The study of Roman imperial statues has made remarkable strides in the last two decades. Yet the field's understandable focus on extant portraits has made it difficult to generalize accurately. Most notably, bronze was usually the material of choice, but its high scrap value meant that such statues were inevitably melted down, so that almost all surviving statues are of stone. By examining the much larger and more representative body of statue bases, Jakob Munk Hojte is here able to situate the statues themselves in context. This volume includes a catalogue of 2300 known statue bases from more than 800 sites within and without the Roman Empire. Moreover, since it covers a period of 250 years, it allows for the first time consistent geographic, chronological and commemorative patterns to emerge. Hojte finds among other things that imperial portrait statues are connected chiefly with urban centres; that they were raised continuously during a given reign, with a higher concentration a couple years after accession; that a primary purpose was often to advertise a donor's merits; and that they increased sixfold in frequency from Augustus to Hadrian, an increase attributable to community erections. Jakob Munk Hojte is post.doc. and research assistant at the Danish National Research Foundations Centre for Black Sea Studies.

The study of Roman imperial statues has made remarkable strides in the last two decades. Yet the field's understandable focus on extant portraits has made it difficult to generalize accurately. Most notably, bronze was usually the material of choice, but its high scrap value meant that such statues were inevitably melted down, so that almost all surviving statues are of stone. By examining the much larger and more representative body of statue bases, Jakob Munk Hojte is here able to situate the statues themselves in context. This volume includes a catalogue of 2300 known statue bases from more than 800 sites within and without the Roman Empire. Moreover, since it covers a period of 250 years, it allows for the first time consistent geographic, chronological and commemorative patterns to emerge. Hojte finds among other things that imperial portrait statues are connected chiefly with urban centres; that they were raised continuously during a given reign, with a higher concentration a couple years after accession; that a primary purpose was often to advertise a donor's merits; and that they increased sixfold in frequency from Augustus to Hadrian, an increase attributable to community erections. Jakob Munk Hojte is post.doc. and research assistant at the Danish National Research Foundations Centre for Black Sea Studies.

It has long been thought that imperial portrait types were officially commissioned to commemorate specific historical moments and that they were made available to both the mint and the marble workshops in Rome, assuming a close correspondence between portraits on coins and in the round. All of this, however, has never been clearly proven, nor has it been disproven by a close systematic examination of the evidence on a broad material basis by those scholars who have questioned it. Through systematic case studies of Faustina the Younger's and Marcus Aurelius' portraits on coins and in sculpture, this book provides new insights into the functioning of the imperial image in Rome in the second century AD that move a difficult, much-discussed subject forward decisively. The new evidence presented here has made it necessary to adjust the established model; more flexibility is needed to describe the processes and practices behind the phenomenon of 'repeated' imperial portraits and how the imperial portrait worked in the mint of Rome and in the metropolitan marble workshops.

This book shows how the circulation of ideals associated with the Roman emperor generated ideological unification among aristocracies and reinforced Roman power.

Spanning centuries and the vastness of the Roman Empire, The Last Statues of Antiquity is the first comprehensive survey of Roman honorific statues in the public realm in Late Antiquity. Drawn from a major research project and corresponding online database that collates all the available evidence for the 'statue habit' across the Empire from the late third century AD onwards, the volume examines where, how, and why statues were used, and why these important features of urban life began to decline in number before eventually disappearing around AD 600. Adopting a detailed comparative approach, the collection explores variation between different regions-including North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Near East-as well as individual cities, such as Aphrodisias, Athens, Constantinople, and Rome. A number of thematic chapters also consider the different kinds of honorand, from provincial governors and senators, to women and cultural heroes. Richly illustrated, the volume is the definitive resource for studying the phenomenon of late-antique statues. The collection also incorporates extensive references to the project's database, which is freely accessible online.

Explores how artists and patrons at all social levels helped form and evolve the visual language of the Roman Empire.

Across the Roman Empire, ubiquitous archaeological, art historical, and literary evidence attests to the significance of bathing for Romans' routines and relationships. Public baths were popularly viewed as necessities of daily life and important social venues. Given the importance of bathing to the Roman style of living, by endowing eight magnificent baths (the so-called imperial thermae) in the city of Rome between 25 BCE - 315 CE, imperial patrons greatly enhanced their popular and political stature. Decoration and Display in Rome's Imperial Thermae presents a detailed analysis of the extensive decoration of the best preserved of these bathing complexes, the Baths of Caracalla (inaugurated 216 CE). Maryl B. Gensheimer takes an interdisciplinary approach to existing archaeological data, textual and visual sources, and anthropological theories in order to generate a new understanding of the visual experience of the Baths of Caracalla and show how the decoration played a critical role in advancing imperial agendas. This reassessment of one of the most ambitious and sophisticated examples of large-scale architectural patronage in Classical antiquity examines the specific mechanisms through which an imperial patron could use architectural decoration to emphasize his own unique sociopolitical position relative to the thousands of people who enjoyed his benefaction. The case studies addressed herein--ranging from architectural to freestanding sculpture and mosaic--demonstrate that sponsoring monumental baths was hardly an act of altruism. Rather, even while they provided recreation for elite and sub-altern Romans alike, such buildings were concerned primarily with dynastic legitimacy and imperial largess. Decorative programs articulated these themes by consistently drawing analogies between the subjects of the decoration and the emperor who had paid for it. The unified decorative program--and the messages of imperial power therein--adroitly honored the emperor and consolidated his reputation.

Ancestry played a continuous role in the construction and portrayal of Roman emperorship in the first three centuries AD. Emperors and Ancestors is the first systematic analysis of the different ways in which imperial lineage was represented in the various 'media' through which images of emperors could be transmitted. Looking beyond individual rulers, Hekster evaluates evidence over an extended period of time and differentiates between various types of sources, such as inscriptions, sculpture, architecture, literary text, and particularly central coinage, which forms the most convenient source material for a modern reconstruction of Roman representations over a prolonged period of time. The volume explores how the different media in use sent out different messages. The importance of local notions and traditions in the choice of local representations of imperial ancestry are emphasized, revealing that there was no monopoly on image-forming by the Roman centre and far less interaction between central and local imagery than is commonly held. Imperial ancestry is defined through various parallel developments at Rome and in the provinces. Some messages resonated outside the centre but only when they were made explicit and fitted local practice and the discourse of the medium. The construction of imperial ancestry was constrained by the local expectations of how a ruler should present himself, and standardization over time of the images and languages that could be employed in the 'media' at imperial disposal. Roman emperorship is therefore shown to be a constant process of construction within genres of communication, representation, and public symbolism.

Authority is an important concept in Byzantine culture whose myriad modes of implementation helped maintain the existence of the Byzantine state across so many centuries, binding together people from different ethnic groups, in different spheres of life and activities. Even though its significance to understanding the Byzantine world is so central, it is nonetheless imperfectly understood. The present volume brings together an international cast of scholars to explore this concept. The contributions are divided into nine sections focusing on different aspects of authority: the imperial authority of the state, how it was transmitted from the top down, from Constantinople to provincial towns, how it dealt with marginal legal issues or good medical practice; authority in the market place, whether directly concerning over-the-counter issues such as coinage, weights and measures, or the wider concerns of the activities of foreign traders; authority in the church, such as the extent to which ecclesiastical authority was inherent, or how constructs of religious authority ordered family life; the authority of knowledge revealed through imperial patronage or divine wisdom; the authority of text, though its conformity with ancient traditions, through the Holy scriptures and through the authenticity of history; exhibiting authority through images of the emperor or the Divine. The final section draws on personal experience of three great ’authorities’ within Byzantine Studies: Ostrogorsky, Beck and Browning.

This book explains why Roman portrait statues, famed for their individuality, repeatedly employed the same body forms.