However, the neo-Attic workshops had an even greater task than that of copying for public and private furnishings: this was to work out a sculpture in the round and in relief to exalt the virtus and the pietas of the princeps, to embody in another language the dynastic ambitions of Augustus and the climate of restoration of national values connected with them. Hence the aforementioned (and completely Hellenistic) concentration around the palace of intense activity in copying and development of the severe, Classical and late-Classical styles with models of terracotta or plaster, which were found at the Domus Tiberiana in Rome and the imperial complex at Baiae.[1139] The Augustan programme called for the suppression of the highly visible phenomenon of self- glorification by aristocratic generals in favour of the restoration of mos, custom, and of the different degrees of dignity to which the typology of the statues was correlated. Thus, at the beginning of the Augustan age, Agrippa could still celebrate his own naval victories with an heroic statue inspired by images of Poseidon;[1140] and this could be echoed, among the domi nobiles, by the heroic statue of the Ostian duumvir Cartilius Poplicola, commemorating his naval achievements, which were also extolled on the frieze of his sepulchre.37 But the subsequent reduction of military and governing functions by the senatorial aristocracy favoured a rapid return to mos. Each function entailed a distinct type of portrait statue: statuae augurales and pontificates (capite velato, with lituus and sacrificial patera) to commemorate priests; triumphales (with lor tea, togapicta, hasta) for recipients of triumphal honours; loricatae (with lorica) for military officers; consulares (with toga and rotuli) for consuls; equestres (with tunica and paludamentum) and sella curuli sedentes38 for those governing with imperium military and civilian provinces, respectively.39 Peripheral regions conformed relatively quickly to the urban modeclass="underline" the honours granted by the Cretans and the Herculaneans to Nonius Balbus40 still reflect late-republican practices in the number and even the forms of the statues dedicated to him, but we soon meet the cuirassed statue of M. Holconius Rufus which celebrates, according to its appearance, his military tribunate a populo,^ while such precious documents as the Barberini togatus illustrate both senatorial reassertion of the ius imagtnum (the right to display the death-masks of ancestors who had held public office) and the power of the model of traditional political representation imposed by Augustus.42
Neither the princeps himself nor his family failed to observe these norms. Famous statues, such as that from the Via Labicana, depicting Augustus as pontifex maximus, or that recently discovered in the Euboean Sea,43 reflecting his imperiumproconsulare maius and his iusgladii, fit perfectly into the typology respecdvely of statuaepontificales and statuae equestres. But the profound sense of Augustan mystification is best felt in the most famous statue of the princeps, the Augustus of Prima Porta.44 Probably intended as a statua triumpbalis in connexion with the honores of the Parthian Arch, it celebrates through the figures on the cuirass deeds worthy of a triumph (res triumphi dignae), the return of the Parthian standards, an event which Augustus, with his accustomed skill, did not wish to be celebrated with a triumph. At the same time the statue presents a princeps uncharacteristically barefoot, in a heroic pose which is emphasized by the 'quotation' of Polyclitan ponderatio. Here as elsewhere, the transgression of mos, is confirmed by apparent reaffirmations of that very mos combined with marginal departures drawn from the tradition of Hellenistic monarchy. The creation of Augustus' official
That is: augural and pontifical statues, head covered and with curved staff and sacrificial bowl; triumphal statues, with cuirass, embroidered toga, and spear; cuirassed statues; consular statues, with toga and scrolls; equestrian statues, with tunic and military cloak; and statues of magistrates sitting in chairs of office. For these concepts: M. Torelli, in A. M. Vaccaro and A. M. Sommella (eds.), Marco Aurclio. Storia di un monumento e delsuo restauro (Milan, 1989) 83-102.
As is shown beyond doubt in the series of statues granted to L. Volusius Saturninus (cos. 5 b.c.) in connexion with the bonores he had received. See most recently S. Panciera, in I Volusii Satumini- Una famiglia romana delta prima eta imperiale (Bari, 1982) 8}(f.
See most recently S. Adamo Muscettola, Prospettiva 28 (1982) zff; for the inscriptions, L. Schumacher, Cbiron 6 (1976) i6jff. 41 Zanker 1988 (f 635) 331, fig. 259.
« M. Torelli, Index 13 (1983) 5890, with P. Zanker, Win. Zeitscbr. der Humboldt Univ. Berlin 31 (1982) 307ff; id. 1983 (f 631) 25iff.
43 M. Hofter, in Kaiser Augustus 1988 (f 443) no. 168, p. 323ft and E. Touloupa, ibid. no. 149, 31 iff. 44 See above, n. 7.
portrait and the parallel evoludon of private portraiture in the second half of the first century в.с. take us over the same route. Portraits of the La Alcudia-type and the Acdum-type, such as that of Agrippa, still follow the tradition of dynastic portraiture which flourished in the inflamed atmosphere of the Second Triumvirate. Echoes of this style are also to be found in private portraiture, even of women, as is shown by the extraordinary gallery of busts from the tomb of the Licinii.
The creation of the Prima Porta-type, which is dated by coins to the period when Octavian proclaimed himself Augustus (27 B.C.), but which ought perhaps to be associated with his triple triumph of 29, is the first consciously and decisively neoclassical step in portrait sculpture. Its success is witnessed by the number of copies, by its use over the whole span of Augustus' reign and beyond, and by its close connexion with the Augustan programme, stripped as it was of any glamorous dramatization of dynastic power, and lit from within by the aura of the numen, the divine nature. When we can glimpse in the better copies, such as that from the Via Labicana, the high level of the original, we can perfectly understand the sense of the message which permeates the extremely delicate workings of the surface, the accurate, almost academic, depiction of the hair, and the balance between a well-observed bone structure and a lightly shaded skin, that is to say, the successful distancing of the image from worldly concerns. In a word, on the formal level, the antithesis between the 'realistic' Roman portrait and its 'psychological' Hellenistic rival is resolved, through appeal to neoclassical modes of expression. The Classicizing assurance here becomes assurance of the rebirth of a charisma which is ancient, aristocratic, national, and therefore neither heroic nor Hellenizing, the aura of one who is 'leader', princeps, of a universal following, clientela, and confirmed as such by his divine origins: numen adest, a god is present.