Roman sculpture from Augustus to Constantine . ius which was too strong for the humanframe that it wasted and consumed in its service. tThe head has the true reticence of genius, the touch ofsuffering and of isolation inseparable perhaps fromgreatness. The highly intellectual features are eloquentof some hidden pain, whose traces furrow the delicatemouth and chin, and bestow upon this head an austerecharm. The portraits of Augustus have little of this intimatequality. They are more generalized ; in them perhaps * Brit. Mus., Cat. I., 549 ; Furtwangler, Masterpieces,Plate VII. and Fig. 46 ; Vat
Roman sculpture from Augustus to Constantine . ius which was too strong for the humanframe that it wasted and consumed in its service. tThe head has the true reticence of genius, the touch ofsuffering and of isolation inseparable perhaps fromgreatness. The highly intellectual features are eloquentof some hidden pain, whose traces furrow the delicatemouth and chin, and bestow upon this head an austerecharm. The portraits of Augustus have little of this intimatequality. They are more generalized ; in them perhaps * Brit. Mus., Cat. I., 549 ; Furtwangler, Masterpieces,Plate VII. and Fig. 46 ; Vatican, 525, Helbig, 288. f Ernest Gardner, Handbook of Greek Sculpture, p. head referred to (Brit. Mus. Cat. 1870), though a forgery,is executed with knowledge of the Caesarian type, but thestrongly-marked pupils are impossible in the period of Caesar,and the technique is obviously modern. Cf. Furtwangler, Neuere Falschungen von Antiken, p. 14. Z II m P I — to N ~ & ? <J IF •g M P3 <j CO p II—S(» C II •—- c« 0:^. i-()i:tkait of a boy, augustax pekk To /((ct- p. 354 Musco liarracco ROMAN PORTRAITURE 355 more clearly than elsewhere can we detect the consciousrevival of Greek ideas usually attributed to portraits stand out as distinctly Hellenic in style—the young Octavian of the Vatican, so often and sojustly celebrated : * the well-known profile (Plate CX.,I and 2) on a gold coin : the superb cameo in theBritish Museum (above, Plate II.), which Furtwiinglershows good reason for attributing to the famous gemengraver Dioscorides, alone privileged to portray thegod Augustus.^ As in the cameo, so in the headof the famous statue from Prima Porta (Plate III.),which is influenced by, though certainly not directlyImitated from, a Greek model,J the lines are of theutmost simplicity. In the statue, however, Amelungrightly observes that the fulness of the features hasbegun to be wasted by age. Though I do not propose to say much about statues,which
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