The Symmachi–Nicomachi diptych is a Late Antique

Late Antiquity

Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...

 ivory

Ivory

Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...

 diptych

Diptych

A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...

 dating to the late fourth or early fifth century whose panels depict scenes of ritual pagan

Polytheism

Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....

 religious practices. Both its style and its content reflect a short-lived revival

Decline of Hellenistic polytheism

The Greco-Roman religion at the time of the Constantinian shift mostly consisted of three main currents,*Greco-Roman Polytheism,*the official Roman imperial cult,*various Mystery religions....

 of traditional Roman religion

Religion in ancient Rome

Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

 and Classicism

Classicism

Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

 at a time when the Roman world was increasingly turning to Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 and rejecting the Classical tradition. The diptych takes its name from the inscriptions "Nicomachorum" and Symmachorum," references to two prominent Senatorial

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...

 families. It was commissioned by the family of Q. Aurelius Symmachus

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus was a Roman statesman, orator, and man of letters. He held the offices of governor of Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391...

 consul 391, "one of the paladins of the pagan cause in the last quarter of the fourth century".

Provenance

The diptych leaves were preserved together until the nineteenth century. The earliest description of the leaves dates to 1717, when a treasury inventory of the monastery of Montier-en-Der

Montier-en-Der Abbey

The Abbey of Montier-en-Der was formerly a Benedictine, later Cluniac, abbey, dissolved during the French Revolution, the grounds and premises of which, since 1806, have been used as the French National Stud Farm.- Monastery :...

 records them serving as doors on an early thirteenth century reliquary

Reliquary

A reliquary is a container for relics. These may be the physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, or some object associated with saints or other religious figures...

. Art historian and scholar Richard Delbrueck uncovered a reference to the panels in the abbot Adso's tenth century biography of Bercharius

Bercharius

Saint Bercharius was abbot of Hautvillers in Champagne. Descended from a distinguished Aquitanian family, he received his instruction from Saint Nivard , Archbishop of Reims....

, who founded the monastery ca. 670. Adso wrote that his predecessor "visited Jerusalem and obtained very many sacred relics, and he brought back with him excellent tablets of ivory." When the events of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 forced the closure of the monastery in 1790, the reliquary and its panels were temporarily lost. The Nicomachi wing was recovered in 1860 from a well, heavily damaged by fire, and the mostly intact Symmachi panel resurfaced in the hands of a collector not long after. They were subsequently acquired by the Musée de Cluny

Musée de Cluny

The Musée de Cluny , officially known as Musée National du Moyen Âge , is a museum in Paris, France...

 and the Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

 respectively.

Description

The diptych was produced in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 sometime between 388 and 401, or in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, by the identical border details in the ivory panel of the Maries at the Tomb. The Nicomachi panel measures 29.9 x 12.6 cm, that of the Symmachi 29.8 x 12.2 cm. Both wings depict female figures engaged in religious ritual before sacrificial altars. The Nicomachi tablet in Paris is by far the less well preserved of the pair, having sustained considerable damage in a fire. The ivory is fractured in several places, with some sections of the panel missing completely, together with high-relief areas such as the female figure's face, left hand and right arm. This figure stands before a round altar, holding two lit torches now partially missing. Cymbals hang from a pine tree overhead; both the tree and its hangings are attributes of the goddess Cybele

Cybele

Cybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...

 and her consort Attis

Attis

Attis was the consort of Cybele in Phrygian and Greek mythology. His priests were eunuchs, as explained by origin myths pertaining to Attis and castration...

.

The Symmachi leaf in London features an ivy

Ivy

Ivy, plural ivies is a genus of 12–15 species of evergreen climbing or ground-creeping woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to western, central and southern Europe, Macaronesia, northwestern Africa and across central-southern Asia east to Japan and Taiwan.-Description:On level ground they...

-crowned woman sprinkling incense over the flames of a square altar garlanded with oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

 wreaths. A small attendant holding a kantharos

Kantharos

A kantharos or cantharus is a type of Greek pottery used for drinking. It is characterized by its high swung handles which extend above the lip of the pot.The god Dionysus had a kantharos which was never empty....

 and a bowl of fruit assists her. The oak garlands together with the oak tree overhead suggest the worship of Jupiter

Jupiter (mythology)

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....

, while the ivy leaves recall the god Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

. The female figures have been variously interpreted as priestesses and as goddesses.

The panels are generally believed to celebrate the alliance through marriage of two senatorial families, the Symmachi and Nicomachi. The most likely candidates are the daughter of Senator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus was a Roman statesman, orator, and man of letters. He held the offices of governor of Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391...

 and Nicomachus Flavianus

Nicomachus Flavianus (son)

Nicomachus Flavianus , sometimes referred to as Flavianus the younger, was a grammarian and a politician of the Roman Empire. He was the son of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus...

, the son of his colleague and friend Virius Nicomachus Flavianus

Virius Nicomachus Flavianus

Virius Nicomachus Flavianus was a grammarian, a historian and a politician of the Roman Empire.A pagan and close friend of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, he was Praetorian prefect of Italy in 390–392 and, under usurper Eugenius , again praetorian prefect and consul...

, although it has also been suggested that the panels may instead commemorate the marriage of Symmachus' son, Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus

Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus

Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus was a politician of the Roman empire, member of the influential family of the Symmachi.- Biography :...

 with the granddaughter of the aforementioned colleague. Diptychs were often commissioned by leading Roman families to celebrate important events, most often the attainment of the consulship

Roman consul

A consul served in the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic.Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. Each consul was given veto power over his colleague and the officials would alternate each month...

. The diptych form, at least originally, served as a pair of covers for wax writing tablets.

The work as a whole has been interpreted as a study in nostalgia

Nostalgia

The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...

: both style and content reflect the values and traditions of an era that was rapidly passing. Just as the majority of the Roman world had rejected polytheism in favor of Christianity, so too it left behind the techniques of proportion

Proportion (architecture)

Proportion is the relation between elements and a whole.-Architectural proportions:In architecture the whole is not just a building but the set and setting of the site. The things that make a building and its site "well shaped" include the orientation of the site and the buildings on it to the...

 and perspective

Perspective (graphical)

Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...

 that characterised the art of its forebears.

The lost Ennobertus diptych

A strikingly similar composition was to be seen in the Ennobertus ivory panel from a diptych, known now only from an engraving of 1719, when it was in the collection of the abbé Fauvel, chaplain to Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

. The Frankish name Ennobertus inscribed beneath the temple's pediment is undocumented in the prosopographies

Prosopography

In historical studies, prosopography is an investigation of the common characteristics of a historical group, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable, by means of a collective study of their lives, in multiple career-line analysis...

. To those who might have suggested the panel was a forgery after the Symmachi ivory, Alan Cameron has asked, "Why should he have spoiled his handiwork with such an uncouth barbarian

Barbarian

Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

 name?" and suggested that it was a Late Antique ivory, from the same workshop as the Symmachi diptych, that had been re-engraved in Carolingian

Carolingian art

Carolingian art comes from the Frankish Empire in the period of roughly 120 years from about AD 780 to 900 — during the reign of Charlemagne and his immediate heirs — popularly known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The art was produced by and for the court circle and a group of...

 times, when the prominent blank medallion was cleaned of its former monogram

Monogram

A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series of uncombined initials is properly referred to as a...

.