Rain Miracle Scene
Catalogue Image
2016-00-00
Name/Title
Rain Miracle SceneEntry/Object ID
10R04138Description
Relief panel from Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome depicting the Rain Miracle scene. Complex battle scene with Rain god flying above, its arms outstretched to the sides and water streams down as it drenches an army of armed men and horses. Roman soldiers advance from the left towards defeated Germanic soldiers and horses below and to the right. Carved plaster re-creation of marble original.Type of Sculpture
ReliefArtwork Details
Medium
PlasterContext
The Column of Marcus Aurelius was set up in the Campus Martius in Rome with its current location being the Piazza Colonna. The monument was commissioned in 176 CE to celebrate to military triumph of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius against the Germanic tribes of the Marcomanni and Quadi, and against the Sarmatians, and it was completed in 180 CE by the emperor’s son Commodus. The column consists of 26 drums of Luna marble with a hollow interior and stairs leading up to the top. The sculptural relief, which spirals around the column 21 times, gives greater emphasis to individual figures than to background buildings and landscapes, making Marcus Aurelius and his troops the key players in the sculptural narrative. Of all the 116 relief scenes of the column depicting Marcus Aurelius’s campaigns, the Rain Miracle scene is perhaps the most significant, since it depicts the point in the campaign when the Roman troops were given victory through the divine intervention from a god bringing forth rain, which saved them from death due to lack of water. The question of which god performed the "Rain Miracle" inspired opposing pagan and Christian accounts. Dio knew of a pagan report that credited Hermes of the Air (Hermes Aerio) (72[71].8.4). For the Christian apologist Tertullian, the miracle was a response of his god to prayers of Christian soldiers who happened to be fighting in the Roman army (Apologeticus 5.6). Tertullian cited as his source a letter of Marcus Aurelius; this can hardly have been a genuine letter. Nonetheless, the widespread view existed that a prayer of Marcus Aurelius incited the occurrence of the miracle, which was considered evidence of divine support for his reign.Made/Created
Date made
176 CE - 193 CETime Period
Roman ImperialEthnography
Culture/Tribe
Roman