IMAGES of MARRIAGE

Nuptiae

• Aldobrandini Wedding Fresco. Traditionally viewed as depicting scenes from a Roman wedding, recent scholarship links it to Euripides' Alcestis. In the central scene a veiled woman sits on a draped lectus, being comforted by a semi-nude woman wearing a myrtle wreath. On her left, a semi-nude woman pours perfumed oil into a scallop shell. In the left corner, a veiled woman holding a leaf-shaped fan lifts her hand over a basin while two boys assist her. To the right of the lectus, a semi-nude male wearing a garland of grapes and ivy (? Dionysus), reclines. In the right corner three figures stand: the first woman pours incense into a thymiaterion (incense burner); an androgynous figure in the center wears a rayed crown; the woman on the right plays a tortoise-shell lyre. From a late 1st century BCE Roman house on the Esquiline Hill. Rome: Vatican Museums.
• Wedding procession painted on a terracotta urn. Four women are pictured: the mother at left (?), pronuba at right (?), musician with drum and the anxious-looking veiled bride in the center. The bride wears a special garment for the ceremony called the tunica recta or regilla, traditionally woven in one piece on an upright loom. The urn was made for a tomb. Centuripe, 3-2 century BCE. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Funerary Altar, marble, lided, once containing a cinerary urn and perhaps an identifying inscription painted in the empty band (tabula ansata) above the couple. It is elaborately decorated on four sides with symbols (garlands, flowers, birds, seal animals) and architecturally framed scenes from a wedding; front: portrait of a citizen couple (she, mature, in stola and palla, he in toga) clasping right hands; right: two camilli walk toward the couple on the front panel bearing gifts, a cock, incense box/cinerary urn, patera, and urseus; left: two camilli walk toward the couple on the front panel carrying a parasol and basket of fruit; incised on back: two maenads, each with thyrsos and tympanum, dance around a flaming altar. (Claudian) 40-50 CE. Rome, Museo Nazionale delle Terme.
• Dressing the bride: one of a series of wall frescoes describing a ritual preparation for marriage (or, some scholars believe, for initiation into a religious cult). A female attendant begins the special arrangement of the bride's hair, while beside the seated bride Eros holds up a mirror in which her face is reflected. The bride wears a saffron-colored gown, bound with a cloth belt perhaps tied in a Herakles knot; she wears yellow sandals, jewelry, and has a transparent veil wrapped around her and resting on her lap (detail). The final frame of the mural shows the Domina, possibly the noblewoman Istacidia Rufilla, a pulic priestess, whose family is thought to have owned the Villa of the Mysteries earlier; she is fully draped in her palla, seated on a throne, displaying her wedding ring detail. Triclinium, Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, mid-1st century CE. Photos by Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, Brandeis University, 2009.
• Bridal procession: a mosaic showing Philonoe about to wed Bellerophon; though they are characters from Greek mythology, the scene reflects a Roman wedding. The shy bride, assisted by her mother or a pronuba, is dressed in a saffron tunic with a wedding wreath hovering symbolically over her head. The groom stands on the right holding Pegasus, the winged horse. Between them stands Philonoe's father, Iobates, king of Lycia. Roman Tunisia. From the "House of the Nymphs." 4th century CE. Nabeul Archaeological Museum.
• Marble panel: relief of a marriage scene showing a veiled bride, followed by the pronuba, clasping hands (dextrarum iunctio) with the groom before an flaming altar; on the left a huge male carries a sacrificial bull on his shoulder, on the right a maenad dances. Rome: Vatican, Bracchio Nuovo.
• Cameo relief in layered Onyx, depicting the wedding of Eros and Psyche. Roman. Detail of the couple. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Hairstyle and Costume of the Roman Bride: recreation researched and enacted by Janet Stephens (2013).

Symbolic Conjugal Pledge: Iunctio Dextrarum

• Relief of a prominent but unknown bride and groom in civic dress. They clasp hands before a small blazing altar and the Pronuba, here a personification of the goddess Concordia, on the front of a striated marble sarcophagus. They are surrounded by female personifications dressed in the stola of the married woman, wearing the Hercules-knotted belt: to the left are Portus and Annona; to the right are the Genius of the Senate, Abundantia, and Africa. Found on Rome's Via Latina, 270-80 CE. Rome: Massimo Museum.
• Tombstone relief of a couple with joined right hands, symbolic of their marriage (see gold betrothal/wedding ring depicting clasped right hands, 3rd century CE); marble, in the shape of a niche. At their heads two cupids hold floral garlands. The bearded husband looks at the viewer, holding in his left hand a scroll (the wedding contract?) while his wife, gazing at him, holds a pomegranate (a symbol of fertility often found at weddings) in her left hand draped affectionately on his shoulder. Their (promised?) boy child clings to his mother's leg. 2nd-3rd century CE. Ostia Museum.
• Sarcophagus Relief in marble; the veiled bride's right wrist is grasped in the veiled groom's right hand as he holds a scroll (the marriage contract?) in his left hand; between them a nude male child holds the wedding torch. On the corners are statues of the wife and husband in later years. c. 240 CE. Munich, Glyptothek.
• Marble relief of a couple in civic dress on their sarcophagus. The bride's head is veiled and her right wrist is grasped by the groom's right hand, while he holds a scroll (the marriage contract?) in his left hand. Roman, 3rd Century CE. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.
• Cinerary urn in marble for Helius Afinianus, dedicated by his wife. He is dressed in a toga, holding a scroll; she wears a stola and palla. They stand in front of open doors, holding hands before an altar in dextrarum iunctio. Inscription: D[is] M[anibus] HELIO AFIN[iano] PUB[lico] AUG[urum] SEXTIA PSYCHE CONIUGI B[ene] M[erenti] [fecit]. Rome, 2nd century CE. Berlin, Pergamon Museum.
• Cinerary urn in marble made by Sextus Allidius Symphorus for himself, his wife, Allidia Hymnis, their son, Sextus Allidius Hymenaeus, and his sister, Allidia Atticila (inscription), showing the freed couple in citizen dress at their wedding. 120-150 CE. CIL VI.6828. Copenhagen, NY Carlsberg Museum.
• Sarcophagus Lid of Proconnesian marble in high relief of a veiled bride and bearded groom clasping right hands (dextrarum iunctio); he holds a scroll, perhaps the marriage contract, in his left hand; the pronuba stands between and behind them; a young man (adult offspring? witness?) stands beside the groom. 160-80 CE (partly restored in the 18th century). London, British Museum.
• Ritual relief: in the center panel of a veined marble sarcophagus the veiled bride and the groom in civic dress stand joining hands (damaged) before crowned Juno Pronub; a young daughter stands at their feet between them. Below Psyche and Eros sit facing each other. Long wave patterns separate the central pagan reliefs from Old and New Testament scenes on the left and right. Imperial/christian period. Rome, Vatican Museum (Christian).
• Portrait relief on a marble funerary altar set up by Claudia Prepontis for her patron and herself (inscription). Dionysius, himself probably a freedman, may have owned Prepontis. Although both wear the toga and palla of the Roman citizen and are portrayed in dextrarum iunctio, it is possible they had only a de facto marriage, either because he had not freed Prepontis legally or only later in his will (see their funerary plaque in the World of Class). CIL 6.15003. 1st Century CE. Rome, Gregoriano Profano, Vatican Museums.
• Funerary Altar in marble, with a relief of Julia Saturnina wearing a stola and her husband in a toga, dextrarum iunctio; below their portrait busts is a dedication; the sides are richly carved: (left; right). 130 CE. ( CIL VI.20667) Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
• Couple clasping right hands (damaged) in marriage before a pronuba, detail of the relief frieze on the front of a marble biographical sarcophagus. Rome, 160-80 CE. Los Angeles, County Museum of Art (LACMA).
• Bridal couple carved in high relief on the right side of the large marble Sarcophagus of the Brothers are in dextrarum iunctio (damaged). The nupta is being crowned by a female identified as Venus Felix (Cupid floats in the backgreound). The damaged figure, whose jaw and hand on the bride's left shoulder are alone visible, should be the pronuba. The bare-torsoed male beside the groom holding a cornucopia has been identified as the Genius of the Roman People. Roman, c. 260 CE. Naples, National Archaeological Museum.
• Relief of a veiled bride, carved with her cloaked back to the viewer, and a groom in elite civic dress, in dextrarum iunctio (damaged) on the central panel of a marble sarcophagus that once bore 3 scenes: a muse as witness on the left and a Greek philosopher as witness on the right. Two half-figures of boys hold symbols of fertility and prosperity. Roman. Mid 3rd century CE. Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
• Harmony in marriage is portrayed on a brass sestertius of Antoninus Pius: the emperor stands clasping the hand of his wife, Faustina the Elder. She holds a scepter, he a statuette of the goddess Concordia. Below them are smaller figures of their daughter Faustina the Younger and her husband Marcus Aurelius, clasping right hands over an altar. Inscribed: CONCORDIAE. Rome mint, 142 CE. Naples, National Archaeological Museum.
• Sestertius of Antoninus Pius, portraying two couples of the imperial family (Antoninus & Faustine Maior; Marcus Aurelius & Faustina Minor) clasping right hands before an altar. Antoninus holds a statuette of Condordia while his wife holds a scepter. Inscribed: CONCORDIAE S(enatus) C(onsulto). Rome, 140-4 CE. Berlin: Bode Museum.

Coniuges

• Portrait busts of a family of three in relief on a marble tombstone: the parents in civic dress, clasping right hands, are beside a veiled young woman, probably their unmarried daughter. No inscription. 40-30 BCE. Rome, Altemps Museum.
• Funerary relief in marble of a couple both former slaves of and freed by Publius Aiedius; the young woman and a much older man wear citizen's dress and clasp their right hands as in their marriage. Inscription: P[UBLIUS] AIEDIVS P[UBLI] L[IBERTUS] AMPHIO; AEIDIA P[UBLI] L[IBERTA] FAVSTA MELIOR. found on Via Appia, Rome, c. 30 BCE. Berlin, Pergamon Museum.
• Marble Tombstone: portraits of a couple in their later years (top) and earlier at their marriage (below) in the dextrarum iunctio pose; dedicated by their child(ren). Inscriptions between their portraits: (left) TVRPILLAE M[arci] F[iliae] / TERTIAE / MATRI (right) C[aio] ACVTIO / C[aii] F[ilio] / PATRI. From Aquileia. Mid 1st century CE. Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
• Couple facing each other on a terra-cotta roundel. Inscription: IN SE SENESCATES (read senescatis; May you grow old together). Roman, c. 330-60 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Fresco of the married couple perhaps at their wedding, from the reception room in the villa of P. Fannius Synistor. Boscoreale, 50-40 BCE. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Couple depicted on a marble sarcophagus in a central rondel, holding an instrument and surrounded by winged boy figures and images of floral and faunal fertility (see below the couple a recumbent female--goddess Italia?-- with cornucopia and twins). 2nd-3rd century CE. Ostia Museum.
• Funerary Relief in marble of Aurelius Hermia and his wife Aurelia Philematio, one of earliest to commemorate legitimate marriage between freedpeople; they are portrayed as Roman citizens (see text in WRW, pp. 46-47). From tomb on Via Nomentana, c. 80 BCE. London, British Museum.
• Funerary altar in marble dedicated to Primigenia and Diogenes, probably freedpersons, who had lived together 47 years, by their freedpersons and slaves (inscription). The opulent reliefs echo Augustan monuments: garlands, birds, ram's heads, eagle (side 1 with traditional jug for libations; side 2 with patera). Julio-Claudian period (14-68 CE). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Tombstone in marble containing portrait images of the couple within garlanded niches and an inscription below for Antistia Plutia, freedwoman, and her husband Lucius Antistius Sarculo, a member of the Salian order of priests who opened and closed the military campaign season, dedicated by their freedmen in recognition of the merit of their patrons. Rome, 30-10 BCE. London: British Museum.
• Tombstone carved in high relief on marble containing full-length portraits of a young woman and her older husband. From Via Statilia. 2nd quarter of 1st Century BCE. Rome: Museo Montemartini.
• Carpentum: Etruscan alabaster cinerary urn with relief on front of a couple reclining in a covered wagon (carpentum) on their way to the underworld, surrounded by mourners. From Volterra, 100-50 BCE. London, British Museum.
• Relief on a sarcophagus lid (full view) of the deceased woman sitting on a lectus with her husband, while their pet dog looks on. The harmony of their marriage is shown by her arm on his shoulder and his offer of fruit, probably a pomegranate. The dog and pomegranate visually link this earthly couple to the harmonious rulers of the Underworld. Mid 2nd century CE. Rome, Palazzo Nuovo (Capitoline Museums).
• Couple on a marble grave plaque intended for an outdoor monument which would have contained their names. Probably freedpersons with Augustan hairstyles. Roman, 13 BCE-5 CE. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Veiled woman rests her hand on the arm of a bearded man holding a scroll; their busts are placed on a seashell in the central medallion of a marble sarcophagus relief; around them are scenes from the Old Testament and the New. From the cemetary of St. Calixtus, 325-350 CE. Rome, Vatican Museum (Christian).
• Funerary stele for Papinia Felicitas, inscribed with high praise for her virtue by her husband, T. Flavius Flavianus (CIL VI.23773). Rome: Vatican Museum (Chiaramonte).
• Cinerary altars, matching, for Petronia Sabina and by her will for her husband, Marcus Natronius Rusticus, secretary of the Quaestors and Head of their Decuria. (CIL VI.1820). First half of 1st century CE. Found at the Porta Capena. Rome, Terme Diocleziano.
• Marble Altar with rich carving, inscribed by Valeria Spes for herself and her husband, Marcus Valerius Carus. (CIL VI.28277). Found on the Via Appia. 1-2nd century CE. Rome, Terme Diocleziano.
• Funerary tablet in marble for Severa Seleuciane and her husband Aurelius Sabutius; they lived together 17 years before the death of one of them 10 years prior. In the upper corner is a drawing of a shuttle and upright loom, symbols of her virtue as a materfamilias (or of their trade as weavers). The dedicator is unnamed. 279 CE (Gordon III.302). Rome, Capitoline Museums.
• Laudatio Turiae: fragment of the opening lines of a long inscription containing a funerary eulogy by a husband in praise of his wife (possibly named Turia), who saved his life during the proscriptions (see text in WRW, pp. 42-45). Roman, 8-2 BCE. Rome, Terme Diocleziano.
• Marble altar for Cominia Tyche, dedicated with affection to his pious, chaste 27 year old wife by Gaius Lucius Festus, also for himself and their children (inscription; CIL VI.16054). Roman, 90-100 CE. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Portrait heads on a marble tombstone of a freedman couple. Inscribed: A[ulus] PINARIVS A[uli] L[ibertus] ANTEROS OPPIA C[aiae] L[iberta] MYRSINE. Mid to late Augustan period. CIL 6.24190. Rome, Altemps Museum.
• Funerary tondo in marble of relief busts of a couple: she gazes at him with one hand on his chest and her arm around his shoulders, her gown having slipped off one shoulder (a pose reminiscent of Venus); her husband is in an elite citizen toga, holding a small scroll (their marriage contract?). 250-270 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.