WEBVTT

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(melodic jazz music)

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- [Steven] We're in the Vatican Museums

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looking at one of the most famous works

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in the entire Western tradition.

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This is a sculpture known
as the "Apoxyomenos,"

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the "Scraper."

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- [Beth] By a very famous
ancient Greek sculptor

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named Lysippos, we're actually looking

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at an ancient Roman copy.

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- [Steven] So what we're
gonna try to answer

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in this video is how a major sculpture

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by a famous ancient Greek
ended up as a Roman copy

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in the Vatican in the
city of Rome in the third,

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the second and even the
first centuries, BCE.

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The Romans not only conquered Greece,

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but also its many territories and colonies

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and triumphant Roman generals

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brought back enormous
numbers of Greek sculptures

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and to a lesser extent,
ancient Greek paintings

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and even architectural fragments.

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- [Beth] Now the Romans were not unique

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in making off with booty during war,

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there was an age old precedent for that,

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but when the Romans confronted Greek art

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and brought it back to Rome,

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that was a transformational experience.

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In fact, Horace wrote

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that although the Romans
had conquered Greece,

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Greece through its culture conquered Rome,

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- [Steven] It symbolized a
great intellectual tradition,

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that Rome saw itself as
becoming the inheritor of.

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- [Beth] It signified a kind of luxury,

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a life of educated cultural refinement,

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that seemed very different

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than the current life of ancient Romans.

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- [Steven] So let's just walk
through how this would work.

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Rome would conquer an area,
perhaps a Greek city state,

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or perhaps simply an area that
had been allied with Greece

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and soon after objects that
were deemed worthy of import

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would be packed onto ships
and brought back to Rome,

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where they would often be
paraded through the city

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during a triumph.

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- [Beth] A triumph was
essentially an opportunity

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for a victorious general
to exhibit the booty

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that they had brought back

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and to celebrate their military victory

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and it would have given the agent Romans,

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who lived here in Rome

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and hadn't traveled to
these distant places,

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a sense of the wealth and
power of these places,

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that were being conquered
by the great Roman army.

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- [Steven] And then after the triumph,

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an enormous number of objects
would be put on public display

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in various parts of the city,

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but most famously in the Temple of Peace,

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just beside the Roman Forum.

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Now ancient Rome didn't have museums,

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but in a way places
like the Temple of Peace

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become a kind of proto-museum.

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So many of these Greek objects
had been used originally

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in religious or civic environments,

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but the Romans ripped them
out of their original context

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and made them aesthetic objects,

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made them objects of luxury.

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- [Beth] When objects are looted,

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whether we're talking
about the ancient world

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or the modern world, they often
lose that original meaning.

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- [Steven] And the "Apoxyomenos"
is a perfect case in point,

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we don't have its original location,

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we don't know from literature
or from any evidence,

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where this originally
would have been placed,

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the Romans took it and now it's here.

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- [Beth] But let's be careful,

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when we say the Romans took it,

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the Romans took the bronze original

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and because of this
developing love of Greek art,

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ultimately many copies were made of it,

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one of the most beautiful is
here in the Vatican Museums.

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So the "Apoxyomenos" is
brought to the city of Rome

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as war booty and it's set up by Agrippa

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in front of the baths that he built

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for the public here in Rome.

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- [Steven] And it was
in the Baths of Agrippa,

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that the Roman public really fell in love

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with this sculpture.

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The baths were essentially a public place

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and a place where the average Roman

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could see ancient Greek sculpture.

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- [Beth] So what Agrippa did
was considered to be generous,

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he was giving this to the people

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the way that a private collector today

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might donate a work to a museum,

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so it could be shared with the public.

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- [Steven] So you can imagine
how upset that public was,

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when the emperor Tiberius
took the sculpture

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from the Baths of Agrippa and
brought it to his own house,

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put it in his own bed chambers.

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- [Beth] Pliny says Lysippos
was most prolific in his works

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and made more statues
than any other artist.

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Among these is the man
using the body scraper,

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which Marcus Agrippa had erected
in front of his warm baths

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and which wonderfully
pleased the emperor Tiberius.

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This emperor could not
resist the temptation

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and had this statue
removed to his bed chamber,

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having substituted another
for it at the baths.

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The people however were so
resolutely opposed to this,

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that at the theater,
they clamorously demanded

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the "Apoxyomenos" to be replaced

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and the emperor not withstanding
his attachment to it

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was obliged to restore it.

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- [Steven] So the court of
public opinion was so loud,

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that the emperor actually
gave it back to the people,

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it speaks to the power of images,

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in a way the sculpture became a way

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of differentiating public
good from private greed.

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- [Beth] And this was part of
a long standing conversation

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in Rome among those like Cato and Cicero,

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who believed that this
booty that was taken

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should be available to the public

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versus those who took the booty
and kept it for themselves

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to decorate their private villas.

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- [Steven] And all of these
issues remain important today,

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our museums are filled with objects,

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that come from different places

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and many of those objects were looted.

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Museums are looking at
their collections now

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and wondering whether some of
them should be repatriated,

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that is returned to
their country of origin

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and in any case how their
meaning has been transformed

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by being taken out of
their original context

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and put into a museum,

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where their meaning is
completely transformed.

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- [Beth] The Romans were
not without sympathy

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for the conquered peoples, in fact,

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Livy wrote very sympathetically
about the King of Syracuse.

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If this King were to rise
from the realms below,

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with what words could we show
him either Syracuse or Rome,

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when after he looked back

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on his half-destroyed
and despoiled fatherland,

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he would see as he entered Rome

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in the vestibule of the
city, almost in the gates,

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the spoils of his own fatherland.

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- [Steven] So when we
look at the "Apoxyomenos"

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now on display in the
Vatican in the 21st century,

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we generally look at it as an
exemplar of ancient Greek art

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and too often, we forget the complex story

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of how this sculpture was
looted, how it was loved,

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how it was adopted by the Roman people,

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how it was copied and
ultimately ended up here.

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(melodic jazz music)