Representations of War in Ancient Rome (review)

"War suffused Roman life to a decree unparalleled in other ancient societies." This opening sentence of Welch and Dillon's book is certainly the best summary anyone could suggest for this publication of their much expanded 2001 conference on war representations in art media. Certainly, ever since the publication of Zanker's The Power of Images in Augustan Rome it has been a well known fact that Roman political expression was conducted in a multitude of forms and that the meticulous student of Roman history does well to familiarise him/herself with all (or at least as many as possible) of its facets. Dillon and Welch's contribution reflects this recognition by tracing what many would regard as the most pervasive aspect of these studies: the role of warfare away from the armies. Their inclusion of historians into this debate, adds substantially to a discussion which otherwise tends to focus on the art historical. The resulting book demonstrates the fruitfulness of this approach and the changing importance of the different types of evidence over the course of the period from the 3rd century BC to the 4th century AD. Beginning with the Middle Republic, the authors set out to underline the role of warfare in Roman society and the way this society reflected its importance in daily life. Given the small base of archaeological evidence for the early period, this means that most of the Republican contributions (Hölscher, Roth, McDonnell, Klar, and to an extent Welch) are heavily reliant on literary sources, while those dealing with the imperial period (Koortbojian, Kousser, Dillon, and Lusnia) refer predominately to surviving archaeological remains. While all of the articles are good examples of the type of analysis possible within their field, the reviewer found the earlier ones with their careful analysis by far the most rewarding. Even without cross-referencing they were able to create a holistic picture of the power triangle between Hellenistic influence, Roman tradition, and individualistic power politics that created this set of memes or ideograms that came to dominate the public art of the Roman Empire, and explained the pervasiveness of their use throughout Roman culture.

Once the empire is reached the articles reflect much more the established discourse of art historical analysis. Their specialist foci: the role of the emperor as bringer of victory in comparison to the gods; the role of the women in the art of Marcus Aurelius and the role of the battle reliefs of Severan art, all document different, but equally important moments within the development of the overall discourse on the relationship of the commander-in-chief with respect to both his factual military achievements and the expectations of the population at large.

The book closes with a historio-psychological analysis of the meaning of the Roman term "virtus" within Roman society and its implications for the descriptions of battles over time. The author, William Harris, shrinks away from art historical analysis, but by now the other articles have provided so much illustrative material that even beginners in the field should be able to draw valid conclusions as to the implications for Roman public art.

None of the articles cross-reference each other, but the material is well integrated and sometimes the images alone make it clear how closely the different aspects of research presented by the individual authors interlink. This makes it easy to overlook the fact that this is a conference proceeding and was not designed as an anthology. The editors and authors should be congratulated, for producing such a valuable contribution to any course on Roman imperial art or the role of war in society.