Exquisite skill characterizes the arts of the first century CE. A large onyx cameo known as the Gemma Augustea glorifies Augusta as triumphant over barbarians and as the deified emperor. The emperor, crowned with a victor's wreath, sits at the center right of the upper register. He has assumed the pose and identity of Jupiter, the king of the gods; an eagle, sacred to Jupiter, stands at his feet. Sitting next to him is a personification of Rome that seems to have Livia's features. The sea goat in the roundel between them may represent Capricorn, the emperor's zodiac sign. Tiberius, as the adopted son of Augustus, steps out of a chariot at far left, returning victorious from the German front and prepared to assume the imperial throne as Augustus's chosen heir. Below this realm of godlike rulers, Roman soldiers are raising a post or standard on which armor captured from the defeated enemy is displayed as a trophy. The cowering, shackled barbarians on the bottom right wait to be tied to it. The artist of the Gemma Augustea brilliantly combines idealized, heroic figures based on classical Greek art with recognizable Roman portraits, the dramatic action of Hellenistic art with Roman attention to descriptive detail and historical specificity.
Although Constantine was baptized only on his deathbed in 337, Christianity had become the official religion of the empire by the end of the fourth century, and non-Christians had become targets of persecution. This religious shift, however, did not diminish Roman interest in the artistic traditions of their pagan Classical past. A large silver PLATTER dating from the mid-fourth century CE proves that artists working for Christians patrons continued to use themes involving Bacchus, allowing them the opportunity to create elaborate figural compositions displaying the nude or lightly draped human body in complex, dynamic poses. The platter was found in a cache of silver tableware near Mildenhall, England, and although most of the objects are also decorated with pagan imagery, three of the spoons are engraved with Christian symbols. The original owner of the hoard was likely to have been a wealthy Roman Christian, living in the provinces.
The Christian tradition and the Roman tradition are connected in so many ways. Both traditions are derived from the same origin. Portrait sculptures of the Republican period sought to create lifelike images based on careful observation of their subjects, objectives that were related to the Roman's veneration of their ancestors and the making and public display of death masks of deceased relatives. A new Roman artistic ideal emerged during the Republican period in relation to portrait sculpture, and ideal quite different from the one we encountered in Greek Classicism. Instead of generalizing a human face, smoothed of its imperfections and caught in a moment of detached abstraction, this new Roman idealization emphasized, rather than suppressed-the hallmarks of advanced age and the distinguishing aspects of individual likeness. This mode is most prominent in bust portraits of Roman patricians, whose time-worn faces embody the wisdom and experience that come with old age. Frequently we take these portraits of wrinkled elders at face value, as highly realistic and faithful descriptions of actual human beings, contrasting Roman realism with Greek idealism, but there is good reason to think that these portraits actually conform to a particularly Roman type of idealization that underscores. According to the Christian tradition, Constantine had a vision the night before the battle in which he saw a flaming cross in the sky and heard these words :"In this sign you shall conquer." The next morning he ordered that his army's shields and standards be inscribed with the monogram XP. The victorious Constantine then showed his gratitude by ending the persecution of Christians and recognizing Christianity as a lawful religion. He may have been influenced in that decision by his mother, Helena, a devout Christian, later canonized. Although there are differences between the Christian and Roman traditions, they are theoretically the same thing because of their infinite connections.
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