The Statue of the Tiber river with Romulus and Remus is a large statue from ancient

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

exhibited at the

Louvre museum The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

Paris, France Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. It is an allegory of the

Tiber The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest List of rivers of Italy, river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where ...

river that waters the city of Rome.

Description

The Tiber is depicted as a middle-aged man, bearded and reclining, according to the typical pattern for representations of river gods. In his hands, he holds the attributes that signify the benefits he bestows on Rome: * In his left hand, an oar represents navigation; * In his right hand, a

cornucopia In classical antiquity, the cornucopia (), from Latin ''cornu'' (horn) and ''copia'' (abundance), also called the horn of plenty, was a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers ...

represents the nourishing virtues of the river. Under the right arm of the god lies the she-wolf which, according to

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...

, suckled the twins Romulus and Remus who had been abandoned in the Tiber and would later go on to found the city of Rome. The base of the statue is decorated with reliefs depicting a scene of grazed fields, one of boatmen, and another relating to the tale of

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...

. The statue is 3.17 m wide, 2.22 m tall, and 1.31 m deep.http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/tiber Notices (in english) about the statue on the site Louvre.fr It is carved from marble taken from

Mount Pentelicus Mount Pentelicus or Pentelikon (, or ) is a mountain in Attica, Greece, situated northeast of Athens and southwest of Marathon. Its highest point is the peak ''Pyrgari'', with an elevation of 1,109 m. The mountain is covered in large part wi ...

near Athens, Greece. File:Details of Romulus and Remus on the allegory of Tiber.jpg, Romulus and Remus under an arm of the Tiber. File:Statue du Tibre (Louvre) reliefs 4.jpg, The House of Troy sacked by the Greeks and Aeneas fleeing before founding Rome.

Location

The statue was discovered in 1512 in Rome at the site of the

Temple of Isis and Serapis The Temple of Isis and Serapis was a double temple in Rome dedicated to the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis on the Campus Martius, directly to the east of the Saepta Julia. The temple to Isis, the Iseum Campense, stood across a plaza from t ...

, near the present-day basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The statue undoubtedly decorated a fountain situated on the path leading to the sanctuary. It mirrored a statue of the Nile river (now preserved in the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

) in which Romulus and Remus are replaced by a crowd of children representing pygmies.

History

After their discovery, the two statues were initially preserved in the papal collections. Following the

Treaty of Tolentino {{unreferenced, date=June 2018 The Treaty of Tolentino was a peace treaty between Revolutionary France and the Papal States, signed on 19 February 1797 and imposing terms of surrender on the Papal side. The signatories for France were the French Di ...

(1797) between the French Republic and the Papal States, they were transferred to the Louvre, where their presence was attested in 1811. In 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon, the statue of the Nile was returned to the Vatican. However, the statue of the Tiber was offered by the pope

Pius VII Pope Pius VII ( it, Pio VII; born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti; 14 August 1742 – 20 August 1823), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 14 March 1800 to his death in August 1823. Chiaramonti was also a m ...

to the French king

Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in ...

and remained in the Louvre. The image of the statue of the Tiber was widely circulated and it became the subject of numerous marble or bronze replicas.

Dating

The date of the sculpture is uncertain. It was probably installed after the fire at the Temple of Isis in 80 CE. But it could be from the later Hadrian period (117–138 CE).

References

Bibliography

J. Le Gall, « Les Bas-reliefs de la statue du Tibre », in ''Revue archéologique'', 1944.

External links

* https://sites.google.com/a/tools.memorialplayers.org/chamberofwonders/heemskerck/2
article in louvre collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tiber 1st-century BC sculptures Tiber 1512 archaeological discoveries Antiquities acquired by Napoleon Archaeological discoveries in Italy Hellenistic-style Roman sculptures Allegorical sculptures in France Marble sculptures in France Sculptures of men in France Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures of the Louvre Cultural depictions of Romulus and Remus Personifications of rivers