I marmi

THE MARBLES SCULPTURE White marble sculptures, mainly portraying illustrious citizens, who fulfilled a public role for the city, or an important function in the story of its monuments, constitute an exceptional find, both for their quantity and quality. From the theatre there come two headless statues of persons in togas that were originally positioned in the scaenae frons. The oldest statue, characterized by its short toga (toga exigua) is datable to the late Republican era (1st century B.C.), while the second oldest, which is larger than life size, is from the first half of the 1st century A.D. To this latter there must have originally belonged the head of a middle aged man that was found together with another two heads of statues with togas, which are now lost. From the digs in the Forum there have also come statues of persons in togas and portrait heads, which from the Julian-Claudian era were displayed in a public celebratory building. There is highlighted a statue with the short toga of the Republican era, to which there belongs the head of a private individual, which is only partially preserved and was reworked in the 3rd century A.D., and the one with the more ample toga of the 1st century A.D., to which there belongs the head of a Julian-Claudian prince, probably Germanicus, who was adopted by the Emperor Tiberius in 4 B.C. The headless statue of a man in a toga that holds a cornucopia in its left hand can be identified with the Genius Augusti, the personification of the guiding spirit of the Emperor, testifying to the imperial cult that was instituted in 12 B.C. Among the portrait heads there is that of an old man, datable to the Flavian era (69-96 A.D.), which is very finely sculpted and attributable to a Roman workshop, and those of two princesses of the imperial family, Agrippina the Elder, the wife of Germanicus, and Agrippina the Younger, their daughter and the wife of Claudius. From the stratum of ploughed land above the sacellum-nynphaeum there emerged the statue of a gowned woman, that holds ears of grains and poppies in its left hand, which can be interpreted as a creation of the time of Hadrian (first half of the 2nd century A.D.) and represents for celebratory purposes, following a statuary model of the 4th century B.C., a princess of the imperial house in the guise of Demeter/Ceres.