Roman sarcophagi studies have been thriving in the past couple of decades, with a number of stimulating studies. The majority, however, have been focused on those sarcophagi produced in the city of Rome, with rather less attention given to the products of the eastern half of the empire. The two volumes discussed here help to redress the balance, offering detailed treatments of one of the most characteristic forms of Asia Minor sarcophagi, the columnar type. Published respectively in 2017 and 2018, they offer complementary accounts of the sarcophagi produced in Dokimeion and Aphrodisias. While similar in many ways, the two groups also differ substantially, especially in their use and distribution, since the Dokimeion sarcophagi were widely exported, while those produced in Aphrodisias were produced solely for a local audience.
The focus and concerns of the two volumes are different. While Esen Ogus’ volume is the first complete publication of the columnar sarcophagi produced in Aphrodisias and focuses especially on their social meaning, Volker M. Strocka's volume aims to address a gap left unfilled by the two major previous publications on Dokimeion sarcophagi, those of H. Wiegartz, Kleinasiatische Säulensarkophage (1965) and M. Waelkens, Dokimeion (1982). While Wiegartz (building on C. R. Morey, Roman and Christian Sculpture I: The Sarcophagus of Claudia Antonia Sabina (1924)) had established a chronology and typology for the sarcophagi, and Waelkens had established their association with the quarries at Dokimeion, neither had considered in detail the meaning of their iconography within a funerary context. This is the key aim and contribution of S.'s volume, occupying the central 118 pages.
Four short chapters first establish the context. Ch. 1 discusses the origin of the sarcophagi in the quarries of Dokimeion and their processes of production. The sarcophagi findspots are discussed, showing that they were primarily a type which appealed to the inhabitants of Asia Minor (88 per cent). Ch. 2 publishes one new example, found at Germencik, 20 km west of Aydın (ancient Tralleis) in 1997, and now reassembled in the museum there. The inscriptions on the sarcophagus are discussed by M. Wörrle, permitting the dating of the monument to a.d. 173. Ch. 3 describes the characteristics of the type, including the kline-lid, while the fourth chapter looks at chronology. The majority are dated stylistically, running from c. a.d. 140 to 280.
The central two chapters (5 and 6) discuss the iconography and its significance, discussing all the sarcophagi produced at Dokimeion, not only those of columnar type. Mythological themes dominate until c. a.d. 180 but then yield to scenes of philosophical conversation, the Muses and hunting. The range of themes varies in interesting ways from those popular in Rome and Attica, and S. suggests that a number of figures previously read as non-mythological may in fact be references to myth, including a number of episodes from the Trojan War, such as the removal of Briseis and scenes of Achilles, Patroklos and Hektor (108).
The significance of these themes have rarely been discussed, in contrast to the plentiful scholarship discussing the significance of the sarcophagi produced in Rome (e.g. P. Zanker and B. C. Ewald, Mit Mythen leben (2004; English translation, 2012)). S. draws on the evidence of funerary orations and epitaphs to discuss the symbolic meanings of the figural decoration of the Dokimeion sarcophagi. He notes the importance of retrospective meaning, to give praise to the deceased and offer consolation to the bereaved. Scenes from the Trojan War such as the rescuing of Achilles’ body from the battlefield suggest care for the dead, while praise of the deceased is suggested by scenes of Nike or Aphrodite writing on a shield (142–4). Yet S. also notes the capacity for prospective readings too, to suggest a more hopeful view of death as a release from cares. While the theme is shared with some Roman metropolitan sarcophagi, the myths chosen to convey it differ: in Asia Minor we find scenes of the freeing of Prometheus and of Perseus’ rescue of Andromeda, whereas the discovery of Ariadne by Dionysus, so popular at Rome, is here absent on the chests, though it is evoked by the figure on a kline-lid from Perge (149, Antalya Museum Inv. 2.34.95).
Non-mythological scenes too are read as offering praise to the deceased, but also as suggesting their heroisation. The patrons of the sarcophagi are discussed in ch. 7, and are identified as belonging to the most wealthy classes — landowners and elites who used their knowledge of Greek culture to establish their credentials. While focused on the funerary significance of the sarcophagi, S.'s volume also provides a useful introduction to the complete corpus of Dokimeion columnar sarcophagi, giving a list of new chests belonging to the type, updating earlier catalogues (211–59); it also includes a useful chronological bibliography which allows one to trace the scholarship on the group (261–4).
O.'s book, based on her PhD thesis and her experience at the Aphrodisias excavations, offers a careful and detailed catalogue of the columnar sarcophagi from Aphrodisias, of which 228 fragments have been found. This equates to 36 per cent of the total sarcophagi known from Aphrodisias, and places them second in popularity after the garland sarcophagi, published by F. Işık, Girlanden-Sarkophage aus Aphrodisias (2007). As O. points out, the columnar sarcophagi from Aphrodisias offer an interesting contrast to those from Dokimeion, since they were primarily used by citizens of Aphrodisias itself and were set up for public display. They can thus shed light on civic life and values in third-century Aphrodisias, the period in which they were produced.
After a short introduction which sets out the aims and scope of the volume, ch. 2 offers an overview of the wider contexts of the sarcophagi, discussing the archaeological and epigraphic evidence for types of tombs and suggesting that most sarcophagi would have been displayed outdoors, on top of platforms or tomb chambers, most of which were later demolished for reuse in the city walls. It also comments on the preponderance at Aphrodisias of unfinished portrait faces. These comprise some 75 per cent of the chests which bear portrait heads, often with the hairstyles completed but the faces left blank. O. rejects a number of explanations which have been offered for other examples of this phenomenon and suggests that perhaps the explanation here lies in the fact that sarcophagi were often reused for later generations of the same family — the unfinished face thus offered a blank canvas onto which to project the identity of subsequent occupiers of the tomb, as well as its original inhabitant (16–18). There is also an interesting discussion of the use of the sarcophagi as family tombs, drawing on epigraphic evidence which seems to suggest that sarcophagi were used as the main location for couples and their children, while members of the wider familia (in-laws, ex-wives, foster-children, slaves or freedmen) could be allocated places in the tomb building (19–22).
The next four chapters discuss in turn the three typologies of columnar sarcophagi. Each starts with a discussion of the main features and then gives a catalogue of the sarcophagi within that group. Around 80 per cent of the surviving fragments and chests fall within the so-called ‘main group’, discussed in chs 3 and 4: ch. 3 focuses on those showing images of citizens and allegories, while ch. 4 looks at images of Muses and mythological figures. Lids are generally missing, but seem to have been gabled in form.
O. compares these figures in arcaded form to the full-scale honorific statuary which adorned public spaces in Asia Minor, suggesting that it allowed the deceased an aggrandising reference to a civic monument, and also showed them as participants in civic culture. For the most part, their poses and costumes conform to those found in free-standing sculpture (e.g. the himation type for men, the ‘large Herculaneum’ and ‘pudicitia’ types for women), though she notes that there is a more active stress on paideia here, through the book rolls which the figures often hold. Naked figures are interpreted as heroised depictions of the deceased, or as athletes. Muses seem always to accompany an individual or couple rather than being presented all together as a group of nine. Individual mythological figures are quite rare, though figures of Herakles and Dionysiac figures do appear.
Ch. 5 discusses the smaller number of Dokimeion-style sarcophagi. These imitate the central triangular pediment and very lavish architectural decoration of the Dokimeion sarcophagi, and probably had kline-lids. No complete chests are preserved, but one fragment of the central aedicule shows a couple with the female embracing her husband, in a type reminiscent of the Mars and Venus group more common in Italy (68–9), and suggestive here as there of the marital love of the deceased couple. Another small group of sarcophagi (18) is defined as a ‘composite group’ (ch. 6), combining aspects of garland, frieze and columnar sarcophagi.
The final two chapters seek to contextualise the sarcophagi: in ch. 7, O. argues that most sarcophagi patrons came from ‘the middling levels of society’ and discusses the broader contexts of euergetism, the honorific habit and the Second Sophistic. Ch. 8 sets the sarcophagi within their regional context by discussing production elsewhere in Asia Minor, including at Ephesos, Hierapolis and Perge.
Overall this is a detailed catalogue of the material, with some useful discussion of the social contexts of the sarcophagi. While the iconography of the chests is discussed, the symbolism of different individual types is not treated in detail, and it is a pity that O. was unable to take account of S.'s volume to draw more comparisons between the themes of the two groups (4, n. 18) or to delve a little more deeply into the significance of some particular scenes.
Take together the volumes complement one another well, offering an analysis of sarcophagi as firmly grounded within their social and geographical context on one hand (O.), and tying them into the wider discussion around the meanings and resonances of funerary imagery on the other (S.). They will be invaluable resources for the study of sarcophagi from Asia Minor, containing detailed descriptions and illustrations of the individual chests and fragments. It to be hoped that they will form a platform for further comparative work, looking across the corpus of sarcophagi production as a whole to consider how the chests produced in Asia Minor relate to those from Attica and Rome. Their differing approaches highlight the important insights which sarcophagi can provide into areas such as trade, the articulation of social prestige and the opportunities both mythological and non-mythological imagery offered for praising the deceased, consoling the bereaved and, sometimes, suggesting a more hopeful view of an afterlife.
