![]() In his right hand, he is holding a lance, and, in his left hand and over his left shoulder, a trophy ( spolia opima), which has to be identified as being that of the king Acron of Caenina, that Romulus defeated in a duel (Livy, Books from the Foundation of the City I.10 Plutarch, Life of Romulus XVI). ![]() For the second theme, Romulus is represented with a cuirass. As Paul Zanker has rightly noticed, such representation of the Aeneas group has to be understood in “the context of the new official mythology” under Augustus Aeneas being presented as “a paradigm of pietas towards the gods and his own father in time of need” (Zanker, The Power of Images, p. 202). Aeneas is also leading by hand his young son Ascanius, who is represented as a Phrygian shepherd (on the symbolic meanings of this representation, see Zanker, The Power of Images, p. 202). Anchises is the archetype of the pious old man, having his head veiled in a way which clearly echoes that of the priests at Augustus’s time. Aeneas carries on his back his aged father Anchises, who is himself holding the Penates, that is household gods. For the first one, that is Aeneas’s escape from Troy with Anchises and Ascanius (Virgil, Aeneid II.705-725), Aeneas is represented wearing Roman armour and patrician foot-wear, respectively symbolizing the fact that he is a future Roman, and that he is an ancestor of the Julian clan. For example, two paintings, now destroyed, of the Aeneas group and of Romulus, represented face-to-face across the doorway of the Fullonica of Ululitremulus in Pompei (IX, 13, 5) give a good idea of the original aspects of these two themes. As these two statues are now lost, we can only imagine their looks thanks to the numerous statuettes, reliefs or wall paintings representing the same themes (see the list of all the representations of the Aeneas group in Spannagel, Exemplaria principis, p. 90-131 for Romulus with the trophy, idem p. 132-161). It is remarkable that these paintings parody the statues of Aeneas and of Romulus which were exposed face-to-face, in niches located at the centre of the two exedrae of the Forum of Augustus (Zanker, The Power of Images, p. 201-209). ![]() ![]() In addition the frieze represented other characters than Aeneas or Romulus characters which can be identified in the following order (left to right): woman swimming to the right, probably Venus – Aeneas group – Romulus – sea creatures, probably a marine thiasos (Clarke, Looking at Laughter, p. 154-156 for a study of the whole frieze see also De Vos, “La fuga di Enea,” p. 114-116). According to John Clarke’s reconstitution, the frieze may have been located in the zone between the socle and the middle of the wall, or at the top of the wall. These two images were part of the same frieze measuring around 2 m long. These paintings of Aeneas and Romulus were found in 1760 at Pompeii, in a zone called Masseria di Cuomo, in the area of VI, 17 Insula Occidentalis (De Vos, “La fuga di Enea,” p. 113-114 Clarke, Looking at Laughter, p. 152 and n. 39). ![]()
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