bavarikon4UDescription
In January 27 BC, the Senate and the People of Rome awarded the 36-year-old Gaius Octavius, the honorific “Augustus”, the “sublime”. Under the name of his adoptive father Julius Caesar, he had already been absolute autocrat of the Roman Empire for three years. The official imperial portrait which was created on this occasion and which was reissued many times beyond the death of the ruler has been preserved in about 150 copies. The head presented here offers the best-quality version, part of the Bevilacqua collection acquired from Verona in 1811 by King Louis I (1825-1848). The portrait dates from the final years of the life of Augustus, who died in AD 14 at the age of almost 76. It shows the emperor in a state of superior elegance and remote beauty, with a calm face and a well-ordered hairstyle.
Unlike contemporaneous Republican portraits with their distinctive and wrinkled character faces which attempted to illustrate the life-time achievement and the political experience of the person portrayed, there is no trace of age or exertion. The ruler presents imself to the public as confident and ageless, exalted above the vicissitudes of fate and the transience of human life.