Towards a Definition of Roman Art

This statue raises the peculiar and peculiarly complex problem of how to define Roman art. What criteria should be applied? - geographical? chronological? ethnic? stylistic? None is very satisfactory. It is sometimes suggested that the Romans leaned so heavily on the figurative arts of earlier times that their own has no definable identity - that they produced no body of works in the visual arts (except in architecture) comparable with their literature. Roman literature, though most of it was written by men who were not strictly speaking Roman, can be defined linguistically. Moreover, the Latin language was itself the creation and vehicle of a culture to so marked a degree that its use alone conferred distinctive 'Latin' or 'Roman' qualities, even on imitations and translations from the Greek (e.g. the plays of Terence, a slave of Libyan stock). A comparable unifying visual language is lacking in Roman art, especially in the imperial period, when Rome was the capital of an ethnically mixed empire, including Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, where Hellenistic traditions survived almost intact. The term Roman may, of course, be used for all works of art produced in territory under Roman rule, but such a geographical definition would necessarily embrace very diverse and stylistically heterogeneous works. Attempts at an ethnic definition founder on our ignorance of the artists and their origins. In the fluid conditions prevailing in so vast a multi-racial empire the identification of any supposedly national tendencies (Italic or Greek) must be very speculative. The Pax Romana permitted great mobility to artists and their works: statues carved in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean were shipped to Rome, imperial portraits were diffused from Rome to the furthest corners of the empire. Nor can any consistent process of artistic development be traced, though there were many and important changes in direction during these centuries. Political history provides no more than a series of convenient date brackets, of dubious stylistic significance, for periods named after the emperors. Markedly different styles, ranging from a crude realism to a refined Greek Classicism, were practised simultaneously or recurrently revived, usually to accord with subject-matter and to satisfy ideas of appropriateness or'decorum'.

Yet certain characteristics or qualities commonly associated with ancient Rome can be recognized in major works of art and in many others as well, as the mention of so essentially Roman a concept as that of'decorum' already suggests. A funerary portrait of an upper-class couple of the late republican period, for example, epitomizes the straightforward republican virtues so eloquently extolled by Cicero (5,55). The woman with her distinctly superior expression recalls, no doubt intentionally, statues of Pudicitia, personifying female modesty. Her grim unsmiling husband is every inch a Roman, the embodiment of dignity, moral rectitude and gravity. Many other portraits of the same period are of elderly men with equally stern, heavily wrinkled, businesslike countenances, quite unassuming in their ordinariness and plainness. None could be described as amiable. Yet the marks of age may not have been thought unsightly. To Romans, especially of the republic, fullness of years implied success in life. The patrician became not simply an old man but an honoured elder, as well as a pater familias, the sovereign ruler of his unmarried daughters, sons, grandsons and their wives, and the sole legal owner of all his family's property.

Figures on the Ara Pads Angus tae - the altar of Augustan peace (5,56) - are equally stern and grave and no less realistic, though carved with greater refinement and set in a structure of complex allegory. The Ara Pads was set up to mark the return of Augustus to Rome in 13 BC, after a lengthy absence in the western provinces, and also to celebrate the peace that followed the civil wars, which had convulsed the dying republic. Its form - an altar on a podium surrounded by a rectangular walled enclosure -is Greek, probably derived from the fifth-century BC Altar of Pity in the Athenian agora. On the outer walls, above exquisitely chiselled panels of foliage ornament, there are figurative reliefs of legendary figures claimed as ancestors of Augustus - Romulus, the warlike founder and first king of Rome, and Numa, the peace-loving second king, religious and civil law-givers - and two long processions, one of senators, the other of Augustus's family (5,57). These processional reliefs differ as much from those on the Parthenon (430) as from those at Persepolis (3,38), being neither of idealized youths nor of expressionless, regimented types all marching in step. Informally grouped, they appear, from their glances, to be in quiet, civilized conversation with each other and they are all recognizably portraits. Augustus (unfortunately damaged) leads as high priest and pater familias of his own family and, by implication, of the entire Roman empire. The prominent man in the centre of our illustration is probably Agrippa, his son-in-law and right-hand man. Unlike earlier processional reliefs, those on the Ara Pads record and commemorate a specific moment in time, the dedication of the altar itself. And this emphasis on actuality reinforces the cool realism of the carving and hence the truth of the propagandists claims it makes for the beneficence of the new Augustan regime.

If the message of the Ara Pads is emphatically Roman, the visual language in which it is expressed remains Hellenistic. The same can be said of a cameo known as the Gemma Augustea, whose carver almost certainly came from the Hellenistic East, where the exacting technique of working semi-precious stones to exploit their natural veins of color had been developed into a fine art by the second century BC (5,58). Romans greatly prized such virtuoso feats of craftsmanship - technical accomplishment was, indeed, the only artistic quality of which they wrote. But the Gemma Augustea is more than merely decorative. On the upper register Augustus is shown deified with the personification of Oikoumene (the whole inhabited earth) placing a crown on his head and the goddess Roma enthroned beside him; the youthful figure descending from a chariot on the far left is probably Tiberius, who succeeded him as emperor. Below, Roman soldiers are setting up a trophy of captured arms after a victory over barbarians, four of whom are shown as prisoners awaiting their fate. Such a mingling of allegorical and historical figures, abstract ideas and hard facts, is a recurrent feature in the official art of the empire.

It was their preoccupation with actuality, above all, that enabled Roman artists to enlarge their range, as can be seen very clearly in portraiture. A high degree of verisimilitude had been attained by Etruscan and Italic sculptors (4,76) and there are equally vivid and penetrating characterizations in Hellenistic portraiture - sometimes extremely matter-of-fact in a Nvarts-and-aU' style (5,13). But the finest Roman portraits surpass them in unflattering directness. A wide cross-section of society is represented, from craftsmen and tradesmen to government officials and courtiers, whose features, unique even in their ordinariness, speak for single individuals caught at a single moment.

Family Piety

THE ROMAN PORTRAIT BUST

A life-size statue of an ancient Roman patrician carrying two portrait heads of his ancestors (5,59) illustrates a feature of Roman republican life that was to have notable repercussions in sculpture. Family feeling among the ancient Romans was so strong as to amount almost to a form of ancestor worship. However, the right to make portraits of ancestors was restricted by law to patricians only. They had realistic wax heads made from death-masks and displayed them at family funerals and other public ceremonies. The two being carried by the patrician in our illustration are recognizably relations with a marked family likeness to one another, that in his right hand dating from about 50-40 BC and that in his left hand from about 20-15 BC- (The patrician's own head is missing and was recently replaced by an unrelated one of about 40 BC.) Normally such heads of ancestors were kept in a special recess or shrine which had a central position in patrician homes. There they were also associated with the lares (spirits of dead ancestors) and penates (household gods) around which the ancient Roman household revolved. As such they also had a place, in spirit, at the hearth on which a fire was kept burning permanently in their honour, and likewise at the family table which was kept furnished for them with a saltcellar and fresh fruit at every season. None of the original wax heads has survived, presumably because of the impermanence of the material. The earliest account of them dates from the mid-second century BC. This is by a Greek writer, Polybios (202-120 BC), who had been taken to Rome in about 168 BC as a hostage. How long the custom had been in existence before this time is unknown. It may have gone back to the Etruscans, who placed terracotta heads of the deceased on their cinerary urns. Polybios recounts that when a prominent Roman died he was taken, in the course of his funeral procession, to the forum where a son or other relative gave an oration on his virtues; afterwards, having buried him and performed the funeral rites, the relative returned to the family home and placed his portrait in the atrium or main hall where it was enclosed in a wooden aedicular shrine or miniature temple. 'The portrait is a mask', Polybios writes, 'wrought with the utmost attention being paid to preserving a likeness in regard both to its shape and its contour.'

These masks were later displayed at public sacrifices, and when a prominent member of the family died they were carried in the funeral procession by those who most resembled the ancestors in size and build and could impersonate them by wearing the masks. To further the illusion, ancestral togas and other robes and official insignia were also worn by them. 'One could not easily find a sight finer than this for a young man who was in love with fame and goodness', Polybios writes. 'Is there anyone who would not be edified by seeing these portraits of men who were renowned for their excellence and by having them present as if they were living and breathing? Is there any sight which would be more ennobling than this?'

Two hundred years later this ancestral custom may not have been extinct but it had become a relic of the past, of that noble and austere republican past which was recalled with nostalgia by such writers as Pliny the Elder (see pp. 150, 191). He remarked, apropos the lack of appreciation of portraiture in his own day, that things were different in times gone by when patrician houses were filled with family portraits. 'Wax impressions of the face were set out on separate chests, so that they might serve as portraits to be carried in family funeral processions, and thus when anyone died the entire roll of his ancestors, all who ever existed, was present.' Genealogical lines of descent were drawn to form family trees, with portraits and not heraldic devices as became usual in later periods. The family archive rooms were filled with scrolls and other records commemorating the family and if the house was sold the purchaser was not allowed by law to remove certain family relics of the original owner.

The connection between this aristocratic family tradition and portrait sculpture need not be stressed.

Strikingly realistic portrait heads had been made in Etruscan and Hellenistic times (4,76; 5,13). But the genre was to be developed by the Romans - both republican and imperial - into one of their most significant and innovative contributions to the visual arts. An arresting marble head of an unknown citizen of the Roman republic (5,60) would seem indeed to have been made direct from an ancestor mask in wax, for there was originally no back to the head. The uncompromising realism of this stern portrait of a quite homely man in late middle age is in keeping with the high standards of honesty and unpretentious simplicity maintained in all walks of life during the republic, as we have seen (5,54). His cheeks are slashed by deep folds of leathery skin, his thin lips are set in a slightly scornful expression of cautious doubt, his high, protruding cheekbones and deeply sunken temples frame half-closed eyes below a gently creased forehead and balding head of close-cropped hair.

Such unflinching honesty gave way during the early imperial period to more subtle but still candid character studies, often in the form of busts rather than just heads. The bust, as an artistic and expressive form, was introduced and perhaps invented at this time. That of a high-born Roman lady is one of the most notable (5,62). Her eminently polite if ever so slightly haughty character is vividly caught in the way she holds her head with its heavy and elaborate hairdo and by the whole poise of head and shoulders. This could not have been conveyed by a head alone; it was made possible only by exploiting the possibilities of the bust form. The development of the bust form was due partly to its use in the imperial cult, when hundreds of busts of the emperor were distributed all over the empire (see p. 214). As a result a remarkable series of imperial busts survives, culminating artistically in that of Caracalla, a monster of brutality who ruled from AD 211 to 217 (5,61). To portray this coarse and cruel man the sculptor made subtle use of the bust form to suggest abrupt and forceful movement. Draperies sweep vigorously to the left, emphasizing the emperor's arrogant turn of the head and his cold indifference to the spectator.

The portrait bust was the most notable Roman contribution to sculptural form. Until now portraits had been either full-length statues, detached heads or herms (square pillars terminating in heads originally of Hermes but later of famous men). The portrait bust, comprising head, neck and a portion of the torso, was introduced by the Romans as an offshoot of their practice, dating back to very early republican times, of making wax masks of their ancestors. This was a jealously guarded privilege of the patrician class - indeed it was restricted by law to them alone. The wax portraits were piously preserved in the atria of aristocratic homes, to be brought out for family funerals (see p. 212). Most surviving busts are, however, in marble or bronze. One of the finest is of an unknown but clearly very fashionable and high-ranking lady of the court (5,62). From this period onwards the form was, as it were, canonized by its prominent use in the imperial cult. Busts of the emperors were made in large numbers for distribution throughout the empire and were set up in public places to be looked on with religious awe. Every Roman citizen had to burn incense in front of the emperor's bust in token of his loyalty and allegiance. It was partly because of their refusal to do this that the persecution of the early Christians began.

There can be little doubt that behind these customs lay some residue of the ancient belief that the likeness preserves the spirit - a belief already encountered in ancient Egypt and Etruria and, of course, the more lifelike the portrait, the more effective the icon. However, the imperial image transmitted throughout the Roman world in busts and statues and, of course, on coins had to be both a recognizable likeness and a symbol of the*head of state.

Thus, Augustus was always portrayed as a man in the prime of life with a serious open expression, large frank eyes and a serene, unfurrowed brow, which makes him seem almost boyish. His is the unageing face of the man who made himself master of the Roman world when no more than 33 years old. He is shown in his various roles, as military commander (Imperator), first citizen of Rome {Princeps) and chief priest (Pontifex Maximus) - never as an absolute ruler, as were the Hellenistic kings. The image may originally have been intended to mark the new epoch of peace and prosperity he brought, but it persisted unchanged throughout his long reign. His short-back-and-sides hairstyle set a model for later imperial portraits, including those of the bald Caligula. Only Nero broke away to have himself portrayed with a charioteer's or gladiator's fringe - 'he did not take the least trouble to look as an emperor should', the historian Suetonius caustically remarked.

Hadrian was the first Roman emperor to make a radical break with tradition and have himself portrayed with neatly curled hair and a beard in Greek fashion. He may have done this partly to indicate his Hellenism, but he must also have been influenced by Roman theories of physiognomy, which gave great importance to hair and hairstyles as an indication of character. A rich profusion of hair on the head and face marks the Antonine emperors, who succeeded Hadrian, notably the Stoic philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-80), of whom the most famous portrait is that formerly on the Capitoline Hill in Rome (5,63), now in the adjacent Museo Capitolino. It is the only survivor of more than 20 bronze equestrian figures of various emperors and generals to be seen in the city at the end of the imperial period. The naturalism evident in both the rider and the horse, with its bulging eyes and loose skin creased at the neck, is such that one is hardly aware of the completely artificial discrepancy in scale between them. An impression of calm authority and magnanimity is powerfully conveyed - an impression that may well have been even more compelling originally, when the figure of a captive barbarian chieftain (now lost) cowered beneath the horse's raised hoof. (Recent restoration has revealed that the horse and rider were cast separately; they may well have been intended originally for different monuments, for the rider is not in scale with the horse.)

Similar messages were spelt out by many other works of art. The most frequently used vehicle for visual propaganda was the triumphal arch - another Roman invention - half sculpture, half architecture. The origin of these structures, which were set up in all parts of the empire, is surprisingly obscure. Monumental entrances to cities, temple precincts and palaces had, of course, been embellished with sculpture by the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians and Myceneans. In Egypt, as we have seen (p. 66), entrances to temples sometimes bore hieroglyphic inscriptions and carved reliefs referring to the pharaohs who commissioned them. Etruscans, too, built monumental gateways to their cities, of which one survives from the second century BC at Perugia. But the Roman triumphal arch is essentially

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