Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

bare-chested youth who is probably a personification of Honor

(Honos). A female personification of Valor (Virtus) leads the horses.

These allegorical figures transform the relief from a record of Titus’s

battlefield success into a celebration of imperial virtues. Such an in-

termingling of divine and human figures occurs on the Republican

Villa of the Mysteries frieze (FIG. 10-18) at Pompeii, but the Arch of

Titus panel is the first known instance of divine beings interacting

with humans on an official Roman historical relief. (On the Ara

Pacis,FIG. 10-29,Aeneas and “Tellus” appear in separate framed pan-

els, carefully segregated from the procession of living Romans.) The

Arch of Titus was erected after the emperor’s death, and its reliefs

were carved when Titus was already a god. Soon afterward, however,

this kind of interaction between mortals and immortals became a

staple of Roman narrative relief sculpture, even on monuments

honoring a living emperor.

High Empire

In the second century CE, under Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines,

the Roman Empire reached its greatest geographic extent (MAP10-1)

and the height of its power. Rome’s might was unchallenged in the

Mediterranean world, although the Germanic peoples in Europe, the

Berbers in Africa, and the Parthians and Persians in the Near East

constantly applied pressure. Within the empire’s secure boundaries,

the Pax Romana meant unprecedented prosperity for all who came

under Roman rule.

Trajan

Domitian’s extravagant lifestyle and ego resembled Nero’s. He de-

manded to be addressed as dominus et deus (lord and god) and so

angered the senators that he was assassinated in 96 CE. The Senate

chose the elderly Nerva, one of its own, as emperor. Nerva ruled for

only 16 months, but before he died he established a pattern of suc-

cession by adoption that lasted for almost a century. Nerva picked

Trajan, a capable and popular general born in Italica (Spain), as the

next emperor. Trajan was the first non-Italian to rule Rome. Under

Trajan, imperial armies brought Roman rule to ever more distant ar-

eas (MAP10-1), and the imperial government took on ever greater

responsibility for its people’s welfare by instituting a number of

farsighted social programs. Trajan was so popular that the Senate

granted him the title Optimus (the Best), an epithet he shared with

Jupiter (who was said to have instructed Nerva to choose Trajan as

his successor). In Late Antiquity, Augustus, the founder of the Ro-

man Empire, and Trajan became the yardsticks for success. The goal

of new emperors was to be felicior Augusto, melior Traiano (luckier

than Augustus, better than Trajan).

High Empire 263

10-40Spoils of

Jerusalem, relief panel

from the Arch of Titus,

Rome, Italy, after 81 ce.

Marble, 7 10 high.

The reliefs inside the bay

of the Arch of Titus

commemorate the

emperor’s greatest

achievement—the

conquest of Judaea. Here,

Roman soldiers carry the

spoils from the Jewish

temple in Jerusalem.

10-41Triumph of

Titus, relief panel from

the Arch of Titus, Rome,

Italy, after 81 ce.Marble,

7  10 high.

Victory crowns Titus in

his triumphal chariot.

Also present are person-

ifications of Honor and

Valor in this first known

instance of the inter-

mingling of human and

divine figures in a Roman

historical relief.

1 ft.

1 ft.