Aphrodisias’ Sebasteion – IX
Claudius and Agrippina
Claudius' head is worked more carefully and in much greater detail than the rest of the panel. A different, specialist sculptor for the imperial portrait seems likely here. The portrait is a well-individualized and immediately recognizable version of Claudius' main physiognomical type. It has his usual broad brow (here slightly furrowed), middle-aged face with pronounced lines from nose to mouth, and a sagging under-chin. The sharp regular brows are usual, but the enlarged eyes are an ideal element considerably exaggerated here. The forehead hair is carefully carved with large regular locks curving to each side from a slightly off-centre parting over the left eye.
Though weathered and damaged, Agrippina's head seems less well carved and finished than that of Claudius. In style it is stiffer and less subtly modelled. The identification is secured by the context and the hair arrangement.
The hair is centre-parted and brushed to the side, where it turns into three tiers of tight curls: a row of five curls below and two rows of four curls above.
The whole panel makes a convincing, imperial, dynastic composition, but probably not one taken directly from a Roman monument. The design seems to combine or conflate two themes and compositions in a way that seems unlikely at Rome. First, there is the theme of concord in the imperial house, an elevated representation of domestic harmony between the emperor and his wife; and second, there ist the (public) crowning of the emperor with the corona civica, awarded for the saving of citizens' lives ('ob cives servatos'), nominally in battle, but metaphorically in the widest sense.
Source: Smith R.R.R., “The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias”, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 77 (1987).
Roman bas-relief
Claudius – early Nero age (41 – 58 AD)
Aphrodisias, Archaeological Museum
Aphrodisias, Caria, Turkey
Aphrodisias’ Sebasteion – IX
Claudius and Agrippina
Claudius' head is worked more carefully and in much greater detail than the rest of the panel. A different, specialist sculptor for the imperial portrait seems likely here. The portrait is a well-individualized and immediately recognizable version of Claudius' main physiognomical type. It has his usual broad brow (here slightly furrowed), middle-aged face with pronounced lines from nose to mouth, and a sagging under-chin. The sharp regular brows are usual, but the enlarged eyes are an ideal element considerably exaggerated here. The forehead hair is carefully carved with large regular locks curving to each side from a slightly off-centre parting over the left eye.
Though weathered and damaged, Agrippina's head seems less well carved and finished than that of Claudius. In style it is stiffer and less subtly modelled. The identification is secured by the context and the hair arrangement.
The hair is centre-parted and brushed to the side, where it turns into three tiers of tight curls: a row of five curls below and two rows of four curls above.
The whole panel makes a convincing, imperial, dynastic composition, but probably not one taken directly from a Roman monument. The design seems to combine or conflate two themes and compositions in a way that seems unlikely at Rome. First, there is the theme of concord in the imperial house, an elevated representation of domestic harmony between the emperor and his wife; and second, there ist the (public) crowning of the emperor with the corona civica, awarded for the saving of citizens' lives ('ob cives servatos'), nominally in battle, but metaphorically in the widest sense.
Source: Smith R.R.R., “The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias”, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 77 (1987).
Roman bas-relief
Claudius – early Nero age (41 – 58 AD)
Aphrodisias, Archaeological Museum
Aphrodisias, Caria, Turkey