From Portus to Fucino (Italy): naval archaeology and symbolism on Torlonia reliefs

In the years 1852–1878, during the draining of the Fucino Lake, fragments of a large monumental relief bearing a waterfront landscape with views of a city, a countryside and two floating boats was recovered. Around the same time, during the archaeological excavations at the harbours of Claudius and Trajan in Portus (Rome, Italy), a small relief depicting a boat approaching a harbour was brought to light. The scene combines symbols with many realistic details to represent the boat and harbour. Subject of studies for nearly two centuries, the relief has been approached almost exclusively from an art historical perspective. The original context for both reliefs remains subject of speculation. The analysis of the two depictions—possibly contemporaneous (from the end of the second to the beginning of the third century AD) but different in dimensions, artistic treating of the scenes and probably also patronage—affords an opportunity to clarify the symbolic meaning of the depicted elements and propose new interpretations. This chapter explores the symbols represented in the two scenes from a naval-archaeological approach. The naval details, together with the symbolic elements and a brief review of the original excavation documentation, assist the authors in presenting a new interpretation of the two reliefs, one which may link them to their original historical, social, and political meaning and significance, while at the same time, reinterpreting their iconography in the most correct and plausible way possible.