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Veiling the Late Roman House John W. Stephenson The period of late antiquity, c. AD 200–500, saw a dramatic increase in the social, political and religious significance of domestic textiles, as is revealed in references in literature and art, as well as in the finds of archaeological textiles in Roman Egypt. This paper explores the roles of textiles, particularly hangings and curtains, in such domestic settings in the late Roman period from a social perspective — how they served the increased concerns with privacy, visibility, mystery, boundaries and shifting gender relations that are amply attested in late Roman culture. I argue that, alongside more permanent forms of permeable boundaries, textiles were exploited for their unique inherent qualities in order to serve diverse needs in the late Roman house, and filled a central role in late Roman domestic life that was more far significant than their scant remains suggest today. Draperies were no substitute [in the late Roman house], no mere convenient alternative to walls and doors, but key elements of architectural design. The sacred significance of curtains had a great influence on the way they were used; it took less audacity to open a door than to raise a drawn curtain. 1 Introduction This paper explores the roles of textiles in domestic architectural settings in the late Roman period from a social perspective, examining how they served the increased concerns with privacy, visibility, mystery, boundaries and shifting gender relations that are amply attested at this period. 2 Until relatively recently, the study of these textiles has been limited chiefly to issues of iconography, chronology and technique. In addressing late Roman domestic textiles, especially curtains and hangings, in terms of their func- tions, spatial contexts of use and social significance, the present study contributes to an emerging area of research. 3 While textiles had long played a crucial role in ancient Mediterranean life, the period of late antiquity (c. ad 200–500) saw a dramatic increase in the social, political and religious significance of domestic textiles, revealed by refer- ences in literature and art as well as by archaeological textiles from Roman Egypt. 4 This was also a time of sweeping social change when Mediterranean cultures experienced a hardening and steepening social hierarchy, the divinisation of authority and shifting concepts of the body, gender and privacy. 5 Concealment and boundary setting are recog- nised as features of late Roman culture in general. 6 However, such concerns were aug- mented by the rise of Christianity among the élite during the fourth century and beyond. In fifth-century Gaul, Bishop Sidonius Apollinaris recalled that, in the villa of his friend Consentius, ‘we were pleased to go to baths fittingly provided for privacy and modesty’. 7 Textile History, 45 (1), 3–31, May 2014 © Pasold Research Fund Ltd 2014 DOI: 10.1179/0040496914Z.00000000035

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Page 1: Veiling the Late Roman House

Veiling the Late Roman House

John W. Stephenson

The period of late antiquity, c. AD 200–500, saw a dramatic increase in the social, political and religious significance of domestic textiles, as is revealed in references in literature and art, as well as in the finds of archaeological textiles in Roman Egypt. This paper explores the roles of textiles, particularly hangings and curtains, in such domestic settings in the late Roman period from a social perspective — how they served the increased concerns with privacy, visibility, mystery, boundaries and shifting gender relations that are amply attested in late Roman culture. I argue that, alongside more permanent forms of permeable boundaries, textiles were exploited for their unique inherent qualities in order to serve diverse needs in the late Roman house, and filled a central role in late Roman domestic life that was more far significant than their scant remains suggest today.

Draperies were no substitute [in the late Roman house], no mere convenient alternative

to walls and doors, but key elements of architectural design. The sacred significance of

curtains had a great influence on the way they were used; it took less audacity to open a

door than to raise a drawn curtain.1

Introduction

This paper explores the roles of textiles in domestic architectural settings in the late Roman period from a social perspective, examining how they served the increased concerns with privacy, visibility, mystery, boundaries and shifting gender relations that are amply attested at this period.2 Until relatively recently, the study of these textiles has been limited chiefl y to issues of iconography, chronology and technique. In addressing late Roman domestic textiles, especially curtains and hangings, in terms of their func-tions, spatial contexts of use and social signifi cance, the present study contributes to an emerging area of research.3 While textiles had long played a crucial role in ancient Mediterranean life, the period of late antiquity (c. ad 200–500) saw a dramatic increase in the social, political and religious signifi cance of domestic textiles, revealed by refer-ences in literature and art as well as by archaeological textiles from Roman Egypt.4 This was also a time of sweeping social change when Mediterranean cultures experienced a hardening and steepening social hierarchy, the divinisation of authority and shifting concepts of the body, gender and privacy.5 Concealment and boundary setting are recog-nised as features of late Roman culture in general.6 However, such concerns were aug-mented by the rise of Christianity among the élite during the fourth century and beyond. In fi fth-century Gaul, Bishop Sidonius Apollinaris recalled that, in the villa of his friend Consentius, ‘we were pleased to go to baths fi ttingly provided for privacy and modesty’.7

Textile History, 45 (1), 3–31, May 2014

© Pasold Research Fund Ltd 2014 DOI: 10.1179/0040496914Z.00000000035

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This is a very different attitude toward bodily exposure than that revealed in the practice of Roman communal bathing in previous centuries and partly refl ects a Christian dis-approval of the exposed body. Leslie Dossey has argued that the subdivision and closure witnessed in many late Roman houses arises chiefl y out of this new attitude toward nudity and exposure, even within the familia (extended family).8 The domestic scene was a primary site for the negotiation of these changes because the élite Roman house often served a unique role as both a ‘private’ refuge for the familia and a semi-public venue for the social rituals of the patronus (patron).9 Social change was manifest in domestic architecture of this period in closure, subdivision and view blocking within houses, revealing not only an inward turning concern for privacy but also an outwardly directed interest in mystery, drama and grandiosity as patrons appeared before clients and amici (friends) in ever more impressive and carefully staged interior settings.10 A tension is thus evident in competing goals regarding privacy and display within the late Roman house as in wider society. Taylor Lauritsen observes that ‘the key to understand-ing this dichotomy (private dwelling vs. socio-cultural status symbol) lies in an under-studied feature of domestic architecture — the permeable boundary’.11 I argue that, alongside the more permanent (and preserved) forms of permeable boundaries (screens, shutters, doors, vestibules) discovered in late houses, domestic textiles served critical functions which only careful study of disparate forms of evidence can recover. Textiles’ changeability and impermanence, ability to transmit or block light and air and potential both to reveal or conceal made them an essential tool in constructing interiors suited to late Roman practices. As important was the wider and longstanding constellation of cultural and ritual signifi cances of textiles in the ancient Mediterranean which had informed their central roles in religious and political settings — roles which were becom-ing more formalised and laden with meaning in late antiquity. Beginning with an intro-duction to the uses of textiles as curtains and hangings in late Roman houses, I proceed to a discussion of the wider signifi cance of textiles in late antique society. An appraisal of the material evidence follows, including the archaeological textiles from Roman Egypt which demonstrate the range of types, materials and iconography. The problematic issue of identifying criteria for assigning the functions of curtains and hangings to the preserved textiles is examined before considering evidence for textile use in specifi c late Roman domestic settings. Focusing on these ephemeral furnishings leads to a view of late Roman interior design that departs from the picture developed from a traditional emphasis only on fi xed, permanent structures in the house. Finally, the roles of textiles in relation to the gendered spaces of the late Roman house are discussed, addressing issues involving gender in domestic settings and examining metaphorical equivalencies in contemporary literature and art which framed the use of textiles as a form of veiling. I conclude that textiles had a considerable role in these interlocking social spheres and one which was much greater than is immediately evident in the archaeological record of their ephemeral presence.

The Role of Textiles in the Elite House

The late Roman townhouse or freestanding villa was not complete without an abun-dance of textiles. In a dining room at the recently discovered fourth-century villa of El Ruedo, southern Spain, the typical curving stibadium (dining couch) is preserved only

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John W. Stephenson

in masonry while the room’s walls and fl oor present surfaces of marble, brick and con-crete (Fig. 1). Although the remains of textiles are scant or absent in most excavations, we must envision the effect of those colourful products of women’s looms and weavers’ shops when seeking to reconstruct the original state of such hard, cold interiors. The fi fth-century Bishop Sidonius Apollinaris evokes the very different contemporary effect of such a late Roman setting:

Bring the curving couch red with fine linen, bring the gleaming purple . . . to enrich the

absorbent fleece with the purest tint. Let these imported furnishings show in embroidery

the hills of Ctesiphon and Persia, and beasts rushing over the roomy cloth . . . Let the

curved table show linen fairer than snow.12

Around the couch with its fi gured tapestries and cushions, we can envision hangings covering walls, curtains in doorways and between columns with carpets on fl oors (Fig. 2). Just as the enlivening effects of the elaborate water features constructed in late Roman villas are lost to us today, so the impression on contemporary visitors of an interior thus adorned with textiles is recovered only with much effort.13

Bettina Bergmann imagines a visit to the Roman villa of Oplontis:

The person in the expansive atrium, with its open compluvium [roof opening] above pour-

ing light onto the reflecting water of the enormous impluvium [pool] below, must have

sensed the air rushing in, heard and seen the hangings billowing, and witnessed the chang-

ing light. Such effects would make the structure seem to breathe, breaking down the nor-

mal function of architecture as a firmly bounded enclosure to become an interconnected,

organic part of the wider living environment.14

The varied evidence indicates that textiles were used to cover doorways, subdivide rooms, close arcades between columns, as wall hangings and awnings and to cover

Fig. 2. Hypothetical reconstruction of the stibadium (couch) in use. Dining room, fourth century ad, Villa of El Ruedo, southern Spain. Digital interpretation by the author.

Fig. 1. A typical curving masonry stiba-dium (couch) which would originally have been covered with tapestries and cushions. Dining room, fourth century ad, Villa of El Ruedo, southern Spain. Photograph by the author.

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furnishings such as chairs, couches and beds.15 Late Roman textiles have a great visual appeal as colourful, aesthetically powerful objects, often displaying a rich and varied iconography, and their tactile qualities and ability to moderate temperature and light were valuable additions to the comfort and ambience of interiors. Moreover, when textile curtains and hangings served as adjustable screens and ephemeral, moveable boundaries, they became ideal tools to regulate privacy and visibility in the home.16 As a complement to the fi xed boundaries of the house, arresting sight lines and even channelling movement and limiting access, these semi-penetrable ‘membranes’ could contribute to the organisation of the house as a complex social space. Although domes-tic textile use was not limited to the upper class,17 the public nature of the Roman house pertains chiefl y to the élite house, defi ned by Vitruvius as a stage for the enactment of public social rituals.18 A married couple and their children usually resided within a much larger familia which might coexist with a diverse gathering of daily visitors. The nature of the guests, events and settings could change signifi cantly during each day.19 This dynamic situation was governed in part by temporal considerations in which different parts of the house became the focus at different times: from the early morning salutatio (greeting with clients) when clients saluted the enthroned patronus in an apsidal basilica to the evening convivium (banquet) among friends in an apsed triclinium (dining room).20 Curtains and hangings might shield the core family members from the prying bustle of these passing throngs or enhance the drama of a patronal appearance. Thanks to the pictorial nature of many late antique textiles, what concealed could also reveal when their brightly hued images created an inviting or impressive setting or displayed the ideals and pretensions of the patron to guests.

The Significance of Textiles in Late Roman Society

Discussing textiles in late Roman houses in North Africa, Yvon Thébert observes that ‘the sacred signifi cance of curtains had a great infl uence on the way they were used; it took less audacity to open a door than to raise a drawn curtain’.21 How could this be? As the house was but one of a web of settings in which late antique society was enacted and constituted, a view of the wider meanings of textiles in the late Empire underscores their roles in domestic settings. We know that textiles became weighted with a heavy burden of meaning, allowing them to fi ll a role in some of those social features peculiar to this period: an urge to conceal, mystify, divinise and obfuscate and yet to reveal, to create spectacle and visual display.22 Late Roman dress fashions, with their brightly hued segmenta (borders) and yards of linen, wool and silk, concealed and created barriers between individual and the world while presenting the self as a striking objet d’art (Fig. 3). The veil (palla, velum), associated with pudor (modesty) and chastity but also with status and religion, was an essential part of Roman women’s attire from the Republican period and had become a key element by the late Roman period (Fig. 4).23 The later surge in the use of the veil, especially among Christian women, is discussed below. The point here is the complex dialectic represented by veiling and unveiling in Roman culture.24

The aura of gravitas (dignity) that surrounds textiles in late antiquity relates in part to their growing value in the imagery and practice of ritual arising from their inherent potential both to conceal and reveal, in their porosity and suggestions of immateriality

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John W. Stephenson

but also to their decorated surfaces. These gave rise to a similar matrix of associations whether in pagan or Christian rituals or in those of patronal and imperial power. This enhanced role of textiles may be viewed in the light of what has been called ‘desecu-larisation’, described by Guy Métraux as ‘a process of investing meaning even holy signifi cance into ordinary objects, including clothing’.25 But textiles also demonstrate a series of parallels in Roman culture between domestic ritual and public cult and their uses in late antiquity reveal a society in which the categories of public and private as well as sacred and secular were evolving and intermixing.26

In pagan ritual, curtains may appear before a cult image or a cloth may cover a sacred symbol, such as the liknon (Bacchic mystery basket) depicted in the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii (Fig. 5). Here, a young initiate tentatively lifts the covering to reveal a powerful object which she may have seen too soon as she may be whipped in the next scene. The appearance of a closed curtain, cloth or veil signals the potential of its open-ing and a mystery whose revelation demands the transgression of its parting. The importance of curtains in Christian, Hebrew and Islamic ritual and symbolism arises fi rst from the role of cloth in concealing what is most sacred. Cloth veils were crucial and highly signifi cant coverings in both the Holy of Holies in the Temple of the Jews and the holy Kaaba at Mecca where the kiswa (pall) continues to be woven anew at each

Fig. 4. Veiled woman. Detail from fresco, fourth century, Aula Palatina, Trier, Germany.Wikimedia public domain image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dame-Schmuckkasten-Trier.jpg.

Fig. 3. The dominus (lord of the estate). Detail from the Great Hunt mosaic, fourth century ad, Villa of Piazza Armerina, Sicily, Italy.Photograph by the author.

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Haaj. A miniature from a seventh-century manuscript of the Pentateuch hints at the plethora of textiles that could adorn early Christian basilicas, showing them hung between columns to close colonnades, separating catechumens from the faithful and clergy from the congregation or concealing altar tables (Fig. 6).27

Textual sources such as the Liber Pontifi calis give detailed catalogues of hangings and curtains which emperors and popes often donated by the hundreds to the churches of Rome.28 Late Roman and Byzantine visual art often depicts the motif of curtains opened between columns to create a sacred space and a stage for an epiphany (Fig. 7). Curtains

Fig. 5. Lifting the liknon. Detail from fresco, c. 50 bc, Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, Italy.Wikimedia public domain image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Villa_dei_Misteri_VII_-_2.jpg.

Fig. 6. Depiction of the Tabernacle in a seventh-century Christian basilica. Ashburne Pentateuch manuscript, Biblio-thèque Nationale, Paris, BN lat. 2334, XVIII, folio 76a.Wikimedia public domain image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashburn-PenatuchtFolio076r-MosesReceivingLaw.jpg.

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John W. Stephenson

may denote the ultimate boundary: the sixth-century mosaic at San Vitale church, Ravenna shows the richly attired Empress Theodora approaching a darkened doorway with the curtain held by an attendant (Fig. 8). If this doorway stands for the threshold of the church, it may also be a (veiled) reference to the Empress’ recent demise and her journey to another realm — the curtain standing for ‘the veil . . . between this life and the next’.29

The complex rites and imagery of late Roman and Byzantine imperial ceremony fully exploit the joining of such religious and political overtones as in an ivory carving of a Byzantine empress facing the viewer between parted curtains (Fig. 9).30 Curtains increase the majesty of the apparition of a person or an image, enhancing the spectacu-lar as theatre curtains do; the frontality typical of late antique style works naturally with this framing mode. The vast doorway to the throne room in the palace at Constanti-nople was covered with curtains, as were the spaces between arcades and the baldachin over the throne, creating a theatrical setting in which the emperor appeared to the court and petitioners.31 At the appointed moment in the prokypsis (ritual appearance) ritual, these curtains were suddenly lifted and lights were raised, revealing the emperor’s visage in a divine epiphany as a living icon.32 Christian churches early adopted such a curtain, a secretum (from Latin sēcrētus, meaning hidden, secret), in their apse furnishings which featured a raised platform supporting a curtained altar and throne. Yet, such curtains appeared fi rst in the élite house framing an enthroned patron, and in the apsidal triclinium in which the earliest Christian rituals, including the Eucharist, were performed.33 The strands of infl uence and meaning in such practices, between public and private, sacred and political, are wholly intertwined.34

Fig. 8. The Byzantine Empress Theodora. Mosaic, c. ad 547, San Vitale church, Ravenna, Italy.Wikimedia public domain image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Theodora_mosaik_ravenna.jpg.

Fig. 7. Melchizedek, Abraham and Abel. Mosaic, sixth century, Basilica of Sant’Apo-llinare, Classe, Ravenna, Italy.Wikimedia public domain image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sacrific_classe.jpg.

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Textiles and Ritual in the Domestic Sphere

In a sermon by Saint Augustine (ad 354–430), curtains in an élite house stand as a trope for the initiate’s entry into the Christian mystery:

Honour in Him what as yet you understand not, and all the more as the vela which you

see are more in number: for the higher in honour one is, the more curtains are suspended

in his house. Curtains make that which is kept secret honoured, and to those who honour,

the curtains are lifted up; but those who mock at the curtains . . . are driven away from

even approaching them. For then we turn unto Christ, and the veil is taken away.35

While confi rming the role of textiles as an index of wealth in the late Roman house, Augustine associates the secular power ‘behind the curtain’ with the layered mysteries of Christian revelation. His use of the term velum suggests the conceptual relations

Fig. 9. The Empress Ariadne in a curtained baldachin. Byzantine ivory, sixth century. Bargello Museum, Florence, inv. no. 24c.Wikimedia public domain image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Imp%C3%A9ratrice_Ariane.jpg.

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John W. Stephenson

between women’s veiling and the roles of hangings in late houses. A hint of domestic

discord in Augustine’s metaphor alludes to the uneasy interactions that could unfold

between patrons and clients in domestic receptions.36 The specifi c setting of Augustine’s

metaphor must be the audience chamber of the patron: in the late Empire, this hall was

often a large, impressive, dimly lit apsidal basilica, culminating in a raised platform

where the patron sat enthroned — behind a curtain (Fig. 10). Such a setting was a

domestic version of the kind of imperial throne room described at Constantinople and

curtains were used in an analogous manner. The edicts of the imperial laws in the

Theodosian Code (ad 364) show that judges ruling from their houses were secluded

in such chambers by a secretum, a curtain that was lifted to signal the acceptance of

petitioners. The Code decreed that, under penalty of death, ‘the chamber curtain of the

judge shall not be for sale; entrance shall not be gained by purchase, the private council

chamber shall not be infamous on account of bribes’.37 Here the curtain stands as a

symbol of the powerful role of the magistrate himself and of the implications of abuse

in the uneven balance of power that curtains could facilitate through concealment. Thus

the decree points to one role of textiles in the house: enabling surveillance, the ability to

be concealed while others are exposed — a prerogative and position of power.38 The

private basilica was just one setting in a late Roman house where textiles served both

privacy and revelation; other contexts of display are discussed below.

Fig. 10. Hypothetical recon-struction of the private basilica with the seated figure of the patronus and a petitioning client, fourth century. Villa of Maternus, Carranque, (Toledo), Spain.Digital interpretation by the author.

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The Egyptian Textiles — Technique, Functions, Iconography

The evidence for textile use in Roman houses comes chiefl y from three sources: refer-ences in literature, images in visual art and from archaeological textiles themselves. Poor circumstances of preservation have led to a dearth of Roman era textiles in domestic excavations in most regions of the Empire. By far the richest corpus of Roman material comes from Egypt, where thousands of pieces, many dating to the late Roman period, have survived in the desert environment. Here they have most frequently been preserved in contexts of re-use as shrouds in burials and from rubbish tips in ancient cities like Panopolis (Akhmim), Oxyrhynchos and Antinoopolis.39 Spectacular discoveries since the late nineteenth century have brought these textiles to light, and to the market and museums of the world. They are often identifi ed collectively as ‘Coptic’ textiles, a problematic terminology that implies a Christian religious interpretation and Egyptian manufacture, neither of which describes all of the material since many pieces depict pagan themes and some are likely to be imports.40 Through their iconography, these textiles served as an important medium in which a pagan identity was proclaimed into a relatively late period while also refl ecting the kinds of complex interweavings of pagan, Christian and Islamic themes that are discovered in other media.41

Roman hangings and curtains were usually woven with a linen warp and a fi ne wool weft which, among other benefi ts, accepts dye far better than linen.42 They were usually woven in a tapestry technique although other techniques, including pile weaving, can be found and materials may include silk and gold threads.43 Identifying the specifi c func-tions of these textiles is problematic and often inconclusive, as the majority are preserved in fragments and similar rectangular shapes were employed for tunics and scarves as well as for furnishings while decorative motifs were common to textiles with varied func-tions.44 The identifi cation of a textile as either a wall-hanging or a free-hanging curtain is aided in the rare instance that holes or sewn hanging loops from its original installa-tion are preserved in the top edge, as in a hanging from Sheikh Shata, Egypt.45 Another hanging system involved a thick cord sewn into the upper border, creating regularly spaced loops for mounting on a rod.46 Depictions of curtains and the discovery of fi ttings show that curtains could be strung from rings on rods as well as from hooks, confi rmed in fi nds such as a hook in the form of a fi nger with a projecting cross dating from the sixth century or later.47 Similar fi nger-shaped hooks are preserved above the narthex doors in the Church of Hagia Sophia (Fig. 11).

Scholars disagree on the criteria for identifying ancient curtains and, in fact, much uncertainty pertains to this critical issue. Sabine Schrenk believes that a curtain should be woven in a relatively thin and fl exible material, most often (but not always) in a vertical, rectangular format, with decoration in a loose but evenly distributed pattern, sometimes with large undecorated portions, and ideally clearly visible on both sides.48 Based on the latter criterion, a class of so-called resist-dyed hangings, such as the Abegg-Stiftung’s enormous Artemis hanging, are good candidates for identifi cation as curtains: along with their relative thinness, the resist-dyed technique produces a pattern which is equally legible on both sides.49 Schrenk argues that the Artemis hanging is likely to be a curtain or room divider, despite its surprising proportions.50 At six metres long, its dimensions appear to break expectations for size and verticality. On the other

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hand, Marie-Helene Rutschowscaya discusses a group of textiles discovered at Antinoo-polis which seem to conform to expectations of readability as they were woven on the draw loom in repeating patterns that produce an identical, readable, if reversed, pattern on the back.51 However, these pieces seem to have been created with the original function of cushions for the deceased in burial rather than as curtains.52 The issue of two-sided visibility is a vexed one that is little addressed in scholarly literature. Tapestry technique usually produces one properly visible side while the reverse is crowded with knots and other evidence of the production process. However, some tapestries are woven with hidden knots and yarn ends concealed while others are decorated with decorative elements sewn onto the surface so there is no ‘bad’ side. This technique became more common in late antiquity.53 Eunice Maguire observes that:

one possibility is that two curtains hung back to back in a doorway, since the tapestry-

weave that most supposed curtains feature is generally not equally presentable from either

side — much as the twill tapestry that enriched Kashmir shawls was essentially meant to

be seen from the ‘front’ — so that there was a custom of wearing two of these very thin

shawls, back to back.54

I suggest that in settings with a strongly favoured direction of viewing, such as on the main axis of visitor entry into the villa and its reception spaces, curtains may have presented only one primary viewing side. A possibly analogous approach is discovered in Roman fl oor mosaics where designers created fi gural scenes with one optimal viewing

Fig. 11. Finger-shaped curtain hooks above the narthex doors, sixth century. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.Photograph by the author.

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angle which was carefully oriented with regard to primary fl ows of pedestrian move-ment.55 Another problematic issue in identifying curtains concerns the expectation of decoration in small-scale repeating motifs, based on the assumption that large-scale compositions would be obscured if the curtains were pulled and bunched. As contem-poraneous sources are silent on the question, evidence comes from depictions of hang-ings in ancient art. These often show such small repeating motifs on curtains. A hanging identifi ed as a curtain in the Royal Ontario Museum seems to correspond with this criterion, with its small alternating riders and running animals between stylised trees (Fig. 12).56

Though the hanging conforms to expectations of verticality and perhaps size (at 3.55 m wide, it would cover a large opening), once again the reverse is not properly readable. However, as Schrenk has demonstrated, curtains are sometimes depicted in art with large-scale compositions, including fi gures and animals.57 The Abegg-Stiftung’s Artemis hanging, with its large-scale fi gural imagery, may be such an example. If we may cautiously add the evidence from existing Coptic churches, where the katapesmata (sanctuary curtains) concealing the sanctuary may display large-scale imagery on their

Fig. 12. Curtain, equestrian hunt design, ad 500–599. Linen and wool; plain and tapestry weave, length 355.5 cm, width 232 cm. Royal Ontario Museum, Walter Massey Collection, ROM2004_1276_1. With permission of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM.

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face, it appears that exceptions might be made to this criterion. The curtain closing the altar and sanctuary at Deir Sitt Demyanah Coptic Monastery in the northern Egyptian Delta has a large central motif (Fig. 13)58 as does a sixth-century hanging, which prob-ably served as a katapatesma before being used as a burial shroud, with a Latin cross, wreath and fl oral motifs (Fig. 14).59

I suggest that curtains could function in a number of settings where they were normally left closed, and thus fully visible from the primary viewing position; note that modern katapatemata may show imagery only from one side and be in stiff, opaque material, both contrary to expected criteria. In these settings, large-scale imagery may have been included. Implicit acceptance of this possibility appears to lie behind the identifi cations of numerous hangings with larger-scale motifs, such as the Sheikh Shata hangings as ‘curtains’ or ‘probable curtains’ in exhibition labels and catalogues.60 The identifi cation of the latter hangings is supported by the discovery of at least four identical hangings together, suggesting a series of curtains adorning the serial interco-lumniations of a peristyle. Similarly, a number of smaller, vertically composed hangings identifi ed as curtains correspond in their dimensions suggesting possible use for covering small or medium doorways and have repeating, medium-scale compartmented designs that relate to those of fl oor mosaics. One such example is a polychrome tapestry of a favourite subject, that of Bacchus, Hercules, and other fi gures in a series of frames, surrounded by a border with animals in tondos (Fig. 15).61 The themes — wild nature and the divine, semi-tame Bacchic universe — are paralleled in decor in other media in houses and villas. In sum, these examples show that much ambiguity and even contradic-tion is encountered in attempts to establish uniform criteria for the identifi cation of textiles as curtains, and that all evidence for a particular textile must be marshalled and balanced in assessing function. They also suggest that we should be cautious not to apply assumptions based on modern usage regarding the specifi cs of curtain display. More work clearly remains to be done in this emerging area of study.

As the Egyptian examples demonstrate, many curtains and hangings could reveal even as they conceal through their bright patterns and fi gured scenes. Textile hangings are distinctive among household furnishings in this respect as they may serve both a functional need to create boundaries, close access or block views into a space and a role in self presentation and identity defi nition through their iconography. Wooden doors (valvae and bifores) were seemingly devoid of imagery, as were other screening systems such as cancella (fi xed screens) and sliding screens. Like the increasingly colourful and voluminous image-bearing attire worn by the élite in late antiquity, these textiles offer up something in exchange for what they may withhold. Their extensive repertory of iconographic motifs expands upon the decorative themes already present in the house and villa, often introducing a narrative dimension and entering into the conversation between nature and culture that begins on the grounds of the peristyle and continues in mosaic, sculpture and painting in the house. The compositions and stylistic trends evident in late Roman textiles are close to those of other media in late antiquity, espe-cially mosaics, book illumination and carved relief.62 Eunice Maguire, using the telling phrase ‘The tunic as wall’, comments on the numerous intentional analogies created between clothing, hangings and architectural contexts in these textiles which may, for instance, depict richly attired fi gures within curtained, arcaded colonnades or façades.63 Indeed, while Tertullian can lament that, in late Roman houses, ‘the Tyrian and the

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Fig. 13. Curtain closing the altar and sanctuary at Deir Sitt Demyanah Coptic Monastery, northern Delta, Egypt. Con-temporary curtain in a church founded in the fifth century.Courtesy Professor Michael Fuller, St Louis Community College, St Louis, MO.

Fig. 14. Curtain, probably sixth century. Linen and wool, plain weave with tapestry patterning, length 1.38 m, width 69 m, Egypt, Coptic.Used by permission of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Centennial Fund: Aimee Mott Butler Charitable Trust, Mr and Mrs John F. Donovan, Estate of Margaret B. Hawks, Eleanor Weld Reid, 83.126.

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Fig. 15. Curtain Panel with Scenes of Merrymaking, 500s. Egypt, Byzantine period, sixth century. Tapestry weave with supplementary weft wrapping; undyed linen and dyed wool; 144.2 × 57.2 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund and Gift of the Textile Art Alliance in memory of Robert P. Bergman, 2000.5.© The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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violet-coloured and grand royal hangings disdainfully replace paintings’, conversely Asterius, Bishop of Amaseia, can complain that women, ‘when they come out in public dressed in this fashion (with clothing displaying images), they appear like painted walls to those they meet’.64

Locations and Uses of Textiles in the House

How and where were curtains and hangings utilised in the specifi c spaces of the late Roman house? This question brings us to the vexed and tantalising issue of evidence in the houses themselves — chiefl y to the lack of it — and to one of the most signifi cant lacunae in the overall study of ancient domestic design. In contrast to the rich body of evidence in the textiles and in artistic depictions and literary references, scant evidence remains in situ of the specifi c placements of hangings in domestic spaces. This is due to several factors including textiles’ ephemeral nature and their common re-use in burials, the insubstantial constructions required for their display, the ruination of domestic interior structures and the haphazard nature of most early excavations. Often the only traces of hangings in late Roman houses are small holes in columns or walls where curtain rods and other fi ttings were originally attached, such as a hole in a peristyle column at the fourth-century villa of Milrue, Portugal (Fig. 16). Excavators have found such traces in North African houses, where cuttings remain in the sides of peristyle columns for the addition of balustrades, trellises and curtains.65 Evidence of curtain screening survives at Ostia in the fourth-century phase of the House of Fortuna Annon-aria, where travertine blocks with sockets are placed between columns in the peristyle in the most ‘public’ corridor before the principle apsidal hall (Fig. 17).66 From here, curtains could perhaps be hung to close the portico and the rest of the house temporar-ily during a reception or banquet in order to provide privacy for the family. This location, closing the portico before an audience hall, is the site of more permanent additional closures in other late period houses, for example in the Spanish villa of Torre Aguila (Merida).67 The better preserved early imperial houses of Pompeii reveal some of the domestic uses of curtains and hangings in the fi rst century. In the Villa of the Mysteries, the rare example of a complete curtain rod with hanging rings is preserved over the doorway to the tablinum (offi ce), the chief setting for the patronal reception ritual of the salutatio in this era (Fig. 18). The discovery of bronze tiebacks for curtains, again in the wide entry from the atrium to the tablinum, in the House of Obellius Firmus appears to confi rm the use of curtains to screen this crucial public staging area of the house. Excavators in the House of Trebius Valens recovered fi ve bronze rings in the doorway of an ala (a wing off the tablinum) which were believed to have been used to hang a curtain.68 In the House of the Craftsman a long iron rod in the wide doorway to the triclinium is thought to have been used to hang a curtain before the door.69 In many excavation reports, such fl eeting evidence goes unremarked. At other times, the sheer absence in houses of permanent provisions for closure, such as door pivots or hardware, indicates the former presence of curtains.70 In a systematic study of doorways in Pompeian houses, Lauritsen found that 174 out of 465 narrow doorways and 23 out of 106 wide doorways showed an absence of provisions for hinged doors, including holes in masonry for metal pivots (cardines) used to hang doors, suggesting that at least some of these openings were fi tted with curtains.71 The effect of such textile screening on

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internal sight-lines has major implications for the long-standing model of the highly visible experience of the élite Roman house. A fully exposed durchblick (‘view through’), from the street entry through the atrium and tablinum to the peristyle at rear has tradi-tionally been understood to be essential to the pictorial aspect of Roman domestic architecture.72 This model has since been developed and accepted with little regard for the ephemeral boundaries once provided by textiles and should thus be reassessed on these grounds.

Late Roman houses and villas tend to be preserved in a much less complete state than the Vesuvian examples and so present additional challenges. The chief evidence for specifi c contexts of domestic textile use in this period thus comes from literature and visual art which do provide much information on how and where textiles were hung. Numerous images of domestic scenes with hangings appear in manuscript illuminations, frescoes, reliefs and mosaics around the Mediterranean. Curtains are frequently depicted covering the open spaces of doors, confi rming the discoveries of fi ttings in doorways at Pompeii (Fig. 18). A pair of knotted curtains is shown partially drawn to close off a corridor in a portico in a mid-fourth-century mosaic in a house at Carthage (Fig. 19).73 This supports Sidonius Apollinaris’s account of closing off a corridor end in his villa in

Fig. 16. A hole cut in a peristyle column, fourth century. Villa of Milrue, Portugal.Photograph by the author.

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Fig. 17. Plan showing bases for curtain support rods, before the reception hall, Domus della Fortuna Annonaria, Ostia, Italy. Drawing by the author, based on J. Boersma, Amoenissima Civitas: Block V.ii at Ostia: Description and Analysis of its Visible Remains (Assen, Netherlands: Thesis Publishers, 1985), p. 144 and fig. 141.

Fig. 18. Curtain rod outside the tablinum, c. 50 bc. Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, Italy.Courtesy of Richard Rutter.

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order to separate waiting clients from the resident family.74 A well-known depiction of curtains appears in a wall mosaic labelled Palatium in the Church of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna (c. ad 500–526) (Fig. 20).75 Here a series of curtains decorated with apparent tapestry ornaments is shown hanging from rods or hooks and partially opened or loosely tied between the columns of nine arches in a columned arcade. While the fl anking columns are hung with single, knotted curtains, the three central arches under the gable are emphasised with larger, paired curtains. The special status of the centre space is indicated by the largest pair of curtains, hung from a beam on hooks and embellished with gold-thread medallions and corner strips.

Although it has been presented as an unambiguous depiction of curtains hanging within an enclosed peristyle, in fact this mosaic has been the subject of heated debate regarding the specifi c structures it depicts — whether this is Theodoric’s palace façade, the gates of the city or an ‘exploded’ view of a columned peristyle within the palace.76 This ambiguity is irrelevant if we consider that, in general, the mosaic depicts the use of curtains to close intercolumniations. Additional evidence from art and literature indicates that the peristyle was an important location of textile display where the open garden or paved court, surrounded by colonnaded galleries, formed the core of the late Roman house and villa (Fig. 21). The peristyle replaces the atrium in the late Roman villas while the apsidal basilica replaces the earlier tablinum. The peristyle is the most fraught and functionally ambiguous area of the late villa as a social space, serving as a primary interface between outside and inside where visitors walking in the transitional spaces of the galleries passed decisively private rooms, such as cubicula and baths, on their way to the more public dining and audience halls. Thébert notes that the late peri-style ‘was the scene of such diverse activities that one is forced to ask how they could have coexisted’.77 Here, the tensions between public and private in late houses can be witnessed being played out by various material means. Textiles are naturally fl exible and moveable adjuncts to the more permanent devices of closure and view blocking discov-ered in late period peristyles, such as inserted walls that create vestibules, cancella screens that reduce light within corridors and visibility across the court and fully bricked-up intercolumniations that block all views and much light.78

Determining which preserved textiles may have hung specifi cally in peristyles is a diffi cult task. For hanging in intercolumniations, textiles can be expected to have a width similar to the spaces between columns, which, however, vary between houses. A number of curtains and hangings themselves incorporate iconography depicting architectural motifs such as paired or multiplied columns, suggesting the likelihood of their use in the columned peristyle where their imagery would resonate with their setting. The large Sheikh Shata curtain depicts paired Corinthian columns surmounted by possible por-traits and is one of a set of at least four pieces suggesting a context of serial display in a peristyle. Considering the Roman predilection for a play between reality and represen-tation in art, it is not surprising that hangings could themselves depict not only other textiles but also colonnades, arcades, screens and other architectural forms.

Textiles and Gender

A fi nal important issue arises in examining the roles of textiles in the late Roman domestic sphere relating to the late Roman house as a gendered space. On the one hand,

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Fig. 19. Mosaic showing curtains in a portico. House of the Triconch, Carthage (Insula XI), Tunisia. Image courtesy of Katherine Dunbabin.

Fig. 20. Palatium mosaic. Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo, c. 500–526. Ravenna, Italy.Wikimedia public domain image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Santapollinarenuovo.JPG/1280px-Santapollinarenuovo.jpg.

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many textiles were created by women working in their houses.79 Roman women since the Republic traditionally spun and wove wool, creating their own and the family’s attire at a loom in the atrium of the house. This activity was so fundamental to a Roman woman’s social identity that she might be depicted spinning on her own tombstone, and many women’s epitaphs state simply and approvingly lanam fecit (‘she made wool’). A contentious issue relating textiles to gender and privacy is the question of women’s separation and seclusion in the house. Scholarly opinion has generally accepted that, in contrast with Greek practice, Roman domestic architecture does not create distinctions between men’s and women’s areas of the house and that Roman women moved openly and freely in domestic spaces.80 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill’s study of gender in Roman domestic architecture concludes that ‘what may be distinctive about Roman domestic society is that man and woman do not inhabit worlds apart’.81 Wallace-Hadrill express-es doubt that women dined separately from men at convivia. This supposition may need some qualifi cation for the late Empire, even in the Roman West, as evidence for late imperial houses does not neatly agree with that of earlier periods. For instance, Sidonius Apollinaris, writing in the mid fi fth-century, describes one of several dining rooms in his villa as a triclinium matronalis or women’s dining room. This space is separated by some type of temporary partition — probably a curtain — from a pantry and a weaving room and the rest of the house.82 This suite sounds much like the gynecaeum or ‘women’s quarter’ of the residence, analogous to Greek practice.83

The increased signifi cance of domestic textiles in the late period should be considered in the light of gender issues. Again, there is a dearth of material evidence in the houses

Fig. 21. Peristyle showing location of hypothetical curtains.Digital interpretation by the author.

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themselves. Simon Ellis discusses the diffi culties in recovering ephemeral structural evidence for gender separation in Byzantine houses.84 The same problems appear in the study of Islamic houses where we are on surer footing in expecting gender segregation.85 However, further insight into gendered uses of textiles in the late Roman house is revealed in artistic and literary references. One index of the importance of textiles in this period is the sheer volume of writing around the subjects of women’s adornment and textiles in general, used as a trope for evolving mores regarding women’s visibility, sexuality and status and wider issues of gender identity. An illuminating array of con-ceptual issues around the topic arises from the notion of the veil as a real phenomenon and as a metaphor for women’s privacy and concealment. On one hand, veiling was a reality for Christian women (Fig. 4). The ceremony of velatio for virgins was a public affair, modelled on veiling in the Roman marriage ritual.86 Moralistic writers such as Clement, Tertullian, Ambrose and Jerome equate the veil with questions of modesty, where visibility and the gaze are central issues.87 Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones has explored the real and metaphorical connections between veiling and domestic textile screening in Greek culture.88 Mary Margaret Fulghum addresses this notion in discussing conceptual links between curtains and veiling in the late period: ‘The connection of curtains and veils to women must have been strong. Veiling could have the opposite effect of the one intended however . . . John Chrysostom astutely notes that “the chastely veiled eye itself exercises an irresistible attraction”.’89 I suggest that this metaphorical framework can be adopted in the study of late Roman houses, particularly with the evident bodily and gender concerns arising with the advent of Christianity.

A scene in an enormous mosaic panel in La Olmeda, a fourth-century villa in northern Spain, illustrates the equivalency between personal and domestic veiling in a spectacular manner (Fig. 22).90 The mosaic, adorning a vast triclinium, deploys a wealth of textile references to maximise the shock value of the melodramatic exposure of a hero in an episode from Homer’s Iliad in which Achilles is avoiding fi ghting in the Trojan War. Disguising himself as a woman, Achilles has been hiding in veiled ‘drag’ in the privacy of the women’s quarters of King Licomedes’ palace. Achilles is discovered by Odysseus, who draws the hyper-male hero out with a fl ash of irresistible weapons. Horns blare and curtains are pulled aside as Achilles leaps forward into heroic nudity, out of the women’s sphere and out of his himation and veil, and onto the public stage of epic war. Homer’s gynecaeum is represented by two Corinthian columns surmounted by an arcuated pediment supporting two curtains which had previously closed off any view of the interior beyond. The parting curtains allow no fewer than eight women to cascade out in shocked disbelief around Achilles. The queen, a full-length richly attired veiled fi gure, stands in the centre of the parted curtains, turning to gaze knowingly at a woman holding a loaded spindle and distaff. The yarn unwinding from the spindle dis-appears behind the queen, only to reappear in the parted hands of a servant on the left. The spindle-holding woman is posed in profi le, positioned exactly so that the parted curtain stands in for her own veil (Fig. 23). The decorated curtain is depicted as par-tially transparent so the woman’s head is visible.91 The whole scene thus exploits the pregnant meanings of textiles, from indicators of cultured women and their seclusion and status to the role of veils and curtains in transgression and exposure and the shock value of a dramatic, gender-bending revelation. The ‘cascade of women’ devolves from the ornately attired queen to the partially nude, supplicating fi gures around Achilles

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whose gowns slip as they gesture wildly among piles of spilled, raw wool as if the entire state of élite women’s acculturation — symbolised by fi nished wool attire — has been thrown into reverse. The artist has taken great pains to realise the analogy between women’s personal veiling and their concealment by domestic textiles. The fourth-century patron’s choice of this scene from a Greek gynecaeum appears to agree with the return to Greek conceptions of gendered space suggested by Sidonius’ triclinium matronalis.

Conclusion

This paper has presented and explored some of the main topics and problems raised by the study of textiles, particularly hangings and curtains, in late Roman domestic interiors. The tantalisingly fragile, fragmentary and fl eeting nature of the preserved evi-dence belies the scope and magnitude of their original importance. Assessment of issues ranging from the material specifi cs of their forms, functions, decoration and placement

Fig. 22. Achilles on Skyros, mosaic from the triclinium of the Villa of La Olmeda, fourth century, (Palencia), Spain. Wikimedia public domain image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Roman_Mosaics_Villa_Romana_La_Olmeda_000_Pedrosa_De_La_Vega_-_Salda%C3%B1a_(Palencia).jpg.

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to the freight of symbolism and ritual signifi cance they might bear, reveals that consid-eration of textile use in the house can augment our understanding of the physical as well as intangible conditions of life in the late Roman domestic sphere. These textiles are primary documents of their period and a crucial feature of domestic interior design that, although largely absent from our view today, were ubiquitous in the house, and served numerous functions relating to the social world of late antiquity.

References1 Y. Thébert, ‘Private life and domestic architecture in Roman Africa’, in P. Veyne ed., A History

of Private Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 313–409 and 389. 2 J. Stephenson, ‘A Social History of Late Roman Villas in the Iberian Peninsula’ (Unpublished PhD

thesis, Emory University, 2006).3 For examples of this developing focus on the study of ancient textiles in domestic contexts, see

S. Schrenk ed., Textiles in Situ: Their Find Spots in Egypt and Neighbouring Countries in the First

Millennium CE (Riggisberg, Switzerland: Abegg-Stiftung, 2006); A. De Moor and C. Fluck eds, Cloth-

ing the House: Furnishing Textiles in the 1st Millennium AD from Egypt and Neighboring Countries

(Tielt, Belgium: Lannoo Publishers, 2009).4 For the significance of textiles in the late period, see S. Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeeraumes

aus Spätantiker bis Frühislamischer Zeit (Riggisberg, Switzerland: Abegg-Stiftung, 2004), pp. 80–82 and

461. While the preponderance of late Roman examples in the Egyptian material may result from

accidents of preservation rather than an increase in absolute numbers produced, the enhanced signifi-

cance and expanded role of textiles in this period is confirmed in varied forms of evidence. Fulghum

traces the ‘extent to which textiles of silk, linen, and wool permeated and played crucial roles in the

lives and belief systems of citizens’; see M. Fulghum, ‘Under wraps: Byzantine textiles as major

Fig. 23. Veiled woman, detail from the Achilles on Skyros mosaic from the triclinium of the Villa of La Olmeda, fourth century, (Palencia), Spain.Wikimedia public domain image: http://wikipedia.orange.es/wiki/Archivo:Villa_Romana_de_La_Olmeda_Mosaicos_romanos_005.jpg.

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and minor arts’, Studies in the Decorative Arts, ix, no. 1 (2001–2002), pp. 13–33, especially p. 14.

MacMullen places an increase in the roles and types of textiles in the late Empire within the context

of other late phenomena; see R. MacMullen, ‘Some pictures in Ammianus Marcellinus’, The Art

Bulletin, xlvi (1964), pp. 435–55. 5 See, for instance, P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in

Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).6 R. Newbold, ‘Boundaries and bodies in late Antiquity’, Arethusa, xii, no. 1 (1979), pp. 93–115. 7 This occasion seems to have included only men; S. Apollinaris, Carmen 23.495–99, Sidonius:

Poems and Letters, trans. W. B. Anderson, 1 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936),

p. 317.8 L. Dossey, ‘Sleeping arrangements and private space: a cultural approach to the subdivision of

late antique homes’, in D. Brakke, D. Deliyannis and E. Watts eds, Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late

Antiquity (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2012), pp. 181–97.9 For societal shifts and their impact on domestic settings, see S. Ellis, ‘Power, architecture, and

décor: How the late Roman aristocrat appeared to his guests’, in E. Gazda ed., Roman Art in the

Private Sphere (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), pp. 117–34; Thébert, ‘Private life and

domestic architecture’, pp. 313–409. 10 Ellis concluded that ‘the late Roman aristocrat carefully defined the architectural context in

which his public encounters took place. He separated public and private and used the architecture to

manipulate social encounters in a way that had never been done in earlier periods.’; Ellis, ‘Power,

architecture, and décor’, p. 123. Kim Bowes has questioned whether there is a demonstrable increase

in these social phenomena in late antiquity or whether they were already fully present in the earlier

Empire; K. Bowes, Houses and Society in the Later Roman Empire (London: Duckworth, 2010).11 T. Lauritsen, ‘The form and function of boundaries in the Campanian House’, in A. Anguissola

ed., Privata Luxuria — Towards an Archaeology of Intimacy: Pompeii and Beyond (Munich: Herbert

Utz Verlag, 2012), pp. 95–114, especially p. 96. 12 Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistle 9.8., p. 391.13 J. Stephenson, ‘Villas and aquatic culture in Late Roman Spain’, in C. Kosso and A. Scott eds,

Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance (Leiden: Brill, 2009),

pp. 337–60.14 B. Bergmann, ‘Art and nature in the villa of Oplontis’, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supple-

mentary series 47 (2002), pp. 87–121, especially p. 107. 15 Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeeraume, pp. 80–82 and 461–63 with citations for images in

visual art. This list is incomplete and inconclusive as the fragmentary nature of archaeological textiles

and the lack of in situ arrangements leave much unknown regarding functions in the house.16 Discussed by Thébert, ‘Private life and domestic architecture’, pp. 387–89 and E. Maguire et al.,

Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press,

1989), pp. 45–47. 17 Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, De Architectura, Book VI. For finds of traces of textile use in middle or

lower class houses at Karanis, Egypt, see P. van Minnen, ‘House-to-house enquiries: an interdisciplin-

ary approach to Roman Karanis’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, c (1994), pp. 227–51.18 Vitruvius, De Architectura, 6.5.1–2.19 A. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1994) remains a classic treatment of the size and complexity of the Roman familia

and provision for their interactions in houses of the early Empire. For evidence for the large and

complex nature of Roman households from papyri discovered in late Egyptian houses at Oxyrhynchos

and Hermopolis, see R. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993),

p. 49.20 This model of a daily cycle of patron-client activities is best attested for the earlier Empire; late

imperial practices are less well known.

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21 Thébert, ‘Private life and domestic architecture’, p. 389.22 Stephenson, ‘A Social History of Late Roman Villas’, especially pp. 99–113. 23 J. Sebesta, ‘Symbolism of the costume of the Roman woman’, in J. Sebesta and L. Bonfante eds,

The World of Roman Costume (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), pp. 46–53.24 C. Barton, ‘Being in the eyes: shame and sight in ancient Rome’, in D. Fredrick ed., The Roman

Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), pp. 216–35,

especially p. 230, n. 26. MacMullen surveys evidence chiefly from late Roman visual art to argue that

the veil was less universal among the élite than the patristic writers suggest; however, visual art has its

own agenda that may not represent life; see R. MacMullen, ‘Women in public in the Roman Empire’,

Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, xxix, no. 2 (1980), pp. 208–18. 25 G. Métraux, ‘Prudery and chic in late antique clothing’, in J. Edmondson and A. Keith eds,

Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008),

pp. 271–93, especially p. 273.26 For an exploration of such parallels, see J. Bodel, ‘Cicero’s Minerva, Penates, and the Mother of

the Lares: an outline of Roman domestic religion’, in J. Bodel and S. M. Olyan eds, Household and

Family Religion in Antiquity (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), pp. 248–75. 27 Ashburnham Pentateuch manuscript, seventh century, BN lat, 2334, XVIII, fol. 76a, Bibliothèque

Nationale, Paris. Paul the Silentiary describes an extremely rich and ornate figured tapestry veiling the

altar at Hagia Sophia and explains that it conceals a mystery: ‘Let my bold voice be restrained with

silent lip lest I lay bare what the eyes are not permitted to see. But ye priests, as the sacred laws

command you, spread out with your hands the veil dipped in the purple dye of the Sidonian shell and

cover the top of the table . . .’, Descriptio Sancta Sophiae, 755ff.28 Discussed by S. Petriaggi, ‘Utilizzazione, decorazione e diffusione dei tessuti nei corredi

delle basiliche Cristiane secondo il Liber pontificalis (514–795)’, Prospettiva, xxxix (1984), pp. 37–46;

V. Gervers ed., Studies in Textile History in Memory of Harold B. Burnham (Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 1977), especially pp. 71–72; M. Goehring, ‘Shrine, decoration, textiles’, in L. J. Taylor

et al. eds, Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 682–83.29 S. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1981), p. 263.30 Bargello Museum, Florence, inv. no. 24c.31 Flavius Corippus describes the apparition of Justin II as such a living icon: ‘When the curtain

(velum) was drawn aside and the inner part was revealed . . . Tergazis the Avar looked up at the head

of the emperor shining with the holy diadem, [and] he lay down three times in adoration and remained

fixed to the ground’; Laudem Iustini Augusti Minoris Book 1, 3.206–59; Corippus, In Laudem Iustini

Augusti, trans. A. Cameron (London: The Athlone Press, 1976), pp. 106–07.32 Fulghum, ‘Under wraps’, pp. 13–33, especially p. 14.33 D. E. Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Ardmore,

Pa.: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2003).34 For the secretum in churches, see Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae 7.30.9.35 Sermon 51.5–7; velum, vela here refers to coverings, hangings or curtains.36 The same mystifying effect telescopes to civic proportions when Corippus describes the closure

of the arcaded streets of Constantinople with hangings to form a processional way for the Emperor

Julian’s entry: ‘That which is common is worthless — what is hidden stands out with honour. And the

more a thing is hidden, the more valuable it is considered’, In laudem lustini Augusti minoris 3.204,

4.83–88. Note that both Augustine and Corippus equate curtains and concealment with honour.37 Theodosian Code 1.16.7, The Theodosian Code, trans. C. Phar (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1952), pp. 29–31. 38 With the right lighting, some curtains could allow a viewer to see but remain unseen; Fulghum

notes that an ancient visitor ‘specifically remarks on the selective transparency of curtains hanging in

the galleries of Hagia Sophia: “and it is rather clever that the women stand behind silk curtains and

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no one can see their adorned features, but the men and everything else are visible to them”’; Fulghum,

‘Under wraps’, p. 26 and n. 53.39 Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeeraumes; M.-H. Rutschowscaya, Coptic Fabrics (Paris: Editions

Adam Bird, 1990).40 The issue is problematical since some apparently pagan iconographic motifs were enthusiasti-

cally adopted by Christians, including in churches, while other themes are explicitly Christian or

Jewish in subject. Recent studies are beginning to avoid the term ‘Coptic’, considering ‘it holds impli-

cations that lessen, rather than enhance the appreciation of the different styles, artistic quality and

function of the textiles . . . Hence, the more generic term Late Antique will be used.’; S. Tsourinaki,

‘Late Antique textiles of the Benaki Museum with bucolic and mythological iconography’, in A.

Maravelia ed., Europe, Hellas and Egypt: Complementary Antipodes during Late Antiquity (Oxford:

Oxford Tempus Reparatum, 2004), pp. 51–66.41 See L. Török, Transfigurations of Hellenism: Aspects of Late Antique Art in Egypt, AD 250–700

(Leiden: Brill, 2005).42 Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeeraumes, pp. 80–82 and 461–64.43 Paul the Silentiary describes the veil over the altar at Hagia Sophia: ‘The whole robe [chiton]

shines with gold: for on it gold leaf has been wrapped round thread after the manner of a pipe

or a reed, and so it projects above the lovely cloth, firmly bound with silken thread by sharp needles’,

Descriptio Sancta Sophiae, 755ff., trans. C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453

(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pearson Education, 1972), p. 90. 44 For example, a textile labelled by Schrenk as a ‘Fragmente eines behanges oder vorhnages’ (‘frag-

ment of a hanging or curtain’) displays the clavi, tabulae and orbiculi (vertical bands, square panels

and roundels) common on tunics, but the vertical dimensions suggest a door hanging; Textilien des

Mittelmeeraumes, p. 114 and cat. 34, inv. 424, 425, 426, height 2.55 m, width 0.97 m. Compare the

very similar textile known as the ‘Sabine shawl’ from Antinoopolis which displays clavi, tabulae

and orbiculi on a red ground; Louvre, Paris, inv. E 29302, height 1.10 m, width 1.40 m, see Rutschows-

caya, Coptic Fabrics, p. 94.45 Hanging with motifs of columns, flowers and possible portraits, polychrome wool and undyed

linen, tapestry weave on plain weave linen ground, length 2.17 m, width 1.44 m, fifth–sixth century

ad, from Sheikh Shata, near Damietta, Egypt, Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 22.124.3; H. Evans

and B. Ratliff eds, Byzantium and Islam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), no. 50 and

pp. 80–81. 46 C. Verhecken-Lammens, ‘Linen furnishing textiles with pile in the collection of Katoen Natie’, in

De Moor and Fluck eds, Clothing the House, p. 143.47 University of Toronto, Malcove Collection M82.416; see S. Campbell, The Malcove Collection:

A Catalogue of the Objects in the Lillian Malcove Collection of the University of Toronto (Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 1985), p. 75, no. 97. This is discussed in terms of function and in relation

to the significance of hands in textile iconography and imperial ritual in H. Maguire, ‘The disembod-

ied hand, the Prokypsis, and the Templon Screen’, in J. D. Alchermes, H. C. Evans and T. K. Thomas

eds, Anathemata Heortika: Studies in Honor of Thomas F. Mathews (Mainz: Verlag Philipp von

Zabern, 2009), pp. 230–35 and fig. 5. 48 Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeeraumes, pp. 461–62; Schrenk acknowledges that we should

expect exceptions to each of these criteria in specific curtains.49 Ibid., pp. 82–88, cat. 19, inv. 1397, height 1.94 m, width 6.0 m.50 S. Schrenk, ‘(Wall-)hangings depicted in Late Antique works of art? The question of function’,

in De Moor and C. Fluck, Clothing the House, pp. 147–54, especially pp.150–52. The so-called

‘Veil of Antinoopolis’, a nearly 4 m wide resist-dyed linen, is another example of this type; Egyptian

Antiquities, Louvre, Paris, inv. 11102. 51 See G. M. Crowfoot and J. Griffiths, ‘Coptic textiles in two-faced weave with pattern in reverse’,

Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, xxv, no. 1 (1939), pp. 40–47.

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52 Rutschowscaya, Coptic Fabrics, p. 62.53 K. Colburn, ‘Materials and techniques of Late Antique and Early Islamic textiles found in Egypt’,

in H. Evans and B. Ratliff eds, Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2012), pp. 161–63, especially p. 162. 54 E. Maguire, personal communication, regarding a project studying the furnishing textiles in the

mainly unpublished collection at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, 12 August 2013.55 The layout of such mosaics offers valuable information regarding traffic flow. In transitional

areas like doorways, mosaics are usually oriented toward the entering viewer while in static

spaces like triclinia they are oriented toward reclining guests at the rear of the room and thus read

upside-down from the entry. 56 Royal Ontario Museum, Walter Massey Collection, ROM2004_1276_1. 57 Schrenk, ‘(Wall-)hangings depicted in Late Antique works of art?’, pp. 152–53.58 Curtain closing the altar and sanctuary at Deir Sitt Demyanah Coptic monastery, northern

Delta.59 Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 83.126.60 When hanging between columns, these would have ‘expanded the colonnade — but in fabric

rather than stone’, Evans and Ratliff, Byzantium and Islam, p. 80.61 Cleveland Museum of Art CMA 2000.5.62 Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeeraumes, pp. 26, 460. Finds at Gordion in Asia Minor suggest the

connection between mosaics and textiles goes back to the origins of mosaic pavements in the eighth

century bc; see K. M. Dunbabin, Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1999), p. 5.63 E. Maguire, Weavings from Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Egypt: The Rich Life and the Dance

(Champaign-Urbana, Ill.: Krannert Art Museum, 1999), pp. 10–13. 64 Tertullian, ‘On female fashion’, 1.8; Asterius, Bishop of Amaseia, Homily 1, ‘On the abuse of

riches’; see S. J. Davis, ‘Fashioning a divine body: Coptic Christology and ritualized dress’, Harvard

Theological Review, xcviii, no. 3 (2005), pp. 335–62. 65 S. Gozlan, ‘La Maison de Neptune à cholla-Botria’, Karthago, xvi (1971–1972), pp. 44–100;

House of Venus, Volubilis; House of the Laberii, Uthina. 66 J. Boersma, Amoenissima Civitas: Block V.ii at Ostia: Description and Analysis of its Visible

Remains (Assen, Netherlands: Thesis Publishers, 1985), p. 144 and figs 141 and 147.67 Closure in this most sensitive and public area probably served to increase privacy as well as to

augment a sense of drama; Stephenson, ‘A Social History of Late Roman Villas’, pp. 114–15.68 G. Spano, ‘Pompei. Continuazione dello scavo nella via dell’Abbondanza durante il mese

di settembre 1915’, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, series 5, no. 12 (1915), pp. 416–19, especially

p. 419. 69 O. Elia, ‘Pompei. Relazione sullo scavo del’insula X dell Regio I’, Notizie degli Scavi di

Antichità, series 6, no. 10 (1934), pp. 264–344, especially pp. 286–87. 70 For instance, the complete absence of door pivot holes in any house at Olynthus, Greece, has led

investigators to posit the use of hangings and curtains.71 Drawing definitive conclusions is difficult; see Lauritsen, ‘The form and function of boundaries

in the Campanian House’, p. 103. 72 H. Drerup, ‘Bildraum und realraum in der römischen Architektur’, Römische Mitteilungen, lxvi

(1959), pp. 145–74.73 K. Dunbabin, The Mosaics of Roman North Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978),

pp. 142–45 and pl. 55.74 Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistle 2.2.10.75 These curtains were inserted into the mosaic when the figures of Theodoric and his courtiers

were removed sometime after the Byzantine Emperor Justinian retook Ravenna from Theodoric, this

substitution communicating a ‘presence of absence’ in the manner of a damnatio memoriae.

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John W. Stephenson76 See M. Johnson, ‘Toward a history of Theodoric’s building program’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers,

xlii (1988), pp. 73–96.77 Thébert, ‘Private life and domestic architecture’, p. 361.78 Ample evidence of such devices of closure exist. Such additions were often made to existing

houses in fourth-century renovations; for instance, fully bricked-up peristyles are found at Ostia,

Italy and in the Palacio de Clunia, Spain; see Stephenson, ‘A Social History of Late Roman Villas’,

pp. 113–20. 79 E. D’Ambra, Roman Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).80 See L. Nevett, House and Society in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1999). 81 A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Engendering the Roman house’, in D. E. E. Kleiner and S. B. Matheson eds,

I Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), pp. 104–15 and

especially p. 107. 82 Early (nineteenth–early twentieth century) excavations of late Roman houses sometimes used the

terminology of gynecaeum to identify suggestive spaces; contemporary dismissal of this identification

needs reassessment. See Sidonius’ description of his own villa in Epistle 2.2 ‘Sidonius Domitio suo

Salutem’.83 Nevett, House and Society, pp. 113–20.84 S. Ellis, ‘Privacy in Byzantine and Ottoman houses’, Byzantinische Forschungen, xvi (1991),

pp. 156–80.85 T. Insoll, The Archaeology of Islam (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999). 86 Brown, The Body and Society, p. 356.87 Ambrose, De Institutione Virginis 5.36, and Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum 1.31; see G. Clark,

‘The bright frontier of friendship: Augustine and the Christian body as frontier’, in R. Mathisen and

H. Sivan eds, Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995), pp. 217–29.88 See L. Llewellyn-Jones, ‘House and veil in ancient Greece’, British School at Athens Studies,

xv (2007), pp. 251–58.89 Fulghum, ‘Under wraps’, p. 26.90 The pavement overall measures 14.7 by 11.7 m. 91 The reference to semi-transparent material here is reminiscent of Clement, Stromata, book 5, 9:

‘All things that shine through a veil show the truth grander and more imposing; as fruits shining

through water, and figures through veils, which give added reflections to them . . .’.

John W. Stephenson received a doctorate in ancient art history from Emory University in 2006 with a specialty in the domestic architecture of late Roman Spain. He has excavated at ancient Carthage, Tunisia, and participated in the Roman archaeology programme at the American Academy in Rome. Publications include contributions to edited volumes (‘Villas and aquatic culture in Late Roman Spain’ and ‘The Column of Trajan in the light of cartography and topography’ (Journal of Historical Geography).