NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS xiregime to a diverse populace. Figure 4f is a portrait bust of Marcus
Aurelius, which found its way at some point into a private collection in
the Roman villa at Chiragan in southern Gaul, where it was displayed
in a large group of imperial portraits in an elite context well into late
antiquity.It is impossible to encapsulate the whole range of issues around Roman
art in a few images, but the movement of the Marcus bust from what
may have been a public context into a private one raises interesting
questions of mobility and portability in artistic production. Figure 4g is
a fourth- century sarcophagus showing deer and boar hunting,
discovered in 1974 at Trinquetailles in the South of France in a
hypogaeum that also contained two fi ne Christian coffi ns. The
sarcophagus was almost certainly cut in Rome, its base from a recycled
block of Proconnesian marble (the back has a number of holes that
were carefully mended in antiquity) and its lid from a quite different
piece of marble perhaps originally from Thasos. Both segments of the
fi nished object were brought to Rome and – perhaps after other uses –
were cut into this sarcophagus, which was then exported by sea to
southern Gaul, perhaps to Marseilles, before being acquired for its fi nal
owner. The centre of the lid has a panel for an inscription, but this was
never incised (although it may have been painted). The piece remains as
an extraordinary monument to the complex economics of production
for such objects and to the potential for the funerary syncretism of
overtly Christian sarcophagi, with coffi ns of the later fourth century
celebrating ideal elite activities like hunting.
a. Arretine crater, found in Italy, terra sigillata, c. 20 BC – AD 20. ©The
Trustees of the British Museum.
b. Silver plate from Chaourse, third century AD. © The Trustees of the
British Museum.
c. Glass jug from Bayford, perhaps second century AD. ©The Trustees
of the British Museum.
d. The Tivoli ‘general’, fi rst half of the fi rst century BC , Palazzo
Massimo, Rome. Photo: J. Elsner.
e. Large Herculaneum woman portrait statue, fi rst half of the second
century AD , from Rome, now in the Capitoline Museum. Photo:
D-DAI-ROM-2001.1940 (K. Anger).
f. Bust of Marcus Aurelius, second century AD , from the villa at
Chiragan, now in the Musée Saint-Raymond, Toulouse. Photo:
J. Elsner.
g. Sarcophagus with hunting scenes, late fourth century AD , from
Trinquetailles, now in the Arles Museum. Photo: J. Elsner.