Description

On BR I:2 (pls. 4–6, 14) Augustus is enthroned slightly right of center, surrounded by an entourage of seven lictors (see p. 215 n. 16 for damage after 1899). The lictors have axes in their fasces and wear tunics and paludamenta, not the toga. The figure of Augustus is nearly identical to that on the other side of the cup: enthroned, togate, facing three-quarters left, right arm bent and stretched slightly out, left arm flexed at the side with a rotulus in the left hand. The difference is that the emperor, slightly more in "narrative profile," now sits on a sella castrensis (hinged, flat-topped camp stool with fringed seat cover) on a low, two-stepped dais, here signifying a military tribunal. Behind the emperor at the far right are two soldiers, his guard. The outer one, in high relief, stands at ease in dress armor (Praetorian?)^[1] and crested helmet; the other steps into the background, seen from behind,^[2] a simple soldier in tunic and plain helmet with a trumpet(?) under his left arm.^[3]

The left field is taken up by a party of foreigners to whom Augustus' gesture of greeting is directed (now missing). This party consists of three bearded adults with infant children, a youth, and an unaccompanied adult. The adult males have long beards that are trimmed to a point, curling hair growing down over the neck, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and domed skulls. Their costume consists of a long-sleeved tunic belted tight about the waist, hemmed with a tufted fringe; tight leggings; tight-fitting ankle-high boots or shoes; over all, a fringed mantle falling to mid-thigh, fastened at the right shoulder by a roundheaded pin. The children wear a modified version of this costume: a briefer tunic (also belted) that just covers the top of the buttocks, similar shoes, and (the foremost child) a cloak: it is not clear whether they wear leggings or are bare-legged.

The individual figures of this group of foreigners are as follows. At the edge of the scene, farthest back in the group, is a standing adult whose child rides on his shoulders. Next, an adult stoops forward, guiding his young son with his right hand; with his left he pulls forward the youth, an older son, by the right arm. Closest to the emperor, the leading foreigner has gone down on one knee in order to steady his baby son before him with both hands. This infant, like the one behind it, reaches out to Augustus, and turns up its face, smiling; both, like the child on its father's shoulders behind, are evidently too young to walk unaided. The last adult is represented by a face in shallow relief between the barbarian youth and the Roman officer, who stands in the middle of the barbarian party (pls. 20–22).

This party of foreigners is being presented to the emperor by a beardless officer standing among them—Drusus the Elder (now missing). His figure is fully frontal, his head turned in profile toward Augustus. He wears dress armor, a fitted cuirass of early imperial type, like that worn by Mars on the other side of the cup; he bears a sheathed sword under the left arm, the fingers of the left hand splayed round its hilt. A mantle is bunched on his left shoulder and wound from behind around his left arm. His right hand is caught down by the second barbarian infant, so that he steadies that child as it is ushered forward.