Aphrodite Cleopatra

Aphrodite Cleopatra
Author(s): Wendy A. Cheshire

Source: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 43 (2007), pp. 151-191
Published by: American Research Center in Egypt
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Aphrodite Cleopatra
A.
Wendy
Cheshire
Abstract
a nude
adorned
with an
headdress
appear
of
Aphrodite
Egyptian
as well as in
bronzes
the
small
Hellenistic
and
Roman
among
of
frequently
Egypt
Syria.
a vulture's
as an
or in
statuettes
Bronze
diadem
wearing
independent
"Aphrodite"
scalp
a
with a crown of
and a sun disc
combination
cow's
horns
repeat
type
feathers
framed
by
variants
Typological
made
toNechbet,
the divine mother
queens, whose assimilation
by Ptolemaic
In
became
of the Pharaoh,
commonplace.
increasingly
particular,
Cleopatra
popular
protector
and
III
showed a close link to the vulture goddess ofEl-Kab (Eileithyiopolis) in Upper Egypt,
a
was decorated
scenes
her eldest son
sanctuary
during her reign with
representing
IX Soter II, in adoration
the
co-ruler, Ptolemy
of "his mother, Nechbet,"
presenting
as a divine
to the queen.
vulture
counterpart
goddess
a statuette
The
illustrated
by
of the Greek Aphrodite
Greco-Egyptian
syncretistic form
was
an
to
in
headdress
the mid- to late second
Egyptian
Syria evidently
wearing
brought
B.c. via
B.c. with
145
in
the
Seleucid
the marriage
queens.
century
of the
Beginning
where
and
of Ptolemy VI and
daughter
cid queens were consistently
imported from
blood relatives.
case, by that time their close

Phoenicia
and Syria,
the Egyptian
tive
populace
on
to Alexander
the Seleu
II, Cleopatra
Thea,
Balas,
who were,
the Ptolemaic
in any
royal family,
In certain regions of the Seleucid
realm, i.e.,
Cleopatra
attributes
of the goddess
representations
would
Astarte
to the na
already have been familiar
or Ba'alat.
A bronze statuette
"from
Syria" in theLouvre may probably be regarded as the initial iconographical typeof a

former
form
been
Ptolemaic
as
royal
lady
turned
or
"Aphrodite/Nechbet"
on some occasions
interpreted
Seleucid
queen,
in an
representational
apotheosized
The vulture
"Aphrodite/Astarte."
scalp may well have
in the Seleucid
realm as a dove, the most characteristic
birdfound with Aphrodite.
was used
in several
times, this syncretistic goddess,
types,
represented
draped
the
beloved
the
sister
the
in
Drusilla,
express
of
apotheosis
of
again
Emperor
Caligula,
as Venus with
bronzes. One bronze statuette
the medium
small
Faustina
the
of
of
Younger
an
or the divine mother
and
the diadem
queen
provenance
of
of the
Egyptian
Egyptian
terms as mother
in native
the Empress
Isis/Hathor,
represents
pharaoh,
of the
Egyptian
A
heir to power,
the agent of the continuation
the
line.
second
bronze
Venus
of
dynastic
In Roman
to
ears
minor wears
the crown of Isis flanked
distinct portrait features
of Faustina
by
a Hellenistic
to
addition
that makes
role?under
the auspices
of corn,
reference
Egypt's
of
or
the Empress,
theDiva
Faustina?in
theMediterranean
possibly posthumously
supplying
world with grain
in times of need.
with
One century ago, the Hungarian

archaeologist Anton Hekler1 published a short article on a group
bronze statuettes typologically identifiable as "Aphrodite" but wearing on their
of Hellenistic-Roman
"Alexandrinische
Aphroditestatuetten,"
Jd?
14 (1911),
112-20.
151

JARCE 43 (2007)
152
sur
an
or
insignia of
Egyptian queen
goddess. The vulture cap is often
a sun disc.2 On
an
mounted
by
Egyptian crown, usually the diadem of two upright feathers behind
ears
a
statuettes are
more Hellenized
The
of
this
ensemble
is
flanked
of
variants,
by
pair
grain.3
not
in style and
differences
from
but
also
from
certain
only
Egypt,
frequently attested,
Syria, where
coiffure can be observed, even when the Egyptian crown is retained. Several statuary types, generally
heads
a vulture's
scalp?the
one particular type is

draped, are used for representations of the goddess, but
in Egypt. A bronze statuette in the Louvre, acquired in 1852 with a given prov
enance "from Lower
one of the earliest of the type. The figure is
Egypt" (fig. la-b),4 is probably
nude with the exception of the vulture's scalp diadem and the feather crown. Her hair is rolled back
nude but occasionally
remarkably common
from a center part and bound in the back of the head in a thick braid, from which the lower section
of hair falls loosely. This was an antiquated Greek fashion from the Early Classical Period but still
seen, combined eclectically with other styles of curls and braids, on the caryatids from the Erech
theion in Athens in the last quarter of the fifth century.5 The braid is also found on a small bronze
in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.6 It occurs on
type, undoubtedly Ptolemaic,
replica of the Aphrodite
a free bronze copy of Praxiteles'
"Aphrodite of Cnidus" inNew York,7 which probably dates towithin
century b.c.8 Two long, S-curved wavy locks, which hang loosely down to
the shoulders of the Louvre statuette, have escaped from the thick plait
In her right hand, she holds out a wreath. In her lefthand, extended
down
the
woman's
back.
hanging
out
to
the side, she holds an apple, one of her most common attributes.9 The type is repre
loosely
one century ago. Some replicas
sented by numerous replicas from Egypt, as Hekler10 demonstrated
the last half of the second
side of the neck onto
each
hold a mirror
in the left hand instead of an apple.11 Variants from Syria often wear a heavy Oriental
coiffure
izing
consisting of two rows of short corkscrew curls across the front of the head and long
single ringlets falling down over the shoulders.
The most
aspect of the Louvre statuette is visible only from the back (fig. lb). The sepa
vulture
cap, which was fitted over the top of the goddess's head, breaks off before the
rately sculpted
of
the
bird's
tail, exposing her thick braid of hair. After a short segment of braid, the hair
beginning
2
Sabine
curious
Albersmeier,
Fran?oise
Dunand,
1973), 86ff., 91.

4
Mus?e
du Louvre
Frauenstatuen
im ptolem?ischen
Le culte d'Isis dans
10 [2002]), 54f.
?gypten (= Aegyptiaca Treverensia
le basin oriental de la m?diterran?e I. Le culte dLsis et les Ptol?m?es. EPRO
26,1
(Leiden,
Br 386: Andr?
de Ridder, Mus?e du Louvre. Les bronzes antiques I. Les figurines (Paris, 1913), 60, pl. 32;
are due to Dr. Alain
of the
and Dr. Sophie Descamps
116,
"Aphroditestatuetten,"
fig. 113. My sincere thanks
Pasquier
as well as the statuette
of the photographs
and publication
Louvre, Dept. of Classical
Art, for provision
rights for this piece,
illustrated in fig. 2a-b.
5
K?nst
Bieber, Ancient Copies (New York, 1977), figs. 40, 460; also compare figs. 477-80; Annalis Leibundgut,
Margarete
lerische Form und konservative Tendenzen nach Perikies. Ein Stilpluralismus
im 5. Jahrhundert v.Chr.? 10. Trierer Winckelmannspro
Hekler,
cites its use on an over4ife-size

of the coiffure. Leibundgut
gramm 1989 (Mainz, 1991), 34f., pis. 2-7, with a detailed discussion
statue of Athena
marble
from the Severe Period
in New York (K?nstlerische Form, 5, pis. 5.1-3; 6.1).
()
CG 27653. Acquired
without provenance.
1904, 6f. (without ill.).
Bibliog.: C. C. Edgar, Greek Bronzes. CGC,
7
Museum
of Art 12.173: G. M. A. Richter, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes (New York, 1915), 74ff., n. 121
Metropolitan
of Art Nov. 16, 1988-Jan. 8, 1989 [1988]), 106-10,
Museum
(ill.); M. True in The Gods Delight (exhibition catalogue, Cleveland
n. 15
a
B.C."
(bibliog. and 4 ill.) with
dating "150-100
8
to truer copies of the Praxitelean
In comparison
the lowered position of its left arm in front of the body, and
original,
of the hands point

flesh, the soft lips and the nervous movement
slight baroque
rendering of the creasing of the voluptuous
towards a date probably well before the end of the second century B.C. C. M. Havelock,
The Aphrodite ofKnidos and Her Succes
sors (Ann Arbor,
1995), 67, writes it to be the earliest copy of the Praxitelean
type in bronze known to her.
9
s.v.
cols. 409-16,
Roscher, Lexikon I (1884-86),
(A. Furtw?ngler).
"Aphrodite"
10
114ff. The list is by no means
the examples brought are sufficiently represen
exhaustive,
although
tative of the basic types. One
(see n. 17) came from Byblos.
replica in the British Museum
11
du Louvre Br 773: Longperier,
Paris, Mus?e
115f.,
34, n. 147; Reinach, R?pertoire II, 360,6; Hekler,
fig. 115; de Ridder, Les bronzes antiques, 105, n. 773, pi. 53.

CHESHIRE
la-b.
Bronze
Fig.
Fr?res Chuzeville
statuette
"from Lower
(used with permission).
Egypt/'
Paris, Mus?e
du Louvre
153
Br 386.
Photographs:
Louvre,
DistRMN?Les
falls loosely again and merges back into the feathers, which are the end of the vulture's tail. The
intriguing fusion of human and bird features gives the impression that the bird scalp is not merely
the diadem of Aphrodite, but that the bird is identical with the goddess. A similar illusionistic effect
has been created on a bronze statuette of Pan in Baltimore,12 on which an animal's skin,
draped
12
Walters
(Princeton,
Art Museum
1988),
54.2380:
. 53,
138, cat.
D. K. Hi\\JWalt
fig. 53.1-3.
17 (1954),
61ff., figs. 3-5; E. Reeder,
Hellenistic

Art in theWalters Art Gallery
154
JARCE 43 (2007)
his chin, turns into a type of cloak on the back; long

streamers of the edge of the fabric hang down behind each shoulder, and two collar4ines of material
the contours of
cross the chest?one horizontal around the back of the neck and one a V-neck?while
around his neck and knotted at the paws beneath
his bony, haggard frame are visible through the garment.

of the Louvre statuette, with both its arms bent out at
The coquette,
loosely open composition
Period.
in the Late Hellenistic
irregular angles and the wrists dangling freely, points to its creation
and archaizing
the representations of countless dancing maenads
affected poses characterize
manner
the
on the Neo-Attic reliefs, which begin after mid-second
of
deities
century;
dainty
figures
common
a
of the lefthand holding the apple with the tips of the thumb and forefinger is particularly
an expansive frontal pose
display of nudity in
gesture in Neo-Attic art.13 The goddess' unabashed
or early first century b.c., as well. The openness and rhythm of
a
in
late
for
date
second
the
speaks
the pose, the great interest in the tactile plasticity of the flesh and the texturing of the thickmasses
Such
of wavy hair place the Louvre bronze on the same stylistic level as a bronze Aphrodite figure in Prov
a date of "150-50 b.c."
idence,14 for which Marion True15 has brought similar arguments to defend
of the
in
its
vibrant
"Alexandrian"
is
also
The Cairo replica CG 2765316
plastic modeling
typically
to
its
this type17 attests
popularity.
chubby nude body. The large number of replicas of
in New York in
Another bronze, nude figure of Aphrodite crowned with a vulture cap, auctioned
more
the
Cnidian
in
the
is
Aphrodite
2005,18
closely following
momentary pudica pose
represented
small bronze in New York.19 It can be ascribed to the freer
of Praxiteles than the above-mentioned
times20 and were to be
variants of the famous type thatwere increasingly popular in Late Hellenistic
The hard modeling of the face with firm,
adopted frequently for portrait figures of Roman women.21
to Roman
waves
hair
divided
of
the
stiff
and
features
standardized
by deep incisions point
zigzag
this
On
in
was
made
statuette, the
Period workmanship,
Egypt.
undoubtedly
although the statuette
over
the hair
vulture cap carrying the cow's horn and sun disc diadem has been executed in entirety
on the back of the head.
toward the middle or into the second half of the first
The date of the statuette is presumably
features and full lips, as
century b.c. The hard, globular face with smooth inner surfaces, symmetric
well as the arrangement of the waves of hair on the shoulders in precise semicircular curls, are
to several dancing women on relief slabs from a
and are closely comparable
strongly Classicizing
to ca. 50-40 b.c.,23 or a series of relief pan
in
datable
monument
from the Via Praenestina
Rome,22
13
For example, J. J. Pollitt, Art in theHellenistic Age (Cambridge,
1986), 169ff., figs. 176, 187.
14
of Design
26.17: G. M. A. Richter, AJA 37 (1933), 48-51, pis. Vllb, Vlllb; D. G. Mitten, Classical
Island School
Rhode
n. 17 with ill. (M. True).
Bronzes (Providence,
R.I., 1975), 66-76, n. 20, figs, a-m; The Gods Delight, 113-19, cat.
15
The Gods Delight, 113, 118.
10
See n. 6.
17
British Museum:
de Ridder, Les bronzes antiques, 60; 105f., pi. 53; London,
Dominique
E.g., Louvre Br 385; Br 773?77:
1995), 189, fig. 151.

Colion, Ancient Near Eastern Art (London,
18
of Charles
in the collection
16.4 cm. Formerly
H.
Pankow, who acquired
Paris.
(auction New York,
catalogue, ANTIQUITIES
Sotheby's
Maspero,
Bibliog.:
broken off.
19
See above with n. 7.
20
Havelock,
Aphrodite ofKnidos, 64ff., 69ff.
21
and S. B. Matheson,
in D. Kleiner
Bieber, Ancient Copies, 93ff.; E. D'Ambra
10 Iff., fig. 6.1; Ancient Art
Society, (Symposium, Yale University Art Gallery, 2000),
110 (ill), 230, n. 95 with bibliog.
2004),
(London,
Carlsberg Glyptothek Copenhagen
22 D.
. 2148
. . Steuben);
4th ed., III,
1908, 353ff.; Helbig,
(
Vaglieri, NSc
42ff.
im
125ff.,
pis.
l.Jh.v.Chr. (Mainz, 1981),
griechischen Mythen
23
127ff.
Froning, Marmor-Schmuckreliefs,
it in 1982
June
from
7, 2005),
the collection
42,
lot n. 38
of Marianne
(ill.). Left hand
II. Women in Roman Art and

eds., / Claudia
toPost-Impressionism. Masterpieces from theNy
(M. Moliesen).
Heide
Froning, Marmor-Schmuckreliefs

mit
CHESHIRE
155
els from the vicinity of the Dionysus

theater in Athens,24 which were also created shortly before the
end of the Roman Republic.25 A comparison of the bronze statuette to the seated, half nude female
in the scene on the silver patera from
figure to the proper right side of Marc Antony/Triptolemus
identifiable by three ears of grain on her head as the seasonal personification

(hore) of
Aquileia,26
of
taut
skin
smooth,
summer,27 reveals similar large surfaces
enveloping the upper body with the iso
lated application of hard, semispherical breasts; the face is in both cases a hard-shelled globular form
attribution of the standing figure of Triptolemus
in the center of
with idealized features. M?bius'28
the scene toMarc Antony, supported by the generally accepted Alexandrian
ambience of the patera,
substantiates his dating of the piece in the 30s B.c., when the Roman
triumvir was the consort of
VII
of
The
art
bronze
from
the
York
New
market will also have been
Cleopatra
Egypt.
"Aphrodite"
created during the reign of Egypt's last?and most notorious?queen.
The vulture, equated to the goddess Nechbet of El-Kab in Upper Egypt (Greek, Eileithyiopolis) but
also a representative figure of the whole of Upper Egypt opposite the cobra goddess Wadjet of Buto
representing Lower Egypt,29 was established since earliest historical times in Egypt as a divine figure
to kingship. A protective
closely connected
goddess of the pharaoh, she appears in the form of a bird
as
over
an
ever present symbol of divine support. The vulture in the
the head of the king30
hovering
form of a diadem is attested sporadically as an insignia of the queen since the Old Kingdom,31 but a
closer association of the queen with Nechbet, firstmanifested on a significant scale in the New
King
in the Ptolemaic Period. In the last three centuries B.c., the vulture
dom, is particularly recognizable
for the queen and may have been taken for granted,
cap is found exceedingly often as a headdress
but itnever lost its original meaning as a Pharaonic
symbol for the "Lady of Upper Egypt," just as the
coiled uraeus serpent worn on the brow of every ruler continued to refer to its very ancient symbol
ism as the "Lady of Lower Egypt." An assimilation of the queen toNechbet appears in the New
King
times in the case of the royal mother
dom numerous
of the pharaoh;32
this
(or "queen mother")
scenes
is
in
of
on
of
the
birth
the
It
is
the
basis
of
this
relationship
particularly explicit
pharaoh.33
of Nechbet from Pharaonic

times identifying her
function, including a rather obscure manifestation
with the divine midwife, Heket,
came
to
that the goddess
to
be equated by the Greeks
Eileithyia.M
to
This equation corresponded
the
traditional
of
character
the
exactly
Eileithyia,
goddess of child
birth, who was allegedly present at the birth of Athena, the birth of Dionysus and sometimes of other
24
Museum
Athens, National
259, 260: Werner
Fuchs, Die Vorbilder der neuattischen Reliefs (Berlin, 1959), 99fF., 172, n. 16,
pis. 99, 102, 103; Nikolas Kaltsas, Sculpture in theNational Archaeological Museum, Athens: Catalogue, Engl, trans., D. Hardy
(Ath
. 649
ens, ca. 2002), 310f., cat.
(2 ill).
25
Kaltsas, Sculpture, 310.
2hHans
und Rom. AbhM?nchen
Alexandria
N.F. 59 (Munich,
M?bius,
Laubscher,
1964), 33-35; Hans-Peter
"Triptolemos
N.F. 6/7 (1988), 30-32.
und die Ptolem?er,"/^GHam6
27 The most
und Rom, 33-35.
Alexandria
convincing
iconographical
interpretation of the scene remains that by M?bius,
28
Alexandria
und Rom, 35; idem, in Festschrift f?r Friedrich Matz
M?bius,
(Mainz,
1962), 80-97, esp. 89ff.; Helmut
Kyrieleis,
AA 1976, 85ff. For opposing
views, see Laubscher,
39, n. 120.
"Triptolemos,"
29
observations sur la d?esse d'el Kab (Brussels,
"La D?esse
et la
Nekhbet
Jean Capart, Quelques
1946), 3ff.; Marcel Werbrouck,
Reine d'Egypte," ArOr 20 (1952),
Lana Troy, Patterns of Queenship
in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History
197-203;
(Uppsala,
Lesko, The Great Goddesses ofEgypt (Norman, Okla.,
1986), 115-25; Barbara
1999), 64ff.
30
col. 73; Troy, Patterns of Queenship,
Roscher, Lexikon III/l (1897-1902),
116-19; Lesko, Great Goddesses, 65, 80.
31
117.
Troy, Patterns ofQueenship,
32
"D?esse Nekhbet,"
W7erbrouck,
118L; Lesko, Great Goddesses, 21, 66; Paul E. Stanwick,
197ff.; Troy, Patterns of Queenship,
Portraits of thePtolemies (Austin, 2002), 35.
33
199 (at Deir el-Bahri: Ahmes, mother
at Luxor:
of Hatshepsut;
mother
of Ameno
Lesko, Great Goddesses,
Mutemouiya,
phis III).
34
Bonnet,
R?RG,
508; Troy, Patterns
ofQueenship,
94.

156
JARCE 43 (2007)
she was occasionally
represented as a woman clothed in a sheath or peplos with wings
to either side,36 her supernatural appearance
could come close to that of the Egyptian
deities.35 As
emerging
vulture goddess Nechbet. One Greek tradition reputing Eileithyia to be the mother
inHellenistic
times as the divine mother, Aphrodite.38
justify her appearance
of Eros37 would
of the Egyptian goddess with a particular queen can be observed at

existed since remote antiquity.39 There was also
El-Kab, where the remains of a temple of Nechbet
built a small rock-hewn sanctuary for the goddess, which was renovated and expanded under Cleo
A clear historical
connection
II, and then as his widow.40 This

patra III, as she ruled with her husband, Ptolemy Vili Euergetes
time period was politically an extremely eventful one in Egypt. Upon
II in
the death of Euergetes
on
116 b.c., his own testament bequeathed
of
III
throne
her
the
husband's
Cleopatra
place
Egypt; she
was to choose as her co-regent one of their two sons.41 She first
her
eldest
son,
Ptolemy IX
appointed
II, as co-ruler, an arrangement which lasted from 116 to 107 b.c.; when dynastic squabbles
reached a peak, he was expelled and replaced by the younger son, Ptolemy X Alexander
I, who ruled
on past his mother's death in 101 until 88 b.c.42 It is
the
instructive
about
co-regencies of these
highly
Soter
or
kings with their mother that, in official protocols of any nature, whether in Greek
name
were
even
and titles of Cleopatra
III
Egyptian, the
always named before theirs,
though tradi
tion demanded
otherwise that the name of the king be cited first, due to his higher status.43 There
was never any doubt that the mother was in
inflated propagandistic mea
charge! The enormously
a
sures taken
secure
as
to
a
III
her
by Cleopatra
popular acceptance
goddess and the recipient of
state-sponsored cult have left for posterity one of themore colorful epochs in Ptolemaic history.44
two Ptolemaic
It is, then, symptomatic that, in two scenes on the fa?ade of the temple at El-Kab, the queen is
represented alone, without a male consort, offering sistrums before the local patron goddess and
"Horus-Ra,
lofty titles of sovereignty equivalent to those of a male Pharaoh:
carrying exceptionally
The
decora
the
of
the
female
Horus
mistress
Two
Lands
bull,
(=
(Hr.t),
strong
Egypt), Cleopatra."45
tion of the speos of the temple is composed of a series of vignettes in which her eldest son, Ptolemy
II, brings offerings, all standard components of the daily rituals: libations, burnt offerings,
wine, milk, victuals, flowers, and the symbol of Ma'at?a
particularly favored by
gift of appeasement
in the times of political instability of the late second century46?to the goddess.47 The
the Ptolemies
basic legend inscribed in front of each representation of the king, "bringing (x) to his mother," facing
a
is so pointedly repetitive in the small chapel that it truly gives the
opposite
figure of Nechbet,
as the son of Nech
a
impression of devoted son obliging his parent. In presenting himself repeatedly
bet, the king is virtually equating the vulture goddess with his own, very demanding mother, Cleo
IX Soter
35
s.v.
LIMC
III/l (1986), 685fF.;
/2, pis. 534-40,
(R. Olmos).
"Eileithyia"
Olmos,
"Eileithyia," 686 (ill.).
37
Paus. 9.27, 2.
38
As suggested by Hekler,
(see n. 1).
"Aphroditestatuetten"
39
PM V, 171-91; LA I, cols. 1225-27, s.v. Elkab (H. De Meulenaere);
Lesko, Great Goddesses, 68.
40
P. Derchain,
El-Kab I. Les monuments religieux ? Ventr?e de l'Ouady Hellal
1971), 8.
(Brussels,
41
1.
39.3,
Just.
42 RE
Zur Geschichte des
11 (1921), cols. 744ff., s.v. "Kleop?tra
(16)" (E. St?helin); Walter Otto and Hermann
Bengtson,
et
131ff.
des
Ptolem?erreiches.
17
AbhM?nchen
1928),
(Munich,
passim.
Niederganges
43
Otto and Bengtson,
Zur Geschichte, 148f.
44
ZPE 5 (1970), 6Iff.; John Whitehorne,
III. als Priesterin des Alexanderkultes,"
Cleopatras
"Kleop?tra
Ludwig Koenen,
113ff., 132ff.
York, 1994), 132ff.; G. H?lbl, A History of thePtolemaic Empire, (New York, 2001),
(London-New
45
20 (Cairo, 1916), 332f. On these
El-Kab, 48, 49, with n. 4, 50, 62; cf. Henri Gauthier, Le Livre des Rois IV, MIFAO
Derchain,
30
titles for a female ruler, see Troy, Patterns of Queenship,

113ff.
4()
of Cleopatra
Unsterblichkeil
im Alten ?gypten (Munich, 1990), 226. The presumption
Ma'at:
und
Assmann,
Jan
Gerechtigkeit
from the time of
of Ma'at,
ismarked
III to virtually appear as an earthly personification
of Dikaiosyne,
the Greek counterpart
III." 61ff.
the initiation of a new eponymous
cult in 115 B.c.; cf. Otto and Bengtson, Niedergang,
151ff.; Koenen,
"Kleop?tra
47
El-Kab, 37ff., esp. 44.
Derchain,

CHESHIRE
the patron goddess
patra III. Thus Nechbet,
on
III
earth.
Queen Cleopatra
157
of Eileithyiopolis,
became
a divine parallel
to the ruling
Given the close association of the Alexandrian Aphrodite

type in a vulture diadem with the Egyp
tian queen, itmay be asked whether some of the replicas do actually represent specific Ptolemaic
queens. In no case is it obvious, since the goddess wears a Classical Greek coiffure and the faces are
on both the Hellenistic
and the Egyptian
idealized to a considerable
extent, a common phenomenon
a round face
style images of queens of the late Ptolemaic Period.48 The Louvre bronze (fig. la-b) has
that differs from a typical oval, ideal Aphrodite head, but the
with prominent, broad-set cheekbones
variation is not necessarily ground to label the statuette a "portrait." The head does, however, bear a
to a group of monuments
and objets d'art that are probably portraits of Cleo
distinct resemblance
patra II, a queen whose long reign (175-115 B.c.) spanned much of the second century.49 That the
II?and not her daughter, Cleopatra
III?has no significant
Louvre bronze could represent Cleopatra
bearing
on
already
to the
III exploited
the Nechbet/Eileithyia
that Cleopatra
iconography
of the most notorious vehicles of religious propaganda
of Cleopatra
III were
the conclusion
greatest extent. Some

claimed?on
a far
less
flamboyant
scale?by
earlier
queens.50
is attested with some frequency since the

queens with Aphrodite
introduction of a new eponymous
cult in 107 B.c.
beginning of the dynasty,51 but the state-sponsored
a
a
new
to
In
that
have
had
of "Cleopatra Aphrodite"
appears
year,
lasting significance.
priest (Gr.
the goddess Aphrodite,
the mother
hiereus, Eg., w%) was installed, serving "the Queen
Cleopatra,
thea Aphrodite he kai Philometor); in Egyptian, "Aphrodite" was trans
loving" (Gr. basilisse Kleop?tra
The
association
of Ptolemaic
lated "the goddess

(ti ntr.t, or simply ti) Hathor."52 Both the Egyptian and Greek versions refrain
from equating the queen with the goddess outright; the name "Aphrodite" or "Hathor" is qualified
each time by "the goddess," which in the case of established deities would have been superfluous
and here reveals a touch of self-consciousness.

"daughters of Ra," especially Hathor
El-Kab temple during her reign.53
divine
to other
The queen's common assimilation of Nechbet
and Tefnut, is clearly illustrated by the decoration
of the
a "Street of Cleopatra
Aphrodite"
(agyia Kleopatras
Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus,
as early as 73 B.c., but probably beginning with the association
at
is
of
mentioned
least
Aphrodites)
as
as
B.c.
44
in
and
is
still
in
the
III
cited
late
107
with
B.C.,54
(i.e.,
Aphrodite-Hathor
reign
Cleopatra
of Cleopatra VII),55 thus spanning the regnal periods of several Cleopatrae. Whether Aphrodite's
In the Middle
link to the "queen Cleopatra," as implied in the street name, continued to be associated with the same
historical queen, or was automatically associated with the contemporary queen of that name is not
is attested inMemphis.56 Undoubt
known. In the third century A.D., a cult of "Aphrodite Cleopatra"
a
a
edly this goddess is late echo of the Ptolemaic cult of Queen
cult that was initiated towards the end of the reign of Cleopatra
48
Cleopatra Aphrodite, probably the

III in 107/6 B.c.57 The name of the
on
commented
2 (Berlin, 1975), 112f.
Forschungen
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolem?er. Arch?ologische
by Helmut
The Ptolemies inMemphis,
for which the reader is referred to my forthcoming monograph:
A problem
Cheshire,
Wendy
II."
131-80 B.c. A Testimony of theArtists' Workshops (in press), "Excursus: The Portraits of Cleopatra
50
See n. 49.
51
7 (1948), Iff.; P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria
BSArchAlex 37 (1948),
12ff.; idem., ?t.Pap.
(Oxford,
1972), I,
J. Tondriau,
243, 413, 568-9, 587, 666f.; also see infra.
197, 221, 229, 238-40,
52Otto and
7,ur Geschichte, 156f.; P. W. Pestman, Chronologie ?gyptienne d'apr?s les textesd?motiques (332 av.f.-C.?453
Bengtson,
15 (Leiden,
1967), 155.
Pap.Lugd.-Bat.
ap.J.C),
53
observations,"
El-Kab,
12f., 27, 29, n. 7, et passim.
7, 8f.; Derchain,
Capart,
"Quelques
54
. 1.
cf. Otto and Bengtson, Niedergang,
157,
POxy. XIV, 1628.8; 1644.8L;
55
POxy. XIV, 1629.7.
5<)
und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde
W.Chrest. 115.10 (= Ludwig Mitteis and Ulrich Wilcken,
1912]),
Grundz?ge
[Leipzig,
n. 115, line 10.
57 D.
1988), 133.
Memphis under thePtolemies (Princeton,
J. Thompson,
49
As

158 JARCE 43 (2007)
____________________
'
_______________^^^^^^^'
^^^^^_^^^^^^^^^^^^^
'"^^^^^^^^^^BBI^^
'
jx__^_________________________r
__^_^_^_^_^_^_^___________________________^|p^?,.
ft
_____________________________|______________________K?%'
'^^
Bronze
F/g. 2a-?.
419.
Photographs:
statuette
?
Louvre,
"from Syria,"
DistRMN?M.
Paris,
Mus?e
Daniel Leb?e (fig.2b) (used with permission).

was
queen-goddess
pellative
"Cleopatra"
in Roman
reversed
would
times
have
obviously
Br
du Louvre
et P. Chuzeville
when
(fig. 2a);
the
ap
lost its original
nuances.
political
In an early Louvre
defined a
catalogue, Longperier?8
small bronze replica of the type from Syria (fig. 2a-b)ry9
corkscrew curl coiffure as "Cleopatra,
with an Orientalizing
of Syria." The suggestion, although more recently
as several Cleo
disputed by Fleischer,00 isworth examining,
patrae of the Ptolemaic
royal house of the second half of
Queen
L11
the
second
century
B.c.
married
Seleucid
kings.
The
statu
a more slender, narrow

represents a nude, pudica version of Aphrodite
loosely following
as
or
was
such
the
Medici
welded
Venus,61
type
Capitoline
awkwardly
together with sepa
ette, which
hipped
:)lS
Adrien
de Longpcricr,
Notice
des bronzes antiques
(Paris,
1868),
146, n. 635;
Salomon
Reinach,
359,3.
,9
R?pertoire de la statuaire
II,
m. Bibliog.: de Ridder, Les Bronzes antiques, 64, n. 419,

du Louvre Br 419. "From Syria, 1855." Height?0.24
Paris, Mus?e
Le Mus? on 61 (1948),
180.
115,
112;
Reinach,
34;
Hekler,
pl.
fig.
R?pertoire II, 359, 3;J. Tondriau,
('?
under "Keine Seleukiden").
Studien, 112 (catalogued
('1 .
M. Felleti Maj,
"Afrodite pudica:
Aphrodite of
saggio d'arte ellenistica," ArchCl 3 (1951), 33-65, esp. 41-54; Havelock,
Knidos, 69f., 72, 74-80, 88, 106, 110, 136, 138, figs. 18f.

CHESHIRE
Fig.
3a-b.
Courtesy
Silver
Thea," New York, American

"Cleopatra
Numismatic
Society (used with permission).
tetradrachm,
of the American
159
Numismatic
Society
0000.999.46369.
Photographs:
rately cast but poorly fitted arms. The ultimate position of both arms high up in front of the breasts
rather than one hand attempting to cover the pubic area is incongruous with the modesty associated
with the pose in theWestern world, but cause for prudery probably never occurred to the Syrian art
ist. The goddess might be holding a ring-like object in her left hand.62 Unlike any traditional Aphro
dite, the bronze figure wears a wig of two short tiers of densely packed corkscrew curls, again
surmounted by a headdress fashioned from the scalp of a bird. The coiffure and crown clearly resem
ble the adornment
of a Ptolemaic
queen, wearing
and Roman Syria?and
statuettes from Hellenistic

tion what
the familiar vulture cap, but the frequency of such

even from mainland Greece63?leads
to the ques
these pieces would have signified outside of Egypt.

From the time that Cleopatra
I Syra ("the Syrian"), a daughter of Antiochus
III, married Ptolemy V
in 194/3 B.c.,64 the Ptolemaic and the Seleucid royal families became in-laws and cousins and, despite
intermittent military clashes, intermarriages arranged between the two houses became a more fre
quent effort to establish positive relations.65 The most prominent Egyptian export of the second cen
II, who was sent to Syria
turywas Cleopatra Thea, the eldest daughter of Ptolemy VI and Cleopatra
to marry the Seleucid king, Alexander Balas, in 150 B.c. After his death, she remained in the
king
dom to marry Demetrius
II (146) and later Antiochus VII Sidetes (138-129).66 Unlike her sister on
the throne of Egypt, Cleopatra Thea as Queen

of Syria was not entitled to a significant political role
in the ruling of the country,6' but as a figurehead she enjoyed an exceptional status as one of the only
Seleucid queens to be represented with her portrait on coins; there her bust appeared beside that of
her husband, Alexander Balas.68 After the death of her third husband, for a short time (126/5 B.c.)
she held the throne alone, at which time coins were issued with her portrait on the obverse, and on
the reverse a borrowed Ptolemaic symbol?the double cornucopia
(fig. 3a-b).69 By late 125, she had
b2
this detail on the original.

author has not rechecked
infra and fig. 4a-b.
64
Whitehorne,
Cleopatras, 80ff.
63
C. Vatin, Recherches sur le mariage et la condition de lafemme mari?e ? l'?poque hell?nistique. BEFRA
66
Whitehorne,
149ff.; Vatin, Recherches, 98.
Cleopatras,
67
Vatin, Recherches, 86ff.
68
Fleischer, Studien, 76f., pis. 4Sg-h, 44a-b.
69
as a Ptolemaic
see H. M?bius,
For the double
Alexandria
und Rom. BWPr
cornucopia
symbol,
Katrin Bemmann,
F?llh?rner
in klassischer und hellenistischer Zeit (PhD Dissertation
Univ. of Freiburg
63
The
See
117; Vatin, Recherches,
102f; Wendy
Cheshire,
The Bronzes
ofPtolemy II Philadelphia,
ch. 2.

216
(Paris,
59
(Berlin,
1992
1970), 86ff.
1964),
[Frankfurt,
26?F.;
1994]),
160
JARCE 43 (2007)
a coregency with her son, Antiochus VIII Grypus, who was still a minor; this royal couple is
in coin portraits of the capita jugata type from 124-121/0 b.c.70 After the death of
then represented
a far more subordinate position.
the
Thea,
Cleopatra
following Seleucid queens retreat again into
a
VIII
and
of
III, was sent in 124/3 by her father
Ptolemy
Cleopatra
(Cleopatra) Tryphaena,
daughter
tomarry her cousin, Antiochus VIII Grypus, whom she then bore five sons and a daughter.71 In 106,
assumed
in Egypt, her younger sister, Cleopatra

Selene, after being discarded by her brother and hus
to Antioch
at
the
IX
Soter
II
band, Ptolemy
(doubtless
bidding of their domineering mother), went
to marry, consecutively, three Seleucid
kings.72
back
traits that suggest it reflects

The Louvre bronze statuette (fig. 2a-b) shows certain individualized
the image of a queen. The heavy pile of long ringlets, embellished with a double tier of shorter cork
screw curls over the forehead, is precisely the coiffure that is seen on coin portraits of Cleopatra Thea
is lacking, as she was one of the only Seleucid
comparison with other queens
(fig. 3a).73 Adequate
women
to have been represented on coins. The fleshy, rounded face of the Louvre "Aphrodite" is
an
intensely focused expres
sculpted in large, clearly defined planes. Large, round eyes communicate
sion due to the sharply undercut lower border of the upper eyelids and the diagonally sloped brows
(unlike the flat lying, saucer-round and rigidly staring eyes of Ptolemaic royal portraits), and the pupils
are pierced. The nose is short and thick, and slightly arched. The small mouth has full, fleshy lips, the
upper lip curved in a dainty "cupid's bow," accentuated by a deeply recessed philtrum. The rendering
of all of these traits is strongly reminiscent of the glyptic style found on Seleucid coins of the second
century./4
For
example,
cids of the later second

diagonal
between
band beneath
the
large,
dominant
eye
is common
and early first centuries.75

the eyebrow and substantial
on
the
coin
portraits
of numerous
Seleu
It is expressively shadowed by a deeply recessed

a
shadowing beneath the lower lid and in hollow
the eye and the nose, the pupil is decisively indicated, and the outer corner of the eye is still
quite angular, in contrast to the distended, round "Ptolemaic eyes." In contrast to the often harm
lessly (not to say "stupidly") smiling, additively applied mouth seen on portraits of Ptolemies, the lips
in the surrounding
of the Seleucid rulers on their coin portraits are plastically and firmly embedded
flesh, evoking an emphatic
"Syrian" bronze Aphrodite,
sometimes dark expression. The wide-eyed gaze of the

and determined,
combined with the nervous pose of the nude goddess, evokes an expres
sion of anxiety. Kyrieleis76 has explained this difference in official image from the serene and immo
bile, iconic coin images of the Ptolemaic rulers as a necessity of a royal family ruling over such diverse
territories as Iran, Syria, Babylonia, and parts of Asia Minor. He argued that a powerful and deter
to make a strong impression on peoples who were
pictorial image of the king was designed
not
In
of
the
united.77
course,
culturally
Egypt,
opposite held true; itwas assumed by the Egyptian
was
that their country
there for eternity. These are, in fact, precisely the stylistic and philo
populace
mined
70
Fleischer, Studien zur seleukidischen Kunst, I. Herrscherbildnisse

(Mainz, ca. 1991), 78, 128, pl. 44e-f.
11 (1921), cols. 787f., s.v. "(Kleop?tra?)
161, 162, 164.
Whitehorne,
(E.
St?helin);
Cleopatras,
Tryphaina"
72
s.v.
164?F.
St?helin,
(Selene)"; Whitehorne,
Cleopatras,
"Kleop?tra
"Kleop?tra" cols. 782ff.,
rA
New York, American
Numismatic
Cf. Edelgard
Brunelle, Die Bildnisse der Ptolem?erinnen
(Disser
Society 0000.999.46369.
1973 [1976]), 68ff.; Fleischer, Studien, 76ff., pl. 44c.
tation, Frankfurt-a.M.
/4
see Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 16If.; Fleischer, Stu
to Ptolemaic
On the character of Seleucid
coin portraits compared
glyptic art,
for example,
the large, dominant
IX, Seleu
II, Antiochus
dien, 120ff. One may compare,
eye on a coin portraits of Demetrius
cus VI, Demetrius
III, Philip I, etc.: R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits (Oxford, 1988), pi. 77.1, 3, 4, 6.
75
Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits, pi. 77.1, 3, 4, 6; Fleischer, Studien, pis. 42d-e, 44, 4bd-f 46, 49-52.
70 See n.
74.
7/
torso in the British Museum,
GR 1772.3-2.11,
I have suggested elsewhere
por
(Bronzes ofPtolemy II, ch. 3B), that a bronze
a
a
of
of
his
of
elements
realm?the
Seleucid
Antiochus
similar
with
ruler,
II,
arrangement
trays
possibly
provincial
integration
curvature in the contouring
of the eyelids.
the curly hair in rows of stylized ringlets and the ornamental
71
Robert
RE

CHESHIRE
161
sisters.78
sophical differences that distinguish the Louvre "Aphrodite" (fig. 2a-b) from her Alexandrian
of "la
It is interesting to speculate whether the reception at El-Kab, already in the New Kingdom,
the Egyptian goddess Tefnut returning from the remote
d?esse lointaine," as Derchain79 described
desert (albeit inNubia),
could have provided the scenario for a link between the "Ptolemaic" and the
as Nechbet/Aphrodite
in the religious policy of Cleopatra
III.
Cleopatras
The evidence for precisely identifying images of the Seleucid queens is extremely sparse,80 and our
current understanding
of Syrian bronzes makes
it difficult to exclude
that the figure
inadequate
"Seleucid"
Cleopatra Thea was the only Seleucid queen of the second century
on coins, and is thus far the most likely candidate for the attribution
to have achieved prominence
of the Louvre bronze, even though the characteristic upturned nose on that queen's coin portraits
differs from the image on the statuette. That detail is also not consistently rendered on coins.81 The
could be Roman.
Louvre
bronze
Nevertheless,
statuette
is far less likely to represent that queen's

Antiochus VIII Grypus;82 she is far more
some years later married

and thus far nowhere visible
niece, Cleopatra Tryphaena, who

obscure in extant documentation
in art. Cleopatra
Selene is at least tentatively identifiable from portraits
from Egypt and does not appear to have ever been so plump as the portrait head suggests.83 Never
theless, since every Seleucid king from 150 B.c. on married a Ptolemaic princess or a discarded Ptole
maic
queen,
the chances
remain hopeful of eventually
plentiful Egyptian material.

That the inherently Egyptian
identifying them by comparison
with themore
were
adopted for the Syrian version of the

type recognized the blood ties between the two royal houses via the export of
"Cleopatra Aphrodite"
roots of
from
but also attached itself in its foreign context to the Oriental
Alexandria,
princesses
a
to
Phoenician
her
herself
cult
and
assimilation
Astarte.84
precursor,
Aphrodite's
early
Aphrodite's
was
before
the
Greek
goddess
frequently represented nude85?long
goddess of beauty and eroticism,
was presented so by Praxiteles.
coiffure and headdress
a headdress
out of the bird's scalp recalls a typical Egyptian diadem and was
fashioning of
was the
of Syria. The bird closely associated with Aphrodite
the
Greeks
borrowed
by
obviously
on
not
the headdress. Hekler87 argued that
dove.86 The species of bird is often
clearly recognizable
The
78
Thus
on B. Andreae's
recent suggestion
one may argue, elaborating
(RM 111 [2004], 69ff., esp. 78) that the "Alexander
in Antiocheia,
that the head of
in Pompeii was copied after an original painting
that was made
from Casa del Fauno
coins. The huge, wide-open
familiar from Seleucid
and
bears a fiery facial expression
Alexander
the Great on that pavement
mosaic"
a
the original painting
in the style of the early third century, when
is not, however, rendered
jagged eyebrow
glaring eye with
to Seleucid
ruler
of
the
second century b.c.,
later
rather it can be compared
of the battle scene was made;
portraits
glyptic
a copy of the
sketched at that time
when the mosaic was laid in Pompeii. The mosaicist
evidently worked after
original painting
court style.
an artist under the influence of Seleucid
by
79
El-Kab, 12ff.
80
Fleischer, Studien, 127f.
81
Cf. Fleischer, Studien, 78, pl. 44d.
82
See n. 71.
83
B?rker and Michael
in Christoph
G?nter Grimm
Donderer,
eds., Das antike Rom und der Osten: Festschrift Klaus Parlasca
on
zum 65.en
In
his
36f.
rulers, Fleischer
(Studien, 126, pl. 57?z) cites as
1990),
study
portraits of Seleucid
Geburtstag (Erlangen,
of Syria and her son, Antio
Selene as Queen
the last Syrian coins of the capita jugata type an issue with the busts of Cleopatra
chus XIII. The portrait features of the queen, who on these issues would be in her later years, are unfortunately
barely discern
to make any portrait assessment
from them. Certain
individualized
traits
and it is almost impossible
able on known examples
to jut forward?might
that seem to be represented?long
cheeks, a short, straight nose and a large chin that appears
possibly be
to
Selene.
with the portrait in Alexandria
(Grimm, loc. cit.) that has been tentatively attributed
Cleopatra
compared
84
zur
und
den
ihr verb?ndeten
G?ttin
Lexikon
Helck, Betrachtungen
I, cols. 650-55
Roscher,
(E. Meyer); Wolfgang
Gro?en
Gottheiten (Munich-Vienna-Oldenburg,
1971), 230-42.
8)
The Many Faces of theGoddess. The Iconography of the Syro-Palestinian
Helck, Betrachtungen zur Gro?en G?ttin, 233; I. Cornelius,
BCE. OBO
204 (Freiburg-G?ttingen,
Goddesses Anat, Astarte, Qedeshet, and Asherah, ca. 1500-1000
2004), figs. 5. Iff.
8t)
Roscher, Lexikon I, cols. 39Iff., 408f., s.v. "Astarte" (A. Furtw?ngler).
87
112.

JARCE 43 (2007)
162
is that of a vulture, but it is not clear on all replicas that the

artist understood
this distinction. In the case of the first Louvre bronze (fig. la-b), the wings of the
vulture lie compactly against the head in the manner of an Egyptian diadem. On the headdress of
the second Louvre bronze (fig. 2a-b), the wings are ruffled or slightly outspread. One might conjec
the hooked
beak on these headdresses
the lat
to hatch an egg or, perhaps, that she is protecting her brood. Although
ter statuette is from Syria, the same bird with "ruffled feathers" occurs on numerous examples from
ture the bird is about
a Hellenistic variant rather than a Syrian interpretation. The

Egypt as well,88 so itmust be considered
neck of the bird is thick with softly incised lateral, S-curved striations which appear to indicate the
fuller collar of feathers seen on a vulture but not on a dove.
received
It is still possible that the attribute tacitly

not have
Empire, although a precise explanation may
the case with the motif of the double cornucopia, which was bor
a new
in the Seleucid
interpretation
seemed necessary. Such had been
rowed from Ptolemaic glyptic art for Seleucid
coins (fig. 3b),89 but did not include in its Syrian usage
the original implication of an incestuous family bond. Whether based on an earlier myth or a late
a
Roman
type is reflected in a legend related by
tautology,
reinterpretation of the exotic Aphrodite
to the shore,
Nigidius Figulus90 that "the fish found a large egg in the Euphrates, and they pushed it
where itwas hatched by a dove. Thus the Syrian Venus was born?a good and kind goddess, to whom
mankind
is indebted formany good deeds." It is thus possible that, outside of the sphere of Egyptian
as Aphrodite, born of a dove, and
theology, the figure with the bird's scalp headdress was interpreted
those qualities that were valued in several
like a dove, a charitable and benevolent woman?precisely
Hellenistic
queens who were revered as "Aphrodite" (see infra).
A close physical resemblance of the Louvre bronze to a woman portrayed on at least one, or even
several, of the clay seals found at Edfu91 isworthy of note in that it probably represents one of the
Ptolemaic royal women, yet unidentified, who married into the Seleucid royal house. The broad dia
dem worn over the coiffure of corkscrew curls of one of the portrait types,92 adorned with a lotus
to identify the woman as a member of the Ptolemaic royal family, and the flat,
the large, wide-open
with
and rigidly gazing "Ptolemaic eye" clearly repro
simplified glyptic style
a
duces the work of
court.93 On the other hand, a seal image repre
gem cutter of the Alexandrian
surmounted by a horned sun disc94 is
senting perhaps the same queen in a vulture's scalp headdress
bud ornament,
appears
in a heavy-handed
style with large, thick features and a dense clutter of details that appear
the calm, empty spaces preferred in Egyptian art; the frontal representation of both breasts,
appear to be naked but may, in fact, have been covered by a thin sheath, and three rows of
rendered
to avoid
which
come from
an
jewelry make
optically jarring impression. The style of glyptic art may, in fact,
Phoenicia where, in Classical times and earlier, relief and three-dimensional
sculptural stylewas often
marked by round, bulging eyes with thick rims, large features crowded into compressed head shapes,
beaded
88
numerous
are: Cairo, CG 27652
British
1904, 6 pl. 2); London,
(C. C. Edgar, Greek Bronzes CGC,
Among
examples
Museum
Select Bronzes, Greek, Roman and Etruscan,
116, fig. 114; H. B. Walters, British Museum,
(Hekler, "Aphroditestatuetten,"
in theDepartments ofAntiquities
is also Louvre Br 773 (Hekler, "Aph
[London,
1915], pi. 47); of probable
Egyptian manufacture
roditestatuetten,"
115, figs. 115, 116; de Ridder, Bronzes, 105, pi. 53).
89
Hans M?bius,
Ancient Jewish Coinage,
Alexandria
und Rom (Munich,
1964), 16ff.; BMC Seleucids, 82f., pi. 22; Y. Meshorer,
vol. I (Dix Hills, NY, 1982), 67f., 76ff.
90
Schol.German.Arat.v.
243; Ampelius,
lib.mem. 2, p. 3, 35W;
tungen zur Gro?en G?ttin, 272.

91
114f., pl. 100.3-4.
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse,
92
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, pl. 100.3.
93
Bildnisse, 129f., 163f.
94
Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum:
J. G. Milne, JHS
cf. Furtw?ngler,
36 (1916),
94, nn.
"Aphrodite"
188-90,
(see n. 8), col. 393; Helck,
pl. V; Kyrieleis,

Bildnisse,
pl.
100.4.
Betrach
CHESHIRE
163
a rather crude exaggeration of protruding nose and chin.95 There is, thus far, no information about
between
the exportation of the broad "late Ptolemaic" diadem abroad,96 but the interconnections
since
cross-cultural borrowings
lands of Syria-Palestine led to numerous
a
to
sun
the
framed
The
of
cow's
disc
B.c.97
horns, belonging
by pair
god
dess Hathor
(and, assimilated, to Isis)98 had been taken over by her Phoenician
counterpart, Astarte,
a
and the closely related Canaanite/Syrian
goddess, Ba'alat, long before the Ptolemaic Period.99 Thus
in adoration before the
fourth century stela from Byblos in the Louvre, showing King Yechomelek
to the stylistic canon of Egyptian art, seated on
goddess Ba'alat,100 represents the goddess according
a throne, holding a papyriform scepter and wearing the horned sun disc on top of a headdress which
Egypt and the neighboring
themid-second millennium
from the Egyptian vulture's scalp worn by Egyptian queens and

as
for
the
Greek
Aphrodite, however, the bird sacred to the cult of Astarte was the
goddesses. Just
nuances in interpretation, it can not have been
some
dove.101 Despite
possible different
exceptional
to wear, along with an Orientalizing
for Syrian variants of the nude Aphrodite
coiffure of corkscrew
curls, a composite, horned sun-disc crown that was originally Egyptian but meanwhile
long since fa
miliar on representations of her equivalent, Astarte.
optically
is not to be differentiated
of numerous Hellenistic
is attested, sometimes evidently
queens with Aphrodite
on their generous public service, although themain role of the spouse of a Hellenistic
king was
almost always as an heir producer. Phila, the widow of the Macedonian
leader Craterus who later
An
association
based
Poliorcetes, financed of her own accord dowries for "the sisters and
the daughters of the poor" as well as other charitable initiatives for those without means.102 Her exem
an anecdote
cited by Diodorus
(who
plary domestic role as the caring wife is illustrated again by
tends to write of Phila in glowing terms)103 that she had once sent the proper royal clothing to her
became
the wife of Demetrius
relates that the queen was

husband, Demetrius Poliorcetes, while he was at the battlefront. Athenaeus
toasted at a festive symposion in godlike terms as Aphrodite Phila,104 but he puts down a civic cult
in honor of Phila Aphrodite and the erection of a sanctuary?the Philaion?already
established
during
her lifetime as the work of "flatterers" (ton de Demetriou ton hastieos k?l?kon).105 The Seleucid queen
Laodice, wife of Antiochus
III, sponsored the financing of dowries for needy young women of Iasus
95
Die Ph?nizier
and S. Moscati,
from Sidon, 4th c. B.c.);
(Munich,
1977), 110, fig. 115 (cameo
E.g., A. Parrot, M. Ch?hab,
119, fig. 126 (statue fragment, 4th c, in Beirut);
125, fig. 136 (glass head from Umm el-Amad, 2nd c, in Beirut); G?nther Vitt
color pis.
mann, ?gypten und die Fremden im ersten vorchristlichen Jahrtausend
(Mainz, 2003), flg. 19 on 53 (Stele of Yechomelek),
stelae from Saqqarah).
12, 13a (Egyptian-Aramaic
90
inMacedonia
Elizabeth
that a Stephane or a
2000), 232f., commented
(Norman, Oklahoma,
Carney, Women and Monarchy
one from
or
veil worn on a Hellenistic
not
often
whether
the
prevents
queen's
portrait
determining
royal fillet was worn
underneath.
97Alan H. Gardiner
in Fs Griffith (London,
Ranke
in Fs Griffith, 412-18; Nicole Aim?-Giron,
BIFAO
1932), 74-85; Hermann
J. J. Milik, Biblica 48 (1967), 556ff.; Vittmann, ?gypten und die Fremden, 44ff.
common
of crowns for a goddess,
called simply by Plutarch
(De Iside et Osiride 19) a basileion, see Henri
Isidore Levy (Brussels,
54.
Frauenstatuen,
1955), 603ff.; Albersmeier,
Seyrig inM?langes
99
.
in
Lexikon
col.
The
Faces
Roscher,
652;
Cornelius,
86),
(see
Meyer
Many
of the Goddess, 45ff., 73, cat. nn. 5.1-5.62,
esp.
18.
5.1-5.16,
100
and Moscati, Die Ph?nizier, 56 fig. 49; Vittmann,
parro^5 Chehab,
?gypten und die Fremden, 52, 53, fig. 19.
101
in Roscher, Lexikon, col. 653; Helck, Betrachtungen zur Gro?en G?ttin, 273f.; H. Herter,
"Die Urspr?nge
des Aphro
Meyer
in ?l?ments orientaux dans la religion grecque ancienne. Biblioth?que
des Centres d'?tudes
ditekultes,"
(1960), 28ff., esp.
sup.sp?c.
30ff.
102
Diod.Sic.
19.59.4-5.
103
20.93.4.
104
Athen. 254a.
105
Athen. 255c; Carney, Women and Monarchy, 218.
25 (1925),
98
For
191-211;
this most

164
JARCE 43 (2007)
She, too, was worshiped as Aphrodite.107 The generous acts of one Stratonice, pre
in Smyrna with a cult honoring her as Stratonike
I,108 were celebrated
sumably the wife of Seleucus
a
an
to
Stratonice
close
Aphrodite.109
appeared
being
earthly counterpart of the love goddess, if tale
related by Luc?an110 and Plutarch111 is to be believed. Her stepson, the prince and later coregent
inAsia Minor.106
fell?in the judgment of the court physician?dangerously

lovesick for her. Another fer
Antiochus,
later castrated himself as a gesture of his devotion to the
vently amorous youth at court, Kombabos,
a
custom
in the service of Atargatis.112 It was said that Stratonice
of
cult
queen, following
personnel
was commanded
the
by Luc?an to be
by
goddess Atargatis (the Syrian As tarte, although maintained
a
a
to
in dream to build
the equivalent of Hera rather than Aphrodite)
her; this appears to
temple
true, as thiswas the temple that still stood in the Holy City (Hierapolis) in Syria in Lucian's
knew he could accom
day (2nd century A.D.). Because of his self-imposed emasculation, Kombabos
to
to
the danger of being
of
without
the
the
the
pany the queen
supervise
temple
Holy City
building
according to the
tempted into a sinful act of adultery. Thus its construction must have proceeded
have been
Luc?an concludes his tale by stating that loyal friends of

the Syrian Goddess.
in emulation of him, resulting in the origin of the Galloi.
themselves
castrated
thereupon
most closely associ
From the fourth century B.c. on, Aphrodite became
increasingly the goddess
in popular cult.m Hera, the true queen
ated with marriage and with wifely virtues, replacing Hera,
as
a
and threatening to the male
and
had
the
among
manipulative,
reputation
jealous
Olympians,
observed that
too
nature
for
Wiltrud
far
Neumer-Pfau114
self-esteem?a
intimidating
popular appeal.
the development
of romantic plots inNew Comedy and of the theme of romantic love inHellenistic
and beauty can
poetry reveals the shift in popular sentiment. Associations with the goddess of love
a
of
to
to
feminine
the
the
and
ultimate
wife
been
have
any
pride
queen.115 The
appeal
flattering
only
court poetry of Callimachus paints a romantic picture of the young bride, Berenice II, and the role of
enormous political responsibility into which she was thrust in the first year of her marriage.116 The
I, the wife of Ptolemy I who bore the heir to the
ocritus, in his Hymn toPtolemy, portrays Berenice
the "Queen of Cyprus."117 It would not
a loving wife under the auspices of Aphrodite,
as
dynasty,
as
were
also acclaimed
that famous courtesans
have been insulting to the queens
"Aphrodite,"118
utmost wishes
of
Kumbabos
but an intelligent queen's ability to use her feminine wiles to influence the king tomake wise political
to her being revered.119 The emphasis of the religious propa
decisions
certainly also contributed
100
35 (1982),
1201F.
S. Pomeroy, Mnemosyne
107
n. 621; idem., REG 86, 1973, 165f., n. 432.
L.
REG
84
502ff.
and
Robert,
(1971),
J.
108
. 71.
Carney, Women and Monarchy, 305,
109
OGIS 228, 229; SIG 575, 990; cf. Vatin, Recherches, 101; Carney, Women and Monarchy, 219.
110
De dea Syr. 17-27.
111
Demetrios 38.
112
that the youth of a prototypical
Roscher, Lexikon I, col. 654 (E. Meyer). The proper name Kumbabos
suggests, however,
to Kybebe and
name reverted etymologically
whose
was
to
Anatolian
devoted
Astarte's
counterpart,
Cybele,
originally
myth
in the proper name Kybabos in Phrygia: cf. RE 6,2 (1922), col. 2250, s.v. "Kybele" [Schwenn]).
reappears
113
hellenistischer Aphrodite-Statuen
Studien zur Ikonographie und gesellschaftlichen Funktion
Wiltrud
(Bonn,
Neumer-Pfau,
discussion
by Carney, Women and Monarchy, 22Iff., 323,
1982), 56. The reader is further referred to the detailed,
compelling
nn. 93, 97.
114
Studien zur Ikonographie, 5Off.
115
BSRAAlex
37 (1948),
12ff.; Carney, Women and Monarchy, 323, nn. 93, 96.
Julien Tondriau,
11(>
Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria
(Oxford,
text, see Peter Marshall
Call., Aetia, frg. 110. For easy reference and the Greek
n.
107.
I,
II,
1025,
730;
1972),
117
Id. 17.34-52.
Theocr.,
118
Studien zur Ikonographie, 57f.; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria
I, 222, 240; II, 391, n. 401; Carney, Women and
Neumer-Pfau,
218f., 220ff.
Monarchy,
119
.Gutzwiller,
113 (1992), 363?F.; Carney,
cf.
Diod.Sic.
19.59.4-6
Poliorketes);
AJ
(on Phila, the wife of Demetrius
Women
and Monarchy,
323, n. 93.

CHESHIRE
ganda
of
the Hellenistic
queens
was,
not
surprisingly, based
165
on
the tenet that "sex sells, beauty
sells."120
The propaganda
emanating from the royal court reveals an incidental, practical point of connec
From Egypt in 135 b.c., there ismention of an inheritance tax that
tion with the general populace.
was to be paid to "the Goddess Berenice"
(theai Berenikei),121 which at that time can only have referred
to a deified queen, either Berenice
I, the wife of Ptolemy I Soter, about whom little is known,122 or
of Cyrene who married Ptolemy III Euergetes
in 246 b.c. The fact that the
II, the Queen
latter queen brought with her to Egypt, quasi as "dowry," hegemony over the neighboring Libyan ter
was perhaps the origin of her figurative involvement with inheritances, but the interest of
ritory123
a
the Crown in imposing the tax may well have been purely fiscal. The legal arrangement
regarding
Berenice
tax on heirs must have
survived in some limited form, since an inheritance tax from Roman Egypt is
that was paid into the cult of Berenice Euergetis.124 The significance of the Roman document
is twofold; not only does it inform us that this goddess
"Berenice" was indeed Berenice
II, who,
was
carried
also
her
the
but
that
the
deified
Ptolemaic
husband,
queen
byname "Euergetis"
alongside
recorded
times.
still the recipient of a cult in Roman
Evidence for Berenice II as a patron goddess of brides or of family law is otherwise lacking, although
and an artistic presentation
her glorification as a "royal bride" by the court poet Callimachus125
of
in her own lifetime.126 Her divine
her royal image as maternal or even matronly has been observed
to "Isis, Mother of Gods"
assimilation
(Isis meter theon) is attested during her reign.127 The cult title
was to be revived in the second century in grand style by the very pompous Cleopatra
III, herself also
to our sparse
carrying the epithet Euergetis, "the Benefactress."128 As it is only in 135 b.c., according
is recorded to have received the payment of inheritance tax,129
sources, that the "Goddess Berenice"
it is possible that the tax was first implemented by Ptolemy VIII Euergetes
II, to be directed into a
cult of the deified third century queen.
is supplemented
The maternal Egyptian Aphrodite
type for Ptolemaic queens
by an interesting
statuette from Lower Egypt, now in the Cairo Museum, which, however, wears a
bronze Aphrodite
Stephane rather than the Egyptian vulture's scalp headdress.130 The tiny,pinched features of the face,
of the limbs and the densely packed, thin, rippling, vertical folds of the
the rather jagged movements
a
over the
and
feet
point most probably to dating of the bronze in the Late Hellenistic
legs
drapery
as
in
L.
the
Kirwan
Period,
original publication of the piece. The contour of the goddess's
conjectured
a
her
behind
which
she
holds
mantle,
up
right shoulder, is stylized in the form of
large wing; theman
tle thus appears
to have
taken on the protective
function of a large shield.131 In Greek
iconography,
120
Cf. Athen. 566a-e.
121
SB I, 4638,
12; cf. Eddy Lanciers, AfP 34 (1988), 140.
122
I as queen and possibly as a religious figure.
173f., 219, 225f, 321, n. 82, discusses Berenice
Carney, Women and Monarchy,
123
the nick
between
this queen and the Ptolemaic
who received
Hu?, ?gypten, 333f. For the distinction
princess Berenice
name "phernophoros" from her contemporaries
for the large dowry she brought with her when she married
the Seleucid
king
Antiochus
II, see Hu?, ?gypten, 287.
124
140.
PSI VI, 690; SB III, 6995; SB III, 6996; cf. Lanciers, AfP 34 (1988),
125
Iff.
Schot. SH 254,2: P. Parsons, ZPE 25 (1977),
12b
Frauenstatuen,
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 98; Sally-Ann Ashton, The Last Queens ofEgypt (Harlow, U.K., 2003), 82f.; Albersmeier,
196f.
127
F. Colin, ZPE
102 (1994), 273f., 284f.
128Otto and
"L'Isis dynastique,"
269ff.
32, 51, n. 3, 55f., 76f., 144, n. 2, 158; Colin,
Bengtson, Niedergang,
129
Seen.
121.
130
JE 58942: L. Kirwan, BIFAO 34 (1934), 44, pl. III.
Egyptian Museum
131A similar
a
or hunter's cloak or chlamys was not infrequently employed
in Greek art to suggest
stylization of warriors
in Ancient Greece (Baltimore,
form of a shield; cf. Judith Barringer, The Hunt
19f., 22f., 26, 29f., 32, 52, 101, 162.
2001),

the
JARCE 43 (2007)
166
a gesture of protection, just as, in the artistic tradi

interpreted as
tion of Egyptian temple reliefs, the wings of the vulture goddess Nechbet would have been spread out
above or behind the image of an Egyptian pharaoh, offering him divine protection.132 In Egyptian
of a vulture, the
art, the anthropomorphic
goddess Nechbet could be entirely clothed in the feathers
costume was assumed by the reigning queen
wings merging with her arms, and, very occasionally, this
or a divine consort in Pharaonic
times.133 There is no obvious connection between the Hellenistic
the outstretched
cloak should be
and Egyptian versions of two maternal goddesses, but independently the artists have chosen similar
statuette corresponded
particularly closely
metaphors. The protective aspect of the Cairo Aphrodite
to the parallel roles of Nechbet and
to the role of the Egyptian queen as a royal mother,134 analogous
III in the Temple at Elkab.

Cleopatra
to a Roman public, themost famous "Cleopatra"
In the transmission of this type of queen/goddess
of them all cannot be left out of the equation. In 46 B.c., in the Temple of Venus Genetrix on the Cam
in Rome, Julius Caesar erected a gold (or gilded) statue of Cleopatra VII in divine form
pus Martius
about that particular statue of the Egyptian

the statue of the goddess herself.135 Speculations
a theory of Bernard
a
recent
in
of
exhibition
queen have been the subject
Hamburg, Germany;136
Andreae would identify the marble Venus of theEsquiline, an eclectic nude Venus standing beside a
a cobra and a box of rose petals, as that image of Cleopatra VII. This sugges
large vase encircled by
tion has not gone undisputed137 and no doubt will be the subject of much further debate. In any case,
of Julius Caesar's exotic royal lover was not removed after the fall of Egypt to
the original monument
near
it,138and still in the early third century A.D., Cassius Dio139

tribute to the Egyptian queen standing next to the cult statue of Venus
on the New
bronze statuette of Aphrodite/Venus,
Genetrix.140 The above-mentioned
recently offered
an
a
a
idealized
vulture's scalp,141 is
in pudica type but wearing
York art market, represented
image
of Egypt herself, probably made during the reign of
of the goddess of love appearing as the Queen
Cleopatra VII.
Rome; itwas there forAppian
commented on the permanent
to describe
that Octavian waged a program of counterpropaganda

against
Flory has demonstrated142
statues along
B.c.
honorific
and
his
his
in
35
Livia,
wife,
sister,
Octavia,
public
by awarding
Cleopatra
with the freedom from tutela (financial control by a guardian) and sacrosanctity.143 These privileges
that the
accorded
them an exceptionally high status among Roman elite women. Flory144 concluded
Marleen
was above all intended to

timing of this grant, probably enabled through senatorial majority vote,
a time when her husband, Marc Antony, had strayed off,
elevate Octavia's
dignity in Roman eyes at
a family with her and an alliance against
an affair with the Queen
in
of
Egypt, established
engaged
132
Werbrouck,
133
Werbrouck,
arms (i.e.,
"wings")
134
Werbrouck,
135
App., bellciv.
136
See Bernard
"D?esse
Nekhbet,"
"D?esse
Nekhbet,"
127ff.
197; Capart,
"Quelques
observations,"
If., on Nechbet's
common
epithet
iwt(.t),
"with
outstretched."
"D?esse
Nekhbet,"
198, 200.
cf. Hu?, ?gypten, 725.
2.102; Dio 51.22.5;
of the exhibition, Bucerius Kunst Forum
Andreae
and Karin Rhein, Kleop?tra und die Caesar?n. Catalogue
138ff.
Oct.
2006-Feb.
2007
28,
12f.,
14ff.,
4,
(Munich, 2006),
Hamburg,
137
in Andreae
138ff.
G.-W. Goudchaux
and Rhein, Kleop?tra,
138
App., bellciv. 2.102.
139
51.22.3.
140
. Florv, "Livia and the
in Rome," Transactions
Statues forWomen
Marleen
of theAmerican
History of Public Honorific
(1993), 287-308,
esp. 295-96.
Philological Association'l23
141
See n. 18.
142
n. 11, 293-96.
Flory, "Livia and the History," 292,
143
Cassius Dio 51.22.3.
144 "Livia
and the History," 294.

CHESHIRE
167
were almost certainly discreetly clothed as

images of Octavia and Livia
of staunch morals, wifely virtues and propriety. The goddess Venus
Roman matrons,
was
a
not represented nude but rather clothed in a long, clinging chiton;
matriarchal
Genetrix,
figure,
to have been copied after a late fifth century b.c.
the famous statue was said by Pliny (NH 35.155)
in the type of the "Aphrodite Frejus."145 Repetitions were
work by Kallimachos,
generally recognized
in Rome.
Octavian
The public
the epitome
a
repro
legend VENERI GENETRICI
obviously not that strict, however, since Roman coins carrying
a fragmentary green turquoise cameo in Boston,147 a high relief
On
duce various Aphrodite
types.146
bust of the Empress Livia sub specie Veneri Genetrici is portrayed with a smaller-scale bust of her "adop
tive" son, Tiberius, both crowned with laurel wreaths. Livia is shown as the divine matriarch of the
successor by means of the adoption.

Gens Iulia, transmitting the continuity of the line to Augustus'
was reserved in
"Venus Genetrix" type, with its conservative and matronal
image of propriety,
was
in
to
the
late first and
become
but
times for images of the Empress148
popular
Julio-Claudian
a
second centuries a.d. for the funerary representation of Roman wives in private sphere, as well.149
150
clad in a long,
A fine bronze of a woman from Paramythia in the British Museum
(fig. 4a-b),
The
a
around her hips, and crowned with a bird's scalp headdress, was
clinging chiton and mantle draped
described by Walters151 as Aphrodite's mother, Dione?an
interesting identification which has not,
however, gained acceptance.152 The maternal Aphrodite
type appropriate for viewers of the Roman
which was similar, if not identical,
Venus
of
the
them
have
reminded
would
Genetrix,
world probably
on
worn
bronze
the
statuette, allegedly found in
The vulture?or
in appearance.153
dove?cap
not likely to have reminded theWestern viewer of the Egyptian royal
Paramythia in Eretria, is also
in the Greek and Latin
to have been quite obscure
that deity appears
mother goddess, Nechbet;
the substantial number of "Egyptianizing" and "Orientalizing" works of art
sources. Nevertheless,
and Roman Periods from Egypt and abroad shows that the vulture diadem was
from the Hellenistic
1d4
the appellative
Hence
as the attribute of an Egyptian queen or Isis.
"Aphrodite Cleo
widely known
attested155 and possibly rarely ever used in this specific form, is an apt char
patra," although sparsely
acterization of the Aphrodite
types wearing that Egyptian headdress.
145
Bieber,
and Lawrence
Ancient Copies, 45ff., 93, 110, 176, figs. 124-49; A Passion for Antiquities. Ancient Art from the Collection of Barbara
Oct.
15, 1995 (Malibu,
1994),
Exhibition
13, 1994-Jan.
Malibu,
Fleischman.
J. Paul Getty Museum,
catalogue,
in / Claudia
II, 107.
345ff., cat. no. 182 (ill); D'Ambra,
140Passion
for Antiquities, 347f.
147Museum
of Fine Arts, Greek and
// Volto di Tiberio (Rome,
of Fine Arts 99.109: L. Polacco,
1955), 64-73, pl. 8; Museum
Die Frauen des r?mischen Kaiserhauses
(Mainz, 2004),
500 (Boston,
Portraits 470 B.c.?A.D.
1972), fig. 42; Annetta Alexandridis,
133, cat. no. 41, pl. 54.7; 384 (Index).
148
Alexandridis,
Frauen, 84f.
149
in / Claudia
Frauen, 87.
DAmbra
II, 107ff., fig. 6.3-4; Alexandridis,
150 jnv n Bronze
H. 12".
near Paramythia,
279. Formerly in the collection of Richard
Epirus, Greece.
Payne Knight. Found
(Frank
117; Ernst Langlotz,
Select Bronzes, 37, n. 279, pi. 24; Hekler,
Phidiasproblerne
Bibliog.: Walters,
G.
n. 184 (with additional
Delivorrias,
28f., s.v. "Aphrodite"
Angelos
bibliog.)
Uli,
furt, 1947), 84, n. 3, pi. 26; LIMC
for providing me with
to the staff of the British Museum
I owe my gratitude
Kossatz-Deissmann.
and Anneliese
Berger-Doer
of the statuette.
excellent photographs
151See n. 150.
152Delivorrias
et al., "Aphrodite,"
29.
153jne
bronze
of the statuary type of the London
recent definition
an academic
assessment
is
Urania
"free variation of the Aphrodite
type"
The
ancient
et al., "Aphrodite,"
28, as a
by Delivorrias
proposed
technical study of the piece.
useful for a modern-day
art historical manner,
however,
the bronze figurine in such a profound
viewer would not have analyzed
pedestrian
is lacking.
in Athens
tortoise under the foot of the famous "Aphrodite Urania"
since the characteristic
2001), 320f., cat. n. 338 (ill.);
and Peter Higgs, eds., Cleopatra ofEgypt from History toMyth (Princeton,
Susan Wood
350 (ill.).
particularly
154
E.g.,
331, cat. n.
155See nn.
54, 56.

JARCE 43 (2007)
168
statuette
Bronze
from
Fig. 4a-b.
Museum
Paramythia,
London,
British
Museum
inv. Bronze
279.
Photographs:

The
British
169
CHESHIRE
on the Paramythia bronze, including cool

intricate yetmechanical
rendering of the detail work
a
and clear outlining of forms and a painterly rendering of web of thin, rippling folds in the diapha
nous garment, which appears to have been "poured on" the body, conforms to Tiberian-Caligulan
and body forms occurs on the figures in high relief on the silver
style. A similar treatment of drapery
in the rendering of the head
in the Louvre.156 Certain peculiarities
"Tiberius cup" from Boscoreale
The
narrow eyes,
of the Paramythia bronze?the
long, thin and rather delicate face with high cheekbones,
a short nose and, especially, the tiny,but full-lipped mouth, of which the outer corners are pulled in
sister of the Emperor Caligula, Drusilla.157 Sculp
tightly, distinctly resemble portraits of the beloved
tural portraits of Drusilla are datable by a typically Caligul?n hairstyle of tightly crimped and some
a center part and framing the face, frequently embellished by a

emerging from
row of tiny snail-shell curls along the hairline, then bound into a large loop hanging down the back
of the neck like a ponytail.158 Her images can be differentiated from those of her sister, Agrippina
minor, in that she died at a mere 22 years old, so that all of her portraits represent her as a young
to the status of a goddess, which was prob
woman.159 Unlike her sisters, she was elevated by Caligula
what flattened waves
was the only one of them to be represented wearing a crescent diadem, as

ably the reason why she
she appears several times.160 She is represented in the Kore Albani type in a statue from the Theater
in a Temple of Kore at Cyrene.162 A marble
at Caere,161 and a portrait head of her was discovered
a Stephane, is
in
Drusilla
Munich
the
deified
bust
of
(fig. 5),103 crowned with
posthumously
portrait
statuette
of the youth of the Em

in its appropriate
characterization
to the Venus Genetrix type, the coiffure of the bronze statuette has been assimilated
similar to the London
bronze
peror's sister. Due

to the Late Classical/Hellenistic
the crimped waves

coiffure of Aphrodite,
fure having been replaced by crinkly, loose waves, which are then drawn
bound up in a similar little loop as is seen on Drusilla's portrait statue
strands of hair that escape from this arrangement and fall loosely onto
of the modish
Roman
coif
to the nape of the neck and

from Caere.164 Long, wavy
the shoulders of the bronze
are a Hellenic
adaptation of the long, loose locks that fall behind
coiffure on several replicas?or perhaps they revert to a true Hellenistic
the contemporary Roman fashion, the ears on the Paramythia "Drusilla/Venus"
statuette from the Greek mainland

the ears of Drusilla's
prototype.165 Unlike
are
not
Roman
exposed.
150
Fless, Opferdiener und
(Paris, 1986), 69fF., figs. 72ff.; Frederike
Fran?ois Baratte, Le tr?sor d'orf?vrerie romaine de Boscoreale
Kultmusiker auf stadtr?mischen historischen Reliefs (Mainz, 1995), 24, 55, 71, 73, pl. 61.1.
157
"Diva Drusilla
Panthea
and the Sisters of Caligula," AJA 99 (1995), 457ff., figs. 15-26;
Cf. Susan Wood,
idem., Imperial
Women, 238ff.
158K.
im Landesmuseum
Trier und zur weiblichen
der iulisch-claud
Haartracht
"Studien zu einem Frauenkopf
Polaschek,
"Die Bildnistypen
der iulisch-claudischen
ein kritischer
Kaiserfamilie:
ischen Zeit," TrZs 35 (1972),
I74ff.; Dietrich B?schung,
6 (1993), 68ff.
Forschungsbericht/'/?A
159
On the date of birth of Drusilla
probably
in 15, see Anthony A. Barrett, Caligula.

in A.D. 16/17, but possibly
The Corrup
tion ofPower (London/New
York, 1989), 6, 255, n. 7; Arther Ferrili, Caligula. Emperor ofRome (London,
1911), 171, n. 92; Ulrike
im griechischen Osten anhand epigraphischer und numismatischer
und ihre Ehrungen
Hahn, Die Frauen des r?mischen Kaiserhauses
von Livia
discussion.
bis Sabina
Drusilla's
death on June 10, A.D. 38
1994), 159f., n. 6, with detailed
(Saarbr?cken,
Zeugnisse
zur Geschichte der
as is her funeral; Cass.Dio
is precisely
cf. E. Meise,
recorded,
59.11,1-2;
Untersuchungen
julisch-claudischen
. 64.
1969), 102,
Dynastie (Munich,
160
Wood,
Imperial Women, 241.
lbl
"Diva Drusilla
Profano
9952: Wood,
Panthea,"
idem., Imperial Women, 223, 224,
470-82;
Vatican, Museo
Gregoriano
. 97,
n. 5,
239-43 with bibliog. on 239,
Frauen,
1511.,
pis. 65f.; Alexandridis,
figs. 111-13; Rose, Dynastic Commemoration, 83-6,
cat. n. 87, pi. 20.2, 4 (bibliog.), 385 (Index).
162
150f. cat. n. 84 (bibliog.), pi. 20.1, 3; 385 (Index).
Frauen,
Wood,
Imperial Women, 242f.; Alexandridis,
im
inv. n. 316: Karin Polaschek,
Munich, Glyptothek
(Rome,
1973), Uff., pis. 2, 3, 4, 6,
Portr?ttypen einer claudischen Kaiserin
"Diva Drusilla
Fuchs, AA 1990, 118ff., figs. 10-13 (identifying it less convincingly as "Messalina,"
17; Michaela
however); Wood,
Panthea," 476L, figs. 24-46; Alexandridis,
Frauen,
164
See n. 161.
165Cf.
Wood,
Imperial Women, 242, 244.
49f.,
151, cat. n. 85 (bibliog.),
pi.
18.1-2.

170 JARCE 43 (2007)

The bond between
Caligula and his sister,

was
Drusilla,
extremely close, but whether the
statements by Suetonius166 that the Emperor
regarded her as a wife (in modum iustae uxoris

propalam), and to the same effect by Cassius
Dio,167
cestuous
literally meant
that they had
has?in
relationship
modern
an
in
scholar
ship as in the public gossip of antiquity?been

the subject of some speculation.168 In inscrip
tions she was named "sister" (adelphe) of the
Emperor Caligula and "daughter" (thygater)of

his father and predecessor, Germanicus. The
honors Caligula bestowed upon Drusilla were
in Roman
and unprecedented
exceptional
to her in
politics and cult. He bequeathed
his will his entire empire;169 then, after her
early death, he had her declared a "universal"
goddess, Diva Drusilla Panthea.l/0 She was to

in all cities of the Empire.1/1
be honored
Games were to be held annually on occasion
of her birthday, she was to receive a sanctuary
and a staff of priests, and statues of her were
set up inRome
in the Curia and in theTemple
of. Venus Genetrix, as had been the gold statue

of Cleopatra VII by Julius Caesar.1 /2Oaths
were henceforth to be sworn by the numen
Drusillae.173
5. Marble
GL
Munich,
Glyptothek
Photograph:
Courtesy
of Staatliche
Antikensammlungen
Glyptothek M?nchen
Fig.
bust,
"Drusilla,"
166
Calig. 24.1.
167
59.3.3.
168
Sec infra and n. 200.
169
Suet., Calig. 24.1-2.
170
Suet., Calig. 24.2; Dio
serhauses, 15Iff.; Wood,
1/1
Gass.Dio
59.11.3;
59.11.Iff.;
"Diva Drusilla
316.
und
cf. Peter Herz,

"Diva Drusilla,"
458f.
Aphrodite,
Asia Minor
"New
Historia
to
In Cyzikus she was equated
and inscriptions from Athens and
call her
EA A
, the
Aphrodite."174
3 (1981),
325-36;
Hahn,
Frauen
des r?mischen Kai
Panthea,"
108f. The theory of Ernst K?berlein,

und die ?gypti
Barrett, Caligula,
86ff.; Ferrili, Caligula,
Caligula
zur Klassischen
et passim,
3 (Cologne,
that the Emperors
of public
decree
1962), 62-67
Beitr?ge
Philologie
the death of his sister was inspired by Egyptian
Isis's mourning
of the death of
upon
mourning
religious beliefs regarding
Osiris has no basis in fact; as Herz, Diva Drusilla,
of Drusilla
the gestures of bereavement
followed Roman
325ff., countered,
assumes
that the inscriptions dated to Drusilla's
lifetime, the deification
funerary customs. Susan Wood,
Imperial Women, 212f.,
schen Kulte.
a divine status that had until then

prematurely
elevating her to
only been accorded
imperial women who had already given
to the throne; cf. Charles B. Rose,
birth to an heir and successor
Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture (Cambridge,
1997), 13, 25. As Drusilla died childless at a young age, the installation of her cult and erection of a cult statue in Rome post
to this reconstruction,
have covered up the embarrassment
of having prematurely declared
her an
humously would, according
incarnation of Venus and the Genetrix of the subsequent
Julian line (Wood, Imperial Wo?nen, 213).
172For a
torso from Otricoli,
as Venus Genetrix, see Gianna
headless
Drusilla
"Il ciclo statu
possibly representing
Dareggi,
ario della
la fase Giulio-Claudia,"
'Basilica' di Otricoli:
BdA 67 ser. 6 (1982),
1-36, esp. 21f., n. 5, figs. 32-33; W7ood, Imperiai
. 109.
Women, 244, with
173
Barrett, Caligula, 87.
1/4
Hahn, Frauen des r?mischen Kaiserhauses,
152, 154ff., 158f.

CHESHIRE
171
cult in Egypt is, perhaps,

the renaming of the
only actual historical reference to Drusilla's
to
a
the
"Drusilleios"
in
second month of summer,
38,
Egyptian Payni,
change that was rescinded soon
as a
after Caligula's death in 41.175 Still, a definite effort by Caligula to present her posthumously
god
The
to a
dess on Egyptian terms has been inferred through sporadic archaeological
evidence. According
a
an
statue
in
colossal
of
of
pharaonic
J.-C. Grenier,176
pink granite
style
theory
Egyptian queen,177
a
to
statues
in
from
Rome
with
of
similar
of Arsinoe
II
antiquity
Egypt
along
pair
imported
strikingly
Arsinoe
made
after
the
earlier
intention
of
and Ptolemy II,178 was a Roman
with
the
statue,
copy
to Grenier, have represented
The
third statue would,
according
forming a group monument.
sister, Drusilla, who, honored as Diva Drusilla Panthea after her death, was still portrayed
has supported his thesis that the third
alongside her two living sisters.179 Sabine Albersmeier180
statue is a Roman copy; the use of several blocks of granite joined together rather than one colossal
Caligula's
the high degree of polishing and themore summary rendering of some details set the second
an Imperial Period copyist. In explanation of the
"queen" statue apart and reveal the imitative style of
find context of the three statues, Grenier considered it significant that, together with these "matched"
block,
of Sallust, was also discovered a Nineteenth Dynasty Egyptian statue of

mother
of Ramses II.181 The statue provides an interesting illustration of
the
revered
Queen Touiya,
in that finely incised lines fanning
the assimilation of the "Queen Mother" of the Pharaoh toNechbet
pieces
found
in the Gardens
out from the face over the heavy wig represent the wings of the vulture, fusing her own being with
that of the queen.182 In intentionally erecting in Rome a statue of the royal mother of perhaps the
most illustrious pharaoh of Egypt's long history, "Ramses the Great," Caligula was underlining his
own matrilineal descent from the royal house of the Ptolemies.
is known to have accompanied

his father, Germanicus,
As a seven-year-old in a.d. 18/19, Caligula
on
a
to the Orient.183
mission
and
newborn
his
with
sister, Julia Livilla,
mother, Agrippina,
along
on
were
also present
the prince's excursion through Egypt?a
the family members
Whether
sponta
neous side trip outside of his own imp?rium consulare that incurred the displeasure
of the Emperor
own fascination with Egypt may well have been

not known.184 Nevertheless,
Caligula's
on
on
he doubtless heard a good deal about his
his
this
which
trip,
participation
through
own ancestral connections,
through his great-grandfather Marc Antony, with the Ptolemaic dynasty.
in Thebes
that
Diodorus wrote in his time (mid-first century b.c.) a description of the Ramesseum
Tiberius?is
kindled
included
three black
(granite) statues of the mother
of "Osymandias"
(Ramses
II),185 whom we know
175
. 69.
88, 275,
Barrett, Caligula,
176
"Notes Isiaques,
1.5," BMonMusPont
9,1 (1989), 2Iff.
177
Pincio. Bibliog.: G. Botti
Vatican, Museo
Gregoriano
Egizio 22683. From the "Garden of Sallust," Villa Verospi, Monte
. 33,
The
Le Sculture del Museo Gregorian Egizio (Vatican City, 1951), 25f., 136f., cat.
and P. Romanelli,
pis. 22f.; Anne Roullet,
. 181,
20 (Leiden,
1972), 109,
pl. 146, fig. 204; Albersmeier,
of Imperial Rome. EPRO
Egyptian and Egyptianizing Monuments
251f., 373f., cat. n. 137, pi. 63d
Frauenstatuen,
178
Le Sculture, 18ff. (bibliog.); Grenier,
"Notes isiaques,"
por tne statue pair 0f the Theoi Adelphoi, see Botti and Romanelli,
Frauenstatuen,
371f., n. 136, pis. 2>b, 22a (with additional
21, 22, 28ff., figs. 9-10; Albersmeier,
bibliog.).
179
"Diva Drusilla
163, 164.
Wood,
Panthea/'
180
Seen.
177.
181
. 22678: Grenier,
"Notes isiaques," 21, 28, fig. 8.
inv.
Vatican, Museo
Egizio
Gregoriano
182For a clearer
a limestone
see BMMA
torso from Thebes,
is not rare?on
of the same motif?which
Supple
representation
ment (May, 1917), 6, fig. 2.
183
Die ?gyptenreise des Germanicus.
Texte
Tac. Ann. 3.1.4; Suet., Calig.
10,1; cf. David Georg Weing?rtner,
Papyrologische
. 68.
11 (Bonn, 1969), 14,
und Abhandlungen
184
that would
have accompanied
cohors amicorum
des Germanicus,
15ff., 71 f. on the probable
Weing?rtner,
?gyptenreise
is not named
in
the
travel
alone
is
mentioned
who
Germanicus,
report repeated by Tacitus. Even the prince's wife, Agrippina,
in connection
with the Egyptian voyage.
185
Diod.Sic.
1.47.3.

JARCE 43 (2007)
172
as Touiya. Grenier186 has supposed that one of these could have been the statue that was eventually
transported to Rome and discovered with the other pieces in the Gardens of Sallust. On Germanicus'
it is recorded by Tacitus187 that an Egyptian priest translated for the party of

visit south to Thebes,
the inscriptions on the walls of the Karnak temple describing the military heroics of Ramses
a certain under
even Caligula?amassed
(the Great). Thus it is thoroughly credible thatGermanicus?or
and their references to historical events. Judging by the reports
standing of the pharaonic monuments
Romans
of the ancient historiographers

and
Great Ramses and his achievements
the monuments
known
to have been
transported to Rome, the

tourists.
interest to Roman
appear to have been of particular

the transportation of the statue of Touiya, Ramses' mother, to Rome was an obvious choice
Hence,
for a "souvenir" in the Julio-Claudian
Period. Even the iconographical
significance of the etched
tour
feathers of the vulture's wings on Touiya's wig could have been explained by a knowledgeable
on
statuettes
from
Drusilla's
the Egyptian symbolism of the vulture's scalp diadem
guide. Hence
to Venus
a
comparable
royal matriarch,
Paramythia
(fig. 4a-b) and (possibly) Egypt (see infra) for
must
to
have
been
familiar
Genetrix,
Caligula.
After his father suddenly fell ill and died in Syria later that year, and his mother Agrippina and his
soon thereafter,188 the boy Caligula

spent a good deal of time
by Tiberius
then
at
the
of
their
Antonia
with
his
sisters
the
home
together
grandmother,
Younger.189 Antonia,
was
his
first
in
of
Marc
and
advanced
the
sister,
wife, Augustus'
years,
Antony
considerably
daughter
Octavia. Through Marc Antony's subsequent union with Cleopatra VII, Antonia had become the half
brothers were banished
sister of that couple's three children?the bloodline heirs to the Ptolemaic Dynasty?including
Queen
Selene of Mauretania.
Cassius Dio190 writes vaguely about an Egyptian heirloom or inheri
Cleopatra
tance once in Marc Antony's possession
that Caligula put up for auction in A.D. 39.191 The young
Caligula's contacts in the home of his grandmother with princes of deposed kingdoms of the East led
him, soon after becoming Emperor, to follow the precedent of Marc Antony in a magnanimous,
pro
to Philo,193 Caligula wanted to be regarded in the manner of a Hellenis
Orient policy.192 According
a typically Ptolemaic
as Soter, Euergetes, and
tic monarch
Epiphanes.194 He thus began his rule with
of amnestia and philanthropia for prisoners, exiles and other victims of the legal process
proclamation
innovations set by the startling pre
of Tiberius.195 The historical, propagandistic
and iconographical
cedent of the marriage of Ptolemy II to his sister, Arsinoe
the
(Theoi Adelphoi),
II,
"Sibling Gods"
were stillwell known to the Romans, and such motifs as the double
cornucopia, jugate portrait busts
attributes were adapted, at least in the sense of symbolism for tight fam
for
the
Roman and Julio-Claudian
official art forms.196
ilybonds,
iconography of Republican
no
II
the
of
Arsinoe
with
her
brother
offspring, and the succession
Although
produced
marriage
son from his previ
to the throne inAlexandria went in actual fact through Ptolemy III, Philadelphus'
and interwoven male-female
18(>
"Notes isiaques," 30, with n. 48.
18/
des Germ?nicas,
Ann., 2.60; cf.Weing?rtner,
137, 159ff.
?gyptenreise
188
Barrett, Caligula,
15f., 17ff.
189
82f.
Barrett, Caligula,
24, 62, 221f.; Ferrili, Caligula,
190
59.21.6.
191
. 12.
15,
K?berlein,
Caligula,
192
K?berlein,
14; Ferrili, Caligula,
82, 83.
Caligula,
193
. 14.
19f., 61,
Leg. 22; cf. K?berlein,
Caligula,
194
even
that
One misses, however,
the epiklesis Philadelphus,
demanded
of his rule, Caligula
though, from the beginning
oaths be sworn in devotion
(i.e., "love") to "Gaius and his sisters"; Dio 59.9.2f.; Suet., Calig. 15.3. The term "Brother-Loving"
was
to incest was dangerous
for his public image.
the Emperor
realized
that the allusion
perhaps not used because
Hb
39ff.
with
references.
K?berlein,
Caligula,
19()
Alexandria und Rom, lOff.; Cheshire, Bronzes ofPtolemy II, ch. 2.
M?bius,

CHESHIRE
173
ous wife, Arsinoe I,197 the Ptolemaic dynastic sequence was claimed in official protocol to begin with
the Theoi Adelphoi, the "Sibling Gods/' continuing with Ptolemy III and his spouse, Berenice,
the
Theoi Euergetai (or "Beneficent Gods"), Ptolemy IV and his sister, Arsinoe
III, the Theoi Philopatores
was
etc.198 Thus, like Touiya long before her, Arsinoe
(the "Father-Loving Gods"),
Philadelphus
not in actual fact, at least in the ideological terms of divine kingship, which were enforced
propaganda
effort?quasi as the "matriarch" of the dynasty.199 The repeated sibling mar
the
Ptolemaic
within
royal house became a routine policy to strengthen unity in the regime
riages
and were glorified on a divine scale, a royal wedding being a hieros gamos as well. It is, then, not sur
"incestuous union" with Drusilla stem from the time while the
prising that the reports of Caligula's
regarded?if
by a massive
siblings lived together with their grandmother, Antonia.200

since childhood, Caligula was familiar with images of his remote ancestress, Arsinoe
Presumably
coin issues, minted through the entire Ptolemaic Period,201
through her commemorative
Philadelphus,
or from the large number of posthumous monuments
to her cult.202 Such a portrait might have been
to
the "Egyptian heirlooms" from Marc Antony's former possession
that, according
even
a
A.D.
in
have
noticed
auction
certain
for
39.204
Dio,203 Caligula put up
Caligula might
resemblance of those antique portraits to his own sister, Drusilla. The delicate features of her bust in
included
among
Cassius
(fig. 5) or the face of the London bronze (fig. 4a), for example, show basically a similar facial
to
II on her
the
narrow, frail visage, the slender, pointed nose, the thin, curled lips of Arsinoe
type
a
or
a
on
at
to
extent
lesser
later
and
in
Istanbul205
Mariemont,206
replica
Kingston Lacy.207
portraits
or crescent diadem,
All three of these posthumous
images of the deified Arsinoe wear the Stephane,
which also adorned several of Drusilla's portraits. The significance of the red granite statue pair of
Munich
the "Sibling Gods," Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II, and the creation of a twin statue to Arsinoe's, possibly
in
in his own time may well have been an impression developing
representing his sister, Drusilla,
Caligula's
two
adult
mind most of his life long, enhanced
by the coincidental
physical
resemblance
between
the
women.
more important, the young Caligula will have heard of the spiritual ties holding Ptolemy II
Perhaps
even after her death. This was, centuries before in Egypt, the unique status of
together with his sister
a goddess,
to function as a
continued
Arsinoe Philadelphus
who, as a deceased
queen declared
source of guidance
197
RE 32/2
198
pestmarij
and support for her brother-husband
while he was
still alive on earth and reigning
cols. 1667f. s.v. "Ptolemaios"

(H. Volkmann).
in Das ptolem?ische ?gypten. Akten des internationalen
Berlin,
132?F.; Erich Winter
Symposiums
Chronologie,
1976 (Berlin, 1978), 147ff.; Martina Minas, Die hieroglyphischen Ahnenreihen der ptolem?ischen K?nige. Aegyptiaca
Sept. 27-29,
9 (Mainz, 2000), 48ff.
Treverensia
199On
103f.
in ancient Egyptian history, see Troy, Patterns of Queenship,
the concept of "matriarchy"
200
the case for incest
82f., presents
50ff.; Ferrili, Caligula,
Suet., Calig.
24.1-2;
Schol., Juvenal 4.81; cf. K?berlein,
Caligula,
the ru
also discrediting
most convincingly. Anthony Barrett, Caligula,
220, cites reasons why the story should not be believed;
mors was J. P. V. Balsdon,
The Emperor Gains (Caligula)
(Oxford, 1934), 42, 211; Wood, Diva Drusilla Panthea, 457ff., considered
of an unpopu
of slander among
the contemporaries
incestuous
the stories of Caligula's
relationships
simply the typical brand
lar emperor.
201 Ioannes N.
Ta nomismata tou kratous t?n Ptolemai?n
II, nn. 408ff.; Ill, pis. 15ff.; IV, cols. 83ff.,
Svoronos,
(Athens, 1904-8),
91ff.; Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 78ff., pi. 70.1.
202
cat. n. Jiff., pis. 72ff.
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 82ff., 178ff.,
203
59.21.6.
204 See n. 191.
205
Museum
598: Salomon
Reinach, RA 11 (1888), 85, pl. 15; Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 83ff., 91ff., 129, 179, cat. n.
Archaeological
J6 (bibliog.), pi. 74.
206 ]yius?e 161: G.
du Mus?e de Marie
Les antiquit?s ?gyptiennes, grecques, ?trusques, romaines et gallo-romaines
Faider-Feytmans,
mont (Brussels,
1952), 77, n. G 30, pl. 27; Kyrieleis, Bildnisse, 85f., 94, 133, 180, cat. n. J10, pis. 79f.
207
The Dilettanti
Bankes Collection:
Society, Specimens ofAncient Sculpture, Selected from Several Collections in Great Britain
(1829),
(1959),
pis. 40f.; Kyrieleis,
Bildnisse,
85f., 94, 180, cat. n. Jll,
pi. 81; Cheshire,
Ptolemies
inMemphis

(forthcoming).
174 JARCE 43 (2007)
Fig. 6a-b.
Copper
tesy of the American
sestertius,
Numismatic
New
"Caligula,"
Society
York, American
Numismatic
Society
/7.Photographs:
1944.100.3933
Cour
on the obverse,
over
(fig. 6a-b)209 bear his portrait bust
Egypt.208 Sestertii minted under Caligula
while on the reverse his three sisters are represented in allegorical types, the generally accepted inter
as Securitas, Drusilla as Concordia, and Julia Livilla as For
pretation by Mattingly210 being: Agrippina
to be
tuna. The three standing, draped figures are almost identical, and the group is undoubtedly
a close-knit
interpreted collectively, as an indivisible triad, together with Caligula
or
wealth of
natural
the
Each woman carries a cornucopia,
bounty
symbolizing
a
a
an
wears
costume
covered
chiton
and
of
identical Greek
low-slung mantle.
by
left, labeled "Agrippina," is leaning against a pillar, the symbol of Securitas, while
Imperial family.211
the Roman Empire,
The figure on the
she extends her left
sister, Drusilla, or in the direction of both of her sisters. The assimilation of

Drusilla to Concordia is attested elsewhere in itsGreek form, Homonoia, on the island of Cos and in
one inscription in Asia.212 In the middle of the coin image and represented slightly larger than the
other two women, she holds out a patera in her right hand either towards Agrippina or toward her
in general, welcoming
them to offer a libation. The figure is typologically reminiscent of
worshipers
the appliqu? of a queen, holding a cornucopia, on the Ptolemaic faience oinochoai, beginning with
hand
208
towards her
Serge
Quaegebeur,
ch. 2.
209 BMCRE
Sauneron,
"Ptol?m?e
"Un document
II en Adoration
de
?gyptien relativ ? la divinization
II divinis?e," BIFAO
devant Arsino?
la reine Arsino?
69
(1971),
II," BIFAO
19 Iff.; Cheshire,
60 (1960), 83ff.; Jan

Bronzes of Ptolemy II,
. 44,
und Claudius
der Kaiser Caligula
I, 154,
(Berlin, 1978), 39
pl. 29.1; Walter Trillimeli, Familienpropaganda
"Diva
Drusilla
63; Alexan
Barrett,
idem.,
Women,
210;
458,
461ff.,
1;
Wood,
Panthea,"
10.10;
2,"
Caligula,
Imperial
fig.
pl.
"Type
nn. 8, 9, 12;
dridis, Frauen, 278 Anhang
pl. 61.7.
210
BMCRE
I, cxlv f.; cf. J. Ginsberg, Representing Agrippina. Constructions ofFemale Power in theEarly Roman Empire (Oxford
New York, 2006), 65ff., with n. 41.
211
Cf. Wood, Diva Drusilla Panthea, 461; idem., Imperial Women, 210f.; Ginsberg, Representing Agrippina, 67f.
212
in an inscription from Hala
Drusilla
155f. She is also called Sebasta Homonoia
Hahn, Frauen des r?mischen Kaiserhauses,
sarna: ICR IV 1098; K?berlein,
54.
Caligala,

CHESHIRE
175
on the right, holds a rudder, an attribute of Fortuna, and directs

Philadelphus.213 Julia Livilla,
her gaze towards her two sisters in a symbolic attitude of bondage. The image recalls the atmosphere
the Elder,
the family life of Germanicus
and his wife, Agrippina
of love and harmony that pervaded
Arsinoe
together with all their children.214 The picture of the happy family had been used by Germanicus
to great effect during the reign of Tiberius,
the Elder as an instrument of propaganda
Agrippina
and
win
once designated heir to Augustus'

tacit prefer
empire?in
ning over popular sentiment towards the
ence to the contemporary rule of Tiberius.215
to the allegorical figures representing Caligula's
sisters occur singly on female allegori
Precursors
on
Late Hellenistic
cal figures
gem carvings.216 An intaglio from Tortosa, the ancient port Antaradus
on the Syrian coast, inOxford217 is identifiable through the double cornucopia held by the female fig
ure as Fortuna.218 Vollen weider219 dated a strikingly similar gem in Paris to the early first century B.c.
and suggested it represented a Ptolemaic queen.220 Stylistically, nothing prevents the glyptic images
from dating as early as the late second century B.c., so that they fall into the epoch when numerous
women of the Ptolemaic
into the Seleucid royal house.221 The two
royal family were being married
horns of plenty on the "Fortuna" gem carving are bound together by a ribbon, perhaps a royal dia
and the Ptolemaic Theoi Adelphoi.222
dem such as that on the signature motif of Arsinoe Philadelphus
The Paris intaglio, of which the present setting was perhaps an addition of a later period,223 could origi
or Seleucid court or decorated
the ring
nally have been a keepsake of one supporter of the Ptolemaic
of a priestess or devotee of the ruler cult.

on the sestertii of holding her left
In this context, the cornucopia,
coupled with Drusilla's gesture
hand out to touch Agrippina's
shoulder, are doubtless symbolic for the sibling bond (which the three
women
also
shared
with Caligula),
royal iconography.
adapting a motif from Ptolemaic
incidentally
some of Caligula's
suspicion raised by
with all three sisters224 would have meant
The
royal family quite
that he had had incestuous relationships

contemporaries
that he had revived a notorious practice of the Ptolemaic
literally.
213
in Faience
Ptolemaic Oinochoai
and Portraits
Burr Thompson,
(Oxford,
1973), 23ff., 74; Erika Simon, GGA
Dorothy
227, 3/4 (1975), 212f. (on the significance of the gesture).
214
the attributes of the three women with the goddess
27f., connected
Wood,
Caligula,
Imperial Women, 212f. K?berlein,
of Ptolemaic
such as the appliqu?d
are more
with the iconography
queens,
Isis, but Hellenistic
clearly associated
parallels
successors
on the Alexandrian
Ptolemaic Oinochoai,
faience oinochoai
II and her immediate
Arsino?
of
(cf. Thompson,
figures
and imperial imagery,
23ff., 82ff., 125ff., pis. Iff.). The importance of the cults of Isis and Osiris for Caligula's
religious policies
3 (1981),
corrected by P. Herz, Historia
is doubtful, as has been meanwhile
as maintained
throughout his book,
by K?berlein
was definitely absorbed
of
too
since Caligula
is probably
324-36. The critique of Herz
however,
by the mystique
categorical,
to Isis and
and the pattern of sibling unions within their dynasty was closely linked to the assimilation
the Ptolemaic monarchs,
see Cheshire, Bronzes ofPtolemy II, ch. 2.
and Hathor;
Osiris, or Horus
215
Wood,
Imperial Women, 203ff., 212.
216
Cam?es et intailles, Li: Les Portraits grecs du
Marie-Louise
Nationale:
Such as one in Paris, Biblioth?que
Vollenweider,
or in Oxford, Ashmolean
Marianne
Museum
1892.1515:
Cabinet des m?dailles
(Paris, 1995), 143f., n. 136, pl. 71, color plate VI;
du Petit Pa
in La Gloire d Alexandrie
Boussac
RA 1996/1, 145ff.; Marie-Fran?oise
Paris, Mus?e
Hamiaux,
(exhibition
catalogue
. 103
161, cat.
(ill.).
lais, May 7-July 26, 1998 [1998]),
217 See
. 216.
218G. M. A.
1968), n. 545.
Richter, Engraved Gems of the Greeks and theEtruscans
(London,
219 See n.
216.
220
be
an attribution
to Cleopatra
III?a hypothesis
that can probably
Berenice
143f., suggesting
Cam?es,
Vollenweider,
The Ptolemies inMemphis
of the portraits of that queen by Cheshire,
in view of a discussion
dismissed
(forthcoming).
221 See nn.
66, 68, 71f.
222
Ptolemaic Oinochoai,
115f., Il7f.
F?llh?rner,
32f.; Bemmann,
Thompson,
223
. 1 to
. 136.
Cam?es, 144,
Vollenweider,
224
"Diva
sources on 274, n. 48); Wood,
85 (with additional
cf. Barrett, Caligula,
Jos. 19.204; Suet., Calig, 24.1; Dio 59.22.6;
458ff.
Drusilla
Panthea,"

JARCE 43 (2007)
176
that the image of the three sisters, united with each other, recall theHomi,
the
vulture
the
Greek
of
the
Nech
Eileithyia,
equivalent
goddess,
Egyptian
the Three Fates,227 and was regarded as an
bet,226 is found frequently in the company of theMoirai,
even
equivalent allegorical figure. Thus the Ptolemaic
symbolism of a bond between royal sisters,
Wood225
observed
Fates or the Three
Graces.
Evaluat
separated by geographical distance or death, remained alive in Caligul?n propaganda.
the
motives
of
in
his
three
in
sisters
the
forefront
of
Wood228
ing
Caligula
putting
royal propaganda,
that the Emperor, until very late in his reign, remained childless?a matter of grave con
emphasized
cern lest the Julian ancestral line be
extinguished. Although giving clear preference to Drusilla, he
when
was
preparing
When Drusilla
for a possible continuation of the succession through one of his sisters.

in A.D. 38, Caligula
sought to establish her, in religious thought, as a divine ma
triarch of the Imperial family. This intent was memorialized
by the statue of Drusilla set up in the
the Temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum Iulium in Rome.229
"Temple of Venus," presumably
the populace
died
Drusilla's
image in that temple was said to have been as large as the cult statue of Venus itself.230
provincial issues of the Caligula sestertii prefix the legend to Drusilla's figure with "DIVAE,"
indicating that these coins, at least, were minted after her untimely death in 38 but before the death
of Caligula and almost immediate exile of Agrippina
series of
and Livilla in 41.231 Two additional
Certain
coinage from Apamea bear the bust of all three sisters?a frontal image of Drusilla in the cen
ter and her two sisters in
series
profile facing her from either side.232 This, too, was a posthumous
on which Drusilla
is distinguished
in the legend as "DIVA," a higher status that was also pictorially
on
a
over
the
star
coins
with
her head.
expressed
bronze
The libertywith which the artists of small bronzes interchanged poses, costume and heads of differ
ent types while retaining the essential
a
iconography of the Greco-Egyptian
goddess is illustrated by
Roman Period bronze statuette of unknown provenance
in the Louvre.233 The Paris statuette's verti
cal (i.e., less voluptuous)

contours and the position of the arms?the left held in front of the breasts
the right hand holding the heavy mantle
in front of her hips?recall
the frequently repeated,
or
familiar gesture of the Praxitelean
to the
Capitoline Venus. The head bears some resemblance
and
Paramythia bronze (fig. 4a-b), including the long, thin and twisted neck and the stronger turn of
the head to the left.The face appears more idealized; the full lips and
nose recall
straight
nothing of
nor
a
the Roman
reflection
of
the
Ptolemaic queens who preceded
them, but the
Imperial family,
head might well be a more generalized repetition of the "Drusilla"
on
the
portrait
Paramythia bronze.
The Hellenistic
coiffure, in which wavy tresses are drawn back loosely from the face and bound in a
small knot at the nape of the neck, lacks the long, loose strands of hair falling onto the shoulders that
are represented on the London bronze. The
its fussy swallowtail folds
style of the Louvre piece?with
and effusive frills in the edging of the garment,
the
with
soulful
also date to the
along
gaze?could
Caligulan-Claudian
Caere234 using a
225
220
a portrait statue of Drusilla from the

vicinity of the ancient theater at
of
Kore
the
Albani
for
the
the
type
replica
body,
edges of the fabric and the crinkly
Period. On
\ 000^ "Diva Drusilla

. 34.
See
Panthea,"
461.
221
.
Olmos,
(see
35), 685f.
"Eilythuia"
228
"Diva Drusilla
Wood,
Panthea," 461; idem., Imperial Women, 212ff.; Ginsburg, Representing Agrippina, 68.
229
. 135.
See
230
Dio 59.11.2-3;
cf. Detlef Kreikenbom,
Griechische und r?mische Kolossalportr?ts
bis zum sp?ten erstenJahrhundert n.Chr.
"Diva Drusilla Panthea," 460.
87; Wood,
(=Jdl Ergh. 27 [Berlin, 1992]), 84f.; Barrett, Caligula,
231
"Diva Drusilla
Wood,
Panthea," 463.
232
"Diva Drusilla Panthea," 463f., fig. 4.
Trillmich, Familienpropaganda,
llOf., pis. 12f.; Wood,
233
.
du Louvre
inv. Br 4409: Iside. Il mito, il mistero, la magia, ed. Ermanno A. Arslan
Paris, Mus?e
(Milan, 1997), 110 cat.
III.25 (ill.).
234
See
. 161.

CHESHIRE
folds of the kolpos are curled up in similar ruffles. The
in A.D. 41.
death of Caligula
177
statue of theDiva Drusilla must date before
the
in a gesture of pudicitia,
inMarseille
statuette of a draped Venus, poised nonetheless
the
of
bird's
headdress
is
also
devoid
(vul
scalp
ambiguous
Egyptian regalia, excepting
(fig. 7a-d)235
ture or dove), nor is there a bored hole or traces of welding that would have indicated the affixation
A bronze
of the drapery is simplified, the

of an Egyptian crown on top of that head covering. The modeling
into minimal
folds on
chiton lying smoothly against the goddess's back and only slightly articulated
Similar
dull incisions into the soft wax of the casting model.
the front through a few well-spaced,
the simple division between feathers on the back of the headdress

(fig.
Id). A lightly sketched, scale-like pattern, executed likewise in the wax model before casting, indicates
the layered smaller feathers covering the back of the bird. The piece was acquired without prove
to perhaps have come from Italy. The smooth,
authorities
nance, although
thought by museum
are potential indicators, however, that
"waxy" surfaces of the cast bronze and lack of cold-working
thick cuts into soft wax mark
of the feathers on the bird scalp

typical Egyptian metalworking
technique to enliven the
the piece was manufactured
thickly incised outlines
in Egypt.236 The
have
been
filled
with gold?a
might originally
otherwise plain surface.237
"Venus" is in the individualized

greatest interest of the Marseille
rendering of the head with
of the crinkly waves of
the
and
detailed
incised
in
of
articulation
flesh
the
surface
undulations
slight
hair. The face bears distinctive portrait features: a broad, squarish face with a low forehead, promi
nent, widely set cheekbones and a squared-off chin and jaw of almost equal width. The large eyes are
The
corners and are framed by broad, sweeping eyebrows that begin low
slightly down-turned at the outer
at the nose-bridge and arch slightly upward as they spread outward, then hooking around the outer
corners of the eyes. The large mouth is set in a solemn frown, echoing the somber expression of the
in layers extend
eyes. The hair is a thick mass of tightly crimped waves, center-parted and packed
a
at mid-ear level and bound in the nape of the neck
ing out at distance from both temples, ending
the tail of the bird (fig. Id). The bushy arrangement of stacks of crimped waves of hair,
underneath
on top of the head and piled out to both sides like a squat, wide cap ending at ear
lying relatively flat
level, is characteristic for one prominent Julio-Claudian
lady: Drusilla's older sister, Agrippina minor.238
The identification of this sister's portraits rests on firmer ground since, in A.D. 49, some eight years
a very
she married his successor, Claudius,
and conducted
after the death of her brother, Caligula,
career
as
in
continued
his
54
she
with
her
ambitious
which
death
effective and
Empress,
beyond
duo was short-lived; Nero had his mother murdered
in
son, the Emperor Nero. The mother-son
A.D. 59.239 Her portrait appears on coins of Claudius, where she is identified by inscription,240 and
together with the portrait busts of either Claudius
235
Marseille,
1881
Mus?e
d'arch?ologie
m?diterran?ene
2258. H.
the curator
through
through purchase,
presumably
a tenon at the end of the upper arm, which was
or Nero,241
20.0
of the Mus?e
although
her finest profile
likenesses
18.4 cm. (without base). Acquired

(including base);
arms were cast
M.
Both
Bor?ly,
separately with
Augier.
cm.
in the bottom edge of the sleeves. The tips of four

then inserted into a groove
the tips of the fourth and fifth fingers on the left hand have also been
been
the
broken
of
hand
have
off;
possibly
right
fingers
are due to Dr. Gis?le Pierini for allowing me to study the statuette first hand and take photo
chipped off. My sincere thanks
to Dr. Muriel Garsson
this interesting piece.
for furnishing additional
information and allowing me to publish
graphs, and
TM) por tn|s technical
see G.
bronzes,
(1933), 227ff.; H. Kyrieleis,
Roeder,Jd/48
peculiarity of Egyptian and Greco-Egyptian
Bronzes of Ptolemy If 11, with n. 3 (bibliog.).
AntPl 12 (1973),
137; Cheshire,
237 Cf. R. S.
Period (ca. 1070-656
Bianchi,
b.c.)," in Small Bronze Sculpture
"Egyptian Metal Statuary of the Third Intermediate
March
16-19, 1989 (Malibu,
1990), 61-84, figs. 2a-h, 3a-b, 4a-h.
J. Paul Getty Museum,
from theAncient World. Symposium,
238
73f.
"Bildnistypen,"
B?schung,
239
Wood,
Imperial Women, 268-70.
240
Wood,
Imperial Women, 289fL, figs. 121-22.
241
Wood,
Imperial Women, figs. 130-32.

178 JARCE 43 (2007)

occur
The
on
of
number
"Gemma
splendid
cameos.242
in Vienna243
Claudia"
bears
nicely differentiated portrait busts of an Im

perial mother and daughter, Agrippina maior
facing Agrippina
spective
Augustus
Claudius:
cession
their re
alongside
the one-time designated
minor
spouses,
heir Germanicus
and the Emperor

a heraldic picture of
hereditary suc
within the Julio-Claudian
line. The
profile portrait of the younger Agrippina

on the cameo shows, in
to her
comparison
a
mother's
less
head
form,
image,
elongated
a
shorter
forehead
beneath
appearing
even more
heavy layers of tightly

the forehead, a sharply
nose with a
hump in the middle, a
compressed
crimped curls over
pointed
protruding upper jawline (i.e., an overbite)

and a short but firmly protruding chin. These
on three
features are readily recognizable
dimensional
sculptural likenesses, enabling
the assignment of a large number of portraits
to thiswoman, who was the sister of one Em
peror,
mother
a wife of the next Emperor

of
his
and
the
successor.
A small scale portrait bust of green chalce

dony in the British Museum
(fig. 8)244 pre
sents an excellent parallel to the head of the
Mar
Fig. 7a-d. Bronzestatuette,
Mus?e d'arch?ologiem?di
seilte,
^H_^^K
Ij^H^^^V
^M^^^HL
terran?enne
H|H
inv.
2258.
graphsbytheauthor.
Photo
Marseille
bronze "Venus." Although opinions

on the identification of the
tiny chalcedony
head have vacillated, the similarities in head
shape, coiffure and broad set of the eyes and eyebrows to fine large-scale marble portraits of Agrip
pina II in Providence and Fulda245 are sufficient to enable an attribution to the same Imperial lady.
The easily distinguishable
head shape?a
low forehead, a square facial contour with broadly set,
a
structure
wide
bone
in
the jaw and a squared-off chin, and the spatially broad
cheekbones,
strong
set of the large eyes and arching eyebrows, are remarkably similar, as is the coiffure of tightly
crimped waves of hair, ballooning out to both sides of the temples and ending just below the top of
the ears. The
row of tiny snail-shell curls that run along
the hairline
and
in front of the ears of the
242
Wood,
Imperial Women, 305ff.
243
Kunsthistorisches
Museum
19, inv. IX a 63: Hans
Alexandria
und Rom. AbhM?nchen
59 (Munich,
M?bius,
1964), 28,
n. 81 (with
11 (Berlin, 1987), 200-201,
pl. VII,2; W.-R. Megow, Kameen von Augustus bis Alexander Severus. AMUGS
bibliog.), pis.
Sub Specie Deae. Les imp?ratrices et princesses romaines assimil?es ? des d?esses. RdA Suppl. 14
31, 32, figs. 1, 2, 4; Tomasz Micocki,
(Rome, 1995), 182, n. 214, pl. 23; Wood,
Imperial Women, 306-8, pl. 95.
244
Inv. 3946. H. 9.0 cm. Bibliog.: Wood,
of
"Diva Drusilla
her earlier endorsement
Panthea," 466fF., figs. 11-13 (amending
an attribution
to Messalina,
idem., JRA 5 [1992], 230, with n. 55).
245
Rhode
Island School of Design
56.097: B.S. Ridgway, Museum
Providence,
of theRhode Island School ofDesign: Classical
Sculpture
bei Fulda,
(Providence, R.I., 1972),

. 22,
cat.
figs. 109f.
86f,
201-4,
n. 33; Wood,
Imperial Women,
238, 295f,
figs. 107f.; Eichenzell,

Schlo? Fasanerie
CHESHIRE
179
chalcedony head, which is found on many
portraits of the younger Agrippina,240
and other Julio-Claudian women

/
is
beginning with Agrippina the Elder,24
on
the
Marseille
but
statuette,
missing
Drusilla
parallels
exist. A head attributable
to the
in Ancona248
younger Agrippina
signifi
lacks
this
the entire front
element,
cantly
of the cap of hair framing the face being

made up of tight snail shell curls. A mar
ble portrait head inTripoli,249 of particu
lar interest because of its probable North
not
African provenance
(Leptis Magna?)
far distant from Alexandria,
also lacks
the fringe of tiny curls and presents a
good parallel to the head of theMarseille
in the compact
and slightly
Empress
crown of tiny
rendering of the
curls. The mellow facial expression
thus
on the provincial portrait of
engendered
blurred
-d
..:-:;.
.......
the Empress
is particularly comparable
to the portrait head of the Marseille
bronze and more typical for Alexandria
or
the Roman
East.
sardonyx cameo with an Egyptian

("from the Fayum") in Bos
provenance
ton250 bears double busts in high relief
A
of the Emperor Claudius

in capite velato type and an Empress
in a stola. Provincial Egyptian taste
reveals itself in the plump, puffy faces of both rulers; this distortion makes the identification of his
consort difficult. Unlike the square face shape, wide jaw, the widely spread, pronounced
eyebrows and
the Younger,
the cameo shows a
bushy coiffure of Claudius' most prominent Empress, Agrippina
woman with a more compact, close
cheeks
that
toward
the
coiffure,
chin, the eyes are
taper
lying
a more
small and liemore superficially. Before he wed Agrippina, Claudius was married toMessalina,
empress who did not issue her own coinage and has not been identified with any security
among the numerous preserved monuments. The attribution of the cameo portraits most frequently
is, however, through process of elimination to be preferred.
suggested to "Claudius and Messalina"251
obscure
240
74.
B?schung,
"Bildnistypen,"
zu einem
Karin Polaschek,
"Studien
im Landesmuseum
Trier und zur weiblichen
Haartracht
der iulisch
Frauenkopf
claudischen
137f.
Zeit," TrZ 35 (1972),
170-72, fig. 9, nn. 2, 5-7; Trillmich,
"Beobachtungen,"
248
Museo
Nazionale:
S. Fuchs, RM 51 (1936), 220-24,
"Ein Bildnis der Agrippina
Ancona,
pis. 30.2 and 33; Trillmich,
minor von Milreu/Portugal,"
MM 25 (1984), 188-91, pl. 39.
249
198f., pl. 46a-/;.
Tr?invich, "Ein Bildnis der Agrippina,"
250
Museum
of Fine Arts 98.754: Wilhelm
Fr?hner, La Collection Tyskieiaicz (Paris, 1893), 31, pl. 33.2 ("Claudius/Messalina");
Adolf Furtw?ngler, Antike Gemmen III (Berlin?Leipzig,
Frauen, 54, n. 497,
Alexandridis,
1900), 324 ("Claudius/Messalina");
. 90
. 2,
55.8
67, 78, 92, 94, 153, cat.
155,
(with extensive bibliog. and earlier attributions),
pl.
("Caligula/Drusilla?").
251
. 250.
See
24/

180 JARCE 43 (2007)

vulture cap and the Aphrodite/Venus
type
statuette are likewise explicable
the Marseille
The
on
in the career of Agrippina

the Younger. The motif
was adapted from that of her deified sister, but
also would have referred to the precedent set cen
turies ago by a number of Hellenistic
queens. A
as
of
wife
the
Claudius,
Agrip
powerful empress
II was
in philan
reputed to have engaged
means
necessary
thropy, extending the financial
for parents to have children or to provide a daugh
pina
in
ter's dowry.252 Portrait statues and honorific
hint
to
in
her
the
dedicated
provinces
scriptions
at the likelihood that she contributed to the build
ing or restoring of the temples of deities whose
cults sponsored a similar agenda.253 Similar ges
tures of charity were known of Livia,254 but the
true prototypes for the Egyptianizing Venus fig
the vulture cap of an Egyptian
ures with
were,
of
course,
created
for
various
queen
Ptolemaic
as her siblings, Caligula,

royal women.255 Just
Drusilla and Julia Livilla, the younger Agrippina
was brought up in the courtly ambience of her
grandmother, Antonia Minor, where she would
have been surrounded by reminders of her ances
tral link to the Ptolemies.200
replica of Roman date in New York

a bird's scalp headdress
is un
(fig. 9)25/ wearing
is
and
close
manufacture
of
doubtedly
Egyptian
A bronze
inv. 3946.
8. Chalcedony
head, London, British Museum
with
? The British Museum
(used
permission).
Photograph:
Fig.
statuette with portrait fea

in type to the Venus
tures inMarseille.208 The bloated face, expanded
to an almost perfect globe, and the plump phy

sique of this Venus, even down to the chubby,
)9The
a
Egypt.2
dimpled hands, conform to the image of wifely and motherly figure inGreco-Roman
a
goddess holds her hands before her body in superfluous gesture of modesty, while the upper edge
232
253
Dio
58.2.2-3;
Sec n. 252.
-?4
Marleen
Wood,
Imperial Women,
258f.
to Concordia
and
Flory, "Sic exempla parantur: Livia's Shrine
esp. 319.
255
See nn. 49f.
236
See nn. 203f.
2o7
Edward S. Harkness
Museum
of Art 26.7.1475.
Purchase,
Metropolitan
238
for smooth, simplified forms with
from the artistic preference
Aside
in 1926
of the statuette with the Carnarvon
collection
museum's
accessioning
the Porticus
Liviae," Historia
33
(1984),
309-30,
Gift, 1926. H. 27.5 cm.

a lack of cold-working
on
the
the cast bronze,
in
its
for
Egypt. On the collec
acquisition
speaks
3rd rev. ed. M.-L. Bierbrier, Who Was Who in Egyptology
see Warren R. Dawson

and Eric Uphill,
tion of the Earl of Carnarvon,
5th Earl of Carnarvon
Edward Stanhope Molyneux,
(with bibliog.).
(London,
1951), 199f., s.v. Herbert, George
2o9A
contours coupled with
and Asia Minor marked
by the softening and rounding of the facial
style in Greece
provincial
on
BCH
illustrated
Francois
has
been
at least a slight
of
the
of
idealization
Elder
Queyrel,
by
clearly
portraits
Agrippina
degree
on the "Greek"
of the same phenomenon
with a comparison
109 (1985), 609-20. He supported his observations
portraits of
to the extent of creating
this tendency was exaggerated
the Emperor Claudius
(618f.). In Alexandria,
as an
in London,
Sii John Soame's Museum
such as the portrait head of Claudius
Egyptian pharaoh

faces,
positively bloated
L 114 (C. C. Vermeule,
CHESHIRE
181
touch of eroticism
of her chiton is slipping down her shoulders?a
to
of
the
Venus Genetrix.2b0
the
Roman
viewer
reminiscent
probably
the drapery with sharp, straight, densely lying

in the sleeves and across the chest, and a
folds, lacking volume
fluffed up, frilly stylization of the swallowtail folds cascading from
The
rendering
of
ends of the cloak that are drawn
together in front of the

statuette. The
Marseille
variation
from
the
shows
little
figure's hips
an
for
idealized
representa
plump, rather pop-eyed face is atypical
tion, and the specific rendering of the coiffure points to a fashion of
the bunched
the later Antonine Period. The mass of wavy tresses drawn in large
crescent forms back from the face and bound in a small knot in the
nape of the neck appears, on the small scale statuette, not very differ
ent from the timeless "melon" coiffure of Aphrodite/Venus.
The
a
peculiar method of crimping each lock of hair in front upwards in
center
in
the
lock
the
ordered
roll, pushed up
against
horizontally
above to form a sequence of scallops around both sides of the face,
the daughter of
was, however, a fashion set by Faustina the Younger,
Antoninus Pius and wife of his successor, Marcus Aurelius. A statue
group of Mars and Venus from the Isola Sacra261 is an allegory for
to succeed Antoni
the marital bliss of the young couple destined
nus Pius. The
beard
head
and mustache
of
is represented with the curly hair,

Aurelius, as known from his coin
the head of "Venus" wears the modish hair
"Mars"
of Marcus
issues A.D. 144-47, while

on the New York bronze
style of Faustina minor that is shown also
"Venus."
The
monumental
example
wears
high
crescent
diadem
and has two long locks of hair falling freely onto the shoulders, allud
particular
ing to the divine Venus type, but the facial features?in
the large eyes, slanted downward at the outer corners and masked
Fig.
New
9. Bronze
statuette
York, Metropolitan
Art 26.7.1475.
Purchase,
Harkness
from Egypt,
Museum
of
Edward
1926.
S.
Gift,
Photograph:
nMuseu m
of theMetropolita
Courtesy
of Art (used with permission).
lids, the full cheeks and the tightly curled, somewhat

that it is the Empress Faustina, repre
protruding upper lip?reveal
sented in the divine Venus type.
by drooping
in the Capitoline
Mu
of the Empress
to late in her life, or possibly posthu
seum,262 dating obviously
a few known sculptural representations of a
one
of
is
mously,
only
A marble
portrait
head
1968], 388, n. 13 with

[Cambridge, Mass.,
Imperial Art in Greece and Asia Minor
le portrait imperial romain en Egypte [Warsaw, 1984], 46, fig. 78, doubts
this attribution
on a
cameo
in Alexandria
marble
head). The veiled Empress
portrayed
glass-paste
Roman
Zsolt Kiss, Etudes sia

the authenticity of the small
Museum
28928: Marie
(Greco-Roman
the identification.
and
even
the Elder again

BCH
and Paola Starakis-Roscam,
107 (1983), 456, n. 53, 457, fig. 52) may well be Agrippina
Fran?oise Boussac
some Claudian
from
and
the
traits
for
with an unusually bloated
characteristic
sculpture
Egypt. A green
physiognomy
puffy
in the British Museum
basalt bust of Germanicus
(inv. 1883: Kiss, Etudes, 41, figs. 59f., with review of earlier literature), beau
a
for its bloated
facial forms, otherwise not attested for his portraits.
tifully carved in native Egyptian stone, is remarkable
260
in / Claudia
Cf. Eve DAmbra
II, 101-14.
261
. 1394; E. E. Schmidt
in AntPl 8 (1968), 85fi\, pis. 60-64;
4th ed.,
salone 34 inv. 652: Helbig,
Rome, Museo
Capitolino
. 126
3. Folge,
Klaus Fittschen, Die Bildnistypen der Faustina Minor und die Fecunditas Augustae. AbhG?tt,
1982), 46,
(Gottingen,
.
.
.
.
cat.
222
203
2.2.1, Ab. 5, pl.
233, 42,
480, 58,
538, 194,
Frauen, 25,
47, pl. 12,1-2; Alexandridis,
Anhang
(bibliog.),
44,3.
202
Alexandridis,
Frauen, 50,
Rome, Museo
pi. 43.3-4;
Capitolino
Imp. 33 inv. 310: Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 63 (bibliog.),
. 464, 194, cat.
. 204
(bibliog.), pl. 43.4.

182
JARCE 43 (2007)
portrait type, widely represented in coinage, on which the loosely rolled loops of hair appear to have
been more tightly twisted ropelike, a coiffure Fittschen called the
"Drehstr?hnentypus."263 Possibly
the head of a woman wearing a large Stephane that was excavated in 1968 in Kourion,
a
Cyprus264 is
second replica of the type, both portraying the Diva Faustina as Venus. The
large knot of hair bound
at the back of the head on both
examples is characteristic for several coiffures worn by Faustina mi
from
replica
Cyprus is a rather bloated interpretation of the Empress's por
to
the Egyptian bronze statuette inNew York.
trait, comparable
nor late in her life. The
small size of the knot of hair in the nape of the neck of the bronze figure is not true to the
hairstyle but was taken over from earlier replicas of the "Venus" type. An 18 cm. bronze Aph
rodite/Venus in Cairo,265 which is of the same nude type with vulture's scalp, Egyptian crown, apple
and wreath as the Louvre bronze (fig. la-c), an evidently very popular type, wears the same coiffure
The
Roman
as the New York
"Venus/Faustina"
(fig. 9). The styling of the hair by twisting the individual strands
into stiff tresses and rolling them back from the face in a round bouffant mass, as it started late in the
reign of Faustina minor, continued in variations through the end of the second and early third centu
ries A.D.,266 and the Cairo statuette, maybe again Faustina the Younger
(see infra) but possibly not a
portrait of any individual, should be dated within that time.

to Faustina
in New York may be said to bear some resemblance
The head of the bronze Venus
a
minor in that the round, chubby face, evoking
the large eyes and a slightly
matronly appearance,
convexly arched nose are characteristic of her portraits in glyptic and in the round, particularly later
in her life.267Upon comparison with one of the Younger Faustina's typical portraits, a marble head
a convincing
in Copenhagen
likeness, but the
(fig. \2a-b),26S the New York statuette is hardly
of the Roman Empress aside from
Egyptian sculptor may not have been familiar with the appearance
coins.
ideal
portraits of the Diva Faustina and contemporary
a
Late
Thus
where
arts,
Imperial portraits proliferate.
particularly
a
cameo bust in the Biblioth?que Nationale,269
representing a woman wearing
stat
over the same modish coiffure of layered, scalloped waves of hair as on theMetropolitan
Stephane
con
uette (fig. 9), has been attributed by Micocki270 to "Faustina the Younger," while Vollenweider271
sidered it to be a goddess. The long, oval head shape with flat cheeks is not typical for Faustina II, nor
is the small, full-lipped mouth a portrait trait of hers, although it is similarly rendered on the New
Often
it is difficult to differentiate between
in the minor
images of goddesses,
Antonine
chalcedony
are found on the head of

bronze Venus. The same physiognomic
discrepancies
above. The fullness of flesh under the chin imparts
bronze Venus, CG 27652, mentioned
to the gem carving, as it does to the Egyptian bronze statuettes in New York
appearance
and it is possible
that that this trait is a reference to the Fecunditas of the Diva Faustina.
the Cairo
York
features of the cameo bust are hardly distinctive, however, while

ismore recognizable.
a matronly
the head of the New York
and Cairo,
The facial
statuette,
as a portrait of the Empress,

263
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 37, 42f., 63, 64, pl. 7.9-10.

264V.
BCH 93 (1969), 561f., fig. 200?-/a
Karageorghis,
265
Museum
CG 27652: Edgar, Greek Bronzes, 6, pl. II.
Egyptian
2bb por
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, pis. 44-49
(Lucilla).
exampie)
2()7
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 66ff.
268
. 85,
II (Copenhagen,
709 = 1748: Vagn Poulsen, Les Portraits Romains
1974), 100,
pis. 140f.;
Ny Carlsberg
Glyptothek
Frauen, 216.
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 61, 62, pl. 38.1-4; Alexandridis,
269W. R.
von
XI (Berlin, 1987), 268, B44, pl. 44,11; M.-L. Vollen
Megow, Kameen
Augustus bis Alexander Severus. AMUGS
. 173,
144,
weider, Cam?es et intailles t.II. Les Portraits romains du Cabinet des m?dailles (Paris, 2003),
pis. 19, 100.
270
. 389,
Sub specie deae, 66, 206,
pl. 32.
271 See
. 269.

CHESHIRE
183
in the "Alexandrian" Venus type, whereby the goddess

is assimi
representation
or
a
a
lated by her diadem to Isis
"Queen of Egypt," is specifically Egyptian provincial variant running
to
of her coins emanating from Rome. In his study of the likenesses
the
pictorial propaganda
parallel
on coins of a new portrait type of Antoni
of Faustina minor, Fittschen272 postulated
the appearance
on the creation of a new coiffure on the occasion of
nus Pius'
and
based
Empress-to-be,
daughter
Faustina minor's
nine specific historical events in her career as prospective heir-producer. The distinction between as
in her coiffure and the coincidence
of each new portrait type with the
many as nine variations
events cited by Fittschen have met with some skepticism in subsequent
scholarship,273 but the gen
eral chronological
sequence of the Empress' hairstyles and the consistent theme of childbearing on
their
the reverse of those coins, including images with increasing numbers of children around
even
can
if
Thus
Fittschen's
somewhat
in
certain
be
denied.
defini
mother,
theory,
hardly
arbitrary
in A.D. 145, the long
tions of new portrait types, presumably has a good deal of merit. Already
between the approximately fifteen-year-old Faustina minor (her mother was Faus
with issues of
the Emperor's
adoptive son, Marcus Aurelius, was commemorated
over
his portrait, on the reverse an image of Concordia
the
dextrarum
iunctio
presiding
awaited marriage
and
tina maior)
coins bearing
of an allegorical
couple with the legend vota publica.274 The next portrait type of the future Em
a
to Fittschen, was occasioned
press, according
by the birth of the couple's first child,
girl named
Domitia Faustina, in 147. The occasion of births of subsequent offspring, including the eventual suc
were each celebrated
cessor to power, Commodus,
in special coin issues with a new portrait type of
reverse of these coins consistently bears a pictorial image related
an image of Venus Genetrix
a child,
to Faustina ITs fecundity and success as an heir-producer:
carrying
or a woman
or
on
or an
the
Roman
of
of
seated
Lucina,
Juno
goddess
childbearing,
standing
image
their mother
on the obverse.
The
a throne, carrying or surrounded by numerous

little children.275 The close association
officially
on
was
her coinage
claimed for Faustina with Venus
symbolized in her own portrait on the obverse,
of Venus Genetrix on the reverse, which was, however, frequently replaced by
and the predominance
Since the dove was so common a symbol
the simple image of a dove, the bird of Aphrodite/Venus.276
on Faustina's
Faustina"
itmay well be asked whether the bird-scalp diadem of the New York "Venus/
in its significance, reaching out to the Egyptian as well as to the Greco-Roman
is ambiguous
coins,
devotee.
in Egypt, presenting her as the mother of an heir to the

The propaganda
of Faustina the Younger
issues of modest
former kingdom of the Ptolemies, figures only on a small number of the widespread
a
on the obverse,
from
Alexandria.
These
bear
modeled
of
the
coins
copper
finely
portrait
Empress
on the reverse showing an image of an Egyptian distyle temple, within which is, seated on a throne,
who is sitting on her lap (fig. I0a-b).277 Both

Isis nursing the infant Harpocrates,
the goddess
to the Empress and
mother and son wear Egyptian crowns, thus embodying the divine counterparts
is at first glance
her latest male offspring. More often on the obverse, the portrait bust of a woman
the
circumference
of
the
flan:
FAUSTIN
E
the
around
identifiable
, sometimes
inscription
only
by
followed by
(Antoninus
Pius)." The
THYGA, "Faustina, the Empress, daughter (thygater) of the pious Emperor

title Sebaste, the Greek equivalent of Augusta, was bestowed upon the Younger
272
25 (bibliog.).
der Kaiser Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus und Commodus
Szaivert, Die M?nzpr?gung
Moneta
18, in R. Gobi, ed., (Vienna,
1986), 40ff.
(161-192).
Imperil Romani
274
Fittschen Bildnistypen, 22, pl. 1.1.
275
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 23ff.
276
New York, Sept.
Selections from theJ. Pierpont Morgan
14,
Collection, Greek and Roman Coins, Stacks auction
catalogue,
3, 4.
1983, 48, n. 85; Fittschen, Bildnistypen, pis. 2.13-14,
277New
Numismatic
1944.100.61530.
York, American
(illustrated);
Society 1944.100.61531
Frauen,
Bildnistypen, 22ff.; Alexandriens,
278One of the earliest critics was
Wolfgang

184
JARCE 43 (2007)
lOa-b.
Fig.
Alexandrian
Photographs:
Faustina
Courtesy
"Faustina
copper drachm,
Numismatic
of the American
Sebaste,"
Society
Neiv
(used
York, American
Numismatic
Society
1944.100.61531.
luith permission).
in A.D. 147 on the occasion
of the birth of her first child with her spouse, Marcus Aurelius,
the tribunicia potestas.2/HWith the honor had come also the privilege of
who, on his part, received

own
minting her
coinage, not only in Rome, where the reverse of some of the coins bore a standing
as well. The portrait type of the Empress
of
Venus
Genetrix
image
carrying a baby,2/9 but inAlexandria
that was adapted on the Egyptian issues continued to be used in Egypt throughout the reign of her
Pius. Reworked
dies degenerate
into an image that resembles Faustina minor
father, Antoninus
to
waves
with
the
of
hair
coiffure:
respect
clearly only
arranged in loops, subdivided from each other
as in a melon coiffure, from a center part down the sides of the face to the ears, the hair behind the
ears gathered up and bound at the back of the head in a
large, flat chignon. A thin braid of hair run
ning diagonally down both sides of the head catches the back ends of the loops framing the face and
binds them in. The routinely repeated profile bust of the Empress (fig. 13) on the Alexandrian
issues
shows a more oblong face than her coin images and other portraits outside Egypt generally suggest:
a more
that hooks down at the tip, and long, flat cheeks with an
squashed?nose
to imitate the
abruptly offset, bony, protruding chin. With this caricature, the coin image appears
on
some
features
found
of
of
series
look-alike
coin
squared-off, choppy
portraits
Cleopatra VII and
flattened?almost
Marc
them, "nutcracker features."281 Thus

Antony?as
Jocelyn Toynbee280 appropriately described
to the Roman Empire was commemorated
the Younger Faustina's role as heir-producer
specifically
in Egypt as a continuation
true
of the Macedonian
of
the
last
who bore
queen,
country's
lineage
children of two Roman
278
Triumviri.
1 (Rome, 1947), 207, 236f.; Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 23, 38.

Inscrit XIII
in n. 10), pi. 1.3, 4, 8.
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 23 (with bibliog.
280
Roman Historical Portraits (London,
1978), 42f.
281
124, pl. 107.3 (Antiocheian mint?); Cleopatra ofEgypt, 233, nn. 215-17
234, nn. 221
(Chalchis);
E.g., Kyrieleis, Bildnisse,
IstMitt 46 (1996), 238f., pi. 41.3-6; Jonathan Williams,
2 (Antioch?);
238, n. 250 (Eastern mint); R. Fleischer,
"Imperial Style
and the Coins of Cleopatra
and Mark Antony,"
in Susan Walker
and Sally-Ann Ashton,
eds., Cleopatra Reassessed
(London,
279
2003),
Fasti Ostienses:
87-94,
esp. 92, pis.
1-3, 6, 8.

185
CHESHIRE
The Antonine
models
royal couples,
in particular Marcus
Aurelius
and Faustina
the Younger,
became
role
for the perfect family and, as the incarnations of Mars and Venus, became revered for a guid
to the brides of common citi
the symbolic protection offered by "Aphrodite/Venus"
ance not unlike
zens. Interesting results on the use of the relatively common statuettes of the Greek love goddess
in
a
context
of
the papyrological
documentation
of Aphro
have emerged from
their provincial
survey
in the inventories of
dite bronzes in Roman Egypt by Fabienne Burkhalter.282 Rather than appearing
is consistently a domestic one. They are cited with astonishing
temples, the context of their mention
contracts
of the second and third centuries A.D., within a conven
in
Roman
Period
marriage
frequency
tional itemized list of the articles in the bride's dowry.283 Only rarely do they find mention
in other
been
"Aphrodite"?and
dealings, such as when a woman's
possibly her entire dowry?had
a
a
as
to
a
for
in
if
be
not
said
business
could
put up
guarantee
necessity
pawned
pledge,
obligation
be met.284 Thus the means of transfer of the valuable keepsake seems to have traditionally been to a
new bride from her mother. Burkhalter285 concluded
statuette symbolized protec
that the Aphrodite
tion and provision of well-being for the woman of the household of Roman Egypt, as may have Venus
or a inno (a female counterpart
to a genius of the man of the household)286
for matrons
in their
contractual
and as the larfamili?ris offered an entire family of Rome at a household

altar.287
As observed by Celia Schultz:288 "Each domestic deity had a public counterpart, thus underlining
the
of these mementos
close relationship between practices within and outside the home." Connections
households
in Rome,
state institutions, although

with the ruler cult or with established
of Aphrodite/Venus
more
mentioned, may well have been
significant than is apparent.
almost never
It appears also quite certain that a second Roman Period bronze statuette of Egyptian manufacture
a Roman
in the Metropolitan
Museum
the typologi
Imperial lady. Despite
(fig. lla-d)289 represents
cal variation in the wrap-around mantle and the position of the arms, the woman's momentary move
ment of the hands in front of her midriff recalls the various types of Aphrodite
for the
undressing
bath and is certainly to be interpreted as making reference to the goddess. On this figure, three thick,
twisted tresses of hair to each side of the face, drawn back from the temples and bound in a large, flat
bun against the nape of the neck, are clearly demarcated
from each other by deep undercutting,
the popular
"melon" coiffure of late Classical-Hellenistic
fashion. These horizontally
a
narrow
of
form
hair
frame
the
around
them runs a long, tight
behind
face;
fairly
arranged plaits
across both sides of the head from the center
two thin parallel braids?diagonally
braid?or
part back
to the knot. Two holes bored into the hair on top of the head to either side of the center part allowed
or
for the attachment of a separately made attribute, probably a
Stephane of gold
gilded bronze. This
resembling
have concealed
the awkwardly high column of the uraeus ring supporting the feather
a
feature
that
have
blended in better had the statuette been given the familiar vulture's
crown,
might
instead. The wax model used for the crown base was undoubtedly
scalp diadem
originally intended
diadem would
282 "Les Statuettes en

en
Bronze d'Aphrodite
Egypte romaine," RA 1990/1, 51-60.
283
"Statuettes en Bronze," 51 f., 54f., 60; Jane Rowlandson,
Burkhalter,
ed., Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A
Sourcehook (Cambridge,
of the "Aphrodite"
is not specified
in the
U.K., 1998), 66, n. 42, 181f., n. 136. Even when the material
it can almost certainly be assumed
that itwas of bronze,
since a terracotta figurine would not have had a relevant
document,
monetary worth to figure in these lists of valuables.
284
"Statuettes en Bronze," 51, 52f., 60; Rowlandson,
Women and Society, 258ff., n. 191 (ROxyA, 114).
Burkhalter,
28;>
"Statuettes en Bronze," 59.
Burkhalter,
286
Celia E. Schultz, Women's Religious Activity in theRoman Republic
124f.
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 2006),
287 Cf. R.
178 (Paris, 1954).
Schilling, La religion romaine de V?nus depuis les origines jusqu'au
temps d Auguste, BEERA
288
Women's Religious Activity, 123.
289
New York, Metropolitan
of Art 46.2.2. Acquired
Museum
1946, Rogers Fund. H. 10 inches (26 cm.). My sincere thanks
are due to Drs. Dorothea
Arnold and Marsha Hill of the Egyptian Department
for providing
the photograph,
fig. 11, granting
to
me permission
the piece, and to study and photograph
it at length close-up.
publish

JARCE 43 (2007)
186
Fig.
lla-d.
Metropolitan
Bronze
Museum
statuette
York,
from Egypt, New
Purchase,
of Art 46.2.2.
Rogers
Fund, 1946. Photographs: (fig. 11a) Courtesy of the

Metropolitan Museum ofArt (used with permission),
(figs, llb-d) photographs by theauthor.

CHESHIRE
187
for such a figure. A bronze
vulture cap was applied over the head of the Louvre statuette from Lower
Egypt (fig. la-b), possibly after the entire coiffure had been executed on the cast bronze figure, but
there is no evidence of that having been the case on the New York statuette.
closer inspection, as the tight-lipped little smirk and the

of
the
chin
suggest the portrait of a specific individual. The Venus Genetrix,
rendering
large
the Capitoline Venus and popular Aphrodite/Venus
types were adapted for private portrait sculpture
of Roman matrons,290 and various attributes of Isis could have been assumed for the private deifica
The head of the New York bronze merits
unusual
tion of women, as well,291 but these usages wrere restricted to conventional monuments
of funerary
an
as
statuette
statues
and
stelae.
of
Thus
the Metropolitan
identification
with an
cult, such
grave
exceptionally prominent personality, such as an Empress, is certainly more probable. The coiffure in
itself is distinctive, even though its compacted
form, artificially enhanced by the present worn state
to the standard "Praxitelean"
of the surface of the bronze, has been substantially assimilated
hair
It is the coiffure worn by Faustina Minor on certain coin emissions that
style of Aphrodite/Venus.292
as "Type 8" among nine portrait types of that Empress. The braid?or
two
Fittschen293 categorized
thin parallel braids?has
in descriptions
been often misconstrued
of the coins as a strand of pearl
like beads,
but
large-scale
sculptural
such as the afore-mentioned

in
head
portraits of Faustina,
this feature of the coiffure as thin, plaited tresses of hair.294 This
Copenhagen
(fig. I2a-b), reproduce
coiffure occurs regularly on the plentiful Alexandrian
coins (assaria and billons) of Faustina II consis

rendered
with
remarkable
The
consists
of a combination of crimped or twisted
tently
style
clarity.295
waves around the face, behind which run one single or a pair of thin braids of hair, a flat
arrange
ment of hair combed from a center part diagonally forward from the crown of the head, all of which
is bound up in a large knot lying flat against the nape of the neck. Despite
the precise detail work on
the coiffure, the portrait head of the Empress on these coins appears to have been
physiognomically
inaccurate but nevertheless
incessantly repeated.
York bronze "Venus," however, not only the coiffure but also the
carefully
is
face
sculpted
arguably identifiable as Faustina the Younger. The round, full-fleshed visage, an in
flated sphere without wrinkles, appears matronal with heavy, sagging skin beneath
the chin and
on all but the earliest of her
cheeks
most
on Faustina's
The
trait
chubby
portraits.
easily recognizable
On
the latter New
are the eyes: broad and almond-shaped,

on most portraits the gaze somewhat veiled
by
are
the
bored.
rendered similarly on portraits of her husband,
drooping lids,
pupils generally
They
Marcus Aurelius, and their son, Commodus,
and thus appear to have been considered at the time a
portraits
of the Imperial family.296 Due to the small scale of the New York bronze "Venus," this fea
imitated in abbreviated form through undercutting of the upper lids,
giving them a heavy
Also
era
characteristic
for
IFs
Faustina
and
for
the
in
appearance.
portraits
sculpture as well, the eyes
hallmark
ture was
290
291
See
. 149.
E. J.Walters, Attic Grave Reliefs thatRepresent Women in theDress of Isis.

(Princeton,
1988), 18ff.
Hesperia,
Suppl.23
292
. 1.
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 41, 67,
298
Bildnistypen, 37.
294
42.1-2.
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 37; pis. 35-38, 39.3-4,
41.1-4,
295
New York, American
Numismatic
cf. Angelo Gei?en,
alexandrinischer Kaiserm?nzen
der
Society 1944.100.61568,
Katalog
V (Opladen
Coloniensa
vol. II.
Sammlung des Instituts f?r Altertumskunde der Universit?t zu K?ln I-III. Papyrologica
1974-83),
nn. 1943-94;
Hadrian?Antoninus
III. Marc Aurel?Gallienus,
In his study of the portrait
Pius, 412-31,
54-59, nn. 2108-19.
that the series of types was dictated
from Rome
II, Fittschen
(see nn. 272, 273) assumed
types of Faustina
and, as far as con
cerned
verbatim in the Imperial mints outside
of the city; on this problem,
see also Szaivert,
currency, was reproduced
77ff. The possibility of the creation of a specific portrait type in
Marcus
M?nzpr?gung,
Egypt, where the Empress
accompanied
Aurelius on a visit in 175 (see n. 319), is an interesting question
that has yet to be investigated.
296
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 58, 62, 66.

188
Fig.
JARCE 43 (2007)
12a-b.
Marble
head,
"Faustina
the Younger,
"
Copenhagen,
Ny Carhberg GlyptothekCopenhagen (used with permission).
Ny
Carlsberg
Glyptothek
709. Photographs:
Courtesy
of the
are sometimes
in size;297 in this respect, two marble portrait heads in Istanbul298 and in

unequal
lend themselves well to comparison with the head of the New York statuette, on which the
artist appears to have sculpted one eye with ease, but flinched a bit at having to make the other eye
larger and more wide-open. The face of the bronze figure, with its rather large chin, and the small
Rome299
mouth with a curled?or
somewhat retracted?upper
lip, which lies close beneath the nose, compares
two
for
of
in the Vatican300 and Syracuse.301
with
Faustina
minor
well,
portraits
example,
Through the addition of an Egyptian diadem, mounted on a circlet of uraeus serpents, the divine,
matriarchal
image of the New York "Venus" bronze is qualified in native Egyptian terms. The Roman
Empress appears not only as the "Goddess of Love," but as genetrix of the heir specifically to the king
dom of Egypt, essentially successor to the throne of the Ptolemies. The full breasts and arms with
smooth, rounded surfaces, the fleshy neck, and in particular the plump hands, with impressed "dim
297
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 62.

298
Museum
5130: J. Inan?E. Rosenbaum,
Roman and Early Byzantine Portrait Sculpture in Asia Minor
(Lon
Archaeological
. 15,
don, 1966), 77f., n. 46, pis. 28f.; Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 61-63,
pl. 41.3-4.
299
Museo
Salone 46 inv. 666: Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 60 (with bibliog.),
62, 64, pl. 35.1-2.
Capitolino,
300
XV 9: Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 49 (with bibliog.), pis. 15.1-4, 20.1-3.
Museo
Chiaramonti
301
Museo
nazionale
Paolo Orsi 743: N. Bonacasa,
Ritratti greci e romani della Sicilia (Palermo,
1964), 103, n. 133, pi. 61.1-2;
. 464, 196, cat.
. 208,
43.3.
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 61?F., pl. 39.3-4; Alexandridis,
Frauen, 50,
pl.

CHESHIRE
189
pies" at the base of the fingers are characteristic Alexandrian

taste of the Hellenistic
and Roman Periods for motherly women,
seen also on the Louvre Aphrodite from Lower Egypt (fig. la-b), a
Hellenistic Aphrodite
in Cairo,302 and the first New York Venus
statuette attributed to "Faustina" (fig. 11). The tight and tidy arrange
ment
of
the hair
on
the
second
New
York
bronze
"Faustina,"
a com
in its
plex modish
hairstyle that has been optically assimilated
contours to the Greek "melon coiffure," contributes further to the
w
Fig.
13. Bronze
'Faustina
dria,
can Numismatic
drachm from Alexan

II" New York, Ameri
Society
1944.100.
of a dignified Roman
appearance
lady, whose waves of hair would
have been neatly crimped and braided?in
striking contrast to the
in which the
bronze portrait figure from Paramythia
(fig. 4a-b),
"lets loose" in a typically Greek manner.

the portrait bust on the obverse of these coins remains
(used
Society
with permission).
consistent, the pictorial image on the reverse takes on a remarkable
variety of different themes, includine an array of female allegorical
figures?Dikaiosyne, Eirene, Elpis, etc. (using Greek terminology in Egypt and other Eastern prov
inces)?that are typically associated with the Empress.803 The frequently appearing
image of lustitia
61568. Photograph: Courtesy of the goddess
While
American
Numismatic
Drusilla
("Justice") as a woman seated on a throne and holding out a scale,304 was a statement to the Roman
that the Empress provided oversight over the honest regulation of the grain trade and the
populace
related corn dole (see infra). Centuries before the association of the Roman Empress in Egypt with
the allegory of "Justice" as well as with the divine mother, Isis, Cleopatra
III was called thea megale
meter theon (the great goddess, mother of gods), Nikephoros ("Bringer of Victory") and Dikaiosyne
("Justice").305 Provincial variations of the image on the reverse of the Faustina coins include Isis
on his serpent-drawn char
Pharia,30b the Pharos lighthouse,307 Isis,308 (Isis)/Tyche,309 Triptolemus
iot,310Amnion,311 Serapis,312 and the Nile313?all subjects that can be connected to Egypt's agricultural
to Rome.
and the corn shipment from Alexandria
After the death of Antoninus Pius in A.D. 161 and the succession
wealth
as sole emperor,
theAlexandrian mint issued a more mature, corpulent and matronly coin portrait of the new Emperor's
wife, Faustina, with or without the thin braid woven through her hair in back of the bulk of crimped
waves framing the face. Again, the repeated juxtaposition of a
portrait of the Empress on the obverse
of Marcus Aurelius
on the reverse, in particular Tyche,314

with images of a variety of female deities and personifications
a
close relationship?if not direct assimilation?of
Faustina to these figures.
implies
statuette differs from the other examples discussed above in that
The New York "Faustina/Venus"
it does not wear the Egyptian vulture diadem but probably instead a separately made Stephane. With
or without
302
303
See
that royal attribute, the circlet of uraeus
serpents form the support for a separately
. 6.
nn. 1943-94.
Katalog II, 412-31,
Gei?en, Katalog II, nn. 1944, 1949, 1959, 1969, 1975, 1981, 1992; idem., Katalog
3(b
Otto and Bengtson, Niederganges,
151ff.; Koenen,
III.," 61ff.
"Kleop?tra
30(i
Gei?en, Katalog II, nn. 1943, 1970.
307
Gei?en, Katalog
II, n. 1973.
308
Gei?en, Katalog II, n. 1960.
309
Gei?en, Katalog
II, n. 1971.
310
II, n. 1958.
Gei?en, Katalog
311
Gei?en, Katalog II, nn. 1962-63.
312
Gei?en, Katalog II, nn. 1980, 1982-83,
1986, 1989.
313
Gei?en, Katalog II, 1968, 1977-79.
314
Gei?en, Katalog III, 54-59, nn. 2108-19.
304
Gei?en,
III, n. 2108.

cast,
190
JARCE 43 (2007)
native crown of a sun disc framed by a pair of tall cow's horns, from behind which rise a pair of tall
ostrich feathers, themost common pharaonic Egyptian diadem for royal women and goddesses, par
are a Ptolemaic addition, men
ticularly, Isis. The pair of corn ears that flank the base of the crown
in the description of a special crown to be

tioned specifically for the first time in the Canopus Decree
made for the prematurely deceased daughter of Ptolemy III and Berenice II, a princess Berenice.315
On the statuette of the deified Empress Faustina, they symbolize her role as the protectress of the
fleets carrying grain deliveries, the annona, to Rome.316 In the second century A.D., the success of
in the gigantic task of providing the populace
of Rome, as well as the army deployed
a consistent theme in the pictorial
throughout the vast empire with adequate
supplies of grain, was
decoration of the Imperial coinage. Typically, a portrait bust of the reigning Empress on the obverse
was paired with an image of Ceres or a personification
of Annona on the reverse. 317G. Rickman318
observed that, while Faustina II/Ceres coins were issued throughout the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a
large supply of the Empress's coins were minted in A.D. 174/75, which he concludes was in response
state policy
to a revolt led by Avidius Cassius

in the Eastern provinces which threatened to endanger Rome's
of
Annona
The
that of the Empress on these issues was intended
grain import.
image
accompanying
to assure the subjects of Rome that their Egyptian
grain supply was still in Imperial control.319 The
the
traveled
East,
Imperial couple
through
including to Egypt, in that year with the aim of quelling
the revolt of Cassius;
the Empress
Marcus
Aurelius
death,
Faustina's
nianae, young women
who were
in 176 in Cappadocia
upon the trip back to Rome.320 After
in Rome a special relief fund for the puellae Fausti
entitled to rations of grain from the state "from the Diva Faustina
died
established
Iunior'321
figurative role of Faustina the Younger with respect to Egypt has been confirmed in recent
set up by an
years by the discovery of an inscribed dedication from the dockyard area of Alexandria,
association of attendants of the statues of the Imperial family, to Faustina the Younger, calling her as
The
well Sosistolos (a savior of the fleet), Pharia (the

identified
goddess of the lighthouse of Alexandria,
a
with Isis), and theNew
In
was
the
located
the
Caesareum,
vicinity
magnificent complex
Augusta.^22
in the first century by Philo.323 In his day, itwas a sanctuary to the Kaisar epibaterios, "the
described
that the monument was built already

Emperor
(Augustus) at the wharf," but it is highly probable
under Cleopatra VII inmemory of Julius Caesar and was redirected to the cult of Augustus after the
on Alexan
Roman conquest of Egypt. The apparent assimilation of the bust of Faustina the
Younger
drian copper assaria to earlier coin portraits of Cleopatra VII, as commented on above, may have
the Empress as the successor to Egypt's last queen.

Hellenistic
version of Aphrodite
in a standard pudica pose of a bronze statuette in
nude,
was
a
Cairo324
combined with
portrait head that can probably be attributed to Crispina, the ill-fated
wife of Faustina's and M. Aurelius'
The round, broad face of the Cairo Aphrodite,
son, Commodus.
intended
The
to present
3,5
. 56, 11.62f.; Sethe, Urk.II,
Decree:
OGIS
"Die Apotheose
I,
124ff., esp. 148f., 11.31f. Sabine K?then-Welpot,
Ganopus
der Berenike, Tochter Ptolemaios'
35 (Wiesbaden,
III.," in Wege ?ffnen. Festschrift f?r Rolf Gundlach, ?AT
1996), 129-32, esp.
130f.
316
L. Bricault,
et l'annone," CdE 75 (2000), 136-49.
"Un phare, une flotte, Isis, Faustine
317
The Corn Supply ofAncient Rome (Oxford, 1980), 264-66.
Geoffrey Rickman,
318
Rickman, Corn Supply, 265f.
319
Rickman, Corn Supply, 265f.
320
RE I (1894), col. 2314, s.v. Annius
(121).
321
SHA Pius 8.1; Marc. 7.8; 26.6; Rickman,
Corn Supply, 184.
322Andr? and
Etienne Bernand,
"Un procurateur
des effigies imperiales ? Alexandrie,"
ZPE
122 (1998), 97-101;
Bricault,
"Un phare," 136ff; Jean-Yves Empereur,
Alexandria Rediscovered
(Paris, 1998), 116.
323
151; cf. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria
I, 24f., 37, 229, 795, 803; II, 66ff., nn. 153-62
Legatio ad Gaium
(with bibliog.).
324
CG 59137: L. Kirwan, BIFAO 34 (1934), 62,
Egyptian Museum
pl. I.

CHESHIRE
191
with thin, delicate features, most distinctively the wide-set, narrowly open eyes, and the large mass
to
of wavy hair, drawn from a center part back loosely to the back of the head clearly correspond
an
the identifiable sculptural portraits of Crispina (a.D. 180-182/83),325
unfinished marble
including
a veil.326 The Alexandrian
from
shows
traits?
portrait
Egypt, wearing
typically provincial
replica
linear articulation of transitions to the lips, eyes and neck
smoothly buffed skin surfaces, minimizing
a particularly feminine
contours
of
the
and softening the rounded
fleshy cheeks and chin?yielding
statuette.
interpretation that is close to the Cairo bronze
The nude Venus type was not uncommonly used for portrait statues of empresses and distinguished
no particular
throughout the Roman Empire and would have had
theological significance in
a
curves
of her hips, swinging out from wasp waist, mark a departure from the
Egypt. The pronounced
to Alexandrian
taste.
offshoots and are doubtless gauged
Praxitelean prototype and its Hellenistic
matrons
This Oriental
Goddess
ideal of a womanly figure is illustrated time and again on the representations

of the
and Beauty that were such a popular motif on late Roman bone carvings from
of Love
as decoration on toilet articles such as combs.327

Egypt, in particular
The diadem that "Crispina/Venus" wears imparts a similar symbolism to the "Alexandrian"
or other royal insignia. The row of round tabs lined up
along
figures with the vulture's scalp
Venus
the top
to whom the
of the crown would, in actuality, have been decorated with miniature busts of deities
wearer was particularly devoted or each with a portrait cameo or a portrait bust appliqu? of a mem
ber of the ruling family and their immediate lineage.328 Examples of such diadems can be found in
sculpture with particular frequency in the late second to third centuries a.D., but the small-scale appli
are often too crudely executed or poorly preserved to permit identification today. Thus the
qu? busts
is, to date, poorly understood.329 As is the case with the Egyp
precise significance of these diadems
tian figures wearing the native vulture diadem, Crispina appears to be represented as Venus with a
to be fulfilled?as Genetrix of the Antonine
crown symbolizing her prospective
role?never
Roman
line.
in the third cen

of a cult of "Aphrodite Cleopatra"
occurring inMemphis
a vestige of the Ptolemaic ruler cult, now transformed into the worship of a
a long dormant cultural icon. In the
early third
goddess, but it could reflect the nostalgic revival of
statue
statue
the
of
VII
the
in
viewed
cult
of Venus
Cassius
Dio331
Rome,
century
Cleopatra
alongside
in the Temple of Venus Genetrix?a. proof of the longevity of the Egyptian queen's feminine mystique.
An
isolated attestation
tury a.D.330
is probably
text provides an actual name for a syncretistic goddess that could be reflected?at
The Memphite
several of these small bronzes.
in the statuary type, if not in the portrait head?in
Independent
least
Scholar
325
Frauen,
198, cat. nn. 215f., pl. 48.2, 4.
Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 82-88, pl. 7.52-56; Alexandridis,
in G?tter und Pharaonen.
Museum
Greco-Roman
23862: Fittschen, Bildnistypen, 85, 86, pl. 52.3-4; G. Grimm
Alexandria,
Exhibition
Essen, June 2-Sept.
17, 1978 (Mainz, 1978), n. 168 (bibliog. and ill.).
catalogue, Villa H?gel,
327 Lila
Period (T?bingen,
Bone Carvings from Egypt, I. Graeco-Roman
79, pis. 36-43.
1976), 39-42,
Marangou,
328 In this
his parents, Marcus Aurelius
and Faustina
the Younger,
case, one might expect Crispinas
husband, Commodus,
the Elder.
Antoninus
Pius and Faustina
and their predecessors,
329
der r?mischen Kaiserzeit.
IstForsch 43
Kranz und Krone. Zu den Insignien, Siegespreisen und Ehrenzeichen
Jutta Rumscheid,
25-30.
22f.,
7-51,
113-47,
2000),
esp. pis.
(T?bingen,
330
See n. 56.
331 See n. 135.
326


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Aphrodite Cleopatra

Author(s): Wendy A. Cheshire

This content downloaded from 77.43.5.82 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 04:25:22 AM

case, by that time their close

Syria" in theLouvre may probably be regarded as the initial iconographical typeof a

birdfound with Aphrodite.

One century ago, the Hungarian

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one particular type is

side of the neck onto

1973), 86ff., 91.

Le culte d'Isis dans

cites its use on an over4ife-size

of the hands point

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61ff., figs. 3-5; E. Reeder,

This content downloaded from 77.43.5.82 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 04:25:22 AM

Art in theWalters Art Gallery

his chin, turns into a type of cloak on the back; long

around his neck and knotted at the paws beneath

his bony, haggard frame are visible through the garment.

1995), 189, fig. 151.

II. Women in Roman Art and

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els from the vicinity of the Dionysus

identifiable by three ears of grain on her head as the seasonal personification

of Nechbet from Pharaonic

508; Troy, Patterns

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of the Egyptian goddess with a particular queen can be observed at

II, and then as his widow.40 This

titles for a female ruler, see Troy, Patterns of Queenship,

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Given the close association of the Alexandrian Aphrodite

greatest extent. Some

is attested with some frequency since the

lated "the goddess

and here reveals a touch of self-consciousness.

Cleopatra Aphrodite, probably the

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158 JARCE 43 (2007)

Daniel Leb?e (fig.2b) (used with permission).

lost its original

a more slender, narrow

des bronzes antiques

m. Bibliog.: de Ridder, Les Bronzes antiques, 64, n. 419,

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Thea," New York, American

statuettes from Hellenistic

the familiar vulture cap, but the frequency of such

these pieces would have signified outside of Egypt.

the throne of Egypt, Cleopatra Thea as Queen

this detail on the original.

117; Vatin, Recherches,

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in Egypt, her younger sister, Cleopatra

traits that suggest it reflects

cids of the later second

and early first centuries.75

It is expressively shadowed by a deeply recessed

sometimes dark expression. The wide-eyed gaze of the

Fleischer, Studien zur seleukidischen Kunst, I. Herrscherbildnisse

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is far less likely to represent that queen's