2000/03/01 by Allan Klynne, Peter Liljenstolpe · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History #Archaeology #Art #Art history #Classical Antiquity Studies #Computer science #Historical and Religious Studies of Rome #History #Ninth #Relation (database) #Statue
paper · doi:10.1353/ajp.2000.0011
openalex publication_date 2000/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/03
In all the learned discussions on ancient sculpture, few objects have generated as much literature as the statue of Augustus from Prima Porta. 1 While some studies manage to arrive at interesting conclusions regarding the Augustan artistic program, a good many can be held to be examples of classical studies running amok. One subject to which many scholars have devoted much time and thought is the statue's original place of display, at the Villa of Livia. In a recent study published in this Journal, Jane Clark Reeder addressed this question once again, but her treatment of the archaeological record is not convincing, especially when it comes to speculations as to the placement of the statue in relation to the Imperial laurel grove. 2 Our doubts are based on our firsthand experience of the site and on new finds made during the current excavations. We wish primarily to revert to two points: (1) the relevance of the findspot for the original placement of the statue and (2) the laurel grove's connection with the planting pots--the so-called ollae perforatae--found at the villa and its assumed relation to the statue. An alternative location of the statue, which is in better accordance with the archaeological evidence, can now be suggested. According to the ancient sources, the villa ad Gallinas, situated in the vicinity of the ninth milestone along the Via Flaminia, had a laurel grove which had sprung from a branch carried by a white pullet that was dropped into the lap of the young Livia Drusilla by an eagle. 3 Shortly before the death of Nero, the whole grove withered away and the sacred offspring of the original hen died off, thus becoming a portent of the end of the Iulio-Claudian dynasty. 4 Since the discovery in [End Page 121] 1863 of a magnificent villa on the hill above the so-called Prima Porta--an arch of late Imperial date--the location of this famous residence seems to be established. The remaining architectural structures lay abandoned and unprotected until 1982, when the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma reopened the excavation and restored the site. 5 Excavations are still being conducted under the direction of Gaetano Messineo, most recently in collaboration with the Swedish Institute at Rome, in order to gain a better idea of the nature of the Imperial gardens. 6 In her discussion of the foundation augurium of the grove, the symbolic power of the laurel, and the archaeological evidence in the form of planting pots found at the site, Reeder tries to narrow down the exact findspot of the statue of Augustus (and indirectly its original placement), but her reasoning becomes somewhat tangled. Put very briefly, her argument is as follows. The statue is to be seen in connection with the triumphal ceremony. Augustus' hand (either the left or the right one) therefore most probably held a laurel, which could only have come from the grove at the villa. 7 This in its turn is confirmed by the planting pots found on the edge of the hill, close to the underground complex where the statue (supposedly) was found. Hence the statue would have stood in a grove on the southwestern part of the hill. This argument is neat but far from unobjectionable. Let us begin with the statue. Its exact findspot is not known, and since no base has been found its original position is still a puzzle. Pollini has recently scrutinized this problem. 8 Reeder places great confidence in Landi's plan of the underground complex, published in 1891 and reproduced in Calci and Messineo 1984. 9 This plan was drawn some [End Page 122] twenty-five years after the first excavation, in order to document the complex at that time. According to the drawing, the statue was found at the bottom of the staircase leading to the...