The latest example of a great burial mound or tumulus from Rome is the so-called Monte del Grano (Figs. 1–2),Footnote ¹ located slightly north of the via Tuscolana, at the fourth mile, on an ancient side road connecting the via Praenestina with the via Latina (Fig. 3).Footnote ² It is a mound of considerable size, approximately 45 m in diameter and roughly 12 m high.Footnote ³ Originally, the earth mass was held in place by a perimetral drum made of travertine blocks, but this was destroyed in 1387 to recover its building blocks.Footnote ⁴ Its foundation is still partly preserved, though, as revealed during a survey in 1969.Footnote ⁵ The load-bearing structure of the monument is built entirely in caementicium, faced in brick. The interior consists of a large circular chamber, originally covered by a shallow vault that is now entirely destroyed (diameter ca. 10 m, more than 7 m high). This chamber is accessed through a long dromos (21.60 m × 1.60 m), lit by means of a vertical light shaft. Above the vault there are two additional chambers. Inside one of these (the furthest from the entrance) stood the sarcophagus with scenes from the myth of Achilles, now in the Capitoline Museums (Fig. 4), which will be considered below. Raffaele Fabretti,Footnote ⁶ by comparing the brickwork with other monuments of Alexander Severus such as the Aqua Alexandrina and the Baths of Alexander, also attributed the burial to this emperor. Such an attribution was proposed even at the time of the tumulus’s discovery, due to an erroneous identification of the two reclining figures on the sarcophagus’s lid as the emperor and his mother, Julia Mamaea. It was later demonstrated that this identification was untenable, which in turn led to the rejection of the attribution of the entire monument to Alexander Severus. Such a position was unwarranted, as will become clear in the following discussion.

Fig. 1.

Rome. Mausoleum of Monte del Grano. Section. (From Ashby and Lugli Reference Ashby and Lugli1928.)

Fig. 2.

Mausoleum of Monte del Grano. Section. (From Piranesi Reference Piranesi1784.)

Fig. 3.

Map of Rome‘s southeastern environs, showing location of Monte del Grano Mausoleum. (From Coarelli Reference Coarelli and Giardina1986.)

Fig. 4.

Sarcophagus with scenes of the life of Achilles. (Capitoline Museums, from Buccino Reference Buccino, La Rocca and Parisi Presicce2010.)

In the absence of any other internal data, the main supporting elements for a plausible dating of the tomb are the building technique and the sarcophagus itself. Regarding the former, Lugli confirmed the dating to the (late) Severan period already proposed by Fabretti.Footnote ⁷ The presence of a number of stamped bricks subsequently raised this dating to the mid-2nd c. CE.Footnote ⁸ The brick stamps include one example that is datable to 134 CE,Footnote ⁹ another that is of possibly Hadrianic date,Footnote ¹⁰ and a third, reported by Fabretti, that can be dated with certainty to the late Republican period.Footnote ¹¹ The extremely small number of stamps, as well as the chronological gap between them, is a sure indication of their use in a period immediately after the principate of Caracalla, during which the custom of stamping bricks had ceased. Consequently, the stamped bricks found in the burial mound must have been in reuse.Footnote ¹² More relevant for the dating is the discovery inside the burial mound of the sarcophagus, datable with certainty to the years 240–250, based on the portraits of the two deceased.Footnote ¹³ The exact location of the find, which can be securely identified from Vacca’s accountFootnote ¹⁴ and especially from the drawing of Pietro Santi Bartoli,Footnote ¹⁵ has been questioned, but for no satisfactory reason.Footnote ¹⁶ In fact, the circular hall on the ground floor where the main burial stood, accessible from the main entrance, had been looted long before, perhaps even prior to 1387, when the materials of the load-bearing structure were removed. In any case, we know that this spoliation involved both the exterior and the interior of the building (intus et extra montem) and entailed the recovery not only of the travertine, but also of the marbles (in lapidibus marmoreis et tyburtinis), among which the principal sarcophagi should be included. It is, in fact, most likely that these had been removed even earlier. There is therefore no reason to doubt the location of our sarcophagus, which must have remained hidden and inaccessible until its discovery in 1582.

It should be clear that the exact dating of this find, even after ruling out that its attribution to Alexander Severus is false, continues to be the determining chronological factor: the deposition of the sarcophagus must be considered contemporary with the construction of the burial mound itself,Footnote ¹⁷ because the chamber in which it was found does not contain access points wide enough for it to have been inserted at a later date. Indeed, after the sarcophagus’s discovery, the vault of the lower chamber had to be demolished in order to extract it, as we see in Bartoli’s drawing (Fig. 5). The sarcophagus must have been placed in the upper chamber during the construction of the mausoleum, before the vault to cover it was built. The burial mound, in short, is contemporary with the sarcophagus, and both can be dated roughly to 240–250 CE.

Fig. 5.

Mausoleum of Monte del Grano. Section. (From Bartoli Reference Bartoli1697.)

The second element that must be considered is the structure of the building itself: as stated above, it is a tumulus, a building type for which no other examples belonging to the time period in question are attested in Rome,Footnote ¹⁸ and which took its inspiration from the earlier great imperial mausolea, more precisely, the mausoleum of Augustus rather than that of Hadrian. Its exceptional size, befitting an imperial burial, also leads to this conclusion, which is consistent with the chronology proposed earlier, since all the emperors between Hadrian and Caracalla were laid to rest in the Mausoleum of Hadrian.

Immediately after the murder of Alexander Severus and his mother Julia Mamaea by Maximin Thrax in Mainz on March 18 or 19 of 235, the deceased emperor must have been subject to some form of damnatio memoriae, as is attested by the erasure of his name from a number of surviving inscriptions.Footnote ¹⁹ However, his rehabilitation followed soon after, as is demonstrated by the re-inscribing of some of the previously cancelled texts. This initiative is generally attributed to Gallienus or Decius,Footnote ²⁰ although the fact that some of the re-inscribed inscriptions were found in Africa makes an intervention by the Gordians more likely, during the years 238–244 CE.Footnote ²¹ The Senate did not limit itself to the rehabilitation of the emperor’s name, but also decreed his consecratio: senatus eum in deos rettulit…dati sunt et sodales qui Alexandrini appellati sunt, addita et festivitas matris nomine atque ipsius, quae hodieque Romae religiosissime celebratur natalis eius die.Footnote ²²

A precise confirmation of this festival, which was still celebrated in the mid-4th c. CE, can be derived from the Chronographer of 354,Footnote ²³ which under October 1 records: Natalis Alexandri. Circenses missus XXIIII. The consecratio is also attested in a homily of John Chrystostom (second half of the 4th c. CE), who mentions it in his critique of the same emperor’s divinization, stating that: “οὔτως Ἀλέξανδρον τρισκαιδέκατον ἐνόμισϵν ϵἴναι θϵὸν σύγκλϵτος Ῥωμαίων.”Footnote ²⁴

The vita Alexandri also mentions a cenotaph and the tomb of the emperor: cenotaphium in Gallia, Romae sepulcrum amplissimum meruit.Footnote ²⁵ Here, too, given the questionable nature of the Historia Augusta, the problem of the reliability of its remarks on building initiatives in the imperial period has been raised. One might think, for example, that the report about the cenotaph at Mogontiacum was modeled after the similar account by Suetonius regarding Drusus the Elder (Suet. Claud. 1.3). In this regard, it is important to recall the study of H. G. Ramsay,Footnote ²⁶ who correctly reconsidered much of the information on building activities featured in the Historia Augusta. In the case of Alexander Severus, out of 18 interventions, eight have been decisively confirmed, five are highly probable, and only four remain unproven, probably due to the lack of relevant archaeological data. Thus, at least in the case of these references, which can be easily checked, the text can be considered generally trustworthy.

The information above is, in various respects, remarkable: it locates the emperor’s tomb in Rome and it depicts it as a sepulchrum amplissimum, a label that fits perfectly the Monte del Grano. The monument may have been inspired by the mausoleum of Augustus, or perhaps even that of Alexander the Great.

The myth of Alexander enjoyed a widespread revival in the Severan period, especially under Caracalla.Footnote ²⁷ In Alexander Severus’s biography there is a proliferation of passages linking the emperor to the Macedonian king:Footnote ²⁸ his birth took place in a temple close to the city of Arca, consecrated by Alexander the Great;Footnote ²⁹ his birthday coincided with the date of Alexander’s death;Footnote ³⁰ his wet-nurse was named Olympias, like Alexander’s mother; and so on.Footnote ³¹

The text’s unreliability renders these notices suspect, although they might well derive from the actual inventions of dynastic propaganda. Regardless, there is at least one indisputable piece of evidence; that is, the very name of the emperor, which was assumed at the time of his adoption by Heliogabalus,Footnote ³² replacing his previous name, Bassianus (or Alexianus). The choice was naturally inspired by the Macedonian king, and it confirms, to some extent, the recorded manifestations of imitatio Alexandri.

The emperor’s biography in the Historia Augusta indeed overflows with references to Alexander the Great. Not just figments of the biographer’s imagination,Footnote ³³ they are confirmed by such episodes as Severus’s trip to Macedonia after his return from the Parthian campaign. This trip can be tied to the ἀγῶνϵς ἱϵροί in honor of Alexander the Great, which were celebrated at Beroia, the capital of the Macedonian league. Further confirmation can be drawn, at least in part, from the particular coinage of this city, depicting Alexander and Olympias.Footnote ³⁴ A recent discovery has provided clear proof of the ties between Alexander Severus and Macedonia: a bronze portrait of the emperor, displaying remarkable craftsmanship, discovered near Dion, the main Macedonian sanctuary.Footnote ³⁵ It belongs without doubt to an honorary statue crafted to mark the occasion of the imperial visit.

As we have seen, the sarcophagus came from a secondary chamber in the tomb (and this, among other factors, facilitated its preservation). If the monument really is to be identified as the dynastic burial of Alexander Severus, as everything leads us to believe, it therefore follows that the sarcophagus should belong to a relative of the emperor, and one whose identification can in fact be surmised.

The sarcophagus belongs to the vast production of Attic workshops in the 3rd c. CE, much of which was exported to Rome. It dates to the decade 240–250 CE.Footnote ³⁶ On the four sides of the case, scenes from the life of Achilles are depicted: on the front, the discovery by Ulysses at Skyros of the hero disguised as a woman among the daughters of Lycomedes; on the right, the arming of Achilles in preparation for his duel with Hector; on the left (which, together with the back, was left partly unfinished, as is the norm in the Attic sarcophagi), the farewell to Lycomedes; on the back, Priam’s request for the return of Hector’s body. The choice of these myths does not seem to be casual and probably alludes indirectly to a rapport with the tomb’s principal occupant, stressing, if that occupant really was Alexander Severus, the presentation of Achilles as a mythical alter ego of Alexander the Great. Indeed, we know that the emperor placed images of the Homeric hero in his domestic lararia, alongside depictions of Vergil, Plato, and Cicero.Footnote ³⁷

Further relevant information can be deduced from the examination of the two figures depicted on the lid.Footnote ³⁸ While exported Attic sarcophagi generally left the portraits of the deceased unfinished, with the facial features of the patrons to be carved only after the sarcophagi reached their destination, in our instance, the male portrait (Fig. 6) was itself sculpted by Attic artists; therefore, in the same place of production. The female portrait (Fig. 7), on the other hand, carries typical features of the urban sculpture of those years,Footnote ³⁹ and was therefore completed in Rome. This seems to indicate that the patron of the work was in Athens at the time the sarcophagus was made. Confirmation of this could come from the fact that, according to Flaminio Vacca, there was no corpse inside the sarcophagus, only ashes. This would suggest that the death of the patron occurred far from Rome and that, as in other documented instances (such as that of Septimius Severus, who died in England), his body was cremated to facilitate its transport. It is also worth noting that the person holds a partly unrolled volumen; that is, he is depicted in the pose of an intellectual, whether a literatus or a philosopher.Footnote ⁴⁰

Fig. 6.

Detail of Figure 4.

Fig. 7.

Detail of Figure 4.

Now, if the deceased really were a relative of Alexander Severus, one might be reminded of a character mentioned in the biography of the emperor, a member of his council (consilium):

This list was deemed fictitious by Ronald Syme, with the obvious exception of the two renowned jurists Ulpian and Paulus.Footnote ⁴² However, in at least two cases it is possible to disagree: the first is Aelius Gordianus, Gordiani imperatoris <filius>, who, despite the erroneous name Aelius instead of Antonius, can only be identified with Gordianus II,Footnote ⁴³ praetor urbanus and consul suffectus under Alexander Severus. The second is Catilius Severus, a member of a consular family widely attested from the principate of Trajan,Footnote ⁴⁴ to which belonged a certain Cn. Catilius Severus, frater arvalis in 213 and 218,Footnote ⁴⁵ who, according to Groag, should be identified sine dubio with the patron of the sarcophagus. It is equally possible that a matron, uxor of a certain […]atili Severi, mentioned in the acta of the ludi saeculares of 204,Footnote ⁴⁶ should be recognized as the wife of the aforementioned Catilius Severus, who we might therefore identify as the woman depicted on the lid of the sarcophagus. The depiction of the patron as an intellectual would be fitting for this identification, since Catilius Severus is described as a relative of Alexander Severus and a scholar of note (cognatus and doctissimus); his likely stay in Athens could be explained by a flight from Rome or exile after the emperor’s damnatio memoriae. It is also worth pointing out that only one deceased had apparently been placed in the sarcophagus, which makes it probable that the wife was not buried with her husband.

The choice of the myth of Achilles, evident alter ego of Alexander Severus, cannot therefore be accidental. This hypothesis could be corroborated if the provenance of the Portland Vase from inside the same sarcophagus could be confirmed. This was recorded by 17th-c. scholars but has been almost unanimously rejected by modern scholars. A recent count of the proposed interpretations of the famous cameo-glass vase, housed in the British Museum,Footnote ⁴⁷ has put the total at 44.Footnote ⁴⁸ Whilst in many cases these hypotheses have become outdated or have proved to be fanciful, at the same time a general consensus has been reached among scholars regarding at least some of the subjects depicted on the surface of the vase.

Before proposing a comprehensive interpretation, it is necessary to make some preliminary observations on the likely circumstances of the vase’s discovery and on its function, two topics that are usually overlooked as they are deemed impervious to further examination. We begin with the discovery of the sarcophagus, which happened under circumstances that were considered settled until a paper by Henry Stuart Jones in 1909 denied the reliability of the testimonies.Footnote ⁴⁹ Since then, the topic has been treated only in negative terms. We might cite as typical the opinion of Denys Haynes:

More recently, a re-evaluation of the traditional hypothesis has been proposed by Kenneth Painter and David Whitehouse,Footnote ⁵¹ producing considerations of some importance which, however, have not found great acceptance in the subsequent literature.Footnote ⁵² Other more relevant arguments can be added to the discussion.

Firstly, one must examine the reasons why the earlier version of the discovery has been considered unreliable. These actually boil down to a single point: the silence of Flaminio Vacca regarding the presence of the vase inside the sarcophagus, assigned at the time of its discovery to Alexander Severus. As we have seen, in the short collection of archaeological records compiled by Vacca for Simonetto Anastasi, the 16th-c. sculptor records the excavation of 1582 inside the burial mound known as Monte del Grano.Footnote ⁵³ The damning evidence is said to be the silence of our author regarding the discovery of the vase inside the sarcophagus.Footnote ⁵⁴ This would then have been an invention by Girolamo Tezi, introduced in his catalogue of the Barberini collection of 1642.Footnote ⁵⁵ However, Tezi states only that the vase contained the ashes of Alexander Severus, without mentioning either Monte del Grano or the sarcophagus whence it came (even though his allusion to the emperor can only be explained if he knew of the dig and of the presumed provenance of the vase).Footnote ⁵⁶ On the other hand, the same statement is found in a letter of Cassiano del Pozzo to Peiresc, sent on February 11, 1634; that is, 12 years before the publication of Tezi’s Aedes Barberinae.Footnote ⁵⁷ Having become aware of this document only later, Haynes limited himself to assigning the origin of the story to Bartoli.Footnote ⁵⁸

However, it is evident that Vacca’s silence on the vase simply contributes to an argumentum ex silentio and as such cannot be used as evidence; other explanations are also possible. The topic was taken up again in some detail by Painter and Whitehouse,Footnote ⁵⁹ who, through an extensive re-examination of the existing documentation and its contexts, reached the conclusion (albeit not final) that the traditional provenance is plausible. We will now summarize their arguments, adding further details that lead to the same conclusion. Starting from an idea of Bernard Ashmole’s,Footnote ⁶⁰ Painter and Whitehouse observe that Vacca did not intend to write a definitive report of the excavation: the fact that he does not mention the vase does not mean that it did not appear during the works. It is possible that he simply did not know of its existence. Whatever the case, the ashes he records must necessarily have been kept in a container, which, according to Ashmole, had been perhaps removed before the visit of the witness to whom Vacca owed the report. The conclusion is that “all this evidence suggests that the doubts expressed about the discovery of the Portland Vase may be excessively sceptical, that the circumstantial evidence is stronger than the doubters led by Stuart Jones have allowed, and that the evidence that the vase was found in the Monte del Grano in 1582 is reasonably sound.”Footnote ⁶¹ Moreover, the vase’s excellent state of preservation can only be justified if it came from a tomb. In addition, its existence in the collection of Cardinal del Monte was already documented by Peiresc in 1600, only 18 years after its supposed discovery: if it had been found before then, it is odd that no report of the circumstance has come down to us, especially considering the beauty of the object and its later fame. But at least one document, Bartoli’s Gli antichi sepolcri, generally disregarded due to its late date, should eliminate any residual doubts. Bartoli is the first author to indicate explicitly the vase’s provenance from Monte del Grano, more than a century after the discovery.Footnote ⁶² However, in 1642, by which time the vase had already (in 1633) entered the Barberini collection, Girolamo Tezi’s description of the artworks therein introduced a significant explanation. He repeats a remark by Bernardino Capitelli, who believed one of the scenes depicted Olympias and Alexander: Qui faemina, Dracunculum in sinu fovens, quam Severi Mammaeam Matrem, quae pridie quam pareret, summa in quiete, vidit ex se purpureum nasci Dracunculum.Footnote ⁶³ This is the well-known episode of the divine birth of Alexander the Great from a snake, later attached also to Augustus and to Alexander Severus. As rightly noted by Painter and Whitehouse, the reference to the vita of SeverusFootnote ⁶⁴ by Tezi can only be explained if the author knew of the provenance of the vase in the sarcophagus and the tomb that were believed to belong to that emperor.

To return to Pietro Santi Bartoli, in the lengthy captions in his work depicting Monte del Grano and the Portland Vase,Footnote ⁶⁵ several details are recorded concerning the discovery that are surely trustworthy and that complement those transmitted by Vacca.Footnote ⁶⁶ However, as Vacca does not record them, the two accounts must derive from different sources. The origin of these reports may be traced back to Cassiano dal Pozzo, a relative of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, who had included images of the vase in his Museo Cartaceo;Footnote ⁶⁷ indeed, the first report of its function as a container for the ashes of Alexander Severus (and therefore, implicitly, of its provenance from Monte del Grano) is found, as we have seen, precisely in Cassiano’s letter to Peiresc, dated February 11, 1634.Footnote ⁶⁸

Vacca’s and Bartoli’s descriptions of the methods of the excavation that led to the discovery of the sarcophagus largely coincide:

Vacca: “There was a great ancient mass made of rubble; an excavator took heart to break it, and after getting inside, he lowered himself down so far that he came across a large sarcophagus decorated with the Rape of the Sabine Women.”

Bartoli, tav. 80: “D. hole in the mass of the vault, made in modern times, through which was reached the burial chamber where the marble chest was located.” The source here cannot be Vacca’s report, since although it was written soon after the discovery in 1594, it was not published until 1704. The correspondence between the two texts, and especially certain supplementary remarks, shows that Bartoli had access to other, important testimony, and this also confirms the reliability of some additional observations he makes; for example, the original position of the sarcophagus (E) in a room of the upper floor, and the method employed to extract it, by demolishing the vault of the lower floor (“G. Volta della Camera al piano terreno rotta e demolita per tirar fuori l’Arca sepolcrale calata al medesimo piano con argani e tirata fuori per l’ingresso antico”).

Bartoli’s other illustrations include detailed renditions of the sarcophagus and of the Portland Vase, accompanied by the following caption: “Inside the sepulchral chest of Monte del Grano was found the vase depicted here, of singular craftmanship and sculpture, as it is today preserved in the Barberini Library.” This assertion is certainly not an invention of Bartoli’s: it comes directly from the same documents he used to source the information concerning the excavation of the burial – documents that, as we have seen, were extremely precise. In this regard, it is relevant that Cassiano dal Pozzo explicitly states in his letter to Peiresc that the vase “was said to have hosted the ashes of Alex. Severus.” In addition, Vacca also knew at least that “inside [the sarcophagus] there were ashes.”Footnote ⁶⁹ This is far from trivial, as one would expect to find inside a sarcophagus an inhumed body: we have already considered this significant but overlooked detail. In short, it is certain that the vase had been used as a cinerary urn. It cannot therefore be stated, as Haynes does, that “the story that it was found in a tomb is… pure invention; and the vase itself bears no significant resemblance to any known form of cinerary urn: glass cinerary urns were colourless, undecorated and lidded.”Footnote ⁷⁰

Painter and Whitehouse have noted, however, that the very state of preservation of this extremely fragile object can only be explained by its provenance in a tomb. A similar case is that of the “blue vase” from Pompeii, discovered, as is well known, in the Porta Ercolano necropolis, full of ashes and therefore certainly coming from a tomb.Footnote ⁷¹ The measurements of the two objects are similar: the “blue vase” is 30 cm tall with a diameter of 15 cm; the Portland Vase is 24.5 cm (originally about 30 cm) tall with a diameter of 17.7 cm. A vase with these dimensions is perfectly suitable for use as a cinerary urn, as the case of the Pompeian specimen clearly demonstrates. Both examples represent exceptional burials and cannot be compared with the ordinary glass vases commonly adopted as cinerary urns. The precious objects used for these burials were originally meant for different purposes.

As previously outlined, our first report of the Portland Vase comes shortly after the exploration of Monte del Grano: in the letter of Peiresc to Guillemin dated May 2, 1633, in which the Provencal humanist remembers having seen the vase in the home of Cardinal del Monte during his trip to Rome in the winter of 1600–1601.Footnote ⁷² It is worth noting that, before then, there are no other mentions of the object, which became famous only after this date; this evidently argues in favor of it being a recent discovery. The ashes recorded by Vacca must obviously have been placed in a container, as acknowledged by Ashmole and demonstrated by Bartoli’s report, where it is stated that the Portland Vase “was found full of ashes.” Tezi, in addition, speaks of a sepulchralis urna.

There are therefore good grounds for accepting the provenance of the vase as Monte del Grano. The analysis of the scenes represented on it can further contribute to confirming the relationship between the two artifacts.

This is a topic on which rivers of ink have been spilled, with no definitive conclusion being reached, or at least none that can be generally acknowledged. It nevertheless seems possible to propose an explanation that is not entirely new, starting from some general considerations and the re-examination of certain especially significant details of the subjects depicted, details that do not seem to have attracted the attention they deserve.

Firstly, it is clear that the difficulties raised by the scenes’ interpretation are not due solely to gaps in our present knowledge; in other words, there is a willful or purposeful obscurantism in play, which itself constitutes a significant characteristic. This being the case, we are presented here with a product of that “esoteric” culture which constitutes an important branch of Greek literature, from Lycophron to Euphorion to Rhianos to Parthenios,Footnote ⁷³ an expression of elitism, born in the Hellenistic courts and diffused in Rome in aristocratic environments from the late Republican period onwards. To mention just one example, we find a follower of this particular culture in the person of the emperor Tiberius, who we know from Suetonius had a habit of asking his guests (probably dining companions) enigmatic questions concerning Homeric subjects, such as: quae mater Hecubae? quod Achilli nomen inter virgines fuisset? quid Sirenes cantare sint solitae? Footnote ⁷⁴ Such a liking for puzzles is reflected also in the figurative arts. The presence in Tiberius’s villa at Sperlonga of a Navis Argo,Footnote ⁷⁵ revealing awareness of a rare variant of the myth of the Argonauts, fits perfectly with what we know of the erudite taste of an emperor who was especially interested in Hellenistic art and literature,Footnote ⁷⁶ and was himself the author of poems inspired by the most obscure poets of that period: Fecit et graeca poemata imitatus Euphorionem et Rhianum et Parthenium, quibus poetis admodum delectatus, scripta omnium et imagines publicis bibliothecis inter veteres et praecipuos auctores dedicavit.Footnote ⁷⁷ These were the authors preferred by the poetae novi in Rome, followers of the Callimachian program, as presented in the proem of the Aetia, which proposed: “tread the paths where wagons do not go, do not drive your chariot along the same tracks as others or on a wide road, but on untrodden ways, even if you will drive it on a narrower path.”Footnote ⁷⁸ In these works, scholarly interpretations of legends and oracles were endorsed, alongside extraordinary love stories, transformations, novelistic motifs, and a preference for lesser-known myths.

An artifact like the Portland Vase is, to all intents and purposes, a typical manifestation of this sort of culture: Hellenistic in origin, but widespread in Rome between the late Republic and the early empire in high-ranking cultural circles, and expressed in the current of the poetae novi, who were, like Tiberius, cultores Euphorionis.Footnote ⁷⁹ In examining the vase, it is important to remember that the myths depicted on it are rare, enigmatic, and expressed in a fashion that is purposefully ambiguous and not explicit: attention should be directed more towards the gaps than the continuities, to the absences rather than the presences, and in particular to the scanty symbolic elements, inserted here and there as hidden interpretative keys.

Two preliminary questions are asked by almost all scholars who have engaged with the problem: firstly, whether the images on the vase should be interpreted as purely mythological or as mythistorical subjects; and secondly, regarding the scenes arranged on the two sides of the vase (labeled here as a and b, with the figures identified by letters, from A to G) (Fig. 8), whether they should be read separately or as part of a continuum.

Fig. 8.

The Portland Vase. (Drawing from Roberts et al. Reference Roberts, Gudenrath, Tatton-Brown and Whitehouse2010.)

It is difficult to imagine that the images on the vase represent a straightforward allusion to contemporary, in other words historical, events, such as the marriage of Antony and Cleopatra, or the death of the latter.Footnote ⁸⁰ They do not, therefore, depict the snake that presaged the birth of Alexander,Footnote ⁸¹ nor its analogous counterpart that featured in a legend on the birth of Augustus.Footnote ⁸² Nor is it the snake of Cleopatra, who, after all, could not have been introduced in the same context as the following scene, sometimes interpreted as Octavian Augustus with his sister Octavia: nothing of the sort was feasible in a Roman court environment after Actium. On the other hand, at least two elements, identifiable even before any critical analysis is made, inevitably belong to the sphere of myth – even though a symbolic interpretation, in contemporary terms, cannot be ruled out a priori. The first of these elements is the presence of a beast, whose upper body emerges next to figure C (Figs. 9–10): this can be identified as a ketos (sea dragon), not a snake, as demonstrated by Haynes,Footnote ⁸³ who is now followed almost unanimously. This creature’s presence indeed enables us to identify the adjacent figure as a god of the sea. This definitively excludes all “historicizing” interpretations, such as the one involving Cleopatra, as well as the mythical explanations such as the birth of Alexander or Augustus. The second element is the presence of Paris in the small circular disk that was used to replace the vase’s base in a later period (Fig. 11). This choice would be difficult to understand unless it were read in connection with the other images, which thus also belong to myth, in this case the Trojan myth: in this way, the disk forms a precise interpretative key to the whole iconographic system.

Fig. 9.

The Porland Vase. Side a. (© The Trustees of the British Museum.)

Fig. 10.

The Portland Vase. Detail of side a. (© The Trustees of the British Museum.)

Fig. 11.

The Portland Vase disc. (© The Trustees of the British Museum.)

Regarding the second question raised above, on the reading of the scenes in sequence, it is true that the vase depicts two symmetrical scenes (Fig. 8) which, in terms of composition, form two independent sets, even if they are clearly related to one another. They include four and three figures respectively. The group that evidently comes first comprises, from left to right, a naked male figure (A) exiting a building and bearing in his right hand a piece of cloth (probably a robe) which hangs down to the ground. His left arm grasps the right arm of a seated female figure (C), who answers his gesture by gripping the arm of her partner, with whom she also shares a glance, whilst turning backwards (Fig. 9). Above her flies a cupid (B), who holds a bow in his left hand and a torch in his right. The scene is closed on the right by a naked, bearded male figure (D) (Fig. 12), right leg raised, resting his chin on his right hand in pensive mode. A tree in the center occupies the background of the scene, while a small bush on the right sets a clear boundary before the following scene. This second scene features three figures (Fig. 8): on the left, preceded by a pillar, a seated semi-nude man, a drape covering his legs (E) (Fig. 13), turns backwards to the right, fixing his gaze upon a woman at the far end of the composition (G) (Fig. 14). She is likewise seated, with her back turned to reciprocate the gaze of the male figure. She is covered only by a cloak that falls over her legs and her left arm, and she holds a staff (a scepter?). In the center, another female figure (F) (Fig. 15), recumbent and with her legs covered by a cloak, raises her right arm over her head and holds in her left hand a torch pointing downwards. All the figures rest upon a heap of overlapping slabs, among which two doric capitals can be distinguished, one toppled over onto the ground, and another inserted into the pile of slabs upon which figure E is seated.Footnote ⁸⁴ In this scene, too, a tree, but of a different species, occupies the center of the composition.

Fig. 12.

The Portland Vase. Detail of side a. (© The Trustees of the British Museum.)

Fig. 13.

The Portland Vase. Side b. (© The Trustees of the British Museum.)

Fig. 14.

The Portland Vase. Side b. (© The Trustees of the British Museum.)

Fig. 15.

The Portland Vase. Side b. (© The Trustees of the British Museum.)

Starting with the first scene, which appears easier to understand, one should first stress its obvious nuptial connotations. The intertwining of the two figures’ arms (Fig. 9) and the presence of the torch-bearing cupid (a clear allusion to marriage) leave no room for doubt.Footnote ⁸⁵ The type of wedding is indicated by the sea snake (ketos) (Fig. 10), which the woman restrains with her left arm: this is a clear indication of the figure’s marine character,Footnote ⁸⁶ confirmed by the presence on the right of another sea deity, depicted according to the typical iconography of the Isthmian Poseidon of Lysippos.Footnote ⁸⁷ The presence of the ketos suggests he should be identified as Nereus (“the old man of the sea”), father of Thetis, who is always present in scenes featuring the wedding of his daughter from as early as archaic Attic pottery.Footnote ⁸⁸ His pensive attitude alludes to his mantic gifts, which enable him to foresee the dramatic developments from the wedding: Eris (Discord), uninvited, as an act of spite had sent as a gift the famous golden apple with the inscription “for the most beautiful one” that would provoke the Judgement of Paris, and, in the end, the Trojan War. The person on the left can only be Peleus: the building which he exits is the hero’s palace, always featured in the context of the wedding of Thetis, from archaic potteryFootnote ⁸⁹ down to Catullus.Footnote ⁹⁰ In conclusion, the best exegesis of the scene, correctly taking into account all its elements, is, paradoxically, the earliest one, that of Johann Joachim Winckelmann,Footnote ⁹¹ who like many of his contemporaries was a fine connoisseur of Greek mythology.

Confirmation of all this is obtained from the link that this scene has with the next one. The characterizing elements are: the pillar, which emphatically closes the composition at left; the presence of architectural ruins beneath; the torch held, pointed downwards, by the central female figure; and lastly the glance exchanged by the two lateral figures (E and G), suggesting they are linked to one another.

Although his view found little acceptance from other scholars,Footnote ⁹² Ashmole brilliantly demonstrated that the pillar is clearly a stele, the marker (sema) of a tomb.Footnote ⁹³ Consequently, the naked man next to it is a dead hero. The recumbent woman in the center, echoing the well-known iconography of Ariadne, is characterized by the downwards-facing torch, similar to the noted attribute of Demeter, depicted thus when she explores the underworld in search of her daughter.Footnote ⁹⁴ This motif therefore sets the action in the underworld. Lastly, the glance exchanged by the couple at each end of the scene – an element as clear as it is overlooked – is an indication, again, of an erotic relationship, albeit one that takes place in the underworld. The fact that the deceased hero stands on what appear to be the ruins of buildings seems to refer back to the most famous destroyed city of all: if this is Troy, as seems likely, the hero must be Achilles, whose tomb stood in proximity to the city.Footnote ⁹⁵ The woman at the center has been correctly identified as Helen, an identification confirmed by the depiction of Paris (Fig. 11) on the carved disk that replaced the conical end of the vase at a later time.Footnote ⁹⁶ The reed torch facing downwards is probably an allusion to the burning of Troy, an outcome of which Helen had been the initial cause. It is noteworthy, for the sake of the figure’s identification, that such a reed torch is called in Greek ἑλάνη or ἑλένη.Footnote ⁹⁷ In addition, ἑλένη is the name not only of the torch,Footnote ⁹⁸ but also of St Elmo’s fire, the will-o’-the-wisp, identified with Helen and a bad omen for sailors (on the other hand, if there is a double flame, it is a good omen, and thus a manifestation of Helen’s twin brothers, the Dioscuri, celebrated protectors of sailors).Footnote ⁹⁹

Helen has been interpreted, based on one version of her myth,Footnote ¹⁰⁰ as the bride of Achilles in the underworld. However, another solution seems preferable here: as stated above, Achilles’s gaze is directed towards the female figure to the right (G), who reciprocates it and who sits on a rock separated from the rest of the composition, namely an island. This can only be Leuke (“the White”), an island in the Pontus EuxinusFootnote ¹⁰¹ where Achilles was worshipped as a god alongside his posthumous bride Iphigenia,Footnote ¹⁰² priestess of Artemis Tauropolos, with whom she was sometimes identified.Footnote ¹⁰³

Together, the two scenes thus combine two different episodes from the same myth, that of Achilles: from his birth through the union of Peleus and Thetis to his death and deification in the underworld as the husband of Iphigenia.

This complete reconstruction is confirmed by the brilliant analysis of John Hind,Footnote ¹⁰⁴ the relevance of which, not adequately considered in subsequent studies, sheds light on the intentionally cryptic nature of the scenes depicted: “Its secrets were, and are, capable of decipherment, using the ‘visual aid’ of the rebus or pun. The result is a simple, balanced and verifiable (from iconography as well as by the puns) interpretation of the two sides of the vase.”Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Hind’s analysis of the elements featured on the vase, especially of the trees, allows one to demonstrate (with some slight modifications and additions) their nature as a rebus, which seems also to the current writer to be the overriding interpretative key to the depictions, as it relates to a cultural aspect typical of the Hellenism of both late Republican and Augustan Rome.

Starting with what we consider to be the initial scene, Hind observed that the bearded figure on the far right (Fig. 9)

The soundness of this proposal is confirmed by the nature of the other large tree (Fig. 15), at the center of the second scene: in this case, Hind proposes it is a “white poplar (abele; in Greek λϵύκη).” The leaves of the poplar, however, are round, which does not correspond with those of the tree depicted on the vase. It has generally identified as a fig, due to its polylobate and jagged leaves,Footnote ¹⁰⁶ but this is a characteristic shared also by the plane tree, which seems a more likely match.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ The plane tree is also sacred to Helen, especially in Sparta, where one such tree was worshipped by choirs of maidens, as Theocritus’s epithalamium of Helen reads:

The tree was located in a sanctuary consecrated to Helen, in a grove called Platanistas.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Furthermore, we also know of a cult of Helene Platanitis or Dendritis in Rhodes, where Helen was hanged on a plane tree by Polyxos, the wife of Tlepolemos, to avenge her husband’s death.Footnote ¹¹⁰

This, as we have seen, is a noteworthy confirmation of the almost universally accepted identification of the female figure (F) as Helen, and, in a broader sense, of the puzzle-system that underlies the iconographic structure of the depiction.

A similar observation is possible also for the small bush which stands in front of the figure located at the far right of the scene (G) (Fig. 14), who we have identified as Iphigenia. The bush, despite belonging to the scene, is not linked, as Haynes thought,Footnote ¹¹¹ to the building identified by us as Peleus’s palace. The shape of its leaves fits well with the round shape of poplar leaves, that is, of the white poplar that Hind erroneously proposes should be identified as “Helen’s tree.” The name Leuke (white poplar) is therefore, once again, a cryptogram, alluding to the island of Leuke, the island of Achilles and Iphigenia, which can be identified with the rock, separated from the rest of the composition, upon which the female figure (G) is seated.

In the end, the identification of the subjects and of the persons proposed by Hind seems to be generally confirmed:Footnote ¹¹² “A – Peleus; B – Cupid / Eros; C – Thetis; D – Nereus; E – Achilles; F – Helen; G – Aphrodite,” with the exception of this last, who we would rather identify as Iphigenia.

In any case, it is from this analysis that the probable function of the vessel follows, at least in its initial form. The depiction of a double mythological wedding fits well with the vase’s use for a wedding banquet.Footnote ¹¹³ Moreover, the images featured most frequently in cameo-glass vases, with their Dionysian connotations, recall wine vases, which, due to their pointed ends, could not be supported, and were emptied in a single draught. The transformation of the vase by removing its original conical base is thus explained by the necessity of giving it a flat base, doubtless to adapt it to a different purpose, namely that of a cinerary urn. This change was certainly ancient, since the base was made from the fragment of another cameo-glass vase.

If the Portland Vase really was found in the sarcophagus of Monte del Grano, it seems possible that the choice of myths it depicts constitutes, to a certain extent, a complement to those depicted on the sarcophagus, which illustrate the life of the hero from his adolescence (his stay at the palace of Lycomedes) down to the eve of his death (the return of Hector’s body to Priam). This in turn can provide a further clue to the provenance of the vase. The interest on the part of the tomb’s occupant in the myth of Achilles, if he were indeed a relative of Alexander Severus, illustrates once again the identification of the Homeric hero with Alexander the Great, as well as the imitatio Alexandri professed by the last Severan emperor. And this leads us to suppose that the Portland Vase was part of the imperial treasury from at least the time of Augustus or the Julio-Claudian age at the latest; that is, the period of its original manufacture.Footnote ¹¹⁴