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A Bronze Bust of a Iulio-Claudian Prince (? Caligula) in the Museum of Colchester; With a Note on the Symbolism of the Globe in Imperial Portraiture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

The bronze bust reproduced in fig. I and on plates I and II, from photographs supplied by the kindness of Mr. Wright, director of the Colchester Museum, was found along with two others, a statuette of Iupiter and a fine mask of Silenus, at Colchester in October, 1845. All three bronzes were described by the late Sir Charles Newton, then quite a young man, in a letter to Sir Henry Ellis. Newton's account of the find is as follows:

The three bronzes … were discovered on the line of railway now running between Colchester and Ipswich, about a mile to the east of the Colchester terminus and half a mile west of the town. They were dug up at the depth of about five feet from the surface; portions of red pottery, bronze and lead, were found near them, and, at a distance of about six feet, a human skull and some horses' teeth. The spot presented no indications of having been a place of dwelling or of sepulture, but two or three hundred yards nearer the terminus is a small rising ground, in cutting through which the railway labourers are said to have found urns containing bones.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © S. Arthur Strong1916. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 27 note 1 Archaelogia, xxxi (1846), pp. 443ft. with reproductions of the pieces in line engraving on plates xiii–xvi.

page 27 note 2 The head of Silenus is bearded, with pointed ears and wreath of ivy-leaves. On the top of the head is a suspension ring. It is a fine piece of bronze-work which may be attributed to the Augustan age, and is well worth publishing anew from good photographs.

page 28 note 1 The measurements are: bust alone, cm. 12·8; bust and globe, cm. 17·0; inlaid pedestal, cm. 7·3; total height, cm. 24·3.

page 28 note 2 Cat. Bronzes, 825, pl. xxiv; Walters, H. B., Select Bronzes in British Museum (1915), pl. xlviiiGoogle Scholar. The figure was found in 1732 in a cave at Pierre-en-Louiset, near Lyons.

page 28 note 3 Recueil, i, pl. lxv, I. From the description of Caylus, who mentions the marks of attachment of a suspension ring which had been smoothed away by the restorer, this head probably served as a weight; cf. the head of Claudius in the British Museum (Cat. Bronzes, 832), also used as a weight as the twisted handle shows. I am quite unable to trace the Caylus head, either in Chabouillet's or Babelon's Cat. of the Bronzes of the Bibl. Nationale to which the Caylus collections mainly passed, or elsewhere. Mrs. Esdaile points out to me that the outline of the bust, with the irregular breakage on its left side, is the same as in the bronze bust of the Musée Royal, published by Visconti-Mongez, vol. ii, pl. 25, 1, 2, which is surmised by Bernoulli (Caligula, 47) to be identical with the head now in Turin. But the latter is a life-size bust, the face of which, according to Dütschke (Antike Bildwerke in ltalien, iv, 197), measures 19 m. while Caylus gives the total height of his bronze as 4 pouces = about 4 inches. This disposes of the identity of the two busts, but does not explain the close similarity of their outline.

page 28 note 4 As Newton's article seems to have been passed over by all subsequent writers on the portraiture of Caligula, it may be of interest to examine here the other heads which he cites as portraits of this emperor; the list, with modern references in square brackets, is as follows: (1) Becker, Augusteum, iii, p. 127, porphyry bust [=Bemoulli, ii, 1, p. 309, who rightly dismisses it as a modern copy of the Capitoline type]; (2) Bottari, Mus. Cap. pl. xi [=Cat. of Cap. Mus. p. 190, II, a modern bust of green basalt]; (3) Roux and Barré; Bronzes d'Herculaneum et de Pompéi, vii, 2e série, pl. 17; Antichità d'Ercolano, v. (Busti), pl. 57, 8 [= the little bronze head in Naples identified by Bernoulli, ii, I, p. 34, no. 37, as Augustus]; (4) Bouillon, Musée des Antiques, ii; Laurent, Musée Royal, Paris, 1916, ii, 2 série, pl. 3; [ = the loricate statue from Gabii, once in the Borghese collection, Clarac, 277, 2373 = p. 140, I, Reinach = Bernoulli, ii, 308, no. 16]; (5) Gori, Museum Florentinum-Gemmae, i, pl. v, 2 [ = Bernoulli, ii, 1, p. 310 c—a doubtful chrysolite intaglio]; (6) Labus, Museo di Mantova (1830), i, pl. 43 [ = Dütschke, iv, 662; Bernoulli, ii, I, p. 173, 17 ‘unknown Claudian’].

page 29 note 1 Archāol. Anzeiger, 1910, p. 533. Dr. Studniczka's results are not yet fully published, but it is well known (see Cat. of Cap.Mus. p. 109, note), that he holds the type represented by Cap. Galleria 33, to be the portrait not of Caligula, but of Gaius Caesar, son of Agrippa and grandson of Augustus.

page 30 note 1 Amer. Journ. of Archaeol. i, p. 286 ff. fig. I, and plate xii, I.

page 30 note 2 Fig. I is after a photograph in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum. Fig. 2 and plate III are from photos kindly lent by Mr. John Marshall, to whom I am also indebted for information as to the present owner of the head.

page 30 note 3 In the portraiture of Nero the trick develops into the thick roll of hair characteristic of both that emperor and his successor Otho.

page 32 note 1 De Ridder, , Bronzes Antiques du Louvre, pl. v, 28, 29, and p. II.Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 Found at Bavai, Reinach, S. in Bronzes figurés de la Gaule Romaine, p. 219, fig. 209Google Scholar (as Caesar: cf. Bernoulli, i, p. 162, no. 37) where the bronze is erroneously stated to be at Saint-Germain. H. ·075 m.

page 32 note 3 Toutain, J. in Monuments Piot. xxi, 1913, pl. vii, viii, and p. 81 ff.Google Scholar

page 32 note 4 On Zenodorus see my remarks in Burlington Magazine, xxv (June, 1914), p. 153 f.

page 32 note 5 The question of portraiture in the provinces of the Roman empire is one which I trust my friend Mrs. Esdaile may touch upon in her forthcoming book on Greek and Roman portraiture.

page 32 note 6 I am glad to be confirmed in this opinion by M. Cumont, who points out to me the striking affinity which the B.M. statuette offers to that of Mercury found at Givry (Reinach, Rép. Statuaire, iii, 48, 10, with ref.), and referred to by Cumont himself in his Romanisation de la Belgique (a work unfortunately at present inaccessible, all the copies having remained in Brussels). The statuette being copied or adapted from a Greek original is called a Hermes in the B.M. Catalogue.

page 32 note 7 Nat. Hist, xxxiv, 17, 48; Philostr. Imagines, i, p. 28; both quoted by Newton.

page 33 note 1 In a paper read in December before the Numismatic Society and printed in the Num. Chron. 1916, pp. 13-37. I have to thank Mr. Sydenham most cordially for his kindness in letting me see an advanced proof, and for much information privately communicated besides; the list given in the text is mainly his.

page 33 note 2 Rev. M MAECILIVS TVLLVS III VIR A A A F F around s.c Num Chron. 1915, p. 325; a similar example is described by Hobler, vol. 1, p. 34.

page 33 note 3 Mrs. Esdaile points out to me that the globe also supports the capricorns (the natal ‘sign’ of Augustus) who hold up the buckler encircled by the legend DIVO AUGUSTO S.P.Q.R. with the civic crown, and inscribed OB CIVES SERV. on a first brass of the deified Augustus struck by Tiberius (Cohen i, p. 104, no. 302). The design is imitated on a denarius of the deified Vespasian (DIVVS VESPASIANVS AVGVSTVS) struck by Titus, only that here the wreath has vanished, so that the buckler is placed between the two capricorns in a heraldic scheme which recalls the basis of the Commodus of the Conservatori to be referred to presently. In other instances a single Capricorn prances forward with the globe between his front paws (Cohen i, p. 146, no. 564; cf. Gardthausen, Augustus, ii, p. 18, where the globe=the terrestrial sphere, as a rudder, in allusion to dominion over the sea, appears below). The design reappears on coins of Vespasian (Cohen i, p. 411, no. 554).

page 33 note 4 Mattingly, H., Num. Chron. 1914, p. 113Google Scholar; Sydenhamin, E. A.Num. Chron. 1916, p. 33Google Scholar, according to whom the theory of Mowat, R. (Revue Numismatique, 1895, p. 160 f)Google Scholar, that the globe at the point of the bust is the peculiar mint-mark of Lugdunum requires modifying, since as stated, on his authority, in the text the feature occurs elsewhere.

page 33 note 5 The style of a number of coins of Nero with the globe is unquestionably characteristic of the Roman mint.

page 33 note 6 H. Mattingly, op. cit. 1914, p. 127, and pl. ix, 5.

page 34 note 1 Common type on coins of Spain: head of Augustus, radiate, with the Iulian star above and the thunderbolt of Iupiter in front; inscribed PERM[ISSV] DIVI AVG. COL[ONIAE] ROM[VLAE].

page 34 note 2 I venture to add the word ‘official’ within square brackets, since, as Professor J. S. Reid reminds me in a letter, ‘Augustus allowed private veneration or even veneration by corporations and municipalities in Italy to run to any length.’ The question of the deification of Augustus in Italy and even in Rome needs thoroughly exploring, being as yet very imperfectly understood. Deification as part of the emperor's domestic policy seems to have been fully admitted by Pelham, Essays on Roman History, p. 105. On the other hand it is denied by Mr. Warde Fowler, Roman Ideas of Deity, p. 123, who for Rome and Italy only admits the association of Augustus with his Genius. M. Cumont also, in kindly criticising the proof of this article, writes, ‘Jamais en occident Auguste ne toléra d'être adoré comme une divinité,’ but the contrary seems to me proved by the coin of Augustus with globe at the point of the bust, illustrated in fig. 5, I, which in the light of Mr. Sydenham's interpretation of the motive must be regarded as referring to the deified Augustus, whatever the precise meaning attaching to the globe.

page 34 note 3 Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxxv, 1915, p. 150Google Scholar; B.M. Cat. Palestine, pl. vi, 13; pl. iii, 8.

page 35 note 1 Zeus, p. 47, fig. 18. The type occurs from Commodus to Diocletian; cf. ibid. fig. 19, where we see the emperor delegating the globe to his successor.

page 35 note 2 In this interpretation of the Beneventan scene (cf. my Apotheosis and After Life, p. 85) I carry a point further the view of Domaszewski, Abhandlungen zur römischen Religion, p. 29: ‘Iupiter … in the act of handing over to the emperor the symbol of his dominion over the world—the thunderbolt.’ But in the first place the thunderbolt implies much more than world-dominion; and secondly, world-dominion would have marked no innovation, since it had already been the prerogative of Augustus and all the earlier emperors. The new order heralded by Iupiter's act could only be universal in place of world dominion. I regret that Apotheosis, plate x, should repeat the photograph, already reproduced in my Roman Sculpture, plate lxiii, of a cast taken before the thunderbolt had been adjusted to the right hand of Iupiter.

page 35 note 3 Douris cited by Athenaios, 535 f; see Eisler, , Weltenmantel und Himmelzelt, p. 38 f.Google Scholar and Cook, Zeus, p. 58.

page 35 note 4 Furtwaengler, Gemmen, iii, p. 320.

page 35 note 5 Helbig, Führer 8, 930.

page 35 note 6 The same scheme, but with the solar disc in place of the globe, reappears on the Gallo-Roman bust of Cybele, Babelon, Bronzes Antiques, no. 612; further analogies and parallels will be found in my description of the Commodus in the forth-coming second volume of the Catalogue of the Capitoline Collections, by Members of the British School at Rome. The bust used to be referred to the Apotheosis of Commodus under Severus, but Mr. Stuart Jones, whose arguments will appear in the new volume of the Cap. Cat. has convinced me that it must be dated in the lifetime of Commodus. The large marble starry globe banded by the zodiac in the Vatican (Sala dei busti, 341; Amelung, ii, p. 529) is possibly a pedestal of the same kind; it is flattened at the top, and left unworked at the back.

page 35 note 7 See my Roman Sculpture, pl. lxxxii, and Apotheosis and After Life, p. 89 with note and reff.

page 36 note 1 M. Cumont kindly points out to me that Dieudonné (see ‘L'aigle d'Antioche’ in Revue Numismatique, 4me ser. vol. xiii, 1909, p. 485; cf. p. 165) does not admit that the eagle supporting the emperor's bust on these tetradrachms is a sign of apotheosis, the pieces having been struck in the emperor's life-time. I am glad, however, to see from the proof of his second article on ‘l'Apothéose des Empereurs’ (to appear in his forthcoming Études Syriennes) that Cumont himself does not consider the objection valid for the East, where ‘les souverains étaient regardés comme des dieux non seulement après leur mort mais même de leur vivant.’ I personally believe this to be true, in measure at least, of the West also.

page 36 note 2 I here slightly modify the view expressed in Apotheosis and After Life, p. 64 and p. 168, that during the triumph the triumphator was actually identified with the god (see addenda).

page 36 note 3 Dio Cassius xliii, 14: ἅρμα τέ τι αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ Καπιτολίῳ ἀντιπρόσωπον τῷ Διὶ ἱδρνθῆναι, και ἐπὶ εἰκόνα αὐτὸν τῆς οὶκουμένης χαλκοῦν ἐπιβιβασθῆναι, γραΦὴν ἔχοντα ὅτι ἡμί θεός ἐστι; cf. xliii, 21. It is rightly assumed that both chariot and statue stood in the Capitoline temple facing the god's statue: Bernoulli, Roem. Iconogr. p. 145; Warde Fowler, Roman Ideas of Deity, p. 115. The statue presumably stood with one foot on the world globe in the same pose as the Augustus of the San Vitale relief in Ravenna (Bernoulli, ii, pl. vi, and p. 254); there is of course no need, as Warde Fowler points out, to follow Domaszewski (Abhandlungen, p. 193) in thinking that Caesar's statue was an imitation of the ‘Attalus III with his foot raised on spoils of war’ set up in a temple of Pergamon. The type, borrowed from that of Victory (e.g. Gardthausen, Augustus, p. 866 and often), was probably expressive of the emperor as δεσποτὴς τῆς οỉκουμένης rector orbis (cf. C.I.L. xii, 4,333, and Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vii, 1910, no. 1021, a fresh reference which I owe to M. Cumont).

page 36 note 4 xliii, 55. From its rare material it is probable that the ivory statue mentioned here represented Caesar as a divinity or with divine attributes; cf. the ivory statue of Germanicus, Tacitus, Ann. i, 83. Ivory statues, presumably of deified princes, seem to have come into fashion after the Macedonian period; cf. Blümner, Technologie, ii, p. 305.

page 37 note 1 Livy's famous passage (v, 23, 5): the quadriga Jovis Solisque equis aequiperatum dictatorem in religtonem etiam trahebant, triumphusque ob eam unam maxime rem clarior quam gratior fuit) and Plutarch's even more explicit language as to the scandal created (Camillus, ch. 7) are, as Hirschfeld, Kleine Schriften, p. 277 ff, showed long ago, to be understood as comments upon the superhuman honours accorded to Caesar. The parallel account of Diodorus (xiv, 117) with the charge of impiety should be compared. Possibly Caesar's use of white horses (in the East sacred to Sol, to whom white horses were sacrificed; Cumont, op. cit. p. 100, note 4; S. Reinach, Orpheus, p. 125) appeared specially impious as bringing eastern elements into the essentially Roman ritual of Iupiter: cf. the view of Laqueur (Hermes, 1909) that the later triumph with its admixture of Greek and oriental elements was ‘projected back’ into the shadowy past and coloured the literary descriptions of the simple ceremonial of the early republic. (Cumont loc. cit.)

page 37 note 2 cf. Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelzelt, p. 40, who thinks that Caesar was endeavouring to pose, if not as Iupiter, at any rate as ‘the god in the person of his son.’ Plutarch, Caesar, lxi, states that Caesar was θριαμβικῷ κὁσμῳ κεκοσμημένος, i.e. that he was wearing the vestis triumpbalis which we learn from Suetonius, Nero 25, was embroidered with stars (in veste purpurea distinctaque stellis aurea chlamide). From the passage in Nicolaus of Damascus (Vita Caes. 21) it appears, as Dr. van Buren kindly points out to me, that not the robe but the diadem created the scandal. I am much indebted to both Dr. van Buren and Mr. G. D. Brooks for help in analysing the different passages referring to this momentous episode.

page 37 note 3 Dio, xliv, 6, 4.

page 37 note 4 In the British Museum (Cat. of Engraved Gems, frontispiece).

page 37 note 5 Apotheosis and After Life, p. 71 f.

page 37 note 6 Museo Chiaramonti, 494; Amelung, I, p. 652, where it is pointed out that in accordance with the general type of the statue the right hand must have held a thunderbolt. The emperor is probably represented here as triumpbator.

page 37 note 7 Apotheosis and After Life, p. 68 ff.

page 37 note 8 Bernoulli, Roem. Iconogr. ii, 1, p. 338, fig.51 a, b. This important work was given by one of the Colonnas to Philip IV of Spain. The elaborate basis, composed of a trophy of arms, still exists and is now in the Prado. For the use of the aegis cf. Mr. Sydenham in op. cit., who takes the aegis which he finds placed on the obverse of certain coins of Nero to be an emblem of sovereignty equivalent to the globe; the aegis he considers to be the symbol of Roma, and therefore when used as an adjunct to the imperial portrait to imply ‘the idea of Roma as the sovereign city of the world.’ With this view, however, I cannot agree, as the type of Roma which is primarily borrowed from that of the Amazons is specially distinguished from that of Minerva or Athena by the absence of the aegis, see Helbig 3, p. 412, and the types of Roma discussed by Haeberlin in Corolla Numismatica, p. 143, p. 146 ff. Nor can I find any mention of the aegis in literary descriptions of Roma, see F. Richter, art. Roma in Roscher's Lexikon. Like the globe and the eagle, the aegis probably came to the Roman emperors from the deified Alexander, whose religious policy they closely imitated. On the type of Alexander αἰγίοχος see now Perdrizet in Monuments Plot, xxi, 1913, p. 59 ff. Maynial, art. Roma in Saglio-Pottier, mentions the aegis as an attribute of Roma, but the first example he cites is the Athena on the Capitol later transformed into a Roma (Helbig, loc. cit.; Clarac-Reinach, 450, 5), and the second, likewise an Athena (Clarac-Reinach, 455, 2) has no aegis at all. But in a letter of later date than his article, Mr. Sydenham kindly informs me that he now inclines to consider that the aegis on certain coins of Nero is associated with Iupiter rather than with Roma or Minerva. The point will be doubtless completely cleared up when Mr. Sydenham's promised book on the coinage of Nero appears.

page 38 note 1 Furtwängler, Gemmen, pl. lxvi.; the thunderbolt is likewise given to the triumphator in the dream of Octavius (Suetonius, Augustus, 94).

page 38 note 2 ibid. iii P. 325 and fig. 169: the cameo is in the British Museum.

page 38 note 3 Aust in Roscher, 8.v. Iupiter, col. 748 (with reference to Marini).

page 38 note 4 In the Legatio ad Gaium; I am indebted to Mrs. Esdaile for reminding me of this important passage.

page 38 note 5 Suetonius, Caligula, 22.

page 39 note 1 Zeus, p. 54, fig. 30. How globe and pillar, originally the stone of the Etrusco-Roman Terminus, came by contact with Greek ideas to mean the sky, has been discussed by Mr. Cook (op. cit. p. 53 f,) who adduces a number of instances in all of which, as he well puts it, the globe ‘signifies the sky rather than the earth, a conclusion confirmed by the fact that it came to be banded with the astronomical zones … or spangled with them,’ which brings us back to the celestial globe of Commodus. The symbol appears on the well-known coins of Pythagoras (good drawing on title-page vignette to Diels' Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, vol. 1), who is represented seated or standing, pointing with a rod to the globe supported on the pillar; it is also seen on the fine silver dish or lanx from Corbridge, lately explained as a ‘Judgment of Paris’ (J.R.S. iv (1914), p. II), but which I continue to believe is simply a sacra conversazione (J.R.S. i, p. 43), though who the gods are assembled in that mystic grove I leave it to Professor O. L. Richmond, who is studying the lanx afresh, to reveal. Pillar and globe had a further development in the imperial columns crowned by the image of Iupiter himself (Column of Mayence), or by that of the emperor (columns of Traian, Marcus Aurelius, etc.); see Burlington Magazine, 1914, pp. 1.53–163.

page 39 note 2 Cat. Somm. 1068, 1069.

page 39 note 3 Museo pio Clementino, vi, p. 251, note i.

page 39 note 4 Strzygowski in Klio: Beiträge zur alten Gaschichte, ii (1902), p. 118. According to Strzygowski these important monuments were to be published by M. Michon.

page 39 note 5 cf. the busts that project from the sarcophagus of St. Helena and the similarly placed double portraits of certain Palmyrene stelae, of which there are good examples in the Palmyrene collection of the British Museum (e.g. no. 573, busts of Habib and his wife). It should also be noted that the globes of the Louvre columns seem to represent, as Strzygowski has already noted, the brackets placed midway or higher up the shafts of columns of Palmyra and elsewhere in the east; the whole evidence, therefore, goes to prove an oriental or Egyptian origin for these two portraits.

page 40 note 1 Cat. Bronzes, no. 1062.

page 42 note 1 Dattari, , Numi Aug. Alexandrini (Cairo, 1901), plate 24, 2869Google Scholar. I am indebted to Mr. G. F. Hill for pointing out to me this interesting parallel to the Isis bust.

page 42 note 2 Espérandieu, , Bas Reliefs de la Gaule Romaine, ii, 1810Google Scholar. The motive was evidently a favourite in Gaul; among the examples of bust and globe which he has been so good as to send me, Mr.Sydenham quotes a ‘curious denarius of Galba with the legend TRES GALLIAE in conjunction with three small busts, personifying the three Gallic provinces, Aquitania, Lugdunensis and Belgica, where each bust has the globe pendent.’ Though I do not feel confident that Mr. Sydenham would accept my interpretation, I am inclined to suggest that the personified provinces are considered as divinities, and are therefore placed on the cosmic globe. This is a point which could doubtless be further illustrated from Roman provincial sculpture. The globe, I may add, frequently serves as support for the eagle, symbol both of Apollo and of Zeus —e.g. de Ridder, Bronzes du Louvre, 790, eagle on globe resting on basis; cf. claw and globe, ibid. 992; Caylus, vol. vii, pl. xxx, 5. Similarly the crow, another Apolline and solar bird, appears perched on the fragment of a round basis from the Acropolis (de Ridder, Bronzes de l'Acropole, no. 541).

page 42 note 3 At present it is not even known when, outside coins, the globe first appears in the hand of rulers. The earliest example I can discover of this motive in the round (where in countless instances the globe may have become detached or disappeared with the arm) is the large globe in the Palazzo dei Conservatori which seems to have belonged to the hand and arm found with a head and other fragments of a bronze statue of colossal size representing Constantius II, the second son of Constantine and Fausta (Helbig3, 959, where the head is mistaken for that of Constans).

Mr. Sydenham points out to me that the emperor holding the globe or orb becomes a common reverse type on coins of the middle empire, e.g. Gordian III, Philip I and II, etc.

page 43 note 1 See above p. 36, note 2, with reference to. von Domaszewski.

page 43 note 2 Ed. Meyer, , Kleine Schriften (1910), p. 283, p. 457, etc.Google Scholar

page 43 note 3 Classical Philology (Chicago), xi, 1916, p. 335 ffGoogle Scholar. I am much indebted to Professor Frank for pointing out to me this important note.

page 44 note 1 Virgil's Messianic Eclogue (J. B. Mayor, W. W. Fowler, R. S. Conway), p. 29 ff.

page 44 note 2 See also his Virgil's ‘Gathering of the Clans,’ 1916, p. 151 and note 3.

page 45 note 1 Impossible of the later statue, which was of ivory and gold.

page 45 note 2 Yrjö Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 39 f.

page 45 note 3 Hermes, 1909, an article which like that of Beseier, referred to above, I regret not to have known when I revised Apotheosis and After Life for publication.