Motywy triumfalne i batalistyczne w dekoracji ceramiki aretyńskiej

Abstract

This paper outlines the influence of the official visual language on the decoration of objects of daily use, and more particularly of the decorated "terra sigillata" ware, produced in "Arretium" (Arezzo in Italy) in the last three decades of the 1st century BC and in the first half of the 1st century AD. The decoration repertoire of this pottery includes triumphal motifs (trophies, pieces of military equipment, personifications of defeated peoples, captives, Victoria standing on a globe, Victoria holding a palm branch, a wreath or both , Venus "Victrix", triumphal quadrigas or bigas) and battle scenes (Roman and Barbarian soldiers). The motifs started appearing on pottery at the end of the 1st century BC. Most of them were in use during Augustus' lifetime and some of them even longer. Pottery with such decoration makes only a few percent of all the known decorated Arretine pieces. However, considering the mass scale of the production, these motifs had to be quite numerous. The group of motifs is interesting also because they were used by more than half of tthe Arezzo potteryworkshops producing relief ware at that time. Yet the phenomenon appears not to have depended solely on the official visual language, because some military and most of the triumphal motifs had already existed in official art and coinage of the later Roman Republic and first years of the Principate. There must have been some other reasons for their much later appearance in pottery decoration. One such reason was the economic situation of the workshops : after many years of prosperity they were forced to fight for new markets against a growing competition from Campania, North Italy and South Gaul. The political situation at the end of the 1st century BC offered a teasing opportunity. The workshops could find new buyers among the Romanized inhabitants of Roman provinces, as well as among the soldiers in legionary camps (especially along the Germanic border). It seems that these new groups of customers and their special needs inspired the craftsmen (not only from "Arretium") to introduce new themes to decorate their pottery.