Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus by Lindsay Powell Page A

piece. The artist has created a bust of Agrippa as an idealized figure – the eyebrows are narrow and arch upwards, but there is no double chin or dimples in the cheeks and the hair line at the front is a neat fringe. The eyes, which would have been enamelled, are now missing, but even without them, the face portrays an individual who is confidant and commanding.
    The Museo Gregorian Profgano in Vatican City has a togate statue (inv. 9951) from the theatre at Caere in southern Etruria which stands 2m tall. The head, measuring 25cm high, is carved of quality Greek marble. Though identified as Agrippa it looks more like busts of Tiberius Caesar (from the side) or Drusus the Elder (from the front), yet the shape of the face, wide downward curving eyebrows and furrowed brow displayed on this statue are characteristics of the Agrippa from Capri in the British Museum (inv. 1881).
    The bust ( plate 1 ) in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin (inv. 1858), was found in the pritaneion or executive building of Magnesia al Meandro, a town near Ephesus in Asia Minor. Carved of white marble, the fine bust, which extends to the base of the neck, is 44cm high and in very good condition, allowing for scuffing on the tip of the nose. The eyes and head turn slightly to the left. Two furrows score the brow and the hair parts above the bust’s left eye. The sculptor has produced a portrait of a man calmly looking into the distance.
    Excavations in the theatre (or odeon) at Colonia Augusta Buthrotum (Butrint) produced larger-than-life size early Imperial statues of Augustus, Livia and Agrippa. The bust, now in the Archaeological Museum in Tirana, Albania (inv. 583), shows a youthful Agrippa – there is no double chin and the furrows on the brow are light – which is quite different from the other specimens. There is the look of an analytical mind in this face. Carved of white marble, the head is in a good state of preservation, allowing for surface contamination. It measures 36cm from the top of the head to the base of the neck.
    Also from Butrint, and on display at the onsite archaeological museum, is a weather damaged bust. It was found in the so-called Tower of Inscriptions. The style of this sculpture is similar to the one from Ancona or in the Palazzo Spada (inv. 234). The bust shows signs of weathering with discolouration on the left side, the nose of this specimen has broken off and there is a chip in one of the ear lobes.
    The Six Collection in Amsterdam has a marble bust which came originally from Rome. Measuring 32cm high, the white marble bust has stylistic similarities to the one from Butrint now in Tirana (inv. 583).
    Several busts were recarved in antiquity to transform the original subject into another person. One of these ( plate 24 ) is the colossal, heroic and muscular statue of Agrippa from the Grimani Collection in the Archaeological Museum in Venice (inv. 11). The lower portion of the 3.17m high nude statue has been assembled from fragments, including the pedestal, feet, legs, thighs as well as the right arm. The face shows distinct signs of having been abraded to alter the brow and eyebrows. It may have originally had the head of M. Antonius based on its resemblance to a bust of him in Narbonne.
    The most comprehensive recent analysis of sculptures of our subject is by Ilaria Romeo (Rome 1998). She identifies three distinct and successive ‘types’, which she argues correspond to a ‘phase’ in Agrippa’s career. The first emerges as the man as military commander transitions to becoming associate of Augustus and a member of the gens Iulia . The busts found at Vibo Valentia and Gabii ( Ibid ,pp. 47–55) she proposes date to this period. They are characterized by youthful, somewhat idealized features – thick tousled hair and heavy eyebrows. At the height of his career he appears as a mature individual with a fuller face, an increasingly furrowed brow, crows’ feet around the eyes and the beginnings of a double chin, and