H
istorians and art historians alike tend to focus on the lives and
monuments of famous individuals, but some of the most inter-
esting remains of ancient Roman civilization are the artworks com-
missioned by ordinary people, especially former slaves, or freedmen
and freedwomen.Slavery was common in the Roman world. Indeed,
researchers estimate that Italy at the end of the Republic had some two
million slaves, or roughly one slave for every three citizens. The very
rich might own hundreds of slaves, but slaves could be found in all
but the poorest households. The practice was so much a part of Ro-
man society that even slaves often became slave owners when their
former masters freed them. Some gained freedom in return for mer-
itorious service. Others were only freed in their masters’ wills. Most
slaves died as slaves in service to their original or new owners.
The most noteworthy artworks that Roman freedmen and
freedwomen commissioned are the stone reliefs that regularly
adorned their tomb facades. One of these reliefs (FIG. 10-9) depicts
three people, all named Gessius. At the left is Gessia Fausta, at the
right Gessius Primus. Both are the freed slaves of Publius Gessius,
the freeborn citizen in the center, shown wearing a general’s cuirass
and portrayed in the standard Republican veristic fashion (FIGS. 10-7
and 10-8). As slaves this couple had no legal standing. They were the
property of Publius Gessius. After they were freed, however, they be-
came people by law. These stern frontal portraits proclaim their new
status as legal members of Roman society—and, by including him in
the relief, their gratitude to Publius Gessius for granting them that
status.
As was the custom, the two former slaves bear their patron’s name,
but whether they are sister and brother, wife and husband, or unre-
lated is unclear. The inscriptions on the relief explicitly state that themonument was paid for with funds provided by the will of Gessius
Primus and that the work was directed by Gessia Fausta, the only sur-
vivor of the three. The relief thus depicts the living and the dead side
by side, indistinguishable except by the accompanying message. This
theme is common in Roman art and affirms that death does not break
bonds formed in life.
More rarely, freed slaves commissioned tomb reliefs that were
narrative in character. A relief (FIG. 10-10) from Amiternum depicts
the honorary funeral cortege, complete with musicians, professional
female mourners who pull their hair in a display of feigned grief, and
the deceased’s wife and children. The deceased is laid out on a bier with
a canopy as a backdrop, much like the figures on Greek Geometric
vases (FIG. 5-2). Surprisingly, however, the dead man here props him-
self up as if still alive, surveying his own funeral. This may be an effigy,
like the reclining figures on the lids of Etruscan sarcophagi (FIGS. 9-5
and 9-15), rather than the deceased himself.
Compositionally, the relief is also unexpected. Mourners and mu-
sicians stand on floating ground lines, as if on flying carpets. They
are not to be viewed as suspended in space, however, but as situated
behind the front row of pallbearers and musicians. This sculptor, in
striking contrast to the (usually Greek) artists the patrician aristocracy
employed, had little regard for the rules of Classical art. The Ami-
ternum artist studiously avoided overlapping and placed the figures
wherever they fit, so long as they were clearly visible. This approach to
making pictures was characteristic of pre-Classical art, but it had been
out of favor for several centuries. There are no similar compositions
in the art of the consuls and senators of the Roman Republic. In an-
cient Rome’s cosmopolitan world, as today, stylistic tastes often were
tied to a person’s political and social status.Art for Former Slaves
ART AND SOCIETY10-9Funerary relief with portraits of the Gessii, from
Rome(?), Italy, ca. 30 bce.Marble, 2 1 –^12 high. Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston.
Roman freedmen often placed reliefs depicting them-
selves and their former owners on the facades of their
tombs. The portraits and inscriptions celebrated their
freedom and new status as citizens.Republic 2431 ft.10-10Relief with funerary
procession, from Amiternum, Italy,
second half of first century bce.
Limestone, 2 2 high. Museo
Nazionale d’Abruzzo, L’Aquila.
This depiction of a procession of
mourners and musicians in honor
of a dead freedman has figures
standing on floating ground lines.
The sculptor ignored the rules of
Classical art that elite patrons
favored.1 ft.