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have ever been any larger. It is badly cracked, and all the upper left
corner is new, but on the whole its condition is fair.
It will thus be seen that apart from the style, we have two fixed points
to aid us in dating the reliefs : the certainty that the emperor was bearded,
and the head of the empress. Since the emperor was bearded, the reliefs,
which, as the measurements show clearly, form a pair, cannot be earlier
than the Hadrianic period. The portrait of the empress, if we can identify
it, will form a surer ground for a possible date. The head fortunately is
very perfect and closely resembles the later portraits of Sabina, especially
those on coins inscribed DIVA AVGVSTA SABINA and lettered on the reverse
CONSECRATIO.1 Also only on the coins on which she is called DIVA is she
veiled.2 The style of the hairdressing agrees also with that adopted by
her.3 The hair is waved back from the forehead, and fastened in a knot
on the crown, and in front above the forehead is placed a stephane. Since
Plotina, Matidia, and Marciana are never shown wearing their hair in this
fashion, which does not occur at a later period than that of Hadrian,4 we
may conclude that the empress here represented is Sabina. It is also to
be noted that the head closely resembles the portraits identified as Sabina
from the evidence of the coins.
Now that the personality of the empress is determined, it is easy to
explain the reliefs. The Apotheosis, Plate XXXIII, I, represents the
burning and deification of Sabina in the Campus Martius personified by
the reclining figure before the pyre.5 *
The other scene, Plate XXXIII, 2, will then represent the laudatio
memoriae of the same empress. We see Hadrian 8 on a suggestus making
the formal oration. Behind him stand a bearded man whom we may
possibly recognize as Aelius Verus, consul in 136, the year of Sabina’s
death.7 The beardless man may be the other consul Vetulonius Civica.
We might suppose as is usual the praefectus praetorio rather than the
consuls to be the emperor’s companion. But this scene is essentially civil
1 Cohen2, 27-34. 2 Cohen2, 27-34, 56.
3 Lady Evans, Numismatic Chronicle, 1906, p. 52, Pl. IV. 32 ; Bernoulli, R'dm. Ikonographie,
ii. 2, Pl. XL. pp. 128 seqq.’, Wace, Jorcrnal Brit, and American Arch. Society of Rome, iii. 8p. 474.
4 See Bernoulli, op. cit.; Lady Evans, op. cit.
5 Cf. the base of the column of Antoninus Pius, Amelung, Cai. Skulp. Vatican. Mus. i.
p. 883.
8 Part of the laudatio of Matidia spoken by Hadrian himself is preserved, C.I.L. xiv. 3579.
7 For these and other dates, etc. of Hadrian’s reign, see Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Aelius, 64. The
bearded man might be a personification of the Senate, cf. Jahreshefte, ii. p. 179.