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<p>[QUOTE="Gavin Richardson, post: 3176984, member: 83956"]So recently I’ve been researching gesture in Roman art. (I know, I need to get more.) While it’s reductive to posit a one-to-one correspondence between a single gesture and meaning, often the Roman gesture of the raised arm/hand indicates that the figure is speaking. Take, for example, this image from the Vatican Vergil, ca. 400, depicting an aged, seated man speaking in the <i>Georgics</i>:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]817771[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>With this strong convention in mind, I am puzzled by the memorial issues for Claudius II, Maximianus, and Constantius Chlorus referenced in this thread. The obverse identification of each man as “Divus” indicates that the men are depicted as deceased and conventionally deified—I take their head cover to indicate their sacred status; to me the cover even resembles a winding sheet. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]817772[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>These coins date from about 317 or so—well after Constantine’s conversion experience. I doubt Constantine actually believes these men are gods; he’s probably just following a cultural convention that’s as much political as religious.</p><p><br /></p><p>But the reverse type celebrating their “rest of the greatest merit” or “most deserved rest” seems to depict the same shrouded (and therefore, dead), seated emperor.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then why is the figure’s hand raised? Is he speaking? He’s not reaching out to God, as on the Constantine “Hand of God” memorial coinage. He doesn’t seem to be imploring the heavens. He seems to be speaking, or instructing, as in the <i>Georgics</i> painting above. But if dead men tell no tales, what could the dead man have to say?</p><p><br /></p><p>Maybe it’s a simple iconographical borrowing of earlier issues, like this one.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]817773[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>But the raised hand/speech motif is so strong in late antiquity that I think speech is implied here. Would anyone care to speculate on how we are to parse that raised hand gesture from the dead?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Gavin Richardson, post: 3176984, member: 83956"]So recently I’ve been researching gesture in Roman art. (I know, I need to get more.) While it’s reductive to posit a one-to-one correspondence between a single gesture and meaning, often the Roman gesture of the raised arm/hand indicates that the figure is speaking. Take, for example, this image from the Vatican Vergil, ca. 400, depicting an aged, seated man speaking in the [I]Georgics[/I]: [ATTACH=full]817771[/ATTACH] With this strong convention in mind, I am puzzled by the memorial issues for Claudius II, Maximianus, and Constantius Chlorus referenced in this thread. The obverse identification of each man as “Divus” indicates that the men are depicted as deceased and conventionally deified—I take their head cover to indicate their sacred status; to me the cover even resembles a winding sheet. [ATTACH=full]817772[/ATTACH] These coins date from about 317 or so—well after Constantine’s conversion experience. I doubt Constantine actually believes these men are gods; he’s probably just following a cultural convention that’s as much political as religious. But the reverse type celebrating their “rest of the greatest merit” or “most deserved rest” seems to depict the same shrouded (and therefore, dead), seated emperor. Then why is the figure’s hand raised? Is he speaking? He’s not reaching out to God, as on the Constantine “Hand of God” memorial coinage. He doesn’t seem to be imploring the heavens. He seems to be speaking, or instructing, as in the [I]Georgics[/I] painting above. But if dead men tell no tales, what could the dead man have to say? Maybe it’s a simple iconographical borrowing of earlier issues, like this one. [ATTACH=full]817773[/ATTACH] But the raised hand/speech motif is so strong in late antiquity that I think speech is implied here. Would anyone care to speculate on how we are to parse that raised hand gesture from the dead?[/QUOTE]
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