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08-20-2001, 10:28 PM

In the Prima Porta statue of Augustus, what is that little baby supposed to represent, and is that a jug of wine he's sitting on? SI HOC LEGERE POTES, OPERIS BONI IN REBVS LATINIS FRVCTVOSIS POTIRI POTES.

JRSCline · 08-21-2001, 06:33 AM

The baby is Cupid, child of Venus and supposedly a cousin of Augustus, since his adoption by Julius Caesar made him a member of the Julian house which traced its lineage all the way back to Aeneas, the Trojan refugee who fled to Italy and was the mythic father of the Roman people. Aeneas himself was a child of Venus, or so the legend goes. Unfortunately, I don't know what Cupid's sitting on. Perhaps our resident classicist Catiline can shed more light on the legendary connection between the Julians and Venus? 
 
Cheers, 
Jenny

08-23-2001, 01:31 AM

Believe it or not, the "jug" Cupid is sitting on is not a jug at all, but a dolphin, head down. An animal associated with the Revered One. 
 
I've heard it said that the cupid and the dolphin in the sculpture are really of no importance to the piece in and of themselves, but merely added as a support/reinforcement to the top-heavy statue. A practical sculptural convention of the time. "The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it."
- Eric Hoffer

Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/uthecaesarionsection.showPublicProfile?language=EN>The Caesarion Section</A> at: 8/23/01 4:57:39 am

Catiline · 08-23-2001, 04:12 PM

Marble statues of course need reinforcement so your theory is quite conceivable Section. hence all those statues of Greek athletes the Romans copied in marble, the originals being bronze, supported by hideous tree stump things. The dolphin and cupid are clearly doing just that on the staue we're refering to, but I think the links to Venus especially in such a martial triumphant statue where they're otherwise somewhat incongruous must have some sinificance. 
 
On to Venus. As with so many things significant in late republican politics L. Cornelius Sulla is primarily responsible for the importance of personal association with deities with individuals. that is not to say it was an entirely new phenomenon though, P. Cornelius Scipio had claimed association with Jupiter. Sulla however stepped it up a gear claiming a link developed in his time in the east to Venus. THis became a vogue, everyone wanted a divine association, Venus being particularly popular, she was picked by both pompey and Caesar, in diffent aspects, but these links were part of the whole political struggle asnd used in the propoganda of htose involved, appearing on coinage etc. Caesar typically managed to do it with style, claiming decent from Venus to raise the stakes. He was not however the only individual claiming divine ancestory, Poplicola, Censor in 70 BC claimed decent from Neptune. 
 
Caesar's claim of course was based on the rather dubious claim of the Julians of decent from Aeneas through Iulus (the similarity in name being all the evidence needed, added to the age of the gens Iulia and the fact that if you say it often enough people will agree just to shut you up about it). That link of course was through Anchises who had slept with Venus to father Aeneas. The prime importance of htis story to Julain and Augustan propoganda is demonstrated by Vergil's Aeneid, composed to celebrate and legitimise the Augustan age. 
 
i think that the significance of these links is purely the last step before cult of the living. Hence Caesar's step in creating the Flamen Caesaris was not so great, notr his deification. The links were purely a way of skirting around this before the last step was taken. It was new in Rome of course, but not in the Greek world were cult was offered to the hellenistic rulers and even Romans like Marcellus, who had cult in Syracuse after his death and maybe during his lifetime. 
 
THe link to aspects of deities may also be important with regard to our understanding of Roman religion. in some ways we can see Romans thinking interms of notions rahter than gods. Hence Augustus and his links to Mars Ultor, Mars the avenger. It's the vengeance aspect that i see as more important here, not the link to Mars.

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