Pillar of the Nautae Parisiaci
The pillar of the Nautae Parisiaci ( Eng . Parisian shipmen), also known as Pariser Nautenpfeiler (French Pilier des nautes ), is a monument with representations of various deities from Roman and Gallic mythology. Dated to the first quarter of the 1st century AD thanks to the dedicatory inscription, it probably originally stood in a shrine in the Gallo-Roman civitas Lutetia (today's Paris ). It is one of the earliest examples of inscriptions on figurative Gallic art.
description
The column is made of a type of limestone called pierre de Saint-Leu-d'Esserent from Saint-Leu in the Oise department . In the original it was probably 5.24 m high and 0.91 m wide at the base and 0.74 m at the top. It originally consisted of four blocks , each with a square floor plan, which taper towards the top. The exact arrangement of each individual block is unclear (there are 64 possibilities).
The completely preserved top block shows Jupiter , Esus , the Tarvos Trigaranus ( "the bull with the three cranes" ) and Vulcanus . Jupiter is standing with a spear in one hand and his thunderbolts in the other . Esus is depicted in the same posture as Smertios, but he is holding a hip in his right hand with which he is tinkering with a willow-like tree. The bull with the three cranes appears to be standing between two trees similar to that of the Esus frieze, with two cranes on its back and one on its head. Vulcanus is shown standing frontally with his usual blacksmith tools.
The second block, of which only the upper half has been preserved, shows, according to the inscriptions Cernunnos , Smertrios , Castor and (due to the similarity to the Castor representation) Pollux, whose name is missing. Cernunnos is shown with short antlers from which two torques hang; due to the arrangement of his upper body - there would not be enough space to show him with his legs outstretched - one can with some certainty assume a buddha-like posture that also appears on other depictions of the same god. Of the Smertios shown in profile, only the upper body can be seen; the god holds a kind of club in his right hand and appears to be attacking a snake-like figure. The pictures of Castor and Pollux show both Dioscuri with a lance next to their horses.
Only the upper half of the third cuboid is preserved, on which the dedicatory inscription is located. What was in the lower part of the described field can no longer be determined today. On two of the other pages three men with shield and spear are depicted, one group of which appears beardless, the other with the heading EVRISES . Another poorly preserved group shows at least three people in civilian clothes, presumably togas . Some researchers interpreted these people as female, which Peter Scherrer excludes. The incomplete inscription under these people reads SENAN .
The bottom block is slightly wider than the top, but again the bottom half is missing and the top one that has been preserved is composed of two parts. Two figures are shown on each of the four pages. Most of the inscriptions are illegible or have completely disappeared. Mars can be identified relatively clearly because of its helmet ; he is in the company of an unknown female figure. Fortuna stands next to a god who has apparently once been armed with a spear, while Mercurius and Venus are only vaguely identifiable and their respective companions must remain unknown.
inscription
The main dedication names the Roman god Jupiter, followed by Mars, Fortuna , the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux, and Vulcanus . Of the Gallic deities, Esus , Tarvos Trigaranus , Smertrios and Cernunnos are mentioned. The inscriptions on various figures, especially on the base, are missing; they have become illegible or have completely disappeared over time.
The stele can be dated through the dedication to Emperor Tiberius (14–37 AD). It is declared as a foundation of the Parisian shipmen , so a kind of guild of the local Seine sailors. The actual dedication reads:
- TIB (erio) CAESARE /
- AUG (usto) IOVI OPTUM [o] /
- MAXSUMO /
- NAUTAE PARISIACI /
- PUBLICE POSING //
Translation: For Tiberius Caesar Augustus (and) Iupiter Optimus Maximus, the Parisian shipmen (this stele) publicly erected.
The other areas are now followed by a series of names or titles, not all of which have been clarified. One of the rare mentions of the god's name Cernunnos is particularly interesting here. Also noteworthy is the lack of interpretatio Romana , the reinterpretation of local deities as “manifestations” of Roman gods, in which the Celtic names become mere epithets of the Roman gods.
- EURISES // SENANI U [S] EILONI //
- IOVIS // TARVOS TRIGARANUS //
- VOLCANUS // ESUS //
- [C] ERNUNNOS // CASTOR // [3] //
- SMER [trios?] //
- FOR [tuna?] //] TVS [
eurises could possibly be a Gallic expression for naming the donors. Senani or senant is just as little clarified (possibly as in senatus the root * sen- “old” is contained in it), while the further reading u [s] eiloni remains very uncertain.
meaning
The stele is an example of the syncretism of Gallo-Roman culture . On the one hand, it shows Roman deities: Jupiter as the imperial god, Mars as the god of war, Venus as the mythological ancestral mother of the Julian imperial family , Fortuna, the Dioscuri as the protective gods of the seafarers, Mercurius as the god of travelers and Vulcanus , who was assigned to shipbuilding as the " god of engineering". This shows the founders' identification with the Roman state. Gallic gods are also depicted on an equal footing.
Scherrer assumes that the donors, the nautae Parisiaci , erected the stele as local auxiliary troops in connection with the Germanicus campaigns around 16 AD. He interprets the group of toga bearers on the third block as granting citizenship to veterans of the nautae Parisiaci who had taken part in the Drusus campaigns .
History of the stele
The Gallic city of Lutetia was still largely restricted to the Île de la Cité . Caesar mentions them in his Bellum Gallicum . In Gallo-Roman times the forum and various temples were built on the south bank of the Seine. The pillar probably stood in front of one of these sanctuaries.
Sometime in the 3rd century, the stone blocks of the pillar were broken in two and used to reinforce the river-side walls. Over the centuries, the island's shores have been expanded so that the third-century shipyard is now a few dozen meters from today's river bank. On the original site of the Gallo-Roman temple, Childebert I had the Cathedral of St. Stephen built in 528, which in turn was replaced by the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris around 1163 .
The column was discovered on March 6, 1710 (and not in 1711, as is often wrongly stated) when a crypt was built under the central nave of the cathedral. The inscription was first published two years later by Charles César Baudelot de Dairval . Not all of the pieces were recovered and the lower halves of three of the blocks are still missing today. After their discovery, the ashlars were brought to the Hôtel de Cluny, a medieval ecclesiastical building that was built over the remains of a Roman thermal bath from the second century. This building now houses the Musée national du Moyen Âge .
In his posthumously published work Collectanea etymologica (1717), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz attempted to interpret the inscriptions and reliefs. In addition to correct assignments ( Tarvos Trigaranus , Cernunnos - which, however, he places with Bacchus ), some assumptions have been refuted today ( Esus is equated with Ares and a fictional Germanic god Erich ).
In 2001 the blocks were restored and the patina that had formed since their discovery was removed. The individual blocks can be viewed in the Musée national du Moyen Âge.
literature
- G. d'Arbois de Jubainville: Esus, Tarvos Trigaranus . In: Revue Celtique 19 (1898), pp. 245-251.
- Didier Busson: Carte Archéologique de la Gaule 75; Paris . Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-87754-056-1 . (The Notre-Dame entry has detailed photos and drawings, as well as a reconstruction of the layout of the blocks.)
- Philippe Carbonnières: Lutèce, Paris ville romaine . Gallimard / Paris-Musées, Paris 1997, ISBN 2-07-053389-1 .
- Jean-Jacques Hatt : Les monuments gallo-romains de Paris, et les origines de la sculpture votive en Gaule romaine. I. You pilier des nautes de Paris à la Colonne de Mayence . in: Revue archéologique 1 (1952), pp. 68–83.
- V. Kruta: Le quai gallo-romain de l'Île de la Cité de Paris . In: Cahiers de al Rotonde 6 (1983), pp. 6-34.
- Michel Lejeune : Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises . Volume 2-1. Textes Gallo-Étrusques. Textes Gallo-Latins sur pierre . Editions du CNRS, Paris 1988, pp. 166-169.
- F. Saragoza, C. Pariselle; M.-E. Meyohmas et al: Le Pilier des nautes retrouvé . In: Archéologia 398, March 2003.
- Peter Scherrer: The honorary monument from the Île de la Cité for Emperor Tiberius - considerations on the nautae Parisiaci and the historical embedding of the pillar monument . In: Théonymie celtique, cultes, interpretatio - Celtic Theonymie, Cults, Interpretatio , ed. by Andreas Hofeneder / Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel / Manfred Hainzmann / Nicolas Mathieu. Austrian Academy of Sciences Press 2013, pp. 183–192.
Web links
- The pillar of the Nautae Parisiaci at UBI ERAT LUPA
- Page with interactive representation of the stele (French)
- Text and pictures of the stele (French)
Remarks
- ↑ Hatt, 1952
- ↑ Saragoza 2003
- ↑ Detailed images of the Iovis block of the pillar of the Nautae Parisiaci
- ^ Busson: Carte Archéologique de la Gaule 75; Paris. 1988, pp. 449-450.
- ↑ Detailed images of the Cernunnos block of the pillar of the Nautae Parisiaci
- ^ Busson: Carte Archéologique de la Gaule 75; Paris. 1988, p. 451.
- ↑ Detailed images of the inscription block
- ↑ Scherrer: The monument of honor from the Île de la Cité , p. 185, note 14
- ↑ Detailed images of the lower block
- ^ Busson: Carte Archéologique de la Gaule 75; Paris. 1988, p. 447.
- ↑ CIL 13, 3026 = Pierre Wuilleumier : Inscriptions Latines des trois Gaules 1963, No. 331 = Michel Lejeune: Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises . Volume 2-1, pp. 166-169.
- ↑ Scherrer: The monument of honor from the Île de la Cité , p. 186
- ↑ Scherrer: The monument of honor from the Île de la Cité , p. 189
- ↑ Kruta 1883
- ^ Busson: Carte Archéologique de la Gaule 75: Paris. 1988, pp. 445-446.
- ↑ Helmut Birkhan : Nachantike Keltenrezeption. Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-7069-0541-1 , p. 4216 f.
- ↑ Saragoza 2003