The victory over Pompey at Pharsalia in 49 b.c. left Julius Cæsar in supreme control. Brutus and Cassius led the Republican forlorn hope, and Cæsar himself was murdered in 44 b.c., but he had achieved his end. He had pointed out the only method of consolidating Rome’s vast conquests and bringing peace to the sorely tried State. Augustus realized at once the impossibility of reverting to the discarded republican form of government. In its place he set up a veiled despotism which enabled him to control all the energies and resources of Rome’s great empire. As Imperator, Augustus made himself commander-in-chief of the armies; as Princeps Senatus, he was leader of the Legislative Assembly of the Senate; as Tribune, he acted as the representative of Roman democracy; as Chief Pontiff, he was the head of an all-powerful ecclesiastical organisation.
With the advent of peace Rome was able to turn her energies to art. The consequences were immediate in all departments of culture. It was the patronage of Mæcenas, the chief minister of Augustus, which placed Virgil in a position to write the “Georgics.” By 19 b.c. the “Æneid” was written in honour of Augustus. It was Mæcenas who provided Horace with the farm among the Sabine hills, where the Roman lyricist and satirist wrote all his later works.
THE RISE OF ROMAN PORTRAITURE
The effects of this social and political revolution upon sculpture could not be more happily illustrated than by two portraits of the men who brought them to pass. The “Julius Cæsar” is the well-known portrait bust in the British Museum;[1] the “[Augustus]” is the equally famous life-sized figure in the Vatican.
[1] See Furtwängler, “Neuere Fälschungen von Antiken,” p. 14.
In the first place, both are portraits. This emphasizes the prime fact that the branch of sculpture chiefly affected was portraiture. It is not difficult to surmise why this was so. In all other branches, whether athletic statues, dramatic groups or sculptures of the gods, earlier Hellenic and Hellenistic artists had produced works which the unimaginative Romans could never hope to equal. The copies of, and variations upon, the works of the Greek masters so fitted Rome’s needs that little or no effort was made to produce new works of the same class. But in portraiture this was not the case. In the nature of things portraits cannot be so directly affected by an earlier artistic method. The sculptors of Rome soon found that the methods of their Hellenic masters would not yield the results required. The true Greek portrait sculptor had never aimed at the realistic and life-like representation which was the one desire of the matter-of-fact Roman patron. As we have seen, the Greek had refrained from elaborating expression. He portrayed an ideal type rather than an individualized man or woman.
Take any typical Greek portrait as an illustration—the bust of “[Pericles],” in the Elgin Room at the British Museum, for instance. Compare it with the “Julius Cæsar” in the same collection. We see Pericles in the perfection of physical force and mental energy. The ruler of Athens is more than a man. He is an epitome of all that a Greek would be. There is no attempt at characterization. The suggestion of voluptuousness in the lips, which heightens the work so much, is really not an individual trait. It is rather an Hellenic characteristic. It is part of an effort to express a type. But the Roman sculptor of the “Julius Cæsar” never dreamt of embodying a whole race in a single portrait—a philosophy in a statue. He was content to give expression to the man before him. For this very reason the finest Roman portraits possess a vigorous vitality which an Hellenic portrait study lacks. As Pater expressed it: “The seeking of the type in the individual, the abstraction of all that because of its nature endures but for a moment, this involves loss of expression.” That is why the “[Pericles]” is the portrait of a fifth-century Athenian and the Roman work is the portrait of Julius Cæsar.
Exactly the same must be said of the great statue of “Augustus addressing his Soldiers,” in the Vatican. Compared with the “[Phocion],” the “[Augustus]” is a carefully individualized character-study. The tendency is not, however, carried to the extreme limit attained in later Roman sculpture. The artist evidently hesitates to break entirely with the idealistic method of the Hellenes. He willingly sacrifices the chance of creating an eternal type, symbolizing the idea of Roman imperialism incarnated in the first Emperor, preferring to convey the impression of life-like portraiture. But he shows an ideal Augustus. The statue does not convey the sensation of a moment of time—good, bad or indifferent—captured and fixed for ever, which is so characteristic of Roman portraits during the next century or two.
For this reason there is much to be said in favour of the view which regards Augustan Rome as the last Hellenistic centre. It is still an artist who is Greek at heart who is at work. But he differs from his predecessors inasmuch as he is striving to give his Roman patrons a thrill which they will feel to be national—to be truly Roman.
The Vatican statue of Augustus Cæsar was discovered in 1863. Apart from its interest as a transitional work leading to the pure Roman style, it claims attention owing to the light it throws upon the much discussed problem of the colouring of marble statuary. We have previously noted the fact that it is established beyond possibility of doubt that the great mass of Greek and Roman sculpture was freely coloured. Traces of pigment can still be found in numerous works, but the evidence is insufficient to justify any really dogmatic utterances as to actual methods. We have therefore preferred to do little more than allude to the practice. The evidence furnished by the statue of Augustus is so complete, however, that it suggests the desirability of a rather fuller reference. The work was discovered in the Villa of Livia, near Prima Porta. Otto Jahn, in his Aus der Alterthumswissenschaft, published in 1868, gives the following particulars as to its condition: