adventures in my head
Like so much else the San Casciano find will change how we study and think about almost everything visual from Roman Republican Italy. I collected more images of the portrait heads below (these are just heads, they were never attached to bodies). They are inscribed on the necks by the individuals who commissioned the images… Continue reading Revisiting Italic and Roman Portraiture
An example with uncertain provenance now in Getty via Fleichman collection.
Again just a little note of something I want to read. This article will be useful for those interested in Ptolemaic or Neronian Portraiture and more.
This isn’t a real post. I’m too busy for a real post. Everything I’m doing feels a little neglected as I’m doing too much. HAPPY SEPTEMBER! but I don’t want to lose this image or refs. For #MosaicMonday, my second favorite Hellenistic mosaic: the stunning portrait of Berenike II, Queen of Kyrenaika and later Ptolemaic… Continue reading Hellenistic Royal Portrait Mosaic
This article doesn’t have as much on coins and gems as I would like but still ought to be cited, esp. when discussing verism: Tanner, Jeremy. “Portraits, Power, and Patronage in the Late Roman Republic.” The Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000): 18-50. doi:10.2307/300199. e.g.
This is just fun. C. 101 (Mattingly) or 104 (Crawford) this novus homo makes a VERY conservative coin (RRC 318/1) (gorgeous specimen though!): By 94 he’s consul. And Cicero’s brother is using him as a positive exempla by the late 60s: Then his son (so Crawford, I think perhaps grandson — we don’t know the… Continue reading Portrait of a Moneyer
Ptolemy abandoned his alliance with Rome, out of fear for the outcome of the war, but furnished Lucullus with ships to convoy him as far as Cyprus, embraced him graciously at parting, and offered him a costly emerald set in gold. At first Lucullus declined to accept it, but when the king showed him that… Continue reading The symbolic importance of portrait gems
A bon mot attributed to Cicero on the occasion of seeing a statue of his brother in the provinces (Macr. Sat. 2.3.4):
CRRO 511/1 I love how close some of the aurei dies come to emulating the Copenhagen head type:
Liv Mariah Yarrow 