Base of Flavia Variana

Roman art

This four-sided base has moulding at the top and bottom. The sides are decorated with representations of the tools used for ritual sacrifice: a patera and a small pitcher. The funerary inscription is dedicated to Flavia Variana, in honour of her father, Titus Flavius Crescente, an imperial freedman and distinguished public servant. The sculpture was unearthed during the Borghese excavations carried out in 1792 by the artist Gavin Hamilton in the ancient city of Gabii, on the via Prenestina. It is datable to the Flavian period, in the first century CE.

Object details

Commentary

This base was unearthed during excavations carried out in 1792 by the artist and archaeologist Gavin Hamilton on the Borghese estate at Pantano dei Grifi, on the via Prenestina, during which the forum of the ancient city of Gabii was identified. Visconti, who published the discoveries in 1797, complete with a reconstruction of the monument, included a few bases with statues on top, one of which Cima identified, in 2005, as possibly the Borghese base (Visconti 1797, p. 141, no. 5; Cima 2005, pp. 51–52, note 22). The vast number of sculptures unearthed during the excavations led Prince Marcantonio Borghese to create a museum called the Museo Gabino inside the Villa Pinciana in the rooms of the Casino dell’Orologio. The display of the works was curated by the architect Antonio Asprucci (Cima 2003, pp. 131–144). The altar was not included in the sale of almost the entire collection to Napoleon in 1807. When what was left of the collection was reorganised, it was displayed in the Portico, where it was cited by Nibby in 1832 (pp. 35–36). In 1893, Venturi reported that it was on view in its current location in Room II (p. 27).

The upper moulding of the four-sided base is composed of a listel, a cyma recta, a second listel and a cyma reversa, while the lower moulding comprises a listel, a cyma reversa and a second listel. On the right and left sides are ritual symbols: respectively, a bowl for libations called a patera and a small pitcher called an urceus. There is an eight-line funerary inscription dedicated to Flavia Variana on the front:

FL(AVIAE) T(ITI) FI(LIAE) VARIAN(A)E

OB MERITA

CRESCENTIS

AUGUSTOR(UM) LIB(ERTI) PATRIS EIUS

QUI OMNES HONORES

MUNICIPI N(OSTRI) DELATOS SIBI

SINCERA FIDE GESSIT

DEC(URIONES) POPULUSQ(UE)

The base was in all likelihood used for an honorary statue of Flavia Variana erected by the decurions and people of Gabii to celebrate the distinguished merits of her father, the freedman of the Augusti Titus Flavius Crescente, as a public servant. The sculpture is datable to the Flavian period, in the first century CE.

Giulia Ciccarello