Cover art

Cover art: Around 350 ce, the Roman military camp at Augusta Raurica (modern Kaiseraugst), part of the late imperial Rhine-Iller-Danube limes, was sacked and destroyed: the Alamanni, it would seem, had taken advantage of the withdrawal of troops by the usurper Magnentius (350–353). As was customary, beleaguered Roman buried their valuables in the hopes that they would be able to recover them once the crisis was over. But not all did so, and many treasures remained buried until being rediscovered in modern times. One such was the magnificent Kaiseraugst Treasure, accidentally uncovered by a backhoe in 1961. The 270 silver pieces weigh a total of 58 kg., and still other pieces have yet to be recovered. The treasure is preserved at the Römermuseum in Kaiseraugst.

Thirteen of the pieces bear the name of the tribunus Marcellianus. He would have served under a general such as the Dux Raetiae, who, according to the Notitia dignitatum had several tribuni on his staff (Not.dig.occ.35). Typically, Marcellianus received several of the silver pieces as personal gifts from the emperor, such as one in honor of Constans’ (333–350) tenth regnal year (342/3). Indeed, the unfortunate Constans was one of Magnentius’ first victims.

The marquee piece is the “Achilles platter,” 53 cm. in diameter and weighing 46.42 kg. The front side of the plate depicts a famous scene from ancient Greek legend, Ulysses’ discovery, immediately prior to the Greek attack on Troy, of Achilles, disguised as a young woman after being concealed by his mother Thetis on the island of Skyros among the daughters of king Lycomedes. In order to catch Achilles out and recruit him for the war, the wily Ulysses devised a clever stratagem. Disguising himself as a humble peddler, he proffered to the king’s daughters feminine fineries along with a spear and shield. Achilles, of course, gave himself away by choosing the weapons. Indeed, in his eagerness to do so, his peplos fell off his right shoulder, revealing even more explicitly that he was no lady. The artist also coyly hints at other anatomical irregularities. On the left, Lycomedes’ daughter Deidamia, whom Achilles had either married or raped and who later bore his son Neoptolemus, desperately tries to restrain him from departing. He looks regretfully back at her as he begins to follow Ulysses. Meanwhile, as another part of Ulysses’ stratagem, a soldier, hand on sword and in full late Roman military garb, sounds a trumpet alarm, scaring away all the women (except for Deidamia) but inducing Achilles to leap to their defense. At the same time, Ulysses already is leading Achilles off to war.

Achilles was an exemplar of virtuous behavior, and thus a popular subject in the Roman army. A very similar plate (71.6 cm.), also dating to the mid fourth century and perhaps even by the same maker, appears in the Sevso treasure (in this case with the addition of Diomedes to the discovery scene), found probably in Hungary in the 1970s, and another Achilles plate, dating to the early fifth century, the so-called “Shield of Scipio” (71.1 cm., 363 oz.), was found in the Rhône River near Avignon in 1656.

The reverse side of the plate bears an inscription ΠΑΥCΥΛΥΠΟΥ ΘΕCCΑΛΟΝΙΚΗC ΛΙΕ, that is, “Pausylypos of Thessalonica, 15 pounds.” Roman silver settings typically were put on display, and even bore marks attesting to their weight, as a means of advertising the wealth, and status, of their aristocratic owners. For example, Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. 1.2.6, shows that even the Visigothic king Theoderic II modeled himself on Roman aristocrats who displayed their silver dinnerware: “On ordinary days, his table resembles that of a private person. The board does not groan beneath a mass of dull and unpolished silver set on by panting servitors; the weight lies rather in the conversation than in the dinnerware” (Dalton trans.). Even though Sidonius claimed that on this occasion the weight of the silver was not the prime consideration, one can be sure that on special days, when the silver was displayed, the king’s guests were surreptitiously turning over...