#MAREMonday 45

On 02.03.2026 we present the 45th session of our online lecture series with a contribution of

Simon Moramarco
(Université Paul-Valéry de Montpellier)

Transportation, commercialization and diffusion of works of art and art craft objects during the Roman era (2nd century BC – 5th century AD) in southern Gaul

Abstract:

At the end of the Second Punic War, the defeat of the Carthaginians allowed Rome to expand and establish a hegemonic position in the Mediterranean. The conquest of Hellenistic Greece from the 2nd century BCE gave generals and their armies the opportunity to plunder cities and sanctuaries (Corinth, Athens, etc.) and bring back spoils that included works of art and art craft objects, thus giving rise to a new trade: the «art market». By «works of art and art objects», we must understand finished products that were traded and whose main added value lay in specific craftsmanship and skills: an ars, which in ancient Rome pertained as much to art as to craftsmanship. The influx of spoils, transferred to Italy and displayed during triumphal ceremonies, revealed a strong taste for Greek art among members of the Roman aristocracy. The ever-growing appetite for these pieces among these elites did not stop at spoils, and commissions from the so-called «Neo-Attic» workshops, emerging between 170 and 160 BCE, increased, marking the birth of this new market.

During Antiquity, the most commonly used means of transportation remained navigation, whether by river or sea. The numerous submerged discoveries, made possible by the development of underwater and subaquatic archaeology, atest to the intensity of commercial traffic by waterway. On the coast of southern Gaul, several sites have revealed elements that we consider to be works of art or art craft objects. Protected from excessive human presence until the second half of the 20th century, coastal, lake, river, and underwater sites along this coast are now falling victim to it. This work aims to place them in their context by combining underwater archaeology, art history, and economic history.