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Vespasian did not live to see the Coliseum completed. It was dedicated, still unfinished, under Titus in A.D. 80. The chief surviving monument of Titus’ reign is his arch, commemorating his conquest of the Jews in A.D. 70, but, since the inscription upon it refers to him as deified, it is clear that the arch was not finished until after his death. Built of valuable Pentelic marble, it would never have been preserved if it had not been incorporated, in the Middle Ages, into a fortress of the powerful family of the Frangipani. The last vestiges of the Frangipani tower were not removed from the arch until 1821. It was then reinforced and its missing portions restored in travertine. It is chiefly famous for the relief on its inner jamb showing ([Fig. 9.8]) Titus’ army carrying in triumph the spoils of Jerusalem, including the table of the shewbread, the seven-branched candlestick, and the silver trumpets. In the relief opposite, Titus stands in a four-horse chariot, with the goddess Roma leading the horses, and Victory crowning him with a laurel wreath. The frieze under the cornice, not unrelated to the small inner altar frieze of the Altar of Peace, portrays a procession of priests, sacrificial animals, and troops carrying on their shoulders small platforms bearing representations of cities and places conquered by Roman arms, including a personification of the River Jordan. The motif in the highest part of the inner vault, showing Titus—who was a burly man—carried off to heaven by an eagle, is as conventional as the Ganymede in the vault of the underground basilica at the Porta Maggiore. In the years since Augustus, Roman official art had become conventional without ceasing to be historical.
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Fig. 9.8 Rome, Arch of Titus, showing relief with spoils of Temple at Jerusalem. (Fototeca)
To the good Titus succeeded the wicked, psychopathic, tyrannical Domitian, the greatest builder-Emperor since Augustus, and one under whom the Empire took a long stride on the road to absolutism. One evidence of Domitian’s self-aggrandizement turned up unexpectedly in 1937, under the Palazzo della Cancelleria in the Campus Martius, seat of the papal Chancellery, and an enclave of Vatican City. Curiously, the palace already had an intimate connection with the Flavians: many of the stones in its fabric were robbed in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century from the Coliseum. In connection with extensive repairs to the building, deep excavations beneath it revealed the tomb of the consul Aulus Hirtius, a lieutenant of Julius Caesar’s, who died in office, and in battle against Mark Antony, in 43 B.C. Leaning face inwards against this tomb were five slabs which proved to be part of a marble historical relief. A sixth slab was found later nearby, still within papal jurisdiction; a seventh, found under the sidewalk, technically outside the Pope’s control, was first claimed by the Roman civil authorities, but a trade was made for the slab of the Altar of Peace then in Vatican hands, and all the slabs are now reunited in a courtyard of the Vatican Museum.
Fig. 9.9 (top and bottom) Vatican City. Cancelleria reliefs. (Musei Vatican)
The seven slabs combine into two sections of some sixteen figures each, almost complete ([Fig. 9.9]). The more fragmentary of the two contains near its right end an instantly identifiable figure, with the characteristic beaked profile of Vespasian ([Fig. 9.10]). He is greeting a young man, surely one of his sons. Comparison with known portraits of Titus and Domitian leads to the conclusion that it is the latter who is represented here. The greeting is taking place in the presence of lictors, Vestals (identified from their characteristic headdress), apparitores or beadles (at either end), a helmeted female figure (the goddess Roma or, according to others, the war-goddess Bellona, or the personification of martial courage), and two male figures, one bearded (the Genius of the Senate), and one beardless, with a cornucopia (the Genius of the Roman People). The other section is at once more complete, more difficult to interpret, and more interesting. Several of the conventional figures recur: the lictors, Roma, the two Genii. There are also six soldiers (in the uniform and with the arms of the praetorian guard); the wing of a Victory; a helmeted female wearing the aegis, the characteristic breastplate of Minerva; the helmeted, bearded male figure beside her must be another divinity, Mars. The remaining figure, the first on the second slab from the left (see [Fig. 9.11]), is rendered in profile, and is clearly intended as a portrait, but close examination, by Dr. F. Magi, Director of the Vatican Museums, shows that it was reworked in antiquity.
