Staggering in terms of preservation and beauty, undeniably masterful bronze working (and those unsettling eyes!), this head of Augustus is in every survey book on Roman art and portraiture worth its salt.
It shows Augustus, the freshly minted princeps of Rome, as a young man, which he was at the time of this portrait’s manufacture (although unlike his Republican predecessors he eschewed the fashion for aging in portraits made even decades later.) It shows a powerful face with Classical ‘Greek’ proportions, sensitively modelled, with dramatic turn to the head, and with the characteristic hairstyle that Octavian adopted in the years after his resounding defeat of Marc Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 B.C. All of this makes it an exciting artwork and a good reason to have a gander at it where it is well displayed in the British Museum.
But the really peculiar bits are what happened to it within only a few years after it was made (thought to be between 27 and 25 B.C.) and where it was eventually found. During 1910 excavations at Meroë (the capital of ancient Kush, in the environs of modern Sudan) the head was excavated beneath the stairs leading to a local shrine there. Statues of Augustus had been sprinkled far and wide within his freshly conquered territory, especially in the hinterlands – reminders of the dominion of Rome. These were not wholly appreciated, and Strabo (XVII 82) tells of Kushite raids on forts and settlements in Upper Egypt where such statues were ripped down and absconded with. Many were evidently returned after negotiations with Queen Candace of Meroë.
Yet this decapitated head was evidently purposely held back in the capital city. The shrine (which remained a pilgrimage site for centuries) beneath which the head was buried was decorated with wall paintings showing bound and kneeling foreign enemies, perhaps indicating it was a shrine to victory. The implication is clear: visitors were invited to tread upon the head of the much resented new occupier. Ah, the power of an imperial image….
