Capitoline Wolf

c. 500 BCE

Etruscan

Bronze

Height: 2' 9"

--Represents the founders of Rome (Romulus and Remus) while being suckled by a she-wolf after being sent down the Tiber by their uncle, and Etruscan king

--Sons of the god of war, Mars, and Rhea Sylvia, niece to the Etruscan king

--April 21, 763 BCE = day Rome is "born" (Romulus kills Remus)

Head of Patrician

c. 75-50 BCE

Roman Republican

Marble

--Patrician = wealthy, ruling class; only patricians can be part of the senate

--Done with "verism" technique (also known as "warts and all")

--No idealization in this portrait

--Common in Roman Republic; senators wish to exaggerate their self-sacrifice to appeal to rest of society (working for "greater good")

So-Called Brutus

c. 300 BCE

Etruscan (Estruscans started the "veristic style"

--Carved a couple hundred years before Brutus was actually alive, so not really Brutus

Roman Patrician with Two Busts

c. 50 BCE

Roman Republican

More portraits

--Roman portraits representing the ancestry of any given family were displayed in the "vestibule" (foyer) of the home

--Lineage was very important in Ancient Rome; portraits tell who you are and where you come from

--This portrait show a man "processing" with two of his family busts (annual processions done to hold up the perception of the portraits as being "living images" of the deceased)

Pompey the Great

c. 50 BCE

Roman Republican

--Pompey was a general who lived from 106 BCE - 48 BCE

--Portrait shoes his eyebrows raised to indicate the "virtue of alertness" (alluding to his status as general)

--Compares Pompey to Alexander the Great just by his haircut (not the "Caesar" like everyone else at the time)

--Tuft of hair (associated with Alexander the Great) is called an "anastole"

--Notes beginning of a movement away from the self-sacrifice tradition

Augustus of Primaporta

c. 15 CE

Roman, Imperial Period

Marble (copy of bronze original)

Height: 6' 8"

From house of Livia (Augustus's wife) in Primaporta

--Born 63 BCE as Gaius Octavius; great-nephew of Caesar, but adopted by Caesar and named his heir (called "divi filius", "son of god" when Caesar is deified postmortem)

--Support: wouldn't be on original statue because it was bronze; shows dolphin (represents Battle of Actium) with Cupid on top

--Cupid is the son of Venus, so goes along with Augustus's claim of descent from the goddess

--Since there was so much information for this piece, I'm making separate cards for most of the points on this slide--

Battle of Actium

31 BCE

--Show of power against Marc Antony and Cleopatra (same date marks end of Egyptian Empire)

--This battle gives Octavius full control of Roman Empire

--27 BCE: Senate gives Octavius the name "Augustus"; this date marks the end of the Roman Republic/beginning of the Roman Empire

Parthians

--Group who stole the Roman Standards in 53 BCE

--Prophesized that retrieving standards would bring peace to Rome

--Augustus gets them back in 20 BCE through diplomacy (big deal because he had the strongest army in history; shows what kind of ruler his was)

--Diplomatic skills represented in portrait through "Ad locution", the "gesture of oration" (hand upraised as if speaking to a crowd)

Pax Romana

--Means "Roman peace"

--Period after Augustus retrieved the Roman Standards (foretold by the Cumaean Sibyll)

Augusus's Cuirass (formal breastplate)

--Portrays prophecy, prophecy's fulfillment, and product of that fulfillment--

--Sphinxes at top: allusion to Cumaean Sibyll and her prophecy about the standards/Pax Romana

--On chest: Caelus (god of the sky) flanked by Helios (sun) and Luna (moon)

--Soldiers with upraised hands standing with she-wolf (shows they are Roman soldiers)

--Parthian holding Roman Standard

--Tellus (Earth goddess) holding cornucopia (horn of plenty) represents period of prosperity

Aule Metele

1st Century BCE

Etruscan Period

Bronze

--"Orator type"

--Emphasis is on the gesture (Ad locutio = "gesture of oration")

--Why? Because it signifies Roman victory over Parthians through DIPLOMACY, not war

--Important because it took 2,000 years for an army as great as Ancient Rome's to come about and they chose to utilize mental strength rather than physical