DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0712
674
SCULPTURE UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
cular shoulders are admirably expressed above his garment, which is gathered
about his waist ready for his duties. Again, we see the beast's head being
lowered for slaughter; and in one slab is an amusing scene, where a laurel-
wreathed camillus carries a dish of fruit, a graceful vase, and the rich ricinium
thrown over his arm, while a second attendant shoves forward the obstinate
swine, intended for sacrifice (Fig. 280). On a rock in the background rises a
temple, in which appear statues of two throned deities, doubtless Jupiter with
some associate god ; but what temple is meant here, we do not know. In the
immediate foreground, we see a rough altar, and the branch of an oak-tree
stretching its leaves into the bare space above the youths. Here, too, is the
Fig. 279. Part of Small Frieze of Augustus' Ara Pact's.
Beast led to Sacrifice. Rome.
Fig. 280. Part of Small Frieze of Augustus' Ara
Pact's. Acolytes (Camilli) with Offerings. Rome.
same picturesque treatment, as in the small Pergamon reliefs, — the same ren-
dering of the accessories of trees, rocks, and buildings. There is not yet,
however, that following nature, in perspective and realistic detail, so character-
istic of the later Roman times, especially that of Trajan, where we may read
the exact topography of the scenes at last become prosaically realistic. And
yet the Roman spirit shows itself in these Augustan reliefs most emphatically
in the portrait element, and in the dwarfish shapes of the children, features
not met with in the Pergamon reliefs.
One of the most beautiful statues preserved to us from Roman times is a
portrait of Augustus, which, like the ara pads, seems to have been executed
shortly after the emperor's triumphant return from the North, and to have
special reference to that event (Fig. 281). This marble figure was discovered
SCULPTURE UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
cular shoulders are admirably expressed above his garment, which is gathered
about his waist ready for his duties. Again, we see the beast's head being
lowered for slaughter; and in one slab is an amusing scene, where a laurel-
wreathed camillus carries a dish of fruit, a graceful vase, and the rich ricinium
thrown over his arm, while a second attendant shoves forward the obstinate
swine, intended for sacrifice (Fig. 280). On a rock in the background rises a
temple, in which appear statues of two throned deities, doubtless Jupiter with
some associate god ; but what temple is meant here, we do not know. In the
immediate foreground, we see a rough altar, and the branch of an oak-tree
stretching its leaves into the bare space above the youths. Here, too, is the
Fig. 279. Part of Small Frieze of Augustus' Ara Pact's.
Beast led to Sacrifice. Rome.
Fig. 280. Part of Small Frieze of Augustus' Ara
Pact's. Acolytes (Camilli) with Offerings. Rome.
same picturesque treatment, as in the small Pergamon reliefs, — the same ren-
dering of the accessories of trees, rocks, and buildings. There is not yet,
however, that following nature, in perspective and realistic detail, so character-
istic of the later Roman times, especially that of Trajan, where we may read
the exact topography of the scenes at last become prosaically realistic. And
yet the Roman spirit shows itself in these Augustan reliefs most emphatically
in the portrait element, and in the dwarfish shapes of the children, features
not met with in the Pergamon reliefs.
One of the most beautiful statues preserved to us from Roman times is a
portrait of Augustus, which, like the ara pads, seems to have been executed
shortly after the emperor's triumphant return from the North, and to have
special reference to that event (Fig. 281). This marble figure was discovered