Visual Rhetoric
Although Titus initiated construction, his short reign left to Domitian the job of completing and dedicating the temple of Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus to his deified brother and father.[255] Although no coin issue boasts completion of the temple, ample evidence confirms that the temple was just one facet of the Flavian penchant for commemorating their deified family members.
Among many examples, coin issues explicitly connect Aeternitas with Divus Vespasian, and declare the sacred status of Divus Titus along with the appointment of his daughter Julia Titi as a priestess of his cult.[256] Experimenting with architectural forms not seen under the Julio-Claudians, Domitian's commemoration of the Flavian divi also included the Arch of Titus, the temple of the Gens Flavia on the Quirinal, and the Porticus Divorum in the Campus Martius. As a continuation of an established architectural and cultic tradition that began with the temples of Divus lulius, Divus Augustus, and Divus Claudius, the Flavian temple was an opportunity first for Titus, and then later Domitian, to emphasize imperial succession to a divine dynastic predecessor and monumentally pronounce their pietas toward their deified father. The role of the temple as an anchor to the Flavian building campaign that grew out of a desire to rival the strong Julio- Claudian presence in and around the Roman Forum has also been amply demonstrated (see Torelli 1987; Favro 1996; Davies 2000).Within this larger religio-political context, I focus here on the sculptural frieze of the temple of Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus, arguing that it functioned as much more than a symbol of, or general allusion to, notions of filial piety and priestly status. Rather, carefully designed formal and iconographic aspects of the frieze employed well-known rhetorical strategies combined with visual cues within the relief to please and engage the viewer and evoke the cyclical repetition of ritual inherent in Roman state religion.
Far from a vague reference to Roman piety and religion, the galerus invoked the flamines, members of the pontifical college, and drew on viewers' memories of bloody sacrifice conducted at the temple to emphasize the sacred nature of the cult and vividly remind viewers that the temple housed eternal gods of the Roman state pantheon.Rhetorical training in the ancient world may be characterized as the training in the use of language as an artful way to persuade an audience of the speaker's point of view (Pollini 2012, 4). Although the political and cultural role of rhetoric changed along with most other aspects of life from the republican to the Imperial period, rhetorical training and performance remained a significant cultural force in the first century CE. With a major role in education in the early Imperial period, the rules and strategies of rhetoric presented a system through which people ordered, created, and understood cultural constructions (Tapia 2009, 103-4).11 For instance, among other categories of rhetoric, in the Institutio Oratoria Quintilian attests that epideictic speech, for the purpose of display and praise of the gods, heroes, and other great men, was a regular feature of Roman public life by the late first century (Inst. 3.7; see also Innes 2011, 70-71). Further underscoring the influence in Rome of traditional rhetorical training and the prominence of rhetoric in the Flavian era, Domitian founded a major festival, the Capitolia (see Hardie 2003), advertising imperial favor for [257] musical and gymnastics competitions and acknowledging the importance of orators and poets.
Investigation of visual rhetoric analyzes areas of coincidence between the verbal and the visual arts to understand how visual imagery addresses the viewer with the goal of influencing the viewer's understanding and response (Leach 1988, 17-19). Acknowledging that one-to-one comparisons may oversimplify the complex and nuanced function of symbolic images, scholars have nonetheless persuasively sought correspondences in visual culture to rhetorical theories of public speech, particularly in images servicing religious and ideological agendas (see, e.g., Leach 1988; Meyers 2005; Lamp 2009; Pollini 2012).
Most recently, John Pollini describes visual rhetoric in terms of, “a certain eloquence in the visual presentation, communication, and commemoration of the ideals, virtues and political programs of the leaders of the Roman state” (2012, 4). Ancient viewers with rhetorical training, he conjectures, understood the Ara Pacis in terms of a coherent dynastic narrative arising out of the juxtaposition of members of the imperial family, allegorical and mythological figures, and acanthus scroll ornament (Pollini 2012, 204-70). Application of rhetorical concepts as tools of analysis for representations of inanimate objects, on the other hand, has been limited. Might rhetorical concepts also shed light on the function, meaning, and complexity of representations of object assemblages such as instrumental sacra? I suggest that in the frieze of sacred objects on the temple of Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus, rhetorical theories about pleasing and engaging the viewer through clarity and ornament, as well as the repetition of words or phrases to enhance meaning, suggest the visual mechanisms by which the frieze guides the viewer's understanding of the building it adorns.