showing (centre-right) two Roman foot-soldiers . Two of the men are wearing
Montefortino-style helmets with horsehair plume,
chain mail cuirasses with shoulder reinforcement, oval shields with calfskin covers,
gladius and
pilum Early Roman art was influenced by the art of Greece and that of the neighboring
Etruscans, themselves greatly influenced by their Greek
trading partners. An Etruscan speciality was near life size tomb effigies in
terracotta, usually lying on top of a
sarcophagus lid propped up on one elbow in the pose of a diner in that period. As the expanding
Roman Republic began to conquer Greek territory, at first in Southern Italy and then the entire Hellenistic world except for the
Parthian far east, official and
patrician sculpture became largely an extension of the Hellenistic style, from which specifically Roman elements are hard to disentangle, especially as so much Greek sculpture survives only in copies of the Roman period. By the 2nd century BCE, "most of the sculptors working at Rome" were Greek, often enslaved in conquests such as that of
Corinth (146 BCE), and sculptors continued to be mostly Greeks, often slaves, whose names are very rarely recorded. Sculpting was not considered a profession by Romans — at most, it was accepted as a hobby. Vast numbers of Greek statues were imported to Rome, whether as booty or the result of extortion or commerce, and temples were often decorated with re-used Greek works. A native Italian style can be seen in the tomb monuments of prosperous middle-class Romans, which very often featured portrait busts, and
portraiture is arguably the main strength of Roman sculpture. There are no survivals from the tradition of masks of ancestors that were worn in processions at the funerals of the great families and otherwise displayed in the home, but many of the busts that survive must represent ancestral figures, perhaps from the large family tombs like the
Tomb of the Scipios or the later
mausolea outside the city. The famous "
Capitoline Brutus", a bronze head supposedly of
Lucius Junius Brutus is very variously dated, but taken as a very rare survival of Italic style under the Republic, in the preferred medium of bronze. Similarly stern and forceful heads are seen in the coins of the consuls, and in the Imperial period coins as well as busts sent around the Empire to be placed in the
basilicas of provincial cities were the main visual form of imperial propaganda; even
Londinium had a near-colossal statue of
Nero, though far smaller than the 30-metre-high
Colossus of Nero in Rome, now lost. The
Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker, a successful
freedman (–20 BC) has a
frieze that is an unusually large example of the "plebeian" style. , 315:
Hadrian lion-hunting (left) and sacrificing (right), above a section of the Constantinian frieze, showing the contrast of styles. The Romans did not generally attempt to compete with free-standing Greek works of heroic exploits from history or mythology, but from early on produced historical works in
relief, culminating in the great
Roman triumphal columns with continuous narrative reliefs winding around them, of which those commemorating
Trajan (CE 113) and
Marcus Aurelius (by 193) survive in Rome, where the ("Altar of Peace", 13 BCE) represents the official Greco-Roman style at its most classical and refined. Among other major examples are the earlier re-used reliefs on the
Arch of Constantine and the base of the
Column of Antoninus Pius (161),
Campana reliefs were cheaper
pottery versions of marble reliefs and the taste for relief was from the imperial period expanded to the sarcophagus. All forms of luxury small sculpture continued to be patronized, and quality could be extremely high, as in the silver
Warren Cup, glass
Lycurgus Cup, and large cameos like the
Gemma Augustea,
Gonzaga Cameo and the "
Great Cameo of France". For a much wider section of the population, moulded relief decoration of
pottery vessels and small figurines were produced in great quantity and often considerable quality. After moving through a late 2nd century "baroque" phase, in the 3rd century, Roman art largely abandoned, or simply became unable to produce, sculpture in the classical tradition, a change whose causes remain much discussed. Even the most important imperial monuments now showed stumpy, large-eyed figures in a harsh frontal style, in simple compositions emphasizing power at the expense of grace. The contrast is famously illustrated in the
Arch of Constantine of 315 in Rome, which combines sections in the new style with
roundels in the earlier full Greco-Roman style taken from elsewhere, and the
Four Tetrarchs () from the new capital of
Constantinople, now in
Venice.
Ernst Kitzinger found in both monuments the same "stubby proportions, angular movements, an ordering of parts through symmetry and repetition and a rendering of features and drapery folds through incisions rather than modelling... The hallmark of the style wherever it appears consists of an emphatic hardness, heaviness and angularity — in short, an almost complete rejection of the classical tradition". This revolution in style shortly preceded the period in which
Christianity was adopted by the Roman state and the great majority of the people, leading to the end of large religious sculpture, with large statues now only used for emperors, as in the famous fragments of a colossal
acrolithic statue of Constantine, and the 4th or 5th century
Colossus of Barletta. However rich Christians continued to commission reliefs for sarcophagi, as in the
Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, and very small sculpture, especially in ivory, was continued by Christians, building on the style of the
consular diptych. File:Museo archeologico di Firenze, coperchio di sepolcro muliebre da Tuscania, terracotta con tracce di policromia III sec. d.c.JPG|
Etruscan sarcophagus, 3rd century BCE File:Capitoline Brutus Musei Capitolini MC1183 02.jpg|The "
Capitoline Brutus", probably late 4th to early 3rd century BC, possibly 1st century BC. File:D473-birème romaine-Liv2-ch10.png|A
Roman naval bireme depicted in a
relief from the Temple of
Fortuna Primigenia in
Praeneste (
Palestrina), which was built ; exhibited in the Pius-Clementine Museum (
Museo Pio-Clementino) in the
Vatican Museums. File:Marco Porcio Caton Major.jpg|The
Patrician Torlonia bust, believed to be of Cato the Elder. 1st century BC File:L'Arringatore.jpg|
The Orator, , an Etrusco-Roman bronze statue depicting Aule Metele (Latin: Aulus Metellus), an Etruscan man wearing a Roman
toga while engaged in
rhetoric; the statue features an inscription in the
Etruscan alphabet File:Escipión africano.JPG|Bronze bust of Roman
Isis priest, formerly identified as
Scipio Africanus, mid 1st century BC File:Togato Barberini.jpg|The so-called "
Togatus Barberini", a statue depicting a Roman senator holding portrait effigies (possibly
imagines) of deceased ancestors; marble, late 1st century BC; head (not belonging): mid 1st century BC. File:Jules cesar.jpg|
Arles bust, marble bust found in the
Rhone River near
Arles, File:Relief with Menander and New Comedy Masks - Princeton Art Museum.jpg|Roman,
Republican or
Early Imperial,
Relief of a seated poet (Menander) with masks of New Comedy, 1st century BC – early 1st century AD,
Princeton University Art Museum File:Statue-Augustus.jpg|
Augustus of Prima Porta, statue of the emperor
Augustus, 1st century CE.
Vatican Museums File:Great Cameo of France CdM Paris Bab264 white background.jpg|The
cameo gem known as the "
Great Cameo of France", , with an
allegory of
Augustus and his family File:Claudius Pio-Clementino Inv243.jpg|Bust of
Emperor Claudius, , (reworked from a bust of emperor
Caligula), It was found in the so-called Otricoli basilica in
Lanuvium, Italy,
Vatican Museums File:Napoli BW 2013-05-16 16-32-51 DxO.jpg|The so-called "
Venus in a
bikini", from the House of the Bikini,
Pompeii, depicts
her Greek counterpart Aphrodite as she is about to untie her
sandal, with a small
Eros squatting beneath her left arm File:Tomba dei decii, dalla via ostiense, 98-117 dc..JPG|Tomb relief of the Decii, 98–117 CE File:Pirro - Marte.jpg|Statue of
Mars from the
Forum of Nerva, early 2nd century AD, based on an
Augustan-era original that in turn used a
Hellenistic Greek model of the 4th century BC,
Capitoline Museums File:Istanbul - Museo archeol. - Tyche e Plutone - sec. II d.C. - Foto G. Dall'Orto 28-5-2006.jpg|Polychrome marble statue depicting the goddess
Tyche holding the infant
Plutus in her arms, 2nd century AD,
Istanbul Archaeological Museum File:024MAD Antinous.jpg|
Statue of Antinous (Delphi), depicting
Antinous, polychrome
Parian marble, made during the reign of
Hadrian (r. 117-138 AD) File:Greco-Roman male torso with legs to the knee, discovered on the site of the Odeon of Lyon in 1964. Marble. Lyon, Lugdunum. Photo, Jamie Mulherron.jpg|Male torso with legs to the knees, discovered on the site of the
Odeon of Lyon in 1964. Marble. Lyon,
Lugdunum File:Greco-Roman male torso discovered on the site of the Odeon of Lyon in 1964. Marble. Lyon, Lugdunum. Photo, Jamie Mulherron.jpg|Male torso discovered on the site of the
Odeon of Lyon in 1964. Marble. Lyon,
Lugdunum. File:Buste 4 Bardo National Museum.jpg|Ancient bust of
Roman emperor Lucius Verus (r. 161–169), a natural
blond who would sprinkle gold dust in his hair to make it even blonder,
Bardo National Museum, Tunis File:1699 - Archaeological Museum, Athens - A youth, possibly Commodus - Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, Nov 11 2009.jpg|Remnants of a Roman bust of a youth with a
blond beard, perhaps depicting
Roman emperor Commodus (r. 177–192),
National Archaeological Museum, Athens File:COMMODE HERCULE.jpg|
Commodus dressed as
Hercules, , in the late imperial "baroque" style File:0 Relief - Monument honoraire de Marc Aurèle - La soumission des germains (1).JPG|
Marcus Aurelius receiving the submission of vanquished foes from the
Marcomannic Wars, a relief from his now destroyed triumphal arch in Rome,
Capitoline Museums, 177-180 AD File:Roman - Private Portrait of a Man - Walters 2366.jpg|Private portrait with both individualized and unforgiving naturalism and stylized influence of portraits of the emperors
Hadrian and
Antoninus Pius in his beard and hairstyle. File:Isis - Vienna.jpg|Ancient Roman statue of
Isis, in the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; first half of the 2nd century AD, found in
Naples, Italy; made out of black and white marble. File:Table support with a Dionysiac group (AD 170-180) (3470740119).jpg|Marble table support adorned by a group including
Dionysos,
Pan and a
Satyr; Dionysos holds a
rhyton in the shape of a panther; traces of
red and
yellow colour are preserved on the hair of the figures and the branches; from an
Asia Minor workshop, 170-180 AD,
National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece File:Hércules Farnesio 01.JPG|The
Farnese Hercules, probably an enlarged copy made in the early 3rd century AD and signed by a certain Glykon, from an original by
Lysippos (or one of his circle) that would have been made in the 4th century BC; The copy was made for the
Baths of Caracalla in Rome (dedicated in 216 AD), where it was recovered in 1546 File:7137 - Piraeus Arch. Museum, Athens - Statue of Balbinus - Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, Nov 14 2009.jpg|Ancient Roman statue of emperor
Balbinus, dating from 238 AD, on display in the
Archaeological Museum of Piraeus (Athens) File:MMA bronze 03.jpg|Bronze of
Trebonianus Gallus dating from the time of his reign as Roman Emperor, the only surviving near-complete full-size 3rd-century Roman bronze (
Metropolitan Museum of Art) File:Venice – The Tetrarchs 03.jpg|
The Four Tetrarchs, , showing the new anti-classical style, in
porphyry, now
San Marco, Venice File:Pezzi bronzei di statua colossale di costantino, 330-37 ca. 01.JPG|Head and other fragments a
colossal bronze statue of Constantine I, early 4th century AD, (Rome) File:4th century portrait of a Roman matrona, Hermitage.jpg|A marble portrait bust of a Roman matron, early 4th century AD,
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg File:EAM - Bust of Menander.jpg|Bust depicting an idealized portrait of
Menander of Ephesus, 4th century AD,
Ephesus Archaeological Museum File:Multiplication Pio Christiano Inv31499.jpg|Detail of a sarcophagus depicting the Christian belief in
the multiplication of bread loaves and fish by Jesus Christ, -375 AD,
Vatican Museums File:Valens Honorius Musei Capitolini MC494.jpg|A Roman bust depicting either
Valens or
Honorius; marble, ca. 400 AD File:Consular diptych Probus 406.jpg|
Honorius on the
consular diptych of
Anicius Petronius Probus (406 AD) File:0418 Befreiung einer belagerten Stadt Bodemuseum anagoria.JPG|Boxwood
relief depicting the liberation of a be
sieged city by a relief force, with those defending the walls making a
sortie;
Western Roman Empire, early 5th century AD File:1900 - Archaeological Museum, Athens - 400-450 AD bust - Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, Nov. 11 2009.jpg|Portrait of an unknown man, found in the
Agora of Athens, dating from around 400-450 AD;
National Archaeological Museum, Athens File:Théodose II.JPG|Bust of Eastern Roman Emperor
Theodosius II (r. 408–450 AD); marble, 5th century AD File:(Toulouse) théodosienne de la villa romaine de Chiragan - Musée Saint-Raymond Ra 82.jpg |Bust of an Eastern Roman lady (
Galla Placidia?) in the
Musée Saint-Raymond de Toulouse, 5th century AD File:Philosopher-orator Louvre Ma3625.jpg|Bust of an unknown orator or philosopher from
Tartus, now in the
Louvre, 5th century AD ==Portraiture==