Hadrian's Villa: The Pecile

The largest of all Roman villas was that built (and probably designed) by the emperor Hadrian near Tibur (modern Tivoli). Its largest part -- hard to miss when one looks at the model (above) or the plan (below) -- is known as the Pecile.

The Italian name evokes a connection with the building erected in the Agora of Athens in the fifth century BC: the Stoa Poikile, famous both for the paintings it housed (hence its name, Painted Porch) as well as for its association with philosophy (Stoicism). A passage in the Historia Augusta (Hadrianus 26.5) records that Hadrian himself named this and other parts of his villa for famous places:

His villa at Tibur was marvellously constructed, and he actually gave to parts of it the names of provinces and places of the greatest renown, calling them, for instance, Lyceum, Academia, Prytaneum, Canopus, Poecile and Tempe. And in order not to omit anything, he even made a Hades.

The Pecile was a huge quadriporticus, i.e., a courtyard enclosed by porticoes on all four sides, measuring 232 x 97 meters -- many times larger than the celebrated Athenian building that supposedly inspired it.

The Pecile featured on its northern side a double portico, of which the 9-meter-tall central spine wall is preserved, as are the bases for the columns at regular intervals (intercolumniation = 3.6 meters) to either side.

The north side of the spine wall of the double colonnade, facing east: column bases are to the left.

The south side of the spine wall, facing west. The column bases are to the left. The pool is to the left of the trees.

The double colonnade had a gable roof. This photo shows the holes for the roof beams at the top of the spine wall.

Circular spaces at both ends of the spine wall allowed one to do laps on this “track,” which was covered and thus offered protection in inclement weather. This double colonnade may have been modeled on the running track (dromos) that was part of a typical Greek gymnasion, which typically offered two options: an open-air dromos called a paradromis and a roofed one called a xystos.

The other three sides were covered, too, but they were single porticoes; the east and west ones were slighty convex.

The quadiporticus surrounded a garden in the center of which was a pool (piscina) measuring 100 x 25 meters.

The Pecile was the ideal place for exercise -- the daily walk prescribed by doctors -- and for quiet contemplation, isolated as it was from the rest of the villa by its walls except at the places where it communicated with contiguous structures, such as the Sala dei Sette Filosofi and Ninfeo-Stadio on the eastern side, or the Edificio con tre Esedre on the southern side. Did it also have painted panels, like its namesake? Perhaps, though there is no evidence that it did, apart from the name.

In fact, “Pecile” may be a misnomer, at least for the entirety of what the term now designates, as Frank Sear has suggested. “The layout of the whole area with the pool in the center and the large open space in the middle suggests that the complex might well be an imitation of the Lyceum or Academy in Athens rather then the Stoa Poikile.” It is true that the Athenian Stoa Poikile was a much shorter structure, hardly a running track (cf. drawing by W. B. Dinsmoor above, top center).

The Pecile is built upon an artificial terrace that rises as much as 15 meters on the western side, which was a separate part of the villa known as the Cento Camerelle (Hundred Chambers, although there were in fact more than a hundred -- the red lines in the photo show their disposition). These were small cells in as many as four stories, apparently apartments for the service staff, with wooden floors and accessed from wooden balconies except at the ground level, which included storerooms and latrines. The cells were nearly identical and had a single opening that served as both door and window. It is estimated that they lodged some 1500 people.

• Bruciati, Andrea and Benedetta Adembri. Villa Adriana: Guida (2017) 62-65.
• Christesen, Paul and Donald G. Kyle. A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity (2014) 298-299.
• Sear, Frank. Roman Architecture (1983) 175-176.

Photos courtesy Hannah, Susanne, and Thomas Marier

The Judgment of Paris on a Pyxis

This small vase -- it is less than seven inches tall with its lid and less than five without it -- is a pyxis (pl. pyxides), a round lidded container for cosmetics and jewelry. The pyxis was an everyday container for Greek women. It was also associated with weddings. Pyxides were among the presents brought to the bride were amphoriskoi (tiny amphorae for perfumed oil), epinetra (knee protectors for carding wool), and lekythoi (oil bottles), as well as loutrophoroi (large pots for the bridal bath). Many of these vases also bore images relating to marriage in some way.

Our vase depicts the Judgment of Paris, certainly a subject relating to marriage and indeed one of the most popular in Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art. For example, we have hundreds of black-figure and red-figure vases that depict it, and twenty-one Roman wall paintings, most from Pompeii.

The story was widely known. At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, an apple bearing the inscription TO THE FAIREST is tossed into the midst of the guests. When the three goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aprhodite each claim the title, Zeus tells Hermes to take them to Mt Ida near Troy, where the shepherd Paris, a son of Priam, will decide which was the most beautiful. Each of the goddesses offers Paris a bribe -- Hera promises him worldy power, Athena victory in battle, and Aphrodite the loveliest woman in the world - Helen of Sparta. Paris, ever the voluptuary, chooses Helen, and thus begins the Trojan War.

The vase shows Paris as a beardless youth sitting on a rock, not in Asiatic dress but in ordinary traveler’s gear: broad-brimmed hat (petasos) hanging down his back from a cord, short cloak (chlamys), tall laced sandals over stockings, and knotted club. Behind him is a bearded man wrapped in a long mantle (himation) and holding a tall staff. He may be Priam, as the great expert Sir John Beazley suggested, but there is no way of telling. Paris is looking up at Hermes, easily recognized by his wand (kerykeion), dressed in chlamys, petasos, and winged boots.

What is going on between Paris and Hermes? What moment in the story is depicted? One idea is that Hermes has just arrived to give Paris Zeus’s orders (as Richter thought). Another is that Paris has already received his orders and is trying to make up his mind (Schefold).

Behind Hermes are the three goddesses. Hera, wearing chiton, veil, and diadem, stands holding her scepter. Facing her is Athena in peplos and aegis, holding a spear; she has taken off her helmet and put on a diadem. 

Behind Athena stands Aphrodite wearing a chiton, himation, and diadem; with her left hand she adjusts her himation and with her right she holds a metal phiale or else an exaleiptron filled with perfume.

The technique is white-ground, with figures are drawn in black outline and a variety of ceramic colors, especially for the garments. 

The piece is attributed to the Penthesilea Painter and its date is ca. 470 BC.

• Richter, Gisela M. A., “White Athenian Pyxis,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 3 (1908) 154-155.
• Richter, Gisela M. A. and Lindsley F. Hall, Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum, Vol, 1 (1936) 101-103.
• Schefold, Karl and Franz Jung, Die Sagen von den Argonauten, von Theben und Troia in der klassischen und hellenistischen Kunst (1989) 104.

Funerary Relief of the Decii

This relief of Luna marble was found near a columbarium on the Via Ostiensis, the much-traveled road that connected Rome with Ostia, the city’s major port at the mouth of the Tiber. Its findspot was behind the Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura about two kilometers down the road and the year was 1898. But that is all we know. It may have come from a tomb. There is no upper frame, and the back slants down to the right -- an oddity. It may have stood upon an altar, as suggested by a recess on the bottom.

The relief shows a man and a woman united by a gesture known as the “joining of the right hands” (dextrarum iunctio), often, though not always, signifying marriage.  Between them is their child, perhaps very young, though we cannot be sure, since his head is lost. The names of all three are framed in the epitaph on the base: A(uli) Deci Spintheris, A(uli) Deci Felicionis, Deciae Spendusae.

Decius and Decia are tilting their shoulders outward, as though to make room for their child in the middle, and they are facing forward. Decius’s head is prominent, out of proportion to his torso. He wears a toga and in his left hand holds a rotulus (parchment roll), the top of which has been broken off; the rotulus may be the marriage contract (tabulae nuptiales). The child wears a tunic and holds a small bird (a dove). Decia wears a garment knotted at intervals on the sleeve; over her left shoulder and draped about her waist is a cloak that she has gathered in front of her breast in her left hand, on which she wears a ring.

It seems that less effort was given to Decius’s head than to that of his wife. His forehead creases are merely incised, and his locks lie flat in cookie-cutter patterns. Decia, by contrast, sports a distinctive hairdo: parted in the middle, the hair is arranged in waves and knotted at the back of the head, with large curly locks falling down in front of the ears. Her ears have holes for earrings, now lost.

Most scholars have dated the relief to the Flavian period or even later. But Valentin Kockel has argued that the hairstyle conforms to the locks-on-the-temples type (Schläfenlöckchen-Typus) of Antonia Minor; he finds analogues in earlier portraits. The carving, too, looks to him Tiberian, the treatment of the garments, Claudian.

Who were the Decii? What were they saying with dress, gesture, attributes (parchment roll, dove, ring), hairstyle, physiognomy? Kockel has surveyed 270 such funerary reliefs and points to an answer: “The clients who commissioned the portraits belonged overwhelmingly to the freedman class... …the reliefs reflected the aspirations and ideals of that class. The format, with frontal figures standing shoulder to shoulder, was inspired by honorific statues of magistrates set in public places; the wearing of the toga expressed the newly won citizen status of the menfolk; the emphasis on marital ties declared the legitimacy of their families” (Ling 190).

• Gasparri, Carlo and Rita Paris, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme: le Collezioni (2013) 186.
• Kockel, Valentin. Porträtreliefs stadtrömischer Grabbauten: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und zum Verständnis des spätrepublikanisch-frühkaiserzeitlichen Privatporträts (1993) 190-191.
• Ling, Roger. Review of Kockel (1993). The Classical Review 46 (1996) 191-192.

Early Greek Painting: the Metopes from Thermon

While vases are our chief source for early painting in Greece, there are some survivals in other media. Among these are painted terracotta slabs that once decorated old wooden temples, in particular those from Temple C at Thermon in Aetolia, near the western end of the Gulf of Corinth. The style of the painting, which shows Corinthian influence, points to a date of ca. 630-620 BC.

The drawing shows how these slabs were set as metopes between cross-beams capped by triglyphs. They are slightly more than two and a half feet square.

The background is a cream-colored clay slip. The skin of male figures is generally brown outlined in black; that of female ones is white outlined in red.

Some of these painted terracotta panels have subjects drawn from myth, including Perseus fleeing with Medusa’s head tucked into a sack, a hunter (perhaps Orion) carrying his quarry on a pole, two half-naked women who may be the daughters of Proetus, and, illustrated above, the sisters Aedon and Chelidon (better known as Procne and Philomela) with the dead child Itylus (or Itys). The identification of the last subject would be difficult were it not for the retrograde inscription labeling the figure to the right: CHELID(W)ON. (The W, written like our letter F, is a digamma, which later dropped out of the alphabet).

The story is rather a gruesome one, best known in its Attic version, where the sisters are Procne (Aedon) and Philomela (Chelidon). Procne marries Tereus and goes to live with him in distant Thrace. Lonely Procne/Aedon longs for her sister. Tereus fetches Philomela/Chelidon but rapes her on the way, cutting out her tongue to prevent her from telling. But Philomela/Chelidon weaves the rape into a cloth, and after Procne/Aedon sees it, the sisters unite to avenge themselves on Tereus. This they do by murdering Itys/Itylus, the son of Tereus by Procne, and serving him to his father for dinner. When Tereus discovers the truth about his meal, he chases the women, whereupon they all are turned into birds: Procne/Aedon becomes a nightingale, Philomela/Chelidon a swallow, and Tereus a hoopoe.

The composition of the metope is simple. Aedon and Chelidon face each other over a table on which the dead Itylus lies. The boy’s head is faintly discernible in the crook of Chelidon’s arms (cf. the drawing above). Are they mourning the boy? It is more likely that they are butchering him. After all, at this point in the story, they were out for vengeance.

Payne, H. G. G. “On the Thermon Metopes.” The Annual of the British School at Athens 27 (1925/1926) 124-132.

Schefold, Karl. Götter- und Heldensagen der Griechen in der Früh- und Hocharchaischen Kunst (1993).

Topper, Kathryn, R., “Coming of Age at Thermon.” Center for Hellenic Studies Open House 3/1/2018 (YouTube).