The Augustus of Prima Porta () is a full-length portrait statue of Augustus, the first Roman emperor.
The statue was discovered on April 20, 1863, during archaeological excavations directed by Giuseppe Gagliardi at the Villa of Livia owned by Augustus's third and final wife, Livia Drusilla in Prima Porta. Livia had retired to the villa after Augustus's death in AD 14. Its discovery was first publicized by the German archaeologist Wilhelm Henzen the same year.
The marble statue was carved in the 1st century AD by skilled sculptors who may have been Greek, although this is not certain.Woodford, Susan. (1982) The Art of Greece and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 85. ISBN 0521298733 The piece is generally believed to be a copy of a lost bronze original displayed in Rome.Zanker, P. (1988) The power of images in the age of Augustus. Translated by Alan Shapiro. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, p. 188. It blends Greek and Roman elements to craft an idealized official image of Augustus, showcasing his grasp of visual influence. While the head portrays a realistic youthful Augustus, the body diverges from reality; despite its clothed form, the body's stance reflects the heroic stance found in Greek statues. The detailed armor, depicting a Parthian returning standards to a Roman, symbolizes peace along the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. The statue stands tall and weighs .
The Augustus of Prima Porta is now displayed in the (New Arm) of the Vatican Museums. Since its discovery, it has become the best known of Augustus's portraits and one of the most famous sculptures of the ancient world.
Original The intricate imagery on the (typical of legatesLinnet Moss (2014). "What The Well-Dressed Roman General Is Wearing". Accessed 30 August 2020.) refers to the Parthian Empire’s restitution of Roman eagle insignia, which had previously been captured from Marcus Licinius Crassus, to Augustus in 20 BC, one of his most significant diplomatic accomplishments. The date of the (hypothetical) bronze original is therefore later than 20 BC. The event detailed on the armor symbolizes the Pax Romana initiated by Rome’s first Emperor. The fact that Augustus is depicted barefooted is intended to be a divine representation, as this was a standard depiction of gods or heroes in classical iconography. The date of the marble copy would presumably fall between that date and Livia's death in AD 29.
The statue might have been commissioned by Tiberius, the successor to Augustus, possibly as a gift to his mother Livia (since it was found in her Villa ad Gallinas Albas in the vicinity of the ninth mile-marker of the Via Flaminia, and close to a late imperial gate and aqueduct called Prima Porta) after Augustus' death and in honor of the woman who had campaigned for so long for him to become the next Caesar.See Jane Clark Reeder, The Villa of Livia Ad Gallinas Albas. A Study in the Augustan Villa and Garden in series Archaeologica Transatlantica XX. Providence, RI: Center for Old World Archaeology and Art, 2001, partially in Google Books (review BMCR); also G. Messineo, Ad Gallinas Albas: Villa di Livia, Rome, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2001, in Google Books. This hypothesis is based on the fact that the central reliefs on the heroic cuirass depict the retrieval of Crassus' standards captured by the Parthians, an event in which the young Tiberius himself served as an intermediary with the Parthian king, and which was possibly his greatest service to his adoptive father Augustus. With the presentation of Tiberius as the figure responsible for the retrieval of the standards in the breastplate’s imagery, he would have associated himself in the minds of viewers with the deified emperor and suggested continuity between their reigns, as Augustus himself had done previously with his own deified adoptive father Julius Caesar (though Caesar was not himself an emperor). Under this hypothesis, the dating of the statue can be placed during the first years of Tiberius' reign as emperor (AD 14 — AD 37). However, it is also possible that it was commissioned by Livia herself, Augustus's wife at the time of his death.
Style
Augustus is shown in his role of imperator, the commander of the army, as thoracatus —or commander-in-chief of the Roman army (literally, thorax-wearer)—meaning the statue should form part of a commemorative monument to his latest victories; he is in military clothing, carrying what may have been a spear or a consular baton, and raising his right hand in a rhetorical adlocutio pose, addressing the troops. The bas-reliefs on his armored cuirass have a complex allegorical and political agenda, alluding to diverse Roman deities, including Mars, god of war, as well as the personifications of the latest territories he conquered: Hispania, Gaul, Germania, Parthia (that had humiliated Crassus, and here appears in the act of returning the standards captured from his legions); at the top, the chariot of the Sun illuminates Augustus's deeds.
The statue is an idealized image of Augustus showing a standard pose of a Roman orator and based on the 5th-century BC statue of the Spear Bearer or Doryphoros by the sculptor Polykleitos. The Doryphoross contrapposto stance, creating diagonals between tense and relaxed limbs, a feature typical of classical sculpture, is adapted here. The pose of the statue's legs is similar to Doryphoros. The right leg is taut, while the left leg is relaxed, as if the statue is moving forward. The misidentification of the Doryphoros in the Roman period as representing the warrior Achilles made the model all the more appropriate for this image.John Pollini, "The Augustus from Prima Porta and the Transformation of the Polykleitan Heroic Ideal", in Warren G. Moon (ed.), Polykleitos, the Doryphoros and Tradition. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press) 1995, analyses the cultural significance of unmistakable Polykleitan features in the Prima Porta Augustus, presented in aemulatio as the successor to heroic Polykleitan portrayals of Alexander the Great. Despite the Republican influence in the portrait head, the overall style is closer to Hellenistic idealization than to the realism of Roman portraiture. The reason for this style shift is the acquisition of Greek art. Following each conquest, the Romans brought back large amounts of Greek art. This flow of Greek artifacts changed Romans' aesthetic tastes, and these art pieces were regarded as a symbol of wealth and status for the Roman upper class.
Despite the accuracy with which Augustus's features are depicted (with his somber look and characteristic fringe of hair on his forehead), the distant and tranquil expression of his face has been idealized, as have the conventional contrapposto, the anatomical proportions and the deeply draped paludamentum or "cloth of the commander". On the other hand, Augustus's barefootedness and the inclusion of Cupid riding a dolphin as structural support for the statue reveals his mythical connection to the goddess Venus (Cupid's mother) by way of his adopted father Julius Caesar. The clear Greek inspiration in style and symbol for official sculptural portraits, which under the Roman emperors became instruments of governmental propaganda, is a central part of the Augustan ideological campaign, a shift from the Roman Republican era iconography where old and wise features were seen as symbols of solemn character. Therefore, the Prima Porta statue marks a conscious reversal of iconography to the Greek classical and Hellenistic period, in which youth and strength were valued as signs of leadership, emulating heroes and culminating in Alexander the Great himself. Such a statue's political function was very obvious—to show Rome that the emperor Augustus was an exceptional figure, comparable to the heroes worthy of being raised to divine status on Olympus, and the best man to govern Rome.
Polychromy
It is almost certain that the Augustus was originally painted, but so few traces remain today (having been lost in the ground and having faded since discovery) that historians have had to fall back on old watercolors and new scientific investigations for evidence. Vincenz Brinkmann of Munich researched the use of color on ancient sculpture in the 1980s using ultraviolet rays to find traces of color.
Today, the Vatican Museums have produced a copy of the statue so as to paint it in the theorized original colors, as confirmed when the statue was cleaned in 1999. However, an art historian of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, Fabio Barry, has criticized this reconstitution as unsubtle and exaggerated,The Washington Post, "Augustus of Prima Porta", May 4, 2008 while other critics have argued that there are many notable differences between the original Prima Porta of Augustus and the painted recreation. However, due to the ongoing disagreement on the statue's pigmentation there is little information on or exploration of the usage of these colors. Another copy was painted with a different color scheme for the Tarraco Viva 2014 Festival.
Since at least the 18th century, the familiar sight of Roman sculptures that lack their original paint has encouraged the idea that monochromy is the natural condition for classical sculpture;Hägele, H. (2013). Colour in Sculpture: A Survey from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Present. pp. 252–254. but surface treatment is now recognized as integral to the overall effect of the sculpture.
The writings of second-century polymath Lucian provide a good example of how color functioned for a work of that time, "I Fear I stand in the way of her most important feature!... the rest of the body let Apelles represent.. not too white but diffused with blood". The quote continues to state that a statue of the time is unfinished without its "chora"—skin—or layer, applied to the statue to render it complete. The specific implications of each color chosen for the Prima Porta are unknown; assumedly red for the military and royalty.
Iconography
Portrait The haircut is made up of divided, thick strands of hair, with a strand directly over the middle of Augustus's forehead framed by other strands over it. From the left two strands stray onto the forehead, and from the right three strands, a hairstyle first found on this statue. This hairstyle also marks the statue as being one of Augustus from comparison with his portrait on his coinage, which can also date it.Coins were one of the most effective ways of spreading propaganda, such as news of decisive battles and changes of ruler, because on such occasions new coins would be minted. This particular hairstyle is used as the first sign identifying this portrait type of Augustus as the Prima Porta type, the second and most popular of three official portrait types: other hairstyles of Augustus may be seen on the Ara Pacis, for example. Another full-size statue of Augustus with these "Primaporta type" features is the Augustus of Via Labicana, portraying Augustus in the role of Pontifex Maximus, now in the Museo Nazionale Romano.
The face is idealized, but not like those of Polykleitos' statues. Augustus's face is not smoothed and shows details to indicate his individual features. Art underwent important changes during Augustus's reign, with the extreme realism that dominated art of the Republican era giving way to Greek influence, as seen in the portraits of the emperors – idealizations that summarized all the virtues Roman society held should be possessed by the exceptional man worthy of governing the Empire. In earlier portraits, Augustus allowed himself to be portrayed in monarchical fashion, but amended these with later more diplomatic images that represented him as "primus inter pares". The head and neck were produced separately in Parian marble and inserted to the torso.
Breastplate relief