What Kind?

I have classified the BR depictions as examples of documentary panel relief. (I cannot believe that their sculptural character, in format and in handling of relief, was the silversmith's transmutation of paintings.)^[62] Such panel reliefs do not seem to have been employed on altar enclosures, and the Ara Pacis's reference preempts such commemoration on another altar enclosure. It has been suggested that they decorated an arch, specifically, the Arch of Tiberius of A.D. 16. That arch is out of the question, however, as it commemorated the deeds of Germanicus for Tiberius, not of Tiberius and/or Drusus for Augustus in 12–7 B.C. The only appropriate arch would be the triumphal arch on the Via Appia decreed posthumously to Drusus—but that arch should have been devoted to Drusus alone, not to Tiberius' triumph as well; Tiberius did not have a triumphal arch put up for himself until A.D. 16, and that celebrated his and Germanicus victories. Perhaps any arch should be ruled out; architectural literature assumes that narrative reliefs were not employed on arches in the capital until well after the early Julio-Claudian period. This is especially true for passage reliefs, the only arch format suitable to our long panels.^[63] However, the heavily decorated early Julio-Claudian arches of Gaul show that panel compositions of some kind were being formulated in the capital, even if one cannot think where to place them. This is now proved by the base of the cenotaph of Gaius at Limyra of ca. A.D. 4,^[64] decorated on all four faces with documentary panel reliefs planned and carried out by a team from the capital.^[65] These were similar in proportion, in the use of documentary mode, and in style (crowded panel, Neo-Attic figure style "Romanized") to the BR documentary panels and show that the court workshops were adept at such scenes in addition to the processions and mythological tableaux of the Ara Pacis.^[66]

One might think that the reliefs decorated a building, such as a temple

or imperial forum . Although the idea of a temple is appealing, I know no evidence for temple cellae in Rome decorated with narrative panel reliefs. Also, the only suitable temples would be the Tiberian reconstructions of the temples of Concord and of the Dioscuri in the Forum, which were carried out after Tiberius returned from exile, a bit late for the link to the Ara Pacis. The Fora of Trajan and Domitian were decorated or were meant to be decorated with narrative reliefs (the Cancelleria relief friezes, the Great Trajanic frieze, the Louvre extispicium, and others); perhaps the Fora of Augustus and Caesar were decorated also with documentary reliefs.

The best solution, to my mind, is the quadratic base of a monument, such as an honorific column bearing a portrait of Augustus, who takes prime "theological" place in the BR assemblage. Honorific column portraits were a common type by Augustus' day and remained so for the emperors. The earliest surviving example, the Monument of Aemilius Paullus at Delphi, had a subsidiary base supporting the statue proper ornamented by a documentary battle frieze; after this there is a hiatus in the record^[67] until the columns of Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, all of whose bases were decorated with relief. We do not know what the base of such an Augustan monumental column would have looked like, but it is perfectly reasonable to suspect that it would have been large enough to take four panel reliefs and that it would have been decorated with documentary and allegorical panels, just like the columns of Antoninus Pius^[68] and Marcus Aurelius (fig. 121).^[69] For the Augustan period one can adduce the structure of Gaius' cenotaph, whose massive quadratic base was decorated with documentary panel reliefs and carried a tower to display (undoubtedly) a statue of the dead general;^[70] this example of the authentic "court art" tradition now validates the romanitas of the early Julio-Claudian Monument of the Julii at Glanum/St. Remy with its great base covered with narrative reliefs.^[71] It is also the case that remains of Republican art show a distinct predilection for monument bases decorated with relief on all four sides, though we do not know whether statues or columns supporting statues stood on any given base; at least one, the so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, had, like the BR set, three reliefs of one kind (here mythical) framing a commemorative panel (fig. 27) in another genre (documentary).^[72] A column monument would provide good Augustan precedent for the column bases of the second century A.D.; a quadratic base for any large commemorative sculpture is not only historically plausible but also the best thing I can think of for a monument

needing four reliefs of equal dimensions. The only other option, the heightened attic of a quadrifrons arch (e.g., the attic panels of Severus' Arch at Leptis Magna), does not seem possible for the Augustan period.^[73]

If this theory of a monumental basis were to be taken farther, I would suggest as a possible location the Forum of Caesar (plan 122), which was still being built and decorated in Augustus' reign. It is the case that the next two emperors had comparable monuments erected in the Forum Julium—here Tiberius had his seated portrait dedication with the personified cities of Asia Minor (figs. 47, 62), and Caligula put the posthumous cult statue of his beloved sister Drusilla (see Platner-Ashby, s.v. "Forum Iulium"). The Forum of Caesar, conqueror of Gaul and victor against the Germans, would be appropriate for historical as well as dynastic reasons for a monument honoring Tiberius' triumph of 8/7 B.C. Tiberius must certainly have received a statue-bearing monument of some kind for this triumph; as he does not seem to have been awarded an arch (which was still conceptually a magnificent statue base), then an honorific column portrait is extremely plausible. I think here especially of that decreed Octavian in 36 B.C.^[74] This monument was supposed to show him as he was when he entered the city, that is, standing or (like the monument of Aemilius Paullus) riding in "real" costume, in contrast to the naked, heroized type of his later columna rostrata; a monument to Tiberius on the same lines would fit well the curious mode of his triumph and its depiction on BR II:2, which simultaneously compares him to Augustus and "depresses" him by excessive verisimilitude (the servus publicus ). Another possibility is to imagine the BR reliefs decorating the base of a quadriga or trophy group of some kind, but I find the column-monument hypothesis more appealing.

A triumphal monument base for Tiberius would not only suit the number and dimensions of the BR panels; it would also fit the inclusion of Drusus and exaltation of Augustus in the cycle of panels, given the circumstances of Tiberius' triumph and the posthumous triumphal honors awarded Drusus by Augustus and executed by Tiberius. It would be prominent enough to inspire the later reproduction and imitation traced in chapters 5 and 7. Would Augustus or Tiberius have been the main focus of the statuary on such a base? Augustus is perhaps more likely, given the way in which he took center stage in the commemoration of his sons' and stepsons' exploits in other recorded contexts,^[75] as indeed he does in the BR program. This would also suit the fact that these reliefs were so much imitated, far better than a monument that would seem in later years

primarily Tiberian. In the context of the Augustan "succession," though, the BR prototype documents, as no other surviving work of art, Augustus' affection for and confidence in the Claudii Nerones, Tiberius and Drusus. The cups themselves, reproducing in the lifetime of Augustus this monumental relief assemblage, illustrate the strength of Augustan propaganda centered on his stepsons and testify to the real success that the grieving Augustus and Tiberius had in keeping alive the memory of Drusus' exploits.