Marble Statuary and the Discourse of Display in Late Antique Aquitania

Late Roman villas in Aquitania are notable for their sculpture assemblages: mythological statuettes, contemporary portraits, and figural reliefs dating to the late antique period have been found alongside Imperial-era Idealplastik and portraits. And yet, the eclectic character of these assemblages and their curious rural clustering is rarely treated as a distinct variation of the late antique statuary habit. This piece surveys the finds in Aquitania, and compares them to others recovered in domestic contexts of the late Roman West. It then explores the constellation of factors responsible for the finds in southwestern Gaul. Villa owners here, it is argued, enjoyed special access to marble in Late Antiquity by virtue of the region’s geographic location and geologic character. This, together with the growing scarcity of sculpture throughout the Empire, and the burgeoning of the elite class, prompted Aquitanian landowners to distinguish themselves by means of marble sculpture.