Staging Execution: New Iconographic Evidence for Damnatio ad Bestias at Perge

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Dönmez A.

Katman Arkeoloji Dergisi, cilt.2, sa.2, ss.105-118, 2026 (Hakemli Dergi)

Özet

The two Late Antique figural terracotta vessel lid fragments from Perge depicting damnatio ad bestias constitute par ticularly significant evidence, given the rarity of securely identified representations of this form of execution. Although recovered from different archaeological contexts, the two fragments preserve complementary elements of the same iconographic program me. The Stadium-Amphitheatre example depicts a condemned prisoner on a raised platform approached by a lion and accompa nied by a whip-bearing bestiarius, while the West Necropolis fragment provides clearer evidence for the physical restraint of the condemned to the platform. Comparison with established Roman representations demonstrates that the Perge examples belong to the visual tradition of judicial execution in the arena. Significantly, however, they appear to depict not the fatal attack itself but stages immediately preceding it: the restraint of the prisoner and the controlled initiation of the animal attack. The fragments therefore provide rare iconographic evidence for the organisation and staging of damnatio ad bestias in Late Antique Perge