
AN ANTIQUE MARBLE BUST. 42] 
her misfortunes; and, what is more pertinent, her looks, as I find mentioned 
in the Life of Octavia, which is generally ascribed to the Abbé St Real.* 
With regard to coins and medallions, I have not found them of much use. 
Through the kindness of friends in the British Museum, I have had casts from 
the unique gold coin there, and from some copper coins of Thessalonica. I have 
also consulted an engraving of the Vienna medallion in the “ Numismata Aus- 
triaca,” but all with little benefit. Without going into details, I may mention 
that I have not spared myself a weary pilgrimage through Spanheim, Rashe, 
Golzius, Aneas Vicus, King, Pelerin, Mionnet, Ackerman, Smith, and Eckhel,— 
with this result, that the greatest uncertainty attaches to the coins of Octavia. 
In the copper coins of Thessalonica, for instance, the female head is generally 
thought to be one of Liberty, and not of Octavia. Again, the only coin which 
bears the name “ Octavia” on it, is considered by many (Mr Burgon of the British 
Museum among others) to be false, the true one giving Livia; and as to the 
coins (Cistophori) with Antony’s head beside a female head, there is great reason 
to suppose that it is not Octavia’s, but Cleopatra’s. Indeed, I have been shewn 
by my friend Mr William Scott, an engraving of one with the name “Cleopatra” 
actually occurring on it. For our purpose, it is enough, perhaps, that not two of 
the coins agree in their representation of Octavia, if it be Octavia that they give. 
5th, Will it be thought fanciful if I add, as some corroboration, though 
trifling, that the bust is in perfect harmony with all we know of the history and 
character of Octavia. I think we may trace in it that wonderful beauty which 
we know was not eclipsed by her rival Cleopatra—that gentleness which made 
her so forgiving of her unworthy lord,—that serenity which was unruffled amidst 
countless wrongs,—that affection which tied her} to the last to his house and 
kindred,—and that pensive look, the ‘““/rons leita parum,” even in youth, which 
foreshadowed in her case a broken heart.{ Iam not sure that all these things 
could be said of any other individual of those times. As it seems to me, the bust 
has, for example, too much feeling for Livia, the hard step-mother, as Tacitus) 
calls her, and too much purity for either of the Faustinas ; and so of many others, 
if we cared to follow out this view. 
6th, and lastly. In looking over the Florentine gallery the other day, I was 
struck by an observation which I could scarcely avoid making, of the simple way 
in which it was usual for ladies to dress their hair in the time of Augustus, much 
as in our bust. I might refer to the heads of Livia and Antonia Augusta in 
that collection, as instances. But very soon the taste for that simplicity declined, 
and then we have Agrippina, Messalina, Nero’s Octavia, Plautina, Poppzea, and 
a host of others, all revelling in most fantastic locks, some of them artificial, or 
* (Huvres de S. Reat, III., 295. + Merivatz’s Roman Empire, 3. 283-4. 
} Seveca, “ Ad Marciam.” J 
§ Tacitus, Annals, I.,10. “Gravis in rempublicam mater, gravior domui Cesarum noverca.” 
VOL. XX. PART III. yp. ¢ 
