The title of Peter Stewart’s Statues in Roman Society subtly delineates the major premise of his innovative study: that the modern notion of sculpture hinders our ability to understand the quotidian functions of statues within Roman society. As explained in his introduction, “classical art history has generally been concerned with Roman sculpture as a kind of art, not Roman statuary as a remarkable accumulation of objects working in society” (10). Using a variety of approaches, Stewart attempts to reintegrate Roman statues into their physical and social contexts, and at the same time, to provide a thought-provoking criticism of some of the conventional methodologies that have created this separation.

Stewart’s book is difficult to classify, and he makes clear from the outset that it is not strictly a sociological investigation (12). But Statues in Roman Society is also not a work of art history in the conventional sense. Unlike other important studies dealing with the ancient reception of Roman art, such as Jaś Elsner’s Art and the Roman Viewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) or John R. Clarke’s recent Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), Stewart devotes little space to the well-studied major monuments, and instead concentrates his efforts on close analysis of the texts, inscriptions, and smaller artifacts (coins, lamps, etc.) that collectively offer clues about the ways Romans classified, depicted, and physically interacted with statues. His interest lies primarily in social responses to statuary in general as opposed to the reception of individual pieces, and therefore he is less concerned with artistic style, iconography, typology, or chronology, though these important considerations are certainly not omitted. Stewart’s study, based in part on his 1998 doctoral thesis, thus represents a novel continuation of the seminal work of Paul Zanker and other German scholars on the relationship between Roman art and significant social change, such as the transition from republic to Empire (most notably Zanker’s The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988). Stewart’s work similarly concentrates on the effects of social context, examining the reception of statuary diachronically and in different physical milieus across the Empire. Yet more than earlier works, Statues in Roman Society is necessarily and refreshingly interdisciplinary, drawing on fields beyond the traditional purview of the art historian, from literary analysis and philosophy to anthropology and social psychology.

Stewart generally seeks to reexamine the taxonomies traditionally used to analyze Roman art and society. For example, in his critique of Lori-Ann Touchette’s The Dancing Maenad Reliefs (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1995), which redefines the decorative neo-Attic reliefs of Roman gardens as a type of private “religious” art, Stewart states that “the definitive, positivistic categorization of ancient material (as religious or secular) is inadequate for the explanation of ancient responses, but that does not mean that categorization is irrelevant or purely anachronistic” (230, see also 195–97 for a similar critique of D.M. Bailey’s hypothesized connection between the iconography of Roman lamps and their function [Catalogue of Lamps in the British Museum, London: British Museum Press, 1975–96). Analyses of Roman art which are based on absolute categorization (religious vs. secular, public vs. private, etc.) force ancient statuary into a modern social framework, yet classification is still valuable provided it is undertaken from an ancient perspective. Therefore Stewart rejects such recently conceived taxonomies, and instead begins his study with a detailed analysis of the vocabulary that the ancient Romans themselves applied to statuary (chapter 1). Though there was some overlap in the terminology, the Romans distinguished between depictions of mortals (statuae), cult images (simulacra), and mythological statues (signa), such as votive offerings or garden decorations, that were not the object of direct veneration, as well as among other terms (imago, effigies, species, etc.) used as general denotations of artistic representation. Much of Stewart’s discussion concentrates on the application of simulacra vs. signa, the former term appearing in the late Republic to denote cult deities and other figures worthy of worship (self-deifying autocrats and, eventually, dead emperors), whereas the latter term was used for more generalized divine representations, such as statues, figurines, and reliefs of gods and demi-gods (satyrs, maenads, etc.) which were the staple of Roman art collections. Paired with a short analysis of the depiction of statues in wall-painting, Stewart charts the Romans’ own struggle to understand the shifting roles of statues as both inanimate objects and depictions of “living” concepts.

Chapter 2 turns to Roman conceptions of particular statuary features, from the typical (portrait statues) to the unnatural (monstra) and even coarse (rustic images of Priapus). The first part of the chapter deals with the generally recognized distinction between the roles of the head and body in Roman portrait sculpture, citing well-known images such as the portrait of Claudius as Jupiter in the Vatican. To the modern viewer, the realistic facial features of the middle-aged and feeble emperor seem incongruous with the robust divine body, but the ancient Roman would likely see this composition as the perfect fusion of individual and ideal qualities. Stewart then contrasts this kind of aristocratic portraiture, a form strongly associated with “proper” Roman sculpture, with rustic and aniconic images devoid of such ideal qualities as analogia (resemblance), proportio, and symmetria (commensurability)—for example, Gallic deities represented by tree-trunks or rough wooden images of Priapus hewn by farmers. With this comparison, Stewart fleshes out the detailed etymological study of the previous chapter with a clear picture of the complex visual expectations for statues of both mortals and gods.

This analysis leads to another of Stewart’s contentions, namely that the profound Roman understanding of both the terminology and the ideal aesthetics of public statuary resulted in an iconography of the “statuesque”: attributes that denoted depictions of statues as opposed to representations of individual men or gods. This “abstract concept of the statue” (92) could be referenced when the medium was too small or the means too meager (as with non-elite funerary monuments) to support an actual statue. Stewart cites a variety of techniques used by ancient artists to affect the “statuesque”: archaism and other mannered styles, reference to recognized statue types such as the “pudicitia” type, and the use of recognizable statue attributes such as bases, framing aediculae, and support struts. While some of these signifiers are more convincing than others, as Stewart himself acknowledges, the concept of the “statuesque” highlights the power that three-dimensional representation held for Romans of all stations, from freedman to emperor. Chapter 3 concludes with the particularly evocative example of a “statuesque” Constantine repeatedly featured on his Arch in Rome (115–16).

Following his analysis of the general social and psychological responses to Roman statuary, Stewart turns to the roles and restrictions pertaining to the “other population” of Roman cities, the abundant statuary that dominated public spaces both in Italy (chapter 4) and in the provinces (chapter 5). Relying primarily on epigraphic and literary evidence, these chapters explicate the practical challenges involved in controlling and maintaining this unruly public resource, which was viewed as an important urban amenity even into late antiquity (119). Overpopulation was a considerable problem, as is clear from many well-known anecdotes describing consular orders to remove the old or unsanctioned statues cluttering public spaces (for example, M. Aemilius Lepidus’ clearance of the area around the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline in 179 BC [Livy 40.51.3]). Not surprisingly, personal restraint in accepting statuary honors later became a virtue associated with beneficent emperors (127).

Within this burgeoning overabundance of statues, tactics to ensure appropriate honors and exposure for individual pieces became increasingly important. Dedicants took great pains to situate their honorific dedications in the most frequented locations (celeberrima loca) within the city, from the civic forum to busy crossroads. Underappreciated statues could be reactivated by moving them to new locations as an act of urban improvement or in religious festivals. Not cited by Stewart are the numerous devices employed within the monuments themselves to guarantee continuous public attention, from the ingenious sundial on Trimalchio’s tomb designed to attract the attention of passersby (Satyricon 71.2), to the provisions for annual maintenance, decoration, or banqueting detailed on many statue bases (for example, CIL XIV.367 from Ostia, which makes dispensation for annual decoration of the statue and largesse to those magistrates actually present on the honoree’s birthday). The brief case studies of chapter 5 dealing with statuary practices in Roman Asia Minor, Spain, and Britain demonstrate that there was some degree of conformity in the culture of statues throughout the Empire. While the cultural values and social contexts certainly differed, the language of honorific dedication and portrait typology was remarkably universal, as evidenced by the prevalence of the so-called Small and Large Herculaneum Woman types, the dominant variations of the draped female body used to symbolize matronly virtue in aristocratic portraits (162–66).

In chapters 6 and 7, Stewart combines the etymological discussion of chapter 1 and the concept of the “statuesque” introduced in chapter 3 to reexamine signa and simulacra in two different but related contexts: as represented in the “minor arts” (namely on lamps and coins) and as collected and copied for the Roman domestic realm. In these chapters, Stewart introduces some of his more speculative and unresolved concepts; most intriguing is his hypothesis that a lamp quoting the features of a recognizable cult statue could “simulate the relationship between a full-scale statue, its altar, and the participant in cult,” with the oil and flame in the nozzle(s) standing in for both offering and sacrificial fire (205; emphasis in original). In the process of translating cult statues (simulacra) into these small-scale signa, the defining attributes of the former become increasingly meaningful: frontality, use of groundline or base, simple iconographical vocabulary, and familiar figural typology. Stewart next tackles the difficult issue of “religious” statues within the Roman domestic realm: signa as objects of both veneration and aesthetic appreciation. Just as the Roman “private sphere” could not be segregated from public life, Stewart suggests that there is a continuum from the conventions governing public statuary to the decorative choices of villa owners. Though the domestic context favored different forms (busts vs. full statues) and presentations (no dedicatory inscriptions, for example), creatively manipulated signa within this context could acquire a collective value similar to that of a sculptural assemblage in a civic forum, by “express[ing] elite claims to social and cultural status” (258). Individuals used their private collections to reflect their cultural values and erudition, as seen most notably in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, just as communities managed public statuary to highlight devotion to imperial policy or to emphasize certain civic assets, such as a robust patronage network.

In the final chapter, euphemistically entitled “Touching Statues,” the subject is transgression. As well as being the objects of veneration and other positive actions, statues could also receive notable negative attention, often in the form of damnatio memoriae or iconoclasm. Throughout this chapter, Stewart astutely analyzes the changing legal and cultural contexts of both circumstances of statue destruction. His argument is largely derived from two recent works on the topic, C.W. Hedrick’s History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000) and the exhibition catalogue From Caligula to Constantine: Tyranny and Transformation in Roman Portraiture, edited by E. Varner (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2000). His approach to statue destruction is not particularly novel, aside from his criticism of the idea of spontaneous mob violence (283–90), but this material does support his concept of an Empire-wide, communal response to statuary. As Stewart states at the end of the chapter, statues were powerful symbols in Roman society, bound up in personal and civic identity and in homologous relationship with their subjects, and the many instances of sculptural destruction or mutilation described by ancient historians and visible in the archaeological record attest to their power even into late antiquity.

In Statues in Roman Society, Stewart has set himself a monumental task, and his broad scope and innovative approach at times undermine the strength of his argument. Stewart often describes his project in terms of what it is not, and occasionally seems reluctant to state directly his most important (and contentious) ideas at the beginning of each chapter. For this reason, it is often difficult to keep track of his multifaceted argument across the disparate topics and evidence he presents, and the work does at times read like a collection of related essays rather than a unified monograph, particularly in the later chapters. Much of this lack of continuity is remedied by Stewart’s conclusion (300–03), which cogently summarizes his wide-ranging theories and suggests directions for further research. It is in the latter area that his study is most significant, for it poses a myriad of novel and necessary questions about statues and their collective role in Roman society. Though Stewart’s answers to these queries may be contentious, he has undoubtedly created an impetus for scholars of Roman art and society to consider Rome’s “other population” in entirely new ways.