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Vandalism

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CONTENTS

2 Introduction: VandalismR O S A L O W I N G E R

E S S A Y S

6 The Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum: ACase Study of Vandalism and HistoryF R E D R I C B R A N D F O N

28 Bamiyan, Vandalism, and the SublimeJ A M E S J A N O W S K I

66 A Hollow Where the Vandals WereJ O N C A L A M E

78 Images in the Piazza: The Destruction of aWork by Maurizio Cattelan (Milan, May2004)F L A M I N I A G E N N A R I - S A N T O R I

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28

78

96

136

96 The Licit and Illicit Vandalizing ofSan Francisco’s Early GaragesM A R K D . K E S S L E R

120 Vandalism of Cultural Heritage: ThoughtsPreceding Conservation InterventionsD I M I T R I O S C H AT Z I G I A N N I S

136 Vandalism (Miami Style): Graffiti as a Toolin Preserving the Marine StadiumR O S A L O W I N G E R

152 Literature ReviewL A U R E N R E Y N O L D S H A L L A N D M E G A N

C R O S S S C H M I T T

165 A U T H O R B I O G R A P H I E S

167 A N N O U N C E M E N T S

169 U P C O M I N G I S S U E S

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INTRODUCTION: VANDALISM

ROSA LOWINGERRosa Lowinger and Associates, Conservation of Sculpture � Architecture

Figure 1. Detail of graffiti on the mural of the Virgin Mary (1160), Monastery of St. Benedict. Subiaco, Italy,2009 (Photo by Rosa Lowinger)

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Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place.

Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking

place.

—Banksy, Wall and Piece (2007)

July, 2014: The world watches in horror as once again a jihadist group—in this case, the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Syria, known alternatively as ISIS or ISIL—wages the

latest version of ideologically driven cultural vandalism against the region’s monuments

and historic sites. Though clearly not as shocking as the acts of murder and torture the

self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate is inflicting on the residents of the region at the time of

this writing, the annihilation of those centuries-old monuments characterizes vandalism

in its most extreme and ugly form. The list of sites includes not only dozens of churches,

but also venerated Islamic sites such as the seventh-century Imam Yahya Abul Qasim

Mosque, the thirteenth-century Mashad Yahya Abul Kassem Mosque, the eighth-century

Mosque of the Prophet Yunnus (considered the burial place of the Old Testament Jonah),

and landscape-defining statues of the Abbasid poet Abu Tammam (788–845) and the Iraqi

musician and poet Osman al-Mawsali (1854–1923). Yet this particular brand of cultural

barbarism also underscores the symbolic power of heritage itself. After all, why go to the

trouble of bombing synagogues and burning Jewish books, as the Nazis did in World War

II, or leveling Cambodia’s Buddhist Temples and libraries, as the Khmer Rouge did during

its atrocious 1975 ‘‘Return to Year Zero’’ campaign, for any reason other than to ‘‘deeply

and irreversibly alter’’ the identity of a people by means of ‘‘brutal and intensive cultural

mutilation’’?1 The vandalism of an artwork, monument, or site is therefore also a per-

verted form of veneration. Art that is damaged or destroyed is art that is valuable. This

holds true whether the act in question is perpetrated by a Nazi, a criminal, or a psychotic.

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines vandalism as both ‘‘an action involving

deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property,’’ and as ‘‘a deliberate,

unauthorized act that is intentional and done in order to alter, make a mark in, or pur-

posely damage art, architecture, or public places.’’ As this issue of Change Over Time will

demonstrate, the history of art and architecture is intricately enmeshed with both of these

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definitions. Vandalism’s range of activities and intentions—though traditionally associ-

ated with harmful or misguided impulses, aggressive or deranged perpetrators, and results

whose effect on built heritage is nearly always unwanted—sometimes augments our

knowledge and consideration of heritage’s intrinsic value. By ravaging the monuments of

the vanquished and demolishing the sculptures that they consider blasphemous, conquer-

ing armies and iconoclasts of all persuasions draw attention to those very works. Artworks

as different as Michelangelo’s fifteenth-century Pieta, Barnett Newman’s 1967 Who’s

Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue, and Diego Velasquez’s seventeenth-century Rokeby Venus

(which was slashed by British suffragettes in 1914) are highlighted in art history because

of, and not in spite of, their smashing and slashing. More benignly, the centuries-old

scratches made by pilgrims on the 1160 mural of the Virgin Mary at the Subiaco Monas-

tery in Italy is part greeting and part devotional in character. The same holds true for the

graffiti that covers the Paris tomb of Jim Morrison.

As preservationists, we tend to eschew unauthorized interventions to art and monu-

ments. Indeed, more than one peer reviewer for this issue expressed an unconditional

disdain for graffiti. Yet the changes perpetrated by vandalism, and especially graffiti, are

as old as art itself; such interventions often lend a layer of meaning that would otherwise

not exist. For example, no one would argue that what we know about the ancient world is

augmented by the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum, or the Alexamanos

graffito, a first-century CE doodle from the Palatine Hill, known to be the earliest extant

image of Christ on the Cross, in which a scratched figure of a soldier derides another

soldier as he bows to an image of a crucified donkey. As preservationists, we recognize the

informational and historical value of the aforementioned markings. The pejorative content

of the Alexamanos graffito, for example—a hallmark of the unauthorized wall text that

will continue into the age of the spray can—reveals more about Roman attitudes toward

early Christians than many pages of text. In some cases, such as the penciled graffiti on

the buildings of the Japanese-American internment camp at Tulelake, California, the

graffiti becomes a form of heritage that supersedes the value of the building on which it

is written. But how do we assign value to such markings? At what point do they go from

being a scourge on heritage to becoming heritage? At Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, the

caretakers of the tomb of Jim Morrison remove graffiti frequently enough to erode the

stone. In Havana, Cuba, the government pointedly and regularly restores a graffito near

the university that reads ‘‘°Abajo Batista!’’ (‘‘Down with Batista!’’), a reference to the pre-

Castro dictatorship that the current government vanquished. Yet, one would be hard

pressed to find a single preservation professional who would advocate for removing or

reducing the graffiti at Pompeii, or filling and in-painting the centuries-old gouges of devo-

tees visiting the tomb of St. Benedict at Subiaco, Italy.

This past year has seen several major museum exhibits that explore vandalism’s con-

tribution to the meaning of cultural heritage. At the Tate Britain, the exhibit Art under

Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm (which ran from October 2, 2013, to January 5, 2014)

highlighted both the history of physical attacks against art and monuments in the United

Kingdom and the range of religious, political, and aesthetic motivations for those assaults.

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The exhibition’s intent, as co-curator Tabitha Barber stated, was to examine what ‘‘compels

people to carry out attacks on art and whether these motives have changed over the course

of five hundred years.’’2 The exhibit’s final room was devoted to contemporary art practice

that employs vandalism as a formal tool of art-making. This last notion was the starting

point for the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s Damage Control:

Art and Destruction Since 1950. This exhibit, which ran from October 2013 to May 2014,

offered a fairly thorough overview of the numerous ways in which contemporary visual

artists used destruction as both cultural content and artistic practice, in response to what

the curator of the exhibit refers to as the ‘‘destructive forces in a world close to the apoca-

lypse.’’3 In other words, the cataclysmic events of the postwar era, including Hiroshima,

the arms race, the Cold War, and World War II itself, fomented a need for transforming

destructive tendencies into acts of creation. It is our hope that the current issue of Change

Over Time will serve a similar purpose in the face of the horrendous political events that

are plaguing our world at this time.

References1. Sarah J. Thomas, ‘‘Prosecuting the Crime of Destruction of Cultural Property,’’ accessed October 12,

2014, www.genocidewatch.org/images/Cambodia_Prosecuting_the_Crime_of_Destruction_of_Cultural_Property.pdf.

2. Tate Museum, ‘‘Politics: Politics and Public Space,’’ accessed October 12, 2014, www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/art-under-attack-histories-british-iconoclasm/art-under-attack-4.

3. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, ‘‘Hirshhorn Presents ‘Damage Control: Art and DestructionSince 1950,’ ’’ press release (October 1, 2013), accessed October 12, 2014, www.hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/resource-centre/�detail�/bio/press-release-damage-control/&collection�resource-centre.

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THE ARCH OF TITUS IN THE ROMAN FORUM

A Case Study of Vandalism and History

FREDRIC BRANDFONExpedition to the Coastal Plain of Israel, Inc.

Figure 1. Procession of Triumphal Spoils in the Passageway of the Arch of Titus. Wikimedia Commons.

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The first response to an act of vandalism is to try to repair the vandalism. However, reversing or repairing an actof vandalism is only one response. An equally valid and common response is a new understanding of the past,a new narrative history, and an integration of the vandalism into the process of historiography. There exists acomplementary relationship between vandalism and historical narrative that reminds us that our understandingof the past will always be partial. For the historian, vandalism, when it occurs, is not necessarily an impedimentto history writing. Nor is it an irritation to be somehow expunged. Rather, the vandal and the historian are linked,and the vandal, wittingly or not, is an integral part of the process of writing history.

Introduction

Vandalism, usually the destruction, defacement, or desecration of a historical monument

or a work of art, is undoubtedly disturbing.1 It is so disturbing, in fact, that often the first

reaction to an act of vandalism may be to try to undo it, to erase, remove, or repair the

evidence of vandalism. However, this is not always possible. In a case such as the one exam-

ined in this paper—the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70

CE—the vandalism could not be undone. Despite the fervent hopes of Jews throughout the

ancient Roman world that the Temple would be rebuilt or restored, it never was.2

Instead, immediately following the destruction of the Temple, the act of desecration

was celebrated in Rome and some years later enshrined in the Arch of Titus in the Roman

Forum.3 However, that was not the end of the story. Indeed, it was just the beginning.

For the next two thousand years, the Arch reflected how Romans, Jews, and Christians

understood themselves historically. Moreover, during that two-thousand-year span, inter-

mittent acts of vandalism inspired new historical narratives. The first response of trying

to reverse the vandalism—that is, the rebuilding of the temple—had failed.4 Instead, the

vandalism provided the impetus for new histories.

What will be demonstrated below is a complex and complementary relationship

between vandalism and historiography. Vandalism contributes to the writing of history,

and just how it makes that contribution is the subject of this paper. We begin with an

examination of the word, and concept of, vandalism.

The First Use of the Term ‘‘Vandalism’’

In 1794, the constitutional Bishop of Blois, Henri Gregoire, coined the term ‘‘vandalism.’’

Gregoire was a cleric and a savant, as well as a liberal politician. The bishop advocated the

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abolition of the French monarchy and equal treatment for Jews and Blacks.5 In addition,

he crusaded for the preservation of cultural objects. In a report to the National Conven-

tion, entitled Report on the Destruction Brought About by Vandalism, he decried ‘‘this ‘vandal-

isme’ which knows only destruction.’’6 Gregoire was referring to the destruction of works

of art during the French Revolution.7 While others, including Raphael8 and John Dryden,9

had earlier referred to Vandals as persons who destroyed works of art, Gregoire was the

first to speak of a generalized behavior called ‘‘vandalism.’’ Indeed, once Gregoire coined

the term, he changed forever the way the Vandals were remembered in modern European

thought.10

The noun ‘‘vandalism’’ is a reference to the people of late antiquity known as the

Vandals. They originated in Northern Europe, made their way to Carthage in North Africa,

and from there invaded Italy.11 In 455 CE, they sacked the city of Rome.12 In one artistic

rendering of that conquest, painted in 1833, Karl Briullov’s ‘‘Sacco di Roma 455’’ shows

Vandals, in North African dress, abducting Roman women along with objects from the

Roman treasury. Central to the painting’s composition is the theft by the Vandals of the

seven-branched gold candelabrum, originally part of the ritual instruments in Jerusalem’s

Second Temple.13 The Romans had destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 CE, and the

Roman general Titus had brought the Temple treasure, including the candelabrum, back

to Rome. The eventual looting of Rome by the Vandals, described by Procopius in The

Vandalic War, resulted in the taking of the ‘‘Jewish vessels,’’ which Titus had taken as

booty, back to Carthage.14 This second ransacking of the Temple treasures, as described by

Procopius, is the subject of Briullov’s painting.

The destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple was an iconic event in antiquity that was

grandly memorialized in the Arch of Titus, which was built shortly after his death on the

Velia, overlooking the Roman Forum from the east.15 The sacking of Rome in 455 CE and

the removal of the Temple treasures by the Vandals almost four hundred years later is

equally iconic. It is the event that took place approximately one thousand three hundred

years in the future that gave us the word ‘‘vandalism.’’ We may now analyze that term,

bequeathed to us by both the Vandals and their detractor, the Abbe Gregoire, in order to

understand the relationship between vandalism and the process of writing history.

The Paradox of Vandalism

I propose here a new definition of vandalism. Acts of vandalism conform to a simple rule:

To be vandalized, an object or monument must be both preserved in part as well asdefaced in part. For instance, the statue of a dignitary may be vandalized by cutting off

the head. But if the vandal wants to say anything, or be understood to say anything,

against the hated dignitary, he must leave a part of the statue intact. If the entire statue

had been destroyed without a remnant left behind, there would have been no record of

the vandalism; no beheaded image or bodiless head to muse over, gawk or laugh at, or

even remember. This paradox of vandalism may be better understood through the follow-

ing thought experiment.

Let us suppose that thousands of years ago, there was a small Mediterranean island

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ruled by a dynasty of kings, the last king being known as King A. The island kingdom

consisted of two cities, both subject to King A, and known respectively as Goldburg and

Bronzeburg. In the center of the island, separating Goldburg from Bronzeburg, was a large

volcano. The citizens of Goldburg had erected a statue of King A made entirely of gold.

The citizens of Bronzeburg had likewise erected a statue of King A, but it was made entirely

of bronze. King A was popular at home on the island; however, neighboring cities on the

mainland were jealous of his wealth. Eventually, brigands from the mainland attacked both

Goldburg and Bronzeburg, and both cities were looted. The brigands entirely removed the

gold statue of King A in Goldburg and took it home to melt it down and make a statue of

their own king, King B. However when the brigands came to Bronzeburg, they cut off the

head of the statue and took only the torso back home to be melted down. The head was

left standing on a pedestal with the name of the chief brigand etched into the neck. The

next day, to add insult to injury, the volcano erupted. The entire population of the island

was killed, and both Goldburg and Bronzeburg were covered in volcanic ash.

Thousands of years later, archeologists excavated Goldburg. Given that the islanders

never developed writing, the only evidence of the history of the city was the monuments

and physical remains. Because the gold statue of King A had been entirely removed, the

archaeologists wrote the history of the island without reference to King A. A few years

later, archeologists discovered Bronzeburg. There they not only discovered evidence of

King A, they discovered evidence of his statue, evidence of who had vandalized the statue,

and of course evidence of the vandalism. In writing a new history of the island, the arche-

ologists had the option to include all the new evidence in their narrative, or not.16

Consequently, what occurred in Goldburg is termed ‘‘theft,’’ and what occurred at

Bronzeburg is ‘‘vandalism.’’ The former occurrence is simply the misappropriation of a

neighbor’s property. The latter, vandalism, is governed by a compelling, albeit paradoxical,

logic. It is almost always necessary, if one chooses to be a vandal, to preserve and destroy

at the same time.

The Paradox of History

Like vandals, historians operate under the constraints of a necessary paradox: In order to

remember the past, the historian must also forget.

To understand this apparent contradiction, we begin with the axiom that past events

are not history in and of themselves.17 History is, most often, a narrative about past

events and not the ‘‘linguistically naked facts.’’18 The work of the historian is to create a

meaningful narrative about the past.19 Such a narrative must necessarily be selective. The

past is infinitely detailed and various; even a single day in the past is infinitely detailed. A

mere description of that one day must select aspects of that day to communicate, and

ignore others. If no selection is made, and the historian attempts to communicate every

detail of a given day, week, or year, the description will be infinitely long and unintelligible

in its minutiae. Jorge Borges recognizes this problem in his short story ‘‘Funes the Memor-

ious,’’ which is about a nineteen-year-old boy in Uruguay who remembers everything he

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sees in every possible detail. Borges understood that Funes’s perfect memory was a curse

much more than a blessing.

With no effort he had learned English, French, Portuguese and Latin. I suspect,

however, that he was not very capable of thought. To think is to forget differences,

generalize, make abstractions. In the teeming world of Funes, there were only

details, almost immediate in their presence.20

There is no doubt, therefore, that a historian must select events that he or she consid-

ers necessary for the story to be told about the past. But if a selection has to be made,

how does the historian arrive at criteria that will structure the selection? Without consid-

ering that every historian may make a selection based on his or her biases arising from

social class, gender, or any other particular point of view, the basic premise of any histori-

cal selection of events to include in a historical narrative is that the historian must make

that selection from the future with regard to the events’ selected.21 The events selected to

comprise a history must all have occurred prior to the selection. Such a claim may appear

painfully obvious. History, by common sense and usage, is about the past. However, the

future point of view of all historians has important consequences, because it allows a

historian to forget.

As another simple thought experiment, let us say that Funes is what I will call the

Perfect Chronicler. He remembers everything that ever happened to him and can record it

instantaneously as events happen. And let us say that Funes, P.C., dies within five years,

but leaves behind a record, a chronicle of every event he experienced or learned about

in those five years. Such a perfect record would be theoretically infinite and necessarily

unintelligible. To write a narrative history of those five years, the historian must select,

from Funes’s Chronicle, and from the point of view of the future, the facts or events that

will make up a meaningful story. Such a selection will necessitate ignoring and ultimately

forgetting most of what the P.C. has recorded. In short, once the historical narrator is

situated in the future, he or she has the capability, and the burden, of both remembering

and forgetting parts of the past. As Paul Ricoeur has written,

Here we can introduce the connection between memory and forgetting, because the

best use of forgetting is precisely in the construction of plots, in the elaboration of

narrative concerning personal identity or collective identity, that is we cannot tell a

story without eliminating or dropping some important event, according to the plot

we intend to build.22

In other words, if as Danto and Ricoeur say, history is a narrative about the past, a

historian is as dependent on forgetting as he or she is on remembering. Hence any histo-

rian has the responsibility to be selective and forget portions of what he has set out to

preserve.

Therein, the historian shares a dilemma with the vandal. While the vandal must

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Table 1.

Vandal:

Partial destructionof vandalized object

or monument.

Historian:

Events.

Vandal:

Preserve part of

vandalized object

or monument.

Historian:

Rememberevents in new

Narrative form.

Historian:

Rememberevents in

narrative form.

Historian:

Forget certain

other events.

Historian:

Forget certain

events.

Vandal:

Narrative.

Historian:

New event.Partial destruction

of vandalized

object or monument.

necessarily preserve what he sets out to destroy, the historian must necessarily forget

what he sets out to remember. However, just because the historian and the vandal share

a dilemma does not mean that vandals are actually a species of historian or vice versa.

Rather, the internally paradoxical basis of history complements the similarly paradoxical

basis of vandalism.

A historian begins with events that are either chronicled in writing and inscriptions,

or are otherwise evident in objects or stratigraphical deposits left behind. As noted above,

the historian must choose to remember some of those events and forget others in order

to create a historical narrative.

The vandal, on the other hand, begins not with events, but with the historical narra-

tive already created by the historian. For example, the vandal who sets out to vandalize

the statue of King A is aware of the narrative about that king, whether that narrative has

been written down or transmitted orally. During his life or term in office, King A was

glorified and extolled. Upon his death, that narrative is closed. However, the vandal wants

to give the narrative a new ending and does so by adding a new event to King A’s story.

He cuts off the head of the king’s statue. Again, as noted above, the vandal must leave

behind the rest of the statue, or preserve the head, or both, so that the narrative history

of the king will not end with his death, but will continue to include evidence of the van-

dalism.23

The relationship between the paradoxical structure of history and that of vandalism

may be illustrated as follows (Table 1).

As demonstrated by the above chart, the process of writing history is complemented

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by the process of vandalism. The historian creates the narrative that is necessary for the

vandal. The vandal adds a new event to the narrative that allows the historian to revise

his historical story. In the new narrative, the historian may remember events previously

omitted or forgotten, having been prompted by the new event provided by the vandal. Of

course, the new narrative may inspire new vandalism and the cycle may start again.

This is not to say that because vandals need a narrative history to vandalize, history

writing likewise requires vandalism. It does not. New histories of a particular era are

always being written because the perspective of the future is constantly changing. Vandal-

ism is only one aspect of that ever changing future.

Therefore, vandalism is not necessary for history writing. However, in some instances

there is an ongoing relationship between history and vandalism. Such is the case with the

long history of the Arch of Titus. The story of the Arch of Titus is especially applicable

here because, in spanning thousands of years, it includes successive acts of vandalism and

numerous revisions to the understanding of the Arch. Therefore, to better understand the

relationship between vandalism and history, the story of the Arch of Titus can be used as

a case study.

Vandalism, History, and the Arch of Titus

The history of the Arch of Titus, and the vandalism associated with it, can be best analyzed

in terms of the above stated paradoxes, if broken into discrete segments.

From the Destruction of the Temple to the Building of the Arch

The Narrative History of the Jews Leading Up To the Destruction of the TempleThe narrative history of the Arch of Titus begins with the backstory of Jerusalem

and its Temple. The establishment of Jerusalem as the capitol of the kingdom of Judah,

and the building of the Temple as the house of the Israelite’s deity and the sole place for

sacrificial offerings prescribed in the Biblical book of Leviticus, is told in the Biblical books

of I and II Samuel and I Kings. The Temple’s eventual destruction by the Babylonians, and

its rebuilding as permitted by Cyrus, King of Persia, is also told in the Hebrew Bible in the

books of II Kings, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The profanation of the Temple under Antiochus

Epiphanes and its miraculous restoration by the Hasmonean Jewish faction is related in

the First and Second Books of Maccabees, and in Josephus’s The Jewish War. King Herod’s

elaboration of the Temple, making it an alleged wonder of the ancient world, is also told

in The Jewish War.

Josephus was a Jewish historian who lived in the first century CE, at the time of the

Jewish revolt against Rome that led to the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. While

Josephus was an eyewitness to the plunder of Jerusalem, he is well known as an ambiva-

lent historian. At first he was a general in the revolt against Rome. Later, as an historian,

he was an apologist for the Romans.24 Nonetheless, Josephus’s work along with the Biblical

books and the books of Maccabees constructed a narrative with triumphs and defeats,

miracles and heroes, constituting the history of Jerusalem and its Temple, a history that

was well known to Jews, and others, in the first century CE.25

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At that time, the revolt against Rome by the province of Judaea became the latest

chapter in the narrative. The revolt is recounted in The Jewish War, and it ended in the

defeat of the Jews. After a protracted conflict in Judaea, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem

and the Temple.26

There was precedent for the Roman destruction of a city and the appropriation of its

treasures as spoils of war. In 212 BCE, a Roman force captured Syracuse and carried its

Greek sculptures back to Rome.27 In 146 BCE, the Romans captured both Carthage and

Corinth, and again sent shiploads of sculpture to Rome.28 Between 66 and 62 BCE, Pompey

defeated Mithradates and brought an enormous treasure back to Rome.29 However, a case

can be made that the capture of Jerusalem held a special place in Roman memory during

the first five hundred years of the Common Era.30

Josephus helped preserve that memory and recounted in detail the siege and sack of

Jerusalem. Therein, he describes how Titus, the Roman general who eventually became

emperor, oversaw the battle for Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple.31

However, Josephus and other ancient sources disagree on whether Titus, while fully

intending to capture Jerusalem, also intended to destroy the Temple, which was consid-

ered one of the grandest edifices of its time. In Josephus’s account, Titus comes across as

anything but a vandal. Josephus tells how Titus called a council of war with his command-

ers ‘‘that they should give him advice what should be done about the holy house.’’ After

hearing their advice, which called for the destruction of the Temple, Titus is said to have

replied,

‘‘[A]lthough the Jews should get upon that holy house, and fight us from there, yet

ought we not to avenge ourselves on things that are inanimate, instead of the men

themselves.’’ And that he was not in any case for burning down so vast a work as

that was, because this would be a mischief to the Romans themselves, as it would be

an ornament to their government while it continued.32

Nonetheless there was no denying that the Romans did burn the Temple. Josephus attri-

butes that event to an accident and exculpates Titus.33

On the other hand, the fourth-century CE Christian historian Sulpicius Severus—

apparently relying on a lost passage from Tacitus’s Histories—says just the opposite.

Titus summoned his council, and before taking action consulted it whether he should

overthrow a sanctuary of such workmanship, since it seemed to many that a sacred

building, one more remarkable than any other human work, should not be destroyed.

For if preserved it would testify to the moderation of the Romans, while if demol-

ished it would be a perpetual sign of cruelty. On the other hand, others, and Titus

himself, expressed their opinion that the Temple should be destroyed without delay,

in order that the religion of the Jews and Christians should be more completely

exterminated.34

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For our purposes, it is not important to determine whether Josephus or Sulpicius

Severus was correct. Rather, it is interesting to note that the ancient historians recognized

that both the destruction of the Temple and its preservation had discrete advantages to a

victorious power. Ultimately, Titus found a way to both destroy and preserve parts of the

Temple and thereby reap both advantages.

Josephus describes how, after destroying Jerusalem and the Temple, Titus returned

from Jerusalem to Rome with certain spoils of his victory. Titus and his father, Vespasian,

then the emperor, marched through the city in a grand pageant, one purpose of which was

to teach the people of Rome what had transpired in the war.35 In addition to the parade

of the soldiers and the captive Jews, and besides the impressive amount of gold, silver,

ivory, and gems, Titus and Vespasian had ordered the construction of what has been

translated as ‘‘pageants’’ or ‘‘moving stages’’ but could be described in modern terms as

‘‘floats.’’

But what afforded the greatest surprise of all was the structure of the pageants that

were borne along; for indeed he that met them could only be afraid that the bearers

would not be able firmly enough to support them, such was their magnitude; for

many of them were so made that they were on three or even four stories one above

another. . . . There was also wrought gold and ivory fastened about them all; and

many resemblances of the war. . . . For there was to be seen a happy country laid

waste, and entire squadrons of enemies killed; . . . with the strongest fortifications

taken, and the walls of most populous cities upon the tops of hills seized on. . . . Fire

also sent upon temples was here represented and houses overthrown and falling

upon their owners . . . and the art and magnificent workmanship of these structures

now portrayed the incidents to those who had not witnessed them, as though they

were happening before their eyes.36

Finally,

The spoils in general were borne in promiscuous heaps; but conspicuous above all

stood out those captured in the Temple at Jerusalem. These consisted of a golden

table, many talents in weight, and a lamp stand, likewise made of gold, but con-

structed on a different pattern from those which we use in ordinary life. Affixed to

a pedestal was a central shaft, from which there extended slender branches, arranged

trident fashion, a wrought lamp being attached to the extremity of each branch; ofthese there were seven, indicating the honor paid to that number among the Jews.After these and last of all the spoils was carried a copy of the Jewish Law.37

Subsequently, according to Josephus, Vespasian ordered built a Temple of Peace, tohouse, among other things, the treasures taken from the Temple in Jerusalem.38

Vandalism That Preserves As Well As DestroysThe historical story summarized above is particularly applicable as an example of the

paradox of vandalism. Just two years prior to the sack of Jerusalem, following the death

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of the Emperor Nero in 68 CE, several ambitious Romans, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius

arrogated for themselves the title of emperor.39 However, their reigns were violent and

short lived. Only Vespasian, at that time commander of the Roman forces in Judaea, made

a successful bid to be emperor, but he needed a foreign victory to advertise his qualifica-

tions for the job.40 Vespasian returned to Rome to become the emperor and left his son

Titus camped outside Jerusalem to complete the conquest.41 Titus accomplished the

destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in a manner that legitimized his father as

emperor. However, there was still the problem of how to communicate to the Romans at

home just how impressive the victory was. Conquering Jerusalem was one thing; propa-

gandizing it back in Rome was another. In short, it was all well and good to burn the

Temple to the ground, but something of the Temple had to be preserved to show to the

Roman people the magnitude of the victory.

The enormous effort, described above, which went into the triumphal parade

described in Chapter Five of Book Seven in Josephus’s The Jewish War indicates the care

that Vespasian and Titus took to communicate to Rome what had been accomplished in

Jerusalem. In order to succeed in that effort, something of the Temple, that is, the seven

branched candelabrum and other ritual items, had to be brought back to Rome and put on

display. It is for that reason that while the Temple was destroyed, its vandalism also neces-

sarily included the preservation of the Temple treasures, which were not only paraded

through the streets of Rome, but were even preserved in a proto-museum, the Temple of

Peace. In short, there would have been little point in demolishing the Temple if nothing

remained to bring home and advertise that fact. Consequently, the destruction of the

Jerusalem Temple is a prime example of the paradox inherent in any act of vandalism.

A New Narrative Based on the VandalismMoreover, when Titus destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, that act of vandalism

added a new event to the narrative history of both Jews and Romans. First, Vespasian

used the spoils of the Judaean war to fund the building of Colosseum, which was begun

in his reign but only completed in 80 CE during the reign of Titus.42 However, if the

Colosseum was the indirect result of the plunder of Jerusalem, the direct memorial of that

conquest is the Arch of Titus near the Roman Forum.

Titus was emperor from 79 to 81 CE. He was beloved and eventually deified.43 After

he died, his successor and brother, Domitian, erected the triumphal Arch overlooking the

east end of the Forum in his honor.

The Arch depicts on its intrados the deified figure of Titus ascending to heaven on

the back of an eagle. Flanking the interior passageway of the Arch are some of the most

famous examples of sculptural relief in Rome; the triumphal procession, described by Jose-

phus and cited above, is pictured in stone (Fig. 1). The English poet Shelley described

those reliefs.

On the inner compartment of the arch of Titus is sculptured in deep relief, the

desolation of a city. . . . The foreground is occupied by a procession of the victors

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bearing in their profane hands the holy candlesticks and the tables of shewbread,

and the sacred instruments of the eternal worship of the Jews. On the opposite side,

the reverse of this sad picture, Titus is represented standing in a chariot drawn by

four horses, crowned with laurel and surrounded by the tumultuous numbers of his

triumphant army, and the magistrates, and priests and generals and philosophers

dragged in chains beside his wheels. Behind him stands a Victory eagle-winged.44

Atop the Arch and now entirely lost, stood a bronze quadriga, a four-horse chariot driven

by Vespasian and Titus.45

Another arch intended to honor Titus was erected at the south east end of the Circus

Maximus. An inscription from that arch, while glorifying the deified emperor, gives an

entirely incorrect history of Jerusalem. The inscription states, ‘‘with the instruction and

advice of his father, he subdued the race of the Jews and destroyed the city of Jerusalem

which had either been attacked in vain by all leaders, kings and people before him or had

not been attempted at all.’’46

As noted above, Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians

approximately five hundred years before in 587 BCE. Subsequently, in the second century

BCE, Antiochus Epiphanes had profaned the Temple. However, with the triumph of Titus

and his eventual deification, these events were forgotten by such Roman historians as

Tacitus and the author of the above cited inscription at the Circus Maximus all to the

benefit of Titus’s supposed posterity.47

After the vandalism of the Temple, a new narrative of Roman and Jewish history was

created, wherein Titus was deified, possibly because he had successfully overcome the god

of the Jews.48 The new narrative is reified in the Arch of Titus, which depicts the destruc-

tion of Jerusalem, the looted temple treasures and the deification of Titus. We may now

add that content to the form of the above chart as follows (Table 2).

From the Desecration of the Arch to the Death of Pope Paul IV

The Arch of Titus commemorated the deification of Titus as a result of his victory in

Jerusalem. However, this narrative was firmly rejected by Jews. It was also rejected by

Christians, who eventually governed Rome. The concept of a deified emperor was anath-

ema to, and considered absolutely false by, both Jews and Christians who believed in one

deity and who certainly did not believe that a former Roman emperor was worthy of

worship.

In one of their alternative narratives, Jews excoriated and mocked the supposedly

deified Titus in Talmudic texts dating to the second through fifth centuries CE. It is told

that Titus led a harlot into the Temple’s holy of holies, spread out a Torah scroll, and

fornicated on the scroll. Titus then plunged his sword into the curtain that divided the

Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple and blood miraculously spurted from the

curtain. He then gathered the Temple treasures in the torn curtain and took them aboard

his boat to return to Rome. However, God eventually gave Titus his comeuppance. During

the voyage home, God speaks to Titus and tells him that to defend himself against God’s

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Table 2.

Vandal:

Rememberingin Narrative

(the Bible, Josephus,

and Maccabees)

the building,

destruction and

rebuilding of

Jerusalem and

the Temple.

Historian:

Rememberingin Narrative

(the Bible, Josephus,

and Maccabees)

the building,

destruction and

rebuilding of

Jerusalem and

the Temple.

Historian:

Forgetting events

concerning building

destruction and

rebuilding of

Jerusalem and

the Temple.

Historian:

ForgettingJerusalem had been

destroyed by Babylon

and desecrated by

Antiochus

Epiphanes.

Historian:

Remembering innew narrative Titus

and his deification

by erecting the

Arch.

Historian:

Event.Destroying

the Temple.

Vandal:

Event.Destroying

the Temple.

Vandal:

Preservingthe Temple

treasures.

Historian: Events.The building,

destruction and

rebuilding of

Jerusalem and

the Temple.

vengeance he must fight against a tiny gnat. Upon landing in Italy, a gnat is said to have

flown up Titus’s nose and lodged in his brain. The gnat eventually killed Titus, because

after seven years he died, and the rabbis say that his brain was autopsied, revealing a

creature embedded therein, something like a sparrow or dove, and with claws of iron and

a beak of brass.49 The Talmudic story was offered as an alternative to the glorification of

Titus embodied in the Arch.

Similarly, Christians could not accept Titus as a god. But they had the ability to not

merely tell vengeful stories about Titus. They could actually control what happened to his

memorial Arch. Beginning in the sixth century, a small number of churches were erected

in the Forum, that is, churches dedicated to Saints Cosmas and Damian and Saint Maria

Antiqua. In the seventh century, a church dedicated to Saint Adriano was built, and a small

church dedicated to Saints Sergio and Bacco appeared in the late eighth century. In the

ninth and eleventh centuries, churches dedicated to Saint Maria Nova and Saint Lorenzo,

respectively, were built in the Forum.50 As a result, the non-Christian Roman monuments

could be, on the one hand, neglected and, on the other hand, incorporated into churches

and other structures in Christian Rome. Both fates befell the Arch of Titus.

First, Titus’s memorial Arch was neglected and fell into complete disrepair. Second,

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Figure 2. The Arch of Titus west front in Piranesi, Vedute di Roma c. 1748–78. Wikimedia Commons.

while the Arch apparently survived the Vandals’ sack of Rome in 455 CE, it declined into

ruin, and what was left of it was preserved only to be incorporated into a twelfth-century

CE fortification and a monastic building. The pylons on the side of the Arch had been

removed and the top of the arch had been bricked over.51 Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–

78) produced a series of engravings of the Roman Forum. His engraving of the Arch of

Titus shows the Arch in its decrepitude abutting the monastic building. Built up against it

on the west is what Piranesi describes as a ‘‘powder magazine’’52 (Fig. 2). Memory of the

deified Titus had become rudely subordinated to the Arch’s utility as a back wall to adjoin-

ing structures.

Nonetheless, the Arch itself was preserved, although in reduced form. Perhaps it was

partially preserved because it illustrated a tenet of Catholic doctrine; that is, that the

destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE was the result of the Jews having

rejected Jesus.53

At any rate, if Christian Rome of the Middle Ages no longer recognized Titus as a

god, his treatment of the Jews was not so easily forgotten. In 1555, Pope Paul IV, in an

apparent attempt to convert the Jews of Rome, issued a papal bull, Cum nimis Absurdum,

creating the Rome Ghetto and forcing all Roman Jews to live in a walled and gated area

near the Tiber River. In addition to numerous other restrictions, in order that Jews be

easily identified, all Jewish men and women were required to wear a particular style of

hat.54 At the same time, Paul IV required that at least one member of the Jewish commu-

nity stand next to the Arch and swear loyalty to him as he proceeded through the Arch

toward his installation as pope.55

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In other words, Paul IV made use of the Arch to dramatize a new narrative. Forgotten

was the deification of Titus, which the pope would have considered gross paganism.

Remembered was the humiliation of the Jews through the destruction of their Temple.

However, the pope’s new narrative would soon become the victim of yet another act

of vandalism. Separate and apart from his treatment of Jews, Pope Paul IV was despised

by Christian Romans for his enforcement of the Inquisition in Rome. When he died in

1559, his statue in the Campidoglio was defaced to the point of being beheaded. The

severed head of the statue was then dragged through the streets of Rome wearing the

identifiable Jewish hat.56

In that manner, Paul IV’s new narrative became subject to a new act of vandalism.

His new narrative was one in which the Church triumphed over Jewry, a triumph that

would ultimately lead to their conversion to Christianity. That triumph was memorialized

by persecuting Jews at the foot of the Arch itself, that is, by making them bow to the pope

as he passed through the Arch to be installed. Thus, their humiliation before the pope

could be linked to their defeat in antiquity. In addition, Paul IV’s Bull, Cum nimis absurdum,

created the ghetto in Rome for the purpose of teaching Jews about their humiliating defeat

and ultimately converting the defeated Jews to victorious Christianity.57

However upon his death, Paul IV’s statue was vandalized, and the head preserved and

dragged through the city, bearing a hat mocking the pope and identifying him as a Jew.

By parading the vandalized statue’s head through the streets of Rome, the vandals were,

unknowingly, echoing Titus’s parading of the remnants of the Temple treasure through the

streets of Rome approximately one thousand five hundred years earlier. Moreover, by placing

the ‘‘Jew-hat’’ on Paul IV’s head, the narrative he had created about his conversion of Jewry

to Christianity was replaced by a new narrative in which he was ironically transformed into

a Jew himself.58 How vandalism contributed to the history of Rome and the Arch of Titus

during the time of Pope Paul IV can be charted as follows (Tables 3 and 4).

Restoration of the Arch

While many of the unpopular practices enforced by Paul IV were reversed upon his death,

his treatment of Jews had a long-lasting legacy. The ghetto was maintained in Rome for

three hundred years until the mid-nineteenth century, and the practice of requiring a Jew

to offer obeisance to the pope at the foot of the Arch of Titus was only abolished in 1846

by Pope Pius IX.59

The decrepit state of the Arch of Titus was also remedied in the nineteenth century.

From 1819 to 1821 under Pope Pius VII, the archaeological architects Raffaele Stern and

Giuseppe Valadier took on the job of restoration. Given its unstable circumstance, Stern

chose to totally dismantle what remained of the Arch and rebuild it. After Stern’s untimely

death, Valadier completed the work using different materials when restoring such features

as the columns, and purposely leaving those columns unfluted to distinguish them from

the ancient fluted architecture.60 That free-standing restoration is what can be seen today

in the Roman Forum (Fig. 3). A new inscription was added to the east front of the arch.

Instead of glorifying Titus as the old inscription did, it gave credit to Pius VII.

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Table 3.

Vandal:

Narrative.The accomplishments

of Titus and his

deification

memorialized

in the Arch.

Historian: Event.Destruction of the

top of the Arch

and pylons; its

incorporation in

other structures.

Vandal:

Destruction of

the top of the Arch

and pylons; its

incorporation in

other structures.

Historian:

Rememberingin narrative the

defeat of the Jews.

Arch used by Pope Paul IV

as a reminder of that

defeat; he creates

Roman ghetto to

convert Jews.

Historian:

Forgettingthe polytheistic

deification

of Titus.

Vandal:

Preservinga portion of

the Arch.

Table 4.

Vandal:

Rememberingin narrative the

defeat of the Jews.

Arch used by

Pope Paul IV as a

reminder of that

defeat; he creates

Roman ghetto to

convert Jews.

Historian: Event.Destruction of the

top of the Arch

and pylons; its

incorporation in

other structures.

Vandal: Event.Destruction of

Pope Paul IV’s statue;

dragging the preserved

head crowned with

“Jew Hat” through the

streets of Rome.

Historian:

Remembering innew Narrative that

Paul IV has been

symbolically

transformed

into a Jew.

Historian:

ForgettingPope Paul IV as

revered leader

of Catholic

world.

Vandal:

Preservinga portion of

the Arch.

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Figure 3. The Arch of Titus as restored. Wikimedia Commons.

(This) monument remarkable in terms of both religion and art

has weakened from age:

Pius VII, Supreme Pontiff,

By new works on the model of the ancient exemplar

Ordered it reinforced and preserved.

In the year of his sacred rulership the 24th.61

It is hard to call the restoration of the Arch a form of vandalism, although Watkins

and Stendahl supra come close.62 Similarly, it is hard to characterize Pius VII as a ‘‘tagger’’

even if he did affix his name to the Arch. However, the prominent addition of his inscrip-

tion is, in fact, a form of defacement. Therefore, the very restoration of the Arch, in some

manner, vandalized it.63

While Pius VII undertook to restore the Arch and other ancient Roman sites in an

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Table 5.

Vandal/Restorer:

Narrative.Arch is remembered

as a site of

Jewish defeat

and humiliation.

Historian: Event.Destruction and

Restoration of the

Arch including

modern materials

and emplacement

of inscription by

Pope Pius VII.

Vandal/Restorer:

Event. Destruction

and Restoration of

the Arch including

modern materials and

emplacement of

inscription by

Pope Pius VII.

Historian:

Remembering innew Narrative the

passing of Roman

glory as an example

of the evanescent

vanity of all

things human.

Historian:

Forgettingthe triumphs

of Rome and

Christianity.

Vandal/Restorer:

Preserved.Portions of the

Arch including

the sculptural

freezes.

attempt to shore up the waning power of the Papal States, his antiquarianism allowed the

Arch to be seen in a new context.64 It was no longer seen as evidence of a triumph by

either Rome or Christianity. Rather, once the Arch became an antique and an object to be

restored, it became an antiquarian reminder of the ultimate passing of glory from even

the most powerful of kings and empires. Percy Shelley wrote in approximately 1819 about

the Arch.

The arch is now mouldering into ruins and the imagery almost erased by the lapse

of fifty generations. Beyond this obscure monument of Hebrew desolation is seen

the tomb of the Destroyer’s family, now a mountain of ruins.

The Flavian amphitheatre [the Colosseum] has become a habitation for owls and

dragons. The power, of whose possessions it was once the type, and whose departure

it is now the emblem, is become a dream and a memory. Rome is no more than

Jerusalem.65

Shelley’s romantic description of the Arch, lamenting about the passing of greatness,

as he did in his poem ‘‘Ozymandias,’’ and putting the Arch in the context of the ruins of

Titus’s family’s tomb and the Colosseum, constitutes a new narrative about the Arch in

which the glories of Rome and the victory of Christianity are forgotten. In a new narrative,

such triumphs are understood ironically. The Arch was an antiquity that once had boasted

of eternal power, only to become a symbol of the evanescent vanity of all things human

(Table 5).

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Table 6.

Vandal:

Narrative.The passing of Roman

glory as an example

of the evanescent

vanity of all things

human.

Historian:

Event.Marching

backward through

the Arch on Israel

Independence

Day.

Vandal:

Event. Marching

backward

through the

Arch on Israel

Independence

Day.

Historian:

New Narrative.Remembering but

overcoming the

destruction of

Jerusalem through

the establishment

of the State

of Israel.

Historian:

Forgetting the

interval of almost

2000 years between

the destruction of

Jerusalem in 70 CE and

the founding of the

State of Israel

in 1948.

Vandal:

Preservationof the Restored

Arch. Nothing

is defaced or

destroyed.

The Arch in 1948

If by the nineteenth century, the Arch had become an antique site for romantic musings,

by the mid-twentieth century, it regained an immediacy, at least for a moment. On May

14, 1948, the day of independence for the State of Israel, it is said that the Jewish commu-

nity of Rome gathered at the Arch of Titus in celebration, and marched backward through

the Arch in a spontaneous ritual release from the past, a physical statement that the

desecration, which the Arch had been erected to memorialize two thousand years earlier,

had finally been reversed.66 For the first time since the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus,

there was, once again, a Jewish state in Palestine. The Jewish street theater of May 14,

1948, was an attempt to both remember and erase two thousand years of history. While

there was no physical damage to the Arch, the intent of the marchers was to erase the

triumphant message of the reliefs inside the Arch. This was conceptual vandalism, accom-

plished by something like performance art. After thousands of years, the vandalism of 70

CE had finally been repaired. While neither Titus’s image nor his Arch were defaced, the

message was clear. From now on, the history of the Arch would have to include not only

Titus’s victory, but also the victory of Jewry in 1948 as well (Table 6).

Conclusion

It was the mission of the Abbe Gregoire to end violence directed at the symbols of the

French monarchy and preserve France’s artistic and architectural heritage. In that cause,

he offered the word ‘‘vandalism’’ as a description of the problem: ‘‘this ‘vandalisme’ which

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knows only destruction’’ (emphasis added). The present article is an analytical correction,

of the Abbe’s admirable agenda. As demonstrated above, vandalism does not know only

destruction. Implicit in many acts of vandalism is a necessary, if partial, preservation of

what the vandal seeks to destroy.

With that preservation, the vandal sows the seeds of a new and alternative historical

narrative. The history of the Arch of Titus illustrates how repeated acts of vandalism have

fostered revised stories of Romans, Jews, and Christians. Each new narrative tells the

story differently given the new events, the acts of vandalism.

Events that take place after a story has been told give new meaning to the past and

allow a new narrative.67 Or put another way, a complete narrative of the past is impossible,

because it would require a complete narrative of the future.68 Because a complete narrative

of the ever-unfolding future is impossible, we are left with a series of alternative narratives

of the past. As future events, including, but not limited to, events of vandalism, become

part of the past, they give rise to new and alternative historical narratives. The Arch of

Titus and the stories constructed around it for two thousand years are a textbook example

of the proliferation of alternative narratives, many inspired by acts of vandalism.

And therein lies a lesson about vandalism. Reversing or repairing an act of vandalism

is only one response. An equally valid and common response is new understanding of the

past, a new narrative history, and an integration of the vandalism into the process of

historiography.

Of course, not all history writing requires a prior act of vandalism. However, all

history is revisionist. Historical writing, that is not mere chronicle, is always a re-

envisioning of the past. The relationship between vandalism and historical narrative

reminds us that our understanding of the past will always be partial. For the historian,

vandalism, when it occurs, is not necessarily an impediment to writing history. Nor is it

an irritation to be somehow expunged. Rather the vandal and the historian are linked, and

the vandal, wittingly or not, is an integral part of the process of writing history.

References1. See a similar definition in the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press). For crimi-

nological definitions of ‘‘Vandalism,’’ see: Matthew Williams, ‘‘Understanding King Punisher and HisOrder: Vandalism in an Online Community—Motives, Meanings and Possible Solutions,’’ InternetJournal of Criminology (2004): 2–5; M. R. Sutton, Differential Rates of Vandalism in a New Town:Towards a Theory of Relative Place (unpublished PhD diss., Lancashire Polytechnic, 1987).

2. Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (New York: Random House,2007), 427–28.

3. For a full discussion, including references, see the section ‘‘Vandalism, History, and the Arch of Titus’’below.

4. Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 428.5. Rita Hermon-Belot, L’abbe Gregoire, la politique et la verite (Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 2000); Alyssa Goldstein

Sepinwall, The Abbe Gregoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism (Berkeley:University of California Press, 2005); Joseph L. Sax, ‘‘Heritage Preservation as a Public Duty: The AbbeGregoire and the Origins of an Idea,’’ Michigan Law Review 88 (1990): 1142–69; Gregoire, ‘‘Motion onBehalf of the Jews,’’ and Gregoire, ‘‘A Report on Behalf of the Colored People of St. Domingue and

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Other French Islands in America,’’ in Two Rebel Priests of the French Revolution, ed. R. Carol (SanFrancisco: R and E Research Associates, 1975).

6. H. Gregoire, Rapport sur les inscriptions des monuments publics in Oeuvres De L’Abbe Gregoire (Millwood,NY: Kraus-Thompson Organization, 1977), 149.

7. Christian Courtois, Les Vandales et L’Afrique (Paris: Arts Et Metiers Graphiques, 1955); Sax, ‘‘HeritagePreservation as a Public Duty.’’

8. Raphael refers to Vandals in a letter written to Pope Leo X circa 1519, which is republished in Eliza-beth Gilmore Holt, ed., A Documentary History of Art: Volume I (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversityPress, 1957), 289–96. The letter says in part (in translation), ‘‘Why should we bewail the Goths, theVandals, and other perfidious enemies of the Latin name, when those who above all others should befathers and guardians in defense of the poor relics of Rome, have even given themselves over to thestudy—long study—of how these might be destroyed and disappear.’’

9. Dryden, in his poem ‘‘To Sir Godfrey Kneller,’’ writes,

Till Goths and Vandals, a rude northern race,Did all the matchless monuments deface.

10. A. H. Merrills, ‘‘The Origins of Vandalism,’’ The International Journal of the Classical Tradition 16(2009): 155–75.

11. Courtois, Les Vandales et L’Afrique.12. David Abulafia, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2011), 232.13. Also shown in Briulov’s painting is a depiction of a portion of an arch, perhaps based on the Arch of

Titus, which would have been visible to Briulov due to its restoration in 1822 (see below in the section‘‘Vandalism, History, and the Arch of Titus’’). However, there is no evidence that the actual Arch ofTitus was vandalized in 455 CE. For the painting, see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Genseric_sacking_Rome_455.jpg.

14. Procopius, History of the Wars: Volume III, Book 5, 3; ibid., Volume IV, Book 9, 5; ibid., Volume IV, Book9, 6; ibid., Volume IV, Book 9, 9.

15. Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 424–87.16. Many thanks to Prof. Arthur Danto. This thought experiment was inspired by a conversation I had

with him in 1987.17. Gordon Leff, History and Social Theory (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1971), 43.18. W. H. Walsh, Philosophy of History: An Introduction Revised Edition (New York: Harper & Row, 1967),

30–34; Arthur C. Danto, Narration and Knowledge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985),148–52; Arthur C. Danto, Analytical Philosophy of History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University,1965), 219.

19. Of course, numerous modern historians avoid narrative or, at least, political narrative history. TheAnnales school, led by F. Braudel and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, has made a point of writing historythat concentrates on long-term historical phenomena and not on a series of short-term events. SeeEmmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Mind and Method of the Historian (Chicago: The University of ChicagoPress, 1981), 1–27. However, even Ladurie tells a story, albeit an attenuated one, when, for example,he describes the economic impact of the plague on Europe of the fourteenth through seventeenthcenturies CE. Id. at 28–83. Paul Ricoeur discusses the problem of what he calls the eclipse of narrativein historiography in Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative: Volume I (Chicago: The University of ChicagoPress, 1984), 95–120.

20. Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 90. ‘‘Funes the Memorious’’ was firstpublished in 1944.

21. Danto, Narration and Knowledge, 17–81, 356.22. Paul Ricoeur, ‘‘Memory and Forgetting,’’ in Questioning Ethics, Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, ed.

Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 9.23. Admittedly, not all acts of vandalism are so well thought out. Some vandals are comically unaware of

the historical narrative they are affecting. However, even if a vandal is not fully aware of the official

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narrative of King A, he, nevertheless, knows his own version of that narrative, no matter how idiosyn-cratic. Moreover, despite any misconceptions the vandal may have, his act of vandalism will alter KingA’s narrative history.

24. Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 5.25. There is no doubt that the Biblical story is narrated after considerable selection from the events of

the first millennium BCE. Nonetheless, how what I have termed the ‘‘backstory’’ became a historicalnarrative or series of historical narratives is not the subject of this paper. For a description of howthat selection involves the memory and forgetting identified in this paper, see Fredric Brandfon, ‘‘TheLimits of Evidence: Archaeology and Objectivity,’’ Maarav 4 (1987): 5–43, and the references therein.

26. For an eyewitness account of the war and the destruction of Jerusalem, see two works by Josephus,The Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities.

27. Abulafia, The Great Sea, 187.28. Richard Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization (New York:

Penguin Books, 2010), 347.29. Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 7–41.30. Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 424–87.31. Josephus, The Jewish War: Book 6.32. Ibid., 241.33. Ibid., 252–66.34. Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2, no. 30, 6–7.35. Polybius, in his analysis of Roman institutions, stated in the second century BCE that the triumph is

a spectacle ‘‘in which generals bring right before the eyes of the Roman people a vivid impression oftheir achievements,’’ Polybius 6, 15, 8. For a discussion of this statement, see Beard, The RomanTriumph, 31.

36. Josephus, The Jewish War: Book 7, 139–44, 146.37. Ibid., The Jewish War: Book 7, 148–50.38. Ibid., The Jewish War: Book 7, 158–61. The remains of the Temple of Peace may be seen today just

north of the Via dei Fori Imperiali, which separates it from the Roman Forum.39. Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 410 et seq. See also Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, ‘‘Galba,’’ ‘‘Otho,’’

and ‘‘Vitellius.’’40. Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 419.41. Ibid.42. Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard, The Colosseum (London: Profile Books, 2005), 32.43. Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, ‘‘The Deified Titus,’’ section 1.44. Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘‘Notes on Sculptures in Rome and Florence: Rome I, The Arch of Titus,’’ The

Athenaeum, September 29, 1832.45. David Watkin, The Roman Forum (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 59–60.46. Hermann Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 264; Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 432–33.47. Tacitus, Histories: Book V, 1–10. Tacitus does note that Titus was not the first Roman to subdue

Jerusalem. He records the conquest by Pompey in Tacitus, Histories: Book V, 9, but appears ignorantof any previous conquests.

48. For the connection between Titus’s triumph depicted in the Arch and his deification, also depicted inthe Arch, see Beard, The Roman Triumph.

49. Babylonian Talmud: Gittin, 56b.50. Watkin, The Roman Forum, 106.51. Ibid., 56–58, 188–90.52. Ibid., 56–58.53. Kenneth Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 1555–1593 (New York: The Jewish Theological

Seminary of America), 162.54. Cum nimis absurdum, §2 and 3. For both the Latin original and an English translation of Cum nimis

absurdum, see Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 291–98.55. Watkin, The Roman Forum, 60.

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56. Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 14–15 and note 36, citing S. Merkle, ed., Concilii Triden-tini Diariorum (Freiburg, 1911), 333.

57. In Stow’s translation of Cum nimis absurdum, the introductory paragraph states that the ghetto isbeing established ‘‘that they, led by the piety and kindness of the Apostolic See, should at lengthrecognize their errors, and make all haste to arrive at the true light of the Catholic faith’’ (Stow,Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 295). But for a different translation, see David Berger, ‘‘Cumnimis absurdum and the conversion of the Jews,’’ Jewish Quarterly Review 70 (1979): 41–49.

58. There is a further reflection created by the story of Paul’s head being crowned with a ‘‘Jew Hat.’’ Thepreservation of the replica of the pope’s head for the purpose of creating a new narrative reflects,again unwittingly, the Rabbinic tale of Titus’s death. In that story, Titus’s actual head is opened afterhis death. The inside of his head reveals that, contrary to the story of the Arch, Titus was not deifiedupon death. Instead, the true God has killed him with a gnat. Similarly, the replica of Paul IV’s headreveals on the outside, when it is wearing the hat, that instead of Paul converting Jews to Christianity,he has ultimately been transformed into a Jew.

59. Watkin, The Roman Forum, 60.60. Ibid., 190. Such practices comport with Article 12 of the later-enacted Venice Charter for the Conser-

vation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites (1964). However, at roughly the time of the restora-tion, Stendahl (Henri Beyle) objected and stated that ‘‘What remains to us is therefore but a copy ofTitus’ arch.’’ See Promenades dans Rome (1829). Watkin agrees with Stendahl at p. 191.

61. The inscription reads in Latin: Insigne religionis atque artis, monumentum, vetustate fatiscens: Pius Septi-mus, Pontifex Maximus, novis operibus priscum exemplar imitantibus fulciri servarique iussit. Anno sacriprincipatus eius XXIV.

62. For a critique of Watkin’s ‘‘melancholy nostalgia’’ concerning the reconstruction of the Arch, seeGregory S. Bucher, ‘‘Review: The Roman Forum,’’ Bryn Mawr Classical Review (October 27, 2010), www.bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2010/2010–10–27.html. For a defense of Valadier’s restoration, see Ronald T.Ridley, The Eagle and the Spade, Archaeology in Rome During the Napoleonic Era (Cambridge, UK: Cam-bridge University Press, 1992), 241: ‘‘The arch thus stands solid and secure, with the missing sectionspainstakingly reconstructed on the sure information provided by what remained. By the use of traver-tine, these can be instantly distinguished from the marble of the original. Had it not been restoredwhen it was, it would simply have collapsed, and one of the most familiar monuments not only of theForum but also of Rome would no longer exist.’’

63. In fact, there is a third paradox that is not the subject of this paper. Just as the vandal must preserve,in part, what he or he sets out to destroy, an art restorer often risks the destruction of what isintended to be preserved.

64. Watkin, The Roman Forum, 180–90.65. Shelley, supra. The approximate date for this entry into Shelley’s notebooks is stated in Martin Gar-

rett, The Palgrave Literary Dictionary of Shelley (Houndmills, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 181.66. The gathering at the Arch in 1948 is mentioned in several guidebooks and blogs. In the fall of 2013,

the author visited the Museo Ebraico di Roma, where the story was repeated informally by museumstaff.

67. Danto, Narration and Knowledge, 354.68. Ibid., 17–18.

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BAMIYAN, VANDALISM, AND THE SUBLIME

JAMES JANOWSKIHampden-Sydney College

Figure 1. Empty niche with rubble, Western Buddha, July 2002. From Petzet et. al, The Giant Buddhas ofBamiyan, 48. (Photo by Yazhou Zou)

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In 2001 the Bamiyan Buddhas, towering fifteen-hundred-year-old sculptures long the centerpiece of Afghani-stan’s cultural heritage, were blown up in a very public fashion by the Taliban. I work to understand theevent—were the Taliban vandals and was this an instance of vandalism?—and to determine the meaning of thenow-empty niches and the sculptures’ remains. I argue that the act and its result prompt a powerfully emotiveexperience in which reason is rendered null, and that this experience is captured by (part of) Edmund Burke’sthinking about the sublime. I consider the possibility that, as some seem to suggest, the altered site itself mightbe understood as an artwork. I urge that this is misguided. Finally, after clarifying the concept of vandalism, Iargue that though the Taliban were not vandals, the result of their act is well understood as vandalism nonethe-less. Thus I suggest that careful thinking about the event, perhaps the most infamous example of art desecrationin recent history, issues in paradox. And while I hint at a way out of the cognitive impasse, I argue that as itstands the Bamiyan episode, which occasioned a colossal loss of meaning and value, defies understanding.

The shock caused by the image of such destruction can easily inhibit thought on

the event.1

—Jean Francois-Clement

I. Introduction

In March 2001, on the heels of some serious back-and-forth posturing and plenty of

high-stakes bluster, the Taliban, ignoring the pleas and remonstrations of various interna-

tional institutions and cultural heritage authorities, made good on a February 26

announcement that it would blow up Bamiyan’s Buddhas. By mid-March, after a painstak-

ing two-week effort involving artillery shells, rocket launchers, and—it turns out the

stone was especially hardy and the Buddhas did not go quietly into the night—both dyna-

mite and the technical know-how of Pakistani and Saudi demolition experts, this pair of

monumental sculptures, having stood tall and proud for nearly fifteen hundred years as

telling material representations of the confluence of cultures that made Bamiyan a lively

and cosmopolitan center on the Silk Road, had been reduced to rubble. Almost without

exception, people the world over reacted with shock and horror. Arguably the most sig-

nificant pieces of Afghanistan’s material heritage—the taller of the two was the largest

standing Buddha likeness in the world—the colossi had withstood annual freeze-thaw

cycles, any number of earthquakes, and even the occasional act of willful abuse. They didnot withstand the Taliban.

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The case by now is infamous. It has been discussed in many different venues—in the

popular press to be sure but also in both cultural heritage and academic circles—and has

been thoughtfully explored by scholars in a variety of disciplines.2 And this is no surprise.

Bamiyan is a fascinating and important—if also a deeply unfortunate and hugely sad—

case study in the deliberate targeting of material cultural heritage. While reflecting on

Bamiyan gives rise to innumerable issues and questions, I focus on a small subset of these

here and have two related aims. First, I will make an effort to understand (and this, by

the way, will be challenging) what happened in March 2001—that is, put differently, I’ll

attempt to sort out how we might best conceive and describe the Taliban’s decision and

actions, working to find the right concepts and language for, and hence the right under-

standing of, the same. Second, I will think some about how to interpret what is currently

on the ground at Bamiyan (BAI)—about how to read the result, that is to say, of the

Taliban’s actions.3 Put in the form of questions, then, I ask: were the Taliban vandals—and

was this, indeed, an instance of vandalism? As we’ll see, this is a difficult question. But

whatever the answer is—something I begin to discuss in the next section and strive to

make progress with by the end of the essay—the Taliban’s behavior at Bamiyan certainly

shares many of vandalism’s salient features. And it turns out that concentrating on one

of these—deliberately induced change, a constant across all cases of vandalism and close

cousin phenomena alike—gives rise to a second (and perhaps in one sense even more

important) question: what does BAI mean?4 How are we to understand the site in its post-

Taliban state? What do the empty niches and fragmented remains signify or symbolize

or represent? Responding to this second question—and zeroing in on one meaning in

particular—will be my focus in section III. After raising and deflecting an objection to my

argument in section IV, I work to draw some provisional conclusions in section V.

The hedging modifier—‘‘provisional’’—motivates a caveat: while I hope my thinking

about these issues and questions is suggestive, I can only scratch the surface of a histor-

ically layered and philosophically rich set of circumstances here; and my observations and

findings are intended as (and in places will have the feel of) investigative forays or trial

balloons. I aim to encourage thoughtful thoughts more so than provide answers and issue

last words. Indeed, as we’ll see, the March 2001 episode is exceedingly complex; and thus,

as with my previous and ongoing work on Bamiyan, I am not yet prepared to advance

settled conclusions about many hard issues. (I have relegated some important material to

the notes, a number of which are exploratory and even cognitively adventurous. I hope

the reader will do me the favor of attending to these notes, which I see as integral to the

essay.) But small steps are steps nonetheless and even tentative conclusions represent

progress. My hope is that my efforts move others to reflect on the case. Thinking about

Bamiyan and its Buddhas—thinking about them then and thinking about them now—is

seriously challenging. And so I welcome fellow travelers, including those who, perhaps

pushing me on my reasoning and showing me where I might have gone astray, reinforce

what I know to be true in any case: namely, that I have much more thinking to do myself

as well.

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