SCULPTURE. 27 
Augustus. In the coins the same degree of excellence is observed, the 
heads being animated, characteristic, and noble, and the mythologico-alle- 
gorical composition ingenious and spirited, although sometimes carelessly 
executed. 
Under Trajan were executed the reliefs of Trajan’s Column. The figures 
are energetic, the heads characteristic, the positions good, and by ingenious 
motivos the monotony of military arrangement is avoided; so that the 
work, in spite of many faults in the treatment of the nude figure and of the 
draperies, has a high value. To it belongs the fragment in pl. 14, fig. 8, 
where Trajan is seen receiving the submission of a conquered king. Under 
Hadrian, in consequence of that emperor’s fondness for art, partly affected 
as it was, it took a more elevated flight. This is shown among others by 
the statues of Antinous, the emperor’s favorite, of which a great number 
were made. Astonishing is the skill with which this personage is repre- 
sented by the artists in the various characters of man, hero, and god, while 
preserving and expressing his individuality in all of them. One of the 
finest statues of Antinous is that of Belvedere (pl. 6, jig. 1). 
During the long reign of the Antonines, when the repose which Rome 
enjoyed failed to restore her former vigor, and when oratory degenerated 
into dull insipidity embroidered with bombastic phrases, the arts also 
assumed a jejune and insipid character in keeping with the general taste. 
Accordingly we here find busts of the emperors, in which the hair and 
beard luxuriating in excessive abundance, are executed with anxious care, 
while the expression given to the countenance is trivial in the extreme. 
The art of gem-engraving also shows a state of decline, and the coins both 
in invention and execution are of inferior merit. 
The unquiet times of Commodus, and of Septimius Severus and his 
family, did not suffer the arts to rise, but caused them to hasten still more 
rapidly to their fall. The best works of those times are still the imperial 
busts, although here too taste seems trampled under foot. Perukes upon 
the head and draperies of parti-colored stones indicate the taste in which the 
whole is treated. The empresses were often represented with scanty 
clothing as Venuses ; but the insipid portrait-like character of the counte- 
nance, to which is frequently added the head-dress of the period, plainly 
a peruke, presents for the most part a ludicrous contrast to the general 
design. Thus we find in the Museo Pio Clementino the statue of Sallustia 
Barbia Urbiana, the wife of Alexander Severus, as Venus (pl. 4, jig. 8), 
with an Amor at her side; and the statue of Julia Sowmias, the mother of 
Heliogabalus (pl. 4, jig. 9), whose head-dress is made to put on or take 
off. 
The best works of this time, which also exhibits some signs of a peculiar 
productivity, are the sarcophagi, the high reliefs on which, representing 
scenes from the legends of Demeter, Dionysus, and the heroic mythology, 
so modity the subjects as to express in many ways the hope of a life 
beyond the grave. The fable of Eros and Psyche is likewise often employ- 
ed for this purpose; and the cleverly composed groups of the two lovers, 
one of which we have given in pil. 5, fig. 7, cannot be assigned to a date 
411 
