Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This medallion, which is irregular at the top, is decorated with the bust of a beardless youth, facing frontally, with an eagle-topped standard visible behind his left shoulder. The man wears an animal skin, tied in a knot at the front. The animal skin may also drape over his head or the head-covering may be a separate cloth connected to the vertical lines visible over the animal skin at his left shoulder. The youth has curly hair, which hangs down onto his shoulders. His face is broad, and prominent brows and nose are depicted next to smaller eyes and mouth. His neck is remarkably thick. The bust ends at the shoulders and breasts. The eagle’s head is turned toward the figure, while its body is turned in the opposite direction, wings slightly raised; spiral lines are depicted on the pole upon which it is perched. The back of the medallion is flat and featureless.
It is difficult to say for certain what this medallion is meant to represent. On the one hand, it may depict a Roman aquilifer, the bearer of the most important standard (signum) for a Roman legion, the eagle (1). A Roman standard bearer, a signifer or aquilifer, would typically have worn an animal skin as a hood and tied over his shoulders (2). On the other hand, this may be a Near Eastern representation, as eagles and standards (semeia) that were iconographically very similar to Roman military standards were also associated with deities in the Near East, notably in the cities of Hatra and Hierapolis (3).
The round, relief-decorated discs in this group (2001.179.1 through 2001.192, along with 2002.281) may not all have had the same use, and it is difficult to know what the exact function of each object was (4). Medallions of this type could have been used as matrixes to create thin, metal, particularly gold and silver, repoussé appliques as elements of decoration and jewelry, or they could have been used as decorative elements themselves (5). Some could have been decorative elements of furniture fittings (6). Others could have decorated horse harnesses or provided the matrix to create decoration for horse harnesses (7). Other potential uses are as decorative elements or models for decorative elements worn by individuals as part of jewelry or belt decorations, as seen in sculptural depictions (8). Some might have been devotional or votive objects in their own right (9).
NOTES:
1. A legion’s standards were important symbols for the unit, and the loss of a legion’s eagle was a huge disgrace; see G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries A.D., 3rd edn. (Norman, 1998) 133-39.
2. Ibid., 139. See also F. Lepper and S. Frere, eds., Trajan’s Column: A New Edition of the Cichorius Plates (Gloucester, 1988) pls. 7, 39, and 54.
3. For examples of standards in Hatra, particularly associated with eagles, see F. Safar and M. A. Mustafa, Hatra: The City of the Sun God (Baghdad, 1974) 176-77, 190-93, and 268-69, nos. 171, 183, and 283 [in Arabic]; for color representations of the first two, see M. Sommer, Hatra: Geschichte und Kultur einer Karawanenstadt im römisch-parthischen Mesopotamien (Mainz, 2003) 37 and 79, figs. 46 and 114. For depictions of standards in a temple context in Hierapolis, see K. Butcher, “Two Syrian Deities,” Syria 84 (2007): 277-85. For discussions of the religious significance of the standards, see A. Caquot, “Note sur le semeion et les inscriptions araméennes de Hatra,” Syria 32.1-2 (1955): 59-59; H. Seyrig, “Antiquités syriennes: Les dieux de Hierapolis,” Syria 37.3-4 (1960): 233-52, esp. 241-42; and R. Du Mesnil du Buisson, Les tessères et les monnaies de Palmyre: Un art, une culture et une philosophie grecs dans les moules d’une cité et d’une religion sémitiques (Paris, 1962) esp. “Le sémeia,” 425-30. For a discussion of the religious significance of the eagle in Near Eastern art, see Du Mesnil du Buisson 1962 (supra) 405-15.
4. Similar medallions are known in other museum collections, including a medallion with a bust of Aphrodite in the Princeton University Art Museum, inv. no. y605, said to be from Syria; a medallion with a bust of Artemis in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 74.51.5537, from Cyprus; a medallion with the bust of a woman flanked by a child in the British Museum, London, inv. no. 1975,0316.23. For bust medallions of various sizes (from 1.5 to 13 cm) and levels of relief, see E. Babelon and J.-A. Blanchet, Catalogue des bronzes antiques de la Bibliothéque Nationale (Paris, 1895) 12-13, 55, 65-66, 110, 132, 178, 193, 214, 264, 316-17, 359-60, 369, and 445; nos. 25, 28, 120, 143-44, 253, 301, 400, 434, 491, 622, 712, 715, 827, 844, and 1022.
5. See M. Y. Treister, Hammering Techniques in Greek and Roman Jewellery and Toreutics, Colloquia Pontica 8 (Leiden, 2001) esp. “The Galjûb Hoard,” 253-73, and “Bronze Matrices in the Museums of Athens and Karlsruhe,” 362-71.
6. There are many surviving examples of this type, often with an animal, often a leopard, placing one or both forepaws on top of the medallion. Compare various examples in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. nos. 31630 and Fr. 1552 g 6-8; Babelon and Blanchet 1895 (supra 4) 474, no. 1133; and in the British Museum, London, inv. nos. 1856,1226.867 and 1872,1214.1.
7. See G. Greco, Bronzi dorati da Cartoceto: Un restauro, exh. cat., Museo Archaeologico, Florence (Florence, 1987) pls. 1-3 and 10-13. The horse heads had small round medallions decorated with busts in relief on the mouth, temples, and forehead of the harnesses. See also the gilt bronze horse head in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, inv. no. 54.759, which bears two medallions with busts, similar to this group in C. C. Mattusch, ed., The Fire of Hephaistos: Large Classical Bronzes from North American Collections, exh. cat., Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University; Toledo Museum of Art; Tampa Museum of Art (Cambridge, 1996) 216-19, no. 20.
8. See the representation of an Archigallus (high priest) of Cybele, wearing a wreath decorated by circular medallions with busts in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae Kybele no. 130. Marcus Caelius, a member of one of the three legions destroyed in the battle of the Teutoburger Forest in 9 CE, is represented in a cenotaph wearing various military awards, including phalerae in the form of medallions with heads, including one representing a gorgoneion, on his cuirass; see G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries A.D., 3rd edn. (Norman, 1998) 132, pl. 6. For examples of relief bust medallions decorating belts, see Safar and Mustafa 1974 (supra 1) 62, 64, and 210-11, nos. 3, 5, and 198.
9. For example, 2001.189 and 2002.281; compare 1993.233.
Lisa M. Anderson
