Art historians have long searched for what might have been distinctive, or ‘‘essential’’ about Roman art, in contrast to art of the Greeks and other peoples of the ancient Mediterranean. This search was initiated by those who came of age in Europe in the mid-later nineteenth century, when concepts of ‘‘national identity’’ were of paramount concern.1 The ‘‘Romanness’’ of Roman art proved, however, to be elusive. Certain features, such as realism in portraiture or spatial illusionism, continuous narrative and historicity in relief, were seized upon as distinctive. But it became apparent that all these aspects were present in some form in earlier Greek art. Eventually art historians began moving away from the search for what was specifically Roman, emphasizing instead qualities such as eclecticism, diversity, and flexibility of artistic motifs and styles as the hallmarks of Roman art.2 The recent trend has been to analyze Roman art in relation to the authoritative Greek prototypes that it drew upon, which were creatively remodeled for purposes of new visual expression.3
I would suggest that art historians have perhaps given up too soon in the search for what, in an overarching sense, is ‘‘Roman’’ in Roman art. If it is to be found, however, the search must be carried out in a difficult, sometimes sparsely documented period of Rome’s history, namely the Republic, particularly the third to second century when Rome was first arriving on the world stage and defining itselfin relation to its subject peoples. It is here that we are likely to discover the ideologies instrumental in the formation of later, better-documented Roman art. I offer two suggestions. First, true artistic innovation occurred when there was a particular Roman agenda for visual expression and no available Greek model or a Greek model that needed adjustment or ‘‘improvement.’’ Second, the features of republican art that make it different from that of the Greeks - and therefore distinctive in its own right - can all be traced back to three particularly Roman (usually inextricable) concerns: practical functionality, competition, and warfare.
Because republican art has not survived extensively, an interdisciplinary method must be employed, using all the available evidence, in order to reconstruct the intended meaning and reception of artifacts and monuments. What makes art of this period particularly stimulating is that one needs to combine empirical with theoretical approaches in a more daring way than is required with art of the imperial and later periods.4
Most surviving republican art and architecture is from the city of Rome, and it is there that most categories of Roman art originated. This art is notably inventive and diverse because of an ethos of intense competition among members of the Roman elite (usually the art patrons), compared to production there during the principate when the imperial family monopolized art patronage.
World History
