Mythological Group Portraits in Antonine Rome: The Performance of Myth

Kousser, Rachel Meredith

doi:10.3764/aja.111.4.673

Cited by 33 publications

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“…Different suggestions have been made for the symbolism of these scenes, e.g. an allegorical interpretation by Cumont (1942), 20; yet the dominant opinion is that they illustrate the shift of political symbolism in domestic funerary art, see Sichterman (1992), 17f., andKousser (2007).…”

Section: Visual Narratives Of Ares and Aphroditementioning

confidence: 99%

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The Bed Canopy in Xenophon of Ephesus and the Iconography of Mars and Venus Under the Empire

Lefteratou

2018

Ramus

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This paper discusses how Roman visual culture might be useful for deciphering the ecphrastic passages of the ancient Greek novel. Whereas ecphrasis has been one of the blossoming topics in the field, the examination of novelistic ecphrasis alongside particular works of art is still a desideratum. As a test case I will use Xenophon of Ephesus’ ecphrasis of the bed canopy depicting Ares’ and Aphrodite's embrace, in the Ephesiaca, a novel that might have been written as early as AD 65. In what follows I will argue that the scene described on the canopy would have stimulated a variety of intertexts, both literary and visual, in the minds of the imperial audience: that is, Xenophon's reader would have been encouraged to recall not just Demodocus’ song of the love of Ares and Aphrodite but also the idealised Roman version of the myth, which was so frequently depicted on frescoes and mosaics in Roman villas in the first century. I then explore Xenophon's ‘interpretatio Romana’ through the adaptations of the Ares and Aphrodite myth found in Plutarch and Lucian.

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Section: Visual Narratives Of Ares and Aphroditementioning

confidence: 99%

“…8.368) as opposed to the other songs of the Trojan Cycle, see Segal (1992), 24f. See Kousser (2007), 110f., on the power of pantomime in visual arts and its function as a shared mythological background among the audience. For the popularity of the adultery theme in mime and pantomime cf.…”

Section: Lucian's Adultery Talementioning

confidence: 99%

The Bed Canopy in Xenophon of Ephesus and the Iconography of Mars and Venus Under the Empire

Lefteratou

2018

Ramus

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“…Por otro lado, en el trabajo de D. E. E. Kleiner se analizan todas las esculturas representativas de este tipo iconográfico para concluir que todas ellas serían retratos de «wealthy members of Roman society who emulated the conceit of mythological portraiture popular among the members of the Imperial circle» (KLeiner, 1981, p. 539). Recientemente, esta hipótesis ha sido seguida por R. Kousser quien propone dos contextos para el florecimiento de este tipo de representaciones aristocráticas: 1) para ser objeto de decoración dentro de las villas y casas urbanas; 2) vinculadas a la representación de los fallecidos en espacios fúnebres (Kousser, 2007). Otras críticas a esta hipótesis provienen de weGner, 1956, pp.…”

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