Supplement to: Hadrian in Aigeai: ein neues Tridrachmon (original) (raw)
Related papers
Hadrian in Ioudaea. The celebration of the emperor examined throughout the Tel Shalem bronze statue
in Bulletin antieke beschaving. Annual Papers on Classical Archaeology, 94, 2019, pp. 193-210
This study aims to analyse the bronze statue of Hadrian found in Tel Shalem (in the territory of ancient Scythopolis, today Bet Shean, in Israel) and now located at the Israel Museum of Jerusalem. Several studies have been made on this statue, in particular analysing the peculiar scene depicted on the lorica of the emperor. This image, in particular, has been read in many different ways, without consensus on its proper interpretation. According to our analysis, there is a clear need to contextualise the statue in a wider and more complex background, linking it with its surroundings and the occasions that could have led to the erection of the statue. After re-examining in detail all prior theories and readings of the image on the emperor’s chest, we conclude that the statue was erected for some event before the Bar Kokhba revolt.
2020
Hadrian is the first emperor to be almost exclusively represented in military costume in surviving sculpture. In this paper, it is argued that this development can be linked to the changing military role of the emperor in this period: from conqueror to protector. This theory is substantiated by a series of statues that employ a traditional, military motif to anchor events relating to Hadrian’s new foreign policy. Such depictions promoted the virtus of Hadrian not by referring to victories abroad but by highlighting his ability to maintain peace. This reading may provide us with a different lens to look at the military-styled images of Hadrian.
Some notes on the Hadrianeum reliefs
Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 2018
The reliefs of the Hadrianeum in Rome still pose a lot of difficulties even after several centuries after their discovery. This meant a number of varying identification proposals from different scholars. Some of them are too fragmentary to ever to be solved, but in this paper I propose some modifications to the previous readings based on iconographic parallels.
Destrée P., Murray P. (eds), Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, First Edition, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World, 2015
Sculptures played an important role as decoration of private residences in Roman times. Subjects, themes, styles and even dimensions changed over time not just according to the aesthetic values of the Roman patrons, but also in relation to ideas of identity and status. Hadrian’s villa offers an excellent case for the study of ancient perception and display of sculptures within their architectural context. About five hundreds sculptures are said to come from this imperial estate, but until now it has been hardly possible to reconstruct their original setting within the general layout of the villa. By looking at the way sculptures were displayed, I will focus on three major notions that informed the planning of the villa’s sculptural decoration: aesthetic values, control over people’s behaviour, and the establishment of hierarchies within the diverse range of people that attended the emperor’s palace.
(2008) From Rome to Athens The eyes of Hadrian in the Physiognomonia of Polemon
2008
While the new form of representing the eyes by the plastic definition of the iris as well as the threedimensional in-depth representation of the pupils are mentioned and discussed frequently in the literature on Hadrianic and Antonine marble and bronze portraitures, its significance remains unclear. This paper argues that this new plastic definition of the iris and the pupils did not replace the previous chromatism of the eyes but rather complemented it. The idea that such a stylistic change in the construction of the physiognomy of the emperor lacked a rhetorical and intellectual dimension is implausible, as visual and historic evidence encourages an interpretation of this phenomenon based on the intensification, most in the entourage of Hadrian, of the relations between portraiture and physiognomy. In this context particular attention should be paid to a passage by Polemon's De physiognomonia in which Hadrian's eyes are apparently defined in accordance with new conventions for his portraiture.