One entered the chamber in antiquity—it was always underground—down a long vaulted ramp which made a right-angle turn and emerged in a little square vestibule, whose skylight provided the basilica’s only natural light. Beyond the vestibule was a vaulted nave ([Fig. 7.8]) ending in an apse, and two side aisles. The profiles of the piers upholding the vaults, and of the arches connecting the nave with the side aisles, are irregular; and the piers are set at eccentric angles ([Fig. 7.9]): this suggests a curious method of construction. A trench must have been dug through the surface tufa corresponding to the desired perimeter of the building. Then six square pits were dug, one for each pier, and the outline of the arches and doorways formed in the virgin soil. Then mortar was poured in. When it had set, the entrance corridor was dug and the interior of the basilica emptied of earth through the skylight in the vestibule. Then vault, piers, and walls were stuccoed. In the late Republic and after, Roman artisans showed great skill in ornamental stucco-work, a far cry from the wattle-and-daub, in the primitive huts, which is the remote ancestor of the refined work in the basilica, and a symbol of how far on the road to sophistication Rome had traveled from her humble beginnings.
Fig. 7.9 Rome, subterranean basilica at Porta Maggiore.
(Legacy of Rome, p. 407)
In the basilica the stucco-work is divided by moldings into squares, rectangles, and lozenges, filled with figures in low relief of great delicacy and elegance. Some are simple scenes of daily life, and many others are part of the standard repertory of Roman art, but the key motifs will bear, as we shall see, a single, serious interpretation. The apse, the focal point of the whole structure, was reserved for a special scene of central importance.
The central panel of the central vault shows a naked human figure, a pitcher in his hand, carried off by a winged creature. (The interior of the figure is eaten out; this is due not to vandalism but to the depredations of a parasitic insect related to the termite.) In the four surrounding panels are four other motifs. A hero wearing a lion’s skin shoots with a bow a monster guarding a maiden chained to a rock. A beautiful, seated, half-naked woman cradles a statuette in her left arm; a bearded middle-aged man stands before her. A young man in a short tunic, carrying a leafy branch or a shepherd’s crook, leads off a woman by the hand. A veiled female figure takes from a tree guarded by a serpent a fleecy object to give to a man kneeling on a table nearby. How are these scenes to be interpreted? Do they share a common motif? According to the French Professor Jérome Carcopino, they do.
The central subject is Ganymede borne heavenward to be Jupiter’s cup bearer. The hero with the lion’s skin is Hercules rescuing Hesione. The woman with the statuette is Helen with the Palladium, the ancient image on which Troy’s safety depended; the wise Ulysses stands before her. Or it might be Iphigenia, in faraway Tauris, about to bear past the Thracian King Thoas the statuette of Artemis which will release her brother Orestes from torment by the Furies. In the next panel, if the young man is carrying a branch, he is Orpheus bringing Eurydice back from Hades; if he is carrying a shepherd’s crook, he is Paris kidnaping Helen. The veiled female is of course Medea getting the Golden Fleece for Jason. The common theme is deliverance. Ganymede, liberated from earthly ties, is borne on wings to the bliss of Heaven. Hercules can free Hesione because, according to some versions of the myth, he has been initiated into the mysteries. The statue, whether of Athena or of Artemis, guarantees the safety of the city or person who possesses it. Helen, in some accounts, can read the future and assuage men’s pain; or, if the theme is Orpheus and Eurydice we may recall that in an early version of the myth the ending was happy. Jason and Medea are freed from fear of the dragon through rites of magic initiation.
Fig. 7.10 Rome, subterranean basilica at Porta Maggiore, apse.
(Fototeca)