ROMAN GARLAND SARCOPHAGI — WARD PERKINS 465 



pened in Egypt. In the Kom el-Shukafa catacomb, for example, we 

 find the f rontals of the grave recesses carved with garlands and rosettes, 

 in obvious imitation of the familiar marble design (13) ; and at the 

 same time we also find the local workshops producing a version of 

 the quarry design in a dark local stone, several examples of which can 

 still be seen in Alexandria itself (14) and, by some unexplained twist 

 of circumstances, two others in Ravenna, beside the church of San 

 Vitale. In at least two cases it was not only the design that was 

 copied but also something of the methods of producing it. At 

 Ephesus, which had a good white marble of its own, there is a local 

 series of garland sarcophagi which is barely distinguishable from those 

 of Proconnesus, and which may very well have been inspired in the 

 first place by that of Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, already re- 

 ferred to as having been buried in a heroon beneath the library that 

 bore his name. There is also a series of miniature sarcophagi based 

 on the same model, and these were widely exported within Asia Minor 

 and even, in exceptional cases, abroad, to Athens and to Rome (15). 

 So, too, in the region of Salonica a number of sarcophagi that are 

 virtually indistinguishable from those of Proconnesus were carved 

 in the coarse, grayish-white marble from the nearby quarries of 

 Thasos. Even in Italy, there can be very little doubt that the few 

 examples that were imported from Proconnesus had an important 

 influence on (and may even have originally inspired) the large and 

 varied Italian series of garland sarcophagi. In this case, however, 

 it is difficult to be more precise until the latter have been more 

 thoroughly studied. 



To the student of Roman funerary symbolism, the Proconnesian gar- 

 land sarcophagi have little to offer. There is an important distinction 

 (all too often disregarded by those who discuss the history of religious 

 ideas) between those symbols that are consciously selected and used 

 to convey a particular idea and those others whose use is determined 

 mainly or even entirely by association and custom. The motifs used 

 on the Proconnesian sarcophagi fall decisively into the later category. 

 To the average purchaser of one of these sarcophagi the message con- 

 veyed by its ornament can have been little more profound than the 

 cherubs and scrollwork on an eighteenth-century tombstone. The 

 fact that so many people were prepared and able to purchase them 

 is, on the other hand, an interesting commentary on the distribution 

 of wealth in the cities of the eastern provinces. However economi- 

 cally organized, the quarrying and transport of one of these bulky 

 objects must have been a very heavy item in the budget of any pri- 

 vate individual. It was probably this fact above all that gave the 

 Proconnesian quarries their advantage in the eastern Roman market. 

 Produced in very large quantities and loaded almost directly on 



