Images of Power in the Classical World:

Alexander the Great and Augustus

First Year Seminar 2001

(05-012)

 

Prof. H. Haskell (haskell@southwestern.edu)
MBH 223

syllabus
images
maps
time line

 

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Images

Horace (65-8 BC)

Venusiae (south of Rome)

clerk in Treasury Dept., Rome, 41-38 BC

Vergil and Varius

in entourage of Maecenas 39 or 38 to 8 BC

Sabine Farm, 33 BC

Horace, Selections

Centennial Hymn (17 BC)

  • Phoebus (Apollo) and Diana [Artemis]
  • Sibyl; Sibylline Books
  • Ilithyia = Diana
  • lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis (18 BC)
  • lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus
  • Parcae = Fates
  • d. Vergil 19 BC
  • "sea and land," cf. Actium
  • "seek his pronouncements" (responsa petunt) as from a god

Ode 1.2 (29-28 BC)

  • 3rd AD commentator says that "storms" = signs from above demanding vengeance for Julius Caesar's murder
  • (Deucalion and) Pyrrha; great flood
  • Augur Apollo; Apollo = prophet god
  • Mars, father of Romulus, is "Parent" of Rome
  • "sudden whirlwind" = ref. to story later in Livy, with Romulus whisked up to heaven in whirwind
  • "Prince" = princeps, "first citizen"

Ode 1.12 (25-23 BC)

  • "Parent" = Jupiter
  • "Pallas Athena." Athena = Gk. name for Minerva
  • Marcus Atilius Regulus, Carthage 256 BC; 250 back to Rome, then back to Carthage
  • Lucius Aemeilius Paullus, lost battle to Hannibal 216 BC, died with men
  • Caius Fabricius Luscinus, resisted bribes to betray Rome; Vergil (Aeneid 6.844) calls him "poor but mighty."
  • Marcus Furius Camillus (5 times dicator) captured Veii from Etruscans, 392 BC
  • Marcellus (son of Octavian's sister Octavia) married Julia (Octavian's daughter) in 25 BC and made heir; but died in 23 BC
  • "Julian star" gen. = family, specifically = Augustus
  • "Father" = Jupiter
  • "Caesar" = Augustus

Ode 1.31 (28 BC or after)

  • library/temple of Apollo dedicated 28 BC

Ode 4.14 (15 BC)

  • conscript fathers or citizens = the two segments of the people of Rome. "SPQR" = senatus populusque Romanus"
  • "Pleiades" = winter constellation; Hellenistic type reference

Ode 4.15

  • Phoebus (Apollo), god of poetry
  • "fields in wealth," i.e. agriculture after civil war
  • Parthian standards, lost in 53 BC, returned by Tiberius in 20 BC
  • Temple of War = Janus
  • licentiousness a ref. to laws of 18 BC

Troy and Anchises, Vergil

Res Gestae (Index rerum a se gestarum)

bronze pillars, entrance to mausoleum in Rome (Suetonius, Augustus 101)

Ankara (Temple of Rome and Augustus); Ankara center of imperial cult

emphases:

  • bestowal of honors on A. by community (by consensus)
  • expenditures by benefactor A.
  • miltary achievements of age, imperium and personal glory
  • auctoritas which this entailed, leading to appropriateness of title pater patriae

"Augustus" for service to (=restoration of) Republic (Res Gestae 34)

laurel trees either side of doorposts of house
  • laurel wreaths traditional for victors
  • laurel tree scared to Apollo

corona civica (oak wreath) over door of house

  • traditionally for military victory
  • awarded to Augustus ob cives servatos (for saving the citizens)
  • oak sacred to Jupiter; Jupiter's eagle

clipeus virtutis (golden shield) in Curia

  • awarded for bravery, clemency, justice, piety (virtus, clementia, iustitia, pietas)
  • set up in Curia Julia; copies throughout Empire

Sanctuary of Apollo on Palatine (ded. 9 October 28 BC)

  • statue of Apollo Actius, on rostra; lyre; libation bowl and altar
  • sculpture on doors: slaying of children of Niobe; Gauls driven out of Delphi. Cf. Delphi
  • instead of Augustus in chariot (normal for Victors), marble quadriga of Apollo and Diana (by classical Greek sculptor Lysias)

Res Gestae

Augustan imagery

sculpture

Caere, portrait, 1st cent. BC (Becatti fig. 268)

Augustus, Prima Porta statue, detail of head (Zanker 83; Ployclitus, Doryphoros, head, copy (Zanker 84)

Augustus, Prima Porta statue (Zanker 148a)

Augustus, Prima Porta statue, detail of cuirass (Zanker 148b)

Augustus, togate statue (Zanker 104)

architecture

Italy

Greece

Asia Minor

Vitruvius

Architectural Orders

Doric

Ionic, Corinthian

Tuscan

post and lintel

arch

Greek temple architecture

Athens, Parthenon (mid-5th BC)

peripteral

Etruscan temple architecture

Vitruvian description

platform

Roman temple architecture

Graeco-Roman

classicizing tendencies

Greek architectural orders

Greek architecture

Etruscan architecture

Roman architecture

painting

Boscotrecase

painting, "III Style"

painting, "III Style"

Gemma Augustea

Gold coin, obverse, bust of Augustus, ca. 27 B.C. - 20 B.C. (Boston Museum)(Perseus site)

Bronze coin, obverse, togate Augustus wearing radiate crown ("DIVUS AUGUSTUS PATER"), 22-23 AD (Boston Museum)(Perseus site)

Gold coin, obverse, head of Augustus with radiate crown ("DIVUS AUGUSTUS"), 68-69 AD (Boston Museum)(Perseus site)

Bronze coin, laureate bust of Augustus, with Victoria, 5 BC (Boston Museum)(Perseus site)