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TheOxfordRomanEconomyProjectconference2011

TheEconomicsofRomanArt
September2627,2011 IoannouCentreforClassicalandByzantineStudies Oxford

ABSTRACTS

Programme
Monday,26September2011 9.009.30 Introduction AndrewWilson

Session1:Approachingartisticproductionfromaneconomicperspective 9.3010.30 Auctoritasrerum:amodelfortheeconomicsofartintheRoman Empire WilliamHarris 10.3011.00 Coffeebreak 11.0012.00 Keeping up with the emperors: the cost of building on imperial lines JanetDeLaine 12.0013.00 Buildingsites:art,marble,money RolfSchneider 13.0014.00 Lunchbreak Session2:Artproductionandtheurbancontext Figuringoutthefacts:someattemptstocalculateandcostmosaic production WillWootton 15.0016.00 Sednullagloriaartificumest...economyandproductionofRoman wallpaintings DomenicoEsposito 16.0016.30 TeaBreak 16.3017.30 Thedomesticarteconomy:understandingPompeii MikoFlohr 17.3018.00 Closingdiscusssion 18.00 Drinks 14.0015.00

Tuesday,27September2011 Session3:Marble,stoneandsculpture 9.0010.00 10.0011.00 Artandthestonetrade:quarries,carvers,customers BenRussell Marble supply and statuary production in Cyrene in the HellenisticandRomanperiods SusanKane 11.0011.30 Coffeebreak 11.3012.30 Local sculptors, local markets: the economy of marble sculpture atAphrodisiasinCaria JulievanVoorhis 12.3013.30 LunchBreak Session4:Statusandexpeditureonconspicuousdisplay MassproductioninRomanmarblestatuary AmandaClaridge Tanta marmoris luxuria est. Roman cineraryurns in coloured stone:aspectsofproductionandconsumption. SimonaPerna 15.3016.00 TeaBreak 16.0017.00 GlassinRomeforprincepsandpopulus SusanWalker 17.0017.30 ClosingDiscussion 13.3014.30 14.3015.30

Auctoritasrerum:amodelfortheeconomicsofartintheRoman Empire?
WilliamHarris Mypaperwilladdressthefollowingquestions,someofthemverybrieflybecause of time constraints. 1. When did plunder and extortion cease to be important sourcesofthesupplyofworksofart,andgivewayto'normal'markets?2.How did the economics of patronage work? 3. Supply and demand in the market for worksbyfamousartists.4.Wasthereanintegratedempirewidemarketinworks of art? (This will be my main question). 5. When the Roman economy began its slowfragmentationinthethirdcenturyaprocesswhichwasstillgoingon400 yearslaterwhatweretheeffectsontheproductionanddistributionofworksof art? In other words, I shall pose two framing questions about historical change, withthreestructuralquestionsinthemiddle.

Keepingupwiththeemperors:thecostofbuildingonimperial lines
JanetDeLaine This paper is an attempt to examine the economic impact on Roman provincial cities as they tried to emulate the giant structures and lavish decoration of the emperors'publicbuildingsinRome.Itwillfocusontwoelementsthatarecommon to most of the empire: baths and columnar displays in the frontes scaenarum of Roman theatres, looking mainly at wellpreserved buildings in Italy, North Africa andAsiaMinor.Firstlyitwillassesstheeconomicimplicationsofsimpleincreases in scale, in terms of materials and manpower, and the adaptation of building technology to achieve the required visual effect. It will then focus on columnar orders, both their structural and decorative uses in bath buildings, and their deployment in tiered displays as a backdrop to theatre stages. Here the use of marble, the choice of elaborate capitals and richly carved mouldings, and the difficulties of construction will be shown to contribute to the overall cost. The surviving epigraphic evidence will be used to suggest that the marble columnar decoration was disproportionately expensive compared with straightforward construction on a large scale, and that the use of this 'marble style', particularly noted in the eastern and African provinces, is a valuable indicator of local prosperity,whereitisnotadirectresultofimperialbenefaction.

Buildingsites:art,marble,money
RolfSchneider Modern scholarship has dematerialised iconography almost entirely. It has been read as a semantic system of visual narratives, closely attached to its historical context but mostly beyond the physical reality of substance. In my paper I will follow a different approach. I will focus on how marble artefacts have been appropriated, modelled and read, and on issues such as cost, context and perception. I will do this on the basis of case studies. Ancient societies, unlike today, were profoundly involved in the processes of obtaining marble and transforming it into an artefact (e. g. sculpture, monument, architecture). The meansoftransport,thesettingandthefinishingofartefactsinsitubecamepublic events witnessed almost every day. Such measures required a great deal of time, masteryandmoney,andawiderangeofhumanresources.Membersofvirtuallyall socialgroupstookpartintheactivitiesoflargeworkshopsandbuildingsites,and profited from them (locus classicus: Plutarch, Pericles 12.513.3). Hence, the vital social and work operations on site must have had a mesmerising effect on the viewer.This,inturn,musthavestimulatedinexhaustibletopicsofdebates:about making a living, about change, about the material, costs, manual skills and infrastructure,abouttheaesthetics,semanticsandideologiesoftheartefact(s)and the context in question. Gradually building sites and workshops became a focal pointofdiscoursesaboutthesocial,economicandsymbolicprestigeofallpersons involved. In essence, the material, marble, and the multilayered negotiations around it greatly influenced the ways in which (finished) marble was perceived andread.

Figuringoutthefacts:someattemptstocalculateandcost mosaicproduction
WillWootton Therehavebeenfewattemptsatcostingmosaicproduction,thevariabilityofthe different factors leading to outcomes which can diverge significantly. This paper will consider each step within the process of making mosaics, from material acquisition through the laying of tesserae to the finishing stages, from the perspectives of both craftsmen and patrons. In particular it will examine what is knownaboutthedurationofeachaction,thenumberofindividualsinvolvedand where responsibility lay for financing the project. This latter issue will be examined against the epigraphic evidence appearing on mosaics and inscribed stone.TwosetsofmaterialfromoppositeendsoftheRomanworldwillformthe coreevidence:the4thc.mosaicsfromBritainandthelateantiquemosaicsofthe eastern Mediterranean. Through examination of these pavements, it will become evident that large commissions could be finished relatively quickly even with a small number of craftsmen. Reducing the duration of each project not only shortens any inconvenience to the commissioner but also enabled craftsmen greaterflexibilitytoworkonavarietyofdifferentprojectsoverashortperiodof time, groups contracting and expanding depending upon demand. Such an approach can provide a better sense of the overall shape and size of the craft operating in particular places and times. It also helps us to think about specialization, systems of apprenticeship and the transference of designs and techniques.

Sednullagloriaartificumest...Economyandproductionof Romanwallpaintings
DomenicoEsposito Ildibattitosullapitturaparietaleromanaharicevutonegliultimianniunrinnovato interesse grazie ad una serie di contributi che avevano come obbiettivo quello di studiare le dinamiche sottese alla produzione della pittura parietale. Ci che emerge con sempre maggiore evidenza che la pittura parietale non pu essere concepitacomeunaproduzioneartisticadialtolivello.Essa,piuttosto,ilfruttodi un sistema di produzione di massa al pari dellinstrumentum domesticum, dei lateriziodellopusdoliare.Inquantotalelapitturaromanapuessereconsiderata come un semplice prodotto da commercializzare, legato alle esigenze di un mercato molto ampio e dinamico, allinterno del quale era molto importante il rapportochevenivaadinstaurarsitracommittentiedesecutori. Lo studio delle officine pittoriche dellarea vesuviana di grande importanza proprio per ricostruire il sistema socioeconomico sotteso a questa particolare forma di produzione di massa. Lattivit delle officine pittoriche era legata ovviamente alle scelte della committenza, che, a loro volta, riflettevano le mode decorative del tempo (Zeitstil). La costante interazione tra pittori e committenti contribuivaalladiffusionealivellolocaledelloZeitstil,masoprattuttocontribuiva alla sua continua evoluzione. A Pompei come le officine pittoriche si configurano comedellegrandirealtimprenditoriali,normalmentegestitedaredemptores,che erano legati, con tutta probabilit, a dei patroni molto facoltosi e dunque anche socialmenteepoliticamenteinfluenti.Trattandosidigrandirealtimprenditoriali questeofficinedisponevanoanchedipisquadredidecoratoricapacidilavorare siacontemporaneamentesuungrandecantierepubblico,siaseparatamentesupi cantieri.Alivellolocalequesteofficinepittoricheeranocapacidicontrollareampie porzionidimercato,garantendosicostantementenuovecommesse.Piraramente questestesseofficineeranoingradodiagiresuambitiregionaliointerregionali.

Thedomesticarteconomy:understandingPompeii
MikoFlohr This paper will discuss the consumer market for domestic art at Pompeii. While economic historians of the Roman world often tend to focus primarily on the practice and strategies of economic agents like traders and producers, it is, of course, extremely hard to fully understand the dynamics of economic processes withoutdiscussingthepriorities,possibilitiesandstrategiesofconsumers.Thisis certainly the case when domestic art is concerned, as it often was custom made and adapted to the individual demands of the client, who generally also was the (initial)consumer.Withitslargequantitiesofartpreservedinadomesticcontext, Pompeii is certainlythe best,and perhapsthe onlyplace wherethis issuecan be seriously discussed, but past and recent discussion about Pompeian art has explored issues of demand and consumption only to a rather limited extent, focusingonstylisticandsocialaspectsinstead. Discussing consumer demand for domestic art is not straightforward though. Beforediscussingtheactualconsumptionofart,itisfirstandforemost,inevitable to discuss what constitutes art and how art should be discerned from decoration. Then, it is necessary to take in to account that Pompeii was not, obviously,anisolatedcity,butfunctionedinaregionalcontext.Afterdiscussingthe (possible)impactoftheregionaleconomyofartonthelocalsituation,thispaper will turn to the archaeological evidence and investigate the spread of certain art types over the material record using rank/size analysis. The analysis will thus extend and refine the approach to private art consumption by WallaceHadrill (1994*) and will cover the entire city rather than two samples of rather limited size.Itwillfocusonthreecategoriesofevidence:opusvermiculatummosaics,most belonging to the early first century BC, the framed panels with mythological or other scenes from fourth style decorations dating to the first century AD, and gardensculpturefromperistylia.Basedonthesethreedatasets,itwillbepossible to give a rough sketch of the nature of consumer demand on the Pompeian art market. *AndrewWallaceHadrill(1994):HousesandSocietyinPompeiiandHerculaneum, PrincetonUniversityPress.

Artandthestonetrade:quarries,carvers,customers
BenjaminRussell Thispaperdiscussestheevidenceforthequarrying,shapingandsupplyofstone for carving and building projects in the Roman imperial period. There was enormous demand for stone of all types in this period, but especially for fine marbles,whiteandcoloured,oftenfromdistantsources.Traditionally,attemptsto model this activity have focused on thelimited handful of major marble quarries thatborethebruntofthisdemand.Atthesesites,ithasbeenargued,production methods were forced to adapt under pressure: the most popular types of stone objectsbegantobeproducedinincreasinglylargequantitiesinstandardizedforms andoftendimensionstostock;thesystembecamemoreefficient,inotherwords, more easily able to respond to general demand, but distinctly less reactive. This modelhasfoundbroadacceptanceanditsinfluencecanbeseeninanumberofart historical studies; in the notion, for example, that many works of art carved in stone (notably sarcophagi) were simply purchased readyfinished off the shelf. This paper seeks to reexamine the evidence on which this assumption is based. Production methods did adapt to increasing demand, at the quarries and elsewhere, in the Roman imperial period, but the argument in favour of productiontostockhasbeenoveremphasised.Particularattentionwillbepaidto assessinghowquarriesfunctioned,andtherelationshipbetweenthem,thecarving workshopsthattheysupplied,andthecustomer.

MarblesupplyandstatuaryproductioninCyreneinthe HellenisticandRomanperiods
SusanKane Animpressiveamountofwhitemarble,usedforbothsculptureandarchitecture, has been unearthed in excavations at Cyrene from the 19th century up until the present day. It is a wellknown fact that marble is not native to the Cyrenaica. However, the importation of marble at Cyrene started soon after the city was foundedinthe7thcenturyBCandcontinuedthroughouttheClassical,Hellenistic andRomanperiodsintolateantiquity,aperiodofmorethantencenturies.How patterns of importation varied through time, due in part to changing economic, commercial,andhistoricalconditions,makesthestudyofmarbleusageatCyrenea valuabletoolnotonlyfortheunderstandingtheartisticandeconomicallifeofthe citybutalsothatoftheancientMediterraneanworld. Thispaperwilldiscussongoingresearchonthepatternsofimportationofmarble intheHellenisticandRomanperiods,includingthesizeandavailabilityofblocks, therecurrenceofcertainstylisticandtechnicalfeatures,andthepopularityand/or continued use of certain statuary types in Cyrene. This evidence supports an argument forwhatappears to be a locally designed, and inherently conservative, productionofsculpturethroughoutthecitysGraecoRomanhistory.

Localsculptors,localmarkets:theeconomyofmarblesculpture atAphrodisiasinCaria
JulieVanVoorhis The city of Aphrodisias in Caria is well known among classical archaeologists and art historians as an important site for the study of ancient marble sculpture in its ancient context. Recent scholarship on the marble sculpture of the city has focused on the nexus of art historical objects and archaeological contexts in order to reconstruct and interpret the sculpture as part of the urban framework: the appearance of individual statues or statue monuments (statues with surviving bases), their original (or in some cases secondary) display contexts, and their role in constructing and communicating the public image of the city and its citizens. This paper seeks to build on earlier studies, which focus on individual categories of material such as portraits or material excavated in a particular building or sector of the site, by examining a broad range of sculptural, architectural, archaeological, and epigraphic material together to reconstruct, as fully as possible, the economy of the marble sculpture industry at Aphrodisias. The economy for the production of marble sculpture at Aphrodisias forms, largely, a closed system: the sculptors were local craftsmen who worked with local marble to provide works for the local market; these works were then set up at Aphrodisias for a predominantly local audience. (The renowned Aphrodisian sculptors working abroad in Rome and elsewhere during the high imperial period seem to have had little impact on the sculpture industry in their native city.) The reconstruction of this economy will not rely on numbers and prices of artworks produced, fees paid to artists and other such documentary material. Such data simply does not exist. Rather, archaeological contexts, such as the Sculptors Workshop, with its inventory of unfinished, finished, disused and re-used statues; discarded statuary, found in later walls; and public displays of sculpture, modified over the years, will serve as our primary evidence, with epigraphic evidence for both sculptors and patrons filling out the picture. Of particular interest for this study is the economy of sculptural re-use; as such, the motivations and mechanisms for reworking and redisplaying earlier statuary in later contexts will be explored.

MassproductioninRomanmarblestatuary.
AmandaClaridge Demands for marble statuary increased during the first three centuries AD to levelsneverseenbefore,norsince.Actualfiguresaredifficulttoestimate,butin cities both large and small every kind of public building and many a private residencewereregularlykittedoutwithsetsoflifesizeandlargermarblestatues, some in identical or nearidentical forms lined up like marble colonnades, others framedinnichesorraisedonbases:idealathletes,mythologicalanddivinefigures, portraitsofphilosophersandpoets,andhostsofimperialandprivatebenefactors. HowwasthequantityofRomanproductionachieved? The closest modern parallels for the quantity are found in the later 19th century, when an Italian sculpture industry centred on the quarries at Carrara in Italy supplied marble statuary (as well as many other forms of carved marble) in a rangeofstockandbespoketypestoaworldwidemarket.ModernCarraraisstill the principal centre of production today, though on a lesser scale, and has been widely employed, explicitly or implicitly, as a model for massproduction in antiquity: the commercialisation of the market, organisation of labour in larger units, divisions of labour and specialist skills within the workforce, separating design from execution, and a degree of mechanisation in working processes, all closelylinkedtoquarryingoperationsontheonehand,specialisedtransportand distribution networks on the other. However, the technical evidence is hardly conclusive,andthispaperexploressomeoftheotherpossiblemeansofincreasing production, from a simple multiplication of the number of marble sculptors at work, to the use of repetitive designs, to more efficient tools andfaster working techniques, to rationalisation of relationship between figuretype and block, compositionandlayout.

Tantamarmorisluxuriaest...Romancineraryurnsincoloured stone:aspectsofproductionandconsumption.
SimonaPerna Roman funerary urns in coloured stone are generally without decoration and featureinburialsbetweenthe1stcenturyBCandthe2ndcenturyAD.Theseurns are carved in some of the most sought after stones in antiquity. Examples are knowninEgyptiancalcareousalabaster,imperialpurpleporphyry,Aswangranite. Having received very little attention by scholars of Roman art dealing with both marble trade and funerary sculpture, these objects cry out for a comprehensive analysisoftheirartisticandsymbolicvalue. Contextual analysis indicates that these were exclusive and expensive urns en vogueamongsttheupperechelonsofRomansocietyasearlyasthemid1stcentury BC. Closer examination of their features also yields some interesting evidence on techniquesandpatternsofproduction.ResearchpointstowardsEgyptianartistic input and craftsmanship, on the one hand; on the other, it evidences the predominance of urns in calcareous alabaster and a relatively small scale of production due to only around 150 examples being known to us so far. These factors promote many questions on the identity of the artisans involved in the manufacture,thetechnologiesemployed,andontheeconomicfactorslyingbehind theirproduction. Theincreaseinthenumberoftheseurnsfromtheearly1stcenturyADiscoupled with the emergence of a standard type and a wide geographical distribution across the Western provinces. These factors could be taken as symptomatic of a boost in the demand for these objects by the upper strata of Roman society, inclusiveoflibertiandImperialfamilymembers. Building upon my ongoing research, this paper aims at offering insight into the production, distribution and consumption of coloured stone urns and at contextualisingthemwithinthewidersocialandeconomicframeofRomanart.

GlassinRomeforprincepsandpopulus
SusanWalker A count of the tableware recovered from the abandoned houses of Pompeii revealedthatglassvesselsoutnumberedceramicbyaratioof3:1(Paolucci2004*). BythetimeoftheeruptioninAD79,clearglasswasevidentlyproducedinlarge quantitiesandwasapparentlyusedineverydaylifemuchaswecontinuetouseit today, for tableware and for carrying food to the table. For obvious reasons of fragility, glass was not used in the kitchen or for longdistance transport of commodities. Vessels for pouring drinks were almost exclusively found to be of bronze. The Pompeian preference for glass over ceramic tableware surely reflects the neutral nature of the medium, which imparts no taste to the liquid or food consumed from the vessel. Indeed, already by the middle of the first century AD, glasshadbecomethefavouredmediumforcontainersofperfumeoroilatPompeii, asitimpartednoodour. TheevidencefromPompeiireflectsaphenomenonofwiderinteresttoeconomic historians: the astonishingrise in the Flavian period of the production of widely availableglass,asasecondaryproductreshapedfromimportedrawandrecycled glass, and the concomitant decline in the craft production of the multicoloured luxuryglasstypicaloftheprecedingJulioClaudianera.Whatcanwecaptureofthe political, economic and social drivers of this major change in the nature of glass productionandconsumptionintheRomanempire? * F. Paolucci (2004): La fortuna del vetro in et flavia alle luce di alcuni contesti pompeiani,inM.BerettaandG.Pasquale(eds),Vitrum.Ilvetrofraarteesceinzanel mondoromano,Firenze.

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