Thrasea!

[ricardienne]

I finally found a bigger image of the Bronnikov "Death of Thrasea" painting:




I am still unsure which of the two seated women is Arria and which is Fannia, since neither the appearance nor the attitude of either seems more plausible for a wife than for a daughter. I suspect that the standing men in the main group are Helvidius, Rusticus, and Caecilianus (again not clear which is which, though I think the one in the bordered toga must be either Helvidius or Rusticus, and that Helvidius must be either that one or the one in the yellow cloak.

One thing that Bronnikov interestingly picked up is the gender of the Thrasea-group. Tacitus sets this scene amid a "illustrium virorum feminarumque coetus frequens", and the crowd in the background appears to have 4 women and 5 men (of course, 2 of the 4 women are in visible distress (plus Arria and Fannia in the foreground), whereas the men appear to be taking it rather more manfully. But there is that one woman who seems to be part of the otherwise male discussion. One thing that interests me is the role that seems to be given to women in accounts of "the opposition" in this period, and it's nice that it's shown here.

ALSO: An 18th century German play about Thrasea. Practice my Deutsch and be amused by adaptations of Tacitus at the same time!

Comments

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the one kneeling is the daughter? It seems like in older books (not Roman old, but a couple hundred years old), if a woman were to have a head near someone's lap, it's the daughter getting "caresses" or some such thing from her father, while the wife is more aloof.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Oh, good theory! (I was also thinking that the woman in purple has an extra layer, and hence might be considered to be more of a matron. But the daughter was married, too at this point.)

Also, I'm now even more confused, because I don't think that any of the possible candidates for Stern Guy in the Purple-Bordered Toga would have been qualified to wear the toga praetextata at this moment: Rusticus is a tribune, and although quaestors are permitted to wear the broad-border during their term of office, Helvidius wasn't currently a quaestor. We know absolutely nothing about Domitius Caecilianus except that he was a close friend, but I imagine that if he had held office, T. would have mentioned it. So Helvidius is probably the best guess for Purple-Border (standing, per your suggestion, behind his wife)

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much of a classical education the painter had? If he had only a cursory one (or didn't pay attention, I guess), maybe he unintentionally decided to take liberties with the toga coloration. Or, perhaps he thought that since quaestors were permitted to wear the broad-border, why wouldn't he wear it? Everyone wants to be the cool kid! Your rationalization makes sense, though, regardless.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

I mean, I would really like to know! It seems to me that this isn't a super-obvious scene to dramatize. The figures are a little bit more obscure, and things like Death of Seneca (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=death+of+cato&ix=sea&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1050&bih=628&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=qTaCT8DaLqra0QGF5e2cCA#um=1&hl=en&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=death+of+seneca&oq=death+of+seneca&aq=f&aqi=g1g-m1g-S4g-mS1&aql=&gs_l=img.3..0j0i5j0i24l4j0i5i24.48921l49423l0l49551l6l6l0l0l0l0l120l484l5j1l6l0.frgbld.&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=30d71bb2f37276db&biw=1050&bih=628) or even the Death of Cato (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=death+of+cato&ix=sea&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1050&bih=628&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=qTaCT8DaLqra0QGF5e2cCA) (fun fact: Cato Uticensis is still beating out Cato from Hunger Games for the first page of google images) would be more familiar "philosopher dies in the name of liberty" scenes. It's also kind of interesting, I suppose, that he chose to do the moment when the emperor's command was brought, and not the death scene itself (which is highly dramatic and affecting. Thrasea withdraws with just Demetrius the Philosopher and his son-in-law Helvdius, then calls the official who brought the command over as he opens his veins to witness "the libation to Jupiter Liberator. Pay attention, young man! Since -- Gods forbid it -- I fear you have been born into an age where it will be helpful to be fortified with examples of constancy." Then the text breaks off. I find it quite wonderful that (a thing which is usually overlooked by commentators) Thrasea doesn't address his last words to Helvidius but to the quaestor who brought the message; that is, to the representative of the autocrat, to the man who is figuring out a way to survive by being (probably reluctantly) complicit in tyranny.)

At any rate, it's hard trying to get into the painter's head! Was he thinking that the man who was currently holding office (Rusticus) should be wearing the senatorial toga, or that the man who had held the higher office (Helvidius), should be, even if he wasn't currently holding it?

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the painter was feeling like someone was trying to take him down, or something like that, and that's why he found this scene more compelling?

I think your second option sounds likely.... If he didn't have the encyclopedic knowledge that you do (<3), he may have thought that whoever was higher had the fancier toga all the time. Or! Perhaps he decided that, even though he knew the senatorial toga was assigned incorrectly, it would be easier for the audience to understand who was who in the scene because of the said misunderstanding of status.

[rafi-hythloday.livejournal.com]

Now we can see it properly (thanks for finding this larger version!) it is disappointingly apparent that this is a truly dreadful painting. Not the composition so much, but the draughtsmanship. Unless the resolution is still not high enough, it comes out looking terribly crude. This is surprising when we look at the same painter's 'Pythagoreans at sunrise' (on Wikimedia Commons), which is much more carefully done (even if the crescent moon is in an impossible position).

But it seems to me surprising in a way that more painters haven't attempted the scene, which has a lot of dramatic potential. The only other one known to me is, as mentioned previously, Torri's version in Padua, and that was done for reasons which will strike you. But I suppose painters until the 19th c tended to paint from canonical lists of subjects, in which the deaths of Cato and Seneca featured, but not that of Thrasea.

I suspect the gender thing (yes, isn't it interesting) may be the reason why Bronnikov has chosen the 'reading of the death sentence', rather than the suicide itself. A literal reading of Tacitus might lead one to suppose that Arria and Fannia were not present at the death, although I think that is unlikely in fact to be true, or even what Tacitus intended to imply. And obviously, pathos demands that wife and daughter must be present in the depicted scene. (I think achyvi must be right on the identification of the two, by the way - makes more sense for a daughter to be shown in a lower posture than the father).

And I absolutely agree with you about the quaestor...

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Yes, Thrasea does make a lot more sense in Padua than in Russia! But it makes me wonder what kind of millieu Bronikov was painting for, in which Thrasea made sense as a subject. He seems to have done lots of classical subjects, and lots of classical Christian subjects (lions, amphitheatres, and so forth), and as a sort of political martyr, Thrasea makes sense (though not so much sense, one would think, as Seneca...). One is tempted to wonder about the implications on such a "raid on the salon" scenario under the tsarist regime...

(I sadly can't find any pictures of the Torri fresco -- I guess I'll have to take a trip to Padua one of these days!)

[rafi-hythloday.livejournal.com]

I have some (not very good) pics of the fresco, if you are interested. Not sure whether I can send them, though - I'm not really used to this site...
As for Bronnikov's milieu - yes, it would be interesting to know if there were contemporary resonances. But maybe it just made sense to him! (There again his later compatriot Vassily RUdich was interested in Thrasea for obvious reasons of contemprary politics.)