This bronze medal, with a diameter of 70 mm, was designed by an unknown artist and produced at the Milanese workshop of Stephano Johnson in 1938 in celebration of the bicentennial anniversary of excavations of the city of Herculaneum, which like Pompeii was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. The anniversary was commemorated with an on-site ceremony featuring several high-ranking political figures, including Mussolini himself. The medal was awarded to all participants of the ceremony  (Brennan 2020: 10). A video showing Mussolini, accompanied by Minister of Education Giuseppe Bottai and Amedeo Mauri, chief archaeologist, can be found in the Archivio LUCE.

The medal’s obverse displays the city’s eponymous hero Hercules, fighting the Nemean lion with his bow and club. The two hundred years mentioned on the obverse refer to the first large-scale excavations at the site of Herculaneum starting in 1738, although the rediscovery and first excavations took place as early as 1709.  The excavations at Herculaneum were heavily used in Fascist propaganda. Mussolini highlighted the inability of previous governments to excavate the site and portrayed it as a symbol of their lack of determination. This was contrasted with Fascism’s rhetoric of determined action (Brennan 2020: 1). The restauration of the ancient city also played a role in Fascism’s ambition to recover and ‘liberate’ the greatness of the Roman Empire from the remnants of unwelcome pasts. This rhetoric can be observed in various instances, such as the inscription at the Theatre of Marcellus . The idea of ‘liberating’ the remains of ancient Rome is implicit in the medal’s use of erutis (from eruo), which means to dig up but can also be taken in a transferred sense to mean to rescue or free from a burden (cf. Cic. Att. 10.14.1).

The medal’s reverse features parts of the excavated ruins of Herculaneum with Mount Vesuvius looming in the background. The lower section of the reverse shows the Latin text placed between two fasces.  It was not unusual for Mussolini to be identified with Hercules, as can be inferred from other medals and artifacts (Lamers and Reitz-Joosse 2016: 68-69). Just as Hercules was considered the founder Herculaneum, Mussolini could present himself as its ‘refounder’.

Bibliography

Brennan, Brian. ‘Amedeo Maiuri: Herculaneum, Archaeology and Fascist Propaganda’. Bulletin of the History of Archaeology 30 (1), 2 (2020): 1–13.

Casolari, Gianfranco. 25 anni di storia : medaglie e decorazioni mussoliniane, 1922 - 1945. Tipolito Giusti, 1996. [XVI.87]

Lamers, Han, and Bettina Reitz-Joosse. The Codex Fori Mussolini: A Latin Text of Italian Fascism. London [etc.]: Bloomsbury, 2016.

‘L’inaugurazione dei nuovi edifici, emersi ad Ercolano nei recenti lavori’, 1938. Giornale Luce B / B1384. Archivio LUCE.

Erlend Myklebust