Objects versus Figural Representation
It has been suggested here that the frieze emphasized the eternal, divine nature of Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus by employing in the visual realm rhetorical strategies of clarity, ornament, and repetition to please and engage the viewer and then highlight the temple as the site of recurring, annual bloody sacrifice in honor of the gods.
Repeating metonymic representation of animal sacrifice by a flamen evoked recurring ritual that subsumed Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus within the past, present, and future of Roman religious time. Could such an effect have been achieved through a more typical figural representation of ritual such as the procession of Augustus, his family, and priestly entourage in the long reliefs of the Ara Pacis, the Suovetaurilia sacrifice now in the Louvre, or even the fragmentary relief of a flamen in front of the temple of Quirinus that is now associated with the temple of the Gens Flavia?[274] In the Suovetaurilia scene, for example, a veiled priest stands in front of an altar with a popa wielding an ax and accompanied by attendants carrying incense and sacrificial implements. Three victimarii urge on the pig, ram, and bull adorned with ceremonial vestments including the dorsuale, frontalia, and infula.[275]Despite its imperial Roman context, the frieze on the temple of Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus avoids a significant convention of representation that had become commonplace in scenes of sacrifice as early as Augustus: the emperor as the prime sacrificer hierarchically positioned, both spatially and functionally, in the center of sacrificial representations with other attendants and priestly participants standing anonymously behind or flanking the emperor.[276] While still emphasizing the importance of the temple as a site of ritual, metonymic representation in the frieze obviated the need to show Domitian conducting the animal sacrifice.
Representation of Domitian, or any other mortal member of the Flavian family would have anchored the frieze in specific historical time, altering the timeless emphasis the frieze achieved through form (repetition) and content (metonymic representation balancing brevity and specificity).The architrave inscription further reinforced the timelessness suggested by the frieze of the temple of Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus. Originally copied in the seventh century, the inscription at the time of dedication has been restored by De Angeli: DIVO VESPASIANO AUGUSTO SPQR (to the divine Vespasian Augustus from the Senate and people of Rome) (1992, 18-19).[277] Perhaps most significant in this inscription is what is missing. The carefully considered inscription does not name a specific dedicator beyond the timeless SPQR or contain any dating formula in the form of a reference to a date, a historical person, or a historical event—yet dating mechanisms in dedicatory inscriptions function to locate the origination of the monument in time.[278] Mark Pobjoy sees the desire “to fix an individual’s place within history, society, and the cosmos” as background to the “epigraphic impulse” (2000, 77). In accordance with Pobjoy’s observation, republican temple inscriptions usually included the name of the patron, who sought to gain recognition and prestige through his status as benefactor, a trend that continues into the Imperial period, as attested by Pliny. In contrast to the brief inscription on the temple of Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus, Pliny recounts that in the first century Senators complained that the inscriptions on arches and temples were too long for their architraves.[279] By failing to enumerate a patronage link with members of the Flavian dynasty, the inscription on the temple avoids any association in the future with a ritual- historical moment in time, or with a period of which certain historical actors were a part. This configuration encouraged the perception for later viewers that the temple had always been there and likewise that the god had always existed (Ricoeur 2004, 153).