deeds reminded people everywhere of the source of this beneficence.
These portraits and reliefs often presented a picture of the emperors
and their achievements that bore little resemblance to historical fact.
Their purpose, however, was not to provide an objective record but
to mold public opinion. The Roman emperors and the artists they
employed have had few equals in the effective use of art and archi-
tecture for propagandistic ends.
Augustus and the Julio-Claudians
When Augustus vanquished Antony and Cleopatra at Actium and
became undisputed master of the Mediterranean world, he was not
yet 32 years old. The rule by elders that had characterized the Roman
Republic for nearly a half millennium came to an abrupt end. Sud-
denly, Roman portraitists were called on to produce images of a
youthful head of state. But Augustus was not merely young. Caesar
had been made a god after his death, and Augustus, though never
claiming to be a god himself, widely advertised himself as the son of
a god. His portraits were designed to present the image of a godlike
leader who miraculously never aged. Although Augustus lived until
14 CE, even official portraits made near the end of his life show him
as a handsome youth (FIG. I-9). Such fictional portraits might seem
ridiculous today, when the media circulate pictures of world leaders
as they truly appear, but in antiquity few people had actually seen
the emperor. His official image was all most knew. It therefore could
be manipulated at will.
AUGUSTUS AS IMPERATOR The portraits of Augustus de-
pict him in his many different roles in the Roman state (see “Role
Playing in Roman Portraiture,” page 254), but the models for many of
them were Classical Greek statues. The portrait (FIG. 10-27) of the
emperor found at his wife Livia’s villa (FIG. 10-20) at Primaporta por-
trays Augustus as general, standing in the pose of Polykleitos’s
Doryphoros (FIG. 5-40) but with his right arm raised to address his
troops in the manner of the orator Aule Metele (FIG. 9-16). Augustus’s
head, although portraying a recognizable individual, also emulates the
idealized head of the Polykleitan spear bearer in its overall shape, the
sharp ridges of the brows, and the tight cap of layered hair. Augustus is
not a nude athlete, however, and the details of the statue carry political
messages. The reliefs on the cuirass advertise an important diplomatic
victory—the return of the Roman military standards the Parthians
had captured from a Republican general—and the Cupid at Augus-
tus’s feet alludes to his divine descent. (Caesar’s family, the Julians,
traced their ancestry back to Venus. Cupid was the goddess’s son.)
LIVIAA marble portrait (FIG. 10-28) of Livia shows that the im-
perial women of the Augustan age shared the emperor’s eternal
youthfulness. Although she sports the latest Roman coiffure, with
the hair rolled over the forehead and knotted at the nape of the neck,
Livia’s blemish-free skin and sharply defined features derive from
images of Classical Greek goddesses. Livia outlived Augustus by 15
years, dying at age 87. In her portraits, the coiffure changed with the
introduction of each new fashion, but her face remained ever young,
befitting her exalted position in the Roman state.Early Empire 25510-28Portrait bust of Livia, from Arsinoe, Egypt,
early first century ce.Marble, 1 11 – 2 high. Ny Carlsberg
Glyptotek, Copenhagen.
Although Livia sports the latest Roman coiffure, her
youthful appearance and sharply defined features
derive from images of Greek goddesses. She lived
until 87, but, like Augustus, never aged in her portraits.1 in.