honorthegods:The Symmachi-Nicomachi diptych. Ivory, circa 400 CEThe diptych was originally made up o

honorthegods:The Symmachi-Nicomachi diptych. Ivory, circa 400 CEThe diptych was originally made up of two carved ivory panels hinged together. The Nicomachi panel, on the left, is now in the Cluny Museum, Paris. It depicts a priestess with the inverted torch of Ceres, standing beneath the pine tree and cymbals sacred to the Magna Mater.The Symmachi panel is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It depicts a priestess taking incense from a box. She wears an ivy garland, sacred to Bacchus, in her hair, and stands beneath an oak tree, sacred to Jupiter.The Symmachi and Nicomachi were noble Roman families who were involved in the pagan resistance of the late 4th century CE. They contributed to the maintenance of temples, and sponsored editing of ancient texts by Livy, Horace, Apuleius, and Macrobius. Quintus Aurelius Symmachus was Prefect of the City of Rome 384-385. He unsuccessfully debated the Bishop of Milan about the restoration of the Altar of Victory to the Senate chamber. Virius Flavianus Nicomachus was Praetorian Prefect of Italy. He supported the Emperor Eugenius, a Christian who was open-minded about paganism. Virius’ son, Nicomachus Flavianus, was Prefect of the City of Rome in 399-400 and again in 408. He held the office of Praetorian Prefect of Italy, Illyricum and Africa in 431-432.It is conjectured that the Symmachi-Nicomachi diptych might commemorate one of the two marriages which united the two families in the late 300s and early 400s CE, or it may depict occasions upon which female members of these families performed priestly duties, perhaps as part of the Mysteries.Photo credits:Left panel of the Symmachi-Nicomachi diptych, collection of the Musée de Cluny, Paris. Photo by: Clio20 via Wikimedia Commons (X). Photo license:  GNU Free Documentation License.Right panel of the Symmachi-Michomarch diptych, collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Photo by sailko via Wikimedia Commons (X). Photo license: GNU Free Documentation License.I recently learned that these panels weren’t purely decorative objects, as I previously supposed; they were components of a writing tablet! The panels were hinged together with the images on the outside, and the inside was coated with a thin layer of wax, creating a reusable writing surface. The stylus used for writing on wax tablets had a pointed end for writing, and a blunt end which could be warmed over a lamp flame and used as an “eraser” to buff characters from the wax.I knew the Symmachi and Nichomachi were fabulously wealthy, but it’s absolutely astonishing to me that artwork of this quality was created for what was basically a notebook!  Ivory diptychs, such as this one, were often gifted by and to elites, and would have been displayed as status symbols in a public room of the home.I also discovered that the panels had been reused as the doors of a reliquary during the Middle Ages. An engraving was made of the intact panels in 1717 for an inventory of the treasures of the Benedictine Abbey in Haute-Marne, France. (The Abbey was founded in 670 on the site of a Gallo-Roman villa, and it’s assumed that the panels were part of the belongings of the household.) The damage to the Nichomachi panel occurred during the French Revolution, when the Abbey was dissolved.  Modern engraving of the Nicomachorum-Symmachorum diptych prior to its partial destruction by fire. E. Martène et U. Durand, Voyage littéraire de deux religieux bénédictins de la Congrégation de Saint Maur, Paris, 1717. Image source: Wikimedia Commons (X). Image license: Public domain: in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 70 years or fewer. Public Domain In the U.S.: Published before 1925Source Dump (Hopefully, I’ll remember to make a proper bibliography after I get some sleep!):Diptych Leaf of the Symmachi - The Byzantine LegacySymmachi tablet - Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender IndexThe Symmachi Panel - Victoria & Albert MuseumKeep taking the (wax) tablets - British LibraryMontier-en-Der Abbey - WikipediaA Late Antique Ivory Plaque and Modern Response by Dale Kinney and Anthony Cutler -   https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e2a9/90b5055f593a26905f9f6286075f4bf3f7fd.pdf“Social Memory in Fifth Century Rome” by Sarah Dawson, pp. 79-83  https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:11145/PDF -- source link

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