Plinth

It is perhaps no surprise that Ancient Rome lives rent free in the collective consciousness, being as it is so heavily woven through contemporary art and culture. This year alone, Millennium smash hit ‘Gladiator’ is returning in sequel form, and multiple TV series have cashed in on pre-launch excitement. In these big and small screen bonanzas, fact and fiction are complexly entangled, with Rome’s renowned bloodlust and decadence finding exaggerated form in CGI crocodiles and epic gladiatorial showdowns.

There are also a host of art exhibitions excavating the objects and temples of Roman times. Subtler in approach than their film and tv counterparts, these shows explore the role of artifice and myth in our relationship with and understanding of Ancient Rome. There is clearly something that keeps compelling us back to the realities and fictions of this particular era. In a contemporary landscape often defined by its post-truth nature, the vivacious storytelling surrounding Rome’s history feels especially relevant. One could also argue that this depraved, hyper-violent time has many parallels with our world now; the gladiatorial arena finding kinship with the attacking vitriol of social media and political debate.

Of the contemporary artists taking a deep dive into Rome, Goshka Makuga’s long-running solo show ‘Born from Stone’ opened last month at London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, exploring the building’s own archaeological history connected with the god Mithras; Emii Alrai's semi-fictional excavation of a Roman lake is currently showing at Maximilian William; and Oliver Bak is opening his exploration of the wicked child Roman emperor Heliogabalus at Sprüth Magers in Berlin this September.

For Makuga, London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE has offered the opportunity to explore Rome’s entangled history and mythology. She was inspired by the very real ruins that sit on the gallery’s site, a Roman temple dedicated to the god Mithras. He was inspired by the Iranian Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) Mithra and worshipped as part of a mystery religion during the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce. For the exhibition, Makuga has installed a cavernous installation, with sculptural rocks evoking the subterranean landscape that first housed the temple. There are also items on show from the Imperial War Museum, creating a clear throughline from the brutality of Roman times to now. Themes of violence and war are woven through Mithras’ narrative, as the god of oaths and justice. Makuga utilises his character to address the current collapse of the environment and the horrors of contemporary warfare. She highlights both generative and destructive forces throughout the show, ultimately addressing the cyclical nature of history, in which we seem doomed to repeat the same deadly actions.

Oliver Bak has similarly been drawn to the violence of ancient Rome’s ruling class, inspired by the tale of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, otherwise known as Heliogabalus. The cruel child Roman emperor was said to have raped women in public and was assassinated at the age of 18 in 222 AD. Bak looked to various iterations of Heliogabalus’ story, which has been warped and reimagined over the years. One of these is Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s sumptuous 1888 painting ‘The Roses of Heliogabalus’, in which the emperor’s guests, entangled in orgy-like intimacy, are drowned by delicate pink flowers. Bak has also studied the biography of Heliogabalus written by French poet Antonin Artaud in the 1930s. Throughout these depictions and Bak’s there is a beauty and romance to the horror, in which death and barbaric murder are partly obscured by sexual abandon and engaging storytelling. This is perhaps not too far from our current political and celebrity class, in which the immorality and cruelty of idolised leaders is lost to the distracting cult of personality.

Emii Alrai also blends fact and fiction. ‘A Lake as Great as Its Bones’ was inspired by Lake Nemi, a volcanic crater that the artist discovered in southern Rome during a residency at the nearby Villa Medici. The display of her ceramic and metalwork sculptures mimics the setting of archaeological treasures in museums. These polystyrene forms treated with gypsum and bitumen look as though they could have been dug from the ground, blurring the line between artistic falsehood and genuine relic. She is interested in the romantic memories we might have of a past we never experienced, which can easily be projected onto items that embrace the aesthetics of excavated items. These items capture the power of storytelling and the narrative beliefs that are applied to items in museums, as the distance between us and their historic past becomes flattened. They are a stark reminder to take nothing at face value, and that there is no one solid version of history that we can grasp.

Ancient Rome on screen often calls for a rejection of truth finding in favour of brutal entertainment. The original Gladiator famously mingled fact and falsehood: Ridley Scott’s emperor agrees to a public colosseum battle; fictional patricide is committed against real life characters; and Russell Crowe’s lead is entirely made up. Scott apparently wanted to make the most realistic Roman Empire film ever, and hired numerous historians to advise him, though one dropped out due to the movie’s fast and loose approach to reality and another asked to have his name left out of the credits.

The movie has gone on to have major success critically, at the box office, and on the award circuit, and you have to wonder if it would have done so well as an accurate, historical portrayal. When audiences ask for ancient Rome, is it the facts they want, or the mood and aura, a bombastic display in which emotions are cranked up to 11 and anything is possible? The battle between Commodus and Maximus in the film’s final moments, in which an enslaved gladiator is able to kill an emperor in the public arena, is as undeniably moving as it is ridiculous. But false as this storyline is, power from the ruling classes remains brutally oppressive, and there is a sense of catharsis in this unlikely end.

At times, Gladiator revels in its own violence, with meaty bodies impaled on spikes, heads chopped clean off, and a morning star slicing into a mangled face. The gore becomes a spectacle – viewers might cheer for the heroes but cannot deny their own thirst for death and destruction while watching. The trailer for the sequel looks just as graphic and extravagant, featuring a flooded colosseum with mocked-up naval battle and a rhino’s horn covered in thick congealed blood. Similarly, Amazon’s latest challenger to ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘Those About to Die’ maxed out on carnage and butchery, in one scene also paying homage to the flooded colosseum (which did happen in reality, though it was unlikely to have looked quite like this) with gargantuan crocodiles snapping off gory limbs and faces.

Throughout our many attempts to capture Rome, in all its chaos and barbarity, we are perhaps trying to connect with these disjointed times. There are undeniable similarities between the bloody spectacle of the colosseum and the current US election trail, in which hatred and violent rhetoric is served up for arenas of followers who care little for the truth. This dynamic runs through social media, in particular X, where limited distinction is made between reality and falsehood, and images of war and genocide sit side by side with exercise tips and cute dogs. Multiple countries are also grappling with leaders who wish to take on imperial power – avoiding the senatorial balance of democratic convention – and there is a certain joy in seeing such characters exposed and thrown from their pedestal. Additionally, there are surely similarities in the fall of a booming, formerly mighty empire and the dying gasps of late capitalism. It hasn’t imploded yet, but it sure feels like it’s coming. In the face of all this, excavating Rome promises to provide us with some answers, to avoid our own destruction. The problem is, it’s so entertaining, we just might forget to hear them.

By Emily Steer

Cover image: Paul Mescal in Gladiators II (2024). Copyright: Paramount