Head of Augustus, c. 27-25 B.C.E.

Roman, Head of Augustus, c. 27-25 BCE, bronze and glass, 46.2 cm high x 26.5 cm wide x 29.4 cm deep, (British Museum, London)

Speakers: Pippa Couch and Rachel Ropeik

We're here in the British Museum and

we're looking at the head of Augustus

from about 27 or 25 B.C.

So, who's Augustus?

Well, Augustus of course became the first emperor.

He, of course, was of the triumvirates.

Lots of people know the stories of

Mark Antony and Cleopatra through Shakespeare, etc.

And, of course, he defeated Antony at the Battle of Actium

and that was when he was able to assume the position.

He didn't become "Augustus" until later on

when he finally defeated all the other rivals.

So he goes from being Octavian

who's one of three in charge of Rome,

to defeating his rivals including Antony.

And he's given the name Augustus,

it's an honor that the Senate has given to him.

And with that, is a shift, he's saying

well, this a change from the past now.

He can't do the same kind of promoting himself

in the ways he had before, in battle,

struggling against the other people that wanted to rule.

So, here, he's saying, well, I'm the ruler now

and I'm changing the propaganda.

Going back to looking at this statue in front of us.

It's not necessarily the kind of "empire-builder"

that we would imagine.

This is quite stripped down, I mean,

he's a young man,

he's got a kind of contemplative look,

he never seems to be meeting your eye

no matter where you stand.

I've walked around him a few times and

he won't look me in the eye.

But he has these very piercing eyes

which are actually made out of glass.

So they really stand out from the dark bronze.

That's something you see on other antique sculptures as well.

This is really well preserved with a lot of detail

for something that is so old.

And the fact that it is bronze is extremely unusual.

Because, of course, not many bronze figures

would have lasted from antiquity.

Because people usually would have melted the metal down,

and used it for another purpose.

And there's this fabulous story about

why this particular head is so well preserved,

which is that it was actually part of a statue

that was put up in Egypt.

And at one point the Kush empire,

the enemies of the Romans,

who were in charge of Egypt at the time, invaded.

They knocked down the statue and took it away.

And it was sort of like a "haha",

thumb your nose at the Roman Empire

by burying the head of the emperor.

And cutting the head off of the statue

is symbolic of cutting the power,

the source of power of the emperor himself.

And what they did with it was very unusual.

They buried it underneath the temple

where they worshipped,

so they were actually all standing on his head

and treading on him whenever they went to worship.

It's a good way of tramping him under their feet,

always reminding him, you know, you're beneath us.

The thing that strikes me about this is

he's portraying himself in a very specific way obviously.

And there's this connection to Alexander the Great

through the youth, and the tousled hair.

And of course, Alexander the Great

being the ultimate role model for young military genius.

And this is clearly a tradition

that Augustus is tapping into here.

But he's also giving himself

quite a bit of dignity with this portrayal.

He's got the slightly furrowed brow,

but just enough to imply a focus, not a worry.

That's interesting because at this time

when he's creating this new image,

he's trying to create a shift in society.

He didn't want to be warring and fighting senators

trying to up themselves and promote their own prowess.

He's bringing it back to moral outlook down to the individual,

and he took the name of Princeps.

He's the first amongst equals.

And he tried to lead by example,

talking about family values.

And the imagery he took on,

he was promoting that as well.

It's interesting to talk about his youth.

because he used this image until he died.

So he died I think at 76 for something like that

and he never got another wrinkle or anything.

So the idea of the State Portrait in Britain,

there's the images of Queen Elizabeth everywhere.

We age her, on our coins,

we aged her every twenty or forty years or so.

she would be put a couple more wrinkles

and made a bit fatter.

Not so much with Augustus,

and then every emperor afterwards took that approach.

So they could have maybe depicted themselves

as an old person

but they would never age themselves

any further than their original image.

It's also worth remembering that

what had come before this was the Roman Republic.

The Senate, and the idea was that

Roman citizens had a say and voted on things.

And this is Augustus who's breaking from that mode

and making it an empire.

So he's the first amongst equals

trying to connect back to that republic idea

but also putting himself slightly over it.

And this is slightly bigger than life size,

so he would have been a little bit bigger than anybody.

But he was everywhere,

this image would have been everywhere.

And it was in towns as far, you know, .... Egypt,

like the furthest corner of the empire at that time.

And the statue actually stood in for the emperor himself.

so he would be able to preside over court

hearings and pass judgements in his presence in the statue.

So the idea of imbuing the statue with a bit of the personality

of the person that it is portraying,

and the power that dwells inside the statue.

And of course we don't know what he looks like

But this is a quite realistic-seeming portrayal,

a man could look like that

he's quite attractive, very sympathetic,

he looks like someone who'd give you a fair trial.

And the fact that the head has been moved

from the statue by the Kush,

they are attacking that power,they're attacking the statue.

And remember that statue is Augustus

in all intents and purposes

and they managed to behead him

So unfortunately for him,

he had his head cut off on that statue.

But lucky for us,

because it's been preserved in the sands of Egypt.