The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

The numerous and diverse gold-glass images from Rome deserve fuller treatment than we have had the time to give them. In the discussion below and in our captions, individual gold-glass images are identified by the number given to them by Charles Morey in his catalogue of all the gold-glass bases in public collections that were known to him (Morey 1959). Morey did not include objects in private collections, nor ones known only from earlier publications, a few of which are cited below (as these are known to us from line-drawings, not photographs, their authenticity can sometimes be in doubt).

The glass vessels and their function:
Around 500 fragments of glass with images in gold (and a few with only inscriptions) are now known from Rome. These images were made by laying a sheet of gold leaf onto a glass vessel, carefully working the gold-leaf to create an image, and then blowing a second layer of glass over it in order to secure the image for good.

Most of these gold-glass images, now in collections across Europe and the USA (the largest in the Vatican), do not have a precise provenance; but it is universally accepted that, almost without exception, they were found in the Roman catacombs, set into the mortar that sealed individual grave-slots (loculi), where a very few still survive in situ (see our Image 4). There is general scholarly consensus that they date from the fourth, or earlier fifth, century. This dating is based on two criteria: those found in situ were in catacomb-corridors datable to this period; and some of them depict named aristocrats, a few of whom can be tentatively identified with known figures from this time.

Some of the Roman gold-glass has a different form; but all the identifiable images of saints which are discussed here are on circular panels from the centre of glass bowls (that is from the inside of the bottom of these bowls). Some of these panels are as small as 5cm in diameter; but most are of between 8 and 10cm.

A sizeable number of these bowls bear the words 'Pie Zeses', a rendering in Latin script of the Greek injunction πίε ζήσῃς ('Drink! May you live!'), suggesting they were produced for use in communal drinking. Perhaps surprisingly to modern eyes, this injunction appears not only on bowls with secular iconography, but also on ones depicting entirely Christian iconography (see Image 6 BM group). That they served a role in promoting friendship groups is also suggested by another phrase frequently found on the bowls: 'Dignitas Amicorum', the 'Esteem' or 'Importance of Friends'.

In many cases (as is clear from the photographs we reproduce), the glass of the bowl has been carefully trimmed away, leaving only the circular base with its image; and it is probably a safe assumption that all of our images (including those with rougher edges) were set into the mortar of the loculi as fragments, rather than as complete bowls. There is debate over precisely why they were used in this fashion. Possibly they were partly seen as offerings to the dead, and indeed there must have been some symbolism involved in the breaking of such valuable objects, in order to use just their decorated bases. It is very possible, but undemonstrable, that, before being broken up and used to mark individual loculi, the bowls served in the funerary feast for the deceased. But their primary function was probably to identify individual graves within the uniform and confusing corridors of the catacombs (multiple other objects - of pottery, bone/ivory and metal - were also set into the mortar of loculi, presumably for the same purpose). As we will learn below, a number of gold-glass bases bear the names and portraits of individuals, and it could be that these were used to identify those individuals' loculi. But, unfortunately, the removal in pre-modern times of all but a tiny number of the bases, without any record of their precise provenance, has made it impossible to test whether there could be a correlation between the names on the gold-glass bases and the skeletal evidence within the loculi that they marked.

Of the c.500 surviving gold-glass fragments, some 278 bear decipherable iconography, which is very varied: including, for instance, scenes of boxing and hunting, as well as Jewish religious texts and symbols. But the commonest depictions are of Christian religious imagery: some 140 items, with secular portraits (at 50 items), often of married couples, following some way behind. A number of the Christian images are of Christ alone or of scenes from the Old and New Testaments (and so are not discussed here); but the large majority (over 115 items) are depictions of saints, almost always identified by name. (The overall numbers given here, and immediately below, are from Grig 2004.)

The saints represented:
The saints who appear most frequently in the gold-glass images are as follows:

Peter (the Apostle, S00036)                                                                 63
Paul (the Apostle, S00008)                                                                   58
*Agnes (virgin and martyr of Rome, S00097)                                       15
*Sixtus/Xystus II (bishop and martyr of Rome, S00201)                       13
*Timotheus (martyr of Rome, buried on the via Ostiensis, S00330)       8
*Laurence (deacon and martyr of Rome, S00037)                                 6
*Hippolytus (martyr of Rome, S00509)                                                   4
*Iulius (bishop of Rome, ob. 352, S00543)                                             4
*Felix I (bishop and martyr of Rome, S00200), OR
*Felix II (bishop and, supposedly, martyr of Rome, ob. 365, S00493)     3
*Luke (the Evangelist, S00442)                                                                3

Much the commonest images are of Peter and Paul, the vast majority showing them together as a pair: most frequently as two facing busts (sometimes with a figure of Christ crowning them, as in Image 1); but they also appear as seated or standing full figures (e.g. Image 2). Other saints in the gold-glass corpus are also often paired (e.g. Images 3 Laurentius & Criprianus; 7 Sustus & Timoteus; 11 Genesius and Lucas); but they can be depicted in other ways: as single figures (Image 4 Agnes); as elements of a threesome (Image 12 Mary with P&P); or as figures in larger groups (Images 5 Bargello, 6 BM and 10 Oxford).

As well as Peter and Paul, a small number of other 'biblical' saints are represented (some of whom are discussed in more detail below), but the large majority of the figures represented were, like Peter and Paul, martyrs of Rome. The only martyr of the persecutions who can be identified with confidence and who was not from Rome is *Cyprian (bishop and martyr of Carthage, S00411), who appears for certain on a base in the Florence's Bargello Museum (Image 5; Morey 240), and probably also on one in the Vatican (Image 3; Morey 36). His presence, as the sole reliably attested outsider on the gold-glass, parallels the evidence of the Chronography of 354 (E01052), which records that his feast was celebrated in the city, the only non-Roman martyr to be honoured in this way. (There are other bases that might show non-Roman martyrs and which are sometimes cited as such in the scholarly literature; but, for reasons explained below, these images could instead be of living men, so they have not been included in this entry.)

The five leading Roman martyrs in the list above, from Agnes down to Hippolytus, present no surprises, with a single exception: Timotheus, buried on the via Ostiensis, has produced very little evidence of significant cult in our period (see the entries collected under S00330), but appears eight times on the gold-glass vessels (Morey 38, 55, 74, 258, 313, 344, 352, 364), more than the major martyrs Laurence and Hippolytus. Quite why is a mystery, as is why on five of these images (Morey 55, 74, 258, 313 and 364; Images 7 and 8) he is paired with the martyred pope Xystus/Sixtus II, with whom he is not linked in any hagiographical account. Were there perhaps traditions about Timotheus circulating in the fourth and early fifth century that were subsequently lost?

At the bottom end of the scale (figures who only appear once or very infrequently), it is sometimes difficult to confidently identify the person depicted as a saint, or, even when we can, to know which saint was being represented. This is for two reasons. Firstly, and most straightforwardly, because the identifying inscription labelling the saint could be damaged or even garbled (see, for instance, Image 3). And, secondly, because secular portraits (of living individuals) are sometimes shown with identical iconography to that used for saints, and also because some images clearly mixed living people in together with long-dead saints. A base in New York's Metropolitan Museum, for instance, shows a woman identified as 'Peregrina' standing between Peter and Paul (Image 8; Morey 449). This is exactly the same iconography as that found on two depictions of Mary (Garrucci 1876, tav. 178.6 and 178.7; Image 12), and one of the martyr Agnes (Morey 75); but Peregrina was almost certainly a living aristocratic woman, as we have no record (from Rome or elsewhere) of a martyr named Peregrina. Similarly, a base in the Bargello (Image 5; Morey 240), has at its centre a scene that is very common amongst the gold-glass bowls that celebrated living people: the busts of a married couple, identified by name as 'Festa' and 'Fidelis'. But it has an added touch borrowed from religious iconography: Christ crowns the couple, just as he crowns Peter and Paul in Image 1. Festa and Fidelis were unquestionably living aristocrats, but they are depicted in precisely the same way as saints.

The best examples of a mixing of living aristocrats with long-dead saints are a group of gold-glass bases that commemorated a circle of living men, including one named Damasus, who is very possibly the Damasus bishop of Rome in 366-84: Morey 106, 107, 250, 340 and 364; and also, possibly, Morey 86 and Garrucci 1876, tav. 193.4. Very confusingly (for us) several of these bases show images of the men of this circle alongside images of Roman martyrs, depicting them in exactly the same way. Two examples will suffice to illustrate this. A base in the Vatican (Image 9; Morey 106) has in its lower register busts of the Apostles Peter and Paul, depicted on either side of a christogram, while in the upper register are two busts identified as 'Pastor' and 'Damas(us)'. They are shown in precisely the same way as the Apostles, but both were almost certainly living men (there is an obscure Roman martyr named Pastor (S01842), but he is not reliably documented in our period). Similarly, a base in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum (Image 10; Morey 364) depicts a complex scene dominated by figure of Christ as a teacher; next to him are the seated figures of Peter and Paul; and below, amongst his seated 'pupils', four are identified by name: Timoteus, Sustus, Simon and Florus. Timoteus and Sustus are readily identifiable as the Roman martyrs Timotheus and Sixtus who are so often paired together, but Simon and Florus (represented and identified in precisely the same way as the two martyrs) were almost certainly living men and part of the 'Damasan' circle (they both appear with Damasus on a gold-glass base in the Vatican; Morey 107).

Of the images of probable martyrs of Rome who only appear once, some are unsurprising: 'Ermes' who appears with other saints on a base now in Verona (Morey 278), is presumably *Hermes (martyr of Rome buried on the via Salaria vetus, S00145), for whom there is abundant evidence of late antique cult. Similarly, 'Callistus', depicted as a solitary bust in Paris' Cabinet des medailles (Morey 401), is presumably *Callixtus (bishop and martyr of Rome, S00145); while Marcellinus, shown in similar fashion in the Vatican (Morey 87), is probably either *Marcellinus (bishop and martyr of Rome, S00660) or the priest and martyr *Marcellinus (S00577), who is normally paired with his exorcist and fellow martyr Petrus, and after whom a notable catacomb on the via Labicana is now named. But less expected is an image on a base also in the Vatican, which shows two men identified (by a label set on a column) as 'Genesius' and 'Lucas' (Image 11; Morey 79). Lucas is presumably *Luke (the Evangelist, S00442). Genesius, however, is very unlikely to be the best-known Genesius of our period, the notary and martyr of Arles (S00263), because there is no evidence that he attracted cult in late antique Rome, or indeed anywhere in Italy. Our Genesius is perhaps *Genesius (martyr of Rome, buried near the via Tiburtina, S00508); but his presence in the fourth/fifth-century gold-glass images is surprising, since his grave and cult is otherwise documented only in two of the seventh-century pilgrim itineraries (see E00678 and E06996).

Biblical saints, with the obvious exception of Peter and Paul, feature rarely on these vessels. The only one with a number of unquestionable appearances is Luke who, although he was never a very popular saint, features on three bases (Morey 79, mentioned above; also Morey 105 and 363). *John, who in our period is most often the Baptist (S00020), makes only one appearance that we can attribute to him with some confidence: crowned by Christ on a base in Oxford (Morey 365). A 'Iohane/Ioannes', who appears alongside a man named 'Simon' on two images (Morey 86, and Garrucci 1876, tav. 193.4), could also be the Baptist, but may have been one of the living 'circle of Damasus'. *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030) also appears only once: seated next to Christ on a base in the Vatican (Morey 187). Unexpectedly, there is also a 'Iudas' who appears with other saints on base in Pesaro (Morey 291); he is presumably the Apostle *Jude 'Thaddeus' (one of the Twelve, $S00792), though there is almost no evidence anywhere of him attracting cult other than as part of the apostolic group.

*Mary (Mother of Christ, $S00033), as mentioned above, appears standing between the Apostles Peter and Paul in two images known only from engravings, but with no obvious reason to doubt their authenticity (Garrucci 1876, tav. , 178.6 and 178.7; Image 12). A third image, in the Museo Civico of Bologna (Morey 265), is particularly interesting: it shows two female busts facing each other, one labelled 'Agnes', the other 'Maria'. It must be from an early period in the development of the cult of Mary, since by the later fifth century she would never be shown on an equal footing with a mere martyr, even one of the high status of Agnes (for parallel early textual evidence, again including Agnes, see $E00257; and, for a second possible gold-glass image of Agnes and Mary as an equal pair, Garrucci 1876, tav. 191.2). Though less obviously, the two images of Mary flanked by Peter and Paul, mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, also place her on the same footing as other saints, since this is precisely how Agnes is shown in Morey 75, and indeed how the living aristocrat Peregina is depicted in Morey 449 (Image 8).

Personal choices of saints?
A number of the surviving gold-glass bases bear inscriptions that prove that they were especially commissioned. Two of these we have already met: the base in the Bargello with the married couple Festa and Fidelis at its centre (Image 5; Morey 240); and that in the Vatican with the full-length figures of Laurence and Cyprian (Image 3; Morey 36), which is surrounded by a dedication to a man named Hilaris: 'Hilaris Viva Cum Tuis Feliciter Semper Refrigeris Im (sic) Pace Dei.'

Bibliography