Altera Roma

This collection of articles (resulting from a symposium and exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire, 2010) juxtaposes the history and representation of the Roman and Aztec Empires, as seen in particular through the eyes of the Spanish who first encountered Mexico and its advanced civilization in the sixteenth century. At the same time that Europeans were rediscovering their own classical past, they were also encountering the “living past” in Mexico, a confrontation that often prompted conquistadors and missionaries to think ethnographically and synthetically as they saw the Aztecs through the lens of classical Rome and Roman imperialism.As these essays convincingly demonstrate, there is much that is comparable between Rome and Mexico, both in terms of broad generalizations and granular specifics. As Walter Scheidel’s overview essay explains, we can rightly categorize Aztec civilization as ancient since it developed in isolation from Afroeurasia; both the Roman and Aztec Empires began as city-states that later expanded, and they both employed monumental sculpture and architecture in city centers as a display of power and authority and to promote a just mixture of unity and pluralism throughout their imperial realms. To be clear, scholars have long noted the myriad ways in which Europeans drew analogies between the classical world and the Americas, as well as the ways that cultures regularly understand the foreign through the familiar; in these respects, this volume confirms to some degree what we already know. However, it often explores these connections through new perspectives and examples, and at these points, the essays intrigue and excite.For instance, John Pohl demonstrates that just as Spain’s imperial claims on southern Italy were rooted in Homer’s Odyssey, Cortés invoked the legend of a returning hero bent on conquest in Mexico; in this way, the Aztec legend of Quetzalcoatl can be compared to the uses and functions of ancient myths in Europe. Essays by Andrew Laird and Guilhem Olivier explore how classical models from Europe infiltrated Europeans’ retelling of Aztec myths. The Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún, for instance, likened the Aztec gods Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl to Hercules and Mars, and compared the mythical accounts of Tula and Troy or Cholula and Rome. If we truly attempt to “reconstruct the historical roots of a visual imagination” (217), as Thomas Cummins aims to do, we can understand how the Spanish might naturally see pre-Columbian sculpture as Roman when they encountered a Mexican statuary tradition so similar to that of their own classical heritage. Fanciful European renditions of Aztec sacrifice, as explored by Cecilia Klein, were based more on European representations of sacrifice than Mexican ones. For Leonardo López Luján, the development of archaeology and an interest in antiquities among viceregal creoles in New Spain owed much to the archaeology of the classical world.Some essays are stronger than others. Eulogio Guzmán’s comparison of the Aztec Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan to the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (both, he argues, expressed the political ideals of ambitious governments that sought to wield control over diverse populations) appears far-fetched, if not a classic case of apples and oranges. In addition, it seems little connected to the theme and scope of the volume, as does Emily Umberger’s essay, which while excellent, is entirely focused on provincial Aztec monuments and imperial expansion, with almost no comparative mention of the Romans. Jonathan Edmondson intriguingly implies that Roman monuments in Spain might have provided models for urban planning in the New World; however, the bulk of his essay recounts how Roman monuments undergirded imperial control in the Roman city of Augusta Emerita (Mérida, in modern Extremadura, Spain, which may produce confusion surrounding the book’s title for readers more familiar with Mérida, Mexico), and he only briefly returns to his implied argument in conclusion by mentioning that “whether Spanish conquistadors such as Hernán Cortés were fully aware of how potent monumental architecture and art had been in the consolidation of Roman authority in the Hispanic provinces must remain an open question” (92).Overall, however, the volume represents an excellent example of the craft of world history, engaged in a comparison of civilizations that allows us to distinguish both commonalities and variables that led to particular historical outcomes. As Cummins puts it, the worlds of classical antiquity and early modern Mexico had nothing historically in common, in the sense that they were in no direct contact with each other; nevertheless, in the sixteenth century, they “circulated in parallel worlds that often intersected in the imagination of history” (245). As Walter Scheidel rightly proclaims, “without comparison, we can never have a good sense of what mattered” (24)

Ancient history · Art · Empire · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeological and Historical Studies · Historical and Architectural Studies · History