Rome's integration, adaptation and manipulation of the many cultures brought under its dominion have fascinated scholars of classical studies. Although much attention has been devoted to Rome's relationship with Greece, Egypt held a significant space in Italy's cultural imagination, particularly after its annexation as a Roman province under Augustus. From obelisks brought to Rome by Augustus and later emperors to so-called Egyptianising motifs in the domestic arts, Egyptian artefacts and allusions were widespread in Italy in the imperial period. Why did Roman patrons select these images for various contexts? What messages did they hope to communicate? How did audiences receive such images? These questions drive S.-B.’s admirable book on representations of Egypt in imperial Roman culture.
The introduction presents the book's scope: an examination of how material and literary culture created images of Egypt in Rome's cultural imagination in the first 150 years after Egypt became a Roman province. While Egyptian and Egyptianising artefacts in Rome have frequently been categorised as decidedly foreign, S.-B. argues that these objects were part of Roman culture. P. Davies' ‘Aegyptiaca in Rome: Adventus and Romanitas’, in E. Gruen, Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean (2011), deserved mention, as she too argues that Egyptian art was incorporated into Roman art, with a significant impact on the latter's development.
Chapter 1 investigates the reuse of Egyptian objects in Roman contexts, focusing on objects with secure archaeological contexts or accompanying inscriptions that document their reuse. An alabaster vessel now in the Louvre, for example, was created in Egypt in the ninth or eighth century b.c. as a votive offering and repurposed in the late first century b.c. or early first century a.d. as a cinerary urn in Italy. S.-B. stresses that an Egyptian appearance was often more important to Roman consumers than an authentic Egyptian lineage. An object's ‘Egyptian’ character could be conveyed visually and symbolically, for example through hieroglyphs that few Romans knew how to read. S.-B. thus moves the discussion of Egyptian objects in Italy beyond questions of authenticity, which demonstrably were not foremost in many consumers' minds, to viewer reception, while also opening up questions of how stereotypical Romans' ‘knowledge’ of foreign cultures could be (see more below).
Chapter 2 focuses on the two obelisks Augustus brought to Rome from Heliopolis, which have usually been interpreted as victory monuments. S.-B. argues that Augustus intended the obelisks not only to commemorate his conquest of Egypt, but also to celebrate Egypt as a vital part of the Roman Empire, integrated rather than simply vanquished. Egyptian motifs in Augustan Rome could evoke royalty, wealth, luxury and antiquity. S.-B.’s interpretation of the Augustan material fits well with recent treatments of Republican triumphal monuments as incorporating Greek culture into Roman culture rather than signifying a dichotomy of victory and defeat.
Chapter 3 shifts to the Sanctuary of Isis at Pompeii, where, S.-B. argues, the sanctuary's artistic ensemble displayed the communal social identity and status of the cult's adherents while simultaneously expressing their personal religious relationship with the goddess. Although Isis' cult hailed from Egypt, the dedications of Italian manufacture in the sanctuary were designed to be visually accessible to non-Isiaci. The pair of paintings representing the myth of Io, for example, associates Io and Isis along the lines of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which would have been well known to Roman visitors to the sanctuary. Through an examination of dedicatory inscriptions from the sanctuary, S.-B. persuasively demonstrates that members of the Isis cult followed standard commemorative practices of Pompeii even though their offerings were to a supposedly foreign goddess.
Chapter 4 examines artistic and literary representations of Egypt itself. S.-B. pays particular attention to the Nile Mosaic from Palestrina, the sculptural personification of the Nile now in the Vatican, and Juvenal's 15th Satire. Contradictory stereotypes of Egypt abound, though some of these images raised questions beyond simple stereotype: according to S.-B., the Vatican Nile and pendant Louvre Tiber invited viewers to contemplate the geographic and cultural extent of the Roman Empire and to compare and contrast Italy and Egypt. S.-B. argues that these representations of Egypt made after its annexation assume a generic knowledge of Egypt on the part of the viewer. Given the book's stated emphasis on representations of Egypt from the time of Augustus onwards, S.-B.’s refusal to take a firm stance on the Nile Mosaic's date can be frustrating: if the mosaic is Hellenistic, how can it illuminate Roman visions of Egypt in the imperial period?
Throughout, S.-B. includes a refreshingly broad range of visual evidence to achieve a rich picture of the extent to which Egyptian culture pervaded Romans' cultural imagination. S.-B.’s reliance on well-chosen case studies allows her to explore in great depth how visual and textual material constructed the idea of Egypt in Italy. Different readers will wish S.-B. had analysed various missing works – this reviewer wished to see some discussion of Serapis and his reception in Italy – but, rather than a criticism, this suggests that S.-B.’s methodology could be applied profitably to other monuments and objects. Her insistence on examining literary and epigraphic evidence in conjunction with the archaeological and artistic material is exemplary. The chapter on the Sanctuary of Isis at Pompeii, for example, provides an excellent model for students of classical studies of how to consider the full range of primary evidence available. S.-B.’s engaging prose will make the book easily accessible to advanced undergraduates as well as more expert audiences.
Perhaps most intriguing is the space S.-B. opens up for thinking about how visual representations contribute to and interact with semantic memory (that is, general memory or knowledge of history and institutions). S.-B. argues persuasively that the representations of Egypt she discusses could not have operated unless their Roman viewers possessed generalised knowledge of Egypt. One might suggest that these representations not only assumed pre-existing knowledge, but also actively constructed knowledge of Egypt, in the form of stereotypes both positive and negative. How, and to what extent, visual representations generate knowledge rather than simply interacting with and reflecting previously existing knowledge is an area ripe for further inquiry.
S.-B. might have pushed her arguments further in some instances. As she observes, the concept of object biography holds great promise for the study of Egyptian material in Roman contexts, encouraging scholars to chart the changing conceptions of these objects as they traverse different areas of geography and use. She tends to limit herself, however, to examining two stages in an object's biography: when it was made in Egypt and when it first arrived in Italy. More could be made of the varying aspects of objects as commodities, antiques, commemorative monuments and so forth. Augustus' obelisks likely transformed more in meaning and reception over time than S.-B. acknowledges. How might the reception of the obelisk in the Circus Maximus have changed as the Circus itself received new monuments on its spina and Titus' arch in the sphendone? Might the obelisk have taken on different shades of significance depending on whether somebody was viewing it during a chariot race or a triumphal procession? Could the construction of temples to deified emperors and family members in its vicinity have changed the interpretation of the Campus Martius obelisk? By the late imperial period, would viewers who did not or could not read the dedicatory inscriptions have associated these obelisks primarily with Augustus or with the power of the emperor generally?
The volume is handsomely produced and illustrated, and what few errors remain are typographical. Ultimately, S.-B. has presented a cogent argument about how powerfully literary and, especially, visual representations shaped how Romans living in Italy conceived of Egypt. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars who seek to understand Italy's complex interactions not only with Egypt specifically but also with the range of cultures embraced by Rome's empire.
