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Anthony Majanlahti

@anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social

890 followers 82 following 770 posts

Historian living in Rome. 🏳️‍🌈Author of "The Families who Made Rome, a history and a guide" (Chatto, 2004). Currently writing a single-volume urban history of Rome for OUP. The ALT text reproduces the text written on the images I post.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 12h

I'm glad you enjoyed it - I enjoyed writing it.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 12h

I'm so bored with the "Are we Rome?" neurosis, and the idea of decline and fall as a civilisational model.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 15h

#AncientBluesky 🏺

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 15h

He's a Cluniac, #Cluniac, on the floor / And he's praying like he's never prayed before! #SpoliaSunday takes us to the #spolia rich #crypt of #SantAlessio on the #Aventine in #Rome, where a reformist community of monks reused a #Romanesque #ciborium to built the abbot's #throne.

CIBORIUM ARCHES, C8-C9, REUSED IN THE ABBOT'S THRONE, C11. CRYPT OF S. ALESSIO

This Aventine church claims a C4 pedigree, but first emerges into written history during the reign of Leo III (795-816) as a diaconia or food distribution centre. The ciborium over the high altar in the upper church could conceivably have been a commission by that pope, who is best known for his coronation of Charlemagne on Christmas Day, 800, in Old St Peter's. The crypt was rebuilt by Cluniac Benedictines in the C11, who had been given the church and its adjoining abbey in c. 1050. Probably this was when the old and rather small ciborium was dismantled and two of its four sides were adapted as the arms of the abbot's throne, as the crypt also functioned as a chapter house. We can clearly see one side of the forner ciborium, with its braided arch and stylised trees, topped by wavy curls.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2d

This #SarcophagusSaturday finds us in the #viridarium or enclosed garden of Paul II in #palazzoVenezia in #Rome, where a #sarcophagus teeming with #Erotes evokes both fecundity and transformation. The #relief work is reminiscent of late-antique ivories. #AncientBluesky 🏺

CHILD'S SARCOPHAGUS WITH EROTES, C. 190-230 CE. PALAZZO VENEZIA

This small but intact sarcophagus comes from the Mattei collection in the Villa Celimontana, once one of the greatest collections of any Roman noble family until it was put up for auction in the mid C18. Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini bought the best pieces, which are now in the nearly inaccessible Gallery of Statues in the Vatican Museums. The lesser pieces were scattered across Europe and a surprising amount are now in palazzo Venezia. This Severan-era box shows Erotes harvesting grapes and making wine, with the movement going from right to left, the opposite of the usual direction. At centre two Erotes are trampling grapes in a vat, then to the left another is leading a goat to sacrifice at an altar set before a phallic herm of Priapus holding a plate of fruits. The lid has a complex front of pediments with shallow reliefs showing griffins and Erotes holding wreaths, alternating with antefix-like forms with eagles and a youthful head (the deceased?) at centre.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2d

It's the Stevie Nicks Jesus I never knew I needed!

a man playing a guitar and a woman singing on a stage

ALT: a man playing a guitar and a woman singing on a stage

media.tenor.com

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2d

#FrescoFriday offers us this #portrait of a #youth in a #tondo, once in #Herculaneum and now in #Naples. The #MANN houses many such portraits, but they often seem generic "types" without identifying determiners, being instead aspirational indicators of a desired social status. #AncientBluesky 🏺

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3d

I've always thought it odd that the one qualification reviewers needed was that they pee regularly. Who are these peers? We may never know. But we must assume that the golden stream of their wisdom flows copiously.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3d

I love the scaly skirts of the tritons. But the head of the main figure looks like it was recarved under the Severans.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3d

I made this thread a month ago and I really put a lot of thought into it, which I enjoyed. Thinking back over the several years since I joined #ClassicsTwitter and now #ClassicsBluesky 🏺, I realise how much I've learned and how much I've grown in confidence with this material. Thank you all.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3d

I like your taxidermied dog.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4d

My vote is worse, based on past experience.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4d

I would've dated this well later than the reign of Augustus - why do the Wienerdoktors think it's him?

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4d

For #ReliefWednesday we're in the #MuseodeiForiImperiali in #TrajansMarkets, to look at an exquisite fragment showing a #relief of #Erotes from the temple of #VenusGenetrix in the Forum of #Caesar, rebuilt by #Trajan. #AncientBluesky 🏺

FRIEZE/ARCHITRAVE, 113 CE. TRAJAN'S MARKETS

This huge piece of Luni marble comes from Trajan's rebuilding of the temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum of Julius Caesar. In fact the construction of the Forum of Trajan required a major reconstruction of the Forum Iulii and of the streets and neighbourhood behind it, including major structures like the Atrium Libertatis where the ceremony of manumission was held and the records of the freeing of slaves were kept. As a result, the already magnificent temple of Venus the Ancestress, Caesar's divine antecedent, was rebuilt in even grander style. Here we have a wonderful procession of Erotes, multiplications of the son of Venus and therefore a direct reference to Caesar's ancestry. At left an Eros is pouring wine from an amphora into a large bowl held by another Eros, while at centre two more cherubs are struggling with the arrows of Apollo and at right two more are holding the shield of Athena, with the Gorgoneion on it. This frieze once adorned the first order of an interior wall of the temple. A mirror below shows a decoration of coffers containing rosettes on the underside.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 5d

I'll read it!

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 5d

But I don't wanna!

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 5d

Perhaps he just has resting privileged face.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 5d

#EpigraphyTuesday introduces us to one of the soon-to-be indispensable figures of #Roman public life, the #apparitor or bureaucrat. This Marcus #Claudius was possibly a lesser member of the gens Claudia, one of the ruling class of #Rome. #AncientBluesky 🏺

FUNERARY INSCRIPTION OF M. CLAUDIUS, C. 25-1 BCE. BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN

M(arcus) Claudius M(arci) F(ilius) scr(ibarum) mag(ister) q(uaestorum) et aed(ilium) cur(ulium). Arbitratu
Philarguri maioris l(iberti)

"Marcus Claudius, son of Marcus, President of the association of scribes for the quæstors and Curule ædiles. [This was set up] by the direction of Philargurus, senior freedman (of Claudius)". This large, almost completely intact block of marble was found along the via Casilina about 12 km outside the city walls. It records one of the army of apparitores or "assistants", a class of public servants amounting to a nascent bureaucracy by the end of the C2 BCE. There were four colleges of apparitores, namely, in ascending order of prestige, the præcones or heralds, the lictores or bodyguards of magistrates, the viatores or messengers, and the scribæ, responsible for taking and keeping public records. This Marcus Claudius, son of Marcus (the designation indicates that he was a freeborn citizen) was one of the scribæ working for the quæstors and curule ædiles, one of the bigger cogs in the vast imperial machine.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 6d

It's not a philosopher, in such a central position, in a Christian Ostia. I think this was the house of a chief state official. It's gotta be Jesus.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 6d

It's definitely Jesus, but strangely bearded in a period of beardless Jesi. There's also another portrait on the same wall, of a young man (the owner?). All rather mysterious.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 6d

#MosaicMonday once again draws us back to the #MuseodelleCiviltà in the #EUR in the south of #Rome to marvel at the #domus of #PortaMarina from #OstiaAntica, where a central alcove imitates humble brick and #tufo, complete with shadows, in costly #opussectile. #AncientBluesky 🏺

OPUS SECTILE OF THE DOMUS OF PORTA MARINA, 385-388 CE. MUSEO DELLE CIVILTÀ

This central alcove of the domus of Porta Marina is decorated in an extraordinary, indeed unique way. Instead of the figurative and geometric designs of the larger part of the hall, this area, which was found without a floor, has two registers. The lower one is composed of a small diagonal grid of mosaic that resembles a mosaic pavement without a discernable pattern. The upper, larger register imitates in opus sectile a brick structure with four arches at centre on the back wall flanked by two flat-topped sections. Behind, within, above, and below the giallo antico "brick" is a backdrop of marble "opus reticulatum", a style of construction that had ceased to be used long before this was made. This strange wall reminds me irresistibly of the opus mixtum tombs outside Porta Romana at the other end of Ostia's Decumanus Maximus. In the foreground is the magnificent pavement of the main hall.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 7d

That's absolutely not 327 g. It's a multiple of 327 g, though I can't guess how many.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 7d

#SpoliaSunday takes us up the #Aventine hill in #Rome to the splendid though brutally over-restored #palaeochristian basilica of #SantaSabina, where an ancient weight measure does service as a relic of diabolic frustration. #AncientBluesky 🏺

LAPIS DIABOLI, C3-C4. S. SABINA

In the corner between the counterfaçade and the base of the belltower inside the beautiful early Christian basilica of S. Sabina (425-432) on the Aventine hill stands a reused partial column with spiral fluting. Atop it is a smooth, fairly regular round black stone, flat on top and underneath. This was an ancient Roman counterweight or lapis aequipondus of a determined number of libræ, a standard unit of weight equivalent to 327 grams. Other Roman churches have further examples, possibly because churches were protected places to keep standard measures. However they became reused as relics and their original use forgotten. This one is known as the lapis diaboli or devil's stone, which was meant to have been thrown by the devil himself at the head of St Dominic, who was praying in this church at the time, after failing to tempt him. To me it looks like a stone used in the sport of curling, and with its now-missing metal handle it would have looked even more so.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 8d

#SarcophagusSaturday brings us to a modest #fountain near the foot of the #Pincio in #Rome, next to the #SpanishSteps. In 1570 this was meant as the site for a grand fountain celebrating the entrance of the #AcquaVergine into the city, to no avail. This was installed in 1967. #AncientBluesky 🏺

STRIGILLATE SARCOPHAGUS, C4 CE. VIA DI S. SEBASTIANELLO

This elegant sarcophagus with its syncretic decoration dates from 320-350 CE. Its origins are lost in the archives of the Sovrintendenza. It shows two large symmetrical panels of strigilation on either side of a female figure with an unfinished head making a blessing sign with her right hand as it emerges from her stola. She stands in front of a knotted cloth or peripetasma which indicates her as the deceased. On the right and left corners of the sarcophagus front are shown two Good Shepherds, lambs over their shoulders in the traditional way. Here there was once a small shrine to St Sebastian, but it was destroyed in 1728 when the wall collapsed after a heavy downpour, only two years before the Spanish Steps next to it were completed. A large niche took the place of the shrine, with a frame that once contained the saint's image. In 1967 the niche was restored and the sarcophagus was installed as a fountain, with three jets shooting water from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct.

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 9d

The babe, with a cry brief and dismal
Fell into the water baptismal.
Ere they'd gathered its plight
It had sunk out of sight -
For the depth of the font was abysmal.