• r2-191-10
    Fragment of relief showing a captive. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)

Captive

Date
2nd or 3rd C. AD?, Roman
Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
NoEx62.014
Material
Marble, Stone
Object Type
Sculpture
Sculpture Type
Other Relief
Site
Sardis?
Findspot
Findspot unknown.
Description

A male figure is seated with his legs out before him, r. leg bent at the knee, and his hands behind his back. To the r., a short distance from the man, are traces of a cuirassed Roman; and to the l. is a shallow relief of a ribbon-like object with three points. The man seems to have had long hair in the barbarian manner; pose and type show him to be a captive.

This is the only Sardis fragment to show official Roman Imperial iconography. Its battered state precludes precise dating, but treatment seems crude: note especially the clearly visible claw chisel marks on the background surface and the roughly carved “ribbon.”

Condition

White marble.

Only bottom edge surface preserved intact. Relief surface badly damaged.

Dimensions
H. 0.355; W. 0.49; Th. 0.21.
Comments
Cf. e.g. Gemma Augustea and numerous other Imperial reliefs, as well as coins, for which see Franke, Kleinasien zur Romerzeit, nos. 42, 46; also A. Levi, Barbarians on Coins, esp. pp. 27ff. and 41ff., pl. III:3. For a local Sardian coin of Trajan with two bound kneeling captives at trophy see Sardis XI, 30, nos. 282-284, pl. I, proconsul L. Balbius Tullus; an additional example will be published by A.E.M. Johnston in a forthcoming Sardis monograph Sardis M7.
See Also
Bibliography
Author
NHR