both shoulders are rare in Greek sculpture but may be found on two statues of the early fifth century B.C., the Ilissos kouros and Oinomaos from the east pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, as well as on Poseidon/Neptune in the Baltimore Twelve-Gods relief, which most probably belongs to the first century B.C.4'

31 G. Waurick, "Untersuchungen zur historisierenden Ristung in der r6mischen Kunst,"JRGZM 30 (1983) 267- 301, esp. 274-77.

32 Robinson (supra n. 30) 147. When worn by the emperor, the cuirass usually has allegorical embossed decoration.

33 Waurick (supra n. 31) 288-91, pls. 52.2; 51. 34 Schefold, WP 145; H. Eschebach, Pompeji. Erlebte an-

tike Welt (Leipzig 1978) fig. 149 (in color); LIMC V (1990) 858, s.v. Ixion (C. Lochin) no. 5.

35 Schefold (supra n. 24) pl. 179, bottom right. For another variant on the type see the boy garbed as Mercury in the House of Lucretius Fronto (V.4.11) illustrated by Esche- bach (supra n. 34) fig. 131.

36 Crawford no. 11/1 reverse. Anonymous, issued Rome 260-242 B.C.

37 Examples: Crawford no. 69/6, pl. 14, minted in Sicily 211-208 B.C.; no. 362/1, pl. 47, issued by C. Manilius Li- metanus, Rome 82 B.C.; no. 472/4c, pl. 55, issued by L. Papius Celcus triumvir, Rome 45 B.C.

38 Bronze inlaid with silver. Apparently found in a tomb near Turicium (sic) in 1745. J. Martorelli, De regia theca calamaria (Naples 1756); DarSag II, 1, 173, s.v. Dies (S. Reinach); Simon (supra n. 11) 542 no. 323. My sincere

thanks to K. Schilbrack, Special Collections, University of Chicago Library, for confirming that the inkwell published by Martorelli and illustrated by him in an engraving facing page 1 is that published by Simon.

39 Crawford no. 348/1, pl. 45. See also the denarius issued by Petillius Capitolinus in 45 B.C.: Crawford no. 487/1, pl. 58; Kent (supra n. 13) no. 82.

40 Bir Chana: Tunis, Museum, inv. no. 447. K.M.D. Dun- babin, Mosaics of Roman North Africa (Oxford 1978) 161, 249, pl. 64. Late second century A.C. Orbe (Bosceaz): See supra n. 20.

41 Ilissos kouros and Oinomaos: B. Ridgway, The Severe Style in Greek Sculpture (Princeton 1970) pls. 16-17. Balti- more relief: Long fig. 124; E.D. Reeder, Hellenistic Art in the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore 1988) 117-19 no. 38. I find the relief extremely hard to date because of the mixture of genuinely Archaic-looking elements with others that must be later, but I accept Reeder's suggestion that the piece was an ancient "forgery" of an Archaic relief. M.-A. Zagdoun, La sculpture archaisante dans l'art hellenistique et dans l'art romain du haute-empire (BEFAR 269, Paris 1989) 26, 32, 84, 100-101, 149, maintains with some hesitation that it belongs to the first half of the fifth century B.C.




Venus. The goddess of love (fig. 2c, right), the last of the weekday gods, turns away from Jupiter. Her

pose suggests that the series of medallions continued,

presumably with a new subject. On her brown hair she wears a diadem surmounted by a palmette. She also has a necklace of yellow beads, gold or topazes, clasped about her slender white neck. Her diaphan- ous white dress and filmy white mantle give her a

suitably voluptuous air. Behind her right shoulder hovers a tiny, winged Cupid looking up at her.

This is one of the types scholars have taken to

represent the Venus Genetrix that Arkesilaos created for the temple vowed by Julius Caesar before the battle of Pharsalus in 46 B.C.42 This type clearly an- tedates the Venus Genetrix, however, for a denarius issued by C. Egnatius in 75 B.C. shows a draped bust of Venus wearing a necklace and diadem with a

winged Cupid perched behind her right shoulder.43 At the same time it does have a connection with Caesar: he used it for two denarii issued in Spain in 46/45 B.C.44 One of these has a star in Venus's hair, which identifies her as the planetary goddess and hence shows the same aspect of the goddess as the

Pompeii medallion. In addition to the coins, a marble relief in Sperlonga depicts Venus wearing a diadem and a thin chiton slipping off her right shoulder,

accompanied by Cupid holding a fan.45 Weinstock concluded that these representations pointed to the existence of a statue of Venus with Cupid by her

shoulder, which may have stood "in Caesar's house or the shrine of the Gens lulia at Bovillae."46

In Pompeii, the Venus in the compitum of the Twelve Gods on the Via dell'Abbondanza (IX. 11.1) is the same type, fully clad with Cupid by her right shoulder.47 Her position in the center of the row flanked by Hercules and Mercury indicates that here she is the patron goddess of Pompeii. Another ex-

ample is the Venus paired with Mars among the month gods on the "Altar" of Gabii.48 Obviously this was a versatile Roman Venus, but she does not appear in any of the other sets of weekday or planetary gods.

The comparative material for the individual deities

suggests that their sources lie in south Italy and Rome

of the late Republic. For Mars and Venus this is

particularly clear as they are quite different from their Greek counterparts, Ares and Aphrodite. In addition

they have parallels in coin types of Julius Caesar and Octavian (Augustus). Neither Caesar nor Augustus, however, seems to have played a part in the introduction of the seven-day planetary week. The few Au-

gustan references to "Saturn's day," as it was called by Tibullus, pertain to the Jewish Sabbath, not to the first day of the planetary week.49

In Pompeii, on the other hand, in addition to the

painted medallions, there are two lists of the weekday gods, beginning with Saturn or Kronos, scratched on the walls of rooms decorated in styles of the late first

century B.C. or early first century A.C. One gave the Greek names of all seven gods in order under the

heading "Days of the Gods."50 The other listed them in Latin, but only six of the seven could be read.51

In his Cena Trimalchionis 39.1-4, Petronius provided his wealthy Campanian freedman Trimalchio with two calendar plaques attached to the door jambs of his dining room.52 One was inscribed "On 30 and 31 December our Gaius (Trimalchio) dines out." The other had the cursus of the moon, pictures of the seven stars, and favorable or unfavorable days marked by pegs. Here we must imagine Luna in her

biga and a series of figures (or busts?) comparable to the medallions we have just discussed, incorporated in a parapegma or peg calendar.53 Though the ex-

ample is fictitious, by the mid-first century A.C. a Roman aristocrat, Petronius, was aware of the week-

day gods and could expect his readers to recognize them in a calendar.

Thus it was not an anomaly for a set of the weekday gods to be painted on the wall of a room in Pompeii. These medallions are unique only in having survived, thanks to the eruption of Vesuvius.

October, November, and the Winter Hora54 This set of three medallions (figs. 3a, left; 3b-3c)

was the first piece listed by Weber on 26 April 1760, and survives as a unit today though combined with other medallions from the yellow room. Weber's workmen had not the slightest comprehension of

42 R. Schilling, La religion romaine de Venus (BEFAR 178, Paris 1954) 311-13; S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford 1971) 83-86; Crawford 474-75.

43 Crawford no. 391/1, pl. 49. 44 Crawford nos. 468/1-2, pl. 55. 45 G. Jacopi, L'antro di Tiberio a Sperlonga (Rome 1963)

118-23, figs. 112-13; Weinstock (supra n. 42) 86, pl. 8.3. 46 Weinstock (supra n. 42) 86. 47 Long figs. 77, 78, 80. 48 Long fig. 48; C.R. Long, "The Gods of the Months in

Ancient Art," AJA 93 (1989) 589-95, esp. 592, fig. 2. 49 Tib. 1.3.15-18; Hor. Sat. 1.9.69-70; Ov. Ars Am. 1.75-

77, 416. On the seven-day week see Boll (supra n. 11) 2547-

78; K.F. Smith ed., The Elegies of Albius Tibullus (New York 1913, repr. Darmstadt 1971) 238-39 on Tib. 1.3.18; P. Brind'Amour, Le calendrier romain. Recherches chronolo- giques (Ottawa 1983) 256-68.

50 Pompeii IX.6. CIL IV, 5202. 51 Pompeii IX.6, house next to that of M. Lucretius Fronto

(10). CIL IV, 6779; Smith (supra n. 49) 239. 52 M.S. Smith ed., Cena Trimalchionis (Oxford 1975) 62-

63. My thanks to C. Trahman for discussing this passage with me. The opinions expressed are my own.

53 On parapegmata see Rehm (supra n. 14); Meyboom (supra n. 11) 785-90; Sadurska (supra n. 14).

54 Naples, MN 9521, first, second, and third medallions.




Fig. 3a. October, November and Winter, Diana, Jupiter and Juno, Autumn Satyr. Naples, Museo Nazionale 9521. (Courtesy Museum, neg. no. 6298)

Fig. 3b. October, November, and Winter. Naples, Museo Nazionale 9521. (Courtesy Museum, neg. no. 6298)

Fig. 3c. November, Winter, and Diana. Naples, Museo Nazionale 9521. (Courtesy Museum, neg. no. 6298)

what they saw, but the vessel held by the first "woman" is the cornucopia of the Genius Augusti, who stands for October, and the rod with a crossbar described 2

May is obviously the hoe of November. The Accade- mia publication that same year describes the busts

clearly but does not attempt to identify them.55 Helbig recognized the Genius Augusti but associated it with

August rather than October, and he also suggested that the third figure might be Winter.56 As already noted, traces of paint, possibly from the rim of an

adjacent medallion, may indicate that the series continued to the right. October is lighted from the left; November and the Winter Hora from the right.

On the left, the Genius Augusti is readily identified

by his white tunic and by the white toga covering his head with its broad red (i.e., purple) border. He has a yellow cornucopia by his left shoulder and holds a

mesomphalic patera in his right hand. His face is not well preserved, but he does seem to have typical Julio- Claudian bangs. Since his head is turned three-quarters left, away from November, it seems probable that the series of medallions continued to the left.

The type of the Genius Augusti is well known. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only bust, but

full-length figures are painted in lararia at Pompeii and in the compitum on the Via dell'Abbondanza,57

55 PdE 262, pl. 50. 56 Helbig, Wandgemdlde 202 no. 1010. 57 H. Kunckel, Der r6mische Genius (RM-EH 20, Heidel-

berg 1974) 82-85, catalogue L; Via dell'Abbondanza: Kunckel 85 no. 64, pl. 34.




where the Genius stands below the Twelve Gods. Such representations are part of the honors paid Augustus in his lifetime. By decree of the Roman Sen- ate as early as 30 B.C. sacrifice was to be made to the Genius Augusti at all public and private banquets.58 The cult of the Lares and Genius Augusti had been

organized around the crossroads shrines or compita by 7 B.C.59 Activities of these types took place fre-

quently, however, and not at a stated time in the year. The Fasti list four official celebrations in honor of

Augustus: 16 and 17 January, 23 September (the Natalis of Augustus), and 3-12 October when the

Augustalia was celebrated.60 In terms of length, the

Augustalia was the most important of these occasions, and it had a special meaning for the princeps himself: In Res Gestae 11, Augustus recorded that on his return from Syria in the consulship of Q. Lucretius and M. Vinicius (12 October 19 B.C.), the Senate dedicated an altar to Fortuna Redux at the Porta Capena in Rome and ordered sacrifices to be called Augustalia to be made there each year on that date. With games added, the festival lasted 10 days and must have been a notable holiday for the Roman people.

The Augustalia were also celebrated in Pompeii, for they are mentioned in at least one dipinto.61 To either a Roman or a Pompeian viewer, a bust of the Genius Augusti in a set of calendar medallions would

immediately suggest the Augustalia and the month in which it was celebrated-October. Later calendars do not illustrate the Augustalia, but the calendar mosaic of El Djem has a later imperial festival honoring Alexander Severus as the subject for October.62

In the center of the strip the "man with a hoe" turns his head away from the Genius Augusti. He is young,

beardless, with short dark hair, nude but for a yellow cloak fastened on his right shoulder.63

Over his left shoulder he carries his implement, a rake with four widely spaced prongs. The inner prongs are straight while the outer prongs curve in- ward and back toward the handle.

There can be no doubt that this implement is the rastrum quadridens, or four-pronged drag hoe, as identified by K.D. White.64 Cato in De Agricultura 10.3, 11.4, advised the operator of a good-sized olive

grove or vineyard to own two of them. There are six from Pompeii preserved in the collection of the Na-

ples Museum along with the medallion in question.65 The Menologia Rustica or rustic calendars give Feb-

ruary as the month in which the soil of the vineyards was to be cultivated.66

In addition to such use, White states that the "rastrum was a multi-purpose implement ... for breaking the ground as a substitute for the plough . . . and

particularly for reducing the large clods left after

ploughing."'67 In the Menologia Rustica the time for the sowing of grain, i.e., when the drag hoe would be needed for breaking up the clods left by the plow, was

November.68 The Athens calendar frieze, dated to the first century B.C., illustrates plowing and sowing (but not hoeing) between the signs of Scorpio and Sagit- tarius, the zodiac constellations associated with No- vember.69

At Pompeii, where the surviving specimens prove that the four-pronged drag hoe was a common im-

plement, the "man with a hoe" could stand for either February or November, but next to October, he must surely be identified as the latter month. The months, then, were arranged in calendar sequence from left

58 Dio Cass. 51.19.7 cited by Kunckel (supra n. 57) 22. 59 G. Niebling, "Laribus Augusti Magistri Primi," Historia

5 (1956) 303-31; R. Duthoy, "Les Augustales," ANRW

II.16.2 (1978) 1254-309, esp. 1298-1300. 60 A. Degrassi ed., II XIII, 2, "Commentarii Generales,"

400, 401 (16 and 17January); 512-15 (Natalis Augusti); 516, 519-20 (Ludi Augusti or Augustalia).

61 CIL IV, 7988d; see also 7988a; NSc 1939, 308 no. 414, fig. 21 (M. della Corte).

62 Dunbabin (supra n. 40) 111-12, 260, pl. 99, El Djem 22d; H. Stern, "Les calendriers romains illustres," ANRW

II.12.2 (1981) 431-75, esp. 438, pls. 3, 7, fig. 20; Parrish 159 no. 29, pl. 44.

63 In Long 33, 271, I mistakenly identified this figure as August. It is not included by either of the two standard authors on the Labors of the Months: J.C. Webster, Labors of the Months in Antique and Mediaeval Art to the End of the Twelfth Century (Princeton 1938), and H. Stern, Le calendrier de 354. Etude sur son texte et ses illustrations (Paris 1953); Stern (supra n. 62) 431-75.

64 White (supra n. 15) 52-56, 180 no. 32. 65 White (supra n. 15) 54, 55, giving inv. nos. 71733-38.

My thanks to E. Pozzi and the staff of the Museo Nazionale

Archeologico in Naples for enabling me to examine the drag hoes in the museum collection on 27 May 1989 and to

photograph no. 71734. This specimen is intact: Material iron; L. of head 0.27 m; diameter of socket 0.04 m; L. of exterior prongs 0.105 and 0.85 m, of inner prongs 0.12 m.

66 Degrassi (supra n. 60) 47, p. 287 col. 2, lines 11-12; 48, p. 293 col. 2, lines 14-16. A third-century mosaic from Cherchel in North Africa shows men working in a vineyard with a rastrum bidens or two-pronged drag hoe: Dunbabin

(supra n. 40) 114, pls. 102-103. The rastrum bidens is an attribute of Winter in other North African mosaics: Parrish 33.

67 White (supra n. 15) 55. 68 Degrassi (supra n. 60) 47, p. 290 col. 2, lines 11-13; 48,

p. 297 col. 3, lines 12-14. 69 L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin 1932) 248-54, pls.

34-40, esp. 250 nos. 5 (Scorpio), 8 (Plowman), 9 (Sower), 10 (Sagittarius). The date has been debated, but E. Simon is surely correct in preferring the first century B.C.: Festivals of Attica. An Archaeological Commentary (Madison 1983) 6. See also LIMC V (1990) 508 no. 50, s.v. Horai (V. Machaira): Late Hellenistic.




to right as were the days of the week. It may further be observed that adjacent months were personified by an imperial festival and a seasonal farming activity.

To the right of November, a light-skinned bust without a beard, presumably female, looks up and toward her left. Her nose is reddened, and she is closely wrapped in a voluminous yellow mantle with a broad greenish blue border visible above her forehead and in the folds about her neck. The reddened nose and mantle identify the bust as Winter. In the Athens calendar frieze, Winter is placed between Scorpio and plowing, so early in November rather than after it as here. She too, however, is closely wrapped in a cloak covering her head.70 Helbig lists seven full-length representations of Winter from

Pompeii.71 None of those I have seen is exactly like the bust, but the figure in the House of the Ancient Hunt (VII.4.48) provides a parallel for the band across the forehead and the loose folds beside the face. An early Antonine mosaic from a columbarium on the Via Portuensis, Rome, has a very similar bust of Winter with reeds added beside the head.72

Together the three medallions form a group, an excerpt from a series of months in the guise of Roman

religious festivals or agricultural activities punctuated by the Seasons. The series runs from left to right. For the placing of Winter after November (and presumably before December) the calendar mosaic found in El Djem in North Africa offers a parallel." In this mosaic the personification of the season precedes the illustrations of the three months that comprise the season. October and November occupy the end of the row beginning with Autumn above the row beginning with Winter. Since Winter follows immediately upon the months of the fall season in the Pompeii calendar medallions, it would appear that the series began, as the El Djem mosaic does, with Spring."4

Autumn Satyr75 The second piece listed by Weber on 26 April 1760

(fig. 3a, right) contained a bust of a "nude woman with a garland of flowers and leaves, who holds in her hand a cloth with fruit in it." The bust was more accurately published by the Accademia as a male youth crowned with vine leaves and bunches of grapes, holding fruit in a fold of his garment, probably Vertumnus or Autumn.76 Autumn is lighted from the left and turns his head in that direction.

In addition to his wreath of vine leaves and grapes, Autumn has his nebris filled with apples and a bunch of grapes. A yellowish-brown scarf billows behind his right shoulder. The parallel red dashes on his chest are presumably shading. His wreath and nebris place Autumn in the entourage of Bacchus and the vintage. He may be compared to the satyr hovering with a maenad in the House of the Dioscuri at Pompeii (VI.9.6-8).77 The scarf filled with fruit is, however, the attribute of the Autumn Hora at Pompeii.78 A Severan mosaic from Volubilis in North Africa has a nude male Autumn with a brown scarf billowing behind his shoulders, who holds two bunches of grapes.79

In the Menologia Rustica September is the month for picking apples and coating the dolia (large storage vessels) with pitch in preparation for making wine the following month.80 Thus Autumn's attributes link him to the principal agricultural activities of the months that follow.

The Autumn Satyr is lighted from the left as is October. Hence, if the lighting was consistent, he should have been on the same wall to the left of October where, in fact, he belongs in the calendar sequence and where he is to be found in the El Djem calendar mosaic. Weber's listing him as a separate medallion is also consistent, for there should have

70 Deubner (supra n. 69) 250 no. 6. Machaira (supra n. 69) does not recognize this figure as the Winter hora.

7 Helbig, Wandgemdlde 199-200, nos. 998-1004. Illus- trations: No. 998, House of the Ancient Hunt (VII.4.48): Hanfmann II, cat. no. 89, pl. 96. Fourth Style. No. 1000, House of Ganymede (VII.13.4): LIMC V (1990) 510-38, esp. 513 no. 14, s.v. Horai/Horae (L. Abad Casal). No. 1001, House of Modestus (VI.5.13): Reinach 136, 13; Abad Casal 513 no. 16. No. 1004, House of the Tragic Poet (VI.8.5): Hanfmann II, cat. no. 87, pl. 98; Abad Casal 513-14 no. 17.

72 Rome, Antiquarium Comunale. M.E. Blake, "Roman Mosaics of the Second Century in Italy," MAAR 13 (1936) 67-214, esp. 131, 180, pl. 45.2, identifying the head as male; Hanfmann II, cat. no. 165.

73 See supra n. 62. 74 Auson. Eclogue 18 (Opuscula 7.18), also divides the year

into seasons beginning with spring (March-May) and continuing with summer (June-August), autumn (September-

November), and winter (December-February). See Hanf- mann I, 121.

75 Naples, MN 9521, right end. 76 PdE 262, n. 20, pl. 50; followed by Helbig, Wandge-

milde 201 no. 1009.

77 Naples, MN 9135. Helbig, Wandgemilde 119 no. 522; Schefold, WP 117; Pompeii A.D. 79 (Boston 1978) II, 167 no. 134.

78 Helbig, Wandgemiilde 198 nos. 991-96; Reinach 137, 4; 138, 5-6; Hanfmann I, 135; Parrish 37-40. See also the Autumn Hora in the Athens calendar frieze: Deubner (supra n. 69) 250 no. 35; Machaira (supra n. 69) 508 no. 50.

79 Parrish 236-39 no. 66, pls. 88-89; LIMC V (1990) 891- 920, esp. 902 no. 119, s.v. Kairoi/Tempora Anni (L. Abad Casal). Full-length male Seasons are combined with busts of the Horae, Dionysos/Bacchus, and maenads.

80 Degrassi (supra n. 60) 47, p. 289, col. 3, lines 12-14; 48, p. 297, col. 1, lines 13-16.




AX.

4g

Fig. 4. Vulcan, Liber/March. Naples, Museo Nazionale 9520. (Courtesy Museum, neg. no. 6155)

been a medallion depicting September between Au- tumn and October. It is also clear that the strips of medallions were listed presumably as they were encountered in counterclockwise order along the wall.

In his discussion of the Kairoi/Tempora Anni or male seasons, L. Abad Casal apportions his examples between two categories, Erotes and Genii (who may or may not be winged), and includes all adult male Seasons under Genii.8' This obscures the obvious connection between the Seasons in the Pompeii medallions and Bacchus, and I have therefore preferred to call such figures season satyrs. Apart from the Pom-

peii medallions for Autumn and Spring, there are

examples from Aumale and Volubilis in North Africa and Italica in Spain.82

Liber/March83 Third in Weber's list of 26 April 1760 is another

single medallion (fig. 4, right) described as a "nude woman with flowers on her head, a rod in her right hand, and a festoon of flowers." By the time the

Accademia published it, it had been combined with another single medallion depicting Vulcan, but it was

correctly identified as Bacchus with a lemniscate thyrsos and a diadem or wreath of berried ivy.84 Helbig associated him with Vulcan and the other Olympians whose busts were found, suggesting that he might be the unofficial tutela or patron of October.85 Since the Romans represented Liber in the same way as Bac-

chus, I have called him Liber/Bacchus. He turns his head toward the left and is lighted from the front.

Liber/Bacchus is a virile youth with brown eyes and an aquiline nose. A delicate wreath of berried ivy encircles his short, curly brown hair. In his clenched

right hand, which is turned palm out, he grasps a conical thyrsos tied with a ribbon. The white squiggles and reddish-brown quatrefoil on his right shoulder

might belong to an animal skin.

Young Liber/Bacchus usually has an effeminate look with long hair crowned by a wreath. This is the

regular type for Liber on Roman coins of the late

Republic and Augustus.86 A more virile Dionysos with

81 Abad Casal (supra n. 79). The most recent full treat- ment of the Erotes and Genii on sarcophagi is by P. Kranz, Jahreszeiten Sarkophage (ASR V, 4, Berlin 1984). For the earliest example (Erotes) on a cylindrical altar of Claudian date see E. Simon et al., "Neuerwerbungen des Martin von Wagner-Museums Wuirzburg 1965-1968," AA 1968, 123- 67, esp. 155-59.

82 Italica: P. Quintero Atauri, "Mosaicos ineditos Italicen- ses," Revista de Archivos III.10 (Madrid 1904) 127-31, esp. 128-29, pl. 3; Reinach 225, 4; Hanfmann II, cat. no. 154. Aumale: Parrish 23, 32, 101-102 no. 5, pl. 8; Abad Casal (supra n. 79) 904 no. 138. Volubilis: See supra n. 79. A mosaic from Panderma now in the Archaeological Mu- seum of Istanbul had two panels with satyr busts that are now mounted with female busts of Winter and Spring, but

it is uncertain whether these were combined as seasons in the original composition: Hanfmann II, cat. no. 177.

83 Naples, MN 9520 right. 84 PdE 261, pl. 50. 85 Helbig, Wandgemdilde 961 no. 381 and 201 no. 1006.

In the late mosaic of Monnus at Trier, a bust of Bacchus occupies the panel for October, but he differs from the Pompeii bust in having a wreath of grape leaves and bunches of grapes instead of berried ivy: Long fig. 27.

86 Republican coins: Crawford no. 266/3, pl. 38; no. 341/ 2, pl. 44; no. 343/2, pl. 45; no. 385/3, pl. 49; no. 386/1, pl. 49; no. 449/2-3, pl. 53; no. 494/36, pl. 60. Coins issued by P. Petronius Turpilianus, Rome 18 B.C.: BMCRE I, cii, 2- 5, nos. 5, 7, 10-12, 18-20, pl. 1.3, 5, 7, 10-12; RIC2 I, Augustus no. 283, pl. 5.




short hair does appear in the east frieze and pediment of the Parthenon as well as in the enthroned Phila-

delphia type.87 In Pompeii, the enthroned Bacchus

painted in the House of the Ship (VI. 10.11) seems to have short hair, and a painted bust from Hercula- neum shows him not only with short hair but with a

very similar wreath of berried ivy.88 The Bacchus or Botrys painted beside Mount Ve-

suvius in the lararium of the House of the Centenary (A. Rustius Verus, IX.8.3) is likewise a virile youth with a wreath of berried ivy, who holds a very similar

thyrsos in his hand, but he differs from the bust of the calendar medallion in three significant ways: his

body is shown as a bunch of grapes, he pours wine from a kantharos, and he is accompanied by a

panther.89 Since the figure in the lararium clearly presents the Pompeian or Campanian Bacchus, the bust in the calendar medallion must have other con- nections.

Although represented similarly, Liber and Bacchus were viewed quite differently by the Romans. Liber was an indigenous god of agriculture and fertility, not

just the god of the vine.90 Essentially a rustic deity, he was worshipped in Rome with Ceres and Libera in a

temple established on the Aventine early in the fifth

century B.C.91 The temple was the headquarters of the plebeian aedile, and the cult served as a plebeian counterweight to the patrician cult of the Capitoline triad. Bacchus, in contrast, met hostility when his cult

spread into Roman territory in the early second cen-

tury B.C.92 This negative response was reinforced when Octavian fell out with Mark Antony, who identified himself as the New Dionysos.93

While Dionysos/Bacchus was suspect, Varro in De Re Rustica 1.1.5 and Virgil in Georgics 1.7 invoked Liber and Ceres to aid them with their agricultural writings. In his Epistulae 2.1.1-18, Horace even com-

pared Augustus himself to Liber Pater (along with

Romulus, Castor, and Pollux) as a hero who had achieved deification for his benefits to mankind. After the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera burned in 31

B.C., Augustus undertook its restoration, though it was actually completed and rededicated by Tiberius in A.D. 17.94 Thus it seems likely that Liber, not

Bacchus, is the subject of this medallion. Placed as the medallion is in Weber's list between

Autumn and a row of six medallions that, as we shall

see, include Spring, Liber should stand for a spring or summer month. The obvious month is March when the Liberalia was celebrated on the 17th in honor of

Liber, marking the resumption of farming activity for the year. It may be noted parenthetically in support of this that, unlike the Autumn Satyr, Liber has none of the attributes of the vintage-neither grapes nor the kantharos. There is a clear difficulty: if Liber does

represent March, this medallion should have been

adjacent to Spring, not separated as it is in Weber's list. This may be solved by placing the three medallions representing Spring and Liber/Bacchus in the corner of the room on adjacent walls. The three are all well preserved and are all lighted from the front. In this position Liber/March can be imagined as look-

ing toward Spring and leading in the months. None of the later calendar illustrations for March

has the Liberalia as its subject, but it is one of the

festivals listed for March in the Menologia Rustica.95

87 LIMC III (1986) 414-514, esp. 438-39 no. 141, s.v. Dionysos (C. Gaspari). See also the youthful head, 444 no. 198.

88 Pompeii, House of the Ship: Naples, MN 9456. A. Bruhl, Liber Pater. Origine et expansion du culte dionysiaque a Rome et dans le monde romain (BEFAR 175, Paris 1953) pl. 12; Richardson (supra n. 18) 118, pls. 17.1, 22.1; Schefold, WP 124; LIMC III (1986) 540-66, esp. 544 no. 28, s.v. Dionysos/Bacchus (C. Gaspari). Herculaneum: Naples, MN. Helbig, Wandgemdilde 105 no. 425, identifying him as a satyr but observing that he does not have satyr ears; Reinach 334, 20; 0. Elia, Pitture murali e mosaici nel Museo Nazionale di

Napoli (Rome 1932) 111 no. 306, fig. 39 left, incorrectly giving 9519 as the inventory number.

89 Naples, MN 11226. Boyce (supra n. 29) 89-90 no. 448. Schefold, WP 273; H. Herter, "Bacchus am Vesuv," RhM 100 (1957) 101-14; LIMC III (1986) 143-44, esp. 143 no. 1, s.v. Botrys (M. Zagdoun), Vespasianic; Gaspari (supra n. 88) 559-60 no. 268, first half of the first century A.C. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for AJA who recalled this painting to my mind.

90 Bruhl (supra n. 88) 13-29. 91 I. Jucker, "Hahneopfer auf einem spathellenistischen

Relief," AA 1980, 440-76, esp. 470-73, gives a good summary of what is known about the early Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera, together with a bibliography.

92 Bruhl (supra n. 88) 82-116; J.-M. Pailler, Bacchanalia. La rdpression de 186 av. J.C. &a Rome et en Italie (BEFAR 270, Paris 1988).

93 Bruhl (supra n. 88) 127-32. 94 Dio Cass. 50.10.3 (destruction); Tac. Ann. 2.49 (rebuild-

ing and dedication); P. Gros, Aurea Templa (BEFAR 231, Paris 1976) 18, 20. Jucker (supra n. 91) 473 suggests that it was probably a marble temple in the Corinthian order. No remains have been identified. R. Lanciani thought it might have been the structure near Santa Maria in Cosmedin de- molished by Pope Hadrian I (772-795): Ruins and Excava- tions of Ancient Rome (1897 repr. New York 1967) 518; however, the fragments incorporated into the substructure of Santa Maria in Cosmedin should rather be associated with the Ara Maxima: Platner-Ashby 119-20; F. Coarelli, Roma (Guide archeologiche Laterza, Rome 1983) 323-24, 329-30.

95 Degrassi (supra n. 60) "Commentarii Generales," 425- 26; H.H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman

Republic (Ithaca 1981) 91-92.




As the festival marking the resumption of agricultural activity in the spring, the Liberalia seems a good choice to open a year that depicted farming (Novem- ber) as well as official holidays (October).

The Row of Six Medallions96 In his report for 26 April 1760, Weber concluded

his list with a band of six contiguous medallions (figs. 3a, center, and 5), all with busts of "women," two of which were not well preserved, one with a rod in the

right hand and fillets and a garland of flowers on the head, another with a small rod in each hand and flowers on the head, and two who seem to "hold a

dagger at the chest." By Paderni's orders as reported on 2 May, three pieces were to be cut from this band. One piece was to have two medallions, each with a

"half-length bust of a nude woman, the first with a rod in the right hand and a garland of flowers on the head, the second with a little scarf at the back, with flowers on the head and two small rods in the right hand." The second was also to have two medallions, each with a "half-length bust of a nude woman," both of whom "seem to hold a dagger at the chest." The third piece, which he listed out of order after the other two singles with the Autumn Satyr and Liber/ March, was "another half-length bust of a woman that is scarcely recognizable." Of the two pairs now extant, Jupiter and Juno, who hold scepters, must be the pair with "daggers at the chest." The other surviving pair, the Spring Hora and Satyr, must be the first piece, and the Spring Satyr does indeed have flowers on his head as well as a scarf behind his shoulder and holds a syrinx, the equivalent of the "two small rods" in his

right hand. The barely recognizable single bust is probably Diana, the most damaged of the extant single busts.

By the time these medallions were published by the Accademia, their original juxtaposition had been lost, and they were mounted as they are today. The Spring Hora and Satyr were described recognizably as a nude woman with a cornucopia and a faun with a syrinx, Diana was so identified by the crescent on her head and her bow, and Jupiter and Juno as Jupiter and "Venus," each holding a scepter.97

How were the surviving pieces originally placed? In describing the surviving strips of three and seven medallions, Weber numbers the medallions and pro-

ceeds from left to right, or from right to left, in order. Here, however, he merely summarizes without any indication of order, grouping two as badly preserved, two with flowers on the head, and two with "daggers." In their present state, Diana is in the worst condition and the Spring Satyr in the best with Jupiter and Juno intermediate in state of preservation. If they are ar-

ranged according to this criterion, Diana and the medallion rejected by Paderni belong at the left end, Jupiter and Juno in the middle, and the Spring Hora and Satyr at the right end. Such an arrangement makes iconographic sense, for it puts the Spring Hora and Satyr closest to the series of months and seasons

just considered and to the right of the Olympian month gods. Juno and the Spring Hora turn away from each other, indicative of the separate categories to which they belong. At the same time Jupiter and

Juno turn toward Diana, their fellow Olympian. Orig- inally, however, there was no break or gap between the series of the months and seasons and the series of the tutelae (the Olympian patrons) of the months and zodiac. To keep the Spring Hora and Satyr with the series to which they belong, I shall discuss them next rather than take the reconstructed band in order from left to right.

Spring Hora and Satyr.98 It has already been de- duced that these two medallions (fig. 5) were at the

right end of the strip of six listed by Weber on 26 April 1760, and that they were in a corner of the room adjacent to the wall on which Liber/March was

painted. They turn their heads toward each other and are both lighted from the front.

To the left a young woman holds a yellow calathus or basket with a flaring rim. She is nude but for a transparent scarf that billows behind her right shoulder. Out of the calathus sprouts a plant with leaf spears resembling those of grass or grain. Helbig identified the plant as wheat and proposed that the figure might stand for Aestas or Summer.99 Because the grain was just sprouting, not ripe, Hanfmann corrected the season to Spring.100 Of the Horae found in Pompeii representing Spring, the closest is that on the north wall of triclinium T in the House of the Vettii (VI.15.1).101 She wears a peplos fastened on the right shoulder only, leaving the left breast bare. In her left hand she holds a deep calathus from which flowers grow, and a garland of flowers curves above

96 Naples, MN 9521, fourth, fifth, and sixth medallions from left and 9518.

97 PdE 260, 262, pl. 50. 98 Naples, MN 9518.

99 Helbig, Wandgemdlde 201 no. 1008. In the original publication Ceres or Terra was suggested: PdE 261 n. 12,

pl. 50. 100 Hanfmann II, 168. 101 Schefold (supra n. 24) pl. 128.2. On the Pompeian

Horae in general see Abad Casal (supra n. 71) 513-14 nos. 15-25. On paintings of the Spring Hora see Helbig, Wand- gemilde 196-200 nos. 975-80; Hanfmann II, pls. 87-89.




Al

.... .#.

Fig. 5. Spring Hora and Satyr. Naples, Museo Nazionale 9518. (Courtesy Museum, neg. no. 5534 ex 1702)

her left shoulder, which can be compared to the bil-

lowing scarf on the Spring Hora in the medallion. The scarf itself is similar to those worn by two Autumn Horae in other Pompeian wall paintings.' 2 A second-

century A.C. mosaic found in a villa at Pesaro in Italy shows a half-draped Spring with a calathus, and the

Spring Hora in the Tomb of the Nasonii on the Via Flaminia just outside Rome, although fully clad, also has a calathus as does a nude Spring in a mosaic from La Chebba in North Africa.'03

The Spring Satyr wears a wreath of white roses on his short, dark hair as well as a garland of flowers

slung over his right shoulder. A blue scarf billows behind his shoulder. In his right hand he holds a

syrinx with pipes of varying length, and he rests a

pedum, the curved staff associated with shepherds and fauns or satyrs, against his left shoulder. The Accademia identified him as a faun, but Helbig preferred Vertumnus or Vernus, the Roman personification of spring.'04 My title embodies both concepts. Like the Autumn Satyr, his attributes link him to the

entourage of Bacchus, but here the pedum and syrinx refer to springtime and the pastoral life.

A mosaic of the four seasons excavated in Italica,

Spain, had for spring the bust of a satyr or faun with a wreath on his hair and a syrinx in his hand.'05 In the mosaic from Volubilis mentioned earlier, the male

figure representing spring has a billowing green scarf but carries a rose, another symbol for spring; in the Tomb of the Nasonii, the nude faun paired with the

Spring Hora holds a pedum like the Spring Satyr but has a kid instead of a syrinx.106 In the El Djem mosaic Autumn has the pedum, not Spring.'0' The associa- tion of roses with spring may be an allusion to the

popular Roman festival of Rosalia.'08 The calendar medallions examined thus far include

a Winter Hora looking right toward a missing medallion and an Autumn Satyr looking left toward a miss-

ing medallion. Here the Hora and Satyr survive as a

pair with the Hora on the left like the Winter Hora and the Satyr on the right like the Autumn Satyr. It seems reasonable to deduce that there were originally

102 Reinach 137, 6-7. See also Hanfmann II, cat. no. 97, pl. 94 from the House of Cn. Poppaeus Habitus (House of the Gilded Cupids, VI.16.7); Abad Casal (supra n. 71) 513 no. 15.

103 Pesaro: Ancona, Mus. Naz. Blake (supra n. 72) 179, pl. 44.1; Hanfmann II, cat. no. 117, pl. 86; Abad Casal (supra n. 71) 514 no. 28. Rome, Tomb of the Nasonii: B. Andreae, Studien zur rdmischen Grabkunst (RM-EH 9, Heidelberg 1962) pls. 62, 63.2; Abad Casal (supra n. 71) 515-16 no. 42. Ca. A.D. 160. La Chebba: Parrish 201-203 no. 49, pl. 67;

Abad Casal (supra n. 71) 514 no. 29. Second half of second century A.C.

104 PdE 260, pl. 50; Helbig, Wandgemdilde 201 no. 1007. 105 See supra n. 82. 106 Volubilis: See supra n. 79. Tomb of the Nasonii: See

supra n. 103. 107 Stern (supra n. 62) 442, pls. 3, 6; 4, 9. 108 Stern (supra n. 63) 251-52; Parrish 34-35. For the

written evidence see KiPauly 4 (1972) 1457, s.v. Rosalia (G. Radke).




four such pairs of Hora and Satyr, each preceding the three months corresponding to the season. In the Tomb of the Nasonii each season was represented by a Hora and Satyr standing on either side of a floral candelabrum.109 On the Hellin mosaic and a Seasons mosaic from El Djem the seasons appear as dancing couples.I"0

Two other types of male figures may accompany the Horae. On sarcophagus lids there may be small Erotes approaching large reclining Horae."' The Winds may also be associated with the Horae as on the Ince Blundel sarcophagus where the four young men who help the Horae bring out the horses and chariot of the sun are identified as Winds by the wings on their heads."2 Both are quite distinct from the satyr seasons of the Pompeii medallions.

Diana, Jupiter, and Juno. "3 Though cut out as two

separate pieces, these three medallions (fig. 3a, fourth, fifth, and sixth medallions) seem to have originally belonged together approximately as they are mounted today. It is not certain whether the missing fourth medallion, rejected by Paderni, was painted to the right or the left of Diana, but it was presumably another Olympian facing in the same direction as Diana. All three extant medallions are lighted from the front; Diana is turned three-quarters right, Jupi- ter and Juno three-quarters left.

Diana. The goddess has a small yellow crescent on her brown hair. Though the drawing published in 1760 shows her as nude,"4 she seems rather to be wearing a yellow sleeveless garment with a deep V-

fold in the center, which is crossed diagonally by a narrow strap that would presumably have held her quiver in place (fig. 3c, right). Her hand is clenched about her bow stave. The form of the garment recalls the peplos on a bronze statue of Diana, the upper half of which was found in the Temple of Apollo at Pom- peii."5 For the choice of colors-golden-brown hair and yellow dress against a blue background-the well- known painting of Diana from Stabiae offers a good parallel."116

The bow is the idiosyncratic element. Its stave has a straight tip and is then bent in a simple convex curve to the left while the string falls vertically as if fastened to the invisible lower tip. This is not the usual composite bow carried by Diana/Artemis, on which the tips curve sharply back, forming hooks to hold the loops of the bowstring. Nonetheless there is a Helle- nistic statue of Artemis, known from bronze coins issued by the Greek city of Patrai during the first and second centuries A.C. as well as from Corinthian lamps of the same era, that has a similar straight- tipped bow."'7 This statue has been identified as the Artemis Laphria, which Augustus brought back from Calydon and placed in the sanctuary named for her in Patrai."8 A Cretan bowman on a Hellenistic grave stele in the Herakleion Museum holds a bow of the same type."19 In Roman art Diana has it as an attribute on the Altar of Diana Victrix from the Via Ardeatina in Rome, on the Albani Puteal, and in a late mosaic found in Carthage where she is shown as a cult image in a shrine.'20

109 See supra n. 103. 110 Hellin: H. Stern, "Mosaique de Hellin," MonPiot 54

(1966) 40-59, esp. 46-50, figs. 11-14; Long fig. 50. El Djem, Season mosaic: Parrish 171-73 no. 34, pls. 52b-53. Stern adds a lost mosaic from Sainte-Colombe. Here Summer and Autumn were represented by couples. See also the Volubilis mosaic of Dionysos and the Seasons, which combines full- length male Seasons with busts of the Horae (references supra n. 79).

111 Examples: Kranz (supra n. 81) 83-85, 249-61, cat. nos. 339-413; Abad Casal (supra n. 71) 521 nos. 88-93; Abad Casal (supra n. 79) 900 nos. 89-93. A.M. McCann, Roman Sarcophagi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York 1978) 97, identified them as Karpoi, but J. Balty omits them from LIMC V (1990) 969-70, s.v. Karpoi.

112 F. Matz, ASR III, 3, Einzelmythen (Berlin 1919 repr. Rome 1969) 404-407, 415-16 no. 332, pl. 108; K. Neuser, Anemoi. Studien zur Darstellung der Winder und Windgott- heiten in der Antike (Archaeologica 19, Rome 1982) 222-23 no. T12.

113 Naples, MN 9521, fourth, fifth, and sixth medallions. 114 PdE 262, pl. 50. 115 Naples, MN 4895. LIMC 11(1984) 792-849, esp. 812-

13 no. 66, s.v. Artemis/Diana (E. Simon), with bibliography. 116 Naples, MN 9243. Helbig, Wandgemdlde 67-68 no. 239;

Elia (supra n. 88) 97 no. 254; O. Elia, Pitture di Stabia (Naples 1947) 68, fig. 22 (in color).

117 Coins: F. Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner, Numismatic

Commentary on Pausanias (London 1887) 76-77, pl. Q, vi- x. Lamps: P. Bruneau, "Lampes corinthiennes, II," BCH 101 (1977) 249-95, esp. 259 no. 58, fig. 8; 288-91 nos. 78- 79, figs. 45, 47; Simon (supra n. 115) 817 no. 123.

118 Paus. 7.18.8-10. C. Anti, "L'Artemis Laphria di Patrai," ASAtene 2 (1916) 181-99; L. Lacroix, Reproductions de statues sur les monnaies grecques (Liege 1949) 233-38; RE 36, 3 (1949) 2191-222, esp. 2195-96, s.v. Patrai (E. Meyer); LIMC 11 (1984) 618-753, esp. 614, s.v. Artemis (L. Kahil); Simon (supra n. 115) 817. Meyer puts the founding of the Augustan colony in 14 B.C.

119 Inv. no. 16 marmor. Stele of Sophon son of Melanthios. Second century B.C. M. Guarducci, ICr I (Rome 1935) 75 no. VIII.31 with bibliography.

120 Altar of Diana Victrix: Rome, Mus. Naz. inv. no. 108611. Helbig4 III, 366-67 no. 2429 (E. Simon); A. Giuli- ano ed., Museo Nazionale Romano: Le sculture I, 2 (Rome 1981) 342-43 no. 45 (A.L. Lombardi); Simon (supra n. 115) 812 no. 62. First (Simon) or second (Lombardi) century A.C. Albani Puteal: Rome, Mus. Cap. inv. no. 1019. Helbig4 II, 97-98 no. 1244 (W. Fuchs); Simon (supra n. 115) 834 no. 309; Long fig. 110; Zagdoun (supra n. 41) 83-99, cat. no. 399. Hadrianic? Carthage mosaic: Tunis, Musee du Bardo. Dunbabin (supra n. 40) 253 no. 42, figs. 36-37; Simon (supra n. 115) 812 no. 60. Ca. A.D. 400.




As Helbig observed, Diana is named as the tutela or patroness of November in the Menologia Rustica.'21 Diana's crescent and bow clearly differentiate her from Luna, the weekday goddess, who was identified by a white nimbus and a whip or scepter.'22

Jupiter. The god is the same type and has the same attributes as the Jupiter of the weekday gods, a mature god with short brown hair and beard, wearing his chlamys draped over both shoulders and holding a knobbed scepter. Here, however, the chlamys is yellow instead of red, and the scepter rests against the left shoulder rather than extending diagonally before the chest. This economy of types must have functioned as an aid to clarify the subject matter. As Helbig observed, Jupiter acts as tutela of July in the Menol- ogia Rustica.'23

Juno. To the right of Jupiter is his queen, who is also dark-haired and dark-eyed. She is not nude as reported by the Accademia124 but wears a low-necked dark garment that covers both shoulders. For attributes she has a silver diadem with flame-like attach- ments rising from the upper edge and a knobbed scepter clutched in her left hand. The white lines just above each shoulder may be the remains of a transparent veil.

There are three Olympian goddesses who might appear beside Jupiter in a calendar sequence--Juno as his consort among the month gods, Ceres as tutela of August, and Venus, whom we have already found next to Jupiter among the weekday gods. The Acca- demia called her Venus, and she has been so regarded ever since, largely because of her supposed nudity.'25 The fact that she is dressed does not necessarily pre- vent her from being Venus: the Venus of the weekday gods is also draped, and there is another bust of Ve-

nus wearing a low-necked peplos and diadem in the House of the Colored Capitals (or of Ariadne, VII.4.51 + 31).126 In both these instances, however, Cupid is present to identify her as Venus. As we have just observed, the same type was used for Jupiter as weekday god and as month god, but Diana as month goddess was carefully distinguished from the weekday goddess Luna. Here the goddess is quite different from the Venus of the weekday gods. She is not accompanied by Cupid. She does not wear a filmy garment nor exude voluptuousness. Hence she can- not be Venus.

The case for Ceres is even poorer. On Roman Re- publican coins, Ceres is always identified by her crown of wheat.'27 In the two compita of the Twelve Gods at Pompeii she also wears a crown of wheat, and in addition she carries a long torch."28 Whenever there was a possibility of confusing Ceres with Juno as here, it appears that Ceres was distinguished by her crown of wheat and/or torch.

Consequently the goddess in this medallion is probably Juno, the consort of Jupiter. Among the Pom- peian wall paintings there are three representations of Juno that may be compared with the medallion: the Marriage of Jupiter and Juno painted in the House of the Tragic Poet (VI.8.3), the Punishment of Ixion in the House of the Vettii (VI. 15.1), and a bust in the House of the Epigrams (V.1.18).129 In all three cases Juno has dark eyes and dark hair that is parted in the center and drawn back at the sides like the hair of the goddess in the medallion. She also wears a diadem and a transparent veil indicated by lines of white. Only the Juno in the Punishment of Ixion is provided with a scepter, and that is different from the one in the medallion.

121 Helbig, Wandgemilde 200 no. 1006; Degrassi (supra n. 60) 47-48, p. 290 col. 2, lines 9-10; p. 297 col. 3, lines 10- 11.

122 P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor 1988) 191-92, observes that the images of Diana and Luna coalesced at the time of the Secular Games (17 B.C.). Here, however, the two goddesses have been kept quite distinct.

123 Helbig, Wandgemiilde 200 no. 1006; Degrassi (supra n. 60) 47-48, p. 289 col. 1, lines 12-13; p. 296 col. 3, lines 10- 11. Manilius, Astronomica 2.441 makes Jupiter tutela of Leo, the constellation that the sun enters in July.

124 PdE 262, pl. 50. 125 PdE 262, pl. 50; Helbig, Wandgemilde 76 no. 275, 200

no. 1006. In Long 271, I observed that this goddess was quite different from the Venus of the weekday gods, but I wrongly concluded that she was an astral Venus and that the painter had mixed up his Venus types. On the contrary, he was carefully distinguishing Venus and Juno.

126 Helbig, Wandgemilde 76 no. 276; Reinach 62, 1; Sche- fold, WP 183. See also the enthroned Venus with Peithos

and Cupid from the Villa under the Farnesina in Rome, now in the Museo Nazionale Romano: Helbig4 III, 443 (B. An- dreae); B. Andreae, The Art of Rome (New York 1977) pl. 44 (in color); I. Bragantini and M. de Vos eds., Museo Nazionale Romano: Le pitture II, 1 (Rome 1982) 130-31, pl. 43 (M. Taloni). 19 B.C.

127 Crawford nos. 321/1, 351/1, 378/1c, 414/1, 427/1, 467/ 1, 494/44a, pls. 42, 46, 48, 51, 55, 60; LIMC IV (1988) 893- 908, esp. 895 nos. 14-17, s.v. Demeter/Ceres (S. DeAngeli).

128 Long figs. 79-81; S. DeAngeli (supra n. 127) 904 nos. 158-59. See also Ceres in two Neronian paintings from Pompeii: House of the Dioscuri (VI.9.6): Naples, MN 9454. Schefold, WP 116; DeAngeli (supra n. 127) 896 no. 38. House of the Ship (VI. 10.11): Naples, MN 9457. Schefold, WP 124; DeAngeli (supra n. 127) 899 no. 84.

129 Jupiter and Juno: Naples, MN 9559. Helbig, Wandge- malde 33-34 no. 114; Schefold, WP 103; M. Brion, Pompeii & Herculaneum. The Glory and the Grief (London 1960) ill. 53 (in color). Punishment of Ixion: see supra n. 34. Bust: Schefold (supra n. 24) pl. 179, bottom left; LIMC V (1990) 814-56, esp. 844 no. 257, s.v. Iuno (E. La Rocca).




The coiffure, diadem, and veil are likewise char- acteristic of representations of Juno in relief and in the round, and some of these provide a parallel for the low scooped neckline of the goddess's garment in the medallion.'13 Among Roman Republican coins, a denarius issued by L. Rubrius Dossenus in 89 B.C. shows the head of Juno veiled and crowned, with a

scepter similar to the one in the medallion.'131 The Menologia Rustica list Juno as tutela of Janu-

ary.'32 When the month gods are arranged in pairs, male and female, she is the consort of Jupiter. Hence it appears that the Olympians were paired in this series rather than shown in the calendar sequence. In this case, the rejected medallion would have represented Apollo, Diana's twin and tutela of May. Pre-

sumably he would have faced the same way as Diana, and the two couples would have been grouped as a set of four, a composition not unlike that of the cameo in Vienna on which busts of Claudius and Agrippina the Younger face Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder. 133

This reconstruction is, of course, conjectural. It

agrees, however, with two other Roman representations of the month gods: on the Ara Borghese each of the three sides has a row of four Olympians, and

Jupiter is paired with Juno and Apollo with Diana.134

That these are indeed the month gods is indicated by the presence of the Horae in one of the lower regis- ters. On the "Altar" of Gabii, the heads of the Olym- pians are arranged in a circle on the top with Apollo beside Diana and probably Juno beside Jupiter.'35 The pairing of the tutelae on the top contrasts with the arrangement on the sides of their symbols alter-

nating with the signs of the zodiac in the order of their calendar sequence.

Vulcan136 This medallion (fig. 4, left) is now framed with that

of Liber/March, but the two are on separate pieces of

plaster. They also seem to have been found at differ-

ent times, for Bacchus was one of the medallions listed

by Weber on 26 April 1760, but Vulcan must be the last single medallion listed by Weber as having been cut out by 10 May 1760. The colors used, the size, and the appearance of the medallion in general prove conclusively that he belongs to the series of the calendar medallions, and the most likely location is somewhere between Diana and the band with the weekday gods. In the publication by the Accademia the god was identified as Attis or Mithras holding an axe, but

Helbig recognized him as Hephaistos/Vulcan because of the presence of the three other Olympian month

gods.'37 Vulcan's head is turned three-quarters right, and the medallion is lighted from the front like those of the other month gods.

Vulcan wears a white pileus (described as light green in the original publication). His short curly hair is streaked with white like Saturn's. What appears to be a chin strap is probably the underpainting of a short beard. Over his left shoulder is tied a white

garment, his exomis, from which short ends straggle, suggestive of the raw edge of woven material or hairs of a hide or sheepskin. His right shoulder is bare. In his hand he grasps steel tongs, of which the pincers can readily be perceived against the outline of his

right shoulder. The tongs and exomis confirm his

identity beyond all doubt. Roman Republican coins show Vulcan wearing a

wreathed pileus and holding his tongs by his shoul-

der.'38 In Greek art the tongs appear as an attribute of Hephaistos from the early fifth century B.C. on, as

they do later in Roman art for Vulcan.' 39 The calendar mosaics from Hellin in Spain and Trier likewise

depict Vulcan, the patron of September, as an elderly god holding tongs.140

In Pompeii the two compita of the Twelve Gods

present Vulcan as youthful, wearing a cloth exomis and pileus, and holding tongs in his left hand.l'' There are two mythological paintings in which Vulcan

appears as a middle-aged, bearded smith: with Thetis

130 Paris, Cabinet des Medailles. Roman Imperial bronze statuette. La Rocca (supra n. 129) 842 no. 214 with bibliography. Ancona, Museo Nazionale. Bronze equestrian group from Cartoceto with relief bust of Juno in medallion on horse trappings. F. Nicosia et al., I bronzi dorati da Cartoceto, un restauro (Florence 1987) 51, pls. 1, 2 lower right, 12 upper right (in color); S. Stucchi, II gruppo bronzeo tiberiano da Cartoceto (Rome 1988) 83, figs. 83a, 84c; La Rocca (supra n. 129) 843 no. 231. A.D. 23-29 (Stucchi) or Late Republican (F. Kleiner, review of Stucchi in AJA 94 [1990] 514).

131 Crawford no. 348/2, pl. 45. 132 Degrassi (supra n. 60) 47-48, p. 287 col. 1, lines 9-10;

p. 293 col. 1, lines 10-11. 133 S. Fuchs, "Deutung, Sinn und Zeitstellung des Wiener

Cameo mit den Fruchthornbiisten," RM 51 (1936) 212-37;

Kraus (supra n. 20) 283, pl. 29a. Ca. A.D. 48/49. 134 Long figs. 96-97.

135 Long figs. 44-48. 136 Naples, MN 9520, left. 137 PdE 261, pl. 50; Helbig, Wandgemdilde 73 no. 258, 200

no. 1006. The "axe" is simply an area where the painted surface of the background was lost.

138 Crawford no. 263/2 issued by M. Metellus at Rome 127 B.C.; no. 266/2 issued by C. Cassius at Rome 126 B.C., pl. 38; no. 314/1d issued by L. Cotta at Rome 105 B.C., pl. 42.

139 LIMC IV (1988) 627-54, esp. 653, s.v. Hephaistos (A. Hermary).

140 Long figs. 55, 26.

141 Long figs. 78, 80, 81.




in his workshop, found in the House of Paccius Al- exander and Alexa (IX.1.7), and the Punishment of Ixion in the House of the Vettii (VI.15.1).'42 Unlike most statuettes of the deity, which depict an exomis with folds suggestive of woven material, these show Vulcan wearing a bulky exomis that might be made of hide, and in the Punishment of Ixion the garment even has a few threads or hairs along the neck edge like those of the garment in the medallion. Tongs varied in form according to their use and the wish of the individual blacksmith, but both tongs and garment could be touches from contemporary life like Saturn's

falx and November's rastrum quadridens.'43 In the Menologia Rustica as in the calendar mosaics,

Vulcan is patron of September.'44 He is paired with Minerva. Since he is turned to the right, he would have been on the left side of the group of four Olym- pian tutelae to which he belonged.

All of the extant Olympians are lighted from the front. It appears that all were represented on the same wall opposite the main source of light, i.e., on the back wall of the yellow room. The right end of the row of the tutelae of the months is preserved and indicates that the gods were paired and that two cou-

ples faced each other. There would have been three such groups of four with Vulcan (and Minerva) on the left side of either the left or the central group. To the right of this series of the month gods, the medallions continued without interruption, showing the seasons and the months, but turning the corner between Spring and March. Somewhere on the left wall of the room, to the left of the month gods, was the band with the weekday gods.

THE YELLOW ROOM

According to the contemporary report, the band of medallions, of which the extant pieces have just been discussed, ran around the walls about 1.50 m above the floor and was the only decoration observed. Hence the room decoration did not conform to any of the well-known Pompeian compositional styles.

The Pompeian painted busts that have been used for comparison with the medallions were found for the most part isolated in the center of a wall panel.

Only the set of four on the facade of the House of M. Vecilius Verecundus (IX.7.1) occupied adjacent squares in a row above the opening into the shop.'45 There is also a set of six bronze plaques, each with the bust of a deity, that were inlaid in a row on the upper part of an iron-plated chest from Pompeii.'46 These are arranged in pairs facing each other like the weekday gods among the calendar medallions-Mi- nerva with Mercury, Bacchus with Ariadne, and

Apollo with Diana. Otherwise the composition seems to be unique in Pompeii.

From the Hellenistic period in Greece there are two

public buildings dated about 100 B.C. that might offer a prototype for the decoration. Both the Monument of Mithridates on Delos and the Heroon of Calydon had a row of shield busts carved in relief on the upper interior walls.'47 In the former each shield had a

contemporary portrait bust. In the latter the shields had busts of gods (Zeus, Aphrodite, Eros) and heroes (Herakles, Meleager). In Rome, Pliny the Elder men- tions shields with portrait busts in the Temple of Bellona and the Basilica Aemilia.'48 The medium differs, there are fewer busts, and the subjects are generally historical figures though in one case there are deities. None could serve as the source of the Pompeii calendar medallions.

The extant medallions belong to three different series of subjects all related to the passage of the year. They were arranged around the room from left to right in sequence: the seven weekday gods on the left wall, the 12 Olympian month gods on the back wall, and the 20 seasons and months beginning with Spring on the back wall and continuing through the rest of the year on the right wall. If the medallions were arranged symmetrically as was customary in Roman art, there should have been two more medallions on the back wall to the left of the month gods to balance the Spring medallions plus 18 on the left wall to balance the rest of the season/months series on the right. Only the seven weekday gods remain, a continuous complete set in themselves though Venus looks toward the right as if the series of medallions continued. It appears then that 13 medallions have been lost from the left, which should have comprised one or more subjects related to the passage of the year.

142 Vulcan with Thetis: Naples, MN 9529. Schefold, WP 235; C. Havelock, Hellenistic Art (Greenwich, Conn. 1968) 250, pl. 10 (in color). Punishment of Ixion: see supra n. 34.

143 W.H. Manning in D. Strong and D. Brown eds., Roman Crafts (New York 1976) 145-46.

144 Degrassi (supra n. 60) 47-48, p. 289 col. 3, lines 10- 11; p. 297 col. 1, lines 11-12.

145 See supra n. 23. 146 Naples, MN 73022. E. Pernice, Hellenistische Kunst in

Pompeji 5 (Berlin 1932) 88-91, pls. 52 below, 55-56; B. Barr- Sharrar, The Hellenistic and Early Imperial Decorative Bust (Mainz 1987) 14, pls. 22, 28, 45, 52, 58, nos. C69, C87, C147, C173, C175, and C188.

147 R. Winkes, Clipeata imago. Studien zu einer romischen Bildnisform (Bonn 1969) 10-13, 152-56, 157-71 with references.

148 Pliny, HN 35.12-13; Winkes (supra n. 147) 13.




S sp p r r i i n

A J n g V p u g u o D p S 1 1 i i JH a c 1 a t u o t a o n e n r y n ? a r o a r

Liber/March ? T U T E L A E (OLYMPIANS)

Z M O O D N I T A H C S

A N D

S E A Autumn Satyr S O N

Venus W S October E

Jupiter E November K

Mercury D Winter Hora A

Mars Y

Luna G O

Sol D S

Saturn

Fig. 6. Hypothetical reconstruction of the composition of the Pompeii calendar medallions

There is, in fact, a set of 12 figures that is associated with the year and is closely related to the weekday gods as planetary deities that could fill the gap--the signs of the zodiac. Together with a medallion representing Sol or Aion they would make up the 13 needed for symmetry. The signs of the zodiac are shown with the weekday gods in the astrological mosaic from Bir Chana and a parapegma found in the

Chapel of Santa Felicitai near the Baths of Trajan in Rome.149 Manilius associates the zodiac with the

Olympians in his Astronomica (2.433-48), and the

Menologia Rustica have reliefs of the signs as the

heading for each month.'15 Pictorial combinations of the zodiac with the month gods occur on the "Altar" of Gabii, the "Summer" candelabrum base in the Louvre, the mosaic of Hellin, and possibly the mosaic of Monnus at Trier.151 The Athens calendar frieze

illustrates them along with personifications of the months and seasons.' 52 Thus the zodiac signs would have been an obvious choice to be included in a set of medallions illustrating the year. Representing constellations as they do, they would be fit companions for the weekday gods who represent the planets, both

being sets of heavenly objects. Sol is connected with the zodiac in the Menologia Rustica and would be an

equally suitable subject for the 13th medallion.'53 Aion or Eternity may also be depicted with the circle of the zodiac and may be associated with the emperor, the empire, and the theme of the return of the Golden

Age.154 Figure 6 gives a hypothetical reconstruction of the

original composition and the positions of the extant medallions. The three subjects attested by the medallions together with the postulated zodiac form an

149 Bir Chana: See supra n. 40. Santa Felicitai parapegma: Degrassi (supra n. 60) 56; Meyboom (supra n. 11) pl. 161 (replica); Sadurska (supra n. 14) 70-71, no. 1:1, figs. 1-2.

150 Degrassi (supra n. 60) 47-48. 151 Long figs. 44-48 (Gabii), 99-101 (Summer Candela-

brum), 50-58 (Hellin), 20 (Trier). 152 Deubner (supra n. 69) 248-54, pls. 34-40; Simon (su-

pra n. 69) pls. 1-3.

153 Representations of Helios/Sol in the center of the circle of the zodiac are common. Examples: RE series 2, 19 (1972) 462-709, esp. 649-50, 674-76, 685-86, nos. 129, 131, 132, 134, 204-12, 246-50, s.v. Zodiakos (H. Gundel). See also Letta (supra n. 11) 611-12 nos. 291-301.

154 LIMC I (1981) 399-411, esp. 409-10, s.v. Aion (M. Le Glay).




effective balanced whole. The planetary week/zodiac

sequence on the left symbolizes the heavenly year while the personifications of the seasons and the festivals and agricultural activities of the months on the right illustrate the terrestrial year. In the center the Olympians preside as patrons both of the months and of the zodiac, ensuring the orderly progress of the year in heaven and on earth.

It is also possible to estimate the original dimensions of the yellow room on the basis of the measurements

given by Weber.'55 For the medallions on the right and back walls, whether single or in groups, Weber

gives a consistent width of 1 palm 2 once including the border. This gives a width of 18 palms 8 once based on the 16 medallions on the back wall and a

length of 21 palms for the right wall based on 18 medallions along the right wall. In modern measurements this would be 4.69 x 5.27 m. The seven week-

day gods, however, occupied a width of 8 palms 10 once or roughly 1 palm 3 once each, giving a wall

length of 22 palms 6 once for 18 medallions. The difference is a little more than the width of one medallion. Hence it seems possible that there were only 17 medallions on the left wall spaced slightly farther apart. In this case it is likely that the medallions to the left of the Olympian tutelae depicted only the weekday gods and the signs of the zodiac without Sol or Aion as previously postulated.

Alternatively, there could have been an opening in the right wall, for which the change in the direction of lighting between October and November might be evidence. The room with the Bacchic paintings in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii offers a parallel, even to the presence of divine beings in the center of the composition.'56

In summary, the yellow room had a minimum width of approximately 4.69 m, a minimum length of 5.27 m, and was preserved to a height of over 1.50 m (the level of the medallions). It may have had an opening in the right wall, but the main entrance would have been opposite the busts of the Olympians. The subject matter seems especially appropriate for a room facing on a garden or portico.

It seems unlikely that so comprehensive a program with such universal significance was originally designed for a room in a private house in a provincial town. Consideration of the relationship of the Pom-

peii medallions to other early illustrated calendars and to Augustan ideology may help in finding the program's original destination.

EARLY ILLUSTRATED CALENDARS

The Pompeii calendar medallions themselves seem to have been painted in the mid-first century A.C.'57 A terminus post quem for the design is given by the use of the Genius Augusti symbolizing the Augustalia to illustrate October since the imperial festival was established in 19 B.C.'58

Only one of the extant calendars cited above is earlier, the frieze built into the facade of the Little Metropolis in Athens, which has been dated to the first century B.C.'59 Like the Pompeii medallions, the Athens calendar frieze was conceived as a continuous band. Unlike the medallions, the zodiac representing the heavenly phenomena is mingled with the earthly seasons and months in the progress of the year, and there is no reference to the Olympians as the gods who preside over the whole, nor, for that matter, to the weekday gods. As the blocks are now arranged, the year begins with Spring like the Pompeii medallions, but it appears that originally the year began with October, the first zodiac sign being Scorpio.

Next in chronological order come the Menologia Rustica.'60 On the basis of the letter forms, Degrassi puts the extant Menologium Colotianum no later than the first century A.C.'61 The calendar on which they are based postdates the introduction of the festival of Isis in the 30s A.C.'62 The Menologia are close to the Pompeii medallions in date and in content. For each month there is a column headed by a relief of the zodiac sign occupied by the sun at the opening of the month. Under this are listed the name of the month, the number of days, the Olympian acting as tutela, farm labors, and festivals of the month. They embody the basic concept of the medallions-the orderly progress of the year under the patronage of the Twelve Olympians-and have been very helpful in identifying the medallions personifying months and seasons. At the same time they are not based on the same calendar as the medallions. The year on the Menolo- gium Vallense certainly began with January and was divided in three sets (or seasons?) of four months each. On the Menologium Colotianum the year was divided into quarters corresponding to those current

155 It should be noted that these figures represent solid wall space. Any openings at the level of the medallions would increase the size of the room.

156 A. Maiuri, La Villa dei Misteri3 (Rome 1960) 53-76 and esp. figs. 32, 34. The similarity in composition was pointed out to me by one of the anonymous readers for AJA.

157 Simon (supra n. 11) 541 no. 319; Letta (supra n. 11) 610 no. 270. Yellow backgrounds became more popular as

the first century progressed: R. Ling, Roman Painting (Cam- bridge 1990) 58, 71-72, 82.

158 Augustus, Res Gestae 11. 159 See supra n. 69. 160 Degrassi (supra n. 60) 47-48. 161 Degrassi (supra n. 60) "Commentarii Generales" 284. 162 Degrassi (supra n. 60) "Commentarii Generales" 284,

527.




today, January-March, April-June, July-September, and October-December, whereas the year represented by the medallions began with Spring and the month of March. The Menologia refer to the tropoi but not to the seasons as such and ignore the seven-

day week. The painted calendar found under Santa Maria

Maggiore in Rome and dated between 176 and 275 has little in common with the Pompeii medallions.'63 It combined the Fasti with scenes of agricultural and

religious activities and had at least one zodiac sign, Sagittarius, at the top of one panel.

Finally the calendar mosaic of Hellin includes several of the elements represented in the Pompeii medallions but combines them differently. 164 The seasons are shown as pairs of Hora and Satyr and

occupy the four central panels. Along the outer edge is the series of the months, each named in Latin, symbolized by the zodiac sign carrying the deity in whose honor the major festival of the month was celebrated, not always the Olympian tutela. The year runs continuously, but the three panels placed on each

edge represent a quarter which follows the system observed by the Menologium Colotianum, not that of the Pompeii calendar medallions.

To these more or less comprehensive calendars may be added five other pieces showing segments of the series represented by the Pompeii medallions: the "Altar" of Gabii (tutelae and zodiac), the Ara

Borghese (tutelae and Horae), the Santa Felicita parapegma and the Bir Chana astrological mosaic (weekday gods and zodiac), and the El Djem calendar mosaic (seasons and months beginning with Spring, as in the Pompeii medallions).'65

The components selected for the individual exam-

ples overlap. Among them all the elements found in the Pompeii medallions can be matched, but none is the exact counterpart of the medallions. In subject matter the medallions are more comprehensive than the other calendars, and their message transcends the mere passage of time.

THE SOURCE OF THE MEDALLIONS

In the discussion of the individual medallions it was observed that several had ties to southern Italy and/or Republican Rome-the types for Mars and Venus, the implements carried by Saturn and Novem- ber, and the choice of the Liberalia to illustrate March.

Some medallions relate to the new order established in the Principate: the Genius Augusti symbolizing the Augustalia is used to illustrate October. The series begins with Saturn, reminding us that Italy is the Saturnia tellus and that with Augustus, as Virgil pre- dicted in Eclogues 4.6, the Golden Age returns (re- deunt Saturnia regna). Augustus himself may be

compared to Liber Pater, and the type used for Diana may recall a statue rededicated by Augustus at Patrai. References such as these suggest that the original design may itself have been a product of the Augustan age.

While the theme of the new Golden Age was an

important element in Augustan propaganda, Augus- tus's personal interest in the measurement of time and the passage of the year is reflected by the Hor- ologium Solarium Augusti. This was laid out in the

Campus Martius presumably after Augustus became pontifex maximus in 12 B.C.166 The Egyptian obelisk that served as its gnomon was erected in 10 B.C.

according to the inscription on its base.'67 E. Buch-

ner's investigation of this monument and his suggestion that its layout was related to the Ara Pacis Augustae have recently been criticized by M. Schiutz.'68 What has actually been uncovered is part of the meridian line of the Domitianic reconstruction of the instrument. To the left of this line the Greek names of the appropriate zodiac signs had been inlaid in bronze letters. The scale for each zodiac sign was divided into 30 sections corresponding to the degrees through which the sun passed, not to days as in a calendar. The beginning of spring was indicated at 150 Taurus. Thus the Horologium Augusti was not, strictly speaking, a calendar but an instrument for measuring astronomical time.

163 F. Magi, II calendario dipinto sotto Santa Maria Maggiore (MemPontAcc III.11.1, Rome 1972); on the date: M.R. Salz- man, "New Evidence for Dating the Calendar at Santa Maria

Maggiore in Rome," TAPA 111 (1981) 215-27; P. Liverani in G. Andreotti, Santa Maria Maggiore a Roma (Florence 1988) 47-48. My sincere thanks to P. Liverani for conducting me through the area excavated.

164 Long figs. 50-58; Stern (supra n. 62) 442, pl. 10, 25 (Fasti); 10-11, 26-27 (mosaic).

165 "Altar" of Gabii: See supra n. 151. Ara Borghese: see supra n. 134. Santa Felicita' parapegma: see supra n. 149. Bir Chana mosaic: see supra n. 40. El Djem calendar mosaic:

see supra n. 62. 166 E. Buchner, "Solarium Augusti und Ara Pacis," RM 83

(1976) 319-65 and "Horologium Solarium Augusti. Vorbe- richt iiber die Ausgrabungen 1979/80," RM 87 (1980) 355- 73; reprinted and brought up to date in Die Sonnenuhr des

Augustus (Mainz 1982); Buchner, "Horologium Solarium Augusti," Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik (Berlin 1988) 240-44; M. Schiitz, "Zur Sonnenuhr des Augustus auf dem Marsfeld," Gymnasium 97 (1990) 432-57, esp. 447 on the date.

167 CIL VI, 702. 168 See supra n. 166.




The laying out of the Horologium may, however, have led to the discovery that the Julian calendar was creeping ahead of the solar year because every third year was counted as a leap year.169 At all events this error was corrected by a senatus consultum of 8 B.C., which ordained that the leap year should be omitted in 5 and 1 B.C. and in A.D. 4.170 The importance of this measure is indicated by its having been engraved on bronze."17 Either at this time or earlier among the honors voted to Octavian Augustus in 27 B.C., the eighth month Sextilis was renamed Augustus.'72 Both the correction of the Julian calendar and the personal honor connect Augustus with the year.

Among the decorative programs devised for the interiors of public buildings in the time of Augustus, two have been reconstructed that seem to be related in theme or form to the concept of the Pompeii medallions-the orderly progress of the week and the constellations of the zodiac in the heavens above, and of the seasons and the monthly agricultural work and festivals on earth below, under the beneficent super- vision of the Olympian gods.

In the Aedes Concordiae Augustae dedicated by Tiberius in A.D. 10, B.A. Kellum has shown that the arrangement of statues and other works of art within represented the "newly harmonious world order of Concordia Augusta."'73 Here disparate works of Greek art were combined in a new spatial relationship based on an astrological system like that of Manilius's Astronomica. Kellum sees the message as "mirroring the balance struck between members of the imperial family, between social orders within the state, and ultimately reflecting the order of the cosmos as a whole."'74 Though the subjects actually represented belong to the traditional world of the gods rather than the celestial and terrestrial subjects of the Pompeii medallions, the theme expressed is similar.

Secondly, in the Forum of Augustus the Temple of Mars Ultor was flanked by exedras with niches containing statues of illustrious Romans-members of the Gens lulia on the north, other political and military leaders on the south.'75 The scale was, of course, monumental, unlike the scale of the medallions, but, as in the yellow room, there was a single row of figures on either side of an assembly of gods. Here the figures represent legendary and historical persons rather than personifications, and only two Olympians are on hand, Mars as the father of Romulus and ancestor of the Romans, and Venus as ancestress of the Gens lulia and the Princeps himself. The Forum proclaimed the glorious past and present of Rome under divine guid- ance and was intended to be the setting for Roman state occasions thereafter.76 The theme is historical rather than allegorical, but like the medallions all is governed by the gods.

Clearly the Pompeii medallions tie in with these two interior programs in their arrangement and in their theme of the divine order in control of the world. They are not themselves, however, concerned with the political and military strength of Rome. like the decoration of the Forum of Augustus, and they go beyond the theme in the Aedes Concordiae Augustae, the concord of the gods, to stress the effect of this in the orderly progress of the year. In proclaiming the passage of the year with its implied fruitfulness and abundance, they may also be regarded as an expansion of the message of the blessings of the Augustan Peace embodied in the "Tellus" panel of the Ara Pacis Augustae.'77

Among the buildings in Rome that Augustus undertook to restore, one seems a most appropriate location for a program embodying agricultural labors and festivals-the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera, which had been destroyed by fire in 31 B.C. and was

169 My hypothesis agrees with that of Schuitz (supra n. 166) 448.

170 A. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology (HdA 1,7, 1972) 156-58; Brind'Amour (supra n. 49) 11-15.

171 Macrob., Sat. 1.12.35. On the significance of engraving statutes on bronze tablets see C. Williamson, "Monuments of Bronze: Roman Legal Documents on Bronze Tablets," CIAnt 6 (1987) 160-83.

172 For a detailed account citing the ancient sources see K. Scott, "Greek and Roman Honorific Months," YCS 2 (1931) 201-78, esp. 224-27. Following RE 19 (1917) 275- 381, esp. 361-62, s.v. Julius (Augustus) (0. Seeck), Scott argues for the earlier date. More recently Samuel (supra n. 170) 155 n. 6, and Brind'Amour (supra n. 49) 11-15, favor the later date.

173 B. Kellum, "The City Adorned: Programmatic Display

at the Aedes Concordiae Augustae," in K.A. Raaflaub and M. Toner eds., Between Republic and Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate (Berkeley 1990) 276-96, esp. 295.

174 Kellum (supra n. 173) 295-96. 175 A. Degrassi ed., II XIII,3, "Elogia Fori Augusti," 1-36,

esp. 1-8; P. Zanker, Forum Augustum. Das Bildprogramm (Tfibingen 1968) 14-16, figs. 29-39; Zanker (supra n. 122) 210-15.

176 Zanker (supra n. 122) 214. 177 On the Ara Pacis Augustae see most recently P.J. Hol-

liday, "Time, History and Ritual on the Ara Pacis Augustae," ArtB 72 (1990) 542-57; on the "Tellus" panel, N.T. de Grummond, "Pax Augusta and the Horae on the Ara Pacis Augustae," AJA 94 (1990) 663-77; and K. Galinsky, in this issue, 457-75.




rededicated by Augustus's successor Tiberius in A.D. 17. Work on the temple must have been in progress while Manilius was working on Book II of his Astron- omica with its reference to the Olympians as tutelae of the zodiac.'78 The Augustan temple has not been located, but its predecessor had at one stage a series of paintings or terracotta reliefs on its walls that were cut out when it was refurbished.'79 There was thus a

precedent for interior wall decoration in the temple. As we have seen, the male Seasons have attributes

linking them to Bacchus/Liber, and Liber himself led in the months as the personification of March. His

colleague Ceres could well have been placed beside him, for her festival, the Cerealia, was celebrated in the following month, on 19 April.'18 If indeed the

program represented by the Pompeii medallions was

designed for the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera, this would also explain why Jupiter and Juno, who would normally be placed in the center of the Olym- pians, were relegated to the outer fringe of the tutelae: the Capitoline triad represented the patrician order at Rome, but the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera was the headquarters for the plebeians.

Appendix

Contemporary Documentation of the Excavation of the Pompeii Calendar

Medallions

1. "Epitome diurnorum ex cod. mss. Aloys. Ribau," PAH I. ii, Addenda iv.140 (26 April and 2 May 1760).

26 aprile: Diversi pitture nello scavo della masseria di (Diego) Cuomo.

2 maggio: Pittura nello scavo della masseria di Cuomo, che rappresenta i sette giorni della settimana. Muraglie cadute nella masseria di Cuomo.

2. Weekly reports on the excavation by Karl Weber, PAH I.i.106-109 passim (26 April-10 May 1760).

26 abril: Y se han descubierto tambien quatro quadros de pinturas. El primero de 3 pal. y /2 por 1 pal. y 1/2 contiene 3 quadretos redondos, cada uno con un medio busto de muger bestida, el primero tiene en la mano derecha un pufial, y en la izquierda un bacil con mucha ropa dentro, el segundo con un bastoncito en cada mano, y el tercero tiene un regazo abrazado. El segundo de 1 pal. y 3 on. en quadro contiene medio busto de muger desnuda con girlanda de flores y

frascas, y con la mano tiene un panicho con frutas adentro. Otro quadreto de 1 pal. y 3 on. quadro con medio busto de muger desnuda con flores A la cabeza y baston A la mano derecha, y un feston de flores. Otro de 7 pal. por 1 pal. y 3 on. contiene 6 quadretos redondos con medio busto de muger cada uno, que dos son poco bien conserbados, uno con baston A la mano derecha y zintas y girlanda de flores y frascas A la cabeza, otro desnudo que tiene un bastoncino A cada mano y flores en la cabeza, y los otros dos parece que tienen un pufial al pecho.

2 mayo: Ha sido D. Camillo Paderni a obserbar las pinturas que di parte la semana passada, y del nicho pintado ha dicho que no sirve que se corte; y de las pinturas redondas ha dispuesto que se corten 10 quadretos en 6 pedazos: el primero se corta de 3 pal. y 1/2 por 1 pal. y 2 on., que contiene tres quadretos cada uno con un medio busto de muger bestida con manto, la primera tiene en la mano izquierda un bacil con mucha ropa dentro, y en la derecha como un pufial; y la segunda tiene en la mano derecha un baston con otro bastoncino cruzado, un pequefio panicho colgado; y la ter- cera tiene un regazo bestido abrazado. Otro pedazo de 2 pal. y 3 on. por 1 pal. y 2 on. con 2 quadretos, y cada uno tiene un medio busto de muger desnuda, el primero con baston A la mano derecha con zintas colgadas y con girlanda de flores y frascas A la cabeza; el segundo con un poco de panicho atras con flores en la cabeza y con 2 bastoncitos A la mano derecha. El tercero quadro de 2 pal. y 3 on. por 1 pal. y 2 on. que contiene otros dos quadretos redondos, cada uno con medio busto de muger desnuda, que parece tiene el primero y el segundo un pufial al pecho. El quarto quadro de 1 pal. y 2 on. quadro, que contiene un medio busto de muger con girlanda de frascas y flores, y collar de flores, y baston a la mano derecha. El quinto de 1 pal. y 2 on. quadro contiene un medio busto de muger desnuda con frasca de flores A la cabeza, collar, y baston A la mano derecha. El sesto de 1 pal. y 2 on. quadro, que contiene otro medio busto de muger, que poco se conoze. Y las dos inscripciones coloradas que se han descubierto se las ha copiado Paderni, como tambien otra inscripcion descubierta nuebamente con letras negras como sigue:

GAVIVM ? AVIVM

D I - D OV.F

Ademas continuando la escavacion en la misma camara, se ha descubierto otra faja de pintura de 8 pal. y 10 on. por 14 on. cuya faja contiene 7 quadretos redondos. El primero contiene medio busto de muger bestida con un regazo con alas sobre el brazo derecho y un baston en la mano izquierda; el segundo un medio busto de hombre con baston A la mano derecha; el tercero otro medio busto de hombre con som- brero i la cabeza; el quarto otro medio busto de hombre con

178 Kellum (supra n. 173) 292-96 connects the program of the art works displayed in the Temple of Concordia Augusta with the astrological thought of Manilius and the circle of Tiberius's close associates. There is a direct connection between Manilius, Astronomica 2.433-48 and the program of the Pompeii calendar medallions, if I am correct in restoring the signs of the zodiac to the left of the Olympian tutelae.

179 Pliny, HN 35.154 quoting Varro. E.D. Van Buren, Fig-

urative Terra-Cotta Revetments in Etruria and Latium in the VI. and V. Centuries B.C. (London 1921) 31-33 suggests that the refurbishing occurred before the fire of 31 B.C. because that would have damaged the interior decorations beyond salvage.

180 Degrassi (supra n. 60) 439-40, 442-43; Scullard (supra n. 95) 101, 102-103.




elmo A la cabeza, y lanza en la mano derecha, y escudo en la

izquierda; el quinto un medio busto de muger bestida con baston echado sobre el pecho; el sesto otro medio busto de hombre bestido con baston a la mano izquierda, y en la punta una fajeta, y al rededor de la cabeza como una esfera de rajos; el septimo un medio busto de hombre biejo bestido con falce A la mano derecha. A mas se ha descubierto otra pintura de 1 pal. y 9 on. por 10 on., y contiene una muger bestida con manto que suena el arpa con las dos manos ... Todo lo que se ha encontrado en la maseria de Cuomo, donde estaban las inscripciones en la entrada de una puerta.

10 mayo: ... Y se han cortado por el joben de Canart las 8 pedazos de pintura que di parte la semana proxima pasada: 1. de 8 pal. por 14 on. con 7 quadretos redondos, 2. de 3 pal. y 1/2 por 14 on. con 3 quadretos, 3. de 2 pal. y 3 on. por 14 on. con 2 quadretos, 4. semejante, 5. de 14 on. en quadro con un quadreto, 6. 7. 8. semejantes.

3. PdE 257 n. 1, pl. 50. Fu scoverta nel mese di Maggio dell'anno 1760 negli sca-

vamenti di CivitA una camera, le di cui pareti eran tutte ugualmente di color giallo, e nell'altezza di circa sei palmi dal suolo eran dipinti in giro questi, e altri tondi: in un parete stavano per ordine disposti i setti tondi de' giorni della settimana, che fortunamente si trovarono interi, come qui si vedono incisi, con tutta la fascia dell'intonaco, che intera anche si conserva nella pittura originale: i tondi delle altre mura erano per la maggior parte o perduti in tutto ne' colori, o mancanti nell'intonaco: onde a pena poterono trarsi gli interrotti frammenti, che in questa Tavola (L) si osservano o uniti, o diversi, come appunto sono i pezzi originali dell'intonaco.

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