Hadrian and Constantine Pompous Portraits
In Roman times, portraits were an important medium of political expression and propaganda. Emperor’s statues were erected in all public places, such as theater and forums. In displaying the portraits in public sphere, aristocratic families were able to show their history of public services while glorifying their relatives. Hadrian and Constantine used portraits to represent their presence and reflect the culture of their time.
Hadrian was a poet, an eminent collector of art, an architect, builder of the Pantheon in Rome and his great palace at Tivoli. Fascinated by the Greek culture and studies, he was nicknamed ‘Graeculus.’ He spoke Greek more fluently than Latin and was also a patron of art, literature and education. As a patron of art he encouraged foreign craftsman to work in the capital. Under Hadrian Empire, “copies and adaptation of Greek masterpieces flourished as never before” (D. Strong 174). Roman sculpture had remained entwined to the classical tradition, despite the development of the realistic relief and the use of the Greek art to new Roman themes.
The Portrait of Hadrian is an example of the use of two new elements in Roman portraiture: the beard and the use of drill on the eyes. There are numerous reasons that made Hadrian adopt the beard and they are controversial.
One reason takes place during the Flavian dynasty, where the women’s portraiture hairstyle was considered in male portraiture. This reciprocity is perhaps, associated in the Hadrianic period, with the adoption of curly hair and the use of beard. Another reason was indicated at the Historia Augusta by his biographer: Hadrian let his beard grow in order to hide blemishes of his face. This fact is hardly the truth, since the authors undoubtedly were not contemporaries of the events treated throughout the book. Another example is a man called “Polemo of Laodicea in Asia Minor, a leading figure in the history of Greek physiognomic theory” (D. Strong 171). He was probably the one who induced Hadrian to acquire a beard. Indeed, it is a component to mark Hadrian’s philhellenism and to make him appear like a Greek hero.
The sculpture has an innovative trend where the artist carefully drilled the iris and pupils of the eyes. Rather than painting them, the sculptor freed it partly from the supremacy of color. Moreover, portraits of Hadrian show an outstandingly naturalist detail – a deep diagonal crease in both earlobes showing that he had a heart condition. The curves of the mouth, especially between the lips, are exceptionally mysterious and fluid. In the nose, the sculptor took a classical prototype as inspiration. In the eye, E. Strong says, “its strong projecting upper lid, is finely drawn” (252). Textures are also studied by the contrasts between the flesh and the unevenness of the hair and beard.
Hadrian left many images of himself: more than five hundred were found. Vermeule stated that “study of specific monuments shows that Hadrian was surrounded by philanthropists ever ready to ornament Greek cities in his name and theirs” (260). After Augustus, no other emperor had so many portraits of himself. Also, he devoted his attention in maintaining the peace, which is faithfully reflected at the refined sculptured monuments of Hadrianic times. However, even if his desire for peace was priority, he kept the soldiers in training just as if war were to occur. He discarded any design of expansion and he focused on fortifying Rome’s boundaries rather than enlarging them. There is probably a connection with his love of Greek culture by not having interest in expanding the frontiers.
Another emperor, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, who came to be known as Constantine the Great, was the first Christian emperor of Rome. Constantine objective was to create a new dynasty, reorganize the Empire and establish a new capital called Constantinople. In Constantinople, he provided a forum, a hippodrome, baths and pleasure-grounds. Moreover, he added schools and theatres, aqueducts, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces and a great number of mighty private houses to the grandeur of Constantinople. To match his new regime, Constantine’s portraiture presented a new iconography.
The Arch of Constantine reused many materials from earlier monuments not only for economics reasons, but also to emit reflected glory by the emperor by uniting his reign with the “good” emperor from the past. Constantine was careful to not disregard Rome and embellished the old city with many secular and Christian buildings. The full range of Constantinian portraiture evokes a significant evolution. Earlier coins portraits show him with a rough growth beard and blocky physique like the Tetrarchs, however, after becoming Augustus in A.D. 312, the Portrait of Constantine the Great, he adopted a “radically new style for his portraits” (Verner 182) and it shows him assuming his sole position, which revokes the calm and youthful faces from classical idealism of Augustus and Trajan era. Differently from Hadrian and all the emperors after him, Constantine did not use a beard in his busts.
In the gigantic head, crimped curls frame the forehead, and it depicts Constantine disinterested from the real world. D. Strong affirms “it is the most striking feature, its steady, frontal aspect animated by a straight turn of the eyes to the right as though something had just caught its stern attention.” (280) Gone are the intimacy and the impersonal expressiveness from earlier portraits. However, the eyes in Constantine’s portraits are often wider than in reality, reminding us the Tetrarchs sculptures. With his aquiline nose and jutting chin, he gazes to “heaven” with his eyes in a clear symbolic expression that sets the representation for the iconography of early Christian and Byzantine art. The emperor is viewed as God’s regent on earth.
Roman portraits are essentially unique because of the quantity of ever-evolving styles and consequently their representations. Both emperors used portraits to mark Roman authority, political propaganda and reflect their culture. Some images were idealized, while others were realistic. Also, some sculptures were recarved and recycled for contextual purposes. Hadrian and Constantine used their images with excellence to convey their intentions and mirror the society of their time.
Strong, Donald. Roman Art. Yale: Yale University Press, 1995.
---. Roman Imperial Sculpture: An Introduction to the Commemorative and decorative Sculpture of the Roman Empire. London: Alec Tiranti, 1961.
Strong, Eugene. Roman Sculpture: From Augustus to Constantine. New York:
Varner, Eric. From Caligula to Constantine: Tyranny & Transformation in Roman Portraiture. Atlanta: Michael C Carlos Museum, 2001.
Vermeule, Cornelius. Roman Imperial Art in Greece and Asia Minor. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968.
