Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

TETRARCHIC PORTRAITURE The four tetrarchs often
were portrayed together, both on coins and in the round. Artists did
not try to capture their individual appearances and personalities but
sought instead to represent the nature of the tetrarchy itself—that is,
to portray four equal partners in power. In the two pairs of porphyry
(purple marble) portraits of the tetrarchs (FIG. 10-73) that are now
embedded in the southwestern corner of Saint Mark’s in Venice, it is
impossible to name the rulers. Each of the four emperors has lost his
identity as an individual and been subsumed into the larger entity of
the tetrarchy. All the tetrarchs are identically clad in cuirass and
cloak. Each grasps a sheathed sword in the left hand. With their right
arms they embrace one another in an overt display of concord. The
figures, like those on the decursio relief (FIG. 10-58) of the Column
of Antoninus Pius, have large cubical heads on squat bodies. The
drapery is schematic and the bodies are shapeless. The faces are
emotionless masks, distinguished only by the beard on two of the

figures (probably the older Augusti, distinguishing them from the

younger Caesars). Nonetheless, each pair is as alike as freehand carv-

ing can achieve. In this group portrait, carved eight centuries after

Greek sculptors first freed the human form from the formal rigidity

of the Egyptian-inspired kouros stance, an artist once again con-

ceived the human figure in iconic terms. Idealism, naturalism, indi-

viduality, and personality now belonged to the past.

PALACE OF DIOCLETIANWhen Diocletian abdicated in

305, he returned to Dalmatia (roughly the area of the former Yugo-

slavia), where he was born. There he built a palace (FIG. 10-74) for

himself at Split, near ancient Salona on the Adriatic coast of Croatia.

Just as Aurelian had felt it necessary to girdle Rome with fortress

walls, Diocletian instructed his architects to provide him with a well-

fortified suburban palace. The complex, which covers about 10

acres, has the layout of a Roman castrum, complete with watch-

towers flanking the gates. It gave the emperor a sense of security in

the most insecure of times.

Within the high walls, two avenues (comparable to the cardo

and decumanus of a Roman city;FIG. 10-42) intersected at the

palace’s center. Where a city’s forum would have been situated, Dio-

cletian’s palace had a colonnaded court leading to the entrance to the

Late Empire 281

10-73Portraits of the four tetrarchs, from Constantinople,

ca. 305 ce.Porphyr y, 4 3 high. Saint Mark’s, Venice.

Diocletian established the tetrarchy to bring order to the Roman world.

In group portraits, artists always depicted the four co-rulers as nearly

identical partners in power, not as distinct individuals.

1 ft.

10-72Restored view (top) and plan (bottom) of the Temple of Venus,
Baalbek, Lebanon, third century ce.

This “baroque” temple violates almost every rule of Classical design. It
has a scalloped platform and entablature, five-sided Corinthian capitals,
and a facade with an arch inside the triangular pediment.

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