Fl. Vibia Sabina, the Bent’s statue from Thasos (3rd century CE)

Sunday, 20 March 1887: “Yesterday morning we turned over a pedestal and found this inscription: ‘Good Luck. The Elders to the most excellent Archpriestess Floueivia Savia of unblemished ancestry, their own mother, the first who ever enjoyed equal honours with the Elders’.”

Introduction

Among all their other ‘finds’, three distinctive statues stand proud in the Bents’ list of Aegean trophies – all from islands. They could not be more different. The earliest is the bizarre, ostensibly prehistoric, limestone cult figurine (?) from Karpathos in the Dodecanese, now famously known as the ‘Karpathos Lady’; the next, chronologically, is the ‘Bent Kouros’ (6th c. BCE) from Aliki, Thasos. (See below, where both are illustrated  ^note 1 .) The third, the subject of this short article, and also from Thasos, is the 3rd-century CE local grey marble statue of Fulvia Vibia Sabina (83-136/137 CE) – inter alia, noble Roman empress, priestess, wife, and second cousin once removed of the Emperor Hadrian.

Our setting is a central area in the ancient harbour town of Limenas, on the northeast corner of Thasos, an island c. 17 nautical miles south of Kavala, modern Greece, but in Turkish hands when the British celebrity explorers Theodore and Mabel Bent visited between early March and early May 1887. The Bents have been busy ‘investigating’ (which seems to have included some blasting!) a complex of Roman remains. They discover a large statue, and it is love at first sight for Mabel, who provides some (sentimental) details in her diary:

Saturday, 19 March 1887: “… we turned over a pedestal and found this inscription: ‘Good Luck. The Elders to the most excellent Archpriestess Floueivia Savia of unblemished ancestry, their own mother, the first who ever enjoyed equal honours with the Elders’… We then became aware that the lady was lying underneath and then, of course, great and careful cleaning of the earth took place, a road cut in the great bank we had thrown up, and, finally, she was revealed; she had fallen headlong on her face, fortunately on sand and was very little broken. Her right hand and the tip of her nose were broken ‘then’, as the workmen say, and are missing. A ship’s captain was called to our aid and with great yells and screams and counter advice, she was hauled safely out. People were addressed as ‘infant’, ‘baby dear’, ‘beloved’, and ‘brother’, including Theodore and [Mustapha] Bey. Poor little man, I have talked so sensibly to him about not letting the holes be filled up and he is so well-meaning that I feel sure he would like to begin a museum with Floueivia. But we want her home…

“Today [i.e. Sunday 20 March] we found that children had scribbled crosses with sharp stones on Floueivia so that I sat by her while Theodore fetched the Bey and he desired a zaptich [officer], Vasillikos, to live and sleep by her. It being piercingly cold he was not pleased, but at last it was decided to remove her at once to the ‘konak’ – the Bey’s palace. Accordingly, no wheeled vehicle existing here, a forked tree was formed into a sledge with logs across and the lady tied on and then three yokes of oxen attached and away went Floueivia across a stream first, under the olive trees, with a gaily dressed and very picturesque crowd of various nationalities, and the chief rejoicers following behind.

“With the grey statue on the yellow and orange sledge, the whole scene was one of the prettiest triumphal processions any archaeologist ever beheld. It was so strange and mysterious to know her name and a scrap of her history and not yet to know what her face was like, and she was lying in such a helpless way with her head a little lower than her feet, one wondered why she did not help herself up and she looked so pretty and young and as I sat cross legged on her inscription imploring care for her head, I wonder why she had ever been so honoured and thought how glad she must be to come out after being trodden on and ploughed over for 2000 years – I should have liked to have a good comfortable cry.” (The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J. Theodore Bent, Vol. 1, Oxford, 2006, p. 200-202)

Site – The ‘Arch of Caracalla’, Limenas, Thasos

The find-site, the general area of Agora, on Thasos was a complex jumble of large stone blocks discovered by Theodore in a field owned by one Mr Sponti. Further discoveries, including  inscriptions, revealed  that Theodore had actually uncovered a monumental ceremonial arch dedicated to the Emperor Caracalla (ruled 188-217 CE) by grateful Thasians, with the statue of Fulvia Vibia Sabina forming part of it, located by one of the entrances. The local grey limestone could well have provided the figure, or she might perhaps have been commissioned from overseas, judging by the quality of the workshop. Theodore is credited with the unearthing of the remnants of this enormous site, and he later contributed several articles about his discoveries, including his ‘Arch of Caracalla’ and the statue of Fulvia. In one of these articles he gives his account of finding the statue:

“In front of the northern columns nearest to the city, and consequently in the place of honour, stood a prettily adorned pedestal 6 ft. 9 in. high [2.06m], with an inscription which tells us that the statue which surmounted it was erected by the senate ‘to their mother Phloueibia Sabina, the most worthy archpriestess of incomparable ancestors, the first and only lady who had ever received equal honours to those who were in the senate.’ The statue we found at the foot of the pedestal, luckily preserved by falling into a bed of sand, so that only the tip of the nose and the right hand were missing; the left hand, which hung by her side, is adorned with a large ring, and the whole body is covered by a gracefully hanging robe; the face is that of a young and lovely woman. Although not resembling statues to the same person, it is highly probable it was erected to the honour of the Empress Sabina, wife of Hadrian…” (J.T. Bent, ‘Discoveries in Thasos’. Athenæum, Issue 3113 (Jun), p. 839)

The Inscription

Fulvia’s inscription was found by the Bents on a limestone base, c. 2 m high, and probably 1 m + in width and depth. Investigations are being made to trace it – very likely still in situ or in the newly renovated Thasos Museum.

Theodore and Mabel provide various interpretations of the inscription on the statue’s base. The first we have is from Mabel’s notebook (see illustration above), obviously an on-the-spot translation from the Greek made by the couple:  “Good Luck. The Elders to the most excellent Archpriestess Floueivia Savia of unblemished ancestry, their own mother, the first who ever enjoyed equal honours with the Elders.” (The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J. Theodore Bent, Vol. 1, Oxford, 2006, p. 200)

Bent’s account in the Athenæum (as previously mentioned) informs that the statue “was erected by the senate ‘to their mother Phloueibia Sabina, the most worthy archpriestess of incomparable ancestors, the first and only lady who had ever received equal honours to those who were in the senate.'”

A further version is provided by the eminent philologist, and friend of Bent, Edward Lee Hicks (1843-1919), later Bishop of Lincoln (UK). He published many of Bent’s inscriptions from Thasos and elsewhere over a five-year period in the late 1880s, e.g. ‘Inscriptions from Thasos’, in The Journal of Hellenic Studies (1887,  Vol. 8, 409-438).

This was a joint article with Bent, in which Hicks allocates the number 31 to the inscription. Bent provides some further information on the arch and the statue:

“The Roman arch we found in the town occupied a conspicuous position on what appears to have been the central street, the site being only indicated by a stone about three feet out of the ground, the rest being buried in some twelve feet of soil. The arch was 54 feet in length, and rested on four bases—the northern and southern columns being alone perfect—4 feet 8 inches square at the base, 9 feet 5 inches high, and having a small pattern down the outer edge. The two outer entrances were 6 feet 2 inches in width, the central expanse being 20 feet, and the whole structure rested on a raised marble pavement 6 feet 11 inches in width… In front and behind the two central columns of the arch were four pedestals, three with inscriptions… That to the front and to the right was 6 feet 9 inches high [just over 2 m], and had inscription No. 31; just below it lay the statue which had surmounted it, in perfect condition save for the tip of the nose and the right hand. It represented a female figure 6 feet 3 inches high [just under 2 m], enveloped in a long cloak, the left hand by her side being adorned with a large ring; the face was that of a young and graceful lady, and the drapery hung much more gracefully than it did on fragments of the statues which we found close to the other pedestals…” (pp. 437-438)

In a summary of ongoing research in Greece in 1886/7, the eminent archaeologist E.A. Gardner refers to the Bents’ statue (p. 284):

“Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Bent are now exploring in Thasos. They seem not as yet to have come across any of the archaic sculptures or inscriptions for which the island seemed so promising a field. But the agora has been found, and a triumphal arch with an inscription in honour (apparently) of Caracalla… In front of the arch were two bases. One of them held a statue, more than life size, which has been recovered. It is a female portrait, and on the basis is the following very curious inscription, calling Flavia Vibia Sabina μητέρα γερουσίας, and stating that she was the first and only woman from all time that ever shared equally in the privileges of the senators.

᾿Αγαθῇ τύχῃ. ἡ γερουσία Φλ. Οὐειβίαν Σαβεῖ(να)ν τὴν ἀξιολογωτάτην ἀρχιερεῖαν καὶ ἀπὸ προγόνων ἀσύνκριτον, μητέρα ἑαυτὴς, μόνην καὶ πρώτην τῶν ἀπ᾽ αἰῶνος μετασχοῦσαν τῶν ἴσων τειμῶν τοῖς γερουσιάζουσιν.

“Flavia Vibia Sabina seems to have been an ancient and successful champion of the political rights of her sex: and if, as may be hoped, her statue be transported to London, it should not in these times miss its due honour…”

Happily, she is never, however, to travel to the foggy London of the late 19th century, for she is coveted by the mercurial Turkish polymath, and first director of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910)

At the time the Bents were ‘active’, modern Turkey, like modern Greece, was well aware of its cultural assets and soon placed tight restrictions on amateur, independent excavators – whether the Bents saw themselves as ‘archaeologists’ or not. Rights to dig were, in a way, licensed to the newly formed archaeological institutions in Greece (e.g. The French School at Athens – 1846; German Archaeological Institute at Athens – 1874; American School of Classical Studies at Athens – 1881; British School at Athens – 1886; etc.), and Turkey was about to do the same. In Istanbul, the official overseeing Turkey’s clampdown on illegal handling of cultural assets was Osman Hamdi Bey. Previously, in 1884, this remarkable artist/intellectual oversaw the initiation of regulations prohibiting historical artifacts from being smuggled abroad (‘Asar-ı Atîka Nizamnamesi’). Naturally enough, he soon became an implacable foe of the Bents, who, at last, by 1889, were forced to ‘work’ in lands where any restrictions on their explorations were minimal if non-existent, i.e. Bahrain and other regions where the British Empire held sway.

While on Thasos, the couple undertook their investigations under the watchful and approving eye of a local ‘Bey’, who clearly kept Istanbul informed of Theodore’s major finds. Consequently, he was unable to return to London with anything more then his rolls of paper ‘squeezes’ of the inscriptions he uncovered.

To the Bents’ great regret, Fulvia Vibia Sabina was post haste crated up and despatched to the Turkish capital and its new museum (see Gustave Mendel, Catalogue des Sculptures Grecques, Romaines et Byzantines I, pp. 347-348, no. 137 (Constantinople, 1912), museum inv. no. 375).

On a later trip to Constantinople in February 1888, Mabel paid a visit to Fulvia, obviously still bitter: “We also went to the museum and saw our statues exposed to the weather, planted in mud and really we carefully looked and saw nothing so good of their kind. No wonder Hamdi won’t give them up. He would like a few things out of our own little museum [i.e. the Bents’ London home] for he has some rubbish in his. How angry he’d be if he knew of our digging at Vourgounda in Karpathos! [in 1885]. Well, we hope to be even with him yet for robbing us.” (The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J. Theodore Bent, Vol. 1, Oxford, 2006, p. 230)

For an amusing retelling of Theodore’s (almost) love-hate relationship with Osman Hamdi Bey, see the former’s article ‘Hamdi Bey’, first published in the Contemporary Review in 1888 (Vol. 54, 1888 (July/Dec), pp. 724-733).

Those scratches

Mabel was clearly mortified by the crosses she found scratched into ‘her’ statue: “Today we found that children had scribbled crosses with sharp stones on Floueivia…”

How Mabel could be certain that children were to blame she does not say – it could easily have been any Orthodox believer trying to ‘de-paganise’ the Roman archpriestess. The crosses remain just visible on ‘Floueivia’s front today – obviously intended to be seen, and thus, as it were, reclaimed by the Church.

 

 

 

Further reading

Bent’s articles associated with Thasos:

1877: ‘Discoveries in Thasos’. Athenæum, Issue 3113 (Jun), 839. [Reprinted in ‘Archæological News’, by A.L. Frothingham, Jr., The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts, Dec., 1887, Vol. 3, No. 3/4 (Dec., 1887), 446-455]

1877: ‘Thasiote Tombs’. Classical Review, Vol. 1(7), 210-211

1877: ‘A Thasian Decree’. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol, 8, 401-8. [With E.L. Hicks]

1877: ‘Inscriptions from Thasos’. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 8, 409-38. [With E.L. Hicks]

1888: ‘Hamdi Bey’. Contemporary Review, Vol. 54 (July/Dec), 724-33. [Reprinted in Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 179 (1888), 613ff]

Mabel Bent’s on-the-spot record of Thasos can be found in The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Vol. 1, 2006, pp. 198-215. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Other works of interest:

2012: Sheila Dillon, ‘Female Portraiture in the Hellenistic Period’, in S.L. James and S. Dillon (eds) A companion to Women in the Ancient World, pp. 274-275, London: Wiley-Blackwell.

2010: Sheila Dillon, The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World, pp. 147-149, and p. 278. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1967: George Daux, Guide De Thasos, Paris: French School at Athens.