Monday, October 5, 2009

And now for something completely different:

I can’t seem to remember whether or not I said anything about my trip to the Hermitage last week…in any case, I wanted to take a moment here to write about a particular exhibit in the Classical Wing that left a pretty strong impression on me. I ask for your patience while I go off on one of my tangents:

To be fair, the Hermitage’s entire collection of Greek & Roman art is magnificent to look at, even if a fair number of them are actually Italian reproductions. The fact that you are looking at something more than two thousand years old, something which represents a completely different stage of human development, is a very moving experience. But in spite of that, a lot of the ancient sculptures have a very familiar quality to them, particularly the busts of the early Roman emperors. Nearly all of them are monuments of self-glorification (if not self-deification), portraying the rulers of Rome as handsome, dignified and heroic figures, filled with limitless strength and untold wisdom. The bust of Tiberius, for example, makes him look like a distinguished patrician, famed for his charity and judgment, when in reality, he was a paranoid and murderous old pervert. The robust and affable-looking Nero was actually a brutal megalomaniac (and serial rapist) who had Rome set on fire for his own amusement, then built a colossal palace over the ruins left behind. Even the bust of Caesar is misleading; while he was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant generals and statesmen in history, the means by which he achieved that reputation are far from noble. He was a ruthless political manipulator, and his conquest of Gaul is estimated to have killed over a million people. He was murdered because the senators of Rome feared he was plotting to overthrow the Republic (his nephew Augustus ended up doing just that).

All this is why I was so shocked when I entered one of the numerous exhibition rooms in the Hermitage and found myself in a room full of emperors from the 3rd Century. During a period dubbed “the Crisis of the 3rd Century”, the Roman Empire tottered on the brink of annihilation, subjected to a near endless parade of plagues, earthquakes, assassinations, slave revolts, hyperinflation, barbarian invasions and civil wars. Amidst this sea of calamities, there surfaced one positive development: Realism.

Looking at the busts of the 3rd Century emperors, I was struck by how much more honestly they were portrayed than their predecessors: some were fat, some were ugly, some were sickly, and some were disgustingly hairy. You can even see real emotions in some of their stony faces; the portly and unshaven Balbin looks like any middle-aged man might when receiving a piece of bad news (as well he might, since half the empire tried to secede during his reign). In the sightless marble eyes of Caracalla, you can see the naked cruelty and ambition that marked his tenure as emperor, as well as his rather awesome sideburns.

Perhaps the most interesting statue, for me at least, was that of Emperor Philippus Arabicus, more commonly known as Philip the Arab. He came to power at a particularly bleak time in Roman history, with the economy in ruins, the Persian army overrunning the eastern borders, and the powerful Dacian legions in open revolt. Philip’s statue shows a military man with a receding hairline, clearly uncomfortable with his new civilian dress and duties, who is just beginning to grow fat. His face is tired and worn, with fresh wrinkles appearing at the news of the latest disaster, and he has precious little time to waste posing for a sculptor, much less bothering to see whether he looks good. The Roman world, the only world he knows, is ending; a thousand years of civilization on the brink of destruction, and his job is to find some way to save it.

Emperor Philip the Arab

Whatever their other faults (of which there were many), the emperors of the 3rd Century didn’t try to conceal who or what they truly were. For that, if nothing else, perhaps we owe them the small courtesy of remembering them at all.

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