Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant (Hail Caesar! We Who Are About to Die Salute You), 1859
Oil on canvas, 36 5/8 x 57 1/4 in. (93.1 x 145.4 cm)
Gift of Ruxton Love, Jr., B.A. 1925
1969.85
Roman gladiators in an arena offer the traditional salute to the emperor Vitellius, enthroned in the imperial box with a number of Vestal Virgins at his right. Victims of earlier combats lie dead or dying on the blood-stained sand, or are dragged toward the exits by attendants. Though reminiscent of the Colosseum in form, this amphitheater could not be that monument, which was dedicated in A.D. 80 by the emperor Titus, son of Vespasian, who succeeded Vitellius in A.D. 69. Like the most effective nineteenth-century stagecraft, Gérôme's obsession with accurate archeological detail was often suborned, as here, to the narrative demands of his dramatic subjects.
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