THE WORLD OF BODY

IMAGES of BODY

CLOTHING

• Veiled portrait head in marble of a mature woman (matrona or Vestal?) with a stern expression, wearing a headband under her veil and a band incised around her throat (side). Roman, 49 BCE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
• Stola: onyx cameo bust of a woman dressed in the garment of the matrona (the straps of the stola are clearly visible), 90-100 CE. London, British Museum.
• Draped woman in a fresco wearing a diadem and veil in an opulent setting; her servant stands attentive beside her (perhaps a scene from the myth of Phaedra with her nurse). From Pompeii (?), 20-60 CE. London. British Museum.
• Girl wearing a Greek chiton (dress) and wrapped in a himation (cloak) (Greek clothing); a copy in marble of a Hellenistic original. Rome: Museo Montemartini.
• Larthia Seianti, an Etruscan aristocrat, wearing a long dress with a fringed gold belt, wrapped in a cloak and veiled (Etruscan dress); she reclines on the lid of a marble sarcophagos. From Chiusi, first half of 2nd century BCE. Florence, Archaeological Museum.
• Matrona on a marble funerary sculpture, identified as such by her belted stola over her tunic and draped palla; she wears a veil with a diadem, signifying her deification, common in women's grave statues during the Empire. 2nd quarter of 2nd century CE. Oxford, Ashmolean.
• Young woman completely covered in a Greek himation (cloak), wearing a head-cap (side); Roman copy of a Hellenistic Greek work. 1/2nd century CE. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

HAIR

• Bust in marble of a mature Roman woman with a late Republican hairstyle, loosely wrapped in a palla. Rome, Vatican Museum
• Portrait head in marble of a woman resembling Cleopatra VII, said to be one of the ladies of her court who went with her to Rome in 46 BCE (hair arrangement of the late Republican period: side). Italy 80-40 BCE.London, British Museum.
• Bust in marble of a female with a resemblance to Julia, Augustus' daughter; her hairstyle is similar to Livia's and Octavia's, dating it to end 1st Century BCE. Rome: Museo Montemartini.
• Period coiffure on a portrait head on a cameo pendant; perhaps a portrait of Antonia Minor (36 BCE-37CE), wife of Tiberius' brother Drusus. Roman, Julio-Claudian period. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Hairstyles: female portrait heads from the early imperial period showing the variety of period hairstyles; elite women often adopted the hairstyes worn by the empresses (see State images). Rome, Vatican Museum.
• Hairstyle on a bust of the Empress Sabina shows the elaborately waved, fringed, and braided coiffure that required time and the assistance of talented maids to arrange. 130-40 CE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
• Claudia Olympias on a marble portrait bust wears an elaborate three-tiered fringed hairstyle with braids in the back; the base contains a memorial dedication (see text in Class). Roman, 100-150 CE. London, British Museum.
• Head of a young woman whose hairdo is fashioned like that of Faustina the Elder, with braids wound around her head. Side. Roman, Antonine period (138-161 CE). NY Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Marble head of a young woman whose hairstyle resembles that of Faustina the Elder on coins of 140-50 CE, with braids wound around her head.Side 1. Side 2. Roman. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Hairnet: fragment, of gold wire, similar to that worn in the so-called Sappho fresco in Pompeii. From a tomb at Vetralla, Imperial period. Rome, Museo Massimo. Fragment of another hairnet, woven with gold thread. From the Via Tiburtina, Imperial period. Rome, Museo Massimo.
• Hairpin made of bone; at its top are the heads of a couple (woman's head missing). Imperial period. Rome, Museo Massimo.

JEWELRY

• Gold Snake Bracelet inscribed DOM[i]NVS ANCILLAE SVAE ("the master to his slave girl"); it was on the arm of a woman found in a building in Agro Murecine near Pompeii; she was carrying other jewelry and coins. Roman, 1st century CE. Naples, Archaeological Museum.
• Snake Bracelet in gold made for the arm. Late 4th-2nd century BCE. Rome, Museo Massimo.
• Gold pendant with glass beads and cameos carved with the faces of (family?) children. Roman, from an eastern province. 3rd century CE. London, Victoria & Albert Museum.
• Young Etruscan Woman, a life-size terracotta bust of an elegantly dressed female wearing elaborate jewelry, perhaps molded on real pieces. Late 4-early 3rd century BCE. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Jewelry in gold: bracelets and earrings formed of hollow hemispheres, a type of jewelry invented by the Romans and common in this period. Pompeii, 1st century CE. Naples, National Archaeological Museum.
• Mummy portrait of Isidora ("gift of Isis"), linen on wood, wearing gold-bordered fabrics, a gold-leaf diadem and gold necklaces and earrings tastefully set with pearls and gems. Roman, from Egypt, 100-110 CE. Malibu, Getty Villa.

COSMETICS

• Cosmetic box in wood, restored with lid, bronze fittings and figured relief carvings in bone, for toilette articles. 1st century CE. Naples, National Archaeological Museum.
• Perfume Girl on a fresco, veiled and seated, wearing bracelets, earings, delicate sandals, and a gauzy peplos; she fills a perfume vial from an aryballos. From a house near the Tiber now destroyed. End 1st century BCE. Rome, Museo Massimo.
• Woman with Flask, a full-length marble statue of a woman wearing a peplos and holding a glass perfume flask. Ostia, c. 30 CE. Rome, Vatican Museum.
• Silver Mirror with a relief on the back showing Phrixus on the Golden Fleeced ram's back, fleeing to Colchis and carrying his sister Helle. From a tomb at Vetralla, Imperial period. Rome, Museo Massimo.
• Aphrodite medallion in gilded silver relief showing the goddess at her toilette, assisted by her son Eros and a young serving girl. It is incised around the rim with various symbols associated with love and beauty, such as a fan, a flower, a butterfly, a bird, grasshopper, and lyre. Taranto, 300-200 BCE London, British Museum.

BODY AND HEALTH

• Hygeia: small bronze figurine of the goddess of health, wearing a headdress with fillets; she holds a snake on her right arm and in her left hand a libation dish. Roman, 1st century CE. London, British Museum.
• Terracotta models of the female body: 1. Eye, 2. Uterus, 3. Ear, 4. Breast, 5. Intestines. In Greece and Rome replicas of body parts were often dedicated in shrines of healing gods in thanks for or hopes of a cure. Roman, 3-1st century BCE. London, British Museum.
• Bathers: gilt bronze mirror back depicts two women bathing before a statuette of Venus. 2nd century CE . Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Women's dressing room with a small cold plunge in the public Sabian Baths. Pompeii, 1st century CE.
• Nude female athlete, the handle of a bronze strigil (another view); she herself holds a strigil. Etruscan, found in a sarcophagus from Praeneste (Palestrina), c. 300 BCE. London, British Museum.
• Nursing mother on a marble relief, seated with her infant; standing beside her is a male (husband?) and a veiled woman in a headdress reaching toward the child ; the temple in the background suggests a ritual ceremony. Imperial period. Rome, Vatican Museum.
• Breast-feeding: a statue in marble of a seated woman in voluminous drapes, wearing a crown (a goddess ?) and nursing an infant. Late Hellenistic period. Rome, Vatican Museum.
• Doctors portrayed on a funerary relief; a medical family freed by a member of the gens Clodia whose names are inscribed below: (center) CLODIVS METRODORVS MEDICVS; (right) CLODIA HILARA; (left) CLODIVS TERTIVS MEDICVS. Last 3rd of 1st century BCE. Paris, Louvre Museum.
• Silphium, a wild member of the fennel family, is pictured on a bronze didrachma of Cyrene, whose economy was dependent on export of this herb (found growing in few places and extinct since the 3/4th century CE). Used for seasoning and medicine (a close equivalent was the native Roman plant asafoetida), women used it in particular to prevent pregnancy. 300-260 BCE. Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum.
• Pomegranate ("seeded apple") carries opposing symbolic associations: it is at once the fruit of life/paradise (associated with fertility) and found in funeral rituals (mythic associations with Persephone and Hera); eaten, source of red dye and used medicinally (known today as a "superfruit" for its beneficial properties). Originated in Persia and brought in ancient times to the Mediterranean area.

Images are courtesy of the VRoma Project's Image Archive.

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Ann R. Raia and Judith Lynn Sebesta