The Lupercale Revisited, Already?

[cmacq]

It seems it may be a little more complex than first proposed?

The following is titled:

WORKING THE ROMAN MYTH

Is Italy's Spectacular Find Authentic?

By Matthias Schulz

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,520440,00.html

[Geoffrey S]

Some very inflated claims in there; what I have seen in reference to the cave is that it has been made quite clear that the discoverers made the distinction that it might have been what later Romans thought was the original cave. Anything else looks to come straight from the Italian media.

[cmacq]

I agree, the actual location of the cave on the hill suggests this as well. However, I was not aware of the forgery. Still, it could have been a copy of an original Latin artefact, rather than simply a forgery?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/She-wolf_suckles_Romulus_and_Remus.jpg/280px-She-wolf_suckles_Romulus_and_Remus.jpg

From Wik.

In his Naturalis History, Pliny the Elder mentions, near the fig-tree in the Roman Forum that was named for Attus Navius, the she-wolf, "a miracle proclaimed in bronze nearby, as though she had crossed the Comitium while Attus Navius was taking the omens." The text is corrupt, but the apparent movement of the lupa suggests that the suckling twins were not then present. The Capitoline Wolf is noted several times by Cicero, once among sacred objects on the Capitoline that had been inauspiciously struck by lightning: "it was a gilt statue on the Capitol of a baby being given suck from the udders of a wolf." Cicero also mentions the wolf in De Divinatione 1.20 and 2.47.

The Etruscan bronze is dated stylistically to about 500-480 BC. The bronze figures of the twins were added in the late 15th century, perhaps by Antonio del Pollaiuolo, in accordance with the story of Romulus and Remus. However, in 2006 the Italian historian of art Anna Maria Carruba and Etruscologist Adriano La Regina contested this traditional dating, and, on the base of analysis of the casting techinique, argued that it could be from the High Middle Ages.

The bronze wolf was noted at the Lateran Palace from the beginning of the 9th century. In the 10th century Chronicon of Benedict of Soracte, the monk chronicler writes of the institution of a supreme court of justice "in the Lateran palace, in the place called [graffiti], viz, the mother of the Romans." Trials and executions "at the Wolf" are recorded from time to time until 1450. The twelfth-century English cleric, "Magister Gregorius", wrote a descriptive essay De Mirabilibus Urbis Romae and recorded in an appendix three pieces of sculpture he had neglected: one was the Wolf in the portico at the principal entrance to the Vatican Palace. He mentions no twins, for he noted that she was set up as if stalking a bronze ram that was nearby and served as a fountain. The wolf too had served as a fountain, Magister Gregorius thought, but it had been broken off at the feet and moved to where he saw it.[9] In 1450 G. Rucellai saw the lupa pregna (the "pregnant she-wolf") at the Lateran. She was removed to the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Campidoglio in 1473, by order of Sixtus IV. She appeared in a woodcut illustration of Mirabilia Urbis Romae (Rome, 1499) already with the infant twins.

[Geoffrey S]

I agree, the actual location of the cave on the hill suggests this as well. However, I was not aware of the forgery. Still, it could have been a copy of an original Latin artefact, rather than simply a forgery?
Exactly. Forgery makes a moral implication which just isn't there IMO; as with the links to Italian nationalist pride.

[Pharnakes]

I aggree as well. Also, appart to nationalist Italian pride, does it really matter what the room was for?

As I see it either way it should yield some very interesting discoveries. Correct me if I am wrong, but the article implies that this would be the first of these private dinning rooms found? Surely that is signifigant in itself?

[cmacq]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the article implies that this would be the first of these private dinning rooms found? Surely that is signifigant in itself?

I don't know.

http://www.mmdtkw.org/VCapitoline.html

http://www.archaeology.org/0011/abstracts/trenches.html

http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/docs/FURmap.html#Setting

and

http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/fragment.php?slab=81&record=1

Have run, later.