libamus inquit Ioui liberatori

[ricardienne]

I do think it is a rule that there is no even moderately compelling scene from classical literature that wasn't illustrated by some second-rate 18th or 19th century painter, and I finally happened across one of the death of Thrasea, by a certain Feodor Bronnikov. Sadly, the only internet image that seems to exist of it has a giant watermark across the front:


Thrasea, naturally, is the man in the chair; the two women must be his daughter Fannia and his wife Arria (I would guess Arria is the one in purple and red and Fannia is the one in blue.) The bearded man in the dark blue cloak is the Cynic philosopher Demetrius, and the man reading the scroll is named Domitius Caecilianus. Helvidius Priscus is probably either the guy in the foreground in the yellow cloak and blue shoes (because he's next to Demetrius) or one of the two guys standing behind Thrasea (probably the one standing rather stiffly behind his wife ?Fannia's chair, and but if he's the one leaning over then the woman in purple then she's probably Fannia. Either way, if Helvidius isn't the guy in yellow, that guy is probably our hot-headed young Tribune Arulenus Rusticus, although I'm not sure why either HP or AR would not be wearing a toga when all the other Romans in the room are, so maybe he's another philosopher.

Comments

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

That's not too bad of a picture, but man is it small! I like how, obvs, ancient Roman(?) women apparently had appropriately Victorian hairstyles.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

But of course Roman women had Victorian hairstyles! They also had Victorian-ish dress styles and draped themselves all over their Head of Household JUST LIKE Victorian ladies in similarly tragic circumstances -- quelle coincidence!

(Though, in the account that I'm sure this painting is following, one of the women is threatening/offering to kill herself (in, I suspect, a non-hysterical way, because she is trying to follow the example of her redoubtable mother, who encouraged her wavering husband by stabbing herself and gasping out the last words, "It doesn't hurt, dear.") This same mother (the Elder Arria) had said to her son-in-law when he remonstrated with her, that of course she would want her daughter to commit suicide along with him, should the need arise, as long as they had had a happy and satisfying marriage.)

Bronnikov painting of Thrasea

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for bringing this interesting painting to wider attention. The full title is apparently 'The quaestor reading the death sentence to senator Thrasea Paetus', so the figure with the scroll must be the quaestor, not Domitius Caecilianus. Indeed, would Caecilianus have brought a scroll along? The painter has taken some licence with Tacitus' text, according to which Caecilianus arrives first with news of the sentence, and then Thrasea appears to leave the larger group ('progressus in porticum') before the quaestor arrives with the official notification. Or perhaps the larger party to be seen in the room on the right and in the background, while Thrasea reasonably enough is closely accompanied by his family and closest friends. So I guess Caecilianus is one of those three men in the central area, Helvidius must be another, but as you say the yellow cloak is odd whoever it belongs to. Incidentally a copy of this from Photographers Direct would set you back a very considerable sum.
Do you know the painting on the same theme by Pier Antonio Torri in Padua?