1. This is still the case in Künzl 1989, a relatively brief overview of the cups' program. [BACK]

2. For color plates, details, and montages of three sides (BR I:1, BR II:1 and 2), see Baratte 1991, 25-33. The only complete set of views available outside MonPiot 5 (1899) is Andreae 1978, fig. at p. 381; the usefulness of this record is limited by the tiny size of the plates. S. Reinach published sketches after each photo, and a montage of each cup, in Répertoire de réliefs grecs et romaine (Paris, 1909), 1: 92-97. For those trying to teach the cups to English-speaking undergraduates, some plates occur in Vermeule 1968. Zanker (1988, figs. 93, 181) gives Tiberius triumphator and the victim group from the panels of BR II, as well as the center shots from BR I (figs. 180a-b). The new Augustan handbook by Simon (1986) gives only the left end of BR I:1 (fig. 187), though this is useful since rare; Simon (pp. 143-44) describes only the allegory BR I:1; the sole datum given about BR II is that Tiberius is prominent on it. Henig (1983, 143) notes Tiberius' triumph, and figure 108 there gives the central shot of BR I:2, but the only bibliography is the MonPiot publication. Bianchi Bandinelli (1970, fig. 223) gives an enlarged detail of Augustus from the allegory scene; figure 208 in Bianchi Bandinelli notes only that Boscoreale was a source of precious objects. Hannestad (1986, 95, fig. 58) illustrates only Tiberius in his chariot in his chapter on Tiberian monuments, without informing the reader about the Augustus cup. Typical is Strong 1988; the complete text in Strong on the two center shots of BR I (figs. 43-44) consists of the following: "The silver cups with imperial scenes found in the villa at Boscoreale . . . reflect major paintings and sculptures of the time" (89); "Some of the best silversmiths worked for the imperial Court, producing such works as the historical cups found in the Boscoreale Treasure" (92-93). Ling's 1988 annotations to Strong's Roman Art (p. 344) cite only MonPiot and a plate in Rostovtzeff's Social and Economic History of the Ancient World . As for the great scholarly exposition at Berlin in 1988, the Kaiser Augustus show and its scholarly essays left out the cups altogether. [BACK]

3. Hardie (1986, 368), for example, invents women in the "child-giving" scene BR I:2; for correction of published descriptions of the triumph BR I:2, see p. 284 n. 2 below. More common is omission of detail, such as Roma's weapon pile, Augustus' "rusticated" sella curulis, Hispania's wreath, the portrait figure of Drusus, etc. [BACK]

5. See chap. 1, n. 107. Its structure is related to Julio-Claudian cuirass compositions on the one hand (earth goddess below, sky god above, symbolic figure in center), its framing devices (divinities on rocks flanking sacrificant) to High Classical and classicizing votives; its overload of religious "statement," and some of its figure types, recall Hellenistic court pieces like the Tazza Farnese and the Apotheosis of Homer (fig. 58). It is variously assigned to the first century B.C. or A.D.; identifications with panegyric for Antony seem most plausible. [BACK]

6. No one has surveyed Arretine ware with political iconography; I hope others expand my list. There is a handle with "Germania," and two cups with nude imperatores and personifications (figs. 65-67; chap. 14, pp. 85-86). A matrix of M. Perennius Tigranus (chap. 3, p. 97) portrays Antony and Cleopatra, either in compliment or caricature. A fragment shows a bust of Augustus holding a globe (left) and a lituus (right); behind him is a laurel tree or branch (Hölscher 1967, 23 n. 121); compare, among other examples, a mid-Augustan issue (see p. 242 n. 129 below) in which Victoria crowns a laureled bust of Augustus on a globe (Hölscher, 10f., 23 n. 121, pl. 1.6). An emblema in Tübingen (two examples, inv. 1928, 2349) has a Hellenistic silver-style composition of a seated goddess—here, Roma syncretized with Venus and Fortuna. Roma (helmeted) holds cornucopia and wreath and is saluted by Amor with a palm; behind her arm, a pedestal for a winged globe; left, unidentified objects; between the throne legs, more blobs (armor?). Dragendorff 1948, nos. 652.a-b, pl. 32. [BACK]

7. E.g., Gabelmann 1984 and Byvanck van Ufford 1974. [BACK]

8. So Künzl 1969, 364: the relief style of the BR cups cannot be used to date other silver (which implies also the reverse), as they are simply too different, in the crowding of the relief ground, handling of drapery, deep undercutting of relief, etc. (but in "L'argenterie," Pompeii 79 [1979]: 220-23, he says Claudian-Neronian); followed by Zanker 1988, 392; contra Gabelmann 1984. For Küthmann (1959, 79) the relief style comfortably fits the last quarter of the first century B.C. [BACK]

9. Contra, for example, Gabelmann (1984, 130 n. 537), who exploits Künzl's statement (see n. 8) that the cups can hardly be paralleled even in monumental relief. [BACK]

10. As recognized by Sahin (1972, 43, 73, fig. 17). Note that its paratactic figure friezes (chap. 3, pp. 88-89) correspond also to the decoration of such monumental complexes. The rich evidence for miniaturization of major public monuments, in the late Hellenistic and Roman world, deserves exploration. [BACK]

11. A good account of the major Roman hoards through the first century A.D. is Barr Sharrar 1987, chap. 4 (pp. 29-30 Boscoreale). [BACK]

12. PAMPHILI CAES L.; Küthmann 1959, 62 n. 34; Oliver and Luckner 1977, cat. 87-88. The hoard is clearly a ministerium; Oliver and Luckner, cat. 97: "In a complete set of Roman silver tableware (a ministerium ) there was eating silver ( argentum escarium ) and drinking silver ( argentum potorium )." The importance of displaying silver is attested by depictions of such displays; see Oliver and Luckner, s.v. cat. 95. [BACK]

13. Küthmann 1959, 72f.; the male emblema, MonPiot 5 (1899): pl. ii. Other possible owners' graffiti on the BR silver: Oliver and Luckner 1977, cat. 87-90. [BACK]

14. MonPiot 5 (1899): pls. v-vi, skyphoi, in each panel Amor on a beast (elephant, lion, ass, panther); pls. vii-viii, the skeleton cups discussed below; pls. ix-x, large ring-handled, stem-footed cup; pls. xi-xii, kantharos pair, storks in a marsh; pls. xiii-xiv, matching pair; pls. xv-xvi, low-footed "seasons" skyphoi, see p. 217 n. 25; pl. xvii (here fig. 1), ring-handled skyphos, olive garland; pl. xviii, ring-handled kantharos, oak garland. [BACK]

15. Héron de Villefosse 1899, pls. xxxi-xxxv (three shots of each cup panel: left, right, center); pp. 134-40, cat. 103 (BR I); 141-47, cat. 104 (BR II); 150ff. (discussion). [BACK]

16. For details of physical damage (tear outlines, cracking, etc.) see the photographs in Baratte 1991. I outline here the "iconographic" losses.

BR I:1 (Augustus cup, allegory) (pl. 28): From the right of Roma's body up to the left edge of Mars' body, all repoussé decoration is missing except for Augustus' right forearm holding a globe, and one wing and a palm branch of the Victoriola engraved onto a bit of the background. The destroyed figures include Augustus and his throne, Venus, Amor, the Genius of the Roman People, and Roma's weapon pile. Roma is missing her right leg, left foot, and left arm; Mars has lost both legs. In the province behind Mars, the high-relief figure of Gallia is totally gone, as is the body of the figure following her.

BR I:2 (Augustus cup, Gallic audience) (pl. 27): A great diagonal tear from upper left has removed from the crowd before Augustus all the Gauls and their children and the figure of Drusus with them. One detail remains, of the Gaul farthest left: his upper face, and most of the child riding his shoulders. This tear arcs under the central group of Augustus and his lictors and continues across the lower bodies of the crowd behind the emperor, damaging their lower bodies; Augustus' military chair and dais are gone. The lictor in high relief behind the throne group has been scissored neatly away, leaving only his extended right forearm.

BR II:1 (Tiberius cup, sacrifice): The central figure of the sacrificing imperator had already been partly damaged. The right edge of this hole has widened, to include the table altar and the bodies of the attendants behind it (though not their heads). This widened hole has also taken the head of the left-hand servant in the bull slaying at right; the cranium of the right-hand servant is missing also.

BR II:2 (Tiberius cup, triumph): The necks and heads of the horses pulling Tiberius' quadriga had already been damaged. This hole has now widened slightly, and the associated corrosion visible on the silver shell above this zone has now worsened, obscuring the faces of the three foremost attendants standing behind the team. [BACK]

17. See now Baratte 1988, and 1991, 24, with bibliography; the key publication is Il tesoro di Boscoreale: Gli argenti (1988), a documentary exhibition by the archeological superintendency of Pompeii. [BACK]

18. The late Donald Strong, for instance, broke his usual practice of direct examination of material when he discussed the cups in his 1966 survey Greek and Roman Gold and Silver Plate . This is evident from the fact that he omitted description atop the thumb-plate decoration of these skyphoi (garlanded bucranium ), even though he elsewhere used such decoration as a dating criterion (133f., 139); this detail is of course invisible in the 1899 photographs. [BACK]

19. For interim mention of the cups' fate, before the 1991 republication, see, for example, Oliver and Luckner 1977, 134; Hannestad 1986, 378 n. II; Baratte in Pompeii: Leben und Kunst (1973), 105; Simon 1986, 143, 245; Zanker 1988, 362. From various American-based sources, this author heard rumors in the 1980s that the Tiberius cup had, as it were, "resurfaced," but that the Augustus cup was unrecoverable. [BACK]

20. Roman silver, esp. late Republican and Julio-Claudian: see most recently Baratte et al. 1989, 15ff., and the catalogue to individual pieces, and also Baratte 1986. See also Simon 1986, 137-52; Henig 1983, 140-48. Oliver and Luckner 1977 has valuable discussion and bibliography for individual pieces. See too Künzl, "Le argenterie," Pompeii 79 (1979): 211ff.; Strong 1966; the excellent survey of early Roman silver by Küthmann (1959) lacks index and plates but has a useful chronological table of pieces with their subjects indicated. The more famous early imperial pieces with figural decoration are shown by Vermeule (1968), 134f.); cf. his 1963 survey. Bühler 1973 gives fine cross-references to metalwork. [BACK]

21. See, for instance, the table of hoard contents in Baratte et al. 1989, 16. Services displayed on a table were often depicted, especially in Dionysiac landscapes—for example, "Coupe des Ptolemées" or a mosaic from Daphne (Henig 1983, 141, 120). Berthouville centaur skyphos: Baratte et al. (1989, 82-84, cat. 17) cite Goudineau ( MEFR 79 [1967]) on this motif. It occurs in banquets painted in Etruscan and Roman tombs; T. Querciola, T. dell' Orco: Blanck and Lehmann 1987, figs. 134, 148, 159; T. of Vestorius Priscus: see p. 303 n. 23. Greek texts call drinking services ta ekpomata, often coupled with trapeza, the portable tables on which they were set. [BACK]

22. So Kirchner on the early imperial category of emblema cups in Baratte et al. 1989, 19; 84, s.v. the Berthouville centaur skyphoi. [BACK]

23. There is a tendency to spot portraits of the Julio-Claudian house in almost any gem or piece of silver extant. Typical are Vermeule 1963 and 1968, 134f.; H. Meyer 1983, 102-6. The mythological cups in question (the Hoby cup of Achilles and Priam [ Kais. Aug. 1988, cat. 396-97] and the Orestes cup, among others) are read as veiled satire on tensions in the Julio-Claudian house or as scurrilous libels (e.g., Vermeule 1963, 39, accepted in Henig 1983, 140, on a cup with homosexual and heterosexual copulating pairs). These readings see individual portraits in the idealized features of the subjects portrayed. I would recognize no such portraits, except possibly Augustus/Bocchoris on the Meroe cup (Gabelmann 1984, cat. 40 at pp. 126-27). [BACK]

24. Künzl 1979, fig. 135; Simon 1986, s.v. fig. 194. [BACK]

25. Linfert 1977, 22-25; cf. Baratte et al. 1989, 84, 87. On a BR skyphos pair whose still-lifes delineate the round of the seasons, see Schumacher 1979, pls. 58-59 ( MonPiot 5 [1899]: pls. xv-xvi); other BR cups listed on P. 215 n. 14. See Henig 1983, 147-48, on Sabinus who signed the seasons cups in Greek ( sabeinos ), and the artist M. Domitius Polygnotos, also known from our hoard. Greek or Italian, such artists worked in Italy for Roman masters; see Gabelmann 1974, 305, on the role of East Greek slaves imported to Italy in the formative stages of the Arretine ware factories. [BACK]

26. See the masterly iconographic survey by Dunbabin (1986, 224f., figs. 37-42) ( MonPiot 5 [1899]: pls. vii-viii). [BACK]

27. Baratte et al. 1989, 86-87 cat. 19; Baratte 1985, s.v. fig. 10; Vermeule 1968, 139. [BACK]

28. Dunbabin 1986, 226, 230, 233. [BACK]

29. Cf. the so-called Vicarello goblet series, decorated with a schematic itinerary of the route from Gades (Cadiz) to Rome, deposited from 7 B.C. (opening of the Cottian Alps) to ca. A.D. 47 at Aquae Apollinares (Vicarello) in thanks to Apollo for healthy passage on this trade route; see Dilke 1985, 122-23, figs. 9.5, 25. A contemporary patron's instruction to a silversmith: Cicero dedicated a silver piece on which he had the technites engrave his name in rebus form (a chickpea) (Plut. Mor. 204e, Cic. 1.4). (Add to the list of rebuses Brommer, AA 1988: 69-70.) [BACK]

30. Only in the late Empire is Silver giving formalized in a largitio ceremony. The distribution of luxury goods to subordinates, practiced already in Hellenistic courts, is difficult to trace in the sources. "Gifts" of silver as a standard requital for service in the early Empire: Juv. 9.31. [BACK]

31. Compare Cn. Pullius Pollio of Forum Clodii, comes Augusti in Gallia Comata et Aquitania, later Augustus' legate in Athens; ILS 916 = CIL XI.7553 = Ehrenberg and Jones 1976, no. 198; Ehrenberg 1953, 943; Halfmann 1986, 152, 252 (92f. on the comites Augusti omits Pollio); Maurin 1986, 110 n. 7. [BACK]

32. This family kept heirlooms: for example, a kylix of ca. 300 B.C.; Barr Sharrar 1987, 29-30. Her sources (145) for Roman collecting of antique silver refer to "famous name" Greek and late Republican decorative pieces. Certainly, the owners of the BR collection consciously valued a choice set of Augustan commemorative pieces. Wiseman (1987, 10) suggests that legionaries similarly treasured their Arretine ware; its iconography must sometimes have been relevant (cf. pp. 85f). [BACK]

33. As regards time-damaged art, consider a Late Antique ekphrasis on an "antique" silver cup in high repoussé, worn by use, with thinned bits of relief torn off. See Theodulf of Orléans Contra iudices 195-96 (MGH Poetae, vol. 1, 499): "at pars exterior crebro usu rasa politur/effigiesque perit adtenuata vetus"; effigies means "figure," not ( contra Nees 1987, 443) ''scene." For a late imperial connoisseur, as for us, repoussé work signaled an early imperial origin. Consider also an equestrian bronze of an Aemilius in the vestibule of the family house, one eye missing and its spear bent (Neudecker 1988, 76 n. 754), and portraits missing shoulders, ears, noses, etc., in formal ancestor portrait assemblages: Juv. 8.1f. [BACK]