Sperlonga sculptures
As Tacitus and Suetonius recount,[2] the grotto collapsed in 26 AD, nearly killing Tiberius, and either then or in a later fall the sculptures were crushed into thousands of fragments, so that the modern reconstructions have many missing elements.
The grotto was also decorated with "artificial stalactites and encrustations" as well as a coloured opus sectile floor, and a "room" left of the Polyphemus group had a number of theatrical masks mounted on the walls, designed to be lit from behind.
[10] The initial discovery of the sculptures in 1957 was by civil engineers building the coastal road just above the site, and there was an interval of disturbance to the site before it began to be excavated under proper archaeological direction, which has left the exact original location of some large fragments regrettably imprecise, allowing for prolonged arguments over which pieces belong to which group, and where the groups originally were, which have gradually been resolved as smaller pieces, recorded more professionally, are married up in the continuing process of reconstruction.
[12] The four Odysseus groups show the different sides of his complex character, both good and bad: "all in all, the synthesis looks to be literary and Alexandrian, with its exaggeration of the hero's chameleon-like personality and its emphasis, over and above what is in Homer, upon the two extremes of his personality—his courage and his perfidy".
It is mostly thought to represent the moment when, escaping after stealing the Palladium image which protected Troy, Odysseus tries to kill his comrade Diomedes in order to take all the credit himself.
[21] As recounted by Homer, the cyclops Polyphemus, who has trapped Odysseus and his crew in his cave home with a huge stone and begun to eat them, has been made drunk and fallen asleep.
Odysseus cannot kill him as he would not be able to move the stone, so he heats the tip of a stake of olive wood in the cave in the fire and with that blinds the giant's only eye.
The moment shown is when the heated stake is being raised into position, and at right one of the companions carrying the wine-skin creeps away trying not to wake the giant; this is perhaps the most complete of the original figures.
Of the three men wielding the shaft, in the cast reconstruction in the museum he is nearest the giant's eye, although this figure is placed by some scholars in the Palladium group instead.
[24] The wineskin-bearer and the lowest companion on the shaft are two of the most complete figures to survive, while of Polyphemus only his head, one huge leg and one foot, one arm and the other hand have so far been pieced together; his reconstructed torso is largely guesswork.
[25] This group was the furthest away, at some 40 metres, from the triclinium, at the rear of the grotto to the right, but the visitor could pass in front of it and also mount some steps to the right to obtain much closer views.
[23] This shows a section of Odysseus' ship attacked by the monster Scylla, whose body in Greek sources sprouted a whole range of tentacles and wolf-like heads.
[1] The statue of Ganymede with Zeus as an eagle behind him was placed on a specially built masonry base high above the centre of the entrance to the grotto; a replica is now in the original position.
[31] The Sperlonga sculptures are in a similar style to the Laocoön, but with many significant differences, not least in quality, being uneven but generally of much lower skill and finish, though the ensemble is also considerably larger, and would have required many assistants to the masters.
[38] Historians of Roman building techniques generally date the setting for the sculptures, including the pool edges and other elements, to the 1st century BC.
[37] This was found in the pantanella of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli by Gavin Hamilton in about 1769, and subsequently formed one of the Towneley Marbles collection bought by the museum.
[39] Hadrian's Villa also had a reduced version of the Scylla group, as part of its collection of copies of the most famous works of Greek sculpture (illustration below); the Catania Polyphemus relief is mentioned above.
[42] It has been argued that the unusual programme reflects Tiberius' particular ancestry, his literary tastes, and his personality and political outlook, and that he may have identified himself with Odysseus in a special way; Juvenal was later to compare them.
[48] Tiberius had spent a period in effective exile on Rhodes, where it is suggested by proponents of his role that would have come to know the workshop or artists responsible, and developed a taste for their style,[49] and possibly seen earlier versions of some or all of the groups.
Tacitus, Annales, 4.59 (Latin text in note):[51]It happened at this time that a perilous accident which occurred to the emperor strengthened vague rumours and gave him grounds for trusting more fully in the friendship and fidelity of Sejanus.
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, "Tiberius", 39:[52]...as he was dining near Tarracina in a villa called the Grotto, many huge rocks fell from the ceiling and crushed a number of the guests and servants, while the emperor himself had a narrow escape.
...iuxta Tarracinam in praetorio, cui Speluncae nomen est, incenante eo complura et ingentia saxa fortuito superne dilapsa sunt, multisque convivarum et ministrorum elisis praeter spem evasit.The word praetorium is only used elsewhere in Suetonius to denote an Imperial palace.
