Substituting for the porticoes of the other fora, the lateral walls of the Forum Transitorium had a series of slender Corinthian columns en ressaut, the entablature and attic projecting out over each to form a series of thirty-eight bays. Only one surviving pair remains, known as Le Colonnacce, which still stands next to the temple pronaos. Depicted in the attic is the figure of Minerva, considered by Domitian to be his divine patron.
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Along the entablature is a frieze that shows Minerva in the company of women spinning and weaving, the arsts and crafts over which the goddess presided. The myth of Arachne also is depicted, who, relates Ovid (Metamorphoses, VI), had challenged Minerva to a weaving competition and, for her effrontery, was transformed into a spider, although none of this is shown on the little of the frieze that survives. In the bay, beneath the figure of Minerva, the punishment of Arachne is represented, flanked by moralizing exempla of virtuous women attending to their domestic duties. D'Ambra reads the frieze as associating domestic virtues with imperial ideals: the punishment of Arachne as an expression of both divine and imperial authority, and the representation of women in their traditional roles as part of Domitian's campaign for moral reform. Still, it is a curious theme, more suited to the private realm than the sculptural program of a public monument. Too, the myth is conveyed only by Ovid, whose work had been banned from the libraries of Rome for undermining the moral reform of Augustus, and one wonders to what extent Arachne was emphasized on the frieze. In his zeal to enforce chastity, Domitian had two vestal virgins executed and the chief vestal buried alive for breaking their vows (Suetonius, VIII). On the other hand, he also seduced his niece, who died when she was forced to undergo an abortion (XII). |
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Reference: Private Lives, Imperial Virtues: The Frieze of the Forum Transitorium in Rome (1993) by Eve D'Ambra.
