Before the small village of Rome became Rome, the great Capital City and Empire, a brilliant civilization controlled almost the entire peninsula we now call Italy. This was the Etruscan civilization, a vanished culture whose achievements set the stage not only for the development of ancient Roman art and culture but for the Italian Renaissance as well.

Though you may not have heard of them, the Etruscans were the first “superpower” of the Western Mediterranean who, alongside the Greeks, developed the earliest true cities in Europe. They were so successful, in fact, that the most important cities in modern Tuscany (Florence, Pisa, and Siena, to name a few) were first established by the Etruscans and have been continuously inhabited since then.

Yet the labels “mysterious” or “enigmatic” are often attached to the Etruscans, since none of their own histories or literature survives. This is particularly ironic, as it was the Etruscans who were responsible for teaching the Romans the alphabet and for spreading literacy throughout the Italian peninsula.

Etruscan influence on ancient Roman culture was profound. It was from the Etruscans that the Romans inherited many of their own cultural and artistic traditions, from the spectacle of gladiatorial combat to hydraulic engineering, temple design, and religious ritual, among many other things. In fact, hundreds of years after the Etruscans had been conquered by the Romans and absorbed into their empire, the Romans still maintained an Etruscan priesthood in Rome (which they thought necessary to consult when under attack from invading “barbarians”).

Legend has it that Rome was founded in 753 BCE by Romulus, its first king. In 509 BCE, Rome became a republic ruled by the Senate (wealthy landowners and elders) and the Roman people. During the 450 years of the Republic, Rome conquered the rest of Italy and then expanded into France, Spain, Turkey, North Africa, and Greece.

Rome became very Greek-influenced or “Hellenized,” and the city was filled with Greek architecture, literature, statues, wall paintings, mosaics, pottery, and glass. But with Greek culture came Greek gold, and generals and senators fought over this new wealth. The Republic collapsed in civil war and the Roman Empire began.

Ancient Roman Art

Roman art is a very broad topic, spanning almost 1,000 years and three continents, from Europe and Africa and Asia. The first Roman art can be dated back to 509 BCE, with the legendary founding of the Roman Republic, and lasted until 330 CE (or much longer, if you include Byzantine art). Roman art also encompasses a broad spectrum of media, including marble, painting, mosaic, gems, silver, bronze work, and terracottas, just to name a few. The city of Rome was a melting pot, and the Romans had no qualms about adapting artistic influences from the other Mediterranean cultures that surrounded and preceded them. For this reason, it is common to see Greek, Etruscan, and Egyptian influences throughout Roman art. This is not to say that all of Roman art is derivative, though, and one of the challenges for specialists is to define what is “Roman” about Roman art.

The Romans did not believe, as we do today, that to have a copy of an artwork was of any less value than to have the original. The copies, however, were more often variations rather than direct copies, and they had small changes made to them. The variations could be made with humor, taking the serious and somber element of Greek art and turning it on its head. For example, a famously gruesome Hellenistic sculpture of the satyr Marsyas being flayed was converted in a Roman dining room to a knife handle (currently in the National Archaeological Museum in Perugia). A knife was the very element that would have been used to flay the poor satyr, demonstrating not only the owner’s knowledge of Greek mythology and important statuary but also a dark sense of humor. From the direct reporting of the Greeks to the utilitarian and humorous luxury item of a Roman enthusiast, Marsyas made quite the journey. But the Roman artist was not simply copying. He was also adapting in a conscious and brilliant way. It is precisely this ability to adapt, convert, combine elements, and add a touch of humor that makes Roman art unique.

Typically the history of Rome is divided into two major periods: the Republic and the Empire. During the period of the Republic, Rome celebrated its democratic and philosophical ideals, evidenced by the stylistic choices of artisans of this time. In the Empire, Rome recast its identity as an heir of a divine right to rule, self-consciously connecting their history to that of the Greeks through myth and art. 

The Roman Republic

Seemingly wrinkled and toothless, with sagging jowls, the face of a Roman aristocrat stares at us across the ages. In the aesthetic parlance of the Late Roman Republic, the physical traits of this portrait image are meant to convey seriousness of mind (gravitas) and the virtue (virtus) of a public career by demonstrating how the subject literally wears the marks of his endeavors. While this representational strategy might seem unusual in the post-modern world, in the waning days of the Roman Republic it was an effective means of competing in an ever more complex socio-political arena.

The Head of a Roman Patrician

This portrait head, now housed in the Palazzo Torlonia in Rome, Italy, comes from Otricoli (ancient Ocriculum) and dates to the middle of the first century BCE. The name of the individual depicted is now unknown, but the portrait is a powerful representation of a male aristocrat with a hooked nose and strong cheekbones. The figure is frontal without any hint of dynamism or emotion—this sets the portrait apart from some of its near contemporaries. The portrait head is characterized by deep wrinkles, a furrowed brow, and generally an appearance of sagging, sunken skin—all indicative of the veristic style of Roman portraiture.

Verism can be defined as a sort of hyperrealism in sculpture where the naturally occurring features of the subject are exaggerated, often to the point of absurdity. In the case of Roman Republican portraiture, middle-aged males adopt veristic tendencies in their portraiture to such an extent that they appear to be extremely aged and careworn. This stylistic tendency is influenced both by the tradition of ancestral imagines as well as a deep-seated respect for family, tradition, and ancestry. The imagines were essentially death masks of notable ancestors that were kept and displayed by the family. In the case of aristocratic families, these wax masks were used at subsequent funerals so that an actor might portray the deceased ancestors in a sort of familial parade. The ancestor cult, in turn, influenced a deep connection to family. For late Republican politicians without any famous ancestors (a group famously known as ‘new men’ or ‘homines novi’) the need was even more acute—and verism rode to the rescue. The adoption of such an austere and wizened visage was a tactic to lend familial gravitas to families who had none—and thus (hopefully) increase the chances of the aristocrat’s success in both politics and business. This jockeying for position very much characterized the scene at Rome in the waning days of the Roman Republic and the Otricoli head is a reminder that one’s public image played a major role in what was a turbulent time in Roman history.

The Early Empire

The Roman Republic transformed into an Empire, with a somewhat mythologized and idealized Emperor. Today, politicians think very carefully about how they will be photographed. Think about all the campaign commercials and print ads we are bombarded with every election season. These images tell us a lot about the candidates, including what they stand for and what agendas they are promoting. Similarly, Roman art was closely intertwined with politics and propaganda. This is especially true with portraits of Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire; Augustus invoked the power of imagery to communicate his ideology.

One of Augustus’ most famous portraits is the so-called Augustus of Prima Porta of 20 BCE (the sculpture gets its name from the town in Italy where it was found in 1863). At first glance, this statue might appear to simply resemble a portrait of Augustus as an orator and general, but this sculpture also communicates a good deal about the emperor’s power and ideology. In fact, in this portrait, Augustus shows himself as a great military victor and a staunch supporter of Roman religion. The statue also foretells the 200 year period of peace that Augustus initiated, called the Pax Romana.

The Painted Garden of the Villa of Livia

The control of his personal image was only one way in which the rulers of the Roman Empire used art to control the perception of reality. Wall paintings were also used to bend and blur the lines between what is true and what is depicted. 

Questions to Consider

1. How has the artist of this work blurred the lines between image and reality? What elements of the work contribute to this effect?
2. How does the naturalism (or verism) of this work relate to the styles of works from the Republican period?

The plant species depicted include umbrella pine, oak, red fir, quince, pomegranate, myrtle, oleander, date palm, strawberry, laurel, viburnum, holm oak, boxwood, cypress, ivy, acanthus, rose, poppy, chrysanthemum, chamomile, fern, violet, and iris.

Another example of exquisite wall paintings in Ancient Rome comes from the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor in Boscoreale Italy. Buried by a massive eruption of Mount Vesuvius, it features some of the highest quality Roman wall paintings of the period. 

The Middle Empire

As the Empire expanded, the image of the emperor necessarily changed as well. During the height of the Empire, the emperor shed its mythological connections in favor of a military and civic character. In ancient Rome, equestrian statues of emperors would not have been uncommon sights in the city—late antique sources suggest that at least 22 of these “great horses” (equi magni) were to be seen—as they were official devices for honoring the emperor for singular military and civic achievements. The statues themselves were, in turn, copied in other media, including coins, for even wider distribution.

The Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius

Few examples of these equestrian statues survive from antiquity, however, making the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius a singular artifact of Roman antiquity, one that has borne quiet witness to the ebb and flow of the city of Rome for nearly 1,900 years. A gilded bronze monument of the 170s CE that was originally dedicated to the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, referred to commonly as Marcus Aurelius, the statue is an important object not only for the study of official Roman portraiture, but also for the consideration of monumental dedications.

Video Transcript

We're in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, looking at the equestrian sculpture of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. We're not exactly sure of the date, but it's sometime around 176 or 180 CE.

It's in a new space, because it was suffering some conservation problems and so had to be removed from the Campidoglio, where Michelangelo had put it.

And actually, that's an important point, because we don't know where it originally was in Rome.

No. What's really important is that this is the only equestrian sculpture of this size to survive from antiquity.

And we know that there had been dozens of them in Rome.

They were created to celebrate the triumphal return of an emperor.

There's so much authority as a result of him on horseback, clearly ruling. His left arm is lightly holding the reins—or would have been lightly holding the reins of the horse. The right hand protrudes out.

Addressing the troops, or addressing the citizens of Rome.

There's a sense of confidence in his posture and, of course, in the scale.

It is enormous. This survived because it was thought to have represented Constantine, the emperor who made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire. And so this wasn't melted down for its bronze the way that almost all other equestrian sculptures were.

This could have ended up as a cannon. That's right.

So we're lucky it survived. And it had an enormous influence in the Renaissance for artists, beginning with Donatello and Leonardo da Vinci. And of course, also the ability to cast something this size in bronze had also been lost.

And it just shows how accomplished the ancient Romans were, both in their handling of the material, but also in the representation, the real understanding of the body, of its musculature.

And of the anatomy of the horse, striding forward. It's so animated and lifelike.

The folds of the neck as his head pushes downward.

And the folds of the drapery that Marcus Aurelius is wearing, how it comes down and drapes over his leg and the back of the horse.

There's also something really wonderfully momentary and also, at the same time, I think, very timeless here. The horse is striding, his arm is raised, but there's a wonderful sense of balance. The horse is in motion. He's pulling to the right.

He had in his left hand the reins, so there's a tension in that he sort of seems to be pulling back. And the horse pulls its head back a little bit. At the same time, the right side of his body seems to be moving forward.

And leaning to the right.

There's a kind of animation throughout.

There's also this unity between this incredibly powerful animal and Marcus Aurelius. He's in full control of the horse. And I think that that's the point.

And even kind of moving forward while pulling the horse back slightly.

With his body.

Like he's holding it back.

And you're right, his left hand is holding the reins, but it's a light touch even though he's in command of this incredibly powerful animal.

Is it me or does he seem a little too big for the horse? Do you know if this was cast in one piece?

It would have been cast in individual pieces. And then it would have been assembled. And then the bronze would have been worked so as to erase the seams.

And so this commemorating of a great man and his great deeds was an important idea in the Renaissance with the flowering of humanism, this recognition of the achievement of an individual, the representation of that individual in a portrait. These were things that had been lost in the Middle Ages.

This interest in representation, both of his authority, of his position in society, but also the ability to render the body, and then the interest in rendering. All of those things come together in the Renaissance again, having originally come together, of course, in the classical world.

The Late Empire

As the Roman Empire and the power of the emperor grew, so did the challenges. The imperial system of the Roman Empire depended heavily on the personality and standing of the emperor himself. The reigns of weak or unpopular emperors often ended in bloodshed in Rome and chaos throughout the empire. In the third century CE, the very existence of the empire was threatened by a combination of economic crisis, weak and short-lived emperors and usurpers (and the violent civil wars between their rival supporting armies), and massive barbarian penetration into Roman territory.

Relative stability was reestablished in the fourth century CE, through the emperor Diocletian’s division of the empire. The empire was divided into eastern and western halves and then into more easily administered units. Although some later emperors, such as Constantine, ruled the whole empire, the division between East and West became more marked as time passed. Financial pressures, urban decline, underpaid troops, and consequently overstretched frontiers—all of these finally caused the collapse of the western empire under waves of barbarian incursions in the early fifth century CE. The last western emperor, Romulus Augustus, was deposed in 476 CE, though the empire in the east, centered on Byzantium (Constantinople), continued until the fifteenth century.

During this period, the image of the emperors changed as well. With the split of the Empire, Diocletian divided the responsibilities of rule as well. Ultimately, four individuals carried this responsibility together, two emperors and two co-emperors, one of each for each half of the Empire. Thus the images of these emperors made a decided shift.

In the Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs, captured from Constantinople during one of the Crusades, we get a glimpse of this new style of portraiture that reflects the history of its time.