Mars

Although the BR Mars (pl. 18) cannot be matched to Augustan monuments and works of art in the same specific way as the depiction of Venus, it does conform to a Julio-Claudian figure type extant both in freestanding sculpture and in relief. An early imperial torso in Copenhagen (fig. 14)^[88] and the sacrificing officer/Romulus on a base from Falerii (Cività Castellana) of the late first century B.C. (figs. 29–30)^[89] have the same cuirass

and display the same stance, the swinging stride with its marked displacement of the hips. The Copenhagen torso reproduces somewhat the disposition of the drapery folds about Mars' thighs; thus the sculptural quality and sophistication of the BR figure are no accident but reflect direct familiarity with a known monumental type, some Neo-Attic statue produced in the same artistic climate as the BR Venus type. The more complete (if esthetically inferior) Cività Castellana figure gives the BR pose in full, down to the positioning of the lance; it is at the same level of artistic dependence as the BR figure, deriving equally but separately from the freestanding Roman prototype and adapted to relief.

This prototype figure evidently combined a strong evocation of Late Classical style—Greek—with specific Italic overtones in the god's attributes: the BR and Cività Castellana figures together show that the winged helmet was part of the prototype (the Copenhagen torso is headless), and this winged helmet is an Italian type. A fourth-century Oscan helmet demonstrates that it was worn in Italy in the period of the early Republic; it crops up thereafter in southern Italian vases, on a Sullan metope fragment from Orvinio, on the Mars of the Altar of the Twelve Gods at Pompeii, and is used, significantly, for some images of Roma on Republican coinage.^[90] If we grant that the prototype figure was a Mars commissioned in the late Republic, we then have an interesting example of the deliberate superimposition of Roman religious iconography on Greek forms.^[91]

There were two Mars types in Augustan cult, the youthful god, unbearded as here, and the mature bearded type that was to be used in 2 B.C. for the cult statue of Mars Ultor in Augustus' Forum, as also for Mars on the Ara Pacis and on the Sorrento base (holding a Parthian [?] standard) (fig. 15b).^[92] If the BR Mars depended on a Mars Ultor type established for ad hoc use before the definitive cult statue, it might still have overtones of Mars Ultor—but if this is so, then the artist has taken no pains to make it very clear. Augustus' Mars Ultor was associated with one particular foreign conquest above all; besides being linked to vengeance against Caesar's assassins, he was associated with the "submission" of Parthia, as the return of Crassus' standards in 19 B.C. was styled by Augustan propaganda, and thus with the redress of wrongs done to Rome by outsiders. The BR Mars certainly is connected with the domination of foreign peoples, but there is no personification answering to Parthia in the BR group. The BR Mars certainly embodies the military might that holds the Empire together and assures Roman superiority, but he is a guardian and not a conqueror in action, in keeping with the mood of the central group;

for the group of personifications represents peoples already firmly incorporated in the Empire, rather than captive peoples who have just been beaten.

As with Venus, strong personal and dynastic associations are implicit in Mars' presence. As armed guardian and special patron of the people and their urbs, he balances Roma and the Genius on the other side of the scene; the traditional gods and symbols of the state thus attend on Augustus' personal supremacy. (Note that the same four divinities figure in the Ara Pacis panels; see fig. 71.) The armed Mars and Roma form a protective bulwark within which the riches of the Roman people can overflow as the unarmed goddess of love consecrates the rule of the togate emperor. In the structure of the composition, it is Venus to whom Mars answers, not just as her mythical consort and fellow parent to Rome, but literally as her mirror image: his placement, motion, and pose mirror hers, as the inward-leaning diagonal of his lance meets the rising diagonal set up by the lines of Venus' figure, to frame and exalt the pyramidal figure elevated between them. A similar framing composition occurs on the Augustan (or early Tiberian) Sorrento base (fig. 15b): Romulus sits before Augustus' Palatine house facade under Augustus' corona civica, facing (three-quarters right) his parent Mars, framed in the diagonal of the standard elevated by Mars to touch the crown; the Venus to be restored opposite will have lifted something also to make a symmetrical group.^[93] The most striking compositional aspect of the central BR triad is that Mars and Venus are both clearly subordinate in height to Augustus on his throne. Augustus would be no taller standing on their level, yet as he is enthroned, his head is over both of theirs, irresistibly evoking the image of Jupiter, who sits enthroned above the other gods. The next chapter must account for this image.