Someone asked whether the Barletta statue was unfinished. No. But it must have been toppled and damaged at some time. The tip of its falling cloak also is broken off at the level of the 'skirt'. It was, of course,
cast in sections, and the original legs went lost or in irreparable condition.
Pat L.
The porphyry
head, confidently labeled
Maximianus, without any note of what book or web page, let alone what museum, it
comes from, is quite famous, but not in the basic textbooks. It may take me some time to find it--the very same photo is all I know. It is not necessarily one of the four tetrarchs; imperial porphyry
statues and reliefs continue down to Justinian.
The confident labeling of anonymous (most) heads is pervasive in popular books, including a couple of Michael Grant's (he ought to have known better, but sometimes publishers want mug shots as a
selling point, and sometimes the author doesn't even control what is used). Besides, everyone wants to be cleverer than the last guy, and 'identifying' an anonymous statue might for a brief time earn you points. All inscribed portraits' names need to be (at minimum) verified by epigraphers who have no vested interest.
You see what happens when individual personality is banished in
the Late Empire? You are wanting to recapture a
bit of individual personhood in these
portraits.
Their culture is striving to
eliminate that glamour. We can, barely, tell the tetrarchs apart, but only on
good coins and in the best
portraits. It is significant, therefore, that Justinian is easier to identify by
his mugshot than most of
his predecessors. If in several hundred years no pemanent agreement has been reached for the Barletta statue, how can it mean very much to know which emperor it is? Even
poor Gallienus seems bent on showing more what he stands for and WHAT he wants to be than who he is or how you could recognize him if you
met him in the street (or
forum), but he wasn't intent on eliminating
his personal self.
Pat L.
Eureka! It
had got into my teaching files.
• J. Elsner, Imperial
Rome and
Christian Triumph (
Oxford History of Art), p. 63: "Monumental porphyry
head of a tetrarch, from the SE
baths, Romuliana (modern Gamizgrad in
Serbia), c. AD 300. Found in 1993, this crowned
head (35 cm high) and ahand holding an
orb (excavated in 1972) come from a statue likely to represent
Galerius. The crown is adorned with three gems and four busts, which probably signify the four
members of the terarchy. It is possible all all the porphyry sculptures made for the tetrarchs were carved in
Egypt, where the
stone was quarried and then exported around the empire. The porphyry images are generally from imperial capitals or residences specifically associated with tetrarchic emperors." (as the
Venice group, from the Philadelphion in
Constantinople in AD 1204).
Addition: But the Thessaloniki Museum identifies this marble as
Galerius: and Thessaloniki is where
his own palace is, and
his mausoleum.
• Thessaloniki, NAM
Inv. 2462.
Portrait of one of the Tetrarchs, probably
Galerius, whose palace, arch, and mausoleum are at Thessaloniki.
The marble
bust is what I'd call a
Portrait, as distinct from an Icon of the Empire under
the Tetrarchy.
