This is a lead pipe from Piso's Villa! Julius Caesars father in law.
Lucius Calpurnius Piso. Also a An ancient
Roman wood and ivory throne.
Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (
consul 58 BC)
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Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other people named
Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, see
Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (disambiguation).
Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (c. 100 BC – 43 BC) was a statesman of ancient
Rome and the father-in-law of
Julius Caesar through
his daughter
Calpurnia Pisonis. He also
had a son,
Lucius Calpurnius Piso, known as "the
Pontifex", who was
Consul in 15 BC.
Biography[edit]
In 58 BC, when
consul,
Piso and
his colleague, Aulus Gabinius, entered into a compact with Publius Clodius, with the object of getting
Marcus Tullius
Cicero out of the way. Piso's reward was the province of
Macedonia, which he administered from 57 BC to the beginning of 55 BC, when he was recalled. Piso's recall was perhaps in consequence of the violent attack made upon him by
Cicero in the Senate in
his speech "De provinciis consularibus".
Caesar mentions
his father-in-law in
his Gallic Commentaries. Piso's grandfather, also named L.
Calpurnius Piso, was killed by the same Gauls that
Caesar would later conquer.
On
his return,
Piso addressed the Senate in
his defence, and
Cicero replied with the coarse and exaggerated invective known as "In Pisonem".[1]
Piso issued a pamphlet by way of rejoinder, and there the matter ended.
Cicero may have been afraid to bring the father-in-law of
Julius Caesar to trial. At the outbreak of the civil war,
Piso offered
his services as mediator. However, when
Caesar marched upon
Rome, he left the city by way of protest of
Caesar.
Piso did not openly declare support for Gnaeus
Pompeius Magnus and remained neutral but is widely believed he secretly supported Pompey but
still did not forfeit the respect of
Caesar when Pompey was defeated.
After the murder of
Caesar,
Piso insisted on the provisions of Caesar's will being strictly carried out and, for a time, he opposed
Mark Antony. Subsequently, he became one of Anthony's supporters and is mentioned as taking
part in an embassy to Antony's camp at Mutina with the object of bringing about a reconciliation with
Octavian.
He is believed to have been the owner of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum.
The maxim fiat
justitia ruat caelum ("let justice be done, though the heavens fall"), used by Lord
Mansfield in Somersett's Case and in reversing the outlawry of John
Wilkes, and in the alternate form fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus by Ferdinand of Habsburg, is sometimes attributed to
Piso, but this is disputed.
2nd photo and 3rd photo
wood and ivory throne from Piso's villa.
An ancient
Roman wood and ivory throne
ROME (web) - An ancient
Roman wood and ivory throne has been unearthed at a dig in Herculaneum,
Italian archaeologists said on Tuesday, hailing it as the most significant piece of wooden furniture ever discovered there.
The throne was found during an excavation in the Villa of the Papyri, the private house formerly belonging to Julius Caesar's father-in-law,
Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, built on the slope of Mount Vesuvius.
The name of the villa derives from the impressive
library containing thousands of scrolls of papyrus discovered buried under meters (yards) of volcanic ash after the Vesuvius erupted on 24 August 79.
Restoration of the throne is
still ongoing with restorers painstakingly trying to piece back together parts of the ceremonial chair.
While other wooden objects have been dug out in nearby Pompeii, experts have never before found such a significant ceremonial piece of furniture. Previously such pieces have only been observed in paintings or made of marble.
"The find of ancient wooden furniture is not an absolute novelty in Herculaneum or Pompeii. Organic materials in fact were preserved in these cities because of the peculiar way in which they were submerged by the Vesuvius volcanic mud," said the
head of the dig,
Maria Paola Guidobaldi.
"But we have never found furniture of such a significant structure and decoration," Guidobaldi said.
Little is known about how the throne would have been used but the elaborate decorations discovered on the chair celebrate the mysterious cult figure of
Attis.
The most precious relief shows
Attis, a life-death-rebirth deity, collecting a pine
cone next to a sacred pine tree. Other
ornaments show leaves and
flowers suggesting the theme of the throne is that of
spring and
fertility.
The cult of
Attis is documented to have been strong in Herculaneum the first century AD.
educational use only
