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Many people have portraits of their husband
That's true, and this was found in the villa of Livia, who was Augustus' wive
It was found in her villa at Primaporta
Most people now have just a photograph of their husband in their home,
not a full-scal marble sculpture! --Not usually
But that was exactly what Livia had
Except that, allthough this was found in her home,
these sculptures had enormous political significance:
they were filled with Roman political ideology, as with so much Roman art.
Well, this was probably a copy of a bronze, which would have been used
In a much more public environment. --And many more copies were made
This is just one that happened to survive.
It was important for the emperor to distribute his image throughout the empire
and so many copies were made of images of the emperor
This is long before photography of course and most people would never get to see the emperor -
So he distributed the likeness, and in a sense, the attributes of the ruler through sculpture and painting
'Likeness' is a good word, because it is 'like' Augustus, but not exactly Augustus
because, surely, this is idealised:
He is made to look younger, handsomer, more athletic,
but you can still identify his features across many different sculptures
Augustus is a complicated figure. He says that he is re-establishing the Senate
but he does that as a strategy to in fact consolidate power, to become Rome's first true emperor
That's right, and he does that at quite a young age, whereas the rulers of the ancient Republic
were old, experienced men. There was an age requirement for holding office during the Republic.
In this new era, ushered in by Augustus, of the Empire, he wants to communicate a very different image
one where he is more godlike: he is more youthful, more transcendent
So we have the new ruler of the Empire, who is using this sculpture
as a way of communicating how he wants to be understood,
what he wants to represent to his public, to those that he rules.
The identity that he wants to portrait and communicate is god-like and recalling the ancient Greek
the golden age of Pericles, of 5th century BC Athens
So how does he do that? For one thing, the proportions of his body follow the Canon
that is, a sculpture that we now call the Doryphoros by Polykleitos from ancient Greece
a sculpture that showed the beauty of the body
so he takes on a Greek ideal. In a way he is saying "I am going to create a golden age,
just like the golden age of 5th century BC Greece"
"so I am going to show myself as the famous sculpture from that age"
Then he shows us that he has what it takes to do that:
For one thing, down at his ankle, pulling at his hem, is Cupid
Cupid was the son of the goddess Venus. Augustus traced his ancestry back to Aeneas,
the founder of Rome, and son of Venus. So by putting Cupid down there,
we are meant to remember that Augustus is decendant from a Goddess
He is saying that he is in fact part devine
Also, not only did he say he was descendant from Venus,
he also said he was the son of the god Julius Caesar
an actual human being, who has been deified - made into a god - subsequently
by Augustus. So he has 'God' written all over him.
In fact, he literally does on his breast plate,
where we see the god of the sky, and the goddess of the earth
So all of the devine forces come together here for Augustus' rule.
The breast plate is probably a thick leather cuirass,
that is embossed with scenes that are allmost a kind of personal resume
The most important scene shows the Romans reclaiming their standards from the Parthians
Augustus had defeated this older enemy of Rome, who had taken their standards in an earlier battle
so the fact that the Parthians are shown here returning the standards,
is a significant gesture of defeat and acknowledgement of the power of Rome
So we have a man that is of divine origin,
that is a brilliant military leader,
that is shown ennobled in the tradition of the great ancient Greeks.
This is a tremendously powerful visual propaganda.