Northwest Hemicycle

As you enter the hemicycle on the northwest side of the forum, you see that it is dedicated to the Trojan hero Aeneas and his descendants (see navigational plan). Like the statue of Romulus on the opposite side of the forum, this sculptural group has been lost, but it has been copied in a painting from the Pompeian shop of the fuller Fabius Ululutremulus, who apparently had these paintings made as a tribute to the patroness of the fullers guild, Eumachia, who had set up copies of the statues from the Forum of Augustus as her tribute to Augustus and Livia. The youthful appearance of Aeneas echoes that of Romulus, and he is similarly attired in the armor of a Roman general and wearing patrician shoes (both very anachronistic, since Rome had not even been founded yet!). The boy Ascanius (Julus), however, is dressed like a Trojan shepherd, wearing a Phrygian cap and holding a crook in his hand. Anchises carefully holds the box containing the sacred Penates of Troy, which were to be eventually deposited in the Temple of Vesta in Rome. As in Vergil's Aeneid, although Aeneas is a warrior, his primary characteristic here is pietas, a virtue especially claimed by Augustus himself, the epitome of duty and loyalty to the gods, the state, and one's family.

You read the inscription at the base of the statue of Aeneas: "Aeneas, son of Venus, King of the Latins, ruled for 3 years." You notice that Aeneas, like the other statues in the hemicycles and the colonnades, also has an elogium, an inscribed plaque summarizing his achievements. Surrounding his statue are statues of the kings of Alba Longa and prominent descendants from the gens Julia, the family that ultimately produced Julius Caesar and Augustus himself. As you look at all this solemn filial piety, you chuckle as you remember that not all Romans took this imagery so seriously (or perhaps they became tired of seeing it so often repeated). For example, some wit entering the shop of Ululutremulus scratched a graffito inside the door mocking the first line of the Aeneid: "I sing of fullers and screech owls, not arms and the man" (the screech owl was associated with the fullers guild, and its Latin name (ulula) was also a pun on the name of the shop owner). This wall painting, found in Pompeii or nearby Stabiae, is a direct caricature of the Aeneas sculptural group, substituting well-endowed doglike creatures for the three people. The Anchises figure clutches a dice box rather than the Penates, possibly a reference to Augustus's fondness for gambling, or a pun on "Venus," the name of the highest throw in the Roman dice game.