After Rome conquered Egypt, Egypt invaded Rome. Or so it would seem, judging from the explosion of Egyptian-inspired art in Rome beginning in the mid-first century BC—including a host of Egyptian motifs incorporated into Roman wall painting. These motifs are based on pharaonic art, the art of Egypt under the pharaohs until the Hellenistic period, and they carefully reproduce the iconography and even the artistic style of this tradition. Roman walls in this period thus depict for the first time miniature pharaonic figures, crowns, and animals, lined up in delicate friezes, framed in elaborate panels, and tucked among bushes in lush garden scenes. In these frescoes—an artistic genre that has been called “quintessentially Roman”—the Egyptian elements seem to produce a striking contrast to their surrounding Roman framework. This marked shift in domestic decoration prompts the question: Why would a Roman homeowner choose such foreign elements for his walls?

The present project proposes that the pharaonic subjects in Roman painting relate primarily not to the world of religion, politics, or fashion, as has been argued, but to the practice of collecting art and luxury goods; and that, in this respect, they act analogously to the Greek elements in Roman painting—elements which, until now, have been treated as a discrete and unrelated phenomenon. Investigating how Roman collections of art inform both sets of material, and what this means for our understanding of Egyptian and Greek elements in Roman wall painting, lies at the heart of this project.

Using diverse modes of inquiry and a wide range of evidence—close analysis of the paintings, comparison with archaeological material, and interpretation of literary sources—this study makes two major contributions to Roman painting studies. First, it encourages a revision of the widespread political readings of Roman domestic art, especially painting. Second, it drives home the importance of studying the manifold visual culture of the Roman house as a unit, rather than separating wall painting from the other materials with which it was clearly in dialogue. In so doing, this study casts new light on Roman collecting, artistic practice, and domestic life.

A perplexing development sweeps over Roman sarcophagi in the middle of the third century: the unexpected Entmythologisierung or "demythologization" of their imagery. These lavishly carved coffins, often sculpted with figural scenes of the most astonishing workmanship, had featured bold mythological characters since the very beginning of their mainstream production in the early second century, when inhumation had replaced cremation as the favored means for disposing of the dead. Evocative testament to Rome's ongoing love affair with classical Greek culture, they derived visual force from their resonance with an artistic tradition centuries old while providing catharsis and consolation to those still living. How then to make sense of this imagery's peculiar withering and subsequent abandonment on later sarcophagi, as mythological narratives were truncated, gods and heroes were excised, and genres featuring no mythic content whatsoever -- such as the late third century's endless procession of sarcophagi featuring bucolic shepherds and studious philosophers -- came to the fore? That it must represent a major shift of some kind in the cultural values of the Late Empire is usually taken for granted, given the central position occupied by sarcophagi in the Roman visual imagination of the third century. But no consensus exists regarding its precise significance; and most explanations proposed for the shift groan and collapse under the weight of other evidence.

This enigmatic phenomenon -- the extinction of mythological imagery on Roman sarcophagi -- is what this dissertation decisively reframes. For critical traction it turns to both archaeological and textual evidence, examining the altered spatial relationships between house and tomb that came to dominate in the Late Empire. This reveals what was at stake in sarcophagi's demythologization: new demands among the living, manifested across all social registers, for greater proximity to their dead. The dissertation thus integrates recent archaeological findings, social-scientific analysis of religious change, and analysis of hundreds of Roman metropolitan sarcophagi with a humanist's eye for shifts in cultural values as refracted through funerary art. The results will be of interest to Classicists, Archaeologists, and Art Historians as well as scholars of religious history and early Christianity.

In the fourth century AD, the early imperial Villa at Palazzi di Casignana, located on the Ionian coast, 15 km south of the ancient Greek colony of Locri (Italy) was rebuilt on a grand scale. The addition of two sets of baths, apsidal rooms, lavish wall marble veneers, and exquisite floor mosaics made it comparable to other important Late Antique villas, such as that at Piazza Armerina in Sicily. This study examines the architecture and decorative apparatus of the villa in order to better understand the historical and cultural context of this fourth century remodelling. Comparative analysis with other Roman villas from the same period leads to some obvious and provocative hypotheses with regard to the function of the rooms, and the role of the surrounding estate. The opulence of the villa and the 15 hectares of land that surrounds it, are evidence that Locri and its territory hosted a wealthy elite in the fourth century AD. This study argues against a long-held belief in the field of archaeology and history that Bruttii was impoverished or insignificant during the late imperial period. Archaeological data from the region, in particular from the Villa at Palazzi di Casignana, has provided an incentive for us to re-examine ancient and modern sources in order to reassess the economic fortunes of Bruttii at this time. It is likely that the abundance of natural resources of the region prompted the late Roman elite to invest their fortunes in this part of the Empire. Literary and archaeological evidence suggests that wine-making was among the most profitable sources of revenue for the late Roman elite in Bruttii. A large number of wine amphorae (Keay 52) have been unearthed in the region, strongly suggesting that there was a large-scale production of wine in this area. Recent studies contend that these amphorae were manufactured in Bruttii, and there is ample archaeological evidence showing that they were exported to distant regions of the Empire, including Greece and France. Even at the Villa of Palazzi di Casignana, a large number of these amphorae has been discovered, indicating that the villa may have been an important local hub for wine-making. In addition, the largest and most lavish room of the Villa at Palazzi di Casignana, Room I, which is inserted in the seafront sector of the villa, is considered at length. By comparing this Room to similar ones found in other late Roman villas, this study investigates the possible functions of this space and the likely role that the villa had in the area of Locri during the fourth century AD. Although there have been extensive excavations at the villa's site during the past few decades, and a detailed archaeological report has been recently published, it is premature to draw definite conclusions about the function and ownership of this outstanding complex. There is no doubt that the Villa at Palazzi di Casignana stands as a significant evidence that in Locri and its territory resided a wealthy elite during the later centuries of the Roman history and that Roman Calabria is worthy of deeper and broader exploration.

This dissertation explores the intersection of ancient Roman art, architecture, and literature. In particular, it examines the convergence of art and nature in Roman wall painting and garden design in three domestic, and historically significant, sites in Italy. Chapter 2 examines the painted garden room from Livia’s Villa at Prima Porta; Chapter 3 investigates the garden imagery of the Auditorium of Maecenas; Chapters 4 and 5 encourage a new approach to interpreting the garden design of the Villa of the Poppaei at Oplontis. In each instance we see a Roman approach to nature that always involves both labor and ars, in the creation of what I call “green architecture.” Because villa architecture puts into implicit question the ambiguous relationship between nature and artifice, its critical study allows us a more nuanced understanding of gardens within the broader Roman imagination.

Pushing critical scholarship into new and fertile territory, my dissertation attempts to think of the Roman garden as posing a series questions that exceed our current archaeological emphasis on typologies or the social historian’s focus on status and self-representation in the Roman garden. Toward this end, my analysis tacks between close readings of these sites and contemporary Latin literature in order to situate what is at work and at stake in Roman gardens—artistically, culturally, and historically—at the level of both “text” and “context.”

Finally, because my dissertation bears upon, and engages with, broader, more abiding debates within the discipline about “the Natural,” mimesis, picturesque and pastoral landscapes, and gardens as liminal spaces or where boundaries between interior and exterior worlds collapse, I also consider what difference Roman gardens make for art historical scholarship today.

This dissertation examines the material evidence of honorific statue monuments of the administrative elite throughout the Roman world from the third through sixth centuries CE. This includes the extant portrait heads, statue bodies, and inscribed bases, and their significance as indicators of and participants in the larger socio-cultural conversation about the relationship between religion and politics during Late Antiquity. What was the effect of Christianity on local and imperial politics during this transitional period? Were members of the administrative elite pressured to convert to Christianity and advertise their conversion because of imperial pressure? What social benefits and/or liabilities were involved in publically proclaiming religious affiliation? How is material evidence involved in the projection of religious self identity, especially in public arenas and visual form? How were these visual messages communicated, understood, and received by the viewing audience? I argue that the honorific monuments of the late antique elite reveal a surprising tension between politics and Christianity, and while neither the honorands nor the honorers fully proclaim their religious affiliations, they are not entirely silent either. I argue we should adopt a more nuanced conception of Christianity’s role in the political landscape during this transitional period precisely because ambiguity, religious fluidity, and a broad, if vague, public appeal was politically and socially useful.

Previous scholarship has tended to isolate either the sculptures or the inscribed bases of honorific monuments and examine them separately, that is, art historically or epigraphically, respectively. Removed from the archaeological, spatial, and historical contexts, these approaches are fundamentally flawed in that they ignore at least half of the monuments as a whole, and therefore do not consider the most immediate display context. When components are found and studied in isolation, as is overwhelmingly the case, it may indeed appear that portrait heads are divinely inspired by a Christian god, statue bodies are wearing priestly costumes and holding attributes loaded with religious meaning, and honorific inscriptions are overrun with Christian crosses and direct appeals to God. However, the components of honorific monuments were deliberately combined by a single agent and were intended to be received as a single statement, and thus should be similarly studied together for full comprehension.

This project draws its dataset of portrait heads, statue bodies, and inscribed bases from the excellent database of the Last Statues of Antiquity project, directed by R.R.R. Smith and Bryan Ward-Perkins at Oxford University. My dataset includes evidence from across the Roman world, dating from 284 to 550 CE. This chronological range encompasses the primary core of the late antique statue habit. In order to more closely study the interactions between politics and religion, the identity of the honorands has been restricted to isolate the main players in late antique politics. Therefore, monuments honoring women, athletes, deities, personifications, and heroes, emperors, and the imperial family have been excluded.

My examination of the religious and political imperatives communicated by late antique honorific monuments is divided into three sections. In the first section, I examine the physical evidence independently by component: portrait heads (Chapter II), statue bodies (III), and inscribed bases (IV). This is appropriate as they are most often found alone and detached from the other parts of the honorific monument, and very few of them can be positively and reliably reattached to their constituent components. While similar studies have already been conducted on portraits and bodies, the compilation of the honorific inscriptions from this period is novel, and has yielded surprising insights into late antique administration, linguistics, and social structure. In the second section, I examine the only six monuments Empire-wide that can be reliably reconstructed with head, body, and base as test cases against the much larger corpus of disassembled pieces (V). The combination of complementary and contrasting identities, the mix of new and reused materials, and the varied historical and social contexts they represent produce complex and surprising composites. In the last section, I extend the results of the six test cases to the larger body of disarticulated elements in order that they might be understood and examined as a cohesive body of evidence, within their literary, archaeological, and especially historical and religious contexts (VI).

This dissertation reaches three main conclusions: 1) while the disparate components of honorific monuments are almost always found separately, sheer numbers indicate that they were all part of the same honorific dialogue and should therefore be studied as a cohesive whole; 2) when the components are recombined, the late antique honorific monument was overwhelmingly political in nature, and was not concerned with openly telegraphing religious affiliation, but rather tends to avoid the question; and 3) elite players may not have immediately chosen sides because they were not actively devoted to one religion over another, or more interestingly, because religious ambiguity was socially and politically useful. Contrary to the traditional scholarship that still posits religious extremism and the cultural crush of Christianity across all realms of life, I argue that the landscape was less polarized and more mediated, and that religious identity was more fluid than we once might have thought.