Victory and Death: The Representation of Early Christian Martyrdom

NOTES

• The date of the event is discussed in Timothy. D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) 263–6.
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• A typical programme is described in D. Potter, “Martyrdom as Spectacle”, Theater and Society in the Classical World, ed. Ruth Scodel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993) 66–7. For a discussion of the martyrdom of Perpetua in its context as part of the Roman spectacula, see Joyce Salisbury, Perpelua's Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman (New York: Routledge, 1997) 119–48.
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• Saturus’ suffering is mirrored in a mosaic from El Djem in Tunisia, dated to c.180. An amphitheatre scene is depicted, in which a leopard has leapt up to attack the face of a bound male prisoner. Blood gushes from his body. See Katherine M. D. Dunbabin, The Mosaics of Roman North Africa: Studies in Iconography and Patronage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) 66; plates 50–1.
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• Passio Perpetuile 21.2 The Latin text and English translation of the Passio Perpeluae el Felicilalis is included in Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) 106–131.
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• André Grabar, Martyrium: Recherches sur le culte des reliques et l'art chrétien antique, vol. 2: Iconographie (Paris: Collège de France, 1946).
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• The use of martys in the sense of “witness” is dominant in the New Testament, although the idea of witnessing through death is present. For example, Revelation 6.9, written c. 96, makes reference to the souls of those killed “on account of the word of God and the testimony (martyria) they had maintained.” The use of martys in the sense of “martyr” is traceable from the mid-second century. See Glen W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 13; Jan Willem van Henten and Friedrich Avemarie, eds. Martyrdom and Noble Death: Selected Texts from Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Antiquity (London: Routledge, 2002). The word “martyr” is used throughout the Latin text of the Passio Perpetuae to describe Perpetua and her companions. For example, the text closes with an encomium praising the fortissimi oc beatissimi martyres (“most courageous and blessed martyrs”). Passio Perpeluae 21.11.
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• For the passio of the martyres of Lyon, see Musurillo, Christian Martyrs, 62–85. The source of the account is Eusebius, Historia ecclesiaslita 5.1.3–2.8.
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• Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999) 116.
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• As Boyarin suggests, competing discourses of martyrdom were thus instrumental in defining distinct Christian and Jewish identities in late antiquity. See Ibid., 93–126.
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• Passio Perpetuae 1.1.
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• Cyprian, epistula 10, translation and commentary in Graeme W. Clarke, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, vol. 1: Ancient Christian Writers Ser. 43 (New York: Newman Press, 1984) 71–5.
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• Their names are given in Cyprian, epistula 22.2.2. See Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, 231 n. 8.
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• Cyprian, epistula 10.4.1.
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• ibid., epistula 10.4.4.
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• Passio Perpetuae 1–2; 3–10; 11–13 and 14–21 respectively.
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• Two recent examples are Salisbury, Perpetua's Passion, 85–117, and Brent D. Shaw, “The Passion of Perpetua”, Past and Present 139 (1993) 19. Bowersock is more skeptical—see Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, 34.
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• Passio Mariani et Iacobi 6–7 (Musurillo, Christian Martyrs, 200–5); Passio Montani et Lucii 8 (Musurillo, Christian Martyrs, 220–1). For the impact of the Passio Perpetuae on a story of Cyprian's martyrdom, see Jaako Aronen, “Indebtedness to Passio Perpetuae in Pontius’ Vita Cypriani”, Vigiliae Christians 38 (1984) 67–76.
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• The performative nature of martyr stories is discussed in Lucy H. C. Grig, “Late Antique Martyrs: Narration and Representation”, D. Phil, dissertation (Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 2000) 77–92.
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• Passio Perpetuae 10. 7: “My clothes were stripped off, and I was made into a man.” The various interpretations of this part of the story are summarised by Peter Habermehl, Perpetua und der Ägypter; oder Bilder des Bösen im frühen afrikanischen Christentum, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Ser. 140, (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1990) 109–19. As Shaw points out, Perpetua's vision draws on aspects of both athletic competition and gladiatorial combat. See “Passion of Perpetua”, 28, n. 63.
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• Passio Perpetuae 10.11: “I was raised up into the air and began to pummel him, as though I were not treading upon the ground.”
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• Genesis 3.15
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• Passio Perpetuae 10.12.
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• ibid., 18.1.
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• Habermehl argues differently that Perpetua is presented as a man not so that she is able to compete as an athlete, but so she may enjoy the “manly” attributes of courage and strength. See Habermehl, Perpetua, 112–9, and similarly Shaw, “Passion of Perpetua”, 29–30.
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• For the iconography of Nike and Victoria, see the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), (Zürich & München: Artemis 1992 & 1997), vi.1, 850–904, viii.1, 237–69.
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• An excellent discussion of the idea of victory in imperial ideology is Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
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• For a discussion of the “meaning” of Roman imperial coin types, see Jocelyn M. C. Toynbee, “Picture-language in Roman art and coinage”, Essays in Roman Coinage Presented to Harold Mattingly, eds. Robert. A. G. Carson and Carol H. V. Sutherland (London: Oxford University Press, 1956) 205–26.
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• Evidence for the use of Victoria in sepulchral and other contexts is gathered in LIMC viii. 1, 269.
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• A vivid example of this is the famous dispute at Rome in 384 concerning the removal of the altar to the goddess Victoria in the Roman senate house, at which Roman senators had traditionally offered sacrifice. The Christian emperor Constantius II removed the altar in 357, only for it to be reinstated during the brief reign of his successor Julian. It was again removed by Gratian in 382, and attempts by members of the Roman senate to have it restored under his successor Valentinian II in 384 proved unsuccessful. The most important ancient texts relating to this dispute are Ambrose, epistulae 17–18 and Symmachus, retalio (“state paper”) 3. These are translated, with a brief commentary on the dispute, in Brian Croke and Jill Harries, Religious Conflict in Fourth-Century Rome: A Documentary Study (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1982) 28–51.
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• For example, note the appearance of Victoria on the coin of the Christian Constantine in Fig. 2. Victoria maintains her place as one of the most common features of imperial art throughout the fourth and fifth centuries.
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• See R. H. Storch, “The Trophy and the Cross: Pagan and Christian Symbolism in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries”, Byzantion 40 (1970) 105–18.
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• André Grabar, Christian Iconography: A Study of its Origins (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1969) 16–17; Thomas F. Mathews, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993) 163.
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• I Corinthians 9.25. See also 2 Timothy 4.7–8.
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• Augustine, de agone christiano 1–2, trans. R. P. Russel, The Fathers of the Church vol. 2, (New York: 1947) 315–53.
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• Grabar, Christian Iconography, 49–50.
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• For the problem of the date of Polycarp's martyrdom, see Musurillo, Christian Martyrs, xiii. The text and translation of Polycarp's passio is found in Musurillo, Ibid. 2–21.
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• Passio Polycarpi, 17.
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• The Martyrs of Lyons, 1.36, See Musurillo, Christian Martyrs, 73.
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• Tertullian, ad martyras 1, trans. S. Thelwall, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, 693–6.
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• Tertullian, ad martyras 3. See Eric F. Osborne, Tertullian, First Theologian of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 76–7.
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• Allen Brent, The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order: Concepts and Images of Authority in Paganism and Early Christianity Before the Age of Cyprian (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 11–16.
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• Grig, “Late Antique Martyrs”, 122.
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• For the extant evidence, see Grabar, Martyrium, ii. 39–104.
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• See Robin M. Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (London: Routledge, 2000).
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• Excellent introductions to the reign of Constantine and his dealings with Christians are found in Arnold H. M. Jones, Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (London: English Universities Press, 1948); Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981) and Harold A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).
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• Three of these letters are quoted by Eusebius in his Historia ecclesiastica 10.5.15–17, 10.6.1–5 and 10.7.1–2.
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• The problematic notion of “orthodoxy” cannot detain us here, and nor can I do any justice to describing the subsequent history of the relationship between emperors and churches during the following centuries.
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• For this momentous shift and its implications for late antique art, see Jas Eisner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100–450 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) 221–35.
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• See Robert A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 85–95; Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) 120–54.
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• Markus, Ancient Christianity, 94–5.
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• Prudentius’ Psychomachia is included in Prudentius, trans. H.J. Thomson, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library Ser 387, 398 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1949) 274–343. See also P. James, “Prudentius’ Psychomachia: The Christian Arena and the Politics of Display”, Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity ed. Richard Miles (London: Routledge, 1999) 70–94.
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• Prudentius, Psychomachia, lines 21–9.
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• ibid., lines 30–5.
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• ibid., lines 36–9.
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• On the early decorative schemes of the catacombs, and the absence of the martyrs, see James Stevenson, The Catacombs: Rediscovered Monuments of Early Christianity (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) 55–108. Bisconti discusses the earliest Roman evidence for the iconography of the martyrs, dating from the second half of the fourth century, in F. Bisconti, “Dentro e intorno all'iconografia martiriale romana: dal vuoto figurative all'immaginario devozionale”, Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective: Memorial Louis Reekmans, eds. M. Lamberigts and P. Van Deun (Leuven: University Press, 1995) 247–92.
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• Bisconti, “Iconografia”, 281.
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• ibid., “Iconografia”, 276–8.
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• Prudentius, Peristephanon 9.9–12. This evidence is discussed by Anne-Marie Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) 242–3, 273–5. Other literary evidence for paintings of martyrs is included in Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453: Sources and Documents (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986) 36–9.
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• Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965) 138–9.
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• For Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo and its mosaics as Byzantine propaganda, see Otto G. Von Simpson, Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987) 69–110.
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• For a general description of the mosaics, see Giuseppe Bovini, Ravenna Mosaics: The Mausoleum, of Galla Placidia, the Cathedral Baptistery, the Archiepiscopal Chapel, the Baptistery of the Arians, the Basilica of Sant’ Appollinare. Nuova, the Church of San Vitale, the Basilica of Sant’ Appollinare in Classe, trans. G. Scaglia (Oxford: Phaidon, 1978) 26–38.
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• Von Simpson, Sacred Fortress, 71.
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• Ernst Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making: Main Lines of Stylistic Development in Mediterranean Ari, 3rd-7th Century (London: Faber and Faber, 1977) 62–3.
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• Freidrich W. Deichmann, Ravenna: Hauptstadt des spätantiken Abendlandes. Band I: Geschichte und Monumente (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1969) 175; Bovini, Ravenna Mosaics, 34; Kitzinger, Byzantine Art, 62; Annabel J. Wharton, Refiguring the Post Classical City: Dura Europos, Jerash, Jerusalem, and Ravenna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 143–7; Mathews, Clash of Gods, 168. In Bruno Latour's terms, the mosaics of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo, and the memorialisation of Theodoric's court through the obliteration of their images, constitutes an “iconoclash”. See eds. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art (Karlsruhe: Z KM, 2002) 14–38.
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• Dominic Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 126. Janes describes the tendency to depict the crowns of saints in late antiquity in this way as “jewelled inflation”.
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• ibid., 128.
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• Von Simpson, Sacred Fortress, 87–8.
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• For example, see Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini 6, trans, in Frederick R. Hoare, The Western Fathers (London: 1954). The Latin text with French translation is found in Jacques Fontaine, Sulpice Sévère: Vie de Saint Martin, Sources Chrétiennes Ser. 133 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967). For Martin's role in Gallic controversies during the fourth century, see Clare StanclifFe, St. Martin and His Hagiographer: History and Miracle in Sulpicius Severus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983) 265–77.
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• Deichmann, Ravenna, 200.
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• Von Simpson, Sacred Fortress, 84–8.
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• Bovini, Ravenna Mosaics, 35.
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• Peter Brown, “Art and Society in Late Antiquity”, Age of Spirituality: A Symposium, ed. Kurt Weitzmann (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980) 24–5; Janes, God and Gold, 132.
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• Grabar, Martyrium, and the LIMC are both examples of such studies.
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• Elsner, Imperial Rome, 228.
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