Roman sculpture from Augustus to Constantine (1907) (14594590108)

Identifier: romansculpturefr00stro (find matches)
Title: Roman sculpture from Augustus to Constantine
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Strong, Eugénie Sellers
Subjects: Sculpture, Roman Sculpture, Greco-Roman
Publisher: London : Duckworth and Co. New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University



Text Appearing Before Image:
on ofthe brow, recall the portraits of Caracallus (below,Plate CXXI.). On the large fragment illustrated here, the beardedhead of a flumen with his pointed cap has many pointsin common with the head interpreted as Caracallus.The characteristics are so clearly those of the portraitureof the period that we cannot, I think, be very farastray in accepting Hartwigs suggestion as to thedate. The two heads we have considered, two youngerbeardless heads, a couple of torsi and the head of abull, are part of a ceremonial sacrificial scene that playsin front of a temple which, from the subject, must bethat of Quirinus on the Quirinal, restored by Augustusin B.C. i6. We have already met with similar copiesof actual temples on reliefs—the temple of V^enus andRome, for instance, on an Hadrianic relief (p. 238);that of Jupiter Capitolinus on a relief of Marcus • Riimische Mittheilungen, xix. 1904, pp. 23-37 ; Plates III., IV.Plate IV. is here reproduced by permission,t Loc. ci/., PI. III. No. 9.
Text Appearing After Image:
SEVERUS TO DIOCLETIAN 303 Aurelius (p. 293), and the temple of Mars Ultor and ofthe Magna Mater on two reliefs tentatively attributedto the Flavian period (p. 143). Architectural indica-tions of locality are, in fact, very common on all Romanrelief sculpture. In the present instance the subject isof striking interest because of its genuinely Romancharacter. In this respect it belongs to the samecategory as the representation of the scene from thepediment of Venus and Rome with the Nativity ofRomulus and Remus (p. 239). It is a later legend ofthe life of the mythical founder of Rome which we havebefore us. In the centre of the pediment, a greatflight of birds directed towards a personage seated onthe extreme left shows that the episode is the auguriumor omen of the birds in favour of Romulus—Cedunt de caelo ter quatuor corpora sanctaAvium, praepetibus sese pulchrisque locis dant.* Ennius. Romulus and Remus, each with a local divinity at hisside, are seated opposite one another facing