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Before the emperor ruled Rome, Rome was ruled by a Republic, by a senate
The kind of counsel of elders. These genrally were older men who had come from the elite families in Rome
and so when we think of the people recorded the most privileged the most power in the roman republic
these were older men. And their age, their experience is what counted.
And so we find during this period of the republic specially the period of the late republic sculptures
for the sculpture seems to have taken every pain to record a real sense of age and experience
One example of Veristic orchard is invadigan from the very late republican period,
This is just before Julius Ceasar will begin the process of turing the republic into an empire. We refer to these as Veristic potraits.
It comes from the latin word vērus which means truth and so there is this idea that they are very truthful. But it may be that there is an exaggeration
of that sense of experience, wisdom and age. We see a head of a man that probably came from a much larger
sculpture ultimately we see his head is covered with a toga which suggests that he was involved with some sort of ritual
concern his express through the eyes. Look at the way that the lips which area quote thin that are pressed together.
There is a solemnity. there is a seriousness, there is a kind of authority that is born of the qualities of the face that we are
seeing. As we look at this shelf with six or eight busts along it. This face stands out,
It is really different from the tradition that was developed during the empire.
Augustus becomes the first emperor of Rome and establishes a tradition that looks back to ancient Greece
and the tendency that we see there to idiolize the human face and the human body. So this kind of
veristic potrait will come to represent later on noble republican idiols.
What's interesting is that we see in the later images of emperors that
they choose to some degree more or less to idiolize themselves
So that if they have themselves portrayed more realistically they are recalling the virtues of the ancient Romans Republic
If they idiolize themselves more they are calling ancient Greek tradition.
So in other words this was a very conscious set of attributes that
was a very conscious set of symbols that you could draw on more or less.
It was a visual language.
It's so interesting that if you think about the way that we represent ourselves now.
If you open up a magazine, you have young models that are ideal, that are perfect.
And the older hold not even primary status in our visual culture.
But the ancient Romans atleast for a moment felt differently