THE FRIEZE OF THE ESQUILINE COLUMBARIUM AND ITS LITERARY SOURCE

摘要

The painted frieze (55-35 BC) found in Rome on the Esquiline near Porta Maggiore depicts some scenes from the legendary history of Rome, from the arrival of Aeneas to Romulus and Remus. Contrary to expectations, the picture is devoid of any traces of the fabulous - the vision of a white sow at the founding of Alba Longa, the figure of the god Mars in the scene of violence against Rhea Sylvia, a she-wolf who feeds the twins. Modern scholars assume that the artist followed the so-called "rational" historians - Valerius Antias and C. Licinius Macer. The article argues that the frieze is a kind of an illustration not to a historical, but rather to a poetical composition, possibly the Annales of Ennius.