This book was in the making for quite some years. As one can infer from the volume's latest bibliographical references, the manuscripts of the contributions to the 2009 conference were submitted in 2012 and 2013. Later additions, made after the papers had been in proofs, were included only with the contributions by K. M. Coleman and B. E. Borg. It seems, then, that the responsibility for the late arrival of the book was evenly shared by the organizers of the conference and the German Archaeological Institute, in whose renowned, well-edited series “Sarkophag-Studien” the proceedings were published. Regrettably, such a delay is by no means an exception for sarcophagus studies published in Germany. As one extreme example, the proceedings of the 2006 conference in Marburg were published in 2016.Footnote ¹ By comparison, the 2012 publication of the 2005 symposium in Paris, and the 2018 publication of the 2011 conference in Rome, could almost qualify as sprints.Footnote ²

Despite its late arrival, the book under review is indeed welcome, not least because it contributes to filling a gap in the (otherwise very rich) landscape of sarcophagus studies in recent years. It reflects a coherent scientific debate on the particular way of reading the iconography of Roman sarcophagi with mythological subjects proposed by P. Zanker and B. C. Ewald in their hugely influential book Mit Mythen leben, published in German in 2004, and later in Italian (2008) and English (2012).Footnote ³ It is noteworthy that a conference aiming at this goal has not been organized by the German-speaking community of sarcophagus specialists, in either the run-up to or the aftermath of Zanker and Ewald's publication, but their book has stimulated no fewer than three in the USA, organized in 2008 and 2009.Footnote ⁴ As Hallett (H.) points out in the introduction to this volume, these were the first conferences on Roman sarcophagi held and published in the English language. Against this backdrop it is probably no exaggeration to conclude that the book by Zanker and Ewald revealed to the English-speaking scientific community the immense value for cultural history of Roman sarcophagi with mythological depictions. This is not the place to delve into why reception of the book seems less enthusiastic in the long-rooted research community of traditional German scholarship (which is mainly concerned with questions of typology and dating),Footnote ⁵ or why it took so long after the “cultural turn” in the 1960s and ’70s to recognize the potential of sarcophagi for writing cultural history.

According to H.'s introduction, the eight papers in the present volume can be categorized under three main topics, which I would summarize with the following questions: (1) Why did Greek myths become so popular on Roman sarcophagi in the 2nd c. CE? (2) How was the selection of mythological subjects and their particular iconography shaped by production processes and by the interaction between producers and consumers? (3) In which contexts were the sarcophagi visible and what influence on the conception of the images can be ascribed to the social framing of these contexts? As might be expected in the case of a collection of conference papers, a reader who skips the introduction could have difficulties distinguishing under which heading a contribution should be classified. Only the first question (“Why Greek myths?”) and, to some extent, the third question (“What contexts?”) are clearly addressed by several of the papers. It seems advisable then to consider the papers as individual contributions to various topics emerging from the debate surrounding the work of Zanker and Ewald.

The first paper constitutes the written version of P. Zanker's keynote lecture at the Berkeley conference (“Putting the deceased in the picture: ‘Pictorial devices’ as visual cues”), a short introduction to the method of iconographical analysis applied in his and Ewald's book. The text does not add anything that would expand the book's overall picture, nor does it include modifications or further reflections that could have arisen after the publication, for example in the context of the Berkeley conference. Thus, it may serve as a short English-language introduction to Zanker's methodological principles and a reminder of the state of the art in 2004, to be challenged by the papers that follow.

The first author to do so is A. Cameron, with his paper “Why mythology?” The title is somewhat misleading since Cameron seems mostly concerned with the question “Why sarcophagi?” Cameron's point of departure is the notion that the use of myths in the context of consolatory literature in the Greek tradition provided the decisive premise for the widespread deployment of mythological imagery on metropolitan sarcophagi from the Trajanic period onward, a widely accepted assumption that he aims to revise. As K. Coleman states in her own paper on Statius (57–63), Cameron's attempt is unconvincing because the literary sources clearly suggest otherwise. But above all, it is generally implausible that Etruscan tombs of the 5th–2nd c. BCE could have provided a visual source for such Greek mythological imagery in the early 2nd c. CE.

The more intriguing topic is not the Greek myths but rather the usage of sarcophagi as a medium of transporting these myths. When the Romans of the urbs began to use broadly told Greek mythological stories as a main and often exclusive decorative feature on their sarcophagi, were they considering the medium as something Greek or rather Roman/Italic? That is, when they were “talking in the language of Greek myth,” did they do so, from their point of view, in a Greek or Italic medium? This question remains open. As Cameron's paper shows, the premise that sarcophagi were considered an Italic tradition is not without foundation, but there are also good reasons to believe that marble sarcophagi were considered particularly Greek in style: for example, the long local traditions of garland sarcophagi in the Greek East, as pointed out by R. R. R. Smith in this volume (171). The importance of this question becomes clear when one considers the cultural meaning of Attic sarcophagi, which were imported to Rome in large numbers to meet the metropolitan boom in sarcophagi burials: should they not be understood as an invention of an Attic monument tradition, responding to the Roman expectation of something Greek? It seems rather difficult, however, to understand the significance of these sarcophagi, in their local Athenian context and in many other urban centers like Rome, if one supposes that richly carved marble sarcophagi with Greek myths were viewed as typically Italic.

An important point regarding the use of mythological imagery on Roman sarcophagi is made by Francesco de Angelis in his contribution on “The violence of emotions: Death, myths, and empathy in Rome (and Etruria).” Sarcophagi with mythological subjects remain almost completely free of portrait identifications during the 2nd c. CE, and Zanker had used portrait identification as one decisive clue for his interpretation of the specific appropriation of Greek myths for Roman funerary purposes. De Angelis, however, contrasts the habit of portrait identifications in the 2nd and 3rd c. to reveal a differing approach to the employment of mythological narratives for addressing emotional, mainly consolatory, issues in a funerary context during the 2nd c. What he observes is not completely new, as he rightly notes, but has never been addressed with clarity: many mythological depictions on 2nd-c. sarcophagi hardly lend themselves to anything like immediate emotional identification, for example in the sense that a Roman viewer could use a single figure or a particular narrative as a paradigmatic device for her or his own conduct or as a simple simile to praise the bereaved.

A particularly telling example is the group of sarcophagi with depictions of Orestes haunted by the furies while slaughtering his own mother. The pictorial narratives do not abstain from showing ethically problematic elements, which certainly do not make a figure like Orestes and the story of his family a positive example for immediate identification. As de Angelis underlines, the particular use of mythological imagery can only be understood if “the scenes under discussion aim also at creating distance between the myths and the viewers: they encourage controlled empathy, not straightforward and unconditioned identification” (43). One of the main reasons behind choosing mythological imagery on sarcophagi was its potential to visualize socially disruptive or even dangerous aspects of death and grieving that needed to be addressed but also controlled and, in this sense, distanced from the community of mourners.

This is one more parallel between rhetorical strategies in Classical consolatory literature and pictorial strategies on sarcophagi of the 2nd c. CE: the rousing of potentially disruptive emotions is key. This strategy aims not at instilling these emotions, but rather at providing a particular setting in which such emotions can be articulated and the addressee can overcome them and return to normal life. Immediate personal identification with the mythical protagonists should be avoided, and this seems to be why Greek myths were understood as well adapted to this purpose in a Roman context: the stories and their protagonists could be located in a related but temporally and culturally distant world, which allowed the right balance between reflective distance and emotional involvement.Footnote ⁶ This rhetoric of Greco-Roman funerary culture and consolatory literature was particularly favored on metropolitan sarcophagi of the 2nd c. but not, for example, on the sarcophagi produced in the Greek East at the same time. Why this was the case is another question,Footnote ⁷ but the observation shows the importance of material like sarcophagus reliefs for understanding long-term developments and regional differences in ancient death studies and cultural history more generally.

K. M. Coleman's paper on Statius's Silvae (“Mythologizing death: Silvae and sarcophagi”) analyzes the epicedion consoling T. Flavius Abascantus for the death of his wife Priscilla (Silv. 5.1; composed shortly after 94 CE). Coleman convincingly points out the close parallels between mythologemes used as part of Statius's consolatory strategy and those on the 2nd-c. metropolitan sarcophagi, without overlooking the obvious differences in these two media. Coleman's approach responds directly to several other contributions and strengthens de Angelis's argument. She not only demonstrates that the use of mythological subjects does not aim to compare heroic narratives directly with the situation of the deceased and bereaved, but she also shows how references to stories involving particularly gruesome ways of dying have a similar function in consolatory rhetoric and on Roman sarcophagi. Nothing needs to be added to her conclusion:

The only qualm I have is that Coleman talks about mythological sarcophagi being introduced in Rome only in the middle of the 2nd c. CE, some 50 years after Statius was writing. Yet the earliest regularly produced sarcophagi with mythological depictions, mainly of the garland type, are commonly dated to the era of Trajan. Furthermore, mythological death scenes – for example, the strangulation of Opheltes or the abduction of Persephone – are attested regularly on funerary altars of the later Flavian period. This is not to suggest Statius as a direct source. The most important parallels, though, between Statius's Silvae and mythological sarcophagi lie in a particular habitus concerning the handling of death and grief. It remains unclear when, where, and in what social environment this habitus developed, but it is already observable in diverse bodies of evidence in the last years of the 1st c. CE.

R. Bielfeldt's contribution (“Vivi fecerunt: Roman sarcophagi for and by the living”) examines whether some Roman sarcophagi should be interpreted as monuments not for the eyes of the bereaved but for the eyes of their patrons while alive. Many Roman tombs and sarcophagi were ordered and conceptualized during the lifetimes of their future inhabitants, the evidence for which Bielfeldt comprehensively reviews. Of course, this relationship between a still-living commissioner and the potential viewer is at the core of Zanker and Ewald's approach, with its “implicit viewer” (i.e., a future viewer in the mind of the one commissioning the monument). Bielfeldt conceptualizes this future viewer in a completely different way: she supposes that the patrons often not only considered the situation after their passing, but at least to some extent their own view of the monument while still alive. Some images on mythological sarcophagi may then be read as statements of the owner's pride in arranging their future departure.

This approach raises some difficulties. First, one must ask how important a consideration this might have been, since the epigraphic and literary evidence suggests that the living patron who ordered a funerary monument had in mind exclusively viewers during the funeral and thereafter (hence, the Classical “implicit viewer”). It is also hard to follow the iconographic interpretations that Bielfeldt puts forward. Without going into the details necessary for a fair examination of the approach, I can only point to the difficulty of a contemporary viewer being able to follow the very subtle iconographic hints that Bielfeldt detects in the reliefs, especially because these elements do not seem to speak against the “traditional” – that is to say “Zankerian” – interpretation of images as generally conceived for a viewer who focused on the funeral and thereafter on mourning, family relations, and praise of the deceased's achievements. Some of Bielfeldt's iconographic observations are nonetheless intriguing and helpful for a better understanding of some iconographies on the sarcophagi: for example, the central scene on the Protesilaos sarcophagus from the Barberini tomb.

In his paper on portraits on Roman sarcophagi (“Isolating the deceased in the picture: Tools and technique on mythological sarcophagi”), M. Allen examines the technical execution and style of the deceased's relief portrait. Allen shows that sculptors during the late 2nd and 3rd c. almost completely refrained from employing drill holes for the dressing of portraits, although this technique was used regularly for the design of other figural elements of the reliefs. This difference in use cannot be explained as a mere technical feature, but must rather be considered significant for a particular conception of the relationship between the person represented and the figurative and/or narrative frame into which this person's portrait was inserted. Allen explains the “chisel/drill convention” convincingly as a deliberate means for isolating the deceased, a pictorial strategy motivated by the need for a visual cue to aid easy identification of the deceased among the surrounding mythological and/or allegorical figures.

The distancing between deceased and figurative setting by this “chisel/drill convention” is another important clue for understanding mythological sarcophagi: it shows, once again, that not identification but comparison is at stake. More importantly, it shows that it is crucial in reading these sarcophagi to keep some distance between the deceased person and the mythological realm, however tight the entanglement may seem. The far-reaching implications of Allen's observations become even more evident in his analysis of the contrasting use of portraits on Early Christian sarcophagi. The “chisel/drill convention” is abandoned very quickly in these reliefs, which Allen argues reflects a completely new conceptualization of the relationship between the deceased and their pictorial frames. The reliefs now show not distance and comparison, but complete integration or even merging of the deceased with the realm of Christianity in the scenes in which his or her picture is inserted. Allen's analysis of this phenomenon, which has so far escaped the attention of researchers, represents an important contribution to the study of portraits on Roman sarcophagi.Footnote ⁸

M. Koortbojian's paper originally given at the Berkley conference appeared in another set of proceedings in 2013. Why the alternative paper (“Standardization and transformation: Some observations on the sarcophagus trade and sarcophagus production”) has been included here is not obvious, since it delves into a subject only loosely connected to the topic. Koortbojian reconstructs some possible scenarios for how metropolitan sculptors worked when confronted with partly carved sarcophagi (e.g., from the quarries of Proconnesus) that required adaptation to decorative schemes that did not accord with the prefabricated features. His paper provides an interesting discussion of some particular technical features observable on a number of metropolitan sarcophagi. Not all explanations given are equally convincing. For example, in the case of the Vindemia sarcophagus in the Getty Museum, which must have been Koortbojian's point of departure, he does not discuss whether the asymmetric placement of the lion's heads on this and some other examples (e.g., the prefabricated sarcophagi from the San Pietro in Bevagna shipwreck) could not have reflected the envisaged placement of these sarcophagi in the tomb chamber (i.e., not in front of the chamber's back wall but along one of its side walls). Whatever the answer may be, I agree with Koortbojian's general conclusion that further investigation into the interaction between the sculptors in the metropolitan workshops and the masons in the quarries is necessary for a better understanding of the choices made when planning and executing the design.

In her paper on “Hidden splendour: The display context of metropolitan sarcophagi,” B. E. Borg examines burials of sarcophagi, the figurative decoration of which became mostly or fully inaccessible after burial. The analysis is focused on metropolitan burials of the 3rd c. CE and provides a comprehensive and balanced discussion of the phenomenon. Borg rightly points out that we should not overestimate the implications of hiding caskets with elaborate reliefs, sometimes even with outstanding iconography, since there is no reason to conclude from the small number of hidden sarcophagi that the use of images on the caskets should generally be seen as mere decorative additions with little significance for the understanding of the monuments. First and foremost, it is the pictures themselves and the possibility of understanding their refined and ever-evolving rhetorical strategies, as proposed by Zanker, which clearly speak against this scenario.

How, then, can we explain the small but well-attested and persistent practice of hiding richly decorated sarcophagi? Borg discusses several possible suggestions, including some made by K. Meinecke in her important investigation of sarcophagus display contexts.Footnote ⁹ As Borg convincingly shows, there are no strong arguments for interpreting the phenomenon as motivated primarily by practical preconditions or religious concerns which could have, for example, made necessary a specific treatment of the deceased's body and hence their casket. I can only agree with Borg's straightforward but fitting explanation that the phenomenon should be understood as a kind of conspicuous consumption, in which the opulent and expensive images created exclusively for the occasion of the burial form part of a set of commodities destroyed (or at least withdrawn from further usage) on behalf of the deceased. This interpretation seems the most convincing one because Borg is able to show, on the basis of Meinecke's work, that the complete or partial burial of sarcophagi was well rooted in the funerary culture of Late Republican and Early Imperial times, and, most importantly, that it seems to be proportionately even better attested in the 2nd c. CE than in the 3rd. The phenomenon is thus best interpreted not as motivated by lack of space or by concerns over the fate of the bodies of the dead, but as rooted in a traditional funerary habit focusing on display of economic status and social qualities. If Borg's interpretation is correct, it is another important piece of evidence for the wide range of potential divergences in contemporary burial customs in metropolitan Rome, and for how painfully little we know about the elements that did – or better, could – form part of these customs in the 2nd and 3rd c. CE.

Against this backdrop, further observations might still be drawn regarding the meaning of imagery on hidden caskets. It could be emphasized, for example, that in many cases in which the sarcophagi were hidden from view after burial, this usage obviously followed a particular blueprint which must have been implemented already at the beginning of the tomb-building process. One might ask, then, if such a blueprint really could have avoided influencing the choice of subject and the elaboration of iconography when sarcophagi were ordered for these contexts. This does not seem to be the case if one follows Borg's and Meinecke's discussions of the evidence, but future research might well make it necessary to revise this idea.

The paper by R. R. R. Smith (“Mythology and sarcophagi at Aphrodisias and Rome”) may be the most important in the volume. Its strength as a contribution lies in the fact that it offers a different geographical focus and, along with it, a different scientific approach, looking beyond scholarship that takes as its departure metropolitan sarcophagi. This enables the author to elaborate on some crucial but overlooked aspects. For example, Smith points out the difficulties that many mythological reliefs on metropolitan sarcophagi present for a correct reading of the stories they depict. He rightly emphasizes that these difficulties should be understood as a central quality of the metropolitan reliefs, since they play a crucial part in intensifying dramatic effects and creating emotional turmoil. But most interestingly, Smith reminds readers of the neat parallels in rhetorical strategies to be found on metropolitan mythological sarcophagi and in Greek consolatory speeches, the declamation of which is well attested at funerals in Asia Minor during the 2nd and 3rd c. CE. With these parallels in mind, and in view of the broad range of mythological depictions on public monuments in a city like Aphrodisias, one might expect mythological subjects to be a natural choice for sarcophagi produced in this local context. But far from it: in the very large and by now almost fully published corpus of Aphrodisian sarcophagi, mythological depictions are rare;Footnote ¹⁰ when they occur, they are often reduced to very simple motifs, devoid of the dramatic effects that appear on their counterparts in metropolitan Rome.

It seems most obvious, then, that in Aphrodisias and Rome, sarcophagi presented different kinds of media, each viewed in a local context as a frame for expressing different ideas. That this artistic medium was the frame to articulate emotional stress caused by death and grieving, but also to express romanticized visions of mutual love between family members, is an outstanding feature that sets metropolitan sarcophagi apart not only from Aphrodisian but from almost all other non-metropolitan production. One could cite also, for example, the local sarcophagi of Thessaloniki, now published by T. Stefanidou-Tiverio,Footnote ¹¹ or the interregional production of Attic sarcophagi, the particular mythological iconographies on which have been analyzed by Ewald.Footnote ¹²

Two points stands out when comparing the use of sarcophagi at Aphrodisias with the situation in metropolitan Rome and in other cities of Asia Minor: the circumscribed use of figural and decorative motifs for the expression of ideas focusing on public roles; and the homogeneity of the sarcophagus corpus in terms of typology, size, and quality. This view of sarcophagi as a homogeneous, clearly defined local medium is affirmed by the lack of imported sarcophagi from interregional workshops – astonishing, given the no fewer than 700 sarcophagi at Aphrodisias. This impressive picture – of a strongly local perception of what a sarcophagus was and how its function should be understood as a frame for the expression of ideas and values – should be a reminder that much work remains to be done for this evidence to support a better understanding of the interplay between local and interregional cultures in a globalized Roman Empire.

An important element for understanding sarcophagi as locally and culturally varying frames of expression is their display contexts, a subject not addressed by Smith. As a basic rule, sarcophagi in Rome were meant to be locked in the grave chamber of a larger monument provided with a range of other media, of which at least some had a different focus, directed not inside the tomb but at the public viewer on the street.Footnote ¹³ Under these circumstances, sarcophagi did not have to carry the burden of representing the dead (and his or her family) for a public audience. The opposite was the case in Aphrodisias: sarcophagi were generally free-standing single monuments that had to represent the deceased and her or his family in a social context, at Aphrodisias in particular as a member of a small community with well-developed strategies of mutual social control. The lack of evidence for the use of dramatic mythological imagery on sarcophagi in a city like Aphrodisias was therefore perhaps not primarily conditioned by an approach to emotions in the face of death and grieving that was different from that at Rome. Rather, this lack may reflect the differing parameters defining the sarcophagus as a medium of communication in the realm of local funerary culture.

In his short concluding contribution, H. takes up a topic not addressed by the papers but intensely debated during the Berkeley conference: the question whether sarcophagi, and in particular metropolitan sarcophagi with mythological depictions, should be considered as expressions of an “elite culture” or rather of something like a “middle-class culture.” H. rightly questions whether a possible solution for how we should correctly define social labels such as “non-elite” or “middle-class” will benefit the study of Roman funerary culture. There remains, however, the more important question: do the material sources provide a means for debating the issue of differences in funerary culture resulting from differences in social status? This raises again an important hypothesis elaborated by Borg and picked up by H.: according to Borg, we should distinguish between the use of mythological imagery on the sarcophagi of senatorial (or upper class) and non-senatorial (or middle-class) men. My doubts surrounding this hypothesis are expressed in my review of Borg's 2013 book.Footnote ¹⁴ The subject remains of central importance for H.'s discussion here, and also for the interpretation of mythological sarcophagi in general.

My doubts are based on two observations: Borg must rationalize away some important pieces of evidence, and the discussion is largely an argument from silence.Footnote ¹⁵ Sarcophagi set up in large and well-planned tombs in most cases remain free of inscriptions, so we are not able to identify the persons buried. For example, we know the names and are well informed about the social standing of the freedmen Euhodus and Metilia Acte from Ostia, who ordered the Alkestis sarcophagus in the Vatican Museums (14, figs. 11‒12). But there is no information about many other owners of rather more elaborate mythological sarcophagi: for example, the ones who ordered the ensemble of sarcophagi with depictions of Niobe and Orestes found in the subterranean burial chamber of the “Tomba della Medusa” in Rome (74, fig. 4).Footnote ¹⁶ It does not seem profitable to base such far-reaching hypotheses about causal links between social position and particular ways of using mythological subjects on this kind of dataset. The doubts I expressed before have unfortunately not diminished with Borg's recently published sequel about 2nd-c. funerary culture.Footnote ¹⁷

The volume under review offers an important and stimulating set of contributions to the debate about how to interpret Roman sarcophagi in the wake of Zanker and Ewald's defining work. Some of the most promising issues raised by the proceedings and waiting to be addressed by future research are the technical and economic preconditions of interactions between producers and customers, and the analysis of sarcophagi as a means for the reconstruction of different local funerary cultures (and their interrelations) in a globalized Roman Empire. Regarding the broad theme of “elite” and “middle-class” representation, as well as the question of the social context in which the particular use of myths on metropolitan sarcophagi was “invented,” further contextual investigation must address the mediating function of sarcophagus iconography as a part of a very complex and ever-evolving metropolitan funerary culture. We can only hope that the reception of Flesheaters will contribute to promoting such approaches (and, perhaps, to an acceleration in the speed of their publication).