Part 2 Galerie des portraits

Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves

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Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves
Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves
Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves
Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves
Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves
Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves
Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves
Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves
Biographic data
63 BC – AD 14.
Emperor from 27 BC to AD 14
Date de création
First half of the 1st century
Type
Known as "of the Prima Porta type"
Material
Lychnites marble (island of Paros)
Dimensions
H. 51 x l. 34 x P. 25 (cm)
Inventory number
Ra 57

Octavian, grandnephew of Julius Caesar, is the saviour of the Republic and founder of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He was elevated to Augustus (an epithet that refers to the religious sphere, and raises the beneficiary above other men) by the Senate on the 16th January 27 BC. Augustus soon became his first name, and that of all his successors.

The manner in which his forehead locks are depicted is identical to that of the head, associated with a barefooted body wearing a cuirass, of the Augustus of Prima Porta, Vatican Museum, Michal Osmenda / Wikimedia Commons CC BYstatue of Augustus discovered in Prima Porta on the outskirts of Rome, in the villa that belonged to his wife Livia. This statue, now kept in the Vatican Museums, shows a face which, far from the physiognomy of the emperor, was inspired by that of the Doryphoros (« spear bearer »), a bronze sculpture known from some Roman marble replicas sculpted around 440 BC by Polykleitos, one of the great masters of Classical Antiquity. Art in Greece in the 5th century BC was indeed a constant reference point in Augustan art. The Greek ideal was seen as a way of giving the eternally young emperor an unchanging image that reflected the stability of the Empire. The iconographic genre of the head of the Prima Porta statue is associated with a statuary type that is symbolically highly significant: bare feet, which undoubtedly referred to a religious context or to heroism, and a decorated breastplate showing the restitution, in 20 BC, of the standards taken by the Parthians from the Roman legions of Crassus during the battle of Carrhae (present-day Turkey), in 53 BC. As we know, only one type of portrait, constantly reproduced and unchanging, could be associated with different types of statues: wearing a cuirass, a toga (bare headed or veiled), a bare torso with a mantle rolled at the waist, sitting or on horseback. The portrait of Augustus, which is therefore identical to that of the Prima Porta statue kept at the Vatican, boasts a hairstyle that departs, from the norm previously adopted to represent the Emperor, especially in the depiction of the hair above the forehead. It shows the same hairstyle that had been strictly adhered to throughout his reign, determined by long strands of hair swept from right to left to form a fork, and « crab claw »-shaped strands of hair. The hairstyle is flatter, with less volume than in more youthful portraits designed during the civil war. The present features are marked by the balance and fulfilment that are inherent to classic Greek art, in keeping with the carefully disciplined hair, both being a metaphor for the Pax Romana insured by the avenger of Caesar’s death. This type of portrayal, which was to remain unchanged, was a way of unequivocally identifying the primus inter pares (first among equals). From the moment he became known as Augustus and seized power within the Republic (without there being any real question of a monarchical type of regime) in 27 BC, this portrait of the imperator was created and asserted. This ideal image was then rapidly disseminated throughout the length and breadth of the Empire.

The statue found in Chiragan wears a corona civica (« civic crown »), in the form of a chaplet of oak leaves, symbol of Jupiter. This honorary emblem was awarded by the Senate in 27 BC, during the investiture ceremony of the one who had put an end to the civil wars, restored peace and ensured the preservation of the values of the oligarchic Republic. Two other portraits of the same type, and also crowned with oak leaves, kept in the Portrait of Augustus of the Prima Porta type, the Louvre Museum Ma 1247 (MR 426), Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons CC BYLouvre Museum and the  »Augustus Bevilacqua », Munich Glyptothek, Carole Raddato / Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SAMunich Glyptothek, have been likened to the head unearthed in Chiragan. In all three works, as in many others, the fact that the skull is flattened at the back is particularly noteworthy; it would seem that this recurring feature found on marble portraits of the emperor represents one of his actual physical attributes, in the same way as the bump on the bridge of the nose, as reported by Suetonius Suétone, « Auguste, » Vies Des Douze Césars, beginning of the 2nd century. in his detailed description of Augustus.

According to J.-C. Balty 2005, Les portraits romains, 1 : Époque julio-claudienne, 1.1 (Sculptures antiques de Chiragan (Martres-Tolosane), Toulouse, p. 73-98.

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To cite this notice

Capus P., "Bust of Augustus crowned with oak leaves", in The sculptures of the roman villa of Chiragan, Toulouse, 2019, online <https://villachiragan.saintraymond.toulouse.fr/en/ark:/87276/a_ra_57>.