#ColosseoForiImperiali
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anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
Be careful: these lethal predators hunt in pairs. For #SarcophagusSaturday we have a box on display in the new #subway station #ColosseoForiImperiali in #Rome, which shows three groups of two men hunting three lions. It comes from the #Palatine, where it was used as a #fountain. #AncientBluesky 🏺
HUNT SARCOPHAGUS, MID C1-C3 CE. SUBWAY STATION COLOSSEO-FORI IMPERIALI This white marble sarcophagus is too worn to allow a more specific dating, but it shows a lion hunt, a theme that appears frequently on the sarcophagi of men. Here we see three couples of men in short tunics or just a chlamys (in one case nude), each couple ganging up on one lion. Two dogs are also hunting with the humans. The setting is a forest, indicated by trees growing here and there. The central man, probably representing the deceased, raises his arm to strike the fatal blow to a lion who is otherwise getting the better of a second human opponent. This heroic figure's chlamys flies upward dramatically from under his forearm. The box was found on the Palatine hill, presumably in one of the C16 gardens there, where it probably served as a fountain, to judge from the three drain holes in the front.
December 20, 2025 at 7:29 PM
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
#MosaicMonday takes us deep under the #Velia in #Rome, into the #ColosseoForiImperiali subway station, to find a #mosaic pavement from the late #Republic with black tesseræ, once on the floor of the changeroom of a balneum or private bathhouse destroyed in the fire of 64 CE. #AncientBluesky 🏺
MOSAIC PAVEMENT, C1 BCE. SUBWAY STATION COLOSSEO-FORI IMPERIALI A private house on the lower slopes of the now-vanished Velian hill (a saddle between the Esquiline and the Palatine) from the C1 BCE had a private bath or balneum adjoining it, of which two rooms, a pool and a laconicum or sauna, were removed, restored, and reconstructed in the Colosseo-Fori Imperiali subway station. These rooms were served by two apodyteria or changerooms which have not survived, though parts of their floors have. This simple black mosaic floor is edged with two white line frames, and is decorated with small hexagons in giallo antico, in carefully-spaced rows. The balneum was destroyed in Nero's great fire of 64 CE, and any intact stone was removed for probable reuse in the Domus Aurea.
December 22, 2025 at 2:24 PM
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
#ColosseoForiImperiali station has something rare for #EpigraphyTuesday: a wine #amphora with a painted #inscription, a "titulus pictus" in faint red paint (here artificially clarified). It says "A CL P SER COS", or "Appius #Claudius (Pulcher) and P. Servilius consuls", 79 BCE. #AncientBluesky 🏺
WINE AMPHORA, 79 BCE. SUBWAY STATION COLOSSEO-FORI IMPERIALI When the ruined domus with its attached balneum was infilled after the Great Fire of 64 CE to make a flat surface for part of Nero's Domus Aurea, any old rubbish would do, including this wine amphora, which has a faint date brushed on in red paint, C AP P SER COS, which indicates the consuls (COS) by name. Appius Claudius Pulcher, from the Claudian gens, was the son and the father of consuls of the same name, and after his stint as consul in 79 BCE he went off to govern Roman Macedonia from 78 to 76, the year of his death. He had been a supporter of the dictator Sulla. His colleague in the consulship was Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, another Sullan supporter and a general of great success. He died in 44 BCE. A few more civil wars later, Octavian was in charge, and was briefly married to Claudia, granddaughter of this consul, whom he divorced before consummating the marriage. He then married another (possible) granddaughter of the same consul, Livia Drusilla, daughter of an Appius Claudius Pulcher who was adopted by M. Livius Drusus as a child and thus became M. Livius Drusus Claudianus. The last male member of Claudianus' family was the emperor Nero for whom this site was infilled, with, among much else, this amphora bearing the name of Nero's ancestor.
December 23, 2025 at 3:00 PM
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
A composite capital from the temple of #Venus and #Rome now in the subway station #ColosseoForiImperiali, c. 125-130 CE, for #SpoliaSunday. We can see how marble was broken up for the kilns: the acanthus leaves knocked off, then the corners. The capital itself has burn marks. #AncientBluesky 🏺
COMPOSITE CAPITAL, C. 125-130 CE. COLOSSEO-FORI IMPERIALI SUBWAY STATION This is an interesting piece of Hadrianic carving, with a band of egg and dart at the centre of the upper register, between leafy decoration above and beading below. The lower register has what remains of acanthus leaves. But this is also a good example of how marble was despoiled for burning in the lime kilns. The thinnest and easiest parts were broken off first, like the majority of the acanthus, and then the top corners were cut off with the help of a saw. These were used to pack into the spaces of the kiln in between bigger blocks. Then it was the turn of the capital itself, which has burn marks on the central stump of acanthus but wasn't consumed. Perhaps the fire went out or the piece was removed for another use. But there is a horrible rationality in the method of reducing a beautiful piece of sculpture to a shapeless bock of stone.
December 21, 2025 at 2:08 PM