NAGYDÉM
County of Veszprém, Hungary.
A hoard, found NE of the village, containing objects
from a house shrine: a bronze lid, three bronze oil lamps, a pitcher with decorated handle, and statues of Lar and Apollo. The Lar statue is 32 cm high and depicts a male figure clothed in a tunic. He wears a
laurel wreath and holds a horn of plenty in the left
hand and originally a patera in the extended right. The
tunic displays the narrow stripes—clavus augustus—indicating the rank of knight. The statue may be dated to the first decade of the 1st c. A.D. and comes from southern Italy. The Apollo (38 cm including base)
is a fully developed example of the type in Hellenistic
art. It was probably made during the first half of the
1st c., during the time of Augustus, in a workshop of
Hellenistic tradition. The bronze pitcher (20.4 cm high)
is undecorated; the cast bronze handle depicts a Dionysian scene. It came to Pannonia from a workshop in Gaul at the beginning of the 2d c. Two of the oil
lamps are typical of Early Roman types of the end of
the 1st c. and the beginning of the 2d c. The third
lamp depicts the head of a Nubian slave, the opening
for the flame placed in the mouth. The oil lamps are
2d c., of North African origin, but such forms were also
produced in Gaul during the 2d c. The bronze pan used
to conceal the objects was found in bad condition. It is
decorated with three grapeleaf-shaped handles. Such pans
appeared in Pannonia during the 2d c. The motive for
hiding the objects can be connected with the Marcomannic invasions (second half of the 2d c.). The museum at Bakony has the finds at the Lararium of Nagydém.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Thomas, “Lar angusti Clavi,”
Folia
Archaeologica (1963) 21-42; id.,
A nagydémi lararium.
Das Lararium von Nagydém (1965) 31 pp.; id., “Apollo
von Nagydém,”
Arch. Funde (1956) 230-31; id.,
Römische Villen . . . (1964) 282-87; I. Éri, “Geschichte
der Erwerbung der Nagydémer Larariums,”
Veszprém
Megyei Muzeumok Közleményei (1963) 27-38.
E. B. THOMAS
