• Monday 17 March - Panel III

The King and the Philosopher: Role models at Volubilis

Susan Walker

The House of Venus at Volubilis (Mauretania Tingitana, now Morocco) was excavated some fifty years ago by R. Thouvenot and is currently the subject of an international project of conservation and presentation organised by University College London and INSAP (Morocco), supported by the UNESCO World Monuments Fund, University College London and the British Museum.

Finds from the original excavation include two bronze portrait busts representing Juba II of Mauretania and Cato the Younger (Uticensis). Now housed in the Archaeological Museum at Rabat, these bronzes have become famous ambassadors for Morocco, appearing in exhibitions and books on the country's rich cultural history. However, their archaeological context is less well-known and no less interesting. The busts were placed in a pair of rooms decorated with inter-related mosaic pavements. Each floor comprised a patchwork of black and white geometric motifs framing a coloured emblema, the mythological subjects of which - in one room Actaeon observing Diana at her bath, in the other the rape of Hylas and the chastisement of cupids - illustrated the act of stealing forbidden fruit. The portraits, antique by the time of their installation in the late second or early third century AD, were so arranged as to make their subjects the viewers of the mythological panels.

What was intended by this installation? The subjects of the portraits may be understood as sources of pre-imperial regional pride, even as opposition to the empire from a republican or monarchical standpoint. However, both Cato and Juba were Stoic philosophers, and in that role they could be understood as counterpoints to the temptations of the scenes on the mosaics.

The House of Venus in its later imperial form is unusual for Volubilis in offering no evidence for agricultural or commercial activity. Other mosaics and bronzes from the site, some perhaps later in date, suggest a taste for parody, and the display of urban values and interests.

Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, The British Museum, London WC1B 3DG.

S.Walker@british-museum.ac.uk