5 - Picturing the Court

Summary

This chapter presents a selection of images of the emperor in the presence of members of his court, as depicted in reliefs, statue groups, coins, medallions, and frescos. It also includes a number of texts that discuss now-lost depictions of the emperor and his court. It is suggested that such images were important to constituting and reinforcing public perceptions of who was part of the imperial court, and of the hierarchy of the court at a particular moment. The destruction or defacement of images of courtiers who had fallen from grace – known today as damnatio memoriae – illustrated to contemporaries (and illustrates to us) specific changes in court hierarchy, and the general instability of that hierarchy. A number of the sources in the chapter come from provincial contexts, which also illustrates that the image of the imperial court had an impact on the peripheries of the Roman empire.