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The aged Livia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
When in 1887 Dr. Helbig published his identification of a head now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek as Livia (plate XXII), the suggestion met with almost universal acceptance, the likeness to her coins and gems, as well as to the portraits of her son Tiberius, being too strong to admit of doubt. The portraiture of Livia is curiously uncertain. We know that the inscribed bronze bust of her in the Louvre is of provincial workmanship, and must, from the hair, represent the empress in early youth; she appears on many coins as Salus, Pietas, etc. and we possess some really fine gems; but apart from the Copenhagen head the monumental evidence is unsatisfactory. Statues of her are mentioned by Dio as erected in 35 B.C. (xlix, 38), and in 9 B.C. (lv, 2); another was erected by Claudius (Suet. Claud, ii), who also raised her to the rank of a god in 41, Tiberius having refused all divine honours from the senate for himself and his mother. In the provinces she was widely honoured in her life: the base of a statue has been found at Athens; the remains of another dedication at Constantine in Algeria; a temple statue was erected at Smyrna in A.D. 23, together with one of Tiberius, right at the close of her life, since she died in 29 at the age of eighty-five; and provincial coins bearing her portrait as Juno, Rhea, etc. are numerous.
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- Copyright ©Katharine A. Esdaile 1914. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
page 139 note 1 Röm. Mitt. II, pl. i; Arndt-Bruckmann, 6–7; Hekler, p. 209.
page 139 note 2 C.I.G. iii, 316; cf. 381.
page 139 note 3 Musée de Constantine, p. 11.
page 139 note 4 Tac. Ann. iv, 15Google Scholar.
page 139 note 5 ibid., v, I; Pliny, N.H. xiv, 8, gives her age as 82Google Scholar.
page 139 note 6 Bern. II, i, p. 92; a misleading outline drawing of the head and shoulders; good photographs and description in Einzelnverkauf, 1768–1770.
page 139 note 7 Einzelnverkauf, 1368, 1369.
page 139 note 8 no. 977, p. 235.
page 139 note 9 Arndt-Bruckmann, nos. 713–714 and text.
page 140 note 1 Bernoulli, II, i, pl. xxvii, no. 7.
page 141 note 1 Roman Sculpture, p. 360.
page 141 note 2 Her own portraits on coins are either veiled or wear the simple plait and knot fashionable in the earlier days of Augustus, and retained for the idealised and Graecised portraits on the coins.
page 141 note 3 Ann. vi, 2.