The Cult Images of Imperial Rome

Much has been written in the last generation about Roman copies of Greek statues and the conditions which created them. The most important Roman versions of Greek sculptures in metals and marbles were the cult images created for the temples of Rome, as focal points in the official approach to divinities, virtues, and even personifications of the Roman state. None of these temples antedates the Hellenistic age, the century from the conquests of Alexander the Great. Nearly all of them were completely rebuilt in the last fifty years of the Roman republic or the Augustan age. Many of these were destroyed and rebuilt after the great fire of A.D. 80, and others suffered or became needful of reconstructions in the century from Nero to Marcus Aurelius.

This is a study in which coins play a major part, since they provide the labelled and dated views of what constituted the leading images of the Roman Empire. Since these statues were copied in marble and in small figures in silver and bronze, there are ways of visualizing the cult images of imperial Rome. Many ot these statues were made of gold and ivory, but the survivors include the head and limbs of a coIossus in marble (Area Sacra del Largo Argentina) and the gilded bronze Hercules Victor from the round temple in the Forum Boarium.

The statues recreated here were not just decorative objects hidden in private villas and parks. They were the most important religious images during nearly five hundred years of Mediterranean civilization.

The illustrations included here are of coins, medallions, and sculptures in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. One or two others have been added from various collections elsewhere in the United States and abroad. They are indicated by letters after the basic numbers...