Sinclair Bell (Northern Ill. University)
One of the ways in which Roman artists commonly visualized Africans (i.e., Sub-Saharan peoples) is as athletes, a visual tradition that carries over from the Hellenistic era and includes their depiction as acrobats, pugilists, and gladiators. By contrast, there is only one known Roman representation of an African as a charioteer: a fragmentary marble relief now in Naples that is conventionally dated to the first century C.E. and commonly said to be from Herculaneum. Niccolini and Niccolini (1896, vol. 4, Suppl., pl. 3.1) were the first to propose that the charioteer was depicted in preparation for the start of a race in a Roman circus. This interpretation was subsequently adopted in a series of historical studies, in which it was employed as evidence of how Africans in certain professions (e.g., entertainers) could achieve a significant level of social prominence and artistic visibility in the Roman Empire, a period allegedly before racial prejudice (e.g., Gruen 2011, 212). As Snowden writes, "[i]f the Ethiopian excelled as charioteer, pugilist, or actor, he was celebrated by the poet or depicted by the artist ... " (1970, 217) and such images "show that blacks resided in Campania and that artists used some of them as models" (2010, 229; similarly: Thompson 1989, 148).
Despite considerable interest in the relief by ancient historians and art historians alike, it has never been recognized for what it is: a pastiche of uncertain provenance. The African charioteer himself appears modelled after a female African racing a biga on a fifth- or fourth century B.C.E. red-figure oenochoe (Snowden 1970, 230 fig. 88). Other parts of the reliefs imagery (e.g., the Greek-style costume and drape1y of the charioteer, etc.) depend on a "NeoAttic" genre scene, which is again modeled after a fifth- or fourth-century B.C.E. Greek model (cf. Teatini 2003, 95-108 cat. nr. 8). In addition, a second figure on the relief that was long identified as a "warrior" appears instead to be a pastiche of two types: a victimarius and the goddess Roma.
While scholars have confidently, if inconsistently, attributed the relief a findspot from around the Bay of Naples (e.g., Stevens 1988, 157 n. 24: "found at Pompeii"; Gruen 2011, 212: "from Herculaneum"), the entry in the archival diary records only that the relief was received in fragments by Camillo Paderno, the curator of the Museum of Herculaneum in Portici, from workmen on Februaiy 11, 1761 (Forcellino 1999, 133, 167, and 200 fig. 19A). Given its curious blend of pictorial sources, oddly-compressed figures, and many breaks, this work may be assembled from parts of disparate reliefs, a practice familiar from the work of 18th-century forgers and restorers.
In summary, this paper will argue that reliefs blend of mythological and quasi-historical scenes, coupled with its uncertain findspot, make it ineffective as a historical document. Instead, it has much value for the light it sheds on earlier scholarly assumptions about the reliability of images as snapshots of "real life," especially those allegedly depicting Africans in imperial Rome.