‘Embodied ambiguities on the Prima Porta Augustus’, Art History 36.2: 242–79. 2013.

copy Association of Art Historians 2013 243

Embodied Ambiguities on the Prima Porta Augustus Michael Squire

Of all free-standing Roman Imperial portraits none is more iconic than the

so-called lsquoPrima Porta Augustusrsquo unearthed 150 years ago this month (plate 1)1

Discovered amid the ruins of a private Imperial villa just north of Rome in 1863

restored by no less a sculptor than Pietro Tenerani and quickly set up in the Musei

Vaticani (where the statue has lorded over the Braccio Nuovo ever since) the

Prima Porta Augustus epitomizes our collective ideas about both Augustus and

the principate that he founded in the late fi rst century BCE Even as early as 1875

Lawrence Alma-Tadema turned to the sculpture as offi cial Augustan emblem what

better image than the Prima Porta Augustus to conjure up the emperorrsquos looming

presence within an imaginary lsquoaudience with Agripparsquo (plate 2)2 For Benito

Mussolini in the 1930s this Imperial image was likewise understood to enshrine

the imperial ambitions of Fascist Italy a bronze copy was duly erected along Romersquos

Via dei Fori Imperiali where it continues to cast its shadow over the imperial fora

(plate 3)3 lsquoNo other image is lodged more fi rmly at the heart of todayrsquos scholarship

on the art and power of Romersquo as one textbook puts it lsquono imperial face more

indelibly imprinted on the art historical imaginationrsquo4

But for all our familiarity with the Prima Porta Augustus ndash and for all the

hundreds of books articles and chapters dedicated to it ndash there seems to be more to

say about both the statue and its original historical context By lsquocontextrsquo I do not just

mean the statuersquos specifi c fi ndspot and provenance (which remain fi ercely debated)

Nor do I mean solely the art-historical contexts of iconography and typology ndash the

identity of each fi gure emblazoned on the breastplate or the relationship between

this portraitrsquos coiffure and other examples of the so-called lsquoPrima Portarsquo type My

interest in this essay rather lies with the contexts of Augustan art in the broadest

visual cultural sense By looking afresh at the statue I hope to shed new light on its

manipulations of medium on the one hand and its careful negotiation of imperial

stance and identity on the other

lsquoLookingrsquo will prove critical here Instead of trying to lsquodecodersquo the images

emblazoned on the cuirass or indeed adding to the various discussions of date

and supposed lsquooriginalrsquo my objective is to draw renewed attention to the statuersquos

fi gurative ambiguities What strikes me as so signifi cant about the statue is what

W J T Mitchell might call its lsquomultistabilityrsquo ndash the playful layering of different visual

fi gurative modes no less than the historical cultural and political frameworks that

this entails5 I begin with arguably the most ambivalent aspect of all the recourse to

the cuirass in the fi rst place Modern scholars tend to accept this costume as a matter

Detail of the Prima Porta Augustus breastplate (see plate 1) as viewed from the right Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth

DOI 1011111467-836512007Art History | ISSN 0141-679036 | 2 | April 2013 | pages 242-279


Embodied Ambiguities on the Prima Porta Augustus

1 The Prima Porta statue of Augustus precise date disputed (but perhaps c 15 CE after an earlier model of c 19 BCE) Parian marble height 204 m Rome Musei Vaticani (inv 2290) Photo Author

of mimetic course But I think things are somewhat more complex As both military

device and iconographic costume the cuirass had been around for centuries (over

600 fragments of cuirassed statues survive from the Graeco-Roman world from

various dates and models see plate 26)6 Never before however had this sculpted

costume been put to such playful and self-conscious effect7 To my mind the statuersquos

choice of outfi t is best understood within a cultural dialectic of the body in the

late fi rst century BCE on one side the pull towards nudity and its association with

masculine power and infl uence premised upon an inherited set of lsquoGreekrsquo visual

conventions on the other a certain reticence resistance and rejection centred

around a lsquoRomanrsquo rhetoric of cultural remove and difference As we shall see the

cuirass allows our princeps (lsquofi rst leaderrsquo) at once to bear his clothes and to divest them

by exploiting the dynamic duplicity of its dress the statue invites viewers to see its

subject as both buff Greek nude and vested Roman general


Michael Squire

It is what such ambivalence or lsquocode-switchingrsquo might mean for the statue ndash and

indeed for the mechanics of Augustan imagery more generally ndash that interests me

here8 Thanks to the ambiguous breastplate which simultaneously exposes the torso

of the princeps and clothes it behind a fi gurative anatomy of imperialist myth-making Augustus manifests a body that both can and cannot be seen As such the fi gurative

duplicity of the cuirass incorporates a set of more profound lsquoontologicalrsquo paradoxes

about the statue and its coveredexposed subject The bodily frame situates Augustus

between different registers of representation like the bodies depicted in and on the

make-believe cuirass the emperorrsquos body fl uctuates back and forth through literal

and symbolic modes of signifi cation ndash between mimetic replication on the one hand

and extra-fi gurative modes of allegory and metaphor on the other Nude vs clothed

lsquoGreekrsquo vs lsquoRomanrsquo literal vs symbolic the statue gives somatic form to a series

of semantic contradictions themselves grounded in the political paradoxes of the

Augustan principate

Although the essay is structured around a single material case study it also

aims to draw out some broader artistic-cum-political ramifi cations In particular

it examines what the statuersquos ambiguities mean for thinking about Augustan

imagery at large For too long I think our narratives about lsquothe power of images in

the age of Augustusrsquo ndash the title of a landmark book by Paul Zanker in 1988 ndash have

tended to suppose a neat ordered and self-contained system of programmatic

lsquocommunicationrsquo9 There were we assume single prefabricated Augustan

political lsquomessagesrsquo what is more scholarly responses to Augustan lsquopropagandarsquo

have centred around lsquodecodingrsquo the single sorts of political messages involved

(with some scholars justifying their recourse to this supposed artistic lsquolanguagersquo

explicitly) To my mind by contrast the Prima Porta Augustus embodies a much

2 Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema An Audience at Agripparsquos 1875 (Opus CLXI) Oil on panel 098 times 0628 m Kilmarnock The Dick Institute Photo Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut fuumlr Klassische Archaumlologie und Museum fuumlr Abguumlsse Klassischer Bildwerke Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaumlt Munich

3 Modern bronze copy of the Prima Porta Augustus set up along Romersquos Via dei Fori Imperiali (next to the Forum of Augustus) Photo Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut fuumlr Klassische Archaumlologie und Museum fuumlr Abguumlsse Klassischer Bildwerke Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaumlt Munich



more sophisticated and self-referential politics of visual ambiguity the lsquopowerrsquo

of Augustan images lay in the gesture not of excising ambiguity but rather of

embracing ambivalence and harnessing it to the new political cause

The World on the Chest Before elaborating that larger argument let me begin by introducing my central case

study and reviewing its history of scholarship Since the discovery of the Prima Porta

Augustus on 20 April 1863 Classical archaeologists have concerned themselves with

a variety of interpretive issues the reconstruction of the hands the attributes the

relationship with other Augustan portraits the statuersquos historical origins provenance

and display and perhaps most importantly the iconographic identifi cation of the

fi gures emblazoned on the cuirass This essay cannot aim at a full eacutetat de la recherche Because of my reliance on earlier discussions however it seems important to offer an

annotated description of what can be seen those interested in the vast bibliography

are referred to the (purposely extensive) endnotes

Where better to start than with the statuersquos size medium and archaeological

provenance Excluding its modern base the Prima Porta Augustus stands at an over-

lifesize 204 metres In terms of its materials isotopic analysis confi rms that the statue

was crafted from high-quality lychnites marble (imported from the Greek Cycladic

island of Paros)10 As stated above the sculpture was found in a private residence

some nine miles north of Rome near the Via Flaminia Although the site can be

connected with the family of Augustusrsquo wife Livia we do not know where in the

villa the statue was found11 in the absence of reliable

archaeological records the exact position of the statue

remains the subject of ongoing scholarly conjecture12

The identity and iconographic stance of the

sculpture by contrast are relatively clear The facial

features leave no doubt about the Augustan identity

Indeed the idealized physiognomy and signature

lsquocrab-clawrsquo coiffure have resulted in the eponymous

labelling of a so-called lsquoPrima Portarsquo portrait type

(plate 4) some 147 copies and versions are known

and the template is usually thought to have originated

in or shortly after 27 BCE13 Augustus stands in

counterbalanced contrapposto pose bearing the

bulk of his weight on his right leg the left leg is

consequently relaxed throwing the whole statue into

a dynamic diagonal dance (the right hip is higher than

the left the left shoulder higher than the right and

the turn of the head crowns the overarching sense

of animation) As scholars have long observed the

sculptural schema of the Prima Porta Augustus harks

back to Classical prototypes from the mid-fi fth century

BCE For modern viewers as indeed for Augustusrsquo

contemporaries one statue type in particular seems to

have embodied the High Classical style the Doryphoros or lsquoLance-Bearerrsquo of the Argive sculptor Polyclitus

crafted sometime around the middle of the fi fth

century BCE and much discussed copied and imitated

in Rome (for example plate 5)14 Some have doubted

4 Detail of the head of the Prima Porta Augustus Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth


Michael Squire

any specifi c reference to that Polyclitan prototype15

drawing attention to the differences in stance and

pose16 or else suggesting that the Prima Porta

Augustus was designed to be seen from a different

angle (not from the front but rather from the front

left)17 Of course one can only compare later Roman

adaptations of the Doryphoros not the statue itself

which is long lost moreover we will never know

how many viewers might have noticed (or indeed

commented upon) the apparent reference Still we

should not underestimate Roman artrsquos capacity for

interpictorial allusion18 In the case of the Prima Porta

portrait type moreover the corresponding stylization

of the hair certainly does seem to fashion a knowing

and deliberate sort of allusion it is also signifi cant

that Pliny the Elderrsquos Natural History (written in the 70s

CE) recognized such sculptural counterbalance as a

distinctively lsquoPolyclitanrsquo trait19

Things are somewhat trickier when it comes to

reconstructing the Prima Porta Augustusrsquo arms The

tubular hollow carved through the statuersquos left hand

confi rms that (like the Doryphoros) it once grasped

a cylindrical object ndash variously reconstructed as a

lance military standard laurel branch or sceptre (as

in Alma-Tademarsquos painting see plate 2)20 As for the

extended right arm some have suggested that the princeps also held something in

his right hand proposing once again a laurel or a lance21 Although it is impossible

to reach defi nitive conclusions this hypothesis seems relatively unlikely Only

the ring fi nger survives necessitating a full-scale reconstruction in the nineteenth

century As John Pollini has observed however the tendons on the back of the hand

suggest that the index and middle fi ngers were extended rather than curved around

an object similarly the ring and little fi ngers appear to have been folded back on

themselves as confi rmed by the single surviving fi nger22 True to Pietro Teneranirsquos

nineteenth-century reconstruction in other words Augustus seems not to have held

anything in his right hand Instead he most probably raised it in a sign of adlocutio or

rhetorical lsquoaddressrsquo23 Augustus is shown speaking to his respectful audience frozen

in the perpetuity of potential speech (note the closed lips) the statue most likely

engaged its onlookers as though they were ndash or were about to become ndash listeners

If this reconstruction is correct the gesture seems to have amalgamated the image

of military general with that of orator In this sense the raised right arm goes hand

in hand with the trailing left foot This princeps is no static speaker but rather points

forward showing us the direction in which to proceed Augustus is a man of both

words and actions alike

This military aspect brings us to the statuersquos costume As we have observed our

marble princeps is clothed in an imaginary bronze breastplate the military costume is

strapped over the shoulders and fastened together at each side Beneath the cuirass

are two undergarments below the lower straps (just above the knees) are hints at

an underlying tunic with an additional short-sleeved garment worn on top (the

cuts of the upper arms resemble those of a modern-day T-shirt so that the cuirassrsquo

lsquoleatherrsquo lappets trim the arm-holes) Following the important iconographic studies

5 Roman copy of Polyclitus Doryphoros fi rst century BCE (after an original of c 460 BCE) Pentelic marble height 198 m Minneapolis Minneapolis Institute of Arts (inv 866 purchased by The John R Van Derlip Fund with additional funds from Bruce B Dayton an anonymous donor Mr and Mrs Kenneth Dayton Mr and Mrs W John Driscoll Mr and Mrs Alfred Harrison Mr and Mrs John Andrus Mr and Mrs Judson Dayton Mr and Mrs Stephen Keating Mr and Mrs Pierce McNally Mr and Mrs Donald Dayton Mr and Mrs Wayne MacFarlane and many other generous friends of the Institute) Photo Reproduced by kind permission of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts



of Cornelius C Vermeule and Klaus Stemmer archaeologists have classifi ed the

cuirass as an example of the so-called lsquoHellenisticrsquo type In contrast to the tongue-

shaped pteryges of the lsquoClassicalrsquo cuirass (compare plate 22) the breastplate is trimmed

with straight leather lappets below although most of these are obscured by drapery

a second row of longer straps has been plastically modelled over Augustusrsquo left leg

(plate 6)24 An additional piece of clothing is draped around the waist (plate 7) scholars

often refer to this by the modern (and somewhat misleading) name of lsquohip-mantlersquo

6 Detail of the lower cuirass straps of the Prima Porta Augustus Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth

7 Detail of the lsquohip-mantlersquo (Huumlftmantel) of the Prima Porta Augustus Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth


Michael Squire

(German Huumlftmantel)25 as with the yielding marble lappets the soft voluminous folds

make for a satisfying contrast with the shallow reliefs of the hardened cuirass Roman

viewers would probably have understood the draped garment as a paludamentum ndash a

military cloak worn by high-ranking generals in the fi eld of battle usually attached at

the shoulder (see plate 22) In this case however there is no such fastening the cloth

cascades over Augustusrsquo left forearm in virtuoso vertical folds suspended in mid-air

beside the bent left leg26 As we shall see there are revealing iconographic parallels

for such clothing around the waist (compare plate 14 and plate 20) But whatever else

we make of this garment a compositional rationale also appears to have operated

behind it By drawing our eye to the statuersquos lower reaches the drapery attracts

attention to the winged toddler at the opposite side This child ndash at once literally and

metaphorically propping up Augustusrsquo imperial stance ndash straddles a dolphin ancient

audiences would have had no diffi culty in recognizing this fi gure as Cupid (Eros in

Greek) although some modern scholars have also associated the portrait with that of

Augustusrsquo nephew Gaius (born in 20 BCE)27

As for the panoply of fi gures on the cuirass these have received much more

extensive commentary (plate 8 plate 9 plate 10 plate 11) With each and every fi gure the

scholarly objective has been to name and identify commenting on the fi gures both

individually and as a collective We shall return to the overarching arrangement in

due course For now though it might be useful to introduce each fi gure in turn

noting some of the most important controversies along the way With that purpose

in mind I reproduce the line-drawing by Barbara Stucky-Boumlhrs (commissioned by

Hans Jucker in 1977 plate 8) although it should be stated from the outset that such

two-dimensional diagrams fl atten out the twists and turns of the three-dimensional

original28

The two male fi gures at the centre provide an obvious starting-point (see plate 10)

The left-hand fi gure is dressed in Roman military attire with boots helmet and

cuirass (this time a lsquoClassicalrsquo cuirass with tongue-shaped lappets compare plate 22) and with paludamentum fastened around his left shoulder

beneath the left arm the fi gurersquos sword lies sheathed

in its scabbard and an animal perches behind the legs

(variously identifi ed as a lsquodogrsquo or lsquowolfrsquo)29 Opposite

him stands a man in very different attire This second

fi gure is dressed in typical lsquoOrientalrsquo costume

complete with beard baggy trousers and a tunic girt

at the upper waist with both his left and right hands

he supports a military standard or signum topped with

the fi gure of an eagle30 The exchange between the

Roman fi gure on the left and the eastern fi gure on the

right dominates the composition while the right-

hand fi gure lifts his standard aloft the left-hand fi gure

extends his right arm as if ready to receive it or else

reaching out in a gesture that betokens peace

As archaeologists have long recognized this

imagery seems to refer to a particular historical

event in 20 BCE namely Augustusrsquo recovery of the

Roman military standards which Crassus had lost

to the Parthians during the battle of Carrhae in 53

BCE31 Augustus made much of this episode and its

political signifi cance So it is for example that in his

8 Drawing of the Prima Porta Augustus breastplate by Barbara Stucky-Boumlhrs commissioned by Hans Jucker From Hans Jucker lsquoDokumentationen zur Augustusstatue von Primaportarsquo Hefte des Archaumlologischen Seminars Bern 3 1977 17 plate 1



autobiographical Res Gestae originally inscribed on monumental bronze tables outside

his Mausoleum in Rome Augustus boasted how he lsquoforcedrsquo (coegi ἠνάγκασα) the

Parthians to return the standards32 writing some 200 years later Cassius Dio likewise

records that Augustus lsquotook great pride in the achievement declaring that he had

recovered without a struggle what had formerly been lost in battlersquo33 With this

history in mind some scholars have gone even further in their attempts to identify

the two protagonists According to one interpretation the right-hand fi gure represents

the Parthian leader Phraates IV34 by the same logic the left-hand lsquoRomanrsquo is likewise

identifi ed as a specifi c individual ndash whether a historical protagonist like Tiberius

(Augustusrsquo successor)35 or else a more mythical fi gure like Mars36 Romulus37

Aeneas38 or indeed a personifi cation of the Roman army (Exercitus Romanus) itself39

In my view we might do better to leave these names unspecifi ed If the patron

or artist had wanted to suggest particular identities there were effective visual (and

9 Detail of the Prima Porta Augustus torso Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth


Michael Squire

indeed epigraphic) means of doing so By contrast both of these fi gures are bestowed

with fairly generic appearances allowing for a variety of different (and by no means

mutually exclusive) identities Despite the iconographic uncertainties there can

be no doubting the overarching cosmic signifi cance of the events portrayed For

whatever else we make of the central scenes this historical episode is subjected to the

full force of Augustan myth-making heaven and earth ndash and everything in between

ndash are shown to revolve around the pivotal moment when the Parthian standards are

fi nally returned to Rome

Take fi rst of all the fi gures beside and below those at the centre Flanking

the ribcage are two symmetrical female captives To the left a woman wears a

long-sleeved tunic mantle and open-toed sandals (see plate 11) with her hair tied

back she rests her head in one hand and holds a sword (with eagle-headed hilt) in

the other To the right a second female barbarian sits in corresponding pose and

in similar attire (see opening plate) This second fi gure wears a fi llet in her hair

she holds an empty sword sheath in one hand and a dragon-headed instrument

(sometimes associated with a Gallic trumpet or carnyx) in the other40 Classical

archaeologists have again suggested and debated a series of specifi c Roman

provinces41 the left-hand fi gure is most often (though not always) associated with

Hispania on the basis of her sword42 the puzzling animal at the side of the right-

hand fi gure (a wild boar) by contrast has been connected with Celtic military

standards leading most to identify her as Gaul43 Below these lateral captives are

two extra-terrestrial fi gures fl oating mid-air because of the lyre and the winged

griffi n upon which he rides the draped male on the left has been associated with

Apollo while the female fi gure on the right has been identifi ed as ArtemisDiana44

10 Detail of the Prima Porta Augustus breastplate Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth

11 Detail of the Prima Porta Augustus breastplate as viewed from the left Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth



Completing the symmetrical effect and framing the horizontal space beneath the

belly button we fi nd a single reclining female fi gure with a cornucopia (lsquohorn of

plentyrsquo) on her knee and two babies beside her breast A number of identities have

been proposed ndash among them Tellus (lsquoEarthrsquo)45 Italia46 and Ceres-Cybele47 While

many of the iconographic details remain unclear ndash the circular object at the feet the

three-pointed crown of the head and the stalk behind her right foot for example ndash

there can be no doubting the generic image of earthly plenty

If the cuirassrsquo low-lying imagery symbolizes the lower reaches of earth the

upper part embodies the astral expanses of the sky At the very top of the cuirass on

the epaulets either side of Augustusrsquo neck are two sphinxes the heads are turned

out to face the viewer while their bodies are twisted inwards so as to fl ank the

12 Painted plaster cast of the Prima Porta Augustus as reconstructed by Paolo Liverani (originally displayed in the Bunte Goumltter exhibition at the Munich Gylpothek between 2003 and 2004) Photo Wolfram Martini reproduced by kind permission of the Institut fuumlr Klassische Archaumlologie und Museum fuumlr Abguumlsse Klassischer Bildwerke Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaumlt Munich


Michael Squire

frontal frame of Augustus48 Beneath these carved into the upper chest we see the

protruding naked torso of a bearded elder surrounded on either side by an additional

fi gurative duo to the left a draped man rides a quadriga (so that the horsesrsquo raised

legs symmetrically frame the military standard below) to the right are two female

fi gures orbiting around the chest in the same lsquoclockwisersquo direction Once again

various identifi cations have been proposed While the central bearded fi gure is

usually associated with the sky-god Caelus (his billowing mantle marking the

upper limits both of the heavens and of Augustusrsquo chest)49 the left-hand charioteer

is most often identifi ed as Helios or Sol (ie lsquoSunrsquo)50 and the right-hand fi gures are

respectively associated with Eos or Aurora (lsquoDawnrsquo holding a pitcher of morning

dew) and Selene or Luna (lsquoMoonrsquo ndash hence the torch held in the left hand)51

Whatever we make of the cuirassrsquo sculpted scenes its central episode helps

situate the sculpture historically The return of the Parthian standards suggests a

date in or soon after 20 BCE in the immediate wake of the specifi c historical event

But the origins of the statue are nonetheless contentious bound up with larger

questions about provenance and display52 For was this a one-off marble creation

commissioned by Augustusrsquo wife for her home Or was it rather a later marble lsquocopyrsquo

one that referred back to an earlier bronze or other metallic lsquooriginalrsquo53 Various

formal aspects of the statue have been cited in connection with both scholarly

positions among them the Cupid support (necessary in marble but de trop in

bronze) the unfi nished workmanship around the rear of the statue (an adaptation

for a specifi c topographical display see plate 23 and plate 24)54 and not least the

supposed lsquoTiberianrsquo identity of the Roman soldier (was this a later lsquocopyrsquo intended

to promote Tiberius as Augustusrsquo successor)55 These are important questions But

for our immediate purposes they need not overly distract as always with Graeco-

Roman art it is more interesting to proceed on the basis of what we do know than to

speculate about what we do not56

This issue of lsquoprototypersquo does nonetheless fl ag one fi nal formal aspect of

the sculpture whatever its relation to any bronze lsquooriginalrsquo the extant marble

statue was certainly painted Traces of colour were noted immediately after the

statuersquos discovery although many of these are no longer visible today57 With

the development of new scientifi c technologies Paolo Liverani suggested a new

reconstruction as part of the landmark Bunte Goumltter (lsquoColoured godsrsquo) Munich

exhibition in 2003 (plate 12)58 Liveranirsquos reconstruction is admittedly minimalist

based on close scientifi c analysis of surviving traces of colour (rather than on

nineteenth-century reports) But his general conclusions about the palette and

painted areas nonetheless stand as Mark Bradley has discussed in this journal in

2009 we shall return to the interpretive stakes of such polychromy below59

Naked Ambitions and Vested InterestsHow then to make historical sense of the statuersquos various formal features Since the

late 1980s most discussions of the Prima Porta Augustus have revolved around the

contemporary political signifi cance of the breastplate iconography concentrating

on the return of Crassusrsquo standards in particular lsquoThe unique historical eventrsquo

writes Paul Zanker lsquois turned into a paradigm of salvation in which the gods and

the heavens act as guarantors but need not intervene directlyrsquo60 Like other scholars

before him61 Zanker has recourse to a library of literary texts here not least Horacersquos

Carmen Saeculare (composed for the lsquosecular gamesrsquo of 17 BCE) the imagery of fecundity

and abundance is duly read in terms of Augustusrsquo new lsquosalvifi crsquo order ndash as part of the

professed saeculum aureum or lsquogolden agersquo of Augustan Rome62



13 lsquoBarberini Togatusrsquo group late fi rst century BCE Parian marble height 165 m Rome Musei Capitoloni Centrale Montemartini (inv I46) Photo DAI Rom 1937 378


Michael Squire

Taking his cue from textual sources Zanker invests the Prima Porta Augustus

with a larger importance concerning the lsquopower of images in the age of Augustusrsquo

As visual paradigm the statue is understood not just to forge a particular image

of the emperor but also to constitute the lsquodecisive turning point for the entire

system of visual communicationrsquo which Augustus is supposed to have implemented

For Zanker lsquonew forms of artistic and visual expression had arisen in the wake

of fundamental political changersquo so that a statue like the Prima Porta Augustus

encapsulates a coherent message about both Augustus and the political regime

for which he stood Above all the Prima Porta statue embodies Zankerrsquos idea

that Augustan art ndash like Augustan politics ndash was characterized by what he calls lsquoa

comprehensive move toward standardization within fi xed normsrsquo (lsquoein umfassender Prozeszlig der Normierung nach festen Standardsrsquo) the effectiveness of Augustusrsquo Aufstieg relied

upon his effective elimination of visual ambiguity and polyvalence63

We shall return in the conclusion to Zankerrsquos overarching framework ndash above

14 lsquoTivoli Generalrsquo late second century BCEearly fi rst century BCE Marble height 194 m Rome Museo Nazionale Romano Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (inv 106513) Photo Author

15 Colossal acrolithic portrait of Augustus from the theatre at Arles probably early fi rst century CE Marble and local limestone height 23 m (original height of whole statue c 3 m) Arles Museacutee de lrsquoArles et de la Provence antiques (inv FAN 92002152679) Photo Author



all Zankerrsquos assumption of a supposed Bildersprache or lsquolanguage of imagesrsquo which

encompasses the lsquototality of images that a contemporary would have experiencedrsquo64

For now though I want to look more carefully at the visual games of the breastplate

Zanker takes his propagandistic cue from the iconographic subjects of Augustusrsquo

cuirass which he proceeds to name and identify By contrast my interest will

lie less in what the breastplate imagery can be said to lsquorepresentrsquo but rather in how the cuirassed statue presents its subject in the fi rst place The point seems to me

fundamental that the breastplate imagery is no isolated visual lsquoprogrammersquo but

instead forged in and out of the corporeal frame of the princeps The result is a wholly

ambiguous sort of imperial body On the one hand the breastplate parades a host of

anatomical details ndash pectoral muscles nipples ripped stomach belly button indeed

the lower parameters of the breastplate even align with the so-called lsquoiliac crestrsquo above

the groin While modelling Augustusrsquo bodily contours on the other hand this cuirasse estheacutetique simultaneously covers them up what is more the suggestive narrative scenes

and fastenings only underscore the fact that we are looking upon costume not fl esh

As a fi gure of both bodily volume and skin-deep surface the cuirass shields Augustusrsquo

chiselled anatomy while at the same time exposing it to the viewerrsquos inspective gaze

To understand the hybridity of this body-cum-bodily-costume we might begin

with its broader social cultural and artistic context in the late Roman Republic and

early principate In art as in life clothing (or lack thereof) mattered in the Roman

world as Shelley Hales nicely puts it lsquopower could be negotiated by the wearing

shedding and swapping of clothesrsquo65 Consider the following passage from Pliny the

Elderrsquos Natural History written in the 70s CE66

16 lsquoGemma Augustearsquo early fi rst century CE Sardonyx in two layers 19 times 23 times 13 cm Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum (inv ANSAIXa79) Photo Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut fuumlr Klassische Archaumlologie und Museum fuumlr Abguumlsse Klassischer Bildwerke Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaumlt Munich


Michael Squire

In olden times the statues that were dedicated were clad in togas Also

popular were naked statues holding a lance (made from models of young

men from gymnasia) which they called lsquoAchilleanrsquo The Greek practice is not

to cover up the fi gure in any way whereas Roman and military practice is to

add breastplates Indeed the dictator Caesar gave permission for a cuirassed

statue to be dedicated in his forum

Pliny articulates an essential dilemma in Roman honorifi c sculpture framing it

around the poles of lsquoGreekrsquo and lsquoRomanrsquo cultural identities Whereas Greek artistic

conventions could exploit male nudity as a sine qua non of honorifi c portraiture

(associating it with heroes like Achilles and not least the institution of the

gymnasium)67 Roman patrons and audiences seem to have been more anxious

about the political social and cultural ramifi cations68 This is not the place for a full

discussion of the lsquobody problemrsquo in Roman art Christopher Hallett has provided a

book-length study of Roman attitudes towards nudity and numerous other scholars

have situated the issue within their larger reappraisals of Roman attitudes towards the

Hellenic69 What Pliny helps us to uncover rather is how ideologies of the body were

clothed in larger discourses about what it meant to be lsquoRomanrsquo as opposed to lsquoGreekrsquo

(and vice versa) According to Hellenic cultural conventions exposing onersquos power and

infl uence went hand in hand with uncovering onersquos body beautiful (see for example

plate 15) To Roman eyes by contrast such literal divestment could risk cultural and

political exposure indeed Pliny mentions the breastplate specifi cally viewing it as an

attribute that intrinsically renders the sculptural subject lsquoRomanrsquo rather than lsquoGreekrsquo

Inspect the artistic products of the fi rst century BCE and we fi nd a range

of responses to this problem of what (not) to wear Roman art demonstrates a

remarkable self-consciousness about dress and undress ndash lsquonudity as a costumersquo as

Larissa Bonfante has nicely put it70 One reaction was simply to get rid of the body

so as to focus instead on the head in contrast to Greek practices whereby the sort of

person you were was inextricably bound to the kind of body you projected Roman

patrons and artists seem to have placed much more store by the features of the face

Indeed it is precisely because of the Roman reception of Greek portraits that so many

have been handed down to us as bodiless heads in the Roman world as opposed to

the Greek the prioritized persona of the face rendered the body a supplementary (and

hence dispensable) extra71 17 Silver denarius minted in Rome for Octavian 32ndash29 BCE () showing Octavian crowned with a laurel wreath (recto) and the columna rostrata statue of a nude Octavian erected in 36 BCE (verso) Octavian is here shown with a sceptre and parazonium lsquodaggerrsquo Silver 20 cm (height of obverse) 18 cm (width of obverse) 36 grams Previously in the Walter Niggeler Collection (see Sammlung Walter Niggeler 2 Teil Griechische Muumlnzen der roumlmischen Kaiserzeit Roumlmische Muumlnzen (Republik bis Augustus) Zurich and Basel 1966 57 no 1015) Photo Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut fuumlr Klassische Archaumlologie und Museum fuumlr Abguumlsse Klassischer Bildwerke Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaumlt Munich



If dispensing with the body was one Roman way of dealing with this problem

another was to swathe it in a mass of decorous drapery True to Plinyrsquos diagnosis

about lsquoolden timesrsquo we fi nd numerous Republican and Imperial lsquotogatersquo statues

wrapping themselves up in the Roman costume par excellence the toga after all was

the eponymous attribute of the self-declared lsquotogate racersquo or gens togata72 The so-called

Barberini Togate group provides a neat case study dating to the late fi rst century BCE

(plate 13)73 To call this an exclusively lsquoRomanrsquo image would be to overstate the case

while the portraits held in each hand appear typical products of the Roman Republic

lsquoveristicallyrsquo emphasizing the age and grauitas of the sitter there are numerous

Hellenistic stylistic details74 likewise the clothed drapery and contrapposto pose are

certainly informed by Classical Greek models Whatever else we make of the statue

though it renders the body a peripheral supplement it is the head that matters75

Other images went even further combining lsquoRomanrsquo heads like the ones in plate 13

with the set-piece naked bodies of Greek sculpture Hallett lists 26 male statues which

depict their subjects nude or semi-nude (the lower body this time wrapped in skimpy

hip-mantle) and yet with the portrait face of an elderly politician76 The so-called

lsquoTivoli Generalrsquo provides one such example (plate 14) excavated from the substructures

of the Hercules Victor sanctuary at Tivoli (north-east of Rome)77 The mantle draped

around the arm means that the statue stops short of full frontal exposure (something

paralleled among Hellenistic dynastic portraits like plate 20) In images like these

though the muscular frame strikes modern audiences as discordantly out of keeping

with the aged head while the torso embodies the bodily ideals of Greek artistic

nudity the head and supporting cuirass insist upon Roman military credentials78

18 Upper frieze from the south side of the Ara Pacis inaugurated 9 BCE (showing Augustus as the fi gure fourth from the left) Parian marble height 16 m Rome Photo Author


Michael Squire

This was the cultural and artistic landscape that Augustus inherited in the

40s BCE In the wake of Julius Caesarrsquos death in 44 BCE ndash Caesar we remember

had been assassinated for appearing too dictatorial ndash Augustus must have realized

the importance of projecting the right self-image But what sort of image best

suited Romersquos new princeps To talk of the princeps ndash or even lsquoAugustusrsquo ndash is of course

inherently tricky here Augustus did not simply seize

power but slowly built up his auctoritas indeed the

political landscape inherited by Gaius Octavius ndash

who only adopted the name lsquoAugustusrsquo or lsquoRevered

Onersquo along with the title princeps in 27 BCE ndash was very

different from the one bequeathed upon his death

in 14 CE At the same time it is often impossible to

date materials precisely or indeed to differentiate

between posthumous portraits and those set up

during Augustusrsquo own lifetime Still we can be sure

that Augustus experimented with different models of

rendering the body What is more Augustus seems to

have been conscious of conversing in different sorts of

lsquoGreekrsquo and lsquoRomanrsquo visual forms preferring different

confi gurations at different times and places within the

empire

By the late 20s BCE Augustus had paraded a

whole host of different sculptural body types among

his portraits79 Following his predecessors Augustus

focused on the image of his face most portraits seem

to have reduced him to bodiless busts But contrary

to widespread assumption80 we also fi nd various

degrees of bodily exposure On the one hand naked

or at least hip-mantled torsos of the emperor could be

seen throughout the empire (for example plate 15)81

sometimes adorned with the divine trappings of Jupiter

(as most famously on the Gemma Augustea plate 16)82

fully nude statues of Octavian were also on display in

Rome as seems to have been the case with the (now

lost) gilded bronze portrait dedicated by the Senate

in 36 BCE set atop the so-called columna rostrata in the

Forum (compare plate 17)83 On the other hand the

majority of images which survive from Rome portray

a draped Augustus Once again the year 27 BCE is

often judged a watershed here84 After establishing

the trappings of power and deciding upon his new

lsquoaugustrsquo title there appears to have been a distinct

artistic preference for clothing the body dressing it

in voluminous Roman toga85 These are the images of

Augustus most familiar to us today whereby the toga

is decorously pulled up over the head (the so-called toga capite uelato motif) Augustus is portrayed in related guise

on the north frieze of the Ara Pacis (plate 18) as well as in

free-standing statues like the celebrated example from

Romersquos Via Labicana (plate 19)86

19 lsquoVia Labicanarsquo statue of Augustus early fi rst century CE Marble height 208 m Rome Museo Nazionale Romano Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (inv 56230) Photo Author



This cultural and artistic backdrop provides the immediate context for the Prima

Porta Augustus For if this statue derives from the same underlying cultural tension

between lsquoGreekrsquo and lsquoRomanrsquo bodies it nonetheless manifests a rather different

response By displaying a body that is both naked and dressed the cuirass cites a

Greek rhetoric of the naked body while simultaneously dressing it up in Roman

guise Nudity is here a literal costume ndash a Greek attribute which doubles up as tabula rasa for inscribing a new distinctly Roman cultural anatomy

The Curious CuirassJust to be clear it should be repeated that there was nothing inherently new about the

cuirass as iconographic device What Pliny labels a distinctly lsquoRomanrsquo costume had a

long Classical and Hellenistic Greek pedigree87 similarly Augustus was by no means

the fi rst lsquoRomanrsquo to don this costume (as we have seen Pliny mentions Julius Caesar

specifi cally88 and certain Roman deities were also shown in the same cuirassed

guise some of them set up by Augustus himself ndash most famously in the Temple

of Mars Ultor where the eponymous cult statue wore a Classical breastplate)89

When it came to Roman honorifi c statues though the cuirassed costume appears

to have been relatively rare at least until the late Republic90 What is more the

Prima Porta Augustus went considerably further than other contemporary images

in the fi gurative allusions of its body Compare the statue with the lsquoTivoli Generalrsquo

(see plate 14) for example and one sees how like the Prima Porta Augustus that

portrait similarly uses the cuirass to prop up the lsquoGreekrsquo costumed nudity Where

the lsquoTivoli Generalrsquo combines the two lsquonudersquo and lsquocuirassedrsquo costumes in its sculpted

composition however the Prima Porta statue reconciles them in the actual body of

Augustus the cuirassed anatomy of the princeps at once acknowledges and plays with

contemporary artistic convention

Roman audiences must have been all too conscious of such conventional artifi ce

Whatever the chiselled bodies of portraits like the lsquoTivoli Generalrsquo nudity itself

was more of a cultural taboo in Rome than it had been in the Greek cultural world

The few times that we do hear of Roman generals stripping off their clothes it is

not to show off their bodies but rather to parade their military scars ndash to display

the corporeal disfi gurements which embody military prowess91 When Pliny the

Elder speculates as to Romersquos bravest historical general for instance he reaches

his conclusions not on the basis of handsome looks but rather by totting up the

number of frontal scars (Natural History 7101ndash6) Nudity was no less a taboo for

Augustus The lsquorealrsquo princeps is said only once to have exposed his chest to the Roman

people In the eyes of Suetonius (who records the story) however this episode was

seen as a moment of imperial vulnerability not individual triumph according to

Suetonius Augustus responded to calls to become dictator by throwing off his toga ndash a

proclaimed gesture of humility and one that reminded his public of the dictatorial

fate of Julius Caesar92

When considered in light of such stories what is most remarkable about the

Prima Porta Augustus is its simultaneous acknowledgement of artistic formula and

its attempt to render that convention believable If the cuirass embodies what one

Roman author labelled a lsquoPolyclitan chestrsquo (pectus Polycletium)93 it also transforms that

attribute into something more convincing ndash an actual real-life military costume

that Augustus can don and take off at will (observe in that connection the modelled

fastenings see plate 23)94 Other aspects of the statue develop the conceit Compare the

hip-mantle of the Prima Porta Augustus with that of statues like the lsquoTivoli Generalrsquo

(see plate 14) for example and we fi nd the same garment worn in exactly the same


Michael Squire

position As far as military outfi t is concerned we

have noted that such draping of the paludamentum hardly

makes practical sense traditionally the cloak would

be fastened over the left-hand shoulder not wrapped

around the waist95 As with the cuirass in other words

the draped paludamentum toys with both credible reality

and honorifi c artistic formulae While adding a double

layer of clothed concealment around the groin the

detail simultaneously alludes to the conventions of

honorifi c statues that were otherwise unclothed it

looks back not only to images like the lsquoTivoli Generalrsquo

but also to Hellenistic portraits of semi-naked kings

who could be shown wearing the mantle in similar

fashion (for example plate 20)96 Once we recognize the

iconographic allusion the urge to interpret the cuirass

as exposed fl esh rather than covering costume becomes

all the greater the draped mantle strips bare larger

issues of nudity and dress

To my mind this is not just a question of having

onersquos clothes and divesting them Rather the duplicity

of the statuersquos dress embodies a larger semantic

signifi cance As lorica the cuirass lsquoprotectsrsquo and lsquoencasesrsquo

the emperor even as it simultaneously exposes his

body Like the proverbial lsquoduck-rabbitrsquo discussed

by Ludwig Wittgenstein the emperor exhibits an

ambivalent body one that fl ips backwards and

forwards between different sorts of fi gurative reality97

This in turn establishes different ndash and in some sense

contradictory ndash modes of looking Following the

critical vocabulary of twentieth-century philosopher

Richard Wollheim we might diagnose the dialectics

of looking at the Prima Porta Augustus in terms of the

dual impulse to lsquosee inrsquo on the one hand and to lsquosee asrsquo

on the other98 If one way of understanding the statue

is at face value ndash to see it as mimetic double ndash the statue draws simultaneous attention

to its fi gurative fi ctions fl agging our creative lsquouploadingsrsquo as viewers Just as the two-

fold statue shows its subject as at once naked and dressed it also shuffl es and shifts

through a spectrum of different representational modes

One need only consider the breastplate to appreciate the point For all the

anatomical detailing Augustusrsquo torso also partitions the portrayed scenes into a

symmetrical arrangement as ornamental frame the cuirass divides the fi gures

around a series of discrete horizontal and vertical contours with the line of the

linea alba marking out the respective realms of the Roman soldier and barbarian

rebel and the pectoral muscles dividing the celestial personifi cations of the upper

chest More importantly the very detailing of the anatomy can blur the boundaries

between bodily fi gure and decorative adornment The clearest example comes

towards the upper left of the chest where the wheel of Heliosrsquo chariot is set beside

Augustusrsquo right nipple (the spokes arranged around a central hub visually recalling

the modelled outline of the aureola) Other details work similarly observe for

instance how the circular fruit of the cornucopia at the bottom of the cuirass recalls

20 Statue of lsquoAlexanderrsquo from the sanctuary of Meter Sipylene in Magnesia-by-Sipylos early to mid-second century BCE Marble height 19 m Istanbul Arkeoloji Muumlzeleri Muumlduumlrluumlguuml (inv 709) Photo Author



the circular outline of the inverted belly button

or how the palmette patterns beneath the two

(decorative) epaulet sphinxes have no anatomical

referent but instead function as make-believe

ornaments It is always possible to dismiss such visual

lsquorhymesrsquo or patterns as simple accidents of course

But the laborious design seems predicated on the idea

of looking closely ndash that the layering of anatomical

details and fi gurative decoration might be enjoyed

noticed or pondered once viewers see the visual play

it is very diffi cult to lsquoun-seersquo it once more

Such fi gurative games with reality and

representation shed light on other replications besides

Looking again at the cuirass we fi nd all manner of

visual echoes and internal references observe for

example how the quadruped standard of the right-

hand female captive recalls the lsquoreal-lifersquo animal

by the side of the Roman soldier or how the eagle-

headed sword of the conquered female to the left of

the cuirass visually echoes the military lsquoeaglersquo raised at the chestrsquos centre In this

connection Jas Elsner may be right to fl ag the signifi cant positioning of the signum

which is made to occupy compositional pride of place While signa refers to military

standards the word could also encompass other sorts of lsquosignsrsquo not least the sculpted

engraved and painted fi gures adorning this body or indeed the statue as a whole99

With the two outstretched wings of its eagle ndash which render the separate curves

of Augustusrsquo pectoral muscles into a single artifi cial line ndash the fi gurative signum of

our standard signals in turn both the believability of this sculpted costume and its

forged artifi ciality100 The decision to place the make-believe eagle at this pectoral

intersection seems to have been considered and deliberate it is diffi cult to fi nd any

pragmatic as opposed to compositional explanation for the strange and laboured

gesture of at once raising and tilting the aquiline standard There is visual pleasure

to be had in the compositional coherence But the knock-on effects are no less

signifi cant Observe for example how the signum is held in such a way as to emblazon

one of its own ornamental bands as decorative signum at the upper centre of the

barbarianrsquos chest (itself emblazoned on the chest of Augustus)

No less intriguing are the hybrid and semi-visible bodies displayed on

Augustusrsquo own hybrid and semi-visible frame Consider for instance the

chimerical and fantastic fi gures ndash the two sphinxes or indeed the griffi n bearing

Apollo ndash which transcend the parameters of the mimetic not all bodies we are

reminded can be taken at face value101 Certain other fi gures on the breastplate

can only partially be seen To view the two female captives on the breastplate for

instance one has to walk around the frontal cuirass even then one sees only a

section of their bodies projecting out of Augustusrsquo three-dimensional physique102

In the upper section of Augustusrsquo nakedclothed torso moreover the central sky-

god is shown as exposing his own upper torso in turn But what has become of

this fl oating fi gurersquos lower body concealed by the horses of the quadriga (plate 21)

Like the body of Augustus this fi gure parades a body that is at once visible and

invisible (the waving vestments of lsquoheavenrsquo held above the head only underscoring

the invisible nudity below) Such a range of different bodily forms serves as a sort

of visual commentary on the body of Augustus himself Indeed some fi gures

21 Detail of the central upper fi gure on the Prima Porta Augustus breastplate Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth


Michael Squire

even exploit the contours of Augustusrsquo body to raise questions about their own

representational reality although Apollo is sculpted in two-dimensional relief

for instance see how his right leg breaks free from the cuirass frame (projecting

the fi gure out of the representational space of the iliac crest see plate 11) similarly

observe how the drapery of the female deity below the navel merges into the folds

of Augustusrsquo own hip-mantle (see plate 10) like that of ArtemisDiana to the upper

right (see opening plate)

Perhaps the most revealing body of all though is that of the cuirassed soldier at

the cuirassrsquo core (plate 22) As we have said scholars have tried to explain this fi gure

by supplying him with a name But they have overlooked a more basic truth namely

that this young body is decked out in a cuirass which recalls Augustusrsquo own (despite

the differences in so-called lsquoHellenisticrsquo and lsquoClassicalrsquo type) As with the costume

the fi gurersquos pose presents an additional analogy with that of Augustus he stands in

profi le with his right arm extended and his weight unevenly balanced so that rather

like our lsquoPolyclitanrsquo Augustus the left leg is fl exed behind the right similarly the

animal by the soldierrsquos left-hand side in one sense echoes the dolphin-mounted Cupid

at the right-hand side of Augustus Depending on the reconstruction of the whole

there might have been other resonances too Were the statue itself to have held a

military signum in its left hand as Erika Simon has argued there could have been no

escaping the analogy between the free-standing sculpture and the fi gurative scene at

its centre stationed at the statuersquos centre of gravity above the literal and metaphorical

omphalosumbilicus (lsquobelly buttonrsquo) is a two-dimensional relief which visually mimics

the stance costume and attributes of the three-dimensional whole103

Such a bodily mise-en-abyme must have been all the more arresting for the statuersquos

original audiences As we have said we cannot be sure about the derivation of the

Prima Porta Augustus Were there to have been an

earlier statue cast from bronze though the recession

of replications from a material standpoint might have

been striking indeed emblazoned at the centre of the

bronze cuirass of this bronze princeps would have been

a bronze fi gure complete with a bronze cuirass of his

own Regardless of any hypothetical prototype we can

be sure that visual parallels between the two lsquosoldiersrsquo

were drawn out through the use of colour on the extant

statue Liveranirsquos reconstruction convincingly suggests

that the surfaces of both cuirasses were left unpainted

the impression is of a sort of lsquowhite groundrsquo adorned

in the same shades of red blue and ochre (see plate 12) in each case moreover this surface was supplemented

by the same corresponding hue of red for both the

paludamentum and tunic The result can only have

heightened the sense of replicative assimilation the

analogous use of colours affects an analogy between

the body in the round on the one hand and the body in

relief on the other

The whole issue of polychromy is signifi cant in

another sense too In some ways the technicolour

vibrancy of the paint adds to the sculpturersquos larger-

than-life mimetic make-believe In other ways though

the restricted palette and exaggerated tones only expose

22 Detail of the central left-hand lsquosoldierrsquo on the Prima Porta Augustus breastplate Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth



its status as statue the addition of colour makes the statue less as well as more

believable We have already observed that the make-believe metal cuirass seems to

have been left unpainted whereas the contained fi gures (or at least their clothes)

were highlighted in red blue and ochre But the overarching effect proves once

again two-fold In one sense the cuirassrsquo unpainted surface colours a notion of the

body as empty semblance the three-dimensional torso doubles up as blank canvas

for a series of surface modellings and paintings At the same time however the very

absence of paint reinforces the association between the cuirass and the real fl esh of its

cuirassed subject after all the unpainted marble pallor of the cuirassed torso mirrors

that of the statuersquos exposed and unpainted head arms and legs the make-believe

torso of the cuirass in other words appears an extension of the real-life body of the

fi gure contained within it104 Returning once more to Wollheimrsquos terms the statuersquos

polychromy seems invested in the simultaneous drive both to lsquosee inrsquo and to lsquosee asrsquo

the colours shade our impression of the statue both as fi ction and as fl esh

From the Literal to the Symbolic So far in this essay I have focused on the literal bodies depicted ndash on the physical

forms embodied in and on the cuirassed body of Augustus But the statue also invites

more symbolic and allegorical interpretive modes Just as the cuirass gives visible

access to the invisible body of the emperor beneath so too does the embodied

fi gure of the statue manifest a series of disembodied ideas This multi-layered statue

might be said to incorporate not only different degrees of bodily exposure but also

different modes of iconic expression (and in turn of visual response)

To explain what I mean here consider once again the fi gures radiating around

Augustusrsquo chest As we have said scholars have suggested a range of specifi c identities

However we choose verbally to name them though the bodies displayed on

Augustusrsquo body give emblematic form to a range of wholly more bodiless concepts

the two female barbarians to the left and right serve to chart the terrestrial limits of

empire around Augustusrsquo ribcage for example just as the personifi cations above and

below materialize the terrestrial confi nes of earth and sky respectively Needless to

say there is a disconnect here between the abstract referents and the visible signs

this is not what lsquoSunrsquo lsquoSkyrsquo or lsquoMoonrsquo lsquoreallyrsquo look like however much they allude to

real-life attributes moreover the Roman provinces fi gured through the two female

captives amount to both more and less than these fi gurative forms105 The bodies at

which we gaze in short serve to substantiate and personify they map out a much

grander frame of imperial-cum-cosmic signifi cance ndash east and west earth and sky

day and night etc each clothed in its own iconographic language106

Like the various corpora depicted within the breastplate the body of Augustus

could also be seen as a lsquopersonifi cationrsquo of sorts However believable his bodily

simulacrum a wholly more abstract set of ideas is at work behind it In this

connection it is worth remembering that by the late fi rst century BCE the body

could itself serve as image for fi guring imperial power As Robin Osborne has

recently argued this was a new intellectual historical departure while lsquothere is

no body politic in the classical Greek world rsquo in Osbornersquos words lsquothe phrase

ldquobody of the staterdquo becomes a familiar one in Latin (corpus rei republicae) it is in the

Roman world that the fable of the parts of the body warring with one another

was transferred to the statersquo107 This is perhaps to overstate the case (as Osborne

admits there are some scattered earlier precedents and the metaphor of the lsquocitizen

bodyrsquo fi nds its conceptual archaeology in Stoic ideas of the lsquoleaderrsquo at its lsquoheadrsquo)

But the underlying point is nonetheless important that the politics of the body are


Michael Squire

revolutionized when the body serves as a metaphor for political unity what is more

that fi gurative sculpture acquires a new political dimension in the wake of this new

conceptual shift

The Prima Porta Augustus plays with that political metaphor in wholly

innovative ways By the time the statue was created the concept of the corpus imperii was a well-established fi gure of speech108 Ovid developed the analogy with

particular zeal hoping to fl atter his way out of exile by telling Augustus that lsquowithin

the whole body of empirersquo (in tanto corpore imperiii) no part had lost its footing109

by the end of the second century CE moreover Florus likewise proclaimed that

Augustus alone should be credited with restoring order to the lsquobody of empirersquo

(ordinauit imperii corpus)110 On the cuirass of the Prima Porta Augustus that fi gurative

image is made corporeally manifest a metaphor for conceptualizing empire as body

is fl eshed out for us to see incorporated within the literal frame of the standing

princeps But it is not just the parameters of the ruled Roman world with which the limits

of Augustusrsquo body fi guratively align The statue also likens the emperorrsquos body to the

various bodies of the cosmos at large This emperor literally embodies both empire

and wider world in the same way that empire and wider world map metaphorically

onto the physical frame of the emperor the sky occupies the bottom of Augustusrsquo

neck just as the Earth lies fl ush with the fundament of his navel Once again there

are literary parallels for such thinking one might compare for example the detail

recounted by Suetonius whereby Augustusrsquo lsquobody is said to have been covered with

spots and birthmarks scattered over his breast and belly corresponding in form

order and number with the stars of the Bear in the heavensrsquo111 Whatever the lsquorealityrsquo

of the anecdote the cuirass imagery literalizes the same underlying rhetoric we see

not only the whole empire but the whole cosmos auspiciously mapped out on this

imperial chest

That contemporary viewers could conceptualize imagery in such grand

allegorical terms is clear from Latin literaturersquos most famous fi gurative depiction of

military armour namely Virgilrsquos description of the shield of Aeneas evoked in the

eighth book of the Aeneid112 Virgil seems to have understood that the sort of world

vision emblazoned on the Prima Porta cuirass required epic instantiation To fl esh out

that fi gure moreover Virgil likewise turned to images ndash or at least to their textual

lsquoecphrasticrsquo description ndash evoking heraldic pictures which prophesied Romersquos past

present and future and ultimately sketching the battle of Actium and the subsequent

triumph of Augustus The Prima Porta Augustus of course deals not with words

on images but rather with images themselves Yet despite their medial difference

physical cuirass and described shield exhibit some remarkable ndash and remarkably

overlooked ndash parallels there is for example a related concern with central epicentre

(Virgilrsquos shield is said to be centred around Actium shown lsquoin the middlersquo [in medio v675] just as the fi gures of the Prima Porta radiate around the return of the Parthian

standards) likewise there is a comparable interest in cosmic totality the polarities

of war and peace and not least the dual poles of heaven and earth113 Ultimately

both textual ecphrasis and visualized cuirass also play upon the magical moment

when mythical costume and hero become one just as the fulfi lment of the shieldrsquos

spoken visual stories rests on the future military exploits of Aeneas (the description

ends with the hero carrying the shield on his shoulder) so too are the images of the

breastplate both literally and metaphorically contingent upon the body of Augustus114

In the case of the Prima Porta Augustus visual allusions develop this sense of

extra-corporeal signifi cance Whether or not one sees an allusion to the Doryphoros



specifi cally we have said that fi fth-century Polyclitan exempla lie behind

Augustusrsquo literal and metaphorical costume when it comes to the portraitrsquos

coiffure moreover there certainly does appear to be an explicit allusion Such

recourse to Polyclitan prototypes bore implications of its own Once again

moreover the interpictorial reference raises the question of whether one should

view the statue as statement or simile Numerous scholars have discussed the

Roman obsession with the Doryphoros as stylistic model Some ancient writers

compared Polyclitan styles with those that preceded or succeeded them others

supposed that Polyclitan art had its counterpart in certain modes of literary

composition and rhetoric115 In a pertinent passage of his fi rst-century CE Training of the Orator Quintilian even cited the Doryphoros in relation to visualizing someone

lsquosolemnly uprightrsquo and lsquodignifi edrsquo (sanctus et grauis) the exemplum is equally fi tting

for images of lsquowar and the palaestrarsquo (aptum uel militiae uel palaestrae) Quintilian adds

pairing it with the bodies of other warlike and athletic youths (aliorum quoque iuuenum bellicorum et athletarum corpora Inst Or 51220ndash1)116 Among Quintilianrsquos

contemporaries what was most celebrated about the Doryphoros was its incarnation

of an abstract set of symmetrical proportions According to such rhetoric the

Doryphoros was synonymous with Polyclitusrsquo written Canon it gave bodily form to

a golden ratio whereby each individual part of the body could be understood in

relation to every other117 Although distinguishing between the lsquomanly boyrsquo (uiriliter puerum) of the Doryphoros and the sculpted Canon (which the author understands as a

statue rather than simply a treatise) Pliny the Elder likewise tells how artists lsquoderive

the basic forms of their artrsquo from the Polyclitan model lsquoas if from some kind of

lawrsquo lsquoso it isrsquo concludes Pliny lsquothat of all men Polyclitus alone is deemed to have

rendered art itself in a work of artrsquo118

So what then might the Polyclitan stylistic echoes mean in the context of the

Prima Porta Augustus By becoming part of the princepsrsquo costume the Polyclitan frame

serves to embody an ideological connection between Augustus (lsquoRevered Onersquo) and

the lsquosolemnly uprightrsquo form of its model119 While in one sense attributing Augustus

with a believable sort of body (reduced to a wearable costume) the fi gured allusions

could also spark more theoretical associations Behind the embodied aesthetic lurks a

disembodied ideology of balance and proportion the symmetria of the body betokens

the well-proportioned body politic for which Augustus stands

The nod to Polyclitus has implications for at least one other aspect of the statuersquos

symbolic register the divine status of the subject Like Roman writers (or at least

those whose texts survive) we do not know exactly whom the Doryphoros was intended

to represent indeed the generic title used by later Greek and Roman writers

(lsquolance-bearerrsquo) seems to have left the subject specifi cally unspecifi ed Nevertheless

according to Greek sculptural conventions such chiselled and proportioned nudity

was bound up at least in part with visual rhetorics of imag(in)ing the gods The

ambiguities of the cuirass therefore materialize a grander ambiguity about this

embodied princeps are we looking at a man or at a god120

In assessing the Prima Porta Augustusrsquo claim to divinity scholars have tended

to home in on individual details It is standard practice to observe three features in

particular fi rst the divine Cupid at Augustusrsquo side second the bare feet and third

the over-lifesize scale Each aspect is important To my mind though it would be

wrong to try and decide upon any single defi nitive answer The lsquodivinityrsquo of Augustus

was a live political issue in the late fi rst century BCE establishing all the trappings

of an imperial cult Augustus devised numerous ways of fudging his simultaneous

mortality and immortality working within different cultural conventions in


Michael Squire

different parts of the empire121 True to form the Prima Porta statue likewise plays

it both ways Its embodied subject is presented as both mortal and immortal at

once the statue suggests Augustusrsquo godhead while also inviting us to understand its

conventions fi guratively122

Consider for example the lack of footwear123 On one level the detail draws

renewed attention to the artifi ce of this costume what general after all would

go into battle without protective boots In trying to make sense of the bare feet

however viewers fi nd a host of visual parallels within the body of Augustus itself As

we have said the Roman soldier at the centre of the cuirass certainly does wear shoes

(a detail that has led some scholars to reject his identifi cation as the divine Mars) By

contrast a number of other male and female fi gures are shown bare-footed ndash not

just the reclining fi gure below but also the female captive to the upper right and

still more prominently the fi gure of Apollo to the left To make head or tail of these

bare feet we again have to compare the overarching bodily statue with the bodies

depicted in and on it even then though we nevertheless fi nd a myriad of different

comparanda Rather than state or deny its godhead the Prima Porta Augustus fl irts

with visual discourses of divinity and in a series of multivalent ways it raises

questions without providing defi nitive solutions

The winged Cupid by Augustusrsquo side proves exemplary here For Roman

audiences the fi gure could be understood in terms of a larger genealogical claim

whereby Augustus supposed a family relation with the goddess Venus just as Cupid

was the son of Venus and Mars Augustus was descended from Aeneas the offspring

of Venus and Anchises (or so the rhetoric went)124 The issue though was how

lsquoembodiedlyrsquo to take Cupidrsquos fi gurative claim ndash whether to view it (him) as part

of a literal assertion of divinity or see him (it) as metaphorical emblem of quasi-

superhuman power Does the fi gure serve solely as insignia and symbol reminding

of a particular set of myths and stories Or does its presence stake a grander claim

materializing Augustus as manifest divinity

The statue allowed audiences to view Cupid in both ways at the same time On

the one hand the divine ramifi cations seem clear enough where the represented

deities of the cuirass are shown in two-dimensional form this fi gure is bestowed

with a different degree of plastic presence no less (or more) real than that of

Augustus himself if Augustus is mere mortal moreover observe how his towering

stature dwarfs even that of the divine Cupid On the other hand there was always a

visual let-out The disparity in scale between Augustus and Cupid at once serves to

undermine any impression of Cupidrsquos lsquorealrsquo presence What is more it is possible

to ascribe a mere fi gurative signifi cance to the toddler is he not to be interpreted in

the same sorts of fi gurative ways as the personifi cations on the breastplate or indeed

like the water-swimming dolphin on which Cupid rides (a more interesting device

for propping up the statue than the perennial Roman lsquotree-trunkrsquo) Were ancient

viewers like some modern scholars to have recognized Gaius in the portrait of the

divine Cupid the self-conscious role play might have seemed all the more striking

the result perhaps was not to see Gaius as Cupid (or indeed Cupid as Gaius) but

rather to think about the stakes of such lsquoseeing-inrsquo assimilation125 The ambivalences

of Cupid like those of the larger statue again shuffl e and shift in the manner

of Wittgensteinrsquos duck-rabbit when it comes to Augustusrsquo divinity as indeed to

questions about his identity and status at large the literal could be read in the terms of

the symbolic and the symbolic seen in the image of the literal



Visions and VoidsTo round off my own interpretation of the Prima Porta Augustus I turn fi nally to

the back of the cuirass (plate 23 and plate 24) Impressed upon the reverse right-hand

ribcage just above the swathes of drapery we fi nd another cuirass within the cuirass

this time in two-dimensional relief Roman viewers would have recognized this

emblem as a tropaeum or lsquotrophyrsquo made out of the captured arms (spolia opima) of the

enemy the empty armour is mounted on a tree trunk as a token of military victory126

In narratological terms viewers might have forged a connection between this image

and the return of the Parthian standards emblazoned on the cuirassrsquo front the

interactive exchange between the breastplatersquos two central fi gures is here re-framed

according to the standard iconography of Roman imperial conquest (even if the

reverse cuirass at least at face value looks more lsquoRomanrsquo than it does lsquobarbarianrsquo )

Bar a brief mention by Indra Kagis McEwan the signifi cance of this emblem has

received remarkably little analysis127 Among scholars it is customary to observe the

reverse sidersquos comparative lack of adornment along with the roughly carved folds of

drapery this is usually seen as evidence for the statuersquos original placement against

a wall But it strikes me as important that at the very moment when viewers try to

look behind Augustusrsquo lsquorealrsquo cuirass ndash to see what lies beneath it ndash they are confronted

with the embossed image of yet another cuirass one which visually recalls the

three-dimensional breastplate donned by Augustus Like the breastplate on which it

is displayed this cuirass signifi es its own paradoxical nudity replicating the human

anatomy of the wearer (stomach muscles belly button pectorals etc) indeed

the hollow costume is even made to stare out at us its helmeted head resembling a

human face the lower branches almost like two human legs There is one striking

difference however In contrast to Augustusrsquo breastplate this reverse cuirass is

23 Detail of the Prima Porta Augustus breastplate as seen from the leftbehind Photo Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth

24 Reverse side of the Prima Porta Augustus breastplate Photo Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut fuumlr Klassische Archaumlologie und Museum fuumlr Abguumlsse Klassischer Bildwerke Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaumlt Munich


Michael Squire

empty it is a costume without a wearer We have already

talked of lsquomise-en-abymersquo in the context of the front

cuirassrsquo cuirassed solider Here on the statuersquos reverse

side though the hollow cuirass only accentuates

the self-conscious artistry as surface rather than

substance the empty armour draws out the factured

fi ctions of the whole

Inspect the strange folds above the tropaeum and

the embodied ambiguities become all the more

riddlesome There is no easy explanation for these lines

(which merge at the upper side with the cuirassrsquo own

fastenings see plate 11) Some have tried to understand

them as the wing of some Nike or lsquoVictoryrsquo fi gure

others have supposed some huge eagle emblazoned

on the back (of which the sculptor for whatever

pragmatic or prosaic reason only rendered the parts

lsquooriginallyrsquo visible)128 None of these theories proves

wholly satisfactory This ornamental decoration seems

to defy fi gurative explanation here on the emperorrsquos

back above the void cuirass (around the back of the

breastplate) there seems no escaping the fi gurative

puzzles

What then to make of the various embodied

ambiguities on the Prima Porta Augustus One might

be wary of course of pinning too much interpretive

weight on a single statue Some have even argued that

this cuirassed statue is a lsquoone-offrsquo ndash and that it has too

long dominated our view of Augustan image-making129

This seems a step too far The fact that so few Roman

cuirassed statues survive complete with their heads

means that individual identifi cations are always tricky

But we can nonetheless be confi dent that there were

numerous Augustan comparanda Vermeule has catalogued many cuirassed images

associated with Augustus130 and there are plenty of numismatic parallels too131

Some of these even show iconographic affi nities with the Prima Porta example ndash most

famously the cuirassed portrait from Cherchell in Algeria (plate 25) indeed Klaus

Fittschen has convincingly argued that the Cherchell cuirassed statue also clothed

Augustus in a panoply of mythopoetic imagery and that it dates to between the mid-

and late-Augustan period132 The Prima Porta statue then is not the only example to

have shown Augustus in body-like cuirass Indeed it is the celebrity of such Imperial

cuirassed costume that explains at least in part the rise of Italian imitations in the

late fi rst century BCEearly fi rst century CE133

Rather than get side-tracked by contemporary cuirassed comparanda allow

me to conclude with some more macroscopic refl ections One way of closing this

essay might be to relate the statuersquos games of artifi ce and make-believe back to longer

traditions of Greek mimetic art It would be possible for example to compare the

fi gurative games of the Prima Porta Augustus with the mimetic lsquoslips swerves and

disruptionsrsquo that Richard Neer has analysed in the context of late sixth- and early

fi fth-century Attic sympotic ware134 Alternatively one might compare this Roman

cuirassed statue with one of the earliest Greek examples known to us (plate 26) a

25 Cuirassed statue (of Augustus) from Cherchel late fi rst century BCEearly fi rst century CE () Marble height 235 m Photo Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut fuumlr Klassische Archaumlologie und Museum fuumlr Abguumlsse Klassischer Bildwerke Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaumlt Munich



marble cuirassed lsquokourosrsquo from the Heraion at Samos

dating to around 530 BCE here in a statue which

knowingly interweaves the symmetrical patterns of

the sculpted body with those of the armour encasing

it we fi nd a conceptual archaeology for the bodily

ambiguities of the Prima Porta cuirass135

The point I wish to emphasize by contrast

concerns the semantic signifi cance of such ambiguities

in Augustan historical context by uncovering the

costumed ambiguities of our most familiar lsquotextbookrsquo

portrait of Augustus this essay hopes to have suggested

some tentative new directions for approaching

other images of Augustus Whether in terms of its

paradoxical clothed nudity its simultaneous lsquoGreekrsquo

and lsquoRomanrsquo cultural identity or indeed its oscillation

between the mortal and the divine the Prima Porta

Augustus gives form to a series of fi gurative tensions

Rather like works of Augustan literature with all

their destabilizing provocations the statue does

not lsquocommunicatersquo a single vision of its subject but

instead plays with a spectrum of different interpretive

strategies136 The statue probes teases and interrogates

it throws back upon the viewer larger questions about

form mediation and interpretation137

This seems to me important for coming to terms

with Augustan imagery more generally Unlike scholars

of Latin literature (especially during the last quarter-

century or so) scholars of Roman art have been

somewhat reluctant to think in terms of ambiguity

The vast majority of those who have written about the

Prima Porta Augustus or indeed about Augustan image-making tout court proceed

from the tacit assumption of communicated lsquopropagandarsquo meanings are assumed

to be singular and self-contained ndash whether imposed from above (as most tacitly

suppose) or else stemming lsquofrom the interplay of the image that the emperor himself

projected and the honours bestowed on him more or less spontaneouslyrsquo138 As we

have said Paul Zankerrsquos landmark discussion of the lsquopower of images in the age of

Augustusrsquo is arguably the most explicit about the lsquointernalizedrsquo use of visual culture

in affecting (what Zanker calls) an lsquointegrating system of shared valuesrsquo (lsquointegrierende Gemeinschaftswertersquo) But most subsequent scholars have concurred in Zankerrsquos

overarching assumption that lsquothe visual arts [die Bilderwelt] contributed measurably to

the remarkable stability of the socio-political systemrsquo ndash that lsquowith the establishment

of one-male rule there began in every cultural sphere a comprehensive move

towards standardization within fi xed normsrsquo139

To my eyes by contrast what the Prima Porta Augustus demonstrates is the

power of polysemy To embody the paradoxes of being primus inter pares ndash literally

lsquofi rst among equalsrsquo ndash ambivalence (if not outright duplicity) was required140 There

was no unilateral answer as to who (or what) Augustus is (or was) responding

to an image like the Prima Porta Augustus instead involved slipping and sliding ndash

navigating onersquos way through a plurality of different views141 Ambiguity was not

the sole strategy of Augustan image-making and some images certainly appear more

26 Statue of a cuirassed warrior from the Heraion at Argos c 530 BCE Marble height 086 m Berlin Berlin Antikensammlung (Sk 1752) Photo Author


Michael Squire

ambiguous than others But the apparent success of Augustan imagery seems to have

relied at least in part on manipulations of fi gurative ambivalence the stability of

Augustusrsquo power one might say went hand in hand with the staged instability of the

images which embodied it

There are plentiful parallels for such visual ambiguity and paradox As Verity

Platt has recently shown the ethics of representation (and indeed of representational

integrity) was a hot topic in the late fi rst century BCE from Vitruviusrsquo diatribe against

wall paintings that violate lsquotruthrsquo (ueritas) by forsaking the mimetic illusionism of

the so-called lsquoSecond Stylersquo to Horacersquos talk of hybrid painted bodies at the start

of his Ars Poetica all manner of writers fretted about reality and replication in each

case as Platt argues the contested limits of representational art played their part

within larger verbal-cum-visual discourses about the contradictions of Augustus142

Something comparable can be found on even the most public and programmatic

of monuments the Ara Pacis for example which integrated different strategies of

signifi cation within a single work (plate 27) ndash the processional lsquoreal-lifersquo friezes above

the fantastic ornamentation below and not least the mythical paradigms that frame

onersquos access to the monument at the east and west Whatever we conclude about

the symbolism of the leaves and tendrils paraded in the lower parts of the altarrsquos

exterior they embody a different sort of representational register from the panelled

frieze above occupying the boundaries between the mimetic and the abstract they

raise the question of whether we are looking at mere ornament (a lsquowelcome respite

27 West faccedilade of the Ara Pacis Photo Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut fuumlr Klassische Archaumlologie und Museum fuumlr Abguumlsse Klassischer Bildwerke Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaumlt Munich



NotesThe present essay derives from a larger project on Graeco-Roman images of the body funded by the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaumlt in Munich A pampered fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin allowed me to develop that earlier research and a conference at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (lsquoConditions of Visibility in Greek and Roman Artrsquo) provided a preliminary opportunity to present my ideas I am grateful to Rolf Schneider (my academic host in Munich) Susanne Muth (who supplied so many photographs) Georg Gerleigner (for help with copyediting) Nikolaus Dietrich Jas Elsner Luca Giuliani John Henderson Robin Osborne and Verity Platt (for their comments on an earlier draft) and last but not least to the journalrsquos editors and two anonymous readers

1 Musei Vaticani Braccio Nuovo inv 2290 As the following

endnotes make clear the statue has attracted a truly enormous

bibliography for a masterful review of some 118 books and articles

published before 1977 (in fact only a selection) see Hans Jucker

lsquoDokumentationen zur Augustusstatue von Primaportarsquo Hefte des

Archaumlologischen Seminars Bern 3 1977 16ndash37 subsequent interventions

are discussed by Tonio Houmllscher in Matthias Hofter ed Kaiser Augustus und die Verlorene Republik Berlin 1988 386ndash7 no 215 and Erika

Simon lsquoAltes und Neues zur Statue des Augustus von Primaportarsquo

in Gerhard Binder ed Saeculum Augustum Band 3 Kunst und Bildersprache Darmstadt 1991 204ndash33 (Simon also summarizes her views in

Augustus Kunst und Leben in Rom um die Zeitenwende Munich 1986 53ndash7)

Anglophone scholarship has tended to underplay numerous German

debates (not least the statuersquos problematic reconstruction) but there

is an important review and response by John Pollini lsquoThe Augustus

from Prima Porta and the transformation of the Polykleitan heroic

ideal The rhetoric of artrsquo in Warren G Moon ed Polykleitos the Doryphoros and Tradition Madison WI 1995 262ndash82 (with bibliography

at 276 n 7 cf also Pollini Studies in Augustan lsquoHistoricalrsquo Reliefs diss

Berkeley 1978 8ndash74) Those seeking book-length treatments of the

sculpture are referred to three slim volumes all in German and all

published in the same year Walter H Gross Zur Augustusstatue von Prima Porta Goumlttingen 1959 Heinz Kaumlhler Die Augustusstatue von Primaporta Cologne 1959 Erika Simon Der Augustus von Prima Porta Bremen 1959

2 See Vern G Swanson The Biography and Catalogue Raisonneacute of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema London 1990 187 no 197 (= Opus CLXI)

from signifi cationrsquo as Platt puts it) or alternatively a symbolic language pregnant

with hidden meaning143 Once again this is a Bilderwelt that relies not on top-down

lsquocommunicationrsquo or semantic lsquostandardizationrsquo but instead exploits more subtle

modes of visual ambivalence

The complex and multifaceted mechanics of Augustan imagery is something to

which Jas Elsner also turned in his earlier 1995 monograph on Art and The Roman Viewer In one sense the Prima Porta Augustus very much tallies with Elsnerrsquos diagnosis

of the ambivalences of Roman Imperial visual culture at large while in tune with

a Greek tradition of mimetic verisimilitude ndash viewers are faced with a believable

sort of body ndash the statue is simultaneously premised upon the fi ction that substance

is only ever surface (remember the empty cuirass around the back see plate 23 and

plate 24) Different regimes of representation are here implicated each within the

other and viewers were called upon to switch between different interpretive modes

For Elsner the importance of such duality lies in the longer trajectory of Roman

Kunstwollen as indeed the evolution of lsquoways of seeingrsquo144 Where standard histories

of Roman art can all too often assume an age of Augustan classicism succeeded by

a steady lsquodeclinersquo ndash a movement from (lsquoGreekrsquo) mimetic replication to the sorts of

lsquoabstractrsquo and lsquosymbolicrsquo schemes that we see in late antique and Byzantine art ndash the

Prima Porta Augustus pays heed to the knowing coexistence of different systems of

making and manifesting meaning materialized within one and the same political

monument

In light of the present discussion we might tend to a slightly different conclusion

If nothing else the Prima Porta Augustus monumentalizes the primary importance

of politics within the process which Elsner describes the statue shows how

ambiguities of artistic fi guration were fi rst and foremost politically embodied better

perhaps it demonstrates how political ambiguities were bound up with (and indeed

substantiated through) the ambivalences of visual fi guration Looked at like that

Augustan imagery does not constitute a scenographic backdrop for political change

nor is this lsquopropagandarsquo in anything like our modern understanding of the term (art

as passive pawn of politics) Instead Augustan art incarnates Augustan politics in a

much more fundamental sense the ambivalences of Augustan images are themselves

active in embodying the ambiguities of Augustan power


Michael Squire

True to form Alma-Tadema adds numerous archaeological details

of his own for one thing the statue is given an inscribed base

like contemporary archaeologists moreover the artist supposes a

preferred viewing angle from the front left Perhaps most strikingly

of all the Cupid fi gure by Augustusrsquo right-hand side has been

eradicated so that the dolphin alone now acts as structural support

When in 1879 Alma-Tadema returned to the same scene for his After the Audience that Cupid fi gure was reinstated (see Swanson Biography and Catalogue 205 no 244 [= Opus CXCI] with colour plate on 393)

this time though the inscription has vanished and a group of

onlookers are depicted looking up at the cuirassrsquo reverse side ndash an

archaeological joke perhaps about the semi-decorated reverse

side of the Prima Porta Augustus cuirass (see plate 23 and plate 24) for

discussion see eg Michael Liversidge and Catharine Edwards eds

Imagining Rome British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century London

1996 143ndash6 nos 51ndash2

3 There is a good introduction to Mussolinirsquos building programme

(and his adoption of Augustus as ideological model) in Tim Benton

lsquoRome reclaims its empirersquo in Dawn Ades ed Art and Power Europe under the Dictactors London 1995 120ndash9 cf Katie Fleming lsquoFascismrsquo

in Craig W Kallendorf ed A Companion to the Classical Tradition Malden MA 2007 342ndash53 esp 343ndash6 (with further bibliography)

Mussolini also sent a bronze copy of the statue to Zaragora (ancient

Caesaraugusta) where it is still on display near the Roman walls

4 Mary Beard and John Henderson Classical Art From Greece to Rome Oxford 2001 216

5 See W J T Mitchell Picture Theory Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation Chicago IL 2004 35ndash82 esp 45ndash57

6 See below n 24 For two excellent overviews see Hans Georg

Niemeyer ed Studien zur statuarischen Darstellung der roumlmischen Kaiser Berlin

1968 47ndash54 and Goumltz Lahusen Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue in Rom Literarische und epigraphische Zeugnisse Rome 1983 51ndash3

7 On the lsquointensely self-consciousrsquo nature of the statue compare

Richard Brilliant Gesture and Rank in Roman Art New Haven 1963

66ndash7 Elsewhere (Brilliant Roman Art from the Republic to Constantine second edition London 1974 112) the author notes that lsquoalthough

hellenistic artists had developed the decorated cuirass as a fi eld for

ornament and symbolic display always subservient to the forms

of the human body beneath the Roman sculptors treated the

cuirass almost as an independent form capable of bearing the most

elaborate allusive imagesrsquo My ideas about the fi gurative ambiguities

of the Prima Porta Augustus have greatly learned from analyses of

related games of representing bodily armour at other times and

places within the western artistic tradition from the substantial

bibliography I think especially of Franccedilois Lissarraguersquos research

into Archaic and Classical Greek representations of lsquobodyrsquo and

lsquoarmourrsquo (eg Franccedilois Lissarrague lsquoCorps et armes fi gures grecques

du guerrierrsquo in Veacuteronique Dasen et Jeacuterocircme Wilgaux eds Langages et metaphores du corps Rennes 2008 15ndash27) as well as Victor I Stoichitarsquos

recent interpretation of armour as a lsquosecond skinrsquo enveloping the

body in Renaissance painting and sculpture (Victor I Stoichita

lsquoldquoLa seconde peaurdquo quelques consideacuterations sur le symbolisme des

armures au XVIe siegraveclersquo in Agostino Paravicini Bagliani ed Estremitagrave e escrescenze dei corpi Extremities and Excrescences of the Body [= Micrologus 20

2012] 451ndash63 citing additional bibliography)

8 I take the idea of lsquocode-switchingrsquo in the late Republic and early

Empire from Andrew Wallace-Hadrill lsquoTo be Roman go Greek

Thoughts on Hellenization at Romersquo in Michael Austin Jill Harries

and Christopher Smith eds Modus Operandi Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Rickman London 1998 79ndash91 fundamental now is Wallace-Hadrill

Romersquos Cultural Revolution Cambridge 2008 38ndash70 discussing lsquocross-

dressingrsquo on 41ndash57

9 See Paul Zanker The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus trans Alan

Shapiro Ann Arbor MI 1988 discussing the statue on 98ndash9 175ndash7

188ndash92 (which translates Zankerrsquos Augustus und die Macht der Bilder Munich 1987 103ndash4 179ndash81 192ndash6)

10 On the marble see John Pollini and Norman Herz lsquoThe marble type

of the Augustus from Prima Porta An isotopic analysisrsquo Journal of Roman Archaeology 5 1992 203ndash8 John Pollini Norman Herz Kyriaki

Polikreti and Yannis Maniatis lsquoParian lychnites and the Prima Porta

statue New scientifi c tests and the symbolic value of the marblersquo

Journal of Roman Archaeology 11 1998 275ndash84 John Pollini lsquoThe marble

type of the statue of Augustus from Prima Porta Facts and fallacies

lithic power and ideology and color symbolism in Roman artrsquo in

Demetrios U Schilardi and Dora Katsonopoulou eds Paria Lithos Athens 2000 237ndash52

11 There are two accessible introductions to the villa in Carmelo Calci

and Gaetano Messineo La Villa di Livia a Prima Porta Rome 1984 and

Jane Clark Reeder The Villa of Livia ad Gallinas Albas A Study in the Augustan Villa and Garden Providence RI 2001 A more detailed reconstruction

of the archaeology can be found in Maurizio Forte La villa di Livia un percorso di ricerca di archeologia virtuale Rome 2007

12 The fundamental problem is the lack of any recorded statue base

For a review of the excavation archives and of the vast subsequent

bibliography on the statuersquos original location see John Pollini lsquoThe

fi ndspot of the statue of Augustus from Prima Portarsquo Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Communale di Roma 92 1987 103ndash8 Pollini

suggests an indoor location to the west of a staircase (107ndash8) But

debates continue to run rife One scholar for example has argued

for an outdoor location in a grove outside the villa (albeit on rather

tenuous literary and archaeological grounds Jane Clark Reeder lsquoThe

statue of Augustus from Prima Porta the underground complex and

the omen of the Gallina Albarsquo American Journal of Philology 118 1 1997

89ndash118 cf Reeder Villa of Livia 84ndash5) others have suggested a more

prominent indoor location along the south wall of the villarsquos atrium

(Allan Klynne and Peter Liljenstolpe lsquoWhere to put Augustus A note

on the placement of the Prima Porta Statuersquo American Journal of Philology 121 1 2000 121ndash8 esp 125ndash7)

13 See Ulrich Hausmann lsquoZur Typologie und Ideologie des

Augustusportraumltsrsquo in Aufstieg und Niedergang der rouml mischen Welt Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung vol II122 Berlin 1981

513ndash98 esp 565ndash89 and Dietrich Boschung Die Bildnisse des Augustus Berlin 1993 38ndash50 There is a helpful overview in R R R Smith

lsquoTypology and diversity in the portraits of Augustusrsquo Journal of Roman Archaeology 9 1996 31ndash47 esp 38ndash9

14 Two edited volumes collect some of the most important discussions

of Polyclitusrsquo Doryphoros and its subsequent ancient reception Herbert

Beck Peter C Bol and Maraike Buumlckling eds Polyklet Der Bildhauer der griechischen Klassik Mainz 1990 and Moon ed Polykleitos the Doryphoros and Tradition Early analyses of the Prima Porta Augustusrsquo relationship

with the Doryphoros are summarized in Gross Zur Augustusstatue 144ndash51 Among the most important subsequent treatments are Goumltz

Lahusen lsquoPolyklet und Augustus Zur Rezeption polykletischer

Gestaltungsmuster in der roumlmischen Bildniskunstrsquo in Beck et al eds Polyklet 393ndash6 Pollini lsquoAugustus from Prima Portarsquo 263ndash76

Karl Galinsky Augustan Culture An Interpretive Introduction Princeton NJ

1996 esp 24 and Indra Kagis McEwan Vitruvius Writing the Body of Architecture Cambridge MA 2003 264ndash72 (lsquoIn the donning of the

fl esh of the Doryphoros Augustus put on the canonhelliprsquo 268) For

the argument that the Polyclitan allusion to lsquoClassical formsrsquo carried

an overtly lsquomoral claimrsquo see the infl uential discussion by Zanker

Power of Images 245ndash52 along with eg Tonio Houmllscher The Language of Images in Roman Art trans Anthony Snodgrass and Annemarie

Kuumlnzl-Snodgrass Cambridge 2004 47ndash57 The classic work on self-

consciously lsquoClassicizingrsquo allusions in late Hellenistic and Imperial

sculpture is Paul Zanker Klassizistische Statuen Studien zur Veraumlnderung des Kunstgeschmacks in der roumlmischen Kaiserzeit Mainz 1974 Zanker argues

for the Prima Porta Augustusrsquo wholly deliberate and self-conscious

imitation of Polyclitan models (lsquoDer entwerfende Bildhauer [des

Augustus von Prima Porta] bediente sich bewuszligt der polykletischen

Formensprachehelliprsquo 43)

15 Cf eg Smith lsquoTypology and diversityrsquo 41ndash5 arguing that lsquoin

general the Augustus-Doryphoros theory requires a very optimistic

view of the general level of art-historical knowledge and sympathy

on the part of the Roman viewerrsquo (43) More sanguine is Peter

Stewart Statues in Roman Society Representation and Response Oxford 2003

110

16 Augustusrsquo left foot is placed slightly further away from the right than

seems to have been the case with the Doryphoros likewise Augustusrsquo

head is not turned to quite the same angle (Pollini lsquoAugustus from

Prima Portarsquo 266) As Pollini suggests however these adaptations

might be understood in light of the Prima Porta Augustusrsquo supposed



new lsquospeakingrsquo pose (271ndash2)

17 Cf eg Kaumlhler Augustusstatue 14

18 For two excellent discussions of stylistic reference and quotation

in Roman art see Mark Fullerton lsquoImitation and intertextuality in

Roman artrsquo Journal of Roman Archaeology 10 1997 427ndash50 and Jeremy

Tanner The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece Religion Society and Artistic Rationalisation Cambridge 2006 277ndash302 (lsquothe artist selected

and abstracted elements from a variety of sources and recomposed

them in order to reconstruct a new unitary synthesis which the art

historically informed viewer could recall through an act of metabasis intellectual transferrsquo 288) For other allusions to Polyclitus in early

Imperial Roman free-standing sculpture see Caterina Maderna-

Lauter lsquoPolyklet in hellenistischer und roumlmischer Zeitrsquo in Beck et al eds Polyklet 376ndash85 Michael Koortbojian lsquoForms of attention Four

notes on replication and variationrsquo in Elaine Gazda ed The Ancient Art of Emulation Studies in Artistic Originality and Tradition Ann Arbor MI 2002

173ndash204 esp 183ndash7

19 Cf HN 3456 lsquoThe discovery of statues which throw their weight

on one leg is entirely his [Polyclitusrsquo] ownrsquo (proprium eius est uno crure ut insisterent signa excogitassehellip) On the signifi cance of the hairstyle

see Pollini lsquoAugustus from Prima Portarsquo 266 lsquoThe Prima Porta

statuersquos neatly ordered locks whorl on the crown and hair pattern

at the nape of the neck as well as some degree of linear emphasis

on individual hairstrands were undoubtedly ultimately inspired

by the Doryphorosrsquo (although Pollini also concedes some important

differences) There are more detailed comments in Paul Zanker

Studien zu den Augustus-Portraumlts I Der Actium-Typus Goumlttingen 1973 44ndash6

Zanker Power of Images 98ndash9 and Boschung Bildnisse 64

20 For bibliography see Pollini lsquoAugustus from Prima Portarsquo 265

responding to eg Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 226ndash33

21 Cf eg Kaumlhler Augustusstatue 12ndash13 (laurel) Simon Augustus 56 and

Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 230ndash3 (lance) there is a more detailed

overview and critique in Pollini lsquoAugustus from Prima Portarsquo 277 n

24

22 See Pollini lsquoAugustus from Prima Portarsquo 266 lsquoIn short the statuersquos

nineteenth-century restorer understanding the anatomy of the body

restored the missing fi ngers more or less correctlyrsquo

23 On the many supposed iconographic parallels for such a gesture see

eg Brilliant Gesture and Rank 67ndash9 (with further bibliography) lsquoIn the

absence of an objective goal the gesture is addressed to the observer

incorporating the world with its soterial grandiloquencersquo (68) The

standard iconographic comparandum is the so-called Arringatore (from

Lake Trasimeno dated to the fi rst half of the fi rst century BCE and

inscribed in Etruscan script with the name of Aulus Metellus Museo

Archeologico Nazionale inv N2) cf eg Nigel J Spivey and Michael

J Squire Panorama of the Classical World second edition London 2008 178ndash82 (with illustration on 181 Fig 285) as Luca Giuliani rightly

points out to me though the iconographic problem lies in fi nding

precise parallels for this particular confi guration of the fi ngers More

generally on the importance of bodily deportment within oratorical

address see Quintilian Inst Or 11365ndash149 Quintilian discusses the

specifi c signifi cance of some twenty different hand gestures (Inst Or 11392ndash121 cf Peter Wuumllfi ng lsquoClassical and modern gesticulation

accompanying speech An early theory of body language by

Quintilianrsquo in Olga E Tellegen-Couperus ed Quintilian and the Law The Art of Persuasion in Law and Politics Leuven 2003 265ndash75)

24 On the cuirass type see eg Richard A Gergel lsquoCostume as

geographical indicator Barbarians and prisoners on cuirassed

statue breastplatesrsquo in Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante

eds The World of Roman Costume Madison WI 1994 191ndash209 at 194

Jane Fejfer Roman Portraits in Context Berlin 2008 208 Cornelius

C Vermeulersquos research was published as a series of fi ve articles

(lsquoHellenistic and Roman cuirassed statuesrsquo) in Berytus 13 1959 1ndash82

(the Prima Porta Augustus is discussed on 34 no 13) 15 1964

95ndash110 16 1966 49ndash59 23 1974 5ndash26 26 1978 85ndash123 there is

an abbreviated catalogue by Vermeule Concordance of Cuirassed Statues in Marble and Bronze Boston MA 1980 Stemmerrsquos catalogue discusses

the material in terms of twelve categories see Klaus Stemmer

Untersuchungen zur Typologie Chronologie und Ikonographie der Panzerstatuen

Berlin 1978

25 As Christopher H Hallett The Roman Nude Heroic Statuary 200 BCndash AD

300 Oxford 2005 points out the designation is lsquomisleading

since it implies a special kind of cloak intended to be worn

around the hips which is certainly not the casersquo (102) On the late

Republican resurgence of the attribute and in particular its Augustan

appropriations (ultimately said to descend from an image type of the

Diuus Julius) see Stefano Maggi lsquoAugusto e la politica delle immagini

lo Huumlftmanteltypus (Sul signifi cato di una iconografi a e sulla sua

formazione)rsquo Rivista di Archeologia 14 1990 63ndash7626 Cf Robin Osborne lsquoAugustusrsquo bath towelrsquo Omnibus 60 2010 1ndash3

who suggests (among other reasons) this sort of compositional

explanation lsquothe sweep of folds across the lower body emphasizes

the dynamic given to the statue by the position of the left leg acts as

a counterweight to the extended right arm and lends a thrust to the

body in that direction What is more the length of cloak hanging

down from the left arm both draws attention to and balances the

Cupid beside the right legrsquo (3)

27 See esp John Pollini The Portraiture of Gaius and Lucius Caesar New York

1987 41 (with further bibliography in n 2) Pollini notes not only

the puzzling proportions of head to body but also the distinctive

coiffure (lsquoappropriate for a human child but not for Cupidrsquo) he

nevertheless acknowledges some departure from other portrait types

(with further comments on eg 45ndash7 51ndash3)

28 For the drawing (created lsquomit Lynkeusaugen und Hiobsgeduldrsquo)

see Jucker lsquoDokumentationenrsquo 16 Jucker offers the best overview

of different scholarly opinions (at least until 1977) In what follows

I refer to Roman names and titles for the important argument

that lsquodie Bildsprache der Panzerstatue des Typus Primaporta

in griechisches nicht in lateinisches Vokabular aufzuloumlsen [ist]rsquo

however see Hugo Meyer Kunst und Geschichte Vier Untersuchungen zur antiken Historienkunst Munich 1983 123ndash40 (quotation from 124)

29 Identifi cation tends to depend on the lsquoRomanrsquo fi gure identifi ed beside

it see below nn 35ndash9 along with the more detailed bibliography of

Pollini Studies in Augustan lsquoHistoricalrsquo Reliefs 61 n 67

30 For the underlying Roman visual rhetoric of the lsquobarbarianrsquo see eg

Rolf M Schneider lsquoFriend and foe The Orient in Romersquo in Vesta S

Curtis and Sarah Stewart eds The Age of the Parthians Volume 2 London

2007 50ndash86 On the strange appearance of this signum see below n

100

31 The classic analysis remains Jos P A van der Vin lsquoThe return of

Roman ensigns from Parthiarsquo Bulletin Antieke Beschaving 56 1981

117ndash39 discussing the Prima Porta Augustus on 120ndash1 cf Thomas

Schaumlfer Spolia et Signa Baupolitik und Reichskultur nach dem Parthererfolg des Augustus Goumlttingen 1998 For one recent challenge to the

conventional lsquoParthianrsquo interpretation (and a subsequent re-dating of

the statue to after 9 BCE) see Christopher J Simpson lsquoWhere is the

Parthian The Prima Porta statue of Augustus revisitedrsquo Latomus 64

2005 82ndash90 to my mind however the political importance given to

the Parthian episode leaves little room for interpretive doubt

32 Res Gestae 292 for discussion see Alison Cooley Res Gestae Divi Augusti Text Translation and Commentary Cambridge 2009 242ndash5

33 Dio Cassius 5482 καὶ γὰρ ἐπὶ τούτοις ἐφρόνει μέγα λέγων ὅτι τὰ πρότερόν ποτε ἐν ταῖς μάχαις ἀπολόμενα ἀκονιτὶ ἐκεκόμιστο There

are numerous other Augustan poetic references to the event (among

them eg Hor Epod 11227ndash30 11855ndash7 Ov Fast 5579ndash94) see

Galinsky Augustan Culture 156ndash8 Zanker Power of Images 185ndash92

The standards were brought to Rome in October 19 BCE but only

deposited in the Forum Augustumrsquos Temple of Mars Ultor in 2 BCE

34 Cf eg Franz Studniczka lsquoZur Augustusstatue der Liviarsquo Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaumlologischen Instituts Roumlmische Abteilung 24 1916 27ndash55

esp 40 Emanuel Loumlwy lsquoZum Augustus von Prima Portarsquo Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaumlologischen Instituts Roumlmische Abteilung 42 1927 203ndash22

esp 203 Gilbert Charles Picard Les tropheacutees romains contribution agrave lrsquohistoire de la religion et de lrsquoart triumphal de Rome Paris 1957 279 Gross

Zur Augustusstatue 151 Others have identifi ed a more mythical fi gure

like Mithridates I corresponding with what they suppose to be the

lsquolegendaryrsquo fi gure opposite (eg Harald Ingholt lsquoThe Prima Porta statue of Augustus Part I The interpretation of the breastplatersquo

Archaeology 22 4 1969 176ndash87 esp 181ndash5) Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo

210 is surely right to suppose a less specifi c identity concluding

in favour of lsquoeine Art Genius des Koumlnigsrsquo for a similar conclusion

cf Pollini Studies in Augustan lsquoHistoricalrsquo Reliefs 30ndash5 (lsquoThe Prima Porta


Michael Squire

fi gure would therefore symbolize Parthia in general and the military

forces of Parthia in particularrsquo 35)

35 Cf eg Brilliant Gesture and Rank 66ndash7 following (inter alios) Gross

Zur Augustusstatue 151ndash2 On Tiberiusrsquo active role in collecting the

standards see Suet Tib 91 for the interpretive problems though see

Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 207ndash9

36 See eg Walther Amelung Die Skulpturen des Vatikanischen Museums vol 1

Berlin 1903 22 Alfred von Domaszewski lsquoDer Panzerschmuck der

Augustusstatue von Primaportarsquo in Strena Helbigiana Leipzig 1900 51ndash

3 esp 52 Klaus Fittschen lsquoZur Panzerstatue in Cherchelrsquo Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archaumlologischen Instituts 91 1976 175ndash210 esp 204ndash5 Simon

lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 207ndash9 (with further references and supposing

that the fi gure replicates lsquoein damals bekanntes Kultbild eine

republikanische Statue auf dem Marsfeld in Romrsquo 209)

37 See Ingholt lsquoThe Prima Porta statue of Augustus Part Irsquo 185ndash7

38 See eg Freacutedeacuterick L Bastet lsquoFeldherr mit Hund auf der

Augustusstatue von Prima Portarsquo Bulletin Antieke Beschaving 41 1966

77ndash90 esp 88ndash90 Louise A Holland lsquoAeneas-Augustus of Prima

Portarsquo Transactions of the American Philological Association 78 1947 276ndash84

esp 279ndash80

39 For the suggestion see Pollini Studies in Augustan lsquoHistoricalrsquo Reliefs 15ndash30 concluding of the return of the standards that lsquoit is the spirit ndash

or the idea ndash of the event which is found representedrsquo (36) Compare

also van der Vin lsquoReturn of Roman ensignsrsquo lsquoI believe that the

central scene has to be interpreted rather in a symbolic way and that

a ldquoRoman offi cialrdquo and a ldquoParthian colleaguerdquo have been pictured as

representatives of their peoplersquo (121)

40 On the carnyx and various iconographic parallels for it see Picard

Les tropheacutees romains 279ndash80 The attribute also appears to the right of

the empty cuirass on the reverse (see plate 23 and plate 24) cf Andreas

Alfoumlldi lsquoZum Panzerschmuck der Augustusstatue von Primaportarsquo Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaumlologischen Instituts Roumlmische Abteilung 52

1937 48ndash63 esp 50

41 For a bibliographic review see Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 211ndash13

along with the sensible comments of Pollini Studies in Augustan lsquoHistoricalrsquo Reliefs 37ndash9 (lsquoIn the case of the dejected female barbarians

of the middle zone it cannot be determined with certainty whether

they have reference to specifi c victories or to more generalized onesrsquo

37)

42 See eg Amelung Skulpturen 24 Domaszewski lsquoPanzerschmuckrsquo

52 Simon Augustus von Prima Porta 9 Others have proposed Germania

(eg Alfoumlldi lsquoZum Panzerschmuckrsquo 48ndash52 ndash such identifi cations

of the German Volk were a nationalist obsession in 1937 cf Kaumlhler Augustusstatue 17 Gross Zur Augustusstatue 152 Gerhard Zinserling

lsquoDer Augustus von Primaporta als offi zioumlses Denkmalrsquo Acta Antiqua 15 1967 327ndash39 at 334) others still have proposed lsquoDalmatia

oder Pannoiarsquo (eg Helga von Heintze lsquoStatue des Augustus von

Prima Portarsquo in Wolfgang Helbig ed Fuumlhrer durch die oumlffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertuumlmer in Rom fourth edition Hermine Speier

ed Tuumlbingen 1963 vol 1 314ndash19 no 411 at 315) or else ndash less

convincingly ndash Armenia (eg Harald Ingholt lsquoThe Prima Porta statue

of Augustus Part II The location of the originalrsquo Archaeology 224

1969 304ndash18 at 315ndash17)

43 See eg Amelung Skulpturen 24 Domaszewski lsquoPanzerschmuckrsquo 52

Karl Woelcke lsquoBeitraumlge zur Geschichte des Tropaions Der Tropaion

am Panzer der Augustusstatue von Primaportarsquo Bonner Jahrbuumlcher des Rheinischen Landesmuseums in Bonn und des Vereins von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande 120 1911 180ndash91 esp 191 Picard Les tropheacutees romains 279

Simon Augustus von Prima Porta 9 On the gender dynamics of these

female province fi gures and their relation to those of the statue at

large see Mary Beard and John Henderson lsquoThe emperorrsquos new

body Ascension from Romersquo in Maria Wyke ed Parchments of Gender Deciphering the Body in Antiquity Oxford 1998 191ndash219 at 214ndash16

44 For iconographic parallels see the references cited in Simon lsquoAltes

und Neuesrsquo 215ndash16

45 See eg Amelung Skulpturen 27 von Heintze lsquoAugustus von Prima

Portarsquo 315 Bastet lsquoFeldherr mit Hundrsquo 79

46 See eg Holland lsquoAeneas-Augustusrsquo 280 For the parallel suggestion

that this is instead Terra Mater see Eugenie Strong lsquoTerra Mater or

Italiarsquo Journal of Roman Studies 27 1937 114ndash26 esp 115

47 See eg Simon Augustus von Prima Porta 10 Other suggestions vary

from Magna Mater (cf eg Kaumlhler Augustusstatue 19 Gross Zur Augustusstatue 152 n 30) to Venus Genetrix (cf Frances van Keuren

lsquoCosmic symbolism of the Pantheon on the cuirass of the Prima Porta

Augustusrsquo in Rolf Winkes ed The Age of Augustus Louvain-la-Neuve

1985 177ndash87 esp 180ndash4)

48 On their signifi cance see Zanker Power of Images 270ndash1 who suggests

an allusion to an lsquooriginal ldquolife-sizerdquo standing fi gurersquo that served

as a lsquofamous monument in Romersquo ndash lsquoperhaps one of the votives

dedicated by Augustus in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatinersquo (271)

cf Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 221ndash2 and Galinsky Augustan Culture 162

(labelling the sphinxes as lsquoanother [sort of] ldquocontemplative imagerdquorsquo)

49 For the rival argument that the fi gure should be identifi ed as Saturn

see Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 213ndash15

50 On the importance of solar imagery to Augustan ideology at large

see Marianne Bergmann Die Strahlen der Herrscher Theomorphes Herrscherbild und politische Symbolik im Hellenismus und in der roumlmischen Kaiserzeit Mainz

1998 esp 123ndash6 discussing this statue at 124

51 Needless to say these identifi cations are by no means universally

accepted some of the most important discussions are referenced

by Reneacute Rebuffat lsquoLes diviniteacutes du jour naissant sur la cuirasse

drsquoAuguste de Prima Porta recherche sur lrsquoillustration symbolique de

la victoire orientalersquo Meacutelanges drsquoarcheacuteologie et drsquohistoire 73 1961 161ndash228

Others have identifi ed the female deity carried by lsquoDawnrsquo as lsquoVenusrsquo

(Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 214 Galinsky Augustan Culture 159ndash60)

While I gloss over further bibliographic debates about the identities

of these fi gures it is perhaps worth observing how in one sense

the astral personifi cations of the cuirassrsquo upper section refl ect the

embodied divinities below (Apollo on the left and ArtemisDiana on

the right) both conceptually and iconographically it was a short step

from the sun-god Apollo to lsquoSunrsquo as indeed from the moon-goddess

Artemis-Diana to lsquoMoonrsquo

52 For some different attempts to date the statue see Karl Friis Johansen

lsquoLe portrait drsquoAuguste de Prima Porta et sa datationrsquo in Karen Ascani

ed Studia romana in honorem Petri Krarup septuagenarii Odense 1976 49ndash57

Fittschen lsquoZur Panzerstatue in Cherchelrsquo 203ndash8 Frank Brommer

lsquoZur Datierung der Augustus von Prima Portarsquo in Rolf A Stucky

and Ines Jucker eds Eikones Studien zum griechischen und rouml mischen Bildnis Bern 1980 78ndash80 Brilliant Gesture and Rank 66ndash7 Pollini Studies in Augustan lsquoHistoricalrsquo Reliefs 39ndash47 Others have gone still further ndash and

in my view too far ndash in speculating about the particular purpose

and context of the supposed lsquooriginalrsquo most infl uential has been the

putative association with the round base in the Sanctuary of Athena

Polias at Pergamon (cf Ingholt lsquoThe Prima Porta Statue of Augustus

Part IIrsquo ndash an interpretation revived by eg Meyer Kunst und Geschichte 139ndash40 and Thomas Schaumlfer lsquoDer Augustus von Primaporta im

Wechsel der Medienrsquo in Hans J Wendel Wolfgang B Bernard and

Sven Muumlller eds Wechsel des Mediums Zur Interdependenz von Form und Inhalt Rostock 2001 37ndash58)

53 For the best-referenced discussion see Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo

216ndash20 (along with 220ndash4 on the statuersquos date)

54 Cf eg Kaumlhler Augustusstatue 14 I return to the statuersquos reverse

decoration in this essayrsquos conclusion

55 For the supposed lsquoTiberianrsquo identity of this fi gure see above n 35

56 That said there are no good reasons for supposing the statue to be

a posthumous lsquoTiberianrsquo invention as sometimes assumed for

critique see Fittschen lsquoZur Panzerstatue in Cherchelrsquo 207ndash8 57 See eg Ulrich Koumlhler lsquoStatua di Cesare Augustorsquo Annali dellrsquoInstituto

di Corrispondenza Archeologica 35 1863 432ndash49 lsquoUn pregio particolare

della statua si egrave in fi ne questo che in essa meglio che in alcunrsquoaltra si

sono conservate le tracce dei colori le quali una volta la fregiaronorsquo

(432ndash3 with description in n 1) cf Amelung Skulpturen 19ndash20

Patrik Reuterswaumlrd Studien zur Polychromie der Plastik Griechenland und Rom Untersuchungen uumlber die Farbwirkung der Marmor- und Bronzeskulpturen Stockholm 1960 esp 212ndash16

58 For the reconstruction (based on lsquonur sechs oder sieben Farbenrsquo

188) see Paolo Liverani lsquoDer Augustus von Prima Portarsquo in

Vinzenz Brinkmann und Raimund Wuumlnsche eds Bunte Goumltter Die Farbigkeit antiker Skulptur Munich 2004 186ndash91 along with the

supporting articles by Ulderico Santamaria and Fabio Morresi and

by Stefano Spada a revised version of Liveranirsquos article is translated

in lsquoLrsquoAugusto di Prima Portarsquo in Liverani ed I colori del bianco



policromia nella scultura antica Vatican City 2004 234ndash42 Perhaps most

intriguing of all is Liveranirsquos evidence for the ancient re-painting

of the statue just as the statuersquos right arm and left leg are known to

have been repaired at some stage in antiquity Liverani reports two

different colours for eg the tunic of the central lsquoRomanrsquo fi gure on

the cuirass these different colours were evidently applied at different

times

59 See Mark Bradley lsquoThe importance of colour on ancient marble

sculpturersquo Art History 32 3 2009 427ndash57 esp 447ndash50

60 Zanker Power of Images 192 (translating Macht der Bilder 195)

61 One might compare the rhetoric of the very fi rst presentation of the

statue (four days after its excavation) on 24 April 1863 Guglielmo

Henzen lsquoScavi di Prima Porta (2)rsquo Bullettino dellrsquoInstituto di Corrispondenza di Archeologia 1863 71ndash8 at 77

62 For the lsquogolden agersquo in Augustan art cf eg Galinsky Augustan Culture 106ndash21 For one attempt to relate this theme to painted domestic

interior decoration compare Gilles Sauron Quis deum Lrsquoexpression plastique des ideacute ologies politiques et religieuses agrave Rome agrave la fi n de la Reacute publique et au deacute but du Principat Rome 1994 567ndash642 discussing the Prima Porta

villa at 571ndash3



65 Shelley Hales lsquoMen are Mars women are Venus Divine costumes in

Imperial Romersquo in Liza Cleland Mary Harlow and Lloyd Llewellyn-

Jones eds The Clothed Body in the Ancient World Oxford 2005 131ndash42

132 On the underlying ways in which clothing at once dressed and

uncovered discourses of Roman and Greek identity see also Wallace-

Hadrill Romersquos Cultural Revolution esp 41ndash57

66 Plin HN 3418 Togatae effi gies antiquitus ita dicabantur placuere et nudae tenentes hastam ab epheborum e gymnasiis exemplaribus quas Achilleas uocant Graeca res nihil uelare at contra Romana ac militaris thoraces addere Caesar quidem dictator loricatam sibi dicari in foro suo passus est Among the most recent discussions is

Michael KoortbojianlsquoThe double identity of Roman portrait statues

Costumes and their symbolism at Romersquo in Jonathan Edmondson

and Alison Keith eds Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture Toronto

2008 71ndash93 at 78ndash9 Other ancient textual testimonia concerning

cuirassed statues are discussed by Stemmer Untersuchungen 139ndash48 cf

Lahusen Untersuchungen 51ndash3 Thomas Peacutekary Das roumlmische Kaiserbildnis in Staat Kult und Gesellschaft Dargestellt anhand der Schriftquellen Berlin 1985

97ndash100

67 The subject has attracted a large bibliography Among the most

important analyses are Nikolaus Himmelmann Ideale Nacktheit in der griechischen Kunst Berlin 1990 (with infl uential review by Tonio

Houmllscher Gnomon 65 1993 519ndash28) Andrew Stewart Art Desire and the Body in Ancient Greece Cambridge 1997 24ndash42 Robin Osborne

lsquoSculpted men of Athens Masculinity and power in the fi eld of

visionrsquo in Lin Foxhall and John Salmon eds Thinking Men Masculinity and its Self-Representation in the Classical Tradition London 1998 23ndash42

Osborne lsquoMen without clothes Heroic nakedness and Greek Artrsquo in

Maria Wyke ed Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean Oxford

1998 80ndash104 Hallett The Roman Nude 5ndash60 Jeffrey M Hurwit lsquoThe

problem with Dexileos Heroic and other nudities in Greek artrsquo

American Journal of Archaeology 111 1 2009 35ndash60 For a more nuanced

interpretation of how this phenomenon came about ndash noting along

the way important variables of geography chronology and different

visual contexts ndash see now Jens Daehner lsquoGrenzen der Nacktheit

Studien zum nackten maumlnnlichen Koumlrper in der griechischen Plastik

des 5 und 4 Jahrhunderts v Chrrsquo Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archaumlologischen Instituts 120 2005 155ndash300 Daehner concludes that lsquoNacktheit nicht

die Voraussetzung des maumlnnlichen Koumlrpers in der Plastik sondern

eine Option seiner Inszenierung [ist]rsquo (296)

68 Cf Wallace-Hadrill Romersquos Cultural Revolution 51ndash2 (citing eg Plut

Cato Mai 205 and Cic Tusc 470) Following Wallace-Hadrill my

own view is that lsquoat least some of the shock of nudity remained in

the Roman mind in the face of any artistic conventionsrsquo (54) for

all the talk of Pliny and others moreover we have to be wary of

constructing too lsquohomogeneous and uncontroversial [a model of

Roman] cultural identityrsquo (55)

69 See Hallett The Roman Nude esp 61ndash101 cf also Tom Stevenson

lsquoThe problem with nude honorifi c statuary and portraits in Late

Republican and Augustan Romersquo Greece and Rome 45 1 1998 45ndash69

Fejfer Roman Portraits 181ndash227 Michael J Squire The Art of the Body Antiquity and its Legacy Oxford 2011 esp 125ndash33 (in relation to longer

traditions of lsquoNeoclassicalrsquo nudity) Jan Bernhard Meister Der Koumlrper des Princeps Zur Problematik eines monarchischen Koumlrpers ohne Monarchie Stuttgart

2012 was published while this essay was in proofs Meister usefully

surveys lsquosenatorische Koumlrper in der spaumlten roumlmischen Republikrsquo

(21ndash107) albeit with only minimal reference to the visual and

archaeological record More generally on Roman (Republican)

attitudes to Greek art see eg Jerome J Pollitt lsquoThe impact of Greek

art on Romersquo Transactions of the American Philological Association 108 1978

155ndash74 Erich S Gruen Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome London 1993 esp 84ndash182 Anne Kuttner lsquoRoman art during the

Republicrsquo in Harriet I Flower ed The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic Cambridge 2004 294ndash321 Miranda Marvin The Language of the Muses The Dialogue Between Greek and Roman Sculpture Los Angeles CA

2008

70 See Larissa Bonfante lsquoNudity as a costume in Classical artrsquo American Journal of Archaeology 93 4 1989 543ndash70 tracing this back to the

eighth century BCE More generally on lsquonudityrsquo as lsquoa form of dressrsquo

in the Western classical tradition see esp John Berger Ways of Seeing London 1973 45ndash64 cf also Wallace-Hadrill Romersquos Cultural Revolution

(lsquonakedness is a dress code which is heavily visual and ldquoemblematicrdquo

in the sense that those who adopted it were aware of and indeed

provocatively paraded it as a signrsquo 52)

71 On the Roman severing of portrait head from body see eg

Sheila Dillon Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture Contexts Subjects and Styles Cambridge 2006 11 along with the qualifying remarks on 30ndash6

76ndash98 for the so-called lsquoappendage aestheticrsquo of Roman portraiture

cf Brilliant Gesture and Rank 26ndash31 Stewart Statues in Roman Society 47ndash59 Hallett The Roman Nude 271ndash307 Marvin Language of the Muses 225ndash8 The most sophisticated analysis is now Jennifer Trimble

Women and Visual Replication in Roman Imperial Art and Culture Cambridge

2011 esp 150ndash205

72 On the ideology of the toga cf Caroline Vout lsquoThe myth of the

toga Understanding the history of Roman dressrsquo Greece and Rome 43

2 1996 204ndash20 Glenys Davis lsquoWhat made the Roman toga virilisrsquo in Cleland et al eds The Clothed Body 121ndash30 Emma Dench Romulusrsquo Asylum Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian Oxford

2005 276ndash9 Wallace-Hadrill Romersquos Cultural Revolution 41ndash57 (with

further bibliography) On the oratorrsquos studied wearing of the toga

see Quintilian Inst Or 113137ndash49

73 Rome Musei Capitolini inv 3024 there is a good discussion and

bibliographic review in Hofter ed Kaiser Augustus 341ndash2 no 192

74 The phenomenon that modern scholars have labelled lsquoverismrsquo

(literally lsquotruthfulnessrsquo) has been much discussed there is an

introductory guide (with further bibliography) in Diane E E

Kleiner Roman Sculpture New Haven 1992 31ndash47 Also useful

are Sheldon Nodelmann lsquoHow to read a Roman Portraitrsquo in Eve

drsquoAmbra ed Roman Art in Context Englewood Cliffs NJ 1993

10ndash26 Jeremy Tanner lsquoPortraits power and patronage in the late

Roman Republicrsquo Journal of Roman Studies 90 2000 18ndash50 and Peter

Stewart The Social History of Roman Art Cambridge 2008 77ndash107 On

the ideological underpinnings of Roman republican portraits more

generally the best discussion remains Luca Giuliani Bildnis und Botschaft Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Bildniskunst der roumlmischen Republik

Frankfurt am Main 1986

75 Cf eg Brilliant Roman Art lsquoIt would seem therefore that the

sculptor had created the head as the principal visual clue for the

purposes of identifi cation set into a well-orchestrated environment

similar in conception if not in intent to the scenic fl ats with cut-outs

for faces popular among resort photographers in the twentieth

centuryrsquo (166) As if to reinforce the point it is worth noting that

the head of this particular image though ancient is a modern

restoration A similar sort of segregation can be seen on the Prima

Porta Augustus where the upper outline of the cuirass quite literally

divides the body from the lower neck

76 See Hallett The Roman Nude 312ndash14

77 For the statue (= Rome Museo Nazionale Romano Palazzo Massimo

alle Terme inv 106513) see Hallett The Roman Nude 1ndash2 120ndash1 As

Kleiner Roman Sculpture writes lsquothe treatment of the body is thus in

opposition to that of the face that portrays an older man with lined


Michael Squire

forehead bags under his eyes prominent crowrsquos-feet creased cheeks

and neck and sagging jowelsrsquo (36)

78 For the historiography see Hallett The Roman Nude 1ndash4 271ndash307

The best recent discussion of such images is Wallace-Hadrill Romersquos Cultural Revolution 38ndash70 lsquoGranted that there was a well-established

Roman Republican convention of representing Roman generals

naked can we safely infer that this must have been acceptable any

more than inferring granted that Cicero voices standard Roman

prejudices against such nudity that such statues must have been

disturbing or discordantrsquo (54)

79 For a good overview (with further bibliography) see Hallett The Roman Nude 159ndash222 esp 160ndash3 on Julio-Claudian hip-mantle

images Hallett counts thirty-nine such images of Julio-Claudian

emperors and their families and from across the empire of

which between nine and fi fteen portray Augustus (161 n 3) The

classic analysis of different sorts of imperial statue types and their

chronological and geographical spread is Niemeyer Studien esp

38ndash64 supplemented by the more discursive analysis of Fejfer Roman Portraits 393ndash404 cf also Meister Der Koumlrper des Princeps esp 192ndash221

80 Cf eg Charles B Rose Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the Julio-Claudian Period Cambridge 1997 74ndash5

81 For a more detailed survey see Hallett The Roman Nude 159ndash222

especially 160ndash3 on Julio-Claudian hip-mantle images cf Niemeyer

Studien 55ndash9 101ndash4 (although I do not always agree with Niemeyerrsquos

chronology) Plate 15 (= Arles Museacutee de lrsquoArles et de la Provence

antiques inv FAN 92002152679) is from the Roman theatre at

Arles see Boschung Bildnisse 141ndash2 no 70

82 See Hallett The Roman Nude 163ndash72 256ndash8 cf Bergmann Die Strahlen der Herrscher esp 103ndash7 On the Gemma Augustea (= Vienna

Kunsthistorisches Museum inv IXa79) which most likely dates to

after Augustusrsquo death see Wolf-Ruumldiger Megow Kameen von Augustus bis Alexander Severus Berlin 1987 155ndash63 as well as Tonio Houmllscherrsquos

well-referenced review in Hofter ed Kaiser Augustus 371ndash3 no 204

83 For discussion of the lost statue see Hallett The Roman Nude 97ndash9

157ndash8 and above all Markus Sehlmeyer Stadtroumlmische Ehrenstatuen der republikanischen Zeit Stuttgart 1999 255ndash9 (labelling this lsquoder erste

defi nitive Beleg fuumlr eine nackte Ehrenstatue in Romrsquo 259 and

adding that by showing him naked this statue portrayed Octavian

lsquowie einen hellenistischen Herrscherrsquo 260) for the numismatic

evidence see C H V Sutherland Roman Imperial Coinage I From 31 BC to AD 69 revised edition London 1984 60 no 271 along with Jean-

Baptiste Giard Catalogue des monnaies de lrsquoempire romain I Augustus second

edition Paris 1988 69ndash70 nos 68ndash72 The statue was apparently

still standing in the time of Vespasian cf Bergmann Die Strahlen der Herrscher 110ndash11 n 683 More generally on the ideology of such nude

portraits see Zanker Power of Images 37ndash43 surveying numerous nude

images of Octavian in the late 40s and 30s BCE and discussing plate 17 at 41ndash2

84 See Zanker Power of Images 79ndash100 Hallett The Roman Nude 160 172ndash5

Galinsky Augustan Culture 164ndash79

85 Cf Hallett The Roman Nude 260 Like others Hallett reads a poignant

reference to this decision in Augustusrsquo fi rst-person monumental list

of lsquothings donersquo (Res Gestae) Augustus boasts of having removed and

melted down eighty silver statues of himself lsquostanding on horseback

or in chariotsrsquo turning them into gold gifts offered to Apollo (Res Gestae 24)

86 For further discussions of the statue (= Rome Museo Nazionale

Romano Palazzo Massimo alle Terme inv 56230) see Hofter ed

Kaiser Augustus 323ndash4 no 168 cf Fejfer Roman Portraits 186 397ndash9

Niemeyer Studien 40ndash7 Contrary to common belief the motif long

predates Augustusrsquo title of pontifex maximus (lsquohigh priestrsquo) in 12 BCE as

the list in Boschung Bildnisse 6 n 57 testifi es

87 See Stemmer Untersuchungen 131ndash48 Vermeule lsquoHellenistic and

Roman cuirassed statuesrsquo [1=1959] 5ndash6 R R R Smith Hellenistic Royal Portraits Oxford 1988 32ndash3

88 On the cuirassed image of Julius Caesar see Stemmer Untersuchungen

144ndash5 along with Sehlmeyer Stadtroumlmische Ehrenstatuen 230ndash1 for

other images cf Hallett The Roman Nude 156ndash8

89 See Zanker Power of Images 195ndash201 Paul Zanker Forum Augustum

Das Bildprogramm Tuumlbingen 1968 18ndash19 For discussion of a related

cuirassed image of Mars (complete with paludamentum) on the Ara

Pacis see eg Paul Rehak Imperium and Cosmos Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius ed John G Younger Madison WI 2006 113ndash15

(with plate 37)

90 For bibliography see above nn 6 24 as well as Stemmer

Untersuchungen who persuasively demonstrates that the cuirassed

statue was not a lsquogelaumlufi ge Form der repraumlsentativen Ehrenstatuersquo

until the late Republic (142)

91 Cf Hallett The Roman Nude 292ndash3 citing eg Liv 453917 Cic Verr 253ndash5 2532 and de Or 2194ndash5

92 See Suet Aug 52 with discussion by Hallett The Roman Nude 100 On

the lsquoreal-lifersquo physical appearance of Augustus see Boschung Bildnisse 93ndash6 Suet Aug 792 explicitly comments on Augustusrsquo lsquoshortness of

staturersquo (staturam breuem)

93 For the phrase see Rhet ad Her 49 the classic discussion is by

Felix Preisshofen and Paul Zanker lsquoRefl ex einer eklektischen

Kunstanschauung beim Auctor Ad Herenniumrsquo Dialoghi di Archeologia 45

19701 100ndash19 arguing that lsquoeklektisches Bilden seit dem spaumlteren

Hellenismus bewusst als soches refl ektiert und goutiert wurdersquo (110)

94 At the same time as Niemeyer Studien 51 rightly points out the

military cuirass of the Prima Porta Augustus is in another sense

highly unbelievable lsquoDer reich mit fi guumlrlichem Relief verzierte

Metallpanzer aber wie ihn die Statue des Augustus von Prima Porta

aufweist laumlszligt sich auszligerhalb der Gattung der Panzerstatuen selbst

nicht belegen und ist sicherlich nie getragen wordenrsquo

95 Cf Gergel lsquoCostume as geographical indicatorrsquo 191 lsquoAlthough

several rare examples such as the Augustus of Prima Porta show the

paludamentum around the hips the garment is usually worn draped

over the upper torso and fastened at either the left or right shoulder

by means of a fi bula or pinrsquo

96 Plate 20 = Istanbul Arkeoloji Muumlzeleri Muumlduumlrluumlguuml (inv 709) for

discussion see Andrew Stewart Faces of Power Alexanderrsquos Image and Hellenistic Politics Berkeley CA 1993 334ndash6 (with bibliography at

427) On the Prima Porta Augustusrsquo combination of cuirass and

hip-mantle compare Maggi lsquoLo Huumlftmanteltypusrsquo 66 Maggi

likewise concludes of this lsquoiconografi camante e semanticamentersquo

new combination of attributes that it parades Augustusrsquo military

credentials while self-consciously incorporating lsquouna componente

che sembra ovvio pensare proiettata nella sfera del trascendente

del divinorsquo In the case of the Prima Porta statue we know that the

paludamentum was painted a kingly shade of scarlet developing this

royal sort of association (see Liverani lsquoDer Augustus von Prima

Portarsquo 191 lsquoeines der deutlichsten Zeichen des Status des Augustusrsquo)

On the Roman hip-mantle and its harking back to Hellenistic

iconographic traditions cf Hallett The Roman Nude 120ndash32 esp

123ndash7

97 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations trans Gertrude E

M Anscombe third edition Oxford 1972 193ndash229 with excellent

discussion by Mitchell Picture Theory 45ndash57

98 See Richard Wollheim Art and its Objects second edition Cambridge

1980 esp 205ndash26 Wollheim Painting as an Art Princeton NJ 1987

46ndash77 Wollheim lsquoOn pictorial representationrsquo Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 1998 217ndash26

99 See Jas Elsner Art and the Roman Viewer The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity Cambridge 1995 168 lsquoJust as the cuirass

bears a signum ndash a standard which represents Rome triumphant ndash

so the whole image stands as a signum a sign linking the imperial

bearer and redeemer of standards with usrsquo On the etymology and

meanings see OLD sv signum 10 (lsquoa military ensign or standardrsquo) and

12 (lsquoa sculpted fi gure commonly of a deity statue image a fi gure

engraved embroidered etc in relief a fi gure in a paintingrsquo) For

further discussion on the terminology cf Stewart Statues in Roman Society 20ndash8

100 On the way in which the wings of the eagle play visually with the linea alba of the chest see McEwan Vitruvius 257 Whatever we make of this

central signum we must acknowledge its lsquomerkwuumlrdige Mischung aus

aquila und signumrsquo (Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 210 cf Pollini Studies in Augustan lsquoHistoricalrsquo Reliefs 48ndash9)

101 On such lsquohybridrsquo monstra as a particular obsession of Augustan art and

poetry see the essays in Philip Hardie ed Paradox and the Marvellous in Augustan Literature and Culture Oxford 2009

102 This sort of play with two- and three-dimensional representation is



to be found elsewhere on the cuirass One thinks for example of the

barbarian captive above Apollo (see plate 11) both head and body are

carved in profi le but with sharp differentiation between inscribed

shallow surface (on the fi gurersquos left-hand side) and the projecting

right-hand limbs

103 See Simon lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 226ndash33 There are nonetheless

problems with the reconstruction see above n 20

104 Cf Liverani lsquoDer Augustus von Prima Portarsquo 190 lsquoVon groszligem

Interesse ist schlieszliglich das Ergebnis dass die Haut des Augustus des

Eros und der Personen auf dem Panzer sowie der Grund des Panzers

selbst nie bemalt und im Originalton des Marmors belassen warenrsquo

For Liverani it is the high quality of the marble that explains this

feature But it is worth noting how Liverani independently connects

this issue of colour to the (non-)believability of the cuirass lsquoNur

die dekorativen Details waren bemalt und sollten soweit nach

den technischen Mitteln der Zeit moumlglich realistisch erscheinen

Anderseits ist es gerade der farbliche Realismus der Reliefs der den

Panzer als Ganzes unrealistich erscheinen laumlsstrsquo (191)

105 Tonio Houmllscher captures the allegorical point when he writes lsquoDer

gedemuumltige Osten und die Repraumlsentanten des bezwungen Westens

fuumlgen sich zu einem Schaubild der roumlmischen Weltherrschaft

zusammenrsquo (in Hofter ed Kaiser Augustus 387)

106 The Greek and Roman art of personifi cation ndash and its implications

for ancient lsquoallegoricalrsquo understandings of images ndash remains a

conspicuously under-theorized area of Classical archaeological

research Emma Stafford Worshipping Virtues Personifi cation and the Divine in Ancient Greece London 2005 offers a useful introduction to the

ideological stakes in the context of Greek literary texts on the visual

arts specifi cally see chapters 14ndash17 of Emma Stafford and Judith

Herrin eds Personifi cation in the Greek World From Antiquity to Byzantium

London 2005 as well as Jessica Hughesrsquo recent intervention in this

journal (lsquoPersonifi cations and the ancient viewer The case of the

Hadrianeum ldquoNationsrdquorsquo Art History 32 1 2009 1ndash20) cf also Amy C

Smith lsquoPersonifi cation Not just a symbolic modersquo in Tyler Jo Smith

and Dimitris Plantzos eds A Companion to Greek Art Malden MA 2012

vol 2 440ndash55

107 Robin Osborne The History Written on the Classical Greek Body Cambridge

2011 esp 102ndash5 (quotations from 104) cf also Meister Der Koumlrper des Princeps 153ndash92 concerning lsquoden Koumlrper des Princeps als Metapher

fuumlr das Gemeinwesenrsquo in Rome

108 For the metaphor see Jean Beacuteranger Recherches sur lrsquoaspect ideacuteologique du principat Basel 1953 218ndash52 along with Dietmar Kienast Augustus Princeps und Monarch Darmstadt 1982 416ndash17 n 236 Kienast lsquoCorpus imperii Uumlberlegungen zum Reichsgedanken der Roumlmerrsquo in Gerhard

Wirth et al eds Romanitas-Christianitas Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Literatur der roumlmischen Kaiserzeit Johannes Straub zum 70 Geburtstag Berlin 1982 1ndash17 McEwan Vitruvius 275ndash98 also discusses the

concept in connection with Vitruviusrsquo On Architecture ending with a

comparison with the Prima Porta Augustus lsquoTo encase imperium in

a stony skin as permanent and impermeable as that of the cuirassed

statue of Augustus from Prima Porta that ultimately is the point of

assembling and ordering knowledge Vitruvius calls architectura into a

complete corpusrsquo (298)

109 Ovid Trist 2231ndash2 Cf Beacuteranger Recherches 224 lsquoDans les termes de

cette comparison corpus garde le sens proper Mais le mot habillait

si bien lrsquoideacutee que celle-ci eacutevoquait cella-lagrave et vice versa Ainsi naicirct

la meacutetaphorersquo cf Kienast lsquoCorpus imperiirsquo 10ndash11 More generally on

the shifting ideology of imperium in the Augustan period see John

S Richardson lsquoImperium Romanum Empire and the language

of powerrsquo Journal of Roman Studies 81 1991 1ndash9 esp 7 Richardson

charts a change from lsquothe already existing senses of imperium meaning

a ldquopowerrdquo as well as the power of a magistrate [to] the use of

imperium to describe the corporate power of the Roman statersquo (citing

eg Tac Ann 1161 and Hist 116)

110 Florus 2145ndash6 Other earlier parallels are cited by Beacuteranger

Recherches 228 among them Suet Aug 48 on how Augustus

lsquonever failed to treat all the parts with consideration as limbs and

components of his empirersquo (nec aliter uniuersos quam membra partisque imperii curae habuit) As McEwan Vitruvius 275ndash6 concludes lsquothe notion of

what we call the Roman Empire ndash a spatial unit with a centre Rome

and a clearly marked limit or periphery ndash fi rst took shape under

Augustus Caesar through whom as through the golden milestone

and the Prima Porta statue all expressions of unity were initially

formulatedrsquo

111 Suet Aug 80 corpore traditur maculoso dispersis per pectus atque aluum genetiuis notis in modum et ordinem ac numerum stellarum caelestis ursae

112 On Aen 8626ndash728 Philip Hardie Virgilrsquos Aeneid Cosmos and Imperium Oxford 1986 esp 337ndash76 remains foundational compare also

Michael Putnam Virgilrsquos Epic Designs Ekphrasis in the Aeneid New Haven

1998 119ndash88 (with more detailed bibliography at 234 n 1) For the

relationship between the cuirass of the Prima Porta Augustus and the

Virgilian shield see especially Sauron Quis Deum 521ndash3 and Elsner

Art and the Roman Viewer 164ndash6

113 In this connection one might cite a still older epic paradigm for

both the lower lsquoearthlyrsquo fi gure and the celestial personifi cations in

the upper part of the cuirass it is with the depiction of the lsquoEarthrsquo

as well as that of the lsquoheavensrsquo lsquothe searsquo and lsquothe indefatigable sun

and the full moonrsquo that the Homeric description of Achillesrsquo shield

begins at Iliad 18483ndash4 I return elsewhere to the lsquoorderingsrsquo of the

Virgilian shield ecphrasis and to the signifi cance of its lsquomiddlersquo in

particular Michael J Squire lsquoThe ordo of rhetoric and the rhetoric of

ordorsquo in Jas Elsner and Michel Mayer eds Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture Cambridge forthcoming

114 See Aen 8731 on Aeneas lsquoraising to his shoulder the fame and

fortunes of his descendantsrsquo (attollens umero famamque et fata nepotum) for

discussion see Putnam Virgilrsquos Epic Designs 152ndash4

115 Translations of some of the most important texts are collected in

Jerome J Pollitt The Art of Ancient Greece Sources and Documents Cambridge

1990 75ndash9 more thorough (though by no means exhaustive) is

Johannes Overbeck Die antiken Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Kuuml nste bei den Griechen Leipzig 1868 166ndash75 nos 929ndash77 For the

Roman rhetorical recourse to Polyclitus see Christoff Neumeister

lsquoPolyklet in der roumlmischen Literaturrsquo in Beck et al eds Polyklet 428ndash

49 Among the most insightful discussions are Sauron Quis Deum 523ndash4 Maderna-Lauter lsquoPolyklet in hellenistischer und roumlmischer

Zeitrsquo Pollini lsquoAugustus from Prima Portarsquo 267ndash76 Galinsky Augustan Culture 25 McEwan Vitruvius 264ndash72 and Houmllscher Language of Images 93

116 For discussion see Neumeister lsquoPolyklet in der roumlmischen Literaturrsquo

438ndash9 On the complex connotations of the adjectives sanctus and

grauis see Jerome J Pollitt The Ancient View of Greek Art Criticism History and Terminology New Haven 1974 esp 234ndash6 381ndash2 422ndash3

117 For discussions see (inter alios) Andrew Stewart lsquoThe canon of

Polyclitus A question of evidencersquo Journal of Hellenic Studies 98 1978

122ndash31 Stewart Art Desire and the Body 86ndash97 Tanner The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece 117ndash21 (with more detailed bibliography)

118 Plin HN 3455 fecit et quem canona artifi ces uocant liniamenta artis ex eo petentes ueluti a lege quadam solusque hominum artem ipsam fecisse artis opere iudicatur

119 On Augustusrsquo choice of name see Zanker Power of Images 98ndash100

Florus declares that the name was chosen over that of lsquoRomulusrsquo

because it lsquoseemed more sacred and reverent so that [Augustus]

might be made holy by the name itself and by the titlersquo (sanctius et reuerentius uisum est nomen Augusti ut ipso nomine et titulo consecraretur 23466) according to Cassius Dio moreover the name was selected

because it implied lsquosomething more than what is humanrsquo (ὡς καὶ πλεῖόν τι ἢ κατὰ ἀνθρώπους 53167)

120 On the whole question of lsquodivine assimilationrsquo in the early principate

see eg John Pollini lsquoMan or god Divine assimilation and imitation

in the late Republic and early principatersquo in Kurt A Raafl aub and

Mark Toher eds Between Republic and Empire Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate Berkeley CA 334ndash357 On the staged lsquoambiguitiesrsquo

of Augustusrsquo imperial status see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill lsquoCivilis princeps Between citizen and kingrsquo Journal of Roman Studies 72 1982

32ndash48 along with eg Elsner Art and the Roman Viewer 168ndash72 (again in

connection with the Prima Porta statue)

121 Still fundamental on lsquodivine emperors or the symbolic unity of the

Roman Empirersquo is Keith Hopkins Conquerors and Slaves Cambridge

1978 197ndash242

122 For an excellent discussion see Elsner Art and the Roman Viewer 161ndash72

responding to eg Simon R F Price Rituals and Power The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor Cambridge 1984 170ndash206 esp 185ndash6 (lsquothe divine

aspects of the [Prima Porta] statue are merely hints of divinity and


Michael Squire

do not come into direct confl ict with offi cial policyrsquo 186) Cf also

Pollini lsquoAugustus from Prima Portarsquo 280 n 69 (on the question of

implied mortalitydivinity) lsquohaving it both ways is in fact a hallmark

of Augustan political imageryrsquo

123 The detail is most often cited as evidence that the statue is a

posthumous imitation of a bronze original where Augustus did wear

boots cf eg Gross Zur Augustusstatue 166ndash7 On the interpretive

stakes see Pollini Studies in Augustan lsquoHistoricalrsquo Reliefs 41ndash2 and Simon

lsquoAltes und Neuesrsquo 218ndash19

124 For the genealogical claims ndash at least as visually materialized ndash see

Zanker Power of Images 167ndash238

125 For bibliography see above n 27

126 On such spolia opima see Ida Oumlstenberg Staging the World Spoils Captives and Representations in the Roman Triumphal Procession Oxford 2009 esp

19ndash30 (with further references) Scholars have typically tried to

identify the precise conquest lsquosymbolizedrsquo by this tropaeum rather than

consider its ontological signifi cance most associate it with conquests

in Gaul (eg Woelcke lsquoBeitraumlge zur Geschichte des Tropaionsrsquo 180ndash

91 Picard Les tropheacutees romains 279 cf Ingholt lsquoThe Prima Porta Statue

of Augustus Part IIrsquo 312) or Dalmatia (eg Pollini Studies in Augustan lsquoHistoricalrsquo Reliefs 69 n 114a) although others suggest a broader Celtic

signifi cance (eg Gross Zur Augustusstatue 153 Simon Der Augustus von Prima Porta 9) Whatever else we make of the feature Ingholt is

surely right to emphasize its peculiarity as breastplate device lsquothe

Prima Porta statue is the only known cuirassed statue on which the

back is decoratedrsquo and lsquothe sculptor must have had a very important

reason for breaking this otherwise universally accepted practicersquo

(312 pace eg Meyer Kunst und Geschichte 137ndash9) for this reason the

interpretation of the back as lsquonichts als Fuumlllung einer stoumlrenden Leerersquo

(Kaumlhler Augustusstatue 14) strikes me as unsustainable

127 McEwan Vitruvius 266 lsquoIt is almost to stress the self-conscious

deliberation with which the Polykleitan armor has been put on that on the back of the cuirass the statuersquos sculptor has carved a

trophy ndash another much smaller cuirass emptied of its vanquished

ownerrsquo

128 See eg Gergel lsquoCostume as geographical indicatorrsquo 195 (associating

it with Victory) cf Kaumlhler Augustusstatue 14

129 Cf eg Fejfer Roman Portraits 401 lsquoit is a paradox that the most

famous cuirassed statue to have survived is that of Augustus from

Prima Portarsquo and compare eg Rose Dynastic Commemoration 74 with

the list of other examples at 254 n 25

130 Cf Vermeule lsquoHellenistic and Roman cuirassed statuesrsquo [1 =1959]

34ndash5 nos 13ndash20 Vermeule also discusses a later statue excavated

from the Forum of Augustus even attributing this to the same

sculptor as that of the Prima Porta (lsquoHellenistic and Roman cuirassed

statuesrsquo [5 = 1978] 90 no 13a) In addition there are a host of Julio-

Claudian examples Vermeule lsquoHellenistic and Roman cuirassed

statuesrsquo [1=1959] 35ndash44 nos 21ndash77 (and compare eg Emilio Marin

and Michael J Vickers The Rise and Fall of an Imperial Shrine Roman Sculpture from the Augusteum at Narona Split 2004 148ndash50 on a cuirassed statue

from the Augusteum at Narona)

131 For the parallels see Pollini lsquoAugustus from Prima Portarsquo

265ndash6 (with further bibliography) Cf Stemmer Untersuchungen

145 concluding lsquodaszlig die Darstellung im Panzer zu dieser Zeit

bereits verbreiteter gewesen sein muszlig als es der willkuumlrliche

Erhaltungszustand vortaumluschtrsquo and that there must have been lsquoandere

Panzerstatuen des Augustus bzw Octavianrsquo

132 On the statue see Fittschen lsquoZur Panzerstatue in Cherchelrsquo

convincingly arguing that iconographic and stylistic elements

lsquoweisen also auf die Entstehung der Statue in Cherchel noch in

augusteischer Zeitrsquo (202) and supposing a date between 2 BCE and

14 CE cf Stemmer Untersuchungen 10ndash12 no 15 and Vermeule

lsquoHellenistic and Roman cuirassed statuesrsquo [1=1959] 55 no 179

along with van Keuren lsquoCosmic symbolismrsquo 185 Zanker Power of Images 223 goes still further concluding that lsquosince the decorative

program of the cuirass is closely related to that of the Augustus from

Prima Porta we may suspect that the Cherchel statue is one of several

copies of a major monument created in Romersquo Subsequent imperial

cuirassed statues clearly looked back to the statue type not least

in the late Flavian and Domitianic period (cf Geyer lsquoCostume as

geographical indicatorrsquo 203)

133 Among numerous other examples one might cite the statue of

Marcus Holconius Rufus from Pompeii (Naples Museo Nazionale

Archeologico inv 6233 cf John H DrsquoArms lsquoPompei and Rome in

the Augustan age and beyond The eminence of Gens Holconiarsquo in

Robert I Curtis ed Studia Pompeiana and Classica in Honor of Wilhelmina F Jashemski New Rochelle 1988 51ndash68) As Fejfer Roman Portraits 212

admits lsquothe habit [of clothing such fi gures with cuirasses] was no

doubt sparked by imperial representationrsquo

134 See Richard T Neer lsquoThe lionrsquos eye Imitation and uncertainty in

Attic red-fi gurersquo Representations 51 1995 118ndash53 developed in Neer

Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting Cambridge 2002 esp 9ndash86 (quotation from 85)

135 Plate 16 = Berlin Antikensammlung Sk 1752 for discussions see

eg Martin Robertson A History of Greek Art vol 1 Cambridge 1975

90 ndash1 John Boardman Greek Sculpture The Archaic Period A Handbook

London 1978 88 Peter Bol et al Die Geschichte der antiken Bildhauerkunst I Fruumlhgriechische Plastik vol 1 Mainz 2002 265 324 Abb 351andashd

More generally on the Greek fi gurative games of representing bodily

armour see Lissarrague lsquoCorps et armesrsquo

136 For an overview see especially Galinsky Augustan Culture 370ndash5 on

the Augustan lsquoallowance for contradictionsrsquo most starkly in the Aeneid The essays in Hardie ed Paradox and the Marvellous now offer a wide-

ranging analysis of the theme and across a range of interdisciplinary

perspectives

137 In this sense the statuersquos epic pretensions fi nd their playful

counterpoint in the combined visual and verbal games of the so-

called Tabulae Iliacae an assemblage of early Imperial miniature marble

reliefs which overtly toyed with the multivalence of both image and

text (and in markedly politicized ways) for my own interpretations

see Michael J Squire The Iliad in a Nutshell Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae Oxford 2011


139 Quotations from Zanker Power of Images 335 338 335 (= Macht der Bilder 329 332 329)

140 Cf Verity Platt lsquoWhere the wild things are Locating the marvellous

in Augustan wall-paintingrsquo in Hardie ed Paradox and the Marvellous 41ndash74 lsquoWhen traditional mechanisms of power had literally

been supplanted it is not surprising to fi nd that conventional

representational categories were being radically rethoughtrsquo (74)

141 The key discussion of the knowing and deliberate ambiguities of

Augustan political self-defi nition remains Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

lsquoRomersquos cultural revolutionrsquo Journal of Roman Studies 79 1989 157ndash64

Wallace-Hadrill responds to Zankerrsquos fundamental argument that

Augustus simply lsquopurgedrsquo the artistic ambiguities of the late Republic

resulting in a new lsquopropagandisticrsquo lsquoritual of powerrsquo (see eg Zanker

Power of Images esp 1ndash4) cf Stevenson lsquoThe problem with nude

honorifi c statuaryrsquo esp 57ndash66 Also important is Jas Elsner lsquoCult and

sculpture Sacrifi ce in the Ara Pacis Augustaersquo Journal of Roman Studies 81 1991 50ndash61 and Elsner Art and the Roman Viewer esp 192ndash210

142 Cf Platt lsquoWhere the wild things arersquo discussing (inter alia) Hor AP 1ndash23 and Vitr 75 on 51ndash7 and relating these testimonia to the monstra of contemporary wall paintings lsquoincursions of the monstrous

hybrid and fantastical not only signify bad poetry but also threaten

the seemingly ldquonaturalrdquo unity of form and meaning that Horacersquos

poetry ascribes to the Augustan social and political orderrsquo (53)

143 Platt lsquoWhere the wild things arersquo 71ndash4 quotation from 72 The best

discussion of the lsquoambivalences and contradictionsrsquo of the Ara Pacis

imagery is Elsner lsquoCult and sculpturersquo 61 lsquoIf the Ara Pacis a prime

monument located in the great new imperial complex in the Campus

Martius could evoke ambiguity and uncertainty even during

the sacrifi cial ritual for which it had been designed can we be sure

that no other Augustan monuments might work in a similar way

If the imagery of the Ara Pacis could be read in more than one way

by different viewers how can we decide which was most normal in

Roman culturersquo

144 Cf Elsner Art and the Roman Viewer 10 lsquoWhat changed was the gradual

elimination of the self-ironising (even ldquopost-modernistrdquo) elements

in Roman imagery in favour of a different kind of religious frame of

cultural interpretation ndash a frame overwhelmingly scripturalrsquo



1 The Prima Porta statue of Augustus precise date disputed (but perhaps c 15 CE after an earlier model of c 19 BCE) Parian marble height 204 m Rome Musei Vaticani (inv 2290) Photo Author

of mimetic course But I think things are somewhat more complex As both military

device and iconographic costume the cuirass had been around for centuries (over

600 fragments of cuirassed statues survive from the Graeco-Roman world from

various dates and models see plate 26)6 Never before however had this sculpted

costume been put to such playful and self-conscious effect7 To my mind the statuersquos

choice of outfi t is best understood within a cultural dialectic of the body in the

late fi rst century BCE on one side the pull towards nudity and its association with

masculine power and infl uence premised upon an inherited set of lsquoGreekrsquo visual

conventions on the other a certain reticence resistance and rejection centred

around a lsquoRomanrsquo rhetoric of cultural remove and difference As we shall see the

cuirass allows our princeps (lsquofi rst leaderrsquo) at once to bear his clothes and to divest them

by exploiting the dynamic duplicity of its dress the statue invites viewers to see its

subject as both buff Greek nude and vested Roman general


Michael Squire













Augustan principate
































































Michael Squire
































































Michael Squire

























original28











































Michael Squire










































Michael Squire





















































Michael Squire









































Michael Squire





























































Michael Squire





















empire
















































































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo






Michael Squire













Augustan principate
































































Michael Squire
































































Michael Squire

























original28











































Michael Squire










































Michael Squire





















































Michael Squire









































Michael Squire





























































Michael Squire





















empire
















































































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo























































Michael Squire
































































Michael Squire

























original28











































Michael Squire










































Michael Squire





















































Michael Squire









































Michael Squire





























































Michael Squire





















empire
















































































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo

















Michael Squire

























original28











































Michael Squire










































Michael Squire





















































Michael Squire









































Michael Squire





























































Michael Squire





















empire
















































































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo






















Michael Squire










































Michael Squire





















































Michael Squire









































Michael Squire





























































Michael Squire





















empire
















































































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo




















Michael Squire





















































Michael Squire









































Michael Squire





























































Michael Squire





















empire
















































































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo









Michael Squire









































Michael Squire





























































Michael Squire





















empire
















































































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo






























Michael Squire





























































Michael Squire





















empire
















































































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo
































Michael Squire





















empire
















































































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo























































Michael Squire










































































































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo



























































Michael Squire












































relief on the other


























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo
























































Michael Squire



conceptual shift






















imperial chest









































































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo























































Michael Squire














































































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo


































Michael Squire






















puzzles



















































































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo


























































Michael Squire

































































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo















































monument













Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo






Michael Squire













































































































110




































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo



































24
































Berlin 1978





































100




























Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo






Michael Squire



















esp 279ndash80











1937 48ndash63 esp 50





37)
































































































times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo













times









villa at 571ndash3
















97ndash100






































2008

















































Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo






Michael Squire





























































(with plate 37)







































123ndash7



























right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo











right-hand limbs






























vol 2 440ndash55































formulatedrsquo

















































1978 197ndash242





Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo






Michael Squire































ownerrsquo






















































perspectives



































Roman culturersquo





‘Embodied ambiguities on the Prima Porta Augustus’, Art History 36.2: 242–79. 2013.

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Transcript of ‘Embodied ambiguities on the Prima Porta Augustus’, Art History 36.2: 242–79. 2013.