DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56731#0024
6. THE ROMAN FACE
1. Female head, bronze-gilt. About life-size. Found at Bath on 12th July, 1727. Second century
a.d. Pump Room Museum, Bath.
This head is clearly based on the traditions of Greek monumental sculpture. Roman art of
the imperial period maintained the heritage of Greece and transmitted both this and its own
traditions to the provinces of the Empire.
2. Brass visor mask, found in a pit at the Baths in the Fort of Newstead (Parish of Melrose) in
1907. First century a.d. National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, Edinburgh.
The mask is part of a complete helmet to which it was attached as a visor so as to cover the
head entirely. This type of helmet was normally used not in battle but during Roman cavalry
exercises and ceremonial parades, or perhaps sometimes as a death mask. The noble type of the
warrior’s face is in the Greek tradition, and was meant to convey the idealized conception of
the soldier.
5. An imperial head from York, from a double life-size statue, probably representing Constantine E
Found in 1823 in the Stonegate. Local stone. About a.d. 310. Yorkshire Museum, York.
This is one of the most impressive remains of Romano-British sculpture. Whereas in the
beginning of the Roman occupation in the time of the Claudian bronze-head (see 4) monu-
mental portraits had to be imported, by the fourth century there existed a school of artists in York
brought up in the Roman tradition and capable of monumental portraiture.
4. Life-size bronze head. (Probably the Emperor Claudius, a.d. 41-54 who conquered Britain.)
Found in the river Aide at Rendham, Suffolk, on the estate of Mr. E. E. Holland, in 1907.
Rendham lies north-east of Colchester, where a temple for the official worship of Claudius
by the provincials was erected just after the middle of the first century. If this bust is not a portrait
of Claudius himself it must be a portrait of a member of the ruling class of the Claudian period.
It is monumental in character and the expression is commanding; but at the same time the artist
has emphasized individual features—the ugly ears, the contemptuous mouth. The coloured paste
with which the eye-sockets were originally filled must have made the head more lifelike. ' It is
interesting to speculate on the feelings of the people when confronted with such a representation
of one of their overlords.
1. Female head, bronze-gilt. About life-size. Found at Bath on 12th July, 1727. Second century
a.d. Pump Room Museum, Bath.
This head is clearly based on the traditions of Greek monumental sculpture. Roman art of
the imperial period maintained the heritage of Greece and transmitted both this and its own
traditions to the provinces of the Empire.
2. Brass visor mask, found in a pit at the Baths in the Fort of Newstead (Parish of Melrose) in
1907. First century a.d. National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, Edinburgh.
The mask is part of a complete helmet to which it was attached as a visor so as to cover the
head entirely. This type of helmet was normally used not in battle but during Roman cavalry
exercises and ceremonial parades, or perhaps sometimes as a death mask. The noble type of the
warrior’s face is in the Greek tradition, and was meant to convey the idealized conception of
the soldier.
5. An imperial head from York, from a double life-size statue, probably representing Constantine E
Found in 1823 in the Stonegate. Local stone. About a.d. 310. Yorkshire Museum, York.
This is one of the most impressive remains of Romano-British sculpture. Whereas in the
beginning of the Roman occupation in the time of the Claudian bronze-head (see 4) monu-
mental portraits had to be imported, by the fourth century there existed a school of artists in York
brought up in the Roman tradition and capable of monumental portraiture.
4. Life-size bronze head. (Probably the Emperor Claudius, a.d. 41-54 who conquered Britain.)
Found in the river Aide at Rendham, Suffolk, on the estate of Mr. E. E. Holland, in 1907.
Rendham lies north-east of Colchester, where a temple for the official worship of Claudius
by the provincials was erected just after the middle of the first century. If this bust is not a portrait
of Claudius himself it must be a portrait of a member of the ruling class of the Claudian period.
It is monumental in character and the expression is commanding; but at the same time the artist
has emphasized individual features—the ugly ears, the contemptuous mouth. The coloured paste
with which the eye-sockets were originally filled must have made the head more lifelike. ' It is
interesting to speculate on the feelings of the people when confronted with such a representation
of one of their overlords.