Imaging Roman Africa

Isis Ceremony, Herculaneum

This page is designed to provide you with resources and images to help you assess the relationship between Rome and North Africa by providing you with images from and about Roman Africa. Images on this page are restricted to students and faculty in Humanities 110. These images are available on the honor system and MAY NOT be downloaded. Thank you for your cooperation!

Click on any of the following topics for links for more information:

  1. Where is Roman Africa?
  2. Images Used in Lecture
  3. Images from Snowden's Before Color Prejudice
  4. Images by Subject
  5. Links to Roman Africa Sites on Line
  6. Link to Handout from Lecture
  7. Bibliography

Where is North Africa?

Click Here for a Regional Map of "Africa Vetus" (Old Africa or Modern Day Tunisia).

Images Used in Lecture

I. INTRODUCTION

  1. Fallen Corinthian Capital in Carthage (Raven 19)
  2. Pears' Soap Advertisement, 1899 (Banta fig. 13.16)

II. AFRICA AS PERIPHERY

  1. Map of Roman North Africa (Raven)
  2. Roman City Planning: Plan of Timgad (Woloch 13)
  3. Imperial Relief Showing a Walled Roman City ( Favro 5)
  4. Nile Landscape with Pygmies : detail from a wall painting from the House of the Physician, Pompeii (Kraus 210, fig. 306)
    • The Judgment of Solomon: Jews as Pygmies--"as so often in the time of Nero, the personage are represented as pygmies with what would seem to be an attempt at parody"; detail from a wall painting from the House of the Physician, Pompeii (Kraus 210, fig. 305)
  5. "Milo's House" (The House of the Tragic Poet!) (Borriello 96)
  6. Snowden Figure #60: Mural painting of black and white priests in an Isiac ceremony

III. AFRICA AS CENTER

  1. Snowden Figure #52: Detail from a Mosaic of a Rural Scene
  2. The Estate of Lord Julius (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 121)
  3. Fishing Scenes on a sea filled with fish (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 81)
  4. Lions devouring a wild boar (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 149)
  5. Banquet Scene, Carthage (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 45)
  6. Eternal Time: Sun, Moon, and Seasons (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 13)
  7. Thumbnail Sketches of Mosaics used in Before Color Prejudice
  8. Xenia of Fish: House of the Cascade, Utica (Veyne)
  9. Snowden Figure #53: Mosaic depicting servants bringing accessories for a banquet
  10. Condemned prisoners offered up to the wild animals (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 163b)
  11. Snowden Figure #55: Mosaic of a chariot race
  12. Figure #26: "Mosaic of five Animal Fighters" (Really Sodalites)

Images from Snowden's Before Color Prejudice

  1. Figure #26: "Mosaic of five Animal Fighters" (Really Sodalites)
  2. Figure #51: Detail from Mosaic depicting a black man following a camel
  3. Figure #52: Detail from a Mosaic of a Rural Scene
  4. Figure #53: Mosaic depicting servants bringing accessories for a banquet
  5. Figure #54: Mosaic of Wrestlers
  6. Figure #55: Mosaic of a chariot race
  7. Figure #56: Mosaic of Racially Mixed Couple
  8. Figure #60: Mural painting of black and white priests in an Isiac ceremony
  9. Figure #61: Mural of Isiac Ritual

Images by Subject

ISIS

  1. Detail of Painting From Pompeii--Priest Shaking a Sistrum (Etienne 118)
  2. Detail of Palestrina Mosaic--Cult Procession (Witt fig. 9)
  3. Isiac wall-painting from Pompeii--Isis Fortuna from a Latrine Corner Wall (Witt fig. 24)
  4. Figure #60 from Snowden: Mural painting of black and white priests in an Isiac ceremony
  5. Marble Statue of Isis--Temple of Isis, Pompeii (Brilliant 93)
  6. The Temple of Isis (Brilliant 92)
  7. Plan of the Temple of Isis (Brilliant 92)
  8. The priests and priestess of Isis--Pompeii wall painting (Etienne 118)

 

THE HOUSE OF AFRICA: AFRICA, ROME, & THE FOUR SEASONS

  1. ROME & HER PROVINCES
  2. AFRICA & THE FOUR SEASONS

 

BANQUETS & HOSPITALITY

  1. Life on the Great Estates (Blanchard-Lemee fig. ?)
  2. Banquet Scene, Carthage (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 45)
  3. Fishing Scenes on a sea filled with fish (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 81)
  4. Venus Anadyomene and fishing scenes (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 108)
  5. The Estate of Lord Julius (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 121)
  6. Man with Basket (Veyne)
  7. Xenia of Fish: House of the Cascade, Utica (Veyne)

 

SPECTACLES

  1. Condemned prisoners offered up to the wild animals (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 163a)
  2. Condemned prisoners offered up to the wild animals (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 163b)
  3. Lions devouring a wild boar (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 149)
  4. Hunting Mosaic of Boar: House of the New Hunt, Bulla Regia (Veyne)
  5. Hunt Scene with African Animals: Triclinium Mosaic in House of the New Hunt, Bulla Regia (Veyne)
  6. The Hunt (??)

 

CULTURAL & LITERARY SCENES

  1. The poet Virgil and two Muses (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 167)
  2. Leda and the Swan; Satyr embracing a Maenad: notice satyr's skin color (Blanchard-Lemee fig. 196-97)
  3. The Finding of Telephus, from the Basilica in Pompeii: "the scene shows Hercules recognizing his own son begot by Auge and abandoned on a mountainside in Arcadia, where the child was suckled by a doe." Notice the skincolor and features of Hercules (Kraus 132 & fig. 160)
  4. Mosaic of the Muses: House of the Months, El Djem (Veyne)

Links to Sites On-line

ROMAN AFRICA

  1. By Region
  2. By Topic

     

OTHER MATERIAL CULTURE SITES OF INTEREST

  1. Pompeii Page (Laura Arnold)
    1. Roman Cooking
    2. Links to Classical Archeology
    3. Great Images of Roman Architecture
    4. Public Buildings
    5. Public Objects
    6. Roman Houses
    7. Household Objects
    8. Daily Life
    9. Emperors

Bibliography

Banta, Martha. Imaging American Women. NY: Columbia UP, 1987.

Blanchard-Lemee, Michele, et. al. Mosaics of Roman Africa. NY: George Braziller, 1996.

Borriello, Mariarosaria, et. al. Pompei. Italy, Ferrara Arte S.A., 1996.

Brilliant, Richard. Pompeii AD 79. NY: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1979.

Etienne, Robert. Pompeii: The Day a City Died. NY; Harry Abrahms.

Kraus, Theodor. Pompeii and Herculaneum. NY: Harry Abrahms, 1975.

Raven, Susan. Rome in Africa, 3rd ed. NY: Routledge, 1993.

Snowden, Frank M. Before Color Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983.

Veyne, Paul, ed. A History of Private Life: from Pagan Rome to Byzantium. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1987.

Witt, R.E. Isis in the Greco-Roman World. Ithaca, BY: Cornell UP, 1971.

Woloch, G. Michael. Roman Cities. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1983.

    This page developed by Laura Leibman for Hum110 Tech.Comments and suggestions welcome.

 

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