THE TEMPLE OF SULIS-MINERVA IN STONE:

(Cunliffe 100-101).

The ultimate discovery of the Temple of Sulis-Minerva is ongoing . As Barry Cunliffe notes in his 1975 publication, Rome and the Barbarians , “There can be little doubt that there are still major, perhaps spectacular, discoveries to be made when, eventually, we are able to return to the cellars and continue the work” (Cunliffe 108). Cunliffe refers the cessation in 1968 of major excavations of the temple site specifically. Since then, it appears—though access to this information is limited—there have been excavations and work done in Bath , but not as much on the temple site itself. Peter Davenport, who works closely with Cunliffe, has published as recently as 1991 a book titled, Archaeology in Bath : 1976-1985 . A reviewer describes the work as focusing “outside the central area of the Roman baths and the temple precinct” (http://www.amazon.co.uk). So, it seems, no major discoveries at the temple site have been made since 1968 when Cunliffe and team evidenced “the complete history of the flooding of the precinct and destruction of the temple,” and found a “corner of the sacrificial alter…one side carved with a representation of Bacchus, the other with that of a female deity” (Cunliffe 106). At the time of this publication—1976—there were three known pieces of the alter, which once stood in front of the temple. The one Cunliffe found has an inscription, which reads, “To the goddess Sulis, Lucius Marcius Memor, augurer, gave this gift,” another indication that various conceptions of who exactly resided (in spirit) at the temple—Sulis, Minerva, Sulis-Minerva—were plenty (106). However, a great deal is already known about what many scholars consider the most important of the temple's parts—the relief sculptures on the pediment. As Richmond and Toynbee point out, the sculptures are, “in some ways, the most significant of all extant works of Romano-British plastic art” ( Richmond and Toynbee 99). One of these ways certainly refers to the valuable information the sculptures give us on Roman-Celtic syncretism . It would seem so, as the authors continue in their essay, “The Temple of Sulis-Minerva at Bath ,” to concentrate on the curiously blended Roman-Celtic forms of the temple's pedimental artwork. Another way might refer to the aesthetic value of the sculptural work itself, which is noted elsewhere . Richmond and Toynbee refer specifically to the mastery of the pedimental sculpture, aside from its syncretistic properties, in the aforementioned essay, “The Temple of Sulis-Minerva at Bath ”. They call it, “a work of consummate power and originality,” and write, “Weathered and damaged as the sculpture is, we can still appreciate to-day the subtlety and finish with which it was executed” ( Richmond and Toynbee 104). Of Roman-British sculpture generally, Toynbee later writes, “…it is in stone-carving that we find the best and most distinctive work of Romano-British craftsmen, whether immigrating Gauls or Britons…Judged on their own merits and in the light of the aesthetic ideas that shaped them, these Romano-British carvings can claim to be regarded as the most impressive and original manifestations of art in Roman Britain” (Toynbee 9).

But the Roman-Celtic character of the temple is not limited to its pediment, which attracts more attention from scholars than its architecture does. It certainly would not hurt to discuss this aspect in brief. The original fragments of the temple were found at the site in 1790, along with the remnants of the pediment. They were, “an Attic base; several sections of Bath-stone casing in quarter-circle sections embellished with stopped fluting; a composite capital and numerous fragments of cornice” ( Richmond and Toynbee 97). As the authors note, “All these elements are purely classical in style,” (97) however the execution of that classical style took on a decidedly Celtic or British twist. For example, the base adheres less to classical canons and is simplified in form. Also, the capitals exhibit “rather thin cauliculi , with tendrils which climb onto the abacus, as in the Moselle area” ( Richmond and Toynbee 98). The reference to Moselle suggests influence from north-eastern Gaul , an occurrence which the authors suggest is exemplified in Roman Britain not only at Bath (98). The structure of the temple refers less to religious syncretism, which we focus on while looking at Bath , but it is important because it shows how blended forms took place at all levels of interaction. The pediment, for example, was not just constructed by a local artist and then superimposed on a strictly Roman classical temple. The integration occurred in varying degrees from start to finish.

The Bath pediment itself is important because it exemplifies at once religious and artistic syncretism in the Roman-Celtic world. In fact, it would be hard to find examples of one of these two kinds of syncretism where the other did not occur. As is well-known, texts , which could provide information on Roman-Celtic religious practices without artistic representation, are almost non-existent. Certainly art exists from the period that shows a mixture of Celtic and Roman traditions, and does not represent religion specifically. One might look to tools, vessels, cookware, and other fashioned objects from the time to find examples of this. However, useful objects do not display syncretism on the same grand scale as larger, commissioned works, such as the temple and especially the temple's pediment.

The pediment is so rife with syncretism—if one can say such a thing—it is very difficult to determine the best way to start describing it. Perhaps an inventory of the actual slab pieces that have been recovered is in order. There are six, and it suggested that these six were once part of eighteen—eleven rectangular and seven triangular—which comprise the whole of the pediment. S. Lysons published the first fully-formed reconstruction of the pediment in 1802. It reveals, importantly, “an entirely classical scheme” ( Richmond and Toynbee 99). This scheme is evidenced by the following: the central shield, on which the famous Gorgon head is placed; the two Victories, which hold up the shield on either side; and the concentric oak wreaths surrounding the shield. The Victories rest on globes. Below the right hand of the Victory on the left is an “oddly designed helmet,” to be discussed later, and below the left hand of the Victory on the right are a closed human hand and an owl. Finally, we can see “a substantial portion of a seaweed-kilted torso…beside the right-hand globe,” of which a counterpart on the left-hand side is not hard to imagine. From this point, all renderings of the pediment are conjectural (99). One has to choose an interpretation to follow, and for the purposes of this essay, I have chosen the work of Richmond and Toynbee, who have been cited many times above. Richmond and Toynbee, modern scholars, reject ideas, now antiquated, that deviations from classical forms in the Roman provinces were indications of inability to execute the classical style. Instead, they argue that the obviously classical basis on works such as the temple at Bath show a conscious undertaking to combine Roman and Celtic traditions. Writers such as Lysons, whose 1802 reconstruction portrays asymmetry and wholly imagined figures (e.g. a naked man stretched across the bottom of the pediment) supposed the Bath artist to be unconcerned with following classical style, which is at once illogical and unlikely, seeing as how Bath was part of conquered territory, and frequented by vacationers from all parts of the empire, making it more desirable to present Roman dominance to the people who came (Richmond and Toynbee 99).

Richmond and Toynbee work from a newer reconstruction of the pediment, drawn in the 1950s by Austin Child ( Richmond and Toynbee 101). The reconstruction supposes, persuasively, that the Bath artist was local (i.e. meaning anything from being a resident of Bath to coming to Bath from Gaul ), yet schooled in the classical canon. Their work together has produced the following additions/renditions to Lysons's reconstruction:

In place of oval shields and cuirasses used to fill space near the seaweed-kilted figures, the authors suggest “pronged tails emerging from the seaweed kilts of the two [males]…” which the authors claim are Tritons ( Richmond and Toynbee 101). They write, “If, as seems almost certain, these personages were Tritons, it would be possible to think of them as turning their heads towards the bottom corners of the tympanum and blowing on conches, which followed the lines its downward slopes. Tritons would clearly be appropriate in the context of sacred waters” (101). They also suggest that the crest of the helmet between the left-hand Victory's legs and the central shield filled that space, which corresponds to the hand and owl on the right-hand side (101).

That covers major contentions between the Lysons and Child reconstructions. What is left to us now is the more syncretistic interpretation of the pediment as a whole. And, of course, this requires us to look at the interaction of its parts.

The helmet at the left-hand Victory's feet is a good place to start. As the authors note, “it appears to be sui generic ,” or one of a kind, with “an undulating brim, cheek-pieces, false ears…and a bonnet shaped like an animal's head, with snub nose, small round eye, and curved incised lines running back from the eye and suggestive of fins or whiskers” (Richmond and Toynbee 101). It appears to be a dolphin, sea-lion, otter, or some other kind of sea creature, which is fitting in the context of the sacred springs at Bath (101). However, there is room for variation of interpretation here. As Richmond and Toynbee note:

There is…in the Devizes Museum, a very curious and decidedly ‘native' broze relief, which provides us with a parallel instance from southern Britain of beast-shaped head-gear in close association with Minerva…Minerva is shown clad in long tunic, cloak, and aegis, holding shield and spear, and resting her left foot on a globe. But instead of her usual helmet, she wears on her head the spoils of an animal, probably a British bear, of which the snout, round eyes, blunt ears, and fore-paws are clearly distinguishable. The vertical, twisted ‘ringlet' beside the goddess's right check is part of her hair, not the pelt of the beast. At Bath we have a true helmet with bonnet taking animal-form: here the creature completely usurps the helmet's place. But the Devizes bronze hints, in a most intriguing way, that behind the fantastic helmet of the pediment there may have lurked some strange, unclassical conception of Minerva as a kind of local…‘Mistress of Wild Animals'. ( Richmond and Toynbee 101-102)

And so it is suggested that the Bath helmet derives from a classical, water association with Minerva or a British/Celtic association of Minerva to land and beast. Perhaps it is both. The point is to note how representations of deities shift from their historical focal points as one moves further into other cultural traditions.

Not as much can be said about the Tritons, as they are hypothetical, not actual characters on the Bath pediment. We know that Tritons with a Gorgon head on a pediment occur on two familiar reliefs from the late-Hellenistic period. They are the ‘Icarus' and “Citharoedus' reliefs. This fact simply reiterates the association of Minerva, well-represented by the Gorgon, with water cults, represented by Tritons ( Richmond and Toynbee 102).

The Victories, on the other hand, provide interesting information on Roman-Celtic syncretism as it applies to the representation of female forms. As Richmond and Toynbee note:

The Bath Victories share their classical dress and anatomical distortion with the spandrel-Victories of the great Severan Arches of Lepcis Magna and the Roman Forum. There are, however, marked and significant divergencies between the British and Mediterranean Victories in the style and treatment of their draperies. (102)

What the authors go on to describe is the tendency in Celtic art to render patterns instead of physical form. The Bath Victories, as represented by the surviving left-hand Victory, wear their classical dress over their entire body. The folds of the tunic are “linear, two-dimensional, and schematic, rendered in a highly patterned, energetic, flowing manner,” which the authors call “typically British” (102). They note that while the physical features not clothed (i.e. the arms and hands) are “sensitively modelled,” the artist's driving force was drapery, not flesh. Victories, it seems, were often transported Roman motifs to the conquered territories. In contrast to the Bath Victories, with their decidedly Celtic drapery, are African Victories. African Victories are depicted most often without drapery. Though, the authors make sure to point out, when they do wear clothing, it is, as with the Roman Victories, “richly plastic, three-dimensional, and naturalistic” (102). Thus we see another example from the Bath pediment of what the authors cleverly call, “a vivid instance of the translation, in British art under Roman tutelage, of classical matter into native vocabulary” (102).

Which leads us to the essential, the most interesting portrayal of Roman-Celtic syncretism at Bath —the Gorgon head. Mentioned above, the Gorgon head rests at the center of the pedimental composition inside a large shield, which is surrounded in concentric circles of oak leaves. As for its contested relationship to Minerva, Richmond and Toynbee write, “That the mask…is…intended to depict Minerva's Gorgon is certain. Of this the wings and snakes in the hair are clinching evidence; the owl beside the shield is specifically Minerva's bird; and the temple was dedicated to her as conflated with the Celtic Sulis” (Richmond and Toynbee 102). They go on to note that oak leaves are appropriate to Minerva because she is the daughter of Jupiter, further indicating that this Gorgon, though odd in form, is representative of the goddess Minerva. The most glaring difference between the Bath Gorgon and its Mediterranean counterparts is its masculinity and subsequent rough character. Hellenistic Gorgons were most often “smiling, tame, and gentle” (102). There are instances of heads similar to the Bath Gorgon appearing in Mediterranean lands (e.g. at the Severan Forum at Lepcis). However, they differ from the Bath Gorgon in that these heads, alike in “their wildness of mien,” are “plastic and three-dimensional” (103). In effect, they are classical sculptures. The Bath Gorgon is, like the Bath Victories, two-dimensional, engraved more than sculpted. Richmond and Toynbee present an fascinating take on the origins of depicting a male Gorgon in the Celtic lands. I will let them speak for themselves at length:

It is difficult to hold that so confident, so masterly, so well-educated a sculptor, as was the Bath artist, suffered from confusion of ideas and misunderstood what he was doing. His conflation of Gorgon and water-god was surely deliberate. The Medusa belongs to Sulis-Minerva, presiding goddess of the local shrine of healing. The water-god is that of the actual springs or of the river Avon that flows past the Roman city—possibly of both, although the role of the former must have been by far the most important. After all, Fons was a male deity, as was also Nemausus, the Gaulish god of the healing springs at Nîmes; and it may be that at Bath the medicinal springs themselves were convceived of as male, personified by a genius, who was subordinated to Sulis…Sulis-Minerva may have been believed to be a daughter of a water-god, just as the classical nymphs of sea and springs were reckoned to be daughters of Oceanus. And in this connection it is worth remembering that a fragment, in the Pump Room Museum, of a handsome, carved stone cornice, which maybe have been connected with the temple or with some building in its vicinity, carries the vigorous head…of a bearded water-god. Dedications to the Suliviae at Bath and to Matres Namausciae at Nîmes are further proof of a close association at water-shrines of male and female deities. (104)

In other words, Richmond and Toynbee look to unclassical traditions in the Celtic world to explain the unclassical attributes of the Bath Gorgon. What they come up with is convincing. It seems almost like an instance of six degrees of separation, except far more complex than that. It is probably better conceived of in terms of the Bath artist as some kind of syncretistic people-pleaser. On the one hand, there is the pressing concern to sculpt something indicative of the Roman presence at Bath . Minerva, a frequently invoked goddess, becomes easily associated with the healing springs because she herself stands for healing and certain aspects of protection in the Roman world. The Gorgon is a known symbol for Minerva, and, as the authors have shown, is itself easily transformed to meet another objective, the depiction of Celtic traditions, while maintaining an obvious reference to the Roman Minerva.

Richmond and Toynbee provided a basis for the breaking point from the older, Lysons-inspired, non-syncretistic interpretations of the Bath temple art. More contemporary scholars echo their work, and more or less agree with their interpretation of the site. In his chapter, “Art in the Era of the Conquest,” Martin Henig writes:

The pediment is fundamentally Roman in design. Not only is its central motif, the male Gorgon itself, comparable with others, for instance that on a pediment from a second-century tomb at Chester, but the particular hairiness of the Bath example can be proved on examination to spring from conflation with an Oceanus or Neptune mask, a highly sophisticated concept. (Henig 40)

Although Henig deviates somewhat from the idea that the Bath Gorgon is conflated to some degree with conceptions of male water deities in the Celtic religion, such as Nemausus, he reiterates the idea of depicting the Gorgon as male. As Richmond and Toynbee might argue, that masculine depiction, whether intended to represent Roman or Celtic male deities, would appeal to Celts, who had a strong tradition of male water deities.

Syncretism at the Bath temple to Sulis-Minerva, then, can be understood as a service to a diversified population. In these terms, it is interesting to think of syncretism as a religious adhesive, as a device (intended or unintended) to solve what might have been religious difficulties between merging peoples. One would be hard-pressed to find modern examples of this kind of religious mediation. It seems, in thinking about it loosely, that secularism is supposed to provide us the same kind of “out” from religious clash that syncretism did the Romans and the people they came to control, though I must say the way of the ancients' way seems not only more successful, but more appealing as well.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

“Amazon.co.uk: Books: Archaeology in Bath 1976-1985 ( Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph).” < http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0947816283/202-0382550-8486225 > ( Dec. 11, 2003 )

Cunliffe, Barry. Rome and the Barbarians . London : The Bodley Head, 1975.

Henig, Martin. The Art of Roman Britain . Ann Arbor : The University of Michigan Press, 1995.

Richmond , I. A. and J. M. C. Toynbee. “The Temple of Sulis-Minerva at Bath .” The Journal of Roman Studies 45 (1955): 97-105, U10-U23.