Embodied Ambiguities on the Prima Porta Augustus Michael Squire

Of all free-standing Roman Imperial portraits, none is more iconic than the so-called ‘Prima Porta Augustus’, 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 i rst century BCE. Even as early as 1875, Lawrence Alma-Tadema turned to the sculpture as ofi cial Augustan emblem: what better image than the Prima Porta Augustus to conjure up the emperor’s looming presence within an imaginary ‘audience with Agrippa’ (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 Rome’s Via dei Fori Imperiali, where it continues to cast its shadow over the imperial fora (plate 3).3 ‘No other image is lodged more i rmly at the heart of today’s scholarship on the art and power of Rome,’ as one textbook puts it, ‘no imperial face more indelibly imprinted on the art historical imagination’.4 But for all our familiarity with the Prima Porta Augustus – and for all the hundreds of books, articles and chapters dedicated to it – there seems to be more to say about both the statue and its original historical context. By ‘context’, I do not just mean the statue’s specii c i ndspot and provenance (which remain i ercely debated). Nor do I mean solely the art-historical contexts of iconography and typology – the identity of each i gure emblazoned on the breastplate, or the relationship between this portrait’s coiffure and other examples of the so-called ‘Prima Porta’ 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.

Detail of the Prima Porta ‘Looking’ will prove critical here. Instead of trying to ‘decode’ the images Augustus breastplate (see emblazoned on the cuirass, or indeed adding to the various discussions of date plate 1), as viewed from the right. Photo: Reproduced by and supposed ‘original’, my objective is to draw renewed attention to the statue’s kind permission of Susanne i gurative ambiguities. What strikes me as so signii cant about the statue is what Muth. W. J. T. Mitchell might call its ‘multistability’ – the playful layering of different visual DOI: i gurative modes, no less than the historical, cultural and political frameworks that 10 .1111/1467- 8365.120 07 this entails.5 I begin with arguably the most ambivalent aspect of all: the recourse to Art History | ISSN 0141-6790 36 | 2 | April 2013 | pages 242-279 the cuirass in the i rst place. Modern scholars tend to accept this costume as a matter

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 effect.7 To my mind, the statue’s choice of outi t is best understood within a cultural dialectic of the body in the late i rst century BCE: on one side, the pull towards nudity and its association with masculine power and inl uence, premised upon an inherited set of ‘Greek’ visual conventions; on the other, a certain reticence, resistance and rejection, centred around a ‘Roman’ rhetoric of cultural remove and difference. As we shall see, the cuirass allows our princeps (‘i rst leader’) 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.

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 2.04 m. Rome: Musei Vaticani (inv. 2290). Photo: Author.

2 Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, It is what such ambivalence or ‘code-switching’ might mean for the statue – and An Audience at Agrippa’s, 1875 (Opus CLXI). Oil on panel, indeed for the mechanics of Augustan imagery more generally – that interests me 0.98 × 0.628 m. Kilmarnock: here.8 Thanks to the ambiguous breastplate, which simultaneously exposes the torso The Dick Institute. Photo: Reproduced by kind of the princeps and clothes it behind a i gurative anatomy of imperialist myth-making, permission of the Institut Augustus manifests a body that both can and cannot be seen. As such, the i gurative für Klassische Archäologie und Museum für Abgüsse duplicity of the cuirass incorporates a set of more profound ‘ontological’ paradoxes Klassischer Bildwerke, Ludwig-Maximilians- about the statue and its covered/exposed subject. The bodily frame situates Augustus Universität, Munich. between different registers of representation: like the bodies depicted in and on the

3 Modern bronze copy of make-believe cuirass, the emperor’s body l uctuates back and forth through literal the Prima Porta Augustus, and symbolic modes of signii cation – between mimetic replication on the one hand, set up along Rome’s Via dei Fori Imperiali (next to and extra-i gurative modes of allegory and metaphor on the other. Nude vs. clothed, the Forum of Augustus). ‘Greek’ vs. ‘Roman’, literal vs. symbolic: the statue gives somatic form to a series Photo: Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut of semantic contradictions, themselves grounded in the political paradoxes of the für Klassische Archäologie und Museum für Abgüsse Augustan principate. Klassischer Bildwerke, Although the essay is structured around a single material case study, it also Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich. aims to draw out some broader artistic-cum-political ramii cations. In particular, it examines what the statue’s ambiguities mean for thinking about Augustan imagery at large. For too long, I think, our narratives about ‘the power of images in the age of Augustus’ – the title of a landmark book by Paul Zanker in 1988 – have tended to suppose a neat, ordered and self-contained system of programmatic ‘communication’.9 There were, we assume, single prefabricated Augustan political ‘messages’; what is more, scholarly responses to Augustan ‘propaganda’ have centred around ‘decoding’ the single sorts of political messages involved (with some scholars justifying their recourse to this supposed artistic ‘language’ explicitly). To my mind, by contrast, the Prima Porta Augustus embodies a much

more sophisticated and self-referential politics of visual ambiguity: the ‘power’ 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 statue’s historical origins, provenance and display; and perhaps most importantly, the iconographic identii cation of the i gures emblazoned on the cuirass. This essay cannot aim at a full état 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 statue’s size, medium and archaeological provenance. Excluding its modern base, the Prima Porta Augustus stands at an over- lifesize 2.04 metres. In terms of its materials, isotopic analysis coni rms that the statue was crafted from high-quality lychnites marble (imported from the Greek Cycladic 10 4 Detail of the head of the island of Paros). As stated above, the sculpture was found in a private residence Prima Porta Augustus. some nine miles north of Rome, near the Via Flaminia. Although the site can be Photo: Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth. connected with the family of Augustus’ wife, Livia, we do not know where in the villa the statue was found:11 in the absence of reliable archaeological records, the exact position of the statue remains the subject of ongoing scholarly conjecture.12 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 ‘crab-claw’ coiffure have resulted in the eponymous labelling of a so-called ‘Prima Porta’ 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 BCE.13 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-i fth century BCE. For modern viewers, as indeed for Augustus’ contemporaries, one statue type in particular seems to have embodied the High Classical style: the Doryphoros, or ‘Lance-Bearer’, of the Argive sculptor Polyclitus, crafted sometime around the middle of the i fth century BCE, and much discussed, copied and imitated in Rome (for example, plate 5).14 Some have doubted

any specii c reference to that Polyclitan prototype,15 drawing attention to the differences in stance and pose,16 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 art’s capacity for interpictorial allusion.18 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 signii cant that Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (written in the 70s CE) recognized such sculptural counterbalance as a distinctively ‘Polyclitan’ trait.19 Things are somewhat trickier when it comes to reconstructing the Prima Porta Augustus’ arms. The tubular hollow carved through the statue’s left hand coni rms that (like the Doryphoros) it once grasped a cylindrical object – variously reconstructed as a lance, military standard, laurel branch, or sceptre (as in Alma-Tadema’s painting, see plate 2).20 As for the 5 Roman copy of Polyclitus, extended right arm, some have suggested that the princeps also held something in Doryphoros, i rst century 21 BCE (after an original of c. his right hand, proposing once again a laurel or a lance. Although it is impossible 460 BCE). Pentelic marble, to reach dei nitive conclusions, this hypothesis seems relatively unlikely. Only height 1.98 m. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts the ring i nger survives, necessitating a full-scale reconstruction in the nineteenth (inv. 86.6: purchased by The century. As John Pollini has observed, however, the tendons on the back of the hand John R. Van Derlip Fund, with additional funds from Bruce suggest that the index and middle i ngers were extended rather than curved around B. Dayton, an anonymous donor, Mr and Mrs Kenneth an object; similarly, the ring and little i ngers appear to have been folded back on Dayton, Mr and Mrs W. John themselves, as coni rmed by the single surviving i nger.22 True to Pietro Tenerani’s Driscoll, Mr and Mrs Alfred Harrison, Mr and Mrs John nineteenth-century reconstruction, in other words, Augustus seems not to have held Andrus, Mr and Mrs Judson anything in his right hand. Instead, he most probably raised it in a sign of adlocutio or Dayton, Mr and Mrs Stephen 23 Keating, Mr and Mrs Pierce rhetorical ‘address’. Augustus is shown speaking to his respectful audience: frozen McNally, Mr and Mrs Donald in the perpetuity of potential speech (note the closed lips), the statue most likely Dayton, Mr and Mrs Wayne MacFarlane, and many other engaged its onlookers as though they were – or were about to become – listeners. generous friends of the Institute). Photo: Reproduced If this reconstruction is correct, the gesture seems to have amalgamated the image by kind permission of the of military general with that of orator. In this sense, the raised right arm goes hand Minneapolis Institute of Arts. 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 statue’s 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 cuirass’ ‘leather’ lappets trim the arm-holes). Following the important iconographic studies

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

7 Detail of the ‘hip-mantle’ (Hüftmantel) of the Prima Porta Augustus. Photo: Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth.

of Cornelius C. Vermeule and Klaus Stemmer, archaeologists have classii ed the cuirass as an example of the so-called ‘Hellenistic’ type. In contrast to the tongue- shaped pteryges of the ‘Classical’ 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 Augustus’ 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 ‘hip-mantle’

(German Hüftmantel);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 – a military cloak worn by high-ranking generals in the i eld of battle, usually attached at the shoulder (see plate 22). In this case, however, there is no such fastening: the cloth cascades over Augustus’ left forearm in virtuoso vertical folds, suspended in mid-air beside the bent left leg.26 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 statue’s lower reaches, the drapery attracts attention to the winged toddler at the opposite side. This child – at once literally and metaphorically propping up Augustus’ imperial stance – straddles a dolphin: ancient audiences would have had no difi culty in recognizing this i gure as Cupid (Eros in Greek), although some modern scholars have also associated the portrait with that of Augustus’ nephew, Gaius (born in 20 BCE).27 As for the panoply of i gures on the cuirass, these have received much more extensive commentary (plate 8, plate 9, plate 10, plate 11). With each and every i gure, the scholarly objective has been to name and identify, commenting on the i 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 i gure in turn, noting some of the most important controversies along the way. With that purpose

8 Drawing of the Prima in mind, I reproduce the line-drawing by Barbara Stucky-Böhrs (commissioned by Porta Augustus breastplate Hans Jucker in 1977, plate 8), although it should be stated from the outset that such by Barbara Stucky-Böhrs, commissioned by Hans two-dimensional diagrams l atten out the twists and turns of the three-dimensional Jucker. From Hans Jucker, original.28 ‘Dokumentationen zur Augustusstatue von The two male i gures at the centre provide an obvious starting-point (see plate 10). Primaporta’, Hefte des The left-hand i gure is dressed in Roman military attire, with boots, helmet and Archäologischen Seminars Bern, 3, 1977, 17, plate 1. cuirass (this time a ‘Classical’ cuirass, with tongue-shaped lappets: compare plate 22), and with paludamentum fastened around his left shoulder; beneath the left arm, the i gure’s sword lies sheathed in its scabbard, and an animal perches behind the legs (variously identii ed as a ‘dog’ or ‘wolf’).29 Opposite him stands a man in very different attire. This second i gure is dressed in typical ‘Oriental’ 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 i gure of an eagle.30 The exchange between the Roman i gure on the left and the eastern i gure on the right dominates the composition: while the right- hand i gure lifts his standard aloft, the left-hand i 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, Augustus’ recovery of the Roman military standards which Crassus had lost to the Parthians during the battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.31 Augustus made much of this episode and its political signii cance. So it is, for example, that in his

autobiographical Res Gestae, originally inscribed on monumental bronze tables outside his Mausoleum in Rome, Augustus boasted how he ‘forced’ (coegi / ἠνάγκασα) the Parthians to return the standards;32 writing some 200 years later, Cassius Dio likewise records that Augustus ‘took great pride in the achievement, declaring that he had recovered without a struggle what had formerly been lost in battle’.33 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 i gure represents the Parthian leader Phraates IV;34 by the same logic, the left-hand ‘Roman’ is likewise identii ed as a specii c individual – whether a historical protagonist like Tiberius (Augustus’ successor),35 or else a more mythical i gure like Mars,36 Romulus,37 Aeneas,38 or indeed a personii cation of the Roman army (Exercitus Romanus) itself.39 In my view, we might do better to leave these names unspecii 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.

10 Detail of the Prima Porta indeed epigraphic) means of doing so. By contrast, both of these i gures are bestowed Augustus breastplate. Photo: Reproduced by kind with fairly generic appearances, allowing for a variety of different (and by no means permission of Susanne Muth. mutually exclusive) identities. Despite the iconographic uncertainties, there can 11 Detail of the Prima Porta be no doubting the overarching cosmic signii cance of the events portrayed. For Augustus breastplate, whatever else we make of the central scenes, this historical episode is subjected to the as viewed from the left. Photo: Reproduced by kind full force of Augustan myth-making: heaven and earth – and everything in between permission of Susanne Muth. – are shown to revolve around the pivotal moment when the Parthian standards are i nally returned to Rome. Take, i rst of all, the i 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 i gure wears a i 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 other.40 Classical archaeologists have again suggested and debated a series of specii c Roman provinces:41 the left-hand i gure is most often (though not always) associated with Hispania on the basis of her sword;42 the puzzling animal at the side of the right- hand i gure (a wild boar?), by contrast, has been connected with Celtic military standards, leading most to identify her as Gaul.43 Below these lateral captives are two extra-terrestrial i gures l oating mid-air: because of the lyre, and the winged grifi n upon which he rides, the draped male on the left has been associated with Apollo, while the female i gure on the right has been identii ed as Artemis/Diana.44

12 Painted plaster cast of the Prima Porta Augustus, as reconstructed by Paolo Liverani (originally displayed in the Bunte Götter exhibition at the Munich Gylpothek between 2003 and 2004). Photo: Wolfram Martini, reproduced by kind permission of the Institut für Klassische Archäologie und Museum für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke, Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich.

Completing the symmetrical effect, and framing the horizontal space beneath the belly button, we i nd a single reclining female i gure, with a cornucopia (‘horn of plenty’) on her knee and two babies beside her breast. A number of identities have been proposed – among them, Tellus (‘Earth’),45 Italia,46 and Ceres-Cybele.47 While many of the iconographic details remain unclear – the circular object at the feet, the three-pointed crown of the head, and the stalk behind her right foot, for example – there can be no doubting the generic image of earthly plenty. If the cuirass’ 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 Augustus’ neck, are two sphinxes: the heads are turned out to face the viewer, while their bodies are twisted inwards so as to l ank the

frontal frame of Augustus.48 Beneath these, carved into the upper chest, we see the protruding naked torso of a bearded elder, surrounded on either side by an additional i gurative duo: to the left, a draped man rides a quadriga (so that the horses’ raised legs symmetrically frame the military standard below); to the right are two female i gures, orbiting around the chest in the same ‘clockwise’ direction. Once again, various identii cations have been proposed. While the central bearded i gure is usually associated with the sky-god Caelus (his billowing mantle marking the upper limits both of the heavens and of Augustus’ chest),49 the left-hand charioteer is most often identii ed as Helios or Sol (i.e. ‘Sun’),50 and the right-hand i gures are respectively associated with Eos or Aurora (‘Dawn’, holding a pitcher of morning dew) and Selene or Luna (‘Moon’ – hence the torch held in the left hand).51 Whatever we make of the cuirass’ 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 specii c historical event. But the origins of the statue are nonetheless contentious, bound up with larger questions about provenance and display.52 For was this a one-off marble creation commissioned by Augustus’ wife for her home? Or was it rather a later marble ‘copy’, one that referred back to an earlier bronze or other metallic ‘original’?53 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 uni nished workmanship around the rear of the statue (an adaptation for a specii c topographical display? see plate 23 and plate 24),54 and not least the supposed ‘Tiberian’ identity of the Roman soldier (was this a later ‘copy’ intended to promote Tiberius as Augustus’ 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 not.56 This issue of ‘prototype’ does nonetheless l ag one i nal formal aspect of the sculpture: whatever its relation to any bronze ‘original’, the extant marble statue was certainly painted. Traces of colour were noted immediately after the statue’s discovery, although many of these are no longer visible today.57 With the development of new scientii c technologies, Paolo Liverani suggested a new reconstruction as part of the landmark Bunte Götter (‘Coloured gods’) Munich exhibition in 2003 (plate 12).58 Liverani’s reconstruction is admittedly minimalist, based on close scientii 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 below.59

Naked Ambitions and Vested Interests How, then, to make historical sense of the statue’s various formal features? Since the late 1980s, most discussions of the Prima Porta Augustus have revolved around the contemporary political signii cance of the breastplate iconography, concentrating on the return of Crassus’ standards in particular. ‘The unique historical event’, writes Paul Zanker, ‘is turned into a paradigm of salvation, in which the gods and the heavens act as guarantors, but need not intervene directly.’60 Like other scholars before him,61 Zanker has recourse to a library of literary texts here, not least Horace’s Carmen Saeculare (composed for the ‘secular games’ of 17 BCE): the imagery of fecundity and abundance is duly read in terms of Augustus’ new ‘salvii c’ order – as part of the professed saeculum aureum, or ‘golden age’, of Augustan Rome.62

13 ‘Barberini Togatus’ group, late i rst century BCE. Parian marble, height 1.65 m. Rome: Musei Capitoloni, Centrale Montemartini (inv. I.46). Photo: DAI: Rom 1937: 378.

14 ‘Tivoli General’, late Taking his cue from textual sources, Zanker invests the Prima Porta Augustus second century BCE/early i rst century BCE. Marble, with a larger importance concerning the ‘power of images in the age of Augustus’. height 1.94 m. Rome: Museo As visual paradigm, the statue is understood not just to forge a particular image Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (inv. of the emperor, but also to constitute the ‘decisive turning point . . . for the entire 10.65.13). Photo: Author. system of visual communication’ which Augustus is supposed to have implemented. 15 Colossal acrolithic portrait For Zanker, ‘new forms of artistic and visual expression had arisen in the wake of Augustus from the theatre at Arles, probably early of fundamental political change’, so that a statue like the Prima Porta Augustus i rst century CE. Marble encapsulates a coherent message about both Augustus and the political regime and local limestone, height 2.3 m (original height of for which he stood. Above all, the Prima Porta statue embodies Zanker’s idea whole statue c. 3 m). Arles: that Augustan art – like Augustan politics – was characterized by what he calls ‘a Musée de l’Arles et de la Provence antiques (inv. FAN comprehensive move toward standardization within i xed norms’ (‘ein umfassender 92.00.215/2679). Photo: Prozeß der Normierung nach festen Standards’): the effectiveness of Augustus’ Aufstieg relied Author. upon his effective elimination of visual ambiguity and polyvalence.63 We shall return in the conclusion to Zanker’s overarching framework – above

16 ‘Gemma Augustea’, early i rst century CE. Sardonyx in two layers, 19 × 23 × 1.3 cm. Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum (inv. ANSA.IXa.79). Photo: Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut für Klassische Archäologie und Museum für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke, Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich.

all, Zanker’s assumption of a supposed Bildersprache, or ‘language of images’, which encompasses the ‘totality of images that a contemporary would have experienced’.64 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 Augustus’ cuirass, which he proceeds to name and identify. By contrast, my interest will lie less in what the breastplate imagery can be said to ‘represent’, but rather in how the cuirassed statue presents its subject in the i rst place. The point seems to me fundamental: that the breastplate imagery is no isolated visual ‘programme’, 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 – pectoral muscles, nipples, ripped stomach, belly button; indeed, the lower parameters of the breastplate even align with the so-called ‘iliac crest’ above the groin. While modelling Augustus’ bodily contours, on the other hand, this cuirasse esthétique simultaneously covers them up; what is more, the suggestive narrative scenes and fastenings only underscore the fact that we are looking upon costume, not l esh. As a i gure of both bodily volume and skin-deep surface, the cuirass shields Augustus’ chiselled anatomy while at the same time exposing it to the viewer’s 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, ‘power could be negotiated by the wearing, shedding and swapping of clothes.’65 Consider the following passage from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, written in the 70s CE:66

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 ‘Achillean’. The Greek practice is not to cover up the i 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 honorii c sculpture, framing it around the poles of ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’ cultural identities. Whereas Greek artistic conventions could exploit male nudity as a sine qua non of honorii 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 ramii cations.68 This is not the place for a full discussion of the ‘body problem’ 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 Hellenic.69 What Pliny helps us to uncover, rather, is how ideologies of the body were clothed in larger discourses about what it meant to be ‘Roman’ as opposed to ‘Greek’ (and vice versa). According to Hellenic cultural conventions, exposing one’s power and inl uence went hand in hand with uncovering one’s 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 specii cally, viewing it as an attribute that intrinsically renders the sculptural subject ‘Roman’ rather than ‘Greek’. Inspect the artistic products of the i rst century BCE, and we i nd a range of responses to this problem of what (not) to wear. Roman art demonstrates a remarkable self-consciousness about dress and undress – ‘nudity as a costume’, as Larissa Bonfante has nicely put it.70 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 17 Silver denarius minted in 71 Rome for Octavian, 32–29 hence dispensable) extra. 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 ‘dagger’. Silver, 2.0 cm (height of obverse), 1.8 cm (width of obverse), 3.6 grams. Previously in the Walter Niggeler Collection (see Sammlung Walter Niggeler, 2. Teil: Griechische Münzen der römischen Kaiserzeit; Römische Münzen (Republik bis Augustus), Zurich and Basel, 1966, 57, no. 1015). Photo: Reproduced by kind permission of the Institut für Klassische Archäologie und Museum für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke, Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich.

18 Upper frieze from the If dispensing with the body was one Roman way of dealing with this problem, south side of the Ara Pacis, inaugurated 9 BCE (showing another was to swathe it in a mass of decorous drapery. True to Pliny’s diagnosis Augustus as the i gure fourth about ‘olden times’, we i nd numerous Republican and Imperial ‘togate’ statues from the left). Parian marble, height 1.6 m. Rome. Photo: wrapping themselves up in the Roman costume par excellence: the toga, after all, was Author. the eponymous attribute of the self-declared ‘togate race’, or gens togata.72 The so-called Barberini Togate group provides a neat case study, dating to the late i rst century BCE (plate 13).73 To call this an exclusively ‘Roman’ image would be to overstate the case: while the portraits held in each hand appear typical products of the Roman Republic, ‘veristically’ emphasizing the age and grauitas of the sitter, there are numerous Hellenistic stylistic details;74 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 matters.75 Other images went even further, combining ‘Roman’ 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 politician.76 The so-called ‘Tivoli General’ 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 credentials.78

19 ‘Via Labicana’ statue of This was the cultural and artistic landscape that Augustus inherited in the Augustus, early i rst century CE. Marble, height 2.08 m. 40s BCE. In the wake of Julius Caesar’s death in 44 BCE – Caesar, we remember, Rome: Museo Nazionale had been assassinated for appearing too dictatorial – Augustus must have realized Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (inv. 56230). the importance of projecting the right self-image. But what sort of image best Photo: Author. suited Rome’s new princeps? To talk of the princeps – or even ‘Augustus’ – 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 – who only adopted the name ‘Augustus’, or ‘Revered One’, along with the title princeps in 27 BCE – 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 Augustus’ 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 ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’ visual forms, preferring different coni 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 portraits.79 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 assumption,80 we also i 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 here.84 After establishing the trappings of power, and deciding upon his new ‘august’ title, there appears to have been a distinct artistic preference for clothing the body, dressing it in voluminous Roman toga.85 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 Rome’s Via Labicana (plate 19).86

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 ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’ 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 – a Greek attribute which doubles up as tabula rasa for inscribing a new, distinctly Roman cultural anatomy.

The Curious Cuirass Just to be clear, it should be repeated that there was nothing inherently new about the cuirass as iconographic device. What Pliny labels a distinctly ‘Roman’ costume had a long Classical and Hellenistic Greek pedigree;87 similarly, Augustus was by no means the i rst ‘Roman’ to don this costume (as we have seen, Pliny mentions Julius Caesar specii cally,88 and certain Roman deities were also shown in the same cuirassed guise, some of them set up by Augustus himself – most famously in the Temple of Mars Ultor, where the eponymous cult statue wore a Classical breastplate).89 When it came to Roman honorii c statues, though, the cuirassed costume appears to have been relatively rare, at least until the late Republic.90 What is more, the Prima Porta Augustus went considerably further than other contemporary images in the i gurative allusions of its body. Compare the statue with the ‘Tivoli General’ (see plate 14), for example, and one sees how, like the Prima Porta Augustus, that portrait similarly uses the cuirass to prop up the ‘Greek’ costumed nudity. Where the ‘Tivoli General’ combines the two ‘nude’ and ‘cuirassed’ 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 artii ce. Whatever the chiselled bodies of portraits like the ‘Tivoli General’, 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 – to display the corporeal disi gurements which embody military prowess.91 When Pliny the Elder speculates as to Rome’s 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 7.101–6). Nudity was no less a taboo for Augustus. The ‘real’ 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 – a proclaimed gesture of humility, and one that reminded his public of the dictatorial fate of Julius Caesar.92 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 ‘Polyclitan chest’ (pectus Polycletium),93 it also transforms that attribute into something more convincing – 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 ‘Tivoli General’ (see plate 14), for example, and we i nd the same garment worn in exactly the same

position. As far as military outi 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 waist.95 As with the cuirass, in other words, the draped paludamentum toys with both credible reality and honorii c artistic formulae. While adding a double layer of clothed concealment around the groin, the detail simultaneously alludes to the conventions of honorii c statues that were otherwise unclothed: it looks back not only to images like the ‘Tivoli General’, 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 l 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 one’s clothes and divesting them. Rather, the duplicity of the statue’s dress embodies a larger semantic signii cance. As lorica, the cuirass ‘protects’ and ‘encases’ the emperor even as it simultaneously exposes his body. Like the proverbial ‘duck-rabbit’ discussed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, the emperor exhibits an ambivalent body, one that l ips backwards and forwards between different sorts of i gurative reality.97 This in turn establishes different – and in some sense contradictory – 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 ‘see in’ on the one hand, and to ‘see as’ on the other.98 If one way of understanding the statue 20 Statue of ‘Alexander’ is at face value – to see it as mimetic double – the statue draws simultaneous attention from the sanctuary of Meter Sipylene in Magnesia-by- to its i gurative i ctions, l agging our creative ‘uploadings’ as viewers. Just as the two- Sipylos, early to mid-second fold statue shows its subject as at once naked and dressed, it also shufl es and shifts century BCE. Marble, height 1.9 m. Istanbul: Arkeoloji through a spectrum of different representational modes. Müzeleri Müdürlüg˘ü (inv. One need only consider the breastplate to appreciate the point. For all the 709). Photo: Author. anatomical detailing, Augustus’ torso also partitions the portrayed scenes into a symmetrical arrangement: as ornamental frame, the cuirass divides the i 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 personii cations of the upper chest. More importantly, the very detailing of the anatomy can blur the boundaries between bodily i gure and decorative adornment. The clearest example comes towards the upper left of the chest, where the wheel of Helios’ chariot is set beside Augustus’ 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

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 ‘rhymes’ or patterns as simple accidents, of course. But the laborious design seems predicated on the idea of looking closely – that the layering of anatomical details and i gurative decoration might be enjoyed, noticed or pondered: once viewers see the visual play, it is very difi cult to ‘un-see’ it once more. Such i gurative games with reality and representation shed light on other replications besides. Looking again at the cuirass, we i nd all manner of visual echoes and internal references: observe, for example, how the quadruped standard of the right- hand female captive recalls the ‘real-life’ animal by the side of the Roman soldier, or how the eagle- headed sword of the conquered female to the left of 21 Detail of the central the cuirass visually echoes the military ‘eagle’ raised at the chest’s centre. In this upper i gure on the Prima Porta Augustus breastplate. connection, Jas´ Elsner may be right to l ag the signii cant positioning of the signum, Photo: Reproduced by kind which is made to occupy compositional pride of place. While signa refers to military permission of Susanne Muth. standards, the word could also encompass other sorts of ‘signs’, not least the sculpted, engraved and painted i gures adorning this body, or indeed the statue as a whole.99 With the two outstretched wings of its eagle – which render the separate curves of Augustus’ pectoral muscles into a single artii cial line – the i gurative signum of our standard signals in turn both the believability of this sculpted costume and its forged artii ciality.100 The decision to place the make-believe eagle at this pectoral intersection seems to have been considered and deliberate: it is difi cult to i 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 signii 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 barbarian’s chest (itself emblazoned on the chest of Augustus). No less intriguing are the hybrid and semi-visible bodies displayed on Augustus’ own hybrid and semi-visible frame. Consider, for instance, the chimerical and fantastic i gures – the two sphinxes, or indeed the grifi n bearing Apollo – which transcend the parameters of the mimetic: not all bodies, we are reminded, can be taken at face value.101 Certain other i 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 Augustus’ three-dimensional physique.102 In the upper section of Augustus’ naked/clothed torso, moreover, the central sky- god is shown as exposing his own upper torso in turn. But what has become of this l oating i gure’s lower body, concealed by the horses of the quadriga (plate 21)? Like the body of Augustus, this i gure parades a body that is at once visible and invisible (the waving vestments of ‘heaven’ 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 i gures

even exploit the contours of Augustus’ 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 i 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 Augustus’ own hip-mantle (see plate 10), like that of Artemis/Diana to the upper right (see opening plate). Perhaps the most revealing body of all, though, is that of the cuirassed soldier at the cuirass’ core (plate 22). As we have said, scholars have tried to explain this i 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 Augustus’ own (despite the differences in so-called ‘Hellenistic’ and ‘Classical’ type). As with the costume, the i gure’s pose presents an additional analogy with that of Augustus: he stands in proi le with his right arm extended and his weight unevenly balanced so that, rather like our ‘Polyclitan’ Augustus, the left leg is l exed behind the right; similarly, the animal by the soldier’s 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 i gurative scene at its centre: stationed at the statue’s centre of gravity, above the literal and metaphorical omphalos/umbilicus (‘belly button’), is a two-dimensional relief which visually mimics 22 Detail of the central left- 103 hand ‘soldier’ on the Prima the stance, costume and attributes of the three-dimensional whole. Porta Augustus breastplate. Such a bodily mise-en-abyme must have been all the more arresting for the statue’s Photo: Reproduced by kind permission of Susanne Muth. 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 i gure complete with a bronze cuirass of his own. Regardless of any hypothetical prototype, we can be sure that visual parallels between the two ‘soldiers’ were drawn out through the use of colour on the extant statue. Liverani’s reconstruction convincingly suggests that the surfaces of both cuirasses were left unpainted: the impression is of a sort of ‘white ground’, 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 signii cant in another sense too. In some ways, the technicolour vibrancy of the paint adds to the sculpture’s larger- than-life mimetic make-believe. In other ways, though, the restricted palette and exaggerated tones only expose

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 i 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 cuirass’ 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 l esh of its cuirassed subject: after all, the unpainted marble pallor of the cuirassed torso mirrors that of the statue’s 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 i gure contained within it.104 Returning once more to Wollheim’s terms, the statue’s polychromy seems invested in the simultaneous drive both to ‘see in’ and to ‘see as’: the colours shade our impression of the statue both as i ction, and as l esh.

From the Literal to the Symbolic So far in this essay, I have focused on the literal bodies depicted – 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 i 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 i gures radiating around Augustus’ chest. As we have said, scholars have suggested a range of specii c identities. However we choose verbally to name them, though, the bodies displayed on Augustus’ 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 Augustus’ ribcage, for example, just as the personii cations above and below materialize the terrestrial coni 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 ‘Sun’, ‘Sky’, or ‘Moon’ ‘really’ look like; however much they allude to real-life attributes, moreover, the Roman provinces i gured through the two female captives amount to both more and less than these i gurative forms.105 The bodies at which we gaze, in short, serve to substantiate and personify: they map out a much grander frame of imperial-cum-cosmic signii cance – east and west, earth and sky, day and night, etc., each clothed in its own iconographic language.106 Like the various corpora depicted within the breastplate, the body of Augustus could also be seen as a ‘personii cation’ 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 i rst century BCE, the body could itself serve as image for i guring imperial power. As Robin Osborne has recently argued, this was a new intellectual historical departure: while ‘there is no body politic in the classical Greek world. . .’, in Osborne’s words, ‘the phrase “body of the state” 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 state’.107 This is perhaps to overstate the case (as Osborne admits, there are some scattered earlier precedents, and the metaphor of the ‘citizen body’ i nds its conceptual archaeology in Stoic ideas of the ‘leader’ at its ‘head’). But the underlying point is nonetheless important: that the politics of the body are

revolutionized when the body serves as a metaphor for political unity; what is more, that i 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 i gure of speech.108 Ovid developed the analogy with particular zeal, hoping to l atter his way out of exile by telling Augustus that, ‘within the whole body of empire’ (in tanto . . . corpore . . . imperiii), no part had lost its footing;109 by the end of the second century CE, moreover, Florus likewise proclaimed that Augustus alone should be credited with restoring order to the ‘body of empire’ (ordinauit imperii corpus).110 On the cuirass of the Prima Porta Augustus, that i gurative image is made corporeally manifest: a metaphor for conceptualizing empire as body is l 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 Augustus’ body i guratively align. The statue also likens the emperor’s 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 Augustus’ neck, just as the Earth lies l 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 Augustus’ ‘body 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 heavens’.111 Whatever the ‘reality’ 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 literature’s most famous i gurative depiction of military armour: namely, Virgil’s description of the shield of Aeneas, evoked in the eighth book of the Aeneid.112 Virgil seems to have understood that the sort of world vision emblazoned on the Prima Porta cuirass required epic instantiation. To l esh out that i gure, moreover, Virgil likewise turned to images – or at least to their textual ‘ecphrastic’ description – evoking heraldic pictures which prophesied Rome’s 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 – and remarkably overlooked – parallels: there is, for example, a related concern with central epicentre (Virgil’s shield is said to be centred around Actium, shown ‘in the middle’ [in medio, v.675], just as the i 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 earth.113 Ultimately, both textual ecphrasis and visualized cuirass also play upon the magical moment when mythical costume and hero become one: just as the fuli lment of the shield’s 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 Augustus.114 In the case of the Prima Porta Augustus, visual allusions develop this sense of extra-corporeal signii cance. Whether or not one sees an allusion to the Doryphoros

specii cally, we have said that i fth-century, Polyclitan exempla lie behind Augustus’ literal and metaphorical costume; when it comes to the portrait’s 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 rhetoric.115 In a pertinent passage of his i rst-century CE Training of the Orator, Quintilian even cited the Doryphoros in relation to visualizing someone ‘solemnly upright’ and ‘dignii ed’ (sanctus et grauis): the exemplum is equally i tting for images of ‘war and the palaestra’ (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. 5.12.20–1).116 Among Quintilian’s 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 Polyclitus’ written Canon: it gave bodily form to a golden ratio, whereby each individual part of the body could be understood in relation to every other.117 Although distinguishing between the ‘manly boy’ (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 ‘derive the basic forms of their art’ from the Polyclitan model, ‘as if from some kind of law’: ‘so it is’, concludes Pliny, ‘that of all men Polyclitus alone is deemed to have rendered art itself in a work of art.’118 So what, then, might the Polyclitan stylistic echoes mean in the context of the Prima Porta Augustus? By becoming part of the princeps’ costume, the Polyclitan frame serves to embody an ideological connection between Augustus (‘Revered One’) and the ‘solemnly upright’ form of its model.119 While in one sense attributing Augustus with a believable sort of body (reduced to a wearable costume), the i 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 statue’s 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 (‘lance-bearer’) seems to have left the subject specii cally unspecii 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 god?120 In assessing the Prima Porta Augustus’ claim to divinity, scholars have tended to home in on individual details. It is standard practice to observe three features in particular: i rst the divine Cupid at Augustus’ 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 dei nitive answer. The ‘divinity’ of Augustus was a live political issue in the late i 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

different parts of the empire.121 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 Augustus’ godhead while also inviting us to understand its conventions i guratively.122 Consider, for example, the lack of footwear.123 On one level, the detail draws renewed attention to the artii 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 i 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 identii cation as the divine Mars). By contrast, a number of other male and female i gures are shown bare-footed – not just the reclining i gure below, but also the female captive to the upper right, and still more prominently the i 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 i nd a myriad of different comparanda. Rather than state or deny its godhead, the Prima Porta Augustus l irts with visual discourses of divinity, and in a series of multivalent ways; it raises questions without providing dei nitive solutions. The winged Cupid by Augustus’ side proves exemplary here. For Roman audiences, the i 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 ‘embodiedly’ to take Cupid’s i gurative claim – 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 i 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 ramii cations seem clear enough: where the represented deities of the cuirass are shown in two-dimensional form, this i 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 Cupid’s ‘real’ presence. What is more, it is possible to ascribe a mere i gurative signii cance to the toddler: is he not to be interpreted in the same sorts of i gurative ways as the personii 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 ‘tree-trunk’)? 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 ‘seeing-in’ assimilation.125 The ambivalences of Cupid, like those of the larger statue, again shufl e and shift in the manner of Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit: when it comes to Augustus’ 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 Voids To round off my own interpretation of the Prima Porta Augustus, I turn i 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 i nd another cuirass within the cuirass, this time in two-dimensional relief. Roman viewers would have recognized this emblem as a tropaeum or ‘trophy’ 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 victory.126 In narratological terms, viewers might have forged a connection between this image and the return of the Parthian standards emblazoned on the cuirass’ front: the interactive exchange between the breastplate’s two central i 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 ‘Roman’ than it does ‘barbarian’ . . . ). Bar a brief mention by Indra Kagis McEwan, the signii cance of this emblem has received remarkably little analysis.127 Among scholars, it is customary to observe the reverse side’s comparative lack of adornment, along with the roughly carved folds of 23 Detail of the Prima Porta drapery: this is usually seen as evidence for the statue’s original placement against Augustus breastplate, as a wall. But it strikes me as important that, at the very moment when viewers try to seen from the left/behind. Photo: Reproduced by kind look behind Augustus’ ‘real’ cuirass – to see what lies beneath it – they are confronted permission of Susanne Muth. with the embossed image of yet another cuirass, one which visually recalls the 24 Reverse side of the Prima three-dimensional breastplate donned by Augustus. Like the breastplate on which it Porta Augustus breastplate. Photo: Reproduced by kind is displayed, this cuirass signii es its own paradoxical nudity, replicating the human permission of the Institut anatomy of the wearer (stomach muscles, belly button, pectorals, etc.); indeed, für Klassische Archäologie und Museum für Abgüsse the hollow costume is even made to stare out at us, its helmeted head resembling a Klassischer Bildwerke, human face, the lower branches almost like two human legs. There is one striking Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich. difference, however. In contrast to Augustus’ breastplate, this reverse cuirass is

empty: it is a costume without a wearer. We have already talked of ‘mise-en-abyme’ in the context of the front cuirass’ cuirassed solider. Here, on the statue’s reverse side, though, the hollow cuirass only accentuates the self-conscious artistry: as surface, rather than substance, the empty armour draws out the factured i 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 cuirass’ own fastenings: see plate 11). Some have tried to understand them as the wing of some Nike or ‘Victory’ i 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 ‘originally’ visible).128 None of these theories proves wholly satisfactory. This ornamental decoration seems to defy i gurative explanation: here, on the emperor’s back, above the void cuirass (around the back of the breastplate), there seems no escaping the i 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 ‘one-off’ – and that it has too long dominated our view of Augustan image-making.129 This seems a step too far. The fact that so few Roman cuirassed statues survive complete with their heads means that individual identii cations are always tricky. But we can nonetheless be coni dent that there were 25 Cuirassed statue (of numerous Augustan comparanda. Vermeule has catalogued many cuirassed images Augustus?) from Cherchel, 130 131 late i rst century BCE/ associated with Augustus, and there are plenty of numismatic parallels too. early i rst century CE (?). Some of these even show iconographic afi nities with the Prima Porta example – most Marble, height 2.35 m. Photo: Reproduced by kind famously, the cuirassed portrait from Cherchell in Algeria (plate 25); indeed, Klaus permission of the Institut Fittschen has convincingly argued that the Cherchell cuirassed statue also clothed für Klassische Archäologie und Museum für Abgüsse Augustus in a panoply of mythopoetic imagery, and that it dates to between the mid- Klassischer Bildwerke, and late-Augustan period.132 The Prima Porta statue, then, is not the only example to Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich. 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 i rst century BCE/early i rst century CE.133 Rather than get side-tracked by contemporary cuirassed comparanda, allow me to conclude with some more macroscopic rel ections. One way of closing this essay might be to relate the statue’s games of artii ce and make-believe back to longer traditions of Greek mimetic art. It would be possible, for example, to compare the i gurative games of the Prima Porta Augustus with the mimetic ‘slips, swerves, and disruptions’ that Richard Neer has analysed in the context of late sixth- and early i fth-century Attic sympotic ware.134 Alternatively, one might compare this Roman cuirassed statue with one of the earliest Greek examples known to us (plate 26), a

marble cuirassed ‘kouros’ 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 i nd a conceptual archaeology for the bodily ambiguities of the Prima Porta cuirass.135 The point I wish to emphasize, by contrast, concerns the semantic signii cance of such ambiguities in Augustan historical context: by uncovering the costumed ambiguities of our most familiar ‘textbook’ 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 ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’ cultural identity, or indeed its oscillation between the mortal and the divine, the Prima Porta Augustus gives form to a series of i gurative tensions. Rather like works of Augustan literature, with all their destabilizing provocations, the statue does not ‘communicate’ a single vision of its subject, but instead plays with a spectrum of different interpretive strategies.136 The statue probes, teases and interrogates: it throws back upon the viewer larger questions about form, mediation, and interpretation.137 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 26 Statue of a cuirassed Prima Porta Augustus, or indeed about Augustan image-making tout court, proceed warrior from the Heraion at Argos, c. 530 BCE. Marble, from the tacit assumption of communicated ‘propaganda’: meanings are assumed height 0.86 m. Berlin: Berlin to be singular and self-contained – whether imposed from above (as most tacitly Antikensammlung (Sk. 1752). Photo: Author. suppose), or else stemming ‘from the interplay of the image that the emperor himself projected and the honours bestowed on him more or less spontaneously’.138 As we have said, Paul Zanker’s landmark discussion of the ‘power of images in the age of Augustus’ is arguably the most explicit about the ‘internalized’ use of visual culture in affecting (what Zanker calls) an ‘integrating system of shared values’ (‘integrierende Gemeinschaftswerte’). But most subsequent scholars have concurred in Zanker’s overarching assumption that ‘the visual arts [die Bilderwelt] contributed measurably to the remarkable stability of the socio-political system’ – that ‘with the establishment of one-male rule . . . , there began in every cultural sphere a comprehensive move towards standardization within i xed norms.’139 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 – literally ‘i rst among equals’ – ambivalence (if not outright duplicity) was required.140 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 – navigating one’s way through a plurality of different views.141 Ambiguity was not the sole strategy of Augustan image-making, and some images certainly appear more

ambiguous than others. But the apparent success of Augustan imagery seems to have relied, at least in part, on manipulations of i gurative ambivalence: the stability of Augustus’ 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 i rst century BCE: from Vitruvius’ diatribe against wall paintings that violate ‘truth’ (ueritas) by forsaking the mimetic illusionism of the so-called ‘Second Style’, to Horace’s 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 Augustus.142 Something comparable can be found on even the most public and programmatic of monuments: the Ara Pacis, for example, which integrated different strategies of signii cation within a single work (plate 27) – the processional ‘real-life’ friezes above, the fantastic ornamentation below, and not least the mythical paradigms that frame 27 West façade of the Ara Pacis. Photo: Reproduced by one’s access to the monument at the east and west. Whatever we conclude about kind permission of the Institut the symbolism of the leaves and tendrils paraded in the lower parts of the altar’s für Klassische Archäologie und Museum für Abgüsse exterior, they embody a different sort of representational register from the panelled Klassischer Bildwerke, frieze above: occupying the boundaries between the mimetic and the abstract, they Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich. raise the question of whether we are looking at mere ornament (a ‘welcome respite

from signii cation’, as Platt puts it), or alternatively a symbolic language pregnant with hidden meaning.143 Once again, this is a Bilderwelt that relies not on top-down ‘communication’ or semantic ‘standardization’, 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 Elsner’s diagnosis of the ambivalences of Roman Imperial visual culture at large: while in tune with a Greek tradition of mimetic verisimilitude – viewers are faced with a believable sort of body – the statue is simultaneously premised upon the i 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 ‘ways of seeing’.144 Where standard histories of Roman art can all too often assume an age of Augustan classicism succeeded by a steady ‘decline’ – a movement from (‘Greek’) mimetic replication to the sorts of ‘abstract’ and ‘symbolic’ schemes that we see in late antique and Byzantine art – 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 i guration were i rst and foremost politically embodied; better, perhaps, it demonstrates how political ambiguities were bound up with (and indeed substantiated through) the ambivalences of visual i guration. Looked at like that, Augustan imagery does not constitute a scenographic backdrop for political change; nor is this ‘propaganda’ 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.

Notes Archäologischen Seminars Bern, 3, 1977, 16–37; subsequent interventions The present essay derives from a larger project on Graeco- are discussed by Tonio Hölscher, in Matthias Hofter, ed., Kaiser Roman images of the body, funded by the Alexander von Augustus und die Verlorene Republik, Berlin, 1988, 386–7, no. 215; and Erika Humboldt-Stiftung at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Simon, ‘Altes und Neues zur Statue des Augustus von Primaporta’, in Munich. A pampered fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Gerhard Binder, ed., Saeculum Augustum, Band 3: Kunst und Bildersprache, zu Berlin allowed me to develop that earlier research, and a Darmstadt, 1991, 204–33 (Simon also summarizes her views in conference at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Augustus: Kunst und Leben in Rom um die Zeitenwende, Munich, 1986, 53–7). (‘Conditions of Visibility in Greek and Roman Art’) provided a Anglophone scholarship has tended to underplay numerous German preliminary opportunity to present my ideas. I am grateful to Rolf debates (not least the statue’s problematic reconstruction), but there Schneider (my academic host in Munich); Susanne Muth (who is an important review and response by John Pollini, ‘The Augustus supplied so many photographs); Georg Gerleigner (for help with from Prima Porta and the transformation of the Polykleitan heroic copyediting); Nikolaus Dietrich, Jas´ Elsner, Luca Giuliani, John ideal: The rhetoric of art’, in Warren G. Moon, ed., Polykleitos, the Henderson, Robin Osborne and Verity Platt (for their comments Doryphoros, and Tradition, Madison, WI, 1995, 262–82 (with bibliography on an earlier draft); and, last but not least, to the journal’s editors at 276 n. 7; cf. also Pollini, Studies in Augustan ‘Historical’ Reliefs, diss. and two anonymous readers. Berkeley, 1978, 8–74). 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 1 Musei Vaticani, Braccio Nuovo, inv. 2290. As the following Porta, Göttingen, 1959; Heinz Kähler, Die Augustusstatue von Primaporta, endnotes make clear, the statue has attracted a truly enormous Cologne, 1959; Erika Simon, Der Augustus von Prima Porta, Bremen, 1959. bibliography: for a masterful review of some 118 books and articles 2 See Vern G. Swanson, The Biography and Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings published before 1977 (in fact, only a selection), see Hans Jucker, of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, London, 1990, 187, no. 197 (= Opus CLXI). ‘Dokumentationen zur Augustusstatue von Primaporta’, Hefte des

True to form, Alma-Tadema adds numerous archaeological details Journal of Roman Archaeology, 11, 1998, 275–84; John Pollini, ‘The marble of his own: for one thing, the statue is given an inscribed base; type of the statue of Augustus from Prima Porta: Facts and fallacies, like contemporary archaeologists, moreover, the artist supposes a lithic power and ideology, and color symbolism in Roman art’, in preferred viewing angle from the front left. Perhaps most strikingly Demetrios U. Schilardi and Dora Katsonopoulou, eds, Paria Lithos, of all, the Cupid i gure by Augustus’ right-hand side has been Athens, 2000, 237–52. eradicated, so that the dolphin alone now acts as structural support. 11 There are two accessible introductions to the villa in Carmelo Calci When, in 1879, Alma-Tadema returned to the same scene for his After and Gaetano Messineo, La Villa di Livia a Prima Porta, Rome, 1984; and the Audience, that Cupid i gure was reinstated (see Swanson, Biography Jane Clark Reeder, The Villa of Livia ad Gallinas Albas: A Study in the Augustan and Catalogue, 205, no. 244 [= Opus CXCI] with colour plate on 393): Villa and Garden, Providence, RI, 2001. A more detailed reconstruction this time, though, the inscription has vanished, and a group of of the archaeology can be found in Maurizio Forte, La villa di Livia: un onlookers are depicted looking up at the cuirass’ reverse side – an percorso di ricerca di archeologia virtuale, Rome, 2007. archaeological joke, perhaps, about the semi-decorated reverse 12 The fundamental problem is the lack of any recorded statue base. side of the Prima Porta Augustus cuirass (see plate 23 and plate 24); for For a review of the excavation archives and of the vast subsequent discussion, see e.g. Michael Liversidge and Catharine Edwards, eds, bibliography on the statue’s original location, see John Pollini, ‘The Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century, London, i ndspot of the statue of Augustus from Prima Porta’, Bullettino della 1996, 143–6, nos 51–2. Commissione Archeologica Communale di Roma, 92, 1987, 103–8. Pollini 3 There is a good introduction to Mussolini’s building programme suggests an indoor location to the west of a staircase (107–8). But (and his adoption of Augustus as ideological model) in Tim Benton, debates continue to run rife. One scholar, for example, has argued ‘Rome reclaims its empire’, in Dawn Ades, ed., Art and Power: Europe for an outdoor location in a grove outside the villa (albeit on rather under the Dictactors, London, 1995, 120–9; cf. Katie Fleming, ‘Fascism’, tenuous literary and archaeological grounds: Jane Clark Reeder, ‘The in Craig W. Kallendorf, ed., A Companion to the Classical Tradition, statue of Augustus from Prima Porta, the underground complex, and Malden, MA, 2007, 342–53, esp. 343–6 (with further bibliography). the omen of the Gallina Alba’, American Journal of Philology, 118: 1, 1997, Mussolini also sent a bronze copy of the statue to Zaragora (ancient 89–118; cf. Reeder, Villa of Livia, 84–5); others have suggested a more Caesaraugusta), where it is still on display near the Roman walls. prominent indoor location along the south wall of the villa’s atrium 4 Mary Beard and John Henderson, Classical Art: From Greece to Rome, (Allan Klynne and Peter Liljenstolpe, ‘Where to put Augustus? A note Oxford, 2001, 216. on the placement of the Prima Porta Statue’, American Journal of Philology, 5 See W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, 121: 1, 2000, 121–8, esp. 125–7). Chicago, IL, 2004, 35–82, esp. 45–57. 13 See Ulrich Hausmann, ‘Zur Typologie und Ideologie des 6 See below, n. 24. For two excellent overviews, see Hans Georg Augustusporträts’, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte Niemeyer, ed., Studien zur statuarischen Darstellung der römischen Kaiser, Berlin, und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung, vol. II.12.2, Berlin, 1981, 1968, 47–54; and Götz Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue in Rom: 513–98, esp. 565–89; and Dietrich Boschung, Die Bildnisse des Augustus, Literarische und epigraphische Zeugnisse, Rome, 1983, 51–3. Berlin, 1993, 38–50. There is a helpful overview in R. R. R. Smith, 7 On the ‘intensely self-conscious’ nature of the statue, compare ‘Typology and diversity in the portraits of Augustus’, Journal of Roman Richard Brilliant, Gesture and Rank in Roman Art, New Haven, 1963, Archaeology, 9, 1996, 31–47, esp. 38–9. 66–7. Elsewhere (Brilliant, Roman Art from the Republic to Constantine, 14 Two edited volumes collect some of the most important discussions second edition, London, 1974, 112), the author notes that ‘although of Polyclitus’ Doryphoros and its subsequent ancient reception: Herbert hellenistic artists had developed the decorated cuirass as a i eld for Beck, Peter C. Bol and Maraike Bückling, eds, Polyklet: Der Bildhauer der ornament and symbolic display, always subservient to the forms griechischen Klassik, Mainz, 1990; and Moon, ed., Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, of the human body beneath, the Roman sculptors treated the and Tradition. Early analyses of the Prima Porta Augustus’ relationship cuirass almost as an independent form, capable of bearing the most with the Doryphoros are summarized in Gross, Zur Augustusstatue, elaborate, allusive images.’ My ideas about the i gurative ambiguities 144–51. Among the most important subsequent treatments are Götz of the Prima Porta Augustus have greatly learned from analyses of Lahusen, ‘Polyklet und Augustus: Zur Rezeption polykletischer related games of representing bodily armour at other times and Gestaltungsmuster in der römischen Bildniskunst’, in Beck et al., places within the western artistic tradition: from the substantial eds, Polyklet, 393–6; Pollini, ‘Augustus from Prima Porta’, 263–76; bibliography, I think especially of François Lissarrague’s research Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction, Princeton, NJ, into Archaic and Classical Greek representations of ‘body’ and 1996, esp. 24; and Indra Kagis McEwan, Vitruvius: Writing the Body of ‘armour’ (e.g. François Lissarrague, ‘Corps et armes: i gures grecques Architecture, Cambridge, MA, 2003, 264–72 (‘In the donning of the du guerrier’, in Véronique Dasen et Jérôme Wilgaux, eds, Langages et l esh of the Doryphoros, Augustus put on the canon…’, 268). For metaphores du corps, Rennes, 2008, 15–27), as well as Victor I. Stoichita’s the argument that the Polyclitan allusion to ‘Classical forms’ carried recent interpretation of armour as a ‘second skin’ enveloping the an overtly ‘moral claim’, see the inl uential discussion by Zanker, body in Renaissance painting and sculpture (Victor I. Stoichita, Power of Images, 245–52, along with e.g. Tonio Hölscher, The Language ‘“La seconde peau”: quelques considérations sur le symbolisme des of Images in Roman Art, trans. Anthony Snodgrass and Annemarie armures au XVIe siècle’, in Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, ed., Estremità e Künzl-Snodgrass, Cambridge, 2004, 47–57. The classic work on self- escrescenze dei corpi / Extremities and Excrescences of the Body [= Micrologus, 20, consciously ‘Classicizing’ allusions in late Hellenistic and Imperial 2012], 451–63, citing additional bibliography). sculpture is Paul Zanker, Klassizistische Statuen: Studien zur Veränderung des 8 I take the idea of ‘code-switching’ in the late Republic and early Kunstgeschmacks in der römischen Kaiserzeit, Mainz, 1974: Zanker argues Empire from Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, ‘To be Roman, go Greek: for the Prima Porta Augustus’ wholly deliberate and self-conscious Thoughts on Hellenization at Rome’, in Michael Austin, Jill Harries imitation of Polyclitan models (‘Der entwerfende Bildhauer [des and Christopher Smith, eds, Modus Operandi: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Augustus von Prima Porta] bediente sich bewußt der polykletischen Rickman, London, 1998, 79–91; fundamental now is Wallace-Hadrill, Formensprache…’, 43). Rome’s Cultural Revolution, Cambridge, 2008, 38–70, discussing ‘cross- 15 Cf. e.g. Smith, ‘Typology and diversity’, 41–5, arguing that ‘in dressing’ on 41–57. general, the Augustus-Doryphoros theory requires a very optimistic 9 See Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. Alan view of the general level of art-historical knowledge and sympathy Shapiro, Ann Arbor, MI, 1988, discussing the statue on 98–9, 175–7, on the part of the Roman viewer’ (43). More sanguine is Peter 188–92 (which translates Zanker’s Augustus und die Macht der Bilder, Stewart, Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response, Oxford, 2003, Munich, 1987, 103–4, 179–81, 192–6). 110. 10 On the marble, see John Pollini and Norman Herz, ‘The marble type 16 Augustus’ left foot is placed slightly further away from the right than of the Augustus from Prima Porta: An isotopic analysis’, Journal of seems to have been the case with the Doryphoros; likewise, Augustus’ Roman Archaeology, 5, 1992, 203–8; John Pollini, Norman Herz, Kyriaki head is not turned to quite the same angle (Pollini, ‘Augustus from Polikreti and Yannis Maniatis, ‘Parian lychnites and the Prima Porta Prima Porta’, 266). As Pollini suggests, however, these adaptations statue: New scientii c tests and the symbolic value of the marble’, might be understood in light of the Prima Porta Augustus’ supposed

new ‘speaking’ pose (271–2). 300, Oxford, 2005, points out, the designation is ‘misleading 17 Cf. e.g. Kähler, Augustusstatue, 14. . . . since it implies a special kind of cloak intended to be worn 18 For two excellent discussions of stylistic reference and quotation around the hips, which is certainly not the case’ (102). On the late in Roman art, see Mark Fullerton, ‘Imitation and intertextuality in Republican resurgence of the attribute, and in particular its Augustan Roman art’, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 10, 1997, 427–50, and Jeremy appropriations (ultimately said to descend from an image type of the Tanner, The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece: Religion, Society and Diuus Julius), see Stefano Maggi, ‘Augusto e la politica delle immagini: Artistic Rationalisation, Cambridge, 2006, 277–302 (‘the artist selected lo Hüftmanteltypus (Sul signii cato di una iconograi a e sulla sua and abstracted elements from a variety of sources and recomposed formazione)’, Rivista di Archeologia, 14, 1990, 63–76. them in order to reconstruct a new unitary synthesis, which the art 26 Cf. Robin Osborne, ‘Augustus’ bath towel’, Omnibus, 60, 2010, 1–3, historically informed viewer could recall through an act of metabasis, who suggests (among other reasons) this sort of compositional intellectual transfer’, 288). For other allusions to Polyclitus in early explanation: ‘the sweep of folds across the lower body emphasizes Imperial Roman free-standing sculpture, see Caterina Maderna- the dynamic given to the statue by the position of the left leg, acts as Lauter, ‘Polyklet in hellenistischer und römischer Zeit’, in Beck et a counterweight to the extended right arm, and lends a thrust to the al., eds, Polyklet, 376–85; Michael Koortbojian, ‘Forms of attention: Four body in that direction. What is more, the length of cloak hanging notes on replication and variation’, in Elaine Gazda, ed., The Ancient Art down from the left arm both draws attention to and balances the of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality and Tradition, Ann Arbor, MI, 2002, Cupid beside the right leg’ (3). 173–204, esp. 183–7. 27 See esp. John Pollini, The Portraiture of Gaius and Lucius Caesar, New York, 19 Cf. HN 34.56: ‘The discovery of statues which throw their weight 1987, 41 (with further bibliography in n. 2): Pollini notes not only on one leg is entirely his [Polyclitus’] own’ (proprium eius est, uno crure the puzzling proportions of head to body, but also the distinctive ut insisterent signa, excogitasse…). On the signii cance of the hairstyle, coiffure (‘appropriate for a human child but not for Cupid’); he see Pollini, ‘Augustus from Prima Porta’, 266: ‘The Prima Porta nevertheless acknowledges some departure from other portrait types statue’s neatly ordered locks, whorl on the crown, and hair pattern (with further comments on e.g. 45–7, 51–3). at the nape of the neck, as well as some degree of linear emphasis 28 For the drawing (created ‘mit Lynkeusaugen und Hiobsgeduld’), on individual hairstrands, were undoubtedly ultimately inspired see Jucker, ‘Dokumentationen’, 16. Jucker offers the best overview by the Doryphoros’ (although Pollini also concedes some important of different scholarly opinions (at least until 1977). In what follows, differences). There are more detailed comments in Paul Zanker, I refer to Roman names and titles: for the important argument Studien zu den Augustus-Porträts I: Der Actium-Typus, Göttingen, 1973, 44–6; that ‘die Bildsprache der Panzerstatue des Typus Primaporta . . . Zanker, Power of Images, 98–9; and Boschung, Bildnisse, 64. in griechisches, nicht in lateinisches Vokabular aufzulösen [ist]’, 20 For bibliography, see Pollini, ‘Augustus from Prima Porta’, 265, however, see Hugo Meyer, Kunst und Geschichte: Vier Untersuchungen zur responding to e.g. Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, 226–33. antiken Historienkunst, Munich, 1983, 123–40 (quotation from 124). 21 Cf. e.g. Kähler, Augustusstatue, 12–13 (laurel); Simon, Augustus, 56, and 29 Identii cation tends to depend on the ‘Roman’ i gure identii ed beside Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, 230–3 (lance): there is a more detailed it: see below, nn. 35–9, along with the more detailed bibliography of overview and critique in Pollini, ‘Augustus from Prima Porta’, 277 n. Pollini, Studies in Augustan ‘Historical’ Reliefs, 61 n. 67. 24. 30 For the underlying Roman visual rhetoric of the ‘barbarian’, see e.g. 22 See Pollini, ‘Augustus from Prima Porta’ 266: ‘In short, the statue’s Rolf M. Schneider, ‘Friend and foe: The Orient in Rome’, in Vesta S. nineteenth-century restorer, understanding the anatomy of the body, Curtis and Sarah Stewart, eds, The Age of the Parthians: Volume 2, London, restored the missing i ngers more or less correctly.’ 2007, 50–86. On the strange appearance of this signum, see below, n. 23 On the many supposed iconographic parallels for such a gesture, see 100. e.g. Brilliant, Gesture and Rank, 67–9 (with further bibliography): ‘In the 31 The classic analysis remains Jos P. A. van der Vin, ‘The return of absence of an objective goal the gesture is addressed to the observer, Roman ensigns from Parthia’, Bulletin Antieke Beschaving, 56, 1981, incorporating the world with its soterial grandiloquence’ (68). The 117–39, discussing the Prima Porta Augustus on 120–1; cf. Thomas standard iconographic comparandum is the so-called Arringatore (from Schäfer, Spolia et Signa: Baupolitik und Reichskultur nach dem Parthererfolg Lake Trasimeno, dated to the i rst half of the i rst century BCE, and des Augustus, Göttingen, 1998. For one recent challenge to the inscribed in Etruscan script with the name of Aulus Metellus: Museo conventional ‘Parthian’ interpretation (and a subsequent re-dating of Archeologico Nazionale, inv. N.2): cf. e.g. Nigel J. Spivey and Michael the statue to after 9 BCE), see Christopher J. Simpson, ‘Where is the J. Squire, Panorama of the Classical World, second edition, London, 2008, Parthian? The Prima Porta statue of Augustus revisited’, Latomus, 64, 178–82 (with illustration on 181, Fig. 285); as Luca Giuliani rightly 2005, 82–90: to my mind, however, the political importance given to points out to me, though, the iconographic problem lies in i nding the Parthian episode leaves little room for interpretive doubt. precise parallels for this particular coni guration of the i ngers. More 32 Res Gestae 29.2: for discussion, see Alison Cooley, Res Gestae Divi Augusti: generally on the importance of bodily deportment within oratorical Text, Translation, and Commentary, Cambridge, 2009, 242–5. address, see Quintilian, Inst. Or. 11.3.65–149: Quintilian discusses the 33 Dio Cassius 54.8.2: καὶ γὰρ ἐπὶ τούτοις ἐφρόνει μέγα, λέγων ὅτι τὰ specii c signii cance of some twenty different hand gestures (Inst. Or. πρότερόν ποτε ἐν ταῖς μάχαις ἀπολόμενα ἀκονιτὶ ἐκεκόμιστο. There 11.3.92–121: cf. Peter Wüli ng, ‘Classical and modern gesticulation are numerous other Augustan poetic references to the event (among accompanying speech: An early theory of body language by them, e.g. Hor. Epod. 1.12.27–30, 1.18.55–7; Ov. Fast. 5.579–94): see Quintilian’, in Olga E. Tellegen-Couperus, ed., Quintilian and the Law: Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 156–8; Zanker, Power of Images, 185–92. The Art of Persuasion in Law and Politics, Leuven, 2003, 265–75). The standards were brought to Rome in October 19 BCE but only 24 On the cuirass type, see e.g. Richard A. Gergel, ‘Costume as deposited in the Forum Augustum’s Temple of Mars Ultor in 2 BCE. geographical indicator: Barbarians and prisoners on cuirassed 34 Cf. e.g. Franz Studniczka, ‘Zur Augustusstatue der Livia’, Mitteilungen statue breastplates’, in Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante, des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts: Römische Abteilung, 24, 1916, 27–55, eds, The World of Roman Costume, Madison, WI, 1994, 191–209, at 194; esp. 40; Emanuel Löwy, ‘Zum Augustus von Prima Porta’, Mitteilungen Jane Fejfer, Roman Portraits in Context, Berlin, 2008, 208. Cornelius des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts: Römische Abteilung, 42, 1927, 203–22, C. Vermeule’s research was published as a series of i ve articles esp. 203; Gilbert Charles Picard, Les trophées romains: contribution à (‘Hellenistic and Roman cuirassed statues’) in Berytus, 13, 1959, 1–82 l’histoire de la religion et de l’art triumphal de Rome, Paris, 1957, 279; Gross, (the Prima Porta Augustus is discussed on 34, no. 13); 15, 1964, Zur Augustusstatue, 151. Others have identii ed a more mythical i gure 95–110; 16, 1966, 49–59; 23, 1974, 5–26; 26, 1978, 85–123: there is like Mithridates I, corresponding with what they suppose to be the an abbreviated catalogue by Vermeule, Concordance of Cuirassed Statues ‘legendary’ i gure opposite (e.g. Harald Ingholt, ‘The Prima Porta in Marble and Bronze, Boston, MA, 1980. Stemmer’s catalogue discusses statue of Augustus. Part I: The interpretation of the breastplate’, the material in terms of twelve categories: see Klaus Stemmer, Archaeology, 22: 4, 1969, 176–87, esp. 181–5). Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, Untersuchungen zur Typologie, Chronologie und Ikonographie der Panzerstatuen, 210, is surely right to suppose a less specii c identity, concluding Berlin, 1978. in favour of ‘eine Art Genius des Königs’; for a similar conclusion, 25 As Christopher H. Hallett, The Roman Nude: Heroic Statuary 200 BC– AD cf. Pollini, Studies in Augustan ‘Historical’ Reliefs, 30–5 (‘The Prima Porta

i gure would therefore symbolize Parthia in general and the military from Magna Mater (cf. e.g. Kähler, Augustusstatue, 19; Gross, Zur forces of Parthia, in particular’, 35). Augustusstatue, 152 n. 30), to Venus Genetrix (cf. Frances van Keuren, 35 Cf. e.g. Brilliant, Gesture and Rank, 66–7, following (inter alios) Gross, ‘Cosmic symbolism of the Pantheon on the cuirass of the Prima Porta Zur Augustusstatue, 151–2. On Tiberius’ active role in collecting the Augustus’, in Rolf Winkes, ed., The Age of Augustus, Louvain-la-Neuve, standards, see Suet. Tib. 9.1; for the interpretive problems, though, see 1985, 177–87, esp. 180–4). Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, 207–9. 48 On their signii cance, see Zanker, Power of Images, 270–1, who suggests 36 See e.g. Walther Amelung, Die Skulpturen des Vatikanischen Museums, vol. 1, an allusion to an ‘original . . . “life-size” standing i gure’ that served Berlin, 1903, 22; Alfred von Domaszewski, ‘Der Panzerschmuck der as a ‘famous monument in Rome’ – ‘perhaps . . . one of the votives Augustusstatue von Primaporta’, in Strena Helbigiana, Leipzig, 1900, 51– dedicated by Augustus in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine’ (271); 3, esp. 52; Klaus Fittschen, ‘Zur Panzerstatue in Cherchel’, Jahrbuch des cf. Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, 221–2, and Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 162 Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 91, 1976, 175–210, esp. 204–5; Simon, (labelling the sphinxes as ‘another [sort of] “contemplative image”’). ‘Altes und Neues’, 207–9 (with further references, and supposing 49 For the rival argument that the i gure should be identii ed as Saturn, that the i gure replicates ‘ein damals bekanntes Kultbild . . ., eine see Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, 213–15. republikanische Statue auf dem Marsfeld in Rom’, 209). 50 On the importance of solar imagery to Augustan ideology at large, 37 See Ingholt, ‘The Prima Porta statue of Augustus. Part I’, 185–7. see Marianne Bergmann, Die Strahlen der Herrscher: Theomorphes Herrscherbild 38 See e.g. Frédérick L. Bastet, ‘Feldherr mit Hund auf der und politische Symbolik im Hellenismus und in der römischen Kaiserzeit, Mainz, Augustusstatue von Prima Porta’, Bulletin Antieke Beschaving, 41, 1966, 1998, esp. 123–6, discussing this statue at 124. 77–90, esp. 88–90; Louise A. Holland, ‘Aeneas-Augustus of Prima 51 Needless to say, these identii cations are by no means universally Porta’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 78, 1947, 276–84, accepted: some of the most important discussions are referenced esp. 279–80. by René Rebuffat, ‘Les divinités du jour naissant sur la cuirasse 39 For the suggestion, see Pollini, Studies in Augustan ‘Historical’ Reliefs, d’Auguste de Prima Porta: recherche sur l’illustration symbolique de 15–30, concluding of the return of the standards that ‘it is the spirit – la victoire orientale’, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, 73, 1961, 161–228. or the idea – of the event which is found represented’ (36). Compare Others have identii ed the female deity carried by ‘Dawn’ as ‘Venus’ also van der Vin, ‘Return of Roman ensigns’: ‘I believe that the (Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, 214; Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 159–60). central scene has to be interpreted rather in a symbolic way and that While I gloss over further bibliographic debates about the identities a “Roman ofi cial” and a “Parthian colleague” have been pictured as of these i gures, it is perhaps worth observing how, in one sense, representatives of their people’ (121). the astral personii cations of the cuirass’ upper section rel ect the 40 On the carnyx, and various iconographic parallels for it, see Picard, embodied divinities below (Apollo on the left and Artemis/Diana on Les trophées romains, 279–80. The attribute also appears to the right of the right): both conceptually and iconographically, it was a short step the empty cuirass on the reverse (see plate 23 and plate 24): cf. Andreas from the sun-god Apollo to ‘Sun’, as indeed from the moon-goddess Alföldi, ‘Zum Panzerschmuck der Augustusstatue von Primaporta’, Artemis-Diana to ‘Moon’. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts: Römische Abteilung, 52, 52 For some different attempts to date the statue, see Karl Friis Johansen, 1937, 48–63, esp. 50. ‘Le portrait d’Auguste de Prima Porta et sa datation’, in Karen Ascani, 41 For a bibliographic review, see Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, 211–13, ed., Studia romana in honorem Petri Krarup septuagenarii, Odense, 1976, 49–57; along with the sensible comments of Pollini, Studies in Augustan Fittschen, ‘Zur Panzerstatue in Cherchel’, 203–8; Frank Brommer, ‘Historical’ Reliefs, 37–9 (‘In the case of the dejected female barbarians ‘Zur Datierung der Augustus von Prima Porta’, in Rolf A. Stucky of the middle zone, it cannot be determined with certainty whether and Ines Jucker, eds, Eikones: Studien zum griechischen und römischen Bildnis, they have reference to specii c victories or to more generalized ones’, Bern, 1980, 78–80; Brilliant, Gesture and Rank, 66–7; Pollini, Studies in 37). Augustan ‘Historical’ Reliefs, 39–47. Others have gone still further – and 42 See e.g. Amelung, Skulpturen, 24; Domaszewski, ‘Panzerschmuck’, in my view too far – in speculating about the particular purpose 52; Simon, Augustus von Prima Porta, 9. Others have proposed Germania and context of the supposed ‘original’: most inl uential has been the (e.g. Alföldi, ‘Zum Panzerschmuck’, 48–52 – such identii cations putative association with the round base in the Sanctuary of Athena of the German Volk were a nationalist obsession in 1937; cf. Kähler, Polias at Pergamon (cf. Ingholt, ‘The Prima Porta Statue of Augustus. Augustusstatue, 17; Gross, Zur Augustusstatue, 152; Gerhard Zinserling, Part II’ – an interpretation revived by e.g. Meyer, Kunst und Geschichte, ‘Der Augustus von Primaporta als ofi ziöses Denkmal’, Acta Antiqua, 139–40; and Thomas Schäfer, ‘Der Augustus von Primaporta im 15, 1967, 327–39, at 334); others still have proposed ‘Dalmatia Wechsel der Medien’, in Hans J. Wendel, Wolfgang B. Bernard and oder Pannoia’ (e.g. Helga von Heintze, ‘Statue des Augustus von Sven Müller, eds, Wechsel des Mediums: Zur Interdependenz von Form und Inhalt, Prima Porta’, in Wolfgang Helbig, ed., Führer durch die öffentlichen Rostock, 2001, 37–58). Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom, fourth edition, Hermine Speier, 53 For the best-referenced discussion, see Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, ed., Tübingen, 1963, vol. 1, 314–19, no. 411, at 315), or else – less 216–20 (along with 220–4 on the statue’s date). convincingly – Armenia (e.g. Harald Ingholt, ‘The Prima Porta statue 54 Cf. e.g. Kähler, Augustusstatue, 14: I return to the statue’s reverse of Augustus. Part II: The location of the original’, Archaeology, 22.4, decoration in this essay’s conclusion. 1969, 304–18, at 315–17). 55 For the supposed ‘Tiberian’ identity of this i gure, see above, n. 35. 43 See e.g. Amelung, Skulpturen, 24; Domaszewski, ‘Panzerschmuck’, 52; 56 That said, there are no good reasons for supposing the statue to be Karl Woelcke, ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte des Tropaions: Der Tropaion a posthumous ‘Tiberian’ invention, as sometimes assumed: for am Panzer der Augustusstatue von Primaporta’, Bonner Jahrbücher des critique, see Fittschen, ‘Zur Panzerstatue in Cherchel’, 207–8. Rheinischen Landesmuseums in Bonn und des Vereins von Altertumsfreunden im 57 See e.g. Ulrich Köhler, ‘Statua di Cesare Augusto’, Annali dell’Instituto Rheinlande, 120, 1911, 180–91, esp. 191; Picard, Les trophées romains, 279; di Corrispondenza Archeologica, 35, 1863, 432–49: ‘Un pregio particolare Simon, Augustus von Prima Porta, 9. On the gender dynamics of these della statua si è in i ne questo, che in essa meglio che in alcun’altra si female province i gures, and their relation to those of the statue at sono conservate le tracce dei colori, le quali una volta la fregiarono’ large, see Mary Beard and John Henderson, ‘The emperor’s new (432–3, with description in n. 1); cf. Amelung, Skulpturen, 19–20; body: Ascension from Rome’, in Maria Wyke, ed., Parchments of Gender: Patrik Reuterswärd, Studien zur Polychromie der Plastik: Griechenland und Deciphering the Body in Antiquity, Oxford, 1998, 191–219, at 214–16. Rom: Untersuchungen über die Farbwirkung der Marmor- und Bronzeskulpturen, 44 For iconographic parallels, see the references cited in Simon, ‘Altes Stockholm, 1960, esp. 212–16. und Neues’, 215–16. 58 For the reconstruction (based on ‘nur sechs oder sieben Farben’: 45 See e.g. Amelung, Skulpturen, 27; von Heintze, ‘Augustus von Prima 188), see Paolo Liverani, ‘Der Augustus von Prima Porta’, in Porta’, 315; Bastet, ‘Feldherr mit Hund’, 79. Vinzenz Brinkmann und Raimund Wünsche, eds, Bunte Götter: Die 46 See e.g. Holland, ‘Aeneas-Augustus’, 280. For the parallel suggestion Farbigkeit antiker Skulptur, Munich, 2004, 186–91, along with the that this is instead Terra Mater, see Eugenie Strong, ‘Terra Mater or supporting articles by Ulderico Santamaria and Fabio Morresi, and Italia?’, Journal of Roman Studies, 27, 1937, 114–26, esp. 115. by Stefano Spada; a revised version of Liverani’s article is translated 47 See e.g. Simon, Augustus von Prima Porta, 10. Other suggestions vary in, ‘L’Augusto di Prima Porta’, in Liverani, ed., I colori del bianco:

policromia nella scultura antica, Vatican City, 2004, 234–42. Perhaps most Fejfer, Roman Portraits, 181–227; Michael J. Squire, The Art of the Body: intriguing of all is Liverani’s evidence for the ancient re-painting Antiquity and its Legacy, Oxford, 2011, esp. 125–33 (in relation to longer of the statue: just as the statue’s right arm and left leg are known to traditions of ‘Neoclassical’ nudity). Jan Bernhard Meister, Der Körper des have been repaired at some stage in antiquity, Liverani reports two Princeps: Zur Problematik eines monarchischen Körpers ohne Monarchie, Stuttgart, different colours for e.g. the tunic of the central ‘Roman’ i gure on 2012, was published while this essay was in proofs: Meister usefully the cuirass; these different colours were evidently applied at different surveys ‘senatorische Körper in der späten römischen Republik’ times. (21–107), albeit with only minimal reference to the visual and 59 See Mark Bradley, ‘The importance of colour on ancient marble archaeological record. More generally on Roman (Republican) sculpture’, Art History, 32: 3, 2009, 427–57, esp. 447–50. attitudes to Greek art, see e.g. Jerome J. Pollitt, ‘The impact of Greek 60 Zanker, Power of Images, 192 (translating Macht der Bilder, 195). art on Rome’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 108, 1978, 61 One might compare the rhetoric of the very i rst presentation of the 155–74; Erich S. Gruen, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome, statue (four days after its excavation) on 24 April 1863: Guglielmo London, 1993, esp. 84–182; Anne Kuttner, ‘Roman art during the Henzen, ‘Scavi di Prima Porta (2)’, Bullettino dell’Instituto di Corrispondenza Republic’, in Harriet I. Flower, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Roman di Archeologia, 1863, 71–8, at 77. Republic, Cambridge, 2004, 294–321; Miranda Marvin, The Language of 62 For the ‘golden age’ in Augustan art, cf. e.g. Galinsky, Augustan Culture, the Muses: The Dialogue Between Greek and Roman Sculpture, Los Angeles, CA, 106–21. For one attempt to relate this theme to painted domestic 2008. interior decoration, compare Gilles Sauron, Quis deum? L’expression 70 See Larissa Bonfante, ‘Nudity as a costume in Classical art’, American plastique des idéologies politiques et religieuses à Rome à la i n de la République et au Journal of Archaeology, 93: 4, 1989, 543–70, tracing this back to the début du Principat, Rome, 1994, 567–642, discussing the Prima Porta eighth century BCE. More generally on ‘nudity’ as ‘a form of dress’ villa at 571–3. in the Western classical tradition, see esp. John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 63 Zanker, Power of Images, 335 (translating Macht der Bilder, 329). London, 1973, 45–64; cf. also Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution 64 Zanker, Power of Images, 3 (translating Macht der Bilder, 13). (‘nakedness is a dress code which is heavily visual, and “emblematic” 65 Shelley Hales, ‘Men are Mars, women are Venus: Divine costumes in in the sense that those who adopted it were aware of, and indeed Imperial Rome’, in Liza Cleland, Mary Harlow and Lloyd Llewellyn- provocatively paraded it as a sign’, 52). Jones, eds, The Clothed Body in the Ancient World, Oxford, 2005, 131–42, 71 On the Roman severing of portrait head from body, see e.g. 132. On the underlying ways in which clothing at once dressed and Sheila Dillon, Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture: Contexts, Subjects, and Styles, uncovered discourses of Roman and Greek identity, see also Wallace- Cambridge, 2006, 11, along with the qualifying remarks on 30–6, Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, esp. 41–57. 76–98; for the so-called ‘appendage aesthetic’ of Roman portraiture, 66 Plin. HN 34.18: Togatae efi gies antiquitus ita dicabantur. placuere et nudae tenentes cf. Brilliant, Gesture and Rank, 26–31; Stewart, Statues in Roman Society, hastam ab epheborum e gymnasiis exemplaribus; quas Achilleas uocant. Graeca res nihil 47–59; Hallett, The Roman Nude, 271–307; Marvin, Language of the Muses, uelare, at contra Romana ac militaris thoraces addere. Caesar quidem dictator loricatam 225–8. The most sophisticated analysis is now Jennifer Trimble, sibi dicari in foro suo passus est. Among the most recent discussions is Women and Visual Replication in Roman Imperial Art and Culture, Cambridge, Michael Koortbojian,‘The double identity of Roman portrait statues: 2011, esp. 150–205. Costumes and their symbolism at Rome’, in Jonathan Edmondson 72 On the ideology of the toga, cf. Caroline Vout, ‘The myth of the and Alison Keith, eds, Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture, Toronto, toga: Understanding the history of Roman dress’, Greece and Rome, 43: 2008, 71–93, at 78–9. Other ancient textual testimonia concerning 2, 1996, 204–20; Glenys Davis, ‘What made the Roman toga virilis?’, cuirassed statues are discussed by Stemmer, Untersuchungen, 139–48; cf. in Cleland et al., eds, The Clothed Body, 121–30; Emma Dench, Romulus’ Lahusen, Untersuchungen, 51–3; Thomas Pékary, Das römische Kaiserbildnis Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian, Oxford, in Staat, Kult und Gesellschaft: Dargestellt anhand der Schriftquellen, Berlin, 1985, 2005, 276–9; Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, 41–57 (with 97–100. further bibliography). On the orator’s studied wearing of the toga, 67 The subject has attracted a large bibliography. Among the most see Quintilian, Inst. Or. 11.3.137– 49. important analyses are: Nikolaus Himmelmann, Ideale Nacktheit in 73 Rome, Musei Capitolini, inv. 3024: there is a good discussion and der griechischen Kunst, Berlin, 1990 (with inl uential review by Tonio bibliographic review in Hofter, ed., Kaiser Augustus, 341–2, no. 192. Hölscher: Gnomon, 65, 1993, 519–28); Andrew Stewart, Art, Desire, 74 The phenomenon that modern scholars have labelled ‘verism’ and the Body in Ancient Greece, Cambridge, 1997, 24–42; Robin Osborne, (literally ‘truthfulness’) has been much discussed: there is an ‘Sculpted men of Athens: Masculinity and power in the i eld of introductory guide (with further bibliography) in Diane E. E. vision’, in Lin Foxhall and John Salmon, eds, Thinking Men: Masculinity Kleiner, Roman Sculpture, New Haven, 1992, 31–47. Also useful and its Self-Representation in the Classical Tradition, London, 1998, 23–42; are Sheldon Nodelmann, ‘How to read a Roman Portrait’, in Eve Osborne, ‘Men without clothes: Heroic nakedness and Greek Art’, in d’Ambra, ed., Roman Art in Context, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1993, Maria Wyke, ed., Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean, Oxford, 10–26; Jeremy Tanner, ‘Portraits, power and patronage in the late 1998, 80–104; Hallett, The Roman Nude, 5–60; Jeffrey M. Hurwit, ‘The Roman Republic’, Journal of Roman Studies, 90, 2000, 18–50; and Peter problem with Dexileos: Heroic and other nudities in Greek art’, Stewart, The Social History of Roman Art, Cambridge, 2008, 77–107. On American Journal of Archaeology, 111: 1, 2009, 35–60. For a more nuanced the ideological underpinnings of Roman republican portraits more interpretation of how this phenomenon came about – noting, along generally, the best discussion remains Luca Giuliani, Bildnis und the way, important variables of geography, chronology and different Botschaft: Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Bildniskunst der römischen Republik, visual contexts – see now Jens Daehner, ‘Grenzen der Nacktheit: Frankfurt am Main, 1986. Studien zum nackten männlichen Körper in der griechischen Plastik 75 Cf. e.g. Brilliant, Roman Art: ‘It would seem, therefore, that the des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen sculptor had created the head as the principal visual clue for the Instituts, 120, 2005, 155–300: Daehner concludes that ‘Nacktheit nicht purposes of identii cation, set into a well-orchestrated environment die Voraussetzung des männlichen Körpers in der Plastik, sondern similar in conception, if not in intent, to the scenic l ats with cut-outs eine Option seiner Inszenierung [ist]’ (296). for faces, popular among resort photographers in the twentieth 68 Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, 51–2 (citing e.g. Plut. century’ (166). As if to reinforce the point, it is worth noting that Cato Mai. 20.5 and Cic. Tusc. 4.70). Following Wallace-Hadrill, my the head of this particular image, though ancient, is a modern own view is that ‘at least some of the shock of nudity remained in restoration. A similar sort of segregation can be seen on the Prima the Roman mind in the face of any artistic conventions’ (54): for Porta Augustus, where the upper outline of the cuirass quite literally all the talk of Pliny and others, moreover, we have to be wary of divides the body from the lower neck. constructing too ‘homogeneous and uncontroversial [a model of 76 See Hallett, The Roman Nude, 312–14. Roman] cultural identity’ (55). 77 For the statue (= Rome: Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo 69 See Hallett, The Roman Nude, esp. 61–101; cf. also Tom Stevenson, alle Terme, inv. 10.65.13), see Hallett, The Roman Nude, 1–2, 120–1. As ‘The problem with nude honorii c statuary and portraits in Late Kleiner, Roman Sculpture, writes, ‘the treatment of the body is thus in Republican and Augustan Rome’, Greece and Rome, 45: 1, 1998, 45–69; opposition to that of the face that portrays an older man with lined

forehead, bags under his eyes, prominent crow’s-feet, creased cheeks Pacis, see e.g. Paul Rehak, Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern and neck, and sagging jowels’ (36). Campus Martius, ed. John G. Younger, Madison, WI, 2006, 113–15 78 For the historiography, see Hallett, The Roman Nude, 1–4, 271–307. (with plate 37). The best recent discussion of such images is Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s 90 For bibliography, see above, nn. 6, 24, as well as Stemmer, Cultural Revolution, 38–70: ‘Granted that there was a well-established Untersuchungen, who persuasively demonstrates that the cuirassed Roman Republican convention of representing Roman generals statue was not a ‘geläui ge Form der repräsentativen Ehrenstatue’ naked, can we safely infer that this must have been acceptable, any until the late Republic (142). more than inferring, granted that Cicero voices standard Roman 91 Cf. Hallett, The Roman Nude, 292–3, citing e.g. Liv. 45.39.17, Cic. Verr. prejudices against such nudity, that such statues must have been 2.5.3–5, 2.5.32 and de Or. 2.194–5. disturbing or discordant?’ (54). 92 See Suet. Aug. 52, with discussion by Hallett, The Roman Nude, 100. On 79 For a good overview (with further bibliography) see Hallett, The the ‘real-life’ physical appearance of Augustus, see Boschung, Bildnisse, Roman Nude, 159–222, esp. 160–3 on Julio-Claudian hip-mantle 93–6: Suet. Aug. 79.2 explicitly comments on Augustus’ ‘shortness of images. Hallett counts thirty-nine such images of Julio-Claudian stature’ (staturam breuem). emperors and their families, and from across the empire, of 93 For the phrase, see Rhet. ad Her. 4.9: the classic discussion is by which between nine and i fteen portray Augustus (161 n. 3). The Felix Preisshofen and Paul Zanker, ‘Rel ex einer eklektischen classic analysis of different sorts of imperial statue types and their Kunstanschauung beim Auctor Ad Herennium’, Dialoghi di Archeologia, 4/5, chronological and geographical spread is Niemeyer, Studien, esp. 1970/1, 100–19, arguing that ‘eklektisches Bilden seit dem späteren 38–64, supplemented by the more discursive analysis of Fejfer, Roman Hellenismus bewusst als soches rel ektiert und goutiert wurde’ (110). Portraits, 393–404; cf. also Meister, Der Körper des Princeps, esp. 192–221. 94 At the same time, as Niemeyer, Studien, 51, rightly points out, the 80 Cf. e.g. Charles B. Rose, Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the military cuirass of the Prima Porta Augustus is in another sense Julio-Claudian Period, Cambridge, 1997, 74–5. highly unbelievable: ‘Der reich mit i gürlichem Relief verzierte 81 For a more detailed survey, see Hallett, The Roman Nude, 159–222, Metallpanzer aber, wie ihn die Statue des Augustus von Prima Porta especially 160–3 on Julio-Claudian hip-mantle images; cf. Niemeyer, aufweist, läßt sich außerhalb der Gattung der Panzerstatuen selbst Studien, 55–9, 101–4 (although I do not always agree with Niemeyer’s nicht belegen und ist sicherlich nie getragen worden’. chronology). Plate 15 (= Arles: Musée de l’Arles et de la Provence 95 Cf. Gergel, ‘Costume as geographical indicator’, 191: ‘Although antiques, inv. FAN 92.00.215/2679) is from the Roman theatre at several rare examples, such as the Augustus of Prima Porta, show the Arles: see Boschung, Bildnisse, 141–2, no. 70. paludamentum around the hips, the garment is usually worn draped 82 See Hallett, The Roman Nude, 163–72, 256–8; cf. Bergmann, Die over the upper torso and fastened at either the left or right shoulder Strahlen der Herrscher, esp. 103–7. On the Gemma Augustea (= Vienna: by means of a i bula, or pin.’ Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. IX.a.79), which most likely dates to 96 Plate 20 = Istanbul: Arkeoloji Müzeleri Müdürlüg˘ü (inv. 709): for after Augustus’ death, see Wolf-Rüdiger Megow, Kameen von Augustus discussion, see Andrew Stewart, Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image and bis Alexander Severus, Berlin, 1987, 155–63, as well as Tonio Hölscher’s Hellenistic Politics, Berkeley, CA, 1993, 334–6 (with bibliography at well-referenced review in Hofter, ed., Kaiser Augustus, 371–3, no. 204. 427). On the Prima Porta Augustus’ combination of cuirass and 83 For discussion of the lost statue, see Hallett, The Roman Nude, 97–9, hip-mantle, compare Maggi, ‘Lo Hüftmanteltypus’, 66: Maggi 157–8, and above all Markus Sehlmeyer, Stadtrömische Ehrenstatuen der likewise concludes of this ‘iconograi camante e semanticamente’ republikanischen Zeit, Stuttgart, 1999, 255–9 (labelling this ‘der erste new combination of attributes that it parades Augustus’ military dei nitive Beleg für eine nackte Ehrenstatue in Rom’, 259, and credentials while self-consciously incorporating ‘una componente adding that, by showing him naked, this statue portrayed Octavian che sembra ovvio pensare proiettata nella sfera del trascendente, ‘wie einen hellenistischen Herrscher’, 260); for the numismatic del divino’. In the case of the Prima Porta statue, we know that the evidence, see C. H. V. Sutherland, Roman Imperial Coinage, I: From 31 BC to paludamentum was painted a kingly shade of scarlet, developing this AD 69, revised edition, London, 1984, 60, no. 271, along with Jean- royal sort of association (see Liverani, ‘Der Augustus von Prima Baptiste Giard, Catalogue des monnaies de l’empire romain: I Augustus, second Porta’, 191: ‘eines der deutlichsten Zeichen des Status des Augustus’). edition, Paris, 1988, 69–70, nos 68–72. The statue was apparently On the Roman hip-mantle, and its harking back to Hellenistic still standing in the time of Vespasian: cf. Bergmann, Die Strahlen der iconographic traditions, cf. Hallett, The Roman Nude, 120–32, esp. Herrscher, 110–11 n. 683. More generally on the ideology of such nude 123–7. portraits, see Zanker, Power of Images, 37–43, surveying numerous nude 97 See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. Gertrude E. images of Octavian, in the late 40s and 30s BCE, and discussing plate M. Anscombe, third edition, Oxford, 1972, 193–229, with excellent 17 at 41–2. discussion by Mitchell, Picture Theory, 45–57. 84 See Zanker, Power of Images, 79–100; Hallett, The Roman Nude, 160, 172–5; 98 See Richard Wollheim, Art and its Objects, second edition, Cambridge, Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 164–79. 1980, esp. 205–26; Wollheim, Painting as an Art, Princeton, NJ, 1987, 85 Cf. Hallett, The Roman Nude, 260. Like others, Hallett reads a poignant 46–77; Wollheim, ‘On pictorial representation’, Journal of Aesthetics and reference to this decision in Augustus’ i rst-person, monumental list Art Criticism, 56, 1998, 217–26. of ‘things done’ (Res Gestae): Augustus boasts of having removed and 99 See Jas´ Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the melted down eighty silver statues of himself ‘standing, on horseback, Pagan World to Christianity, Cambridge, 1995, 168: ‘Just as the cuirass or in chariots’, turning them into gold gifts offered to Apollo (Res bears a signum – a standard which represents Rome triumphant – Gestae, 24). so the whole image stands as a signum, a sign linking the imperial 86 For further discussions of the statue (= Rome, Museo Nazionale bearer and redeemer of standards with us.’ On the etymology and Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, inv. 56230), see Hofter, ed., meanings, see OLD s.v. signum 10 (‘a military ensign or standard’), and Kaiser Augustus, 323–4, no. 168; cf. Fejfer, Roman Portraits, 186, 397–9; 12 (‘a sculpted i gure, commonly of a deity, statue, image; a i gure Niemeyer, Studien, 40–7. Contrary to common belief, the motif long engraved, embroidered, etc., in relief; a i gure in a painting’). For predates Augustus’ title of pontifex maximus (‘high priest’) in 12 BCE, as further discussion on the terminology, cf. Stewart, Statues in Roman the list in Boschung, Bildnisse, 6 n. 57 testii es. Society, 20–8. 87 See Stemmer, Untersuchungen, 131–48; Vermeule, ‘Hellenistic and 100 On the way in which the wings of the eagle play visually with the linea Roman cuirassed statues’ [1=1959], 5–6; R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Royal alba of the chest, see McEwan, Vitruvius, 257. Whatever we make of this Portraits, Oxford, 1988, 32–3. central signum, we must acknowledge its ‘merkwürdige Mischung aus 88 On the cuirassed image of Julius Caesar, see Stemmer, Untersuchungen, aquila und signum’ (Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, 210; cf. Pollini, Studies in 144–5, along with Sehlmeyer, Stadtrömische Ehrenstatuen, 230–1; for Augustan ‘Historical’ Reliefs, 48–9). other images, cf. Hallett, The Roman Nude, 156–8. 101 On such ‘hybrid’ monstra as a particular obsession of Augustan art and 89 See Zanker, Power of Images, 195–201; Paul Zanker, Forum Augustum: poetry, see the essays in Philip Hardie, ed., Paradox and the Marvellous in Das Bildprogramm, Tübingen, 1968, 18–19. For discussion of a related Augustan Literature and Culture, Oxford, 2009. cuirassed image of Mars (complete with paludamentum) on the Ara 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 Augustus Caesar, through whom, as through the golden milestone barbarian captive above Apollo (see plate 11): both head and body are and the Prima Porta statue, all expressions of unity were initially carved in proi le, but with sharp differentiation between inscribed formulated.’ shallow surface (on the i gure’s left-hand side) and the projecting 111 Suet. Aug. 80: corpore traditur maculoso dispersis per pectus atque aluum genetiuis right-hand limbs. notis in modum et ordinem ac numerum stellarum caelestis ursae . . . 103 See Simon, ‘Altes und Neues’, 226–33. There are nonetheless 112 On Aen. 8.626–728, Philip Hardie, Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium, problems with the reconstruction: see above, n. 20. Oxford, 1986, esp. 337–76, remains foundational; compare also 104 Cf. Liverani, ‘Der Augustus von Prima Porta’, 190: ‘Von großem Michael Putnam, Virgil’s Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid, New Haven, Interesse ist schließlich das Ergebnis, dass die Haut des Augustus, des 1998, 119–88 (with more detailed bibliography at 234 n. 1). For the Eros und der Personen auf dem Panzer sowie der Grund des Panzers relationship between the cuirass of the Prima Porta Augustus and the selbst nie bemalt und im Originalton des Marmors belassen waren.’ Virgilian shield, see especially Sauron, Quis Deum?, 521–3, and Elsner, For Liverani, it is the high quality of the marble that explains this Art and the Roman Viewer, 164–6. feature. But it is worth noting how Liverani independently connects 113 In this connection, one might cite a still older epic paradigm for this issue of colour to the (non-)believability of the cuirass: ‘Nur both the lower ‘earthly’ i gure and the celestial personii cations in die dekorativen Details waren bemalt und sollten, soweit nach the upper part of the cuirass: it is with the depiction of the ‘Earth’, den technischen Mitteln der Zeit möglich, realistisch erscheinen. as well as that of the ‘heavens’, ‘the sea’ and ‘the indefatigable sun Anderseits ist es gerade der farbliche Realismus der Reliefs, der den and the full moon’ that the Homeric description of Achilles’ shield Panzer als Ganzes unrealistich erscheinen lässt’ (191). begins at Iliad 18.483–4. I return elsewhere to the ‘orderings’ of the 105 Tonio Hölscher captures the allegorical point when he writes: ‘Der Virgilian shield ecphrasis, and to the signii cance of its ‘middle’ in gedemütige Osten und die Repräsentanten des bezwungen Westens particular: Michael J. Squire, ‘The ordo of rhetoric and the rhetoric of fügen sich zu einem Schaubild der römischen Weltherrschaft ordo’, in Jas´ Elsner and Michel Mayer, eds, Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture, zusammen’ (in Hofter, ed., Kaiser Augustus, 387). Cambridge, forthcoming. 106 The Greek and Roman art of personii cation – and its implications 114 See Aen. 8.731, on Aeneas ‘raising to his shoulder the fame and for ancient ‘allegorical’ understandings of images – remains a fortunes of his descendants’ (attollens umero famamque et fata nepotum): for conspicuously under-theorized area of Classical archaeological discussion, see Putnam, Virgil’s Epic Designs, 152–4. research: Emma Stafford, Worshipping Virtues: Personii cation and the Divine 115 Translations of some of the most important texts are collected in in Ancient Greece, London, 2005, offers a useful introduction to the Jerome J. Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents, Cambridge, ideological stakes in the context of Greek literary texts; on the visual 1990, 75–9; more thorough (though by no means exhaustive) is arts specii cally, see chapters 14–17 of Emma Stafford and Judith Johannes Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Herrin, eds, Personii cation in the Greek World: From Antiquity to Byzantium, Künste bei den Griechen, Leipzig, 1868, 166–75, nos 929–77. For the London, 2005, as well as Jessica Hughes’ recent intervention in this Roman rhetorical recourse to Polyclitus, see Christoff Neumeister, journal (‘Personii cations and the ancient viewer: The case of the ‘Polyklet in der römischen Literatur’, in Beck et al., eds, Polyklet, 428– Hadrianeum “Nations”’, Art History, 32: 1, 2009, 1–20); cf. also Amy C. 49. Among the most insightful discussions are Sauron, Quis Deum?, Smith, ‘Personii cation: Not just a symbolic mode’, in Tyler Jo Smith 523–4; Maderna-Lauter, ‘Polyklet in hellenistischer und römischer and Dimitris Plantzos, eds, A Companion to Greek Art, Malden, MA, 2012, Zeit’; Pollini, ‘Augustus from Prima Porta’, 267–76; Galinsky, Augustan vol. 2, 440–55. Culture, 25; McEwan, Vitruvius, 264–72; and Hölscher, Language of Images, 107 Robin Osborne, The History Written on the Classical Greek Body, Cambridge, 93. 2011, esp. 102–5 (quotations from 104); cf. also Meister, Der Körper des 116 For discussion, see Neumeister, ‘Polyklet in der römischen Literatur’, Princeps, 153–92, concerning ‘den Körper des Princeps als Metapher 438–9. On the complex connotations of the adjectives sanctus and für das Gemeinwesen’ in Rome. grauis, see Jerome J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History 108 For the metaphor, see Jean Béranger, Recherches sur l’aspect idéologique du and Terminology, New Haven, 1974, esp. 234–6, 381–2, 422–3. principat, Basel, 1953, 218–52, along with Dietmar Kienast, Augustus, 117 For discussions, see (inter alios) Andrew Stewart, ‘The canon of Princeps und Monarch, Darmstadt, 1982, 416–17 n. 236; Kienast, ‘Corpus Polyclitus: A question of evidence’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 98, 1978, imperii: Überlegungen zum Reichsgedanken der Römer’, in Gerhard 122–31; Stewart, Art, Desire and the Body, 86–97; Tanner, The Invention of Art Wirth et al., eds, Romanitas-Christianitas: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte History in Ancient Greece, 117–21 (with more detailed bibliography). und Literatur der römischen Kaiserzeit. Johannes Straub zum 70. Geburtstag, 118 Plin. HN 34.55: fecit et quem canona artii ces uocant liniamenta artis ex eo petentes Berlin, 1982, 1–17. McEwan, Vitruvius, 275–98, also discusses the ueluti a lege quadam, solusque hominum artem ipsam fecisse artis opere iudicatur. concept in connection with Vitruvius’ On Architecture, ending with a 119 On Augustus’ choice of name, see Zanker, Power of Images, 98–100. comparison with the Prima Porta Augustus: ‘To encase imperium in Florus declares that the name was chosen over that of ‘Romulus’ a stony skin as permanent and impermeable as that of the cuirassed because it ‘seemed more sacred and reverent . . . so that [Augustus] statue of Augustus from Prima Porta: that, ultimately, is the point of might be made holy by the name itself and by the title’ (sanctius et assembling and ordering knowledge Vitruvius calls architectura into a reuerentius uisum est nomen Augusti, ut . . . ipso nomine et titulo consecraretur, complete corpus’ (298). 2.34.66); according to Cassius Dio, moreover, the name was selected 109 Ovid, Trist. 2.231–2. Cf. Béranger, Recherches, 224: ‘Dans les termes de because it implied ‘something more than what is human’ (ὡς καὶ cette comparison, corpus garde le sens proper. Mais le mot habillait πλεῖόν τι ἢ κατὰ ἀνθρώπους, 53.16.7). si bien l’idée que celle-ci évoquait cella-là, et vice versa. Ainsi naît 120 On the whole question of ‘divine assimilation’ in the early principate, la métaphore’; cf. Kienast, ‘Corpus imperii’, 10–11. More generally on see e.g. John Pollini, ‘Man or god: Divine assimilation and imitation the shifting ideology of imperium in the Augustan period, see John in the late Republic and early principate’, in Kurt A. Raal aub and S. Richardson, ‘Imperium Romanum: Empire and the language Mark Toher, eds, Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus of power’, Journal of Roman Studies, 81, 1991, 1–9, esp. 7: Richardson and his Principate, Berkeley, CA, 334–357. On the staged ‘ambiguities’ charts a change from ‘the already existing senses of imperium meaning of Augustus’ imperial status, see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Civilis a “power” as well as the power of a magistrate . . . [to] the use of princeps: Between citizen and king’, Journal of Roman Studies, 72, 1982, imperium to describe the corporate power of the Roman state’ (citing 32–48, along with e.g. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer, 168–72 (again in e.g. Tac. Ann. 11.61 and Hist. 1.16). connection with the Prima Porta statue). 110 Florus 2.14.5–6. Other earlier parallels are cited by Béranger, 121 Still fundamental on ‘divine emperors or the symbolic unity of the Recherches, 228, among them Suet. Aug. 48, on how Augustus Roman Empire’ is Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves, Cambridge, ‘never failed to treat all the parts with consideration as limbs and 1978, 197–242. components of his empire’ (nec aliter uniuersos quam membra partisque imperii 122 For an excellent discussion, see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer, 161–72, curae habuit). As McEwan, Vitruvius, 275–6 concludes, ‘the notion of responding to e.g. Simon R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial what we call the Roman Empire – a spatial unit with a centre, Rome, Cult in Asia Minor, Cambridge, 1984, 170–206, esp. 185–6 (‘the divine and a clearly marked limit or periphery – i rst took shape under aspects of the [Prima Porta] statue are merely hints of divinity and

do not come into direct conl ict with ofi cial policy’, 186). Cf. also 133 Among numerous other examples, one might cite the statue of Pollini, ‘Augustus from Prima Porta’, 280 n. 69 (on the question of Marcus Holconius Rufus from Pompeii (Naples, Museo Nazionale implied mortality/divinity): ‘having it both ways is in fact a hallmark Archeologico, inv. 6233: cf. John H. D’Arms, ‘Pompei and Rome in of Augustan political imagery.’ the Augustan age and beyond: The eminence of Gens Holconia’, in 123 The detail is most often cited as evidence that the statue is a Robert I. Curtis, ed., Studia Pompeiana and Classica in Honor of Wilhelmina F. posthumous imitation of a bronze original where Augustus did wear Jashemski, New Rochelle, 1988, 51–68). As Fejfer, Roman Portraits, 212, boots: cf. e.g. Gross, Zur Augustusstatue, 166–7. On the interpretive admits, ‘the habit [of clothing such i gures with cuirasses] was no stakes, see Pollini, Studies in Augustan ‘Historical’ Reliefs, 41–2, and Simon, doubt sparked by imperial representation’. ‘Altes und Neues’, 218–19. 134 See Richard T. Neer, ‘The lion’s eye: Imitation and uncertainty in 124 For the genealogical claims – at least as visually materialized – see Attic red-i gure’, Representations, 51, 1995, 118–53, developed in Neer, Zanker, Power of Images, 167–238. Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting, Cambridge, 2002, esp. 9–86 125 For bibliography, see above, n. 27. (quotation from 85). 126 On such spolia opima, see Ida Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, 135 Plate 16 = Berlin: Antikensammlung Sk. 1752: for discussions, see and Representations in the Roman Triumphal Procession, Oxford, 2009, esp. e.g. Martin Robertson, A History of Greek Art, vol. 1, Cambridge, 1975, 19–30 (with further references). Scholars have typically tried to 90–1; John Boardman, Greek Sculpture: The Archaic Period. A Handbook, identify the precise conquest ‘symbolized’ by this tropaeum rather than London, 1978, 88; Peter Bol et al., Die Geschichte der antiken Bildhauerkunst: consider its ontological signii cance: most associate it with conquests I, Frühgriechische Plastik, vol. 1, Mainz, 2002, 265, 324, Abb. 351a–d. in Gaul (e.g Woelcke, ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte des Tropaions’, 180– More generally on the Greek i gurative games of representing bodily 91; Picard, Les trophées romains, 279; cf. Ingholt, ‘The Prima Porta Statue armour, see Lissarrague, ‘Corps et armes’. of Augustus. Part II’, 312) or Dalmatia (e.g. Pollini, Studies in Augustan 136 For an overview, see especially Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 370–5 on ‘Historical’ Reliefs, 69 n. 114a), although others suggest a broader Celtic the Augustan ‘allowance for contradictions’, most starkly in the Aeneid. signii cance (e.g. Gross, Zur Augustusstatue, 153; Simon, Der Augustus The essays in Hardie, ed., Paradox and the Marvellous, now offer a wide- von Prima Porta, 9). Whatever else we make of the feature, Ingholt is ranging analysis of the theme, and across a range of interdisciplinary surely right to emphasize its peculiarity as breastplate device: ‘the perspectives. Prima Porta statue is the only known cuirassed statue on which the 137 In this sense, the statue’s epic pretensions i nd their playful back is decorated’, and ‘the sculptor must have had a very important counterpoint in the combined visual and verbal games of the so- reason for breaking this otherwise universally accepted practice’ called Tabulae Iliacae, an assemblage of early Imperial miniature marble (312, pace e.g. Meyer, Kunst und Geschichte, 137–9); for this reason, the reliefs which overtly toyed with the multivalence of both image and interpretation of the back as ‘nichts als Füllung einer störenden Leere’ text (and in markedly politicized ways): for my own interpretations, (Kähler, Augustusstatue, 14) strikes me as unsustainable. see Michael J. Squire, The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae 127 McEwan, Vitruvius, 266: ‘It is almost to stress the self-conscious Iliacae, Oxford, 2011. deliberation with which the Polykleitan armor has been put on . . . 138 Zanker, Power of Images, 3 (translating Macht der Bilder, 13). that, on the back of the cuirass . . . the statue’s sculptor has carved a 139 Quotations from Zanker, Power of Images, 335, 338, 335 (= Macht der trophy – another much smaller cuirass, emptied of its vanquished Bilder, 329, 332, 329). owner.’ 140 Cf. Verity Platt, ‘Where the wild things are: Locating the marvellous 128 See e.g. Gergel, ‘Costume as geographical indicator’, 195 (associating in Augustan wall-painting’, in Hardie, ed., Paradox and the Marvellous, it with Victory); cf. Kähler, Augustusstatue, 14. 41–74: ‘When traditional mechanisms of power had literally 129 Cf. e.g. Fejfer, Roman Portraits, 401: ‘it is . . . a paradox that the most been supplanted, it is not surprising to i nd that conventional famous cuirassed statue to have survived is that of Augustus from representational categories were being radically rethought’ (74). Prima Porta’, and compare e.g. Rose, Dynastic Commemoration, 74, with 141 The key discussion of the knowing and deliberate ambiguities of the list of other examples at 254 n. 25. Augustan political self-dei nition remains Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, 130 Cf. Vermeule, ‘Hellenistic and Roman cuirassed statues’ [1 =1959], ‘Rome’s cultural revolution’, Journal of Roman Studies, 79, 1989, 157–64: 34–5, nos 13–20. Vermeule also discusses a later statue excavated Wallace-Hadrill responds to Zanker’s fundamental argument that from the Forum of Augustus, even attributing this to the same Augustus simply ‘purged’ the artistic ambiguities of the late Republic, sculptor as that of the Prima Porta (‘Hellenistic and Roman cuirassed resulting in a new, ‘propagandistic’ ‘ritual of power’ (see e.g. Zanker, statues’ [5 = 1978], 90, no. 13a). In addition, there are a host of Julio- Power of Images, esp. 1–4); cf. Stevenson, ‘The problem with nude Claudian examples: Vermeule, ‘Hellenistic and Roman cuirassed honorii c statuary’, esp. 57–66. Also important is Jas´ Elsner, ‘Cult and statues’ [1=1959], 35–44, nos 21–77 (and compare e.g. Emilio Marin sculpture: Sacrii ce in the Ara Pacis Augustae’, Journal of Roman Studies, and Michael J. Vickers, The Rise and Fall of an Imperial Shrine: Roman Sculpture 81, 1991, 50–61, and Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer, esp. 192–210. from the Augusteum at Narona, Split, 2004, 148–50, on a cuirassed statue 142 Cf. Platt, ‘Where the wild things are’, discussing (inter alia) Hor. AP from the Augusteum at Narona). 1–23 and Vitr. 7.5 on 51–7, and relating these testimonia to the monstra 131 For the parallels, see Pollini, ‘Augustus from Prima Porta’, of contemporary wall paintings: ‘incursions of the monstrous, 265–6 (with further bibliography). Cf. Stemmer, Untersuchungen, hybrid, and fantastical not only signify bad poetry, but also threaten 145, concluding ‘daß die Darstellung im Panzer zu dieser Zeit the seemingly “natural” unity of form and meaning that Horace’s bereits verbreiteter gewesen sein muß als es der willkürliche poetry ascribes to the Augustan social and political order’ (53). Erhaltungszustand vortäuscht’, and that there must have been ‘andere 143 Platt, ‘Where the wild things are’, 71–4, quotation from 72. The best Panzerstatuen des Augustus bzw. Octavian’. discussion of the ‘ambivalences and contradictions’ of the Ara Pacis 132 On the statue, see Fittschen, ‘Zur Panzerstatue in Cherchel’, imagery is Elsner, ‘Cult and sculpture’, 61: ‘If the Ara Pacis, a prime convincingly arguing that iconographic and stylistic elements monument located in the great new imperial complex in the Campus ‘weisen also auf die Entstehung der Statue in Cherchel noch in Martius . . . , could evoke ambiguity and uncertainty even during augusteischer Zeit’ (202), and supposing a date between 2 BCE and the sacrii cial ritual for which it had been designed, can we be sure 14 CE; cf. Stemmer, Untersuchungen, 10–12, no. 1.5, and Vermeule, that no other Augustan monuments might work in a similar way? ‘Hellenistic and Roman cuirassed statues’ [1=1959], 55, no. 179, If the imagery of the Ara Pacis could be read in more than one way along with van Keuren, ‘Cosmic symbolism’, 185. Zanker, Power of by different viewers, how can we decide which was most normal in Images, 223, goes still further, concluding that ‘since . . . the decorative Roman culture?’ program of the cuirass is closely related to that of the Augustus from 144 Cf. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer, 10: ‘What changed was the gradual Prima Porta, we may suspect that the Cherchel statue is one of several elimination of the self-ironising (even “post-modernist”) elements copies of a major monument created in Rome’. Subsequent imperial in Roman imagery in favour of a different kind of religious frame of cuirassed statues clearly looked back to the statue type, not least cultural interpretation – a frame overwhelmingly scriptural.’ in the late Flavian and Domitianic period (cf. Geyer, ‘Costume as geographical indicator’, 203).