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Is Beauty Divine?
A Reassessment of the Portraiture of Sabina

Author(s): Eve D’Ambra
Source: Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome , 2020, Vol. 65 (2020), pp. 132-171
Published by: University of Michigan Press for the American Academy in Rome
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/27031297
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Memoirs of the
American Academy
Is Beauty Divine?
in Rome
2020 · Volume 65
A Reassessment of the
Portraiture of Sabina
Eve D’Ambra, Vassar College
Abstract
The article focuses on the portraiture of Sabina, wife of the emperor Hadrian,
and its role in the development of the Roman female imperial portrait in the
high empire (117–138 CE). Recent advances in the study of female portraiture
and provincial coinage offer new evidence that revise standard accounts
and adjust the chronology. A more representative study is offered through a
consideration of two of her portrait types and their relationship to imagery on
coins, as well as to portraits of Roman women, and statuary that honors both
empresses and women of lower social ranks with the attributes of goddesses.
In particular, Sabina’s principal portrait type differs in adornment (hairstyle)
from that of Roman women, which was not the norm. Hadrian’s Hellenic
revival, the persistence of ideal or generic features in portraits, and the proto-
cols of grooming and styling of hair are considered in the discussion of Sabi-
na’s distinct looks.
132 Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 2020 · v.65

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Distinctive and easily recognizable, the marble heads of Sabina, wife of
Hadrian, capture an image of a stately and comely matron (figs. 1–3). The wide-
set eyes, the sharp nose, fuller lower face, and delicate mouth characterize
Figure 1 (left) her portraits, creating a resemblance among a series of portrait heads and,
Portrait bust of Sabina. Rome,
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, inv. possibly, with Sabina herself. The symmetry of the face and smooth surface
1222 (photo by Franc Palaia. Su
concessione del Ministero per i
of the complexion heighten the effects of beauty, along with the hair, simply
beni e le attività culturali e per arranged off the face in a loose twist above.1 Sabina’s portraits are remarkably
il turismo—Museo Nazionale
Romano). consistent in creating a sense of a recognizable likeness. Only the hairstyles
and adornment vary. Hairstyles, though, linked the women of the emperor’s
Figure 2 (center)
Portrait bust of Sabina. Rome, household with the women of Rome, who often appear so similar that it is
Vatican Museums, Sala de’ difficult to tell them apart.2 The hair twisted aloft, Sabina’s signature hairstyle,
Busti, inv. 359 (photo © Vatican
Museums). however, was not emulated by her peers or subjects, nor did all but one of the
Figure 3 (right)
other hairstyles of her portraits follow the current fashions in lockstep. This
Portrait bust of Sabina. Rome, distinguishes the portraiture of Sabina in the early second century CE from
Capitoline Museums, inv. 338.
Roma, Musei Capitolini (photo: that of Roman matrons, whose portraits displayed more complex, tiered coif-
Archivio Fotografico dei Musei fures. Even in a portrait type that displays elements of this fashion coiffure,
Capitolini; © Roma, Sovrin-
tendenza Capitolina ai Beni Sabina’s version appears more restrained and less flamboyant than those of
Culturali).
1 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 10–12, no. 10, pl. 12; Reggiani 2004, 112 (M. Mattei). Wegner 1956, 129, pls. 44, 46;
La Rocca et al. 2012, 271, no. I.18 (L. Buccino); Rome, Vatican Museums, Sala de’ Busti 359, from the Villa of
Antoninus Pius in Lanuvium; Wegner 1956, 129, pls. 44, 46, Rome, Palazzo Massimo, no. 1222; from the Via
Appia; Adembri and Nicolai 2007, 140 (C. Marino) with some loose flesh under chin as the only sign of age.
2 Fejfer 2008, 331, 344, 353–57.

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Figure 4 (left)
Portrait statue of Sabina: detail.
Vaison-la-Romaine, Musée
Archéologique, inv. 301 (photo:
Carole Raddato Collection,
American Academy in Rome,
Photographic Archive).
Figure 5 (right)
Portrait of Marciana. Metro-
politan Museum of Art, Rogers
Fund 1920, no. 20.200 (photo:
https://www.metmuseum.org/
art/collection/search/250953;
public domain).
her mother, the Elder Matidia, and her grandmother, Marciana (the niece and
sister of Trajan, respectively), as well as those of other, anonymous women
(figs. 4, 5).3 Sabina’s imagery stands apart. It did not clearly follow prece-
dents set by previous imperial women nor did it attract followers among the
women of Rome.
The quantity of Sabina’s extant portraits exceeds those of the Trajanic
imperial women. Four (possibly five) portrait types have been classified by
their distinct manner of dressing the hair.4 Besides the signature style of the
principal type (figs. 1–3) and the modified tiered coiffure mentioned above
(fig. 4), the other types feature locks in a center part clasped behind in a
knot (in the manner of Livia), and a style recalling her predecessor Plotina’s
3 Wegner (1956, 130–31, pls. 41–2) and Fittschen and Zanker (1983, 12 n. 5d) on the Vaison type; Fittschen
(1996, 42) on “the two-part arrangement of the toupet” in the portraits of Marciana and Matidia, as well as
in private portraits, being reduced to one in Sabina’s portrait; see also Zanker (2016, 210–12, no. 78) for the
portrait of Marciana, dated 117–138 CE, of a similar type as the Hadrianic examples; Metropolitan Museum
of Art, Rogers Fund 1920 (20.200).
4 Wegner 1956, 84–91, pls. 41–42, 44–48; Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 10–12.

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fan-shaped dome of hair over the brow.5 The latter raises questions: the
so-called neo-Plotina portrait type appears in only one poorly preserved
head, although it is widely represented in coins in Rome and the provinces.6
Coins, of course, provide documentation for portrait types with their legends
offering names and titles. Yet, even after allowing for differences in media,
function, audience, and geographic distribution, why this discrepancy in the
imagery of Sabina? Statuary and portraits underscored the role of the emper-
or’s wife in maintaining stability in matters of succession, which more usually
focused on motherhood.7 The message of continuity between reigns suggested
by linking Sabina with Plotina seems to have been better-suited for the small
format of coins, if we can judge by the extant evidence.8
Analysis of Sabina’s portraits is complicated by the body of evidence, with
a range of imagery both adhering to and varying from the official portrait
types across the empire. She was the first empress represented in a “sustained,
regular production” of coins in the mint of Rome in her lifetime and posthu-
mously.9 Yet, the coins have proven difficult to date and are thought to have
been produced in the last decade of Hadrian’s reign from 128–138.10 Without
external evidence for dating sculptural portraits, criteria have been sought in
technical aspects, such as the use of the drill that began to more fully flour-
ish in the early–middle period of the second century CE. Art historians have
also attempted to align portrait production to imperial initiatives, such as
Hadrian’s travels throughout the empire that would have spurred local elites
to commission statues in honor of the emperor’s visit to their cities.11 Others
examined style and form to organize the heads in chronological order from
5 La Rocca and Parisi Presicce 2017, 314–19, cat. no. 7 (L. Buccino) on the Plotina type; Fittschen and Zanker
(1983, 10, no. 9, and 12, no. 10, n. 9); Fittschen (2004, 112 n. 5) on the Livia type; a fifth type features a coiffure
with a knot of hair forming a diadem, see Fittschen 1996, 50 n. 12.
6 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 10, no. 9, n. 2; Salzmann 1989, 363–64, figs. 58, 11; Adembri and Nicolai 2007,
77–79; Nicolai 2007, 94–95; Söldner 2010, 225–26, fig. 76.
7 Alexandridis 2004, 57–63; Fejfer 2008, 341.
8 Heckster (2003) on messages aimed to different audiences on coins of varying denominations.
9 Abdy 2014, 74; I use the term “empress” for ease of expression, although it did not exist in Rome.
10 BMCRE 3, xlix; Fittschen and Zanker, 1983, 11 n. 1; Abdy 2014, 74–77.
11 Carandini 1969, 151, 224.

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the highly constructed tiered fashion coiffure to the more elegant and sleek
effects of the principal style (figs. 1–3).12
The evolution from complex to streamlined adornment sought to attri-
bute the dominant portrait type to a wider cultural shift, Hadrian’s cosmopol-
itanism and his Hellenic revival. In particular, the retrospective intellectual
movement of the Second Sophistic with its rhetorical performances in archa-
icizing Greek brought the past alive by playing to the tastes of the second
century CE.13 From the breezy characterizations of textbooks and exhibition
catalogues to weighty scholarly monographs, Sabina’s sculptural portraits are
often considered classicizing in style.14 Furthermore, Sabina’s looks, whether
the idealized cast of the face or the upswept locks, have been likened to those
of a goddess.15 Though the physiognomy of the emperors’ female relatives
tends to be less individualized since their roles depended on dynastic rela-
tions (represented by family resemblance), and personal identity was subor-
dinated to collective values or moralizing virtues promoted by regimes.16 The
often bland or generic facial features of empresses that expressed an idealiz-
ing beauty served to make them resemble goddesses more than mere mortals.
It remains to be seen whether the idealization of Sabina’s images is different in
degree or quality from those of preceding imperial women. Although imperial
women frequently assumed divine attributes, they had not been so narrowly
nor consistently tied to a particular program, such as Hadrian’s Philhellenism
(with the exception of Livia and Augustus).17 Were the allusions to the Hellenic
past more emphatic or highbrow under Hadrian’s cultural revival?
Sabina’s portraiture deserves further scrutiny precisely because of its
pivotal role in the development of the iconography of the empress. Her images
also deviate from the tendency for the imperial women to follow the modes of
adornment of women beyond the imperial court. This article looks to recent
advances in the study of portraiture and the provincial coinage to reconsider
12 Carandini 1969, 173–74, 224 n. 37, fig. 172.

13 Cordovana and Galli 2007, with preceding literature.
14 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 13, no. 12; Reggiani 2004, 112 (M. Mattei); La Rocca et al. 2011, 402 (L. Buccino); La
Rocca et al. 2012, 271 (L. Buccino), among others.
15 For example, Carandini 1969, 94–99, 180–81, figs. 206–7; Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 13, no. 12; Kleiner (1992,
241–42); Adembri and Nicolai 2007, 120 (P. Germoni); Söldner 2010, 226; among others.
16 Fejfer 2008, 341; D’Ambra 2013, 522–23; La Rocca and Parisi Presicce 2017, 318, cat. no. 7 (L. Buccino).
17 Matheson 1996; Alexandridis 2004, 106–8, 115–37, nos. 1–51; for Livia, see Bartman 1998.

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Sabina’s portraits. More recently, provincial coins that can be firmly dated
have been consulted for their adornment, hairstyles, to compare to sculptural
heads.18 The coin series of both the east and the west, however, suggest that
several different portrait types were current at the same time. Other schol-
ars have observed that divergent images of Sabina may have been produced
at once, rather than emerging successively in a chronological sequence, as
documented by some coins from the eastern provinces.19 This article seeks to
offer a revised, richer, and more representative account of aspects of Sabi-
na’s portraiture through a preliminary study of two of her portrait types and
their relationship to representation on coins. This study proceeds through
visual analysis of portraits, not only crossing media but also crossing genres,
such as mythological (or theomorphic) portraits commissioned by patrons
of lower social ranks. A range of images beyond the empress’ portraits from
private portraits that track the distinctions between Sabina and her peers,
and between mortals and goddesses, offers perspective on the representa-
tion of Sabina in particular and imperial women in general. Public images of
empresses who, by definition, lacked political offices and who tended to play
supporting roles in civic life were not well-defined nor distinct from the repre-
sentations of Roman women.20 Did Sabina’s portraits disrupt this pattern?
The Vaison Portrait Type: Sculpture and Coins
An important work is a statue in Vaison (figs. 4, 6), for which a portrait type
is named. The statue’s body presents a variant on the type of the so-called
personification of Pudicitia (feminine modesty), which was paired with a
nude heroic statue of Hadrian.21 The pair was erected in the theater at Vaison
to commemorate, perhaps, Hadrian’s trip to southern France in 121 or 122.22
The Vaison portrait statue is important because its identification and context
18 Abdy (2014, 74–75) on the evidence of the provincial coins “overlooked” by Mattingly and Strack; Amandry
and Burnett (2015, 3.2, 848–50) now make the provincial coinage of the eastern empire accessible.
19 BMCRE 3:cxlix, clxxxiv; Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 11; Salzmann 1989, 364.
20 Supra n. 2.
21 Evers 1994, 194–95, no. 144 (Vaison-la-Romaine, Musée municipal).
22 Wegner (1956, 130–31, pls. 41–42) dated it to 121 in association with Hadrian’s travels in the west to Gaul and
the coiffure’s similarity to those of Marciana and Matidia; Carandini (1969, 295, tav. 1; 322–23, tav. 25–26)
dated it to 122 CE; Fittschen (1996, 42) on the possibility that the Vaison type “was created on the occasion
of her husband’s accession to the throne in 117.”

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Figure 6
Statue of Sabina as Pudicitia.
Vaison-la-Romaine, Musée
Archéologique, inv. 301 (photo:
Carole Raddato Collection,
American Academy in Rome,
Photographic Archive).

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are uncontested. Although its date is disputed (see below), it is considered
to have been an early portrait type. Thus the Vaison statue may provide a
starting point for Sabina’s portraiture with this type known from at least eight
replicas.23
The facial features represented in this head remain standard throughout
Sabina’s sculptural portraits: an oval face with smooth cheeks, an angular (or
aquiline) nose, a small mouth with shapely lips, and full chin (fig. 4). Sabina
appears a youthful but mature matron as fit her role as the emperor’s wife.
She married Hadrian in 100 CE in her mid-teens, so was in her early thirties
when he became emperor in 117 Ce. Few facts emerge from the ancient writ-
ten sources about her life: her birth and death dates, and the year in which
she received her signal honor, the title of Augusta, are not known.24 Of notable
birth through her mother, Trajan’s niece, the Elder Matidia (Salonia Matidia),
Sabina grew up in an atmosphere of wealth and privilege.25 She may have
moved into the Palatine palace with her grandmother, mother, and sister in
97 before her marriage, and later owned a townhouse with gardens on the
Esquiline in Rome, possibly adjacent to her mother’s home.26 As befitting her
public role, she involved herself in benefactions, such as an alimentary fund
in Velleia, as well as a donation to the matronae of Rome.27 Brickstamps suggest
that Sabina also had interests in this industry on the outskirts of Rome, which
was not at all unusual for elite women with property.28 Yet, the late imperial
historians pass over her unremarkable but worthy extracurricular activities to
23 Fittschen and Zanker (1983, 12 n. 5d) on the Vaison type and the group of replicas in Vaison, Copenhagen,
Malmo, Seville, and Zurich (private collection); add a sixth to this, the head in the Metropolitan Museum
on loan from the Dubroff Collection (Fittschen 1996, 45, fig. 5); a seventh replica is the head in Florence in
the Antiquarium of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, and an eighth said to be documented in the Bardini photo
archives (La Rocca et al. 2011, 400, cat. 6.15 [L. Buccino]).
24 Brennan (2018, 27–29) on the paucity of sources; various dates have been posited for the granting of the
title, Augusta, to Sabina, including 119, 123, and 128 CE, with the latter being the most widely accepted,
although there is evidence for the earlier dates as well; infra n. 38.
25 Boatwright (1991, 516–17) on Sabina’s family with preceding literature: her father may have been L. Vibius
Sabinus, a senator perhaps from Assisi, thus Vibia Sabina; Matidia’s father was C. Salonius Matidius Patrui-
nus, thus Salonia Matidia, Sabina’s mother; see also Chausson 2007.
26 Boatwright 1991, 523–24; Wood 2015.
27 Boatwright 1991, 522–23.
28 Brennan 2018, 150.

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label her as harsh and bitter in highly charged accounts of her character.29 This
has resonated across the centuries.
The Vaison portrait’s hairstyle is a variant of the “crest and nest” coiffure
worn by Roman matrons.30 The early portrait thus confirms expectations that
the images of imperial women, including Marciana and the Elder Matidia,
resemble those of women beyond the court. Although varied in effects, the
coiffures all feature height over the forehead in the form of a crest with the
massing of a nest of braids in the back. With a lower and simplified crest than
those of her mother and grandmother, Sabina’s hairstyle features a narrow
band atop the forehead carved in parallel lines slightly “s”-shaped for a gentle
undulation; the second, taller section is marked by a similar network of wavy
striations. Both sections are interrupted in the center with “u”-shaped motif,
a web-like wedge stretched sideways like netting. As the engraved lines indi-
cate locks of hair, the crest’s vertical extension would seem to require support,
perhaps from other materials, such as false hairpieces with leather backings.
Janet Stephens, however, has recreated this style by cutting a fringe of locks
around the face and setting them in pin curls; the tube curl produced is then
held in place by a thread that presses it flat and creates a central indentation.31
Here the pressure exerted pulled the curls horizontally to create the valley in
the center. Behind it, the nest of thick braids encircles the head, and incised
lines trace the contours of individual braids composed of several entwined
strands. The nest appears oblong in section due to its manner of fabrication:
it may have been made from braids sewn together into panels that were then
fashioned into the chignon.32 In profile the nest enlarges the head’s round
shape: the coiffure’s capstone extends the circumference at the peak. In the
front extending from ear to ear, the crest anchors the nest of braids above.
Sabina’s Vaison portrait conforms to a popular style for matrons that was
worn at least in the early decades of the second century and no doubt longer.
Matrons often wore a more complex version of the coiffure with several higher
29 SHA, Hadr. 11.3.

30 Herrmann 1991; D’Ambra 2015.
31 Stephens 2012 for her forensic reconstruction of the coiffure with the fashioning of the row of tightly
wound curls, or tubular curls, framing the forehead.
32 Janet Stephens reconstructs the nest of braids, although categorizes them more broadly as second-century
tower coiffures (Stephens 2016). She uses the term tower coiffure for a wider range of styles with a cylinder
of braids atop the head (not only limited to the later Antonine style).

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tiers in front, as did the women who preceded Sabina, Marciana, and Matidia
(fig. 5). This conformity to the style of Sabina’s cohort has suggested an early
date in Hadrian’s reign for the Vaison type. In fact, some art historians and
archaeologists consider this type to merely be a continuation of the style
of the Trajanic imperial women.33 An early event that would have merited
commemoration by a new portrait type, of course, was Hadrian’s ascension to
the throne in 117.34 No extant documentation corroborates an accession type,
however.
Coins minted at Rome, as well as those in the provinces, depicted Sabina
with the tiered coiffure. Establishing the chronology of the production of the
mint in Rome has proven difficult; the only fixed date is Hadrian’s title of P P,
for Pater Patriae, granted in 128. Sabina’s signal honor was receiving the title
Augusta; since it appears on coin legends linked to Hadrian’s P P, it is also dated
to 128.35 Yet, epigraphists and numismatists have found earlier testimony of
Sabina as Augusta in the western and eastern provinces as early as 121 or 123.
Eck considered that these inscriptions reflected Sabina’s elevation in status
after her mother Matidia’s deification in 119 and then Plotina’s death.36 Yet,
others have found Sabina’s title lacking in dated inscriptions of other provin-
cial cities before 128.37 Scholarly consensus now looks to 128 as the date in pref-
erence to the evidence from metropolitan Rome, instead of the inconsistent
provincial evidence.38
Earlier generations of art historians and archaeologists, however, looked
to other events in the reign as motivations for the development of new portrait
types. Hadrian’s travels to the west in c. 121–122, to Vaison, among other cities,
provided motivation for local elites to honor the imperial couple with statu-
ary.39 That the portrait type named for this city was developed to commem-
orate Hadrian’s imperial journey is merely a hypothesis that arose from the
findspot of the statue. Another portrait type would have served, we may
33 Fittschen 1996, 42.

34 Fittschen 1996, 42; La Rocca et al. 2011, 400 (L. Buccino).
35 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 11.
36 Eck 1982, 222–28; Salzmann 1989, 363; Chausson 2007, 129, on the date of Plotina’s death in 121 or 123.
37 Nicolai 2007, 103 n. 5.
38 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 2 n. 10; La Rocca and Parisi Presicce 2017, 318, cat. no. 7 (L. Buccino) summarizes
the arguments; see also Chausson and Buonopane 2010, 95 n. 39.
39 Wegner 1956, 130–31; Carandini 1969, 151, 224.

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suppose, if current early in Hadrian’s reign. No correlations have been found
among Sabina’s other portrait types and Hadrian’s ceaseless travels.
Art historians have also examined sculptural technique that may allow for
dating. In particular, the use of the drill to articulate features, especially in the
eyes and hair, was thought to have become more prevalent about 130, if not by
the middle of the second century.40 Incised irises and drilled pupils in marble
eyes, along with drill work to distinguish curls or locks of hair, were innova-
tions of second-century sculptors. Our knowledge of workshop traditions,
working methods, and the transmission of techniques is only rudimentary.41
The replicas of the Vaison type vary in sculptural techniques: the heads in
Copenhagen, Zurich, and Florence show no drill work in the eyes, while the
others have incised irises and drilled pupils.42 The portrait in Vaison, however,
endured damaged with marble fractures both vertically and horizontally
across the face that obscured the area around the eyes.43 After restoration it
appears that the irises and pupils were not drilled.44 The differences in tech-
niques among the replicas of the Vaison type should recommend caution
about the rate of technological change in the empire, which suggests that
sculptors employed various methods in the early second century.
Coins from the mint in Rome and those in the provinces indicate that a
portrait type with a tiered hairstyle appears in Sabina’s coins at the outset of
production in 128, if not before, and continues to be struck in the 130s.45 This
seems to concur with sculptors’ range of methods that bracket the year 130.
As the tiered hairstyle of the Vaison type appears to have developed from the
preceding Trajanic coiffures, an early date in Hadrian’s reign could be argued.
The lack of external evidence for dating, though, stymies further discus-
sion. Although we cannot ascertain how early this portrait was developed,
it persisted into the 130s alongside other portraits. Rather than four (or five)
40 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 11.

41 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 11–12 n. 11.
42 La Rocca et al. 2011, 400 (L. Buccino).
43 Wegner 1956, fig. 42, a and b, for images of the damage.
44 Fittschen (Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 12 n. 11) contra Wegner’s earlier date due to the drilled pupils of the
eyes that require a date about 130 onward. The drill holes, however, are difficult to detect in published
photographs of Sabina’s Vaison portrait, which has undergone restoration since Wegner’s publication. I
have not had the opportunity to examine the head. Alexandridis (2004, 185 n. 5, cat. no. 183), however, finds
no evidence of drilling.
45 Abdy 2014, 76–77.

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successive portrait types in sequence, Sabina may very well have been repre-
sented with several portrait types that remained current at the same time.46
A closer look at the coinage provides further evidence. Although no coins
of Sabina were thought to have been minted in Rome in the first decade of
Hadrian’s reign, 117–128 CE, provincial coins were struck in her name.47 Abdy
has found an example from Gaba, Syria, representing Sabina with her hair
arranged in a tiered style. The poor specimen of a coin dates to 117–118.48 That
Augusta appears in the coin prior to 128 may suggest that Gaba used the title
unofficially in anticipation of the honor; otherwise, it is difficult to explain.49
Rather than a rapid dissemination of Sabina’s image across the empire, the
coin’s portrait may very well have resulted from the provincial’s mint supply
of die stock with portraits of the previous empress on hand. If a provincial
mint reused these for Sabina’s coins series as a matter of convenience, the
continuity among regimes that they also expressed was well-advised from
Rome’s point of view. Admittedly, this may not have been the most crucial
aspect of the messaging for Gaba as their local outlook would have taken
precedence.
Evidence from the city of Rome has emerged from recent efforts to
restudy the coins that proved difficult to date. Again, the eastern mints
provided the impetus for this discovery: an early denarius, assumed to be from
Asia Minor, has been re-identified by Abdy as a coin struck in Rome.50 Dated
to 125–128 Ce because it lacks Hadrian’s title of Pater Patriae, this denarius
46 Abdy 2014, 78–79, for a chronological chart of Mattingly’s coin groups with legends and the various
coiffures represented in each; 2014, 80–81, a chart of Abdy’s groups; Nicolai 2007, 92–93, in which the alta
and coda hairstyles appear side-by-side in coin series, until Diva Augusta imagery dominates with the head
covered by a veil in 137–138.
47 Abdy 2014, 74, on the absence of Sabina’s coinage in the first half of Hadrian’s reign, and the precedence for
this in the case of Plotina’s coinage under Trajan.
48 Abdy 2014, 76, pl. 1, 5, for the bronze coin with bust of Sabina, BM no. 1908.0110.2435; see Amandry and Bur-
nett 2015, 3.2:849, pl. 174, no. 3951, on the early use of the title Augusta, granted in 128, as an enthusiastic or
unofficial acclamation in Gaba; also Amandry and Burnett 2015, 3.1:511; 3.2:pl.85, no. 1959, for another early
coin of Sabina, possibly dated to 125–126, from Hyrcanis (near Smyrna) in Asia Minor; both portraits are
crudely represented with the hair piled up, although the poorly preserved coin from Gaba shows the back
of the head in a compressed manner with the braided nest at a downward angle (it is difficult to see the
contours of the coiffure).
49 Amandry and Burnett 2015, 3.2:849.
50 Abdy 2104, 77, pl.1, 6, for a silver denarius (BMCRE 3:374, no.1029, pl. 69.2) with legend of Sabina Augusti,
Sabina, the wife of emperor Hadrian, and Hadrianus Augustus on obverse; rather than P. P., Pater Patriae,
awarded in 128, prominent in legends.

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Figure 7
Silver tetradrachm of Alexandria.
London, British Museum, no.
1852,0903.81 (photo © The
Trustees of the British Museum).
more clearly depicts the “crest and nest” hairstyle on the reverse. Sabina’s
coin portraits were similar to those of Matidia issued early in Hadrian’s reign
to honor her and Plotina.51 Sabina coin portraits differ, however, from the
sculptural portrait, the Vaison type, with their higher crests and multiple tiers.
The coin indicates that Sabina’s early public image conformed to precedent
by adorning her in the coiffure of choice of Roman matrons. Abdy also notes
that the legend from obverse to reverse serves to introduce Sabina as “this is
Sabina [wife of] the emperor Hadrian.52 Furthermore, Abdy’s research extends
the chronology of coins that had been limited to the last decade of Hadrian’s
reign after 128 through this consideration of dated provincial coins.
Some of the better preserved coins from Alexandria, for example a silver
tetradrachm dated to 128–129, provide sharply observed details of the styling
of the hair: linear contours trace the interweaving of braids of the bun above,
and striations mark wavy locks on the simplified crest, along with spit-curls
hanging down in front of the ears in some of the coins (fig. 7).53 In some of the
coins from Bithynia and Pontus, the nest of braids appears like a petite bun
tipped back on the head like a beret, while in others, in Pergamon and Alexan-
dria, for example, it is expansive and wreaths nearly the entire top of the head.
In these, the nest is shown as a loop swinging around in semicircle to imply its
51 Abdy 2014, 75.

52 Abdy 2014, 77.
53 Amandry and Burnett 2015, 3.2:pl. 283, nos. 5773/1; 5773/2 (silver tetradrachms), and pl. 286, nos. 5804/2,
5805, 5806 (tetradrachms) for related coins; dated to the Alexandrian years 16 and 17 = 131–133 CE; Amandry
and Burnett 2015, 3.1:662–63.

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Figure 8 (left)
Bronze sestertius of Rome.
Berlin, Münzkabinett, Staat-
liche Museen zu Berlin, no.
18217891 (photo by Reinhard
Saczewski).
Figure 9 (right)
Bronze sestertius of Laodicea.
Berlin, Münzkabinett, Staat-
liche Museen zu Berlin. no.
18253496 (photo by Reinhard
Saczewski).
full extent on the small profile head in relief.54 The larger and better preserved
coins display fine work in a jewel-like filigree to indicate the complexity of the
hairstyling with stipling, beading, or dappling the surface to suggest texture of
the highly processed plaited hair.
The high level of artistry is also found in coins depicting Sabina from the
mint of the city of Rome. In fact, many of the portrait types are nearly iden-
tical across the empire: compare a sestertius from Rome (fig. 8) to one from
Laodicea possibly in 129 (fig. 9).55 Not only do the facial profiles closely resem-
ble one another, but the hairstyles correspond very closely as well, with the
crest featuring the superimposed tiers, as well as with the swinging curve of
the nest that allows for a view of the coiled braids within. Both depictions
even show a minor detail, the braids drawn up in rows from the back of the
head to the nest. Coins with this portrait type with hair coiled above conform
to sculptural portraits bearing the iconic profile of the tiered coiffure both in
Rome and the provinces. Yet this portrait is not the only type represented on
coins: the others depict Sabina with her hair gathered at the nape of the neck,
or loosely held in a queue or ponytail, which also reflect sculptural types,
54 Amandry and Burnett 2015, 3.2:pl. 38, nos. 1012, 1022; 3.1:124–25, on bronze coinage from Bithynia and Pontus
from 128–137 CE and (2015, 3.2:pl. 77, nos. 1760/1 and 1760/8) for bronze coins from Pergamon; 2015, 3.1:207,
214, from 130 CE.
55 BMCRE 3:537, no.1882, pl. 99.2. Amandry and Burnett 2015, 3.2:pl. 104, n. 2335; 3.1:288–89, may date from 129
to coincide with Hadrian’s visit to Laodicea in June of that year; Agrèppinos, strategos, was responsible for
the coin, a large-sized medallion.

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though less frequently produced and distributed.56 The portrait type with the
tiered hairstyle, although somewhat more popular, did not dominate produc-
tion as both types appeared in the same cities or the same period.57
In conventional accounts of the sculptural developments, the Vaison
type initiates the portrait sequence and then is supplanted by the principal
type, which dominates the sequence until near the end. The Vaison type
has merited consideration as the most conventional portrait of Sabina that
precedes the transition to her signature style. These accounts presupposed a
linear development in which the opulent adornment of the period hairstyle
is winnowed out to the simpler, more natural effects of the principal type. As
mentioned above, the coin series indicate that multiple portrait types were
in use at once, and that several of these types continued to be minted until
shortly before Sabina’s death in 136 or 137 Ce. There is no inherently consistent
development towards either simplification or flamboyance of adornment in
the coin portraits. In fact, the extant sculptural portraits offer a limited body
of evidence in comparison to the range and density of the production of coins
across the empire.
Provincial Coins and the Principal Portrait Type
The coin series of the provinces, however, diverge from the sculptural
portraits in another significant aspect. The tiered hairstyle recognizable from
sculptural portraits underwent a change in a limited number of coins of the
early 130s. Abdy noted this shift in Amisus in Pontus (northern Asia Minor) in
a silver didrachm of 135–136 (fig. 10).58 The hair in the front appears low across
the forehead but, more importantly, the rest of the hair is upswept and loosely
wound around the crown of the head. Gone is the elaborate confection of
56 Fittschen and Zanker (1983, 10–13, nos. 9 and 12, pls. 11, 14–15) for for another portrait type of Sabina iden-
tified as the Plotina type due to an evocation of the Trajanic hairstyle, with a variant perhaps alluding to
Sabina as Artemis; Alexandridis 2004, 183, no. 179; Wegner 1956, 88. Both heads, however, share a coiffure,
with the hair combed back, diadem or crest of hair on top, and the hair in the back loosely gathered down
the neck, represented on coins as well; BMCRE 3:538–39, nos. 1885, 1895, 1897; pls. 99.3, 7, 8. Fittschen (2000,
507 n. 6) observes another, the Livia type, in coins characterized by a knot at the nape of the neck. These
types are extant in far fewer sculptural copies.
57 Amandry and Burnett 2015, 3.2:849, for the hair in the queue down the back as an alternate to the style with
hair arranged on top of the head.
58 Abdy 2014, 83, pl. 3, 25, for the silver didrachm, with Artemis on the reverse, of 135–136 CE: Amandry and
Burnett 2015, 3.2:pl. 54, no. 1276 (also no. 1277), and 3.1:147–48, 153.

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Figure 10
Silver didrachm of Amisus. braids composing the nest on top.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de
France, inv. 338 (photo: https://
The difference went undetected
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bt- by the numismatists who first cata-
v1b8556365x; public domain).
logued Hadrianic coins in Rome and
in some of the provinces.59 More
recently, numismatists cataloguing
the eastern provincial coins desig-
nated this as a variant or the “second
hair-up” style.60 In this view continu-
ity takes precedence with the simpli-
fied façade and structure above
considered as a secondary develop-
ment of the previous, well-documented, and popular coiffure.
As a stylistic development, the question of braids or unbound hair
composing the coiffure may seem trivial. Given the scrupulous attention to
detail in the eastern coins’ representation of Sabina’s coiffures, it would not
seem likely the die-cutters made an error here. The unbraided, upswept hair
is a signature component of Sabina’s principal portrait style thought to be
adorned with the ideal locks of goddesses. Whereas numismatists see the
two high-piled coiffures as iterations of the same style, art historians have
observed a departure from the style that initiated Sabina’s imagery and
focused on differences between the two manners of hairdressing. The conti-
nuity of the similar profiles of hair brought up and wound around the head
indicated to numismatists that the hairstyles only differed in detail.61 For art
historians, the contrasting patterns of design from braids to less processed
locks evoked the repertory of ideal statuary with its images of Hellenic
goddesses.62 The simplified arrangement of a central part over the forehead,
59 Abdy 2014, 83; BMCRE 3:360, no. 953, pl. 66.2 (aureus), and 359, no. 943, pl. 65.18 (denarius), although difficult
to see the strands of unbraided hair; Adembri and Nicolai 2007, 180–81, for an aureus from the mint of
Rome in the Campana Collection, inv. 3740. Coins from the mint in the city of Rome, however, show the
diadem-like tiers over the forehead (Abdy 2014, 83–84).
60 Amandry and Burnett 2015, 3.2:849.
61 Amandry and Burnett 2014, 3.2:849: “She has two basic types of portrait: one with her hair tied up on top of
her head (in two varieties).”
62 La Rocca et al. 2012, 271, no. I.18 (L. Buccino), on the hairstyle’s intentional allusions to images of late classi-
cal goddesses and Greek art as the ideal model of reference for Hadrianic sculpture; Adembri and Nicolai
2007, 140 (C. Marino), on Sabina being assimilated to Juno in the classicizing Palazzo Massimo bust. Abdy

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which is more visible in the sculpture, and long strands wound around the top
of head linked Sabina’s adornment to Hadrian’s Hellenic cultural revival.63
This hairstyle distinguished the principal portrait type of sculpture, which
offers greater detail through its scale and methods of carving. Three exam-
ples of the heads with the signature upswept hairstyle will suffice, a bust in
the Palazzo Massimo, one in the Vatican Museums, and a head in the Capito-
line Museums (figs. 1–3, and figs. 11–15).64 The facial features need no further
mention as they resemble those of the Vaison head (although with some
heaviness at the jaw and an underchin). The hair, however, is arranged in a
central part in the front with thick strands of unplaited hair gathered in a coil
or twist at the top of the head. The hair is carved to look like hair, flecked by
a chisel to delineate the rich texture and the tension in which the wavy locks
are held. The gentle gradations of the coiffure, the treatment of hair as hair
(rather than transforming it into what looks like a separate covering or type of
headgear), and the continuing sweep of the style around the head distinguish
it from the stacked or more rigidly sectioned hairstyle. What strikes even
the casual observer is the lack of artifice and illusion in Sabina’s hairdressing
compared to the more monumental toupets of the Flavian or Trajanic periods.
Although the volumes of the upswept hairstyle are broadly similar to that
of the Vaison coiffure, along with those of Sabina’s forebears Marciana and
Matidia, the principal style omits the tiara-like façade and the wide wreath of
braids surmounting the top of the head.65
This type appears to have been more widely reproduced in sculpture than
the other portrait types. It is extant in 25 copies.66 The quantity, along with
the quality, of the marble heads with consistent and recognizable features is
outstanding in comparison to the extant portrait production of the Flavian
and Trajanic imperial women. Sabina’s likeness has been attributed an “aris-
(2014, 83), however, also considered the “second hair-up” style as the “Aphrodite” style, following Adembri
and Nicolai (2007, 79), who look to sources in late classical Greek statuary.
63 La Rocca et al. 2012, 271, no. I.18 (L.Buccino); Adembri and Nicolai 2007, 140 (C. Marino): “una forte stilizza-
zione, in senso classicistico …”; on the Hellenization of the empire (in relation to the Capitoline Sabina).
64 Fittschen and Zanker, 1983, 10–12, no. 10, pl. 12; Reggiani 2004, 112. Wegner 1956, 129, pls. 44, 46; La Rocca et
al. 2012, 271, no. I.18 (L. Buccino); Rome, Vatican Museums, Sala de’ Busti 359, from the Villa of Antoninus
Pius in Lanuvium; Wegner 1956, 129, pls. 44, 46, Rome, Palazzo Massimo, no. 1222; from the Via Appia; Adem-
bri and Nicolai 2007, 140 (C. Marino).
65 Fittschen and Zanker, 1983, 11.
66 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 10–11, no. 10, for a list of the 25 replicas.

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Figures 11 and 12 (top, left and right)
Portrait bust of Sabina: profiles. Rome,
Palazzo Massimo, inv. 1222 (photos
courtesy H. R. Goette).
Figures 13 and 14 (middle, left and right)

Portrait bust of Sabina: profiles. Vatican
City, Vatican Museums, Sala de’Busti,
inv. 359 (photos courtesy H. R. Goette).
Figure 15 (bottom)
Portrait bust of Sabina: profile. Rome,
Capitoline Museums, inv. 338 (photo:
Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Capitoli-
ni; © Roma, Sovrintendenza Capitolina
ai Beni Culturali).

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tocratic” demeanor, I think, because of the subtle calibration of ideal and
individual features.67 Wide-set eyes and sharply contoured noses, along with a
clarity of forms lending symmetry and regularity to the oval faces, derive from
an idealizing template employed in the portraiture of imperial women and
others. In fact, the meager lips and broad expanse of cheeks juxtapose indi-
vidualized and idealized elements side by side. The smooth complexions are
marked only very slightly under the eyes and alongside the nostrils and mouth
to suggest middle-age. Degrees of difference, of course, occur, particularly in
the passage of the forehead and brows, the profile of the nose, and the round-
ness of the jaw and chin, but the overall similarity to type prevails.
The 25 replicas vary in sculptural technique. Some of the heads’ eyes
show drilling (the drill may also be used to accentuate details, such as the tear
ducts and corners of the mouth), while others do not. Drilled channels also
separate the long, waving locks of hair swept back into the twist on the head.
As working methods of sculptors and workshops evidently differed, dating of
the heads can only be approximated. Heads drilled more heavily are dated
to after 130, while those with a light or moderate use of the drill belong to the
years before 130.68 Ornament appears in a narrow circular band across the
forehead dividing the forehead from the hair piled up behind it in the Capito-
line and Vatican heads; in some portraits, as in the Palazzo Massimo bust, the
ornament takes on a more substantial form as a diadem or a crescent-shaped
crown. A variety of crowns appear on Sabina’s heads, along with wreaths of
wheat sheaves seen on her coins. The band or diadem holds the hair in place
before it is stepped back and looped up on top. The headgear of Flavian impe-
rial women, in fact, could not be associated with their sequence of honors and
titles.69 Furthermore, some portrait heads of private women sport diadems
from the mid-first century Ce in funerary commemorations.70 Although the
diadem seemed to have become a less exclusive adornment without specific
reference to political events, it still alluded to the immortals and served as a
divine attribute of goddesses in ideal sculpture.
67 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 11; Fittschen 2000, 514.

68 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 11; La Rocca, Parisi Presicce and Lo Monaco 2011, 402 (L. Buccino).
69 Alexandridis 2010b, 212, on the diadem not being the insignia of an Augusta nor a regular component of
posthumous effigies, but rather as an allusion to divinity in a general way.
70 Alexandridis 2010b, 212; Wrede 1981, 75 n. 73.

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Scholars have sought to explain the diadem as indicating Sabina’s status
as Augusta in 128, the honor that would have initiated the development of
the principal portrait type.71 Yet, although the numismatic and epigraphi-
cal evidence is problematic, dates of 128–136 are usually given to replicas
of this type because of their depiction of a mature empress at the height of
the reign.72 If we accept 133 for a date (as a mid-point between 128 and 138,
the outer range of accepted dates), then Sabina would have been in her late
forties.73
Other events of Hadrian’s reign have been sought as precipitating factors
for a new portrait type. Again, the imperial expeditions are seen as key to
the timing of initiatives and programs. Celebration of the imperial couple’s
return to Rome in from their eastern voyage in 132 was likely to have called for
sculptural commemoration and commissions.74 That their itinerary included
an extended stay in Athens has been suggested as a source for the principal
type’s classicizing look.75 Although Hadrian’s travels no doubt shaped his
perspective and his policies, he did not need to head east to be surrounded by
classicizing sculpture and other works of art indebted to the Greeks.
A few of the replicas are thought to be posthumous works. The form of
the Vatican bust has been considered to be early Antonine in date.76 The bust
was found in the Lanuvium estate of Antoninus Pius, along with portraits of
the Antonine family members. That Sabina was commemorated by the subse-
quent dynasty contrasts sharply with her negative image in the late imperial
sources. As continuity was represented in the coinage and the Vaison sculp-
tural type earlier in Hadrian’s reign, so, too, were Hadrian and Sabina signifi-
cant for the legitimacy of the next regime. That Sabina appeared in this family
gallery implies that there was more to her image and its reception among her
peers than generally acknowledged. The Palazzo Massimo bust has also been
interpreted as a posthumous work due to the early Antonine bust form, but
71 Fitttschen 1996, 42; La Rocca and Parisi Presicce 2017, 318, cat. no. 7 (L. Buccino).
72 Adembri and Nicolai 2007, 140 (C. Marino); Reggiani 2004, 112 (M. Mattei) for the Capitoline head.
73 Wegner 1956, 84, on Sabina’s birth in the second half of the 80s, as is assumed, and possibly in 86.
74 Carandini 1969, 231–32.
75 Adembri 2007, 79.
76 Wegner 1956, 129, although this date is not supported by Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 10, no. 7; Wood
2015, 255–56.

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this is not accepted by all art historians and archaeologists.77 These exam-
ples do not undermine the significance of the principal style during Sabina’s
lifetime.
Although the sculptural heads of this type are numerous, the coins are
less so. Eastern provincial coins from Amisus offer clear, rather unambiguous
images of Sabina’s hair loosely swept up in a twist. Coins bearing the legend
Sabina Augusta represented the simpler coiffure in the mint of the city of
Rome, more frequently in precious metal coinage. Yet there are even fewer of
these than would be expected, given the number of extant sculptural heads
of the principal type.78 It is often difficult to detect unbraided locks or looser
styling on the Roman coins. Either the number of coins representing Sabina
in the principal portrait type are undercounted or this amounts to another
disparity between the sculptural works and the coinage.79 There may be a way
to account for the lack of this portrait type on coins. Abdy has conducted a
die study that shows obverses with the principal type portraits were replaced
when worn by ones with another hairstyle.80 This was a better-established
style (in coins) defined by a queue, or ponytail, in the back. Abdy finds that
the currency of a portrait style on a die depends on the process of maintaining
the integrity of the coinage. Dies were frequently replaced by those with more
dominant styles (which were in greater supply), so the run of the newer style
on coins was likely to be shorter.81
77 Wegner 1956, 129; but contra Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 11, no. 17; Adembri and Nicolai 2007, 140 (C. Marino)
date: 134–136.
78 BMCRE 3:359 no. 943, pl. 65.18 (aureus); 360, no. 953, pl. 66.2 (aureus); both with the legend, Sabina Augusta;
357, no. 928, pl. 65.11 with the legend, Sabina Augusta Hadriani Aug PP (denarius); Salzmann 1989, 363; note
that there are a number of coins depicting the veiled version of this coiffure (making the back of the head
invisible).
79 Fittschen 1996, 50 n. 12, on another portrait type of Sabina that is not documented by coins, but is rep-
resented in at least three sculptures with a distinctive coiffure marked by a knot of hair formed over the
forehead; note that the Vaison portrait type is not so clearly depicted on coins, which tend to show the
higher, multi-tiered Matidia and Marciana hairstyle.
80 Abdy 2014, 83–84.
81 Abdy 2014, 83–84.

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To Appear Divine
The hairstyle of Sabina’s principal style has been often described as evoking
the images of goddesses and, in particular, those of the Greek late Classi-
cal period. As general remarks, these observations have merit and deserve
a closer look. The relationship of Roman and Greek art, and especially the
former’s recreation of Hellenic forms as expressions of Roman culture and
values are relevant, even though motifs of ideal sculpture are not usually
brought into discussions of Roman portrait heads. Hadrian’s Rome and empire
commissioned a vast production of ideal sculpture through its building proj-
ects, increased mining of marble, and high level of artistic skill. A long and
lively engagement with Hellenism at large, including the visual arts, preceded
Hadrian, who remained deeply impressed by the artistic achievements and
immersed in the intellectual traditions of the Greek past. The retrospective
aspects of Roman culture come to the forefront by the mid-second century.82
Ideal sculpture depicting Artemis and Aphrodite provide comparisons
with their centrally parted coiffures carved in thick, wavy strands in the front.
In the back of the heads, hair is clasped in a blocky knot and swept over the
shoulder or wound in the more commonplace bun (figs. 16, 17).83 The Artemis
of Versailles and the Aphrodite of Capua have been cited in reference to Sabi-
na’s portraiture: the former has been dated to the first and second centuries,
with a consensus weighted toward the Hadrianic period and a likely setting in
a villa or sanctuary;84 the Aphrodite of Capua is a Hadrianic work produced
to adorn the façade of the amphitheater in that city.85 As works forming the
mythological décor of public architecture or opulent residences, the sculp-
tures’ heads are closely matched with classicizing profiles featuring sharply
chiseled noses continuing the contours of the forehead, softly modeled oval
cheeks, full lips, and large chins. The goddess hairstyle with thick undulating
locks held in place by a large diadem characterizes both sculptures.86 Some
Aphrodite coiffures are crowned by two large loops of curls, along with the
82 Hölscher 2004; Anguissola 2015, along with a large volume of recent literature.
83 Smith 1991, figs. 98–106.
84 Pfrommer 1984.
85 Tuck 2015, 238–39.
86 Kousser 2008, 17–44.

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Figure 16 (left)
Artemis of Versailles. Paris, long, flowing locks, all of which are given simple, full-bodied forms artic-
Louvre, inv. MR 152 (MA 589)
(© Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN- ulated with curving, concentric, or symmetrical accents.87 Artemis occa-
Grand Palais/Thierry Ollivier/Art
Resource, NY).
sionally appears with a blunt bobbed ponytail or with the hair more loosely
clasped at the nape. Thick stands more deeply undercut by the drill to create
Figure 17 (right)
Aphrodite of Capua. Naples, Na-
volume with tightly waved locks mark this work. Drilled channels outlining
tional Archaeological Museum,
inv. 6017 (su concessione del
Ministero per i Beni e le Attività
Culturali e per il Turismo—Mu-
seo Archeologico di Napoli).
87 Brinkerhoff 1978; Havelock 1995.

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strands also suggest movement, along with tension or torsion in the hair
drawn behind.
These works, like other examples of ideal sculpture, produced doubled
effects: they allude to the Hellenic past and its ideal forms, but their style
and techniques were grounded in Hadrian’s Rome.88 At least one scholar
detected a depiction of Sabina in one of these mythological statues, the
Artemis of Leptis Magna (a replica of the Artemis of Versailles).89 Although
images of the empress and goddess are not at all identical, the misidentifi-
cation raises a significant point. Romans sculptors selected not only from a
variety of styles but also from ideal sculpture to create portrait statues. They
combined components, originally from the Greek canon, to create new works
to commemorate Roman patrons with a range of mythological references and
artistic allusions. That sculptors were active in workshops with commissions
for portraits as well as ideal sculpture allowed for a mixing of motifs among
the different genres.90 Would the loosely arranged locks of Sabina have regis-
tered as a Greek motif, esoteric or urbane, to second-century Romans?91
The loose upswept hair of Sabina, coiled in a chignon atop the head,
differs from the imagery of goddesses in specific aspects. The loose twist
does not precisely reproduce a specific type of goddess coiffure. An over-
life-sized portrait head in the Metropolitan Museum displays a hybrid of a
modish coiffure in the front with Aphrodite locks in the back (figs. 18, 19).92
Some scholars have identified the head as a portrait Sabina, although this
attribution is contested.93 The Metropolitan Museum’s head is relevant, even
as a private portrait in the early second century, since Sabina’s early sculptural
portraiture, as with that of her mother and grandmother, developed from the
styles of the matrons of Rome. Framing the head of the Metropolitan Museum
head is the Flavian mound of ringlets, a style still current in the early second
century, while behind, the hair is loosely bound in a blocky knot of Aphrodite.
88 Anguissola 2015, 255.

89 As recounted by Adembri (2007, 79) in the previous scholarship.
90 Anguissola 2015, 250, on workshops carving both portraits and ideal sculpture.
91 Kousser 2008, 81–110.
92 Zanker 2016, 208–9, no.77, c. 120 CE.
93 Carandini 1969, 149–50, no. 21, pls. 5.17–18, figs. 59–60, for Sabina; Zanker (2016, 208–9) questions the Sabina
identification inconclusively, although the scale suggests an imperial subject; D’Ambra 2015, 43–50, for
Sabina; Buccino 2017a, 242–44, fig. 28 (not Sabina).

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Figures 18 (left) and 19 (right)
Portrait head of Sabina (?). New
York, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, inv. 22.139.2 (photo:
https://www.metmuseum.org/
art/collection/search/251182;
public domain).
Within a single portrait head, the juxtaposition of styled hair worn in real life
and elements of a coiffure worn on statues of Venus may have been intended
to heighten the effects of rarefied beauty. The relegating of the Venus locks to
the back of the head, however, suggests that the mythological allusions were
still recognizable, even if the coiffures were dissembled into its parts. The
flamboyant adornment of the Metropolitan Museum head makes the goddess
locks of Sabina look understated in comparison.
Allusions to Venus in the imagery of imperial women occur in discreet or
understated motifs: drapery slipping off shoulders, long locks down the neck,
or isolated flourishes as seen above.94 Full and explicit Venus coiffures on
portrait in heads of imperial women are rarely seen. One example, however,
is exceptional (fig. 20). From about 90 Ce, the Copenhagen fragment of Julia
Titi displays the hair of Venus Anadyomene with its loose mound of hair
softly piled on the head.95 Hair looped in a broad bow or topknot crowns the
head, although it is not well preserved here. The locks seemingly in free fall
appear wet since Venus was born from the sea, and a statue type often depicts
the goddess wringing out her hair. The high-piled hair seems about to come
undone, cascading in waves that brush the forehead or reach the neck in
tendrils in the back. This Venus statue of Julia Titi had very limited influence
94 Fejfer 2008, 107, 119, 126–27.

95 D’Ambra 1996; Rosso 2009, 218–21; Alexandridis 2010b, 217–18.

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Figure 20 (left)
Portrait head of Julia Titi.
Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg
Glyptotek, inv. 793 (photo: Ny
Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenha-
gen / Ole Haupt).
Figure 21 (right)
Silver tetradrachm of Alexan-
dria. Oxford: Ashmolean, inv.
HCR26396 (© Ashmolean
Museum, University of Oxford).
with two extant replicas. The Anadyomene coiffure was not popular in private
portraits of Roman matrons.96
For the depiction of Sabina as a goddess, the provincial coinage provides
further evidence. In the coins of Alexandria of 130–131, Sabina appears as the
goddess Demeter (fig. 21).97 The busts on the dated Alexandrian coins show
Sabina with her hair arranged down in the back, either gathered at the nape
of the neck or hanging in loose locks (or, at least, several snaky tresses). Over
the forehead, the hair is brought back over the brow where it is crowned with a
poppy flower, the attribute of Demeter. On the reverses Sabina is shown seated
holding wheat sheaves and a scepter. The new coin type was likely produced
96 D’Ambra 2016, esp. pl. 6.1, for a portrait of a veiled matron (Fittschen and Zanker, 1983, 56, no. 74, pl. 92, late
Trajanic to early Hadrianic date) with layers of adornment on her head, among which Venus locks are a
decorative accessory.
97 Abdy 2014, 79, pls. 1, 12; 2,13; 2,14, in order: silver tetradrachm; BMCGC no. 15.918; BMCGC no. 15.919; BMCGC
no. 15.568; Amandry and Burnett 2015, 3, 2: pl. 283, nos. 5772, 5774, 5775.

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for the imperial couple’s visit to Alexandria in the early 130s.98 After 132 the
Alexandrian coins revert to Sabina’s tiered hairstyle as the dominant mode of
adornment.99
The coin type in its iconography stands apart from those of the mint
of the city in Rome. In the coins of the capital, Sabina is not represented
as a goddess. The portraits feature no attributes of divinity and the hair-
dressing exhibits a range of styles.100 Nor do the reverses represent Sabina
in the guise of goddesses. The reverses bear standard imagery of a variety
of goddesses and personifications associated with imperial women: Ceres,
Vesta, Concordia, Juno, and Pietas, etc.101 The deities or personifications in
the Roman coinage are represented standing or seated holding a variety of
attributes—the patera, double cornucopia, palladium or scepter, etc.—that
define their spheres of influence. The Roman coin’s Ceres looks very similar to
Sabina-as-Demeter in a seated pose holding two sheaves of wheat plus a grain
measure in the Alexandrian coinage.102 Yet the coins from the city of Rome do
not supply the portraits of Sabina on the obverses with divine attributes; the
complementary images of the divinities on the other sides of the coins were
sufficient to produce, we might say, a split-screen effect.
The eastern and western coins offer different perspectives on granting the
emperor’s wife the highest honor: in the east they explicitly assimilate her to
the goddess, while in the city of Rome they associate her with the immortals.
Both series of coins also adorn Sabina in divergent modes of adornment: in
the Alexandrian coins, the hair is down in the back, while Roman coins of the
same date represent a range of hairstyles from the tiered style to those with
the hair combed back into a plait or clasped at the nape of the neck.103 Sculp-
ture offers another perspective.
98 Amandry and Burnett 2015, 3.1:662–63.

99 Abdy 2014, 79.
100 BMCRE 3:353–56 nos. 893–95, 897, 902, 904–5, 907, 909–10, pl. 64.11–20; nos. 913–14, 919, pl. 65.1–2,4 ; 535–39,
nos. 1861, 1864, 1871, pl. 98.13–15; nos. 1879, 1882–3, 1885, pl. 99, 1–4. Hairstyles include the Vaison type, the
so-called Plotina type (or the queue style), and the Livia type; as before, the principal type is difficult
to discern.
101 Brennan 2018, 151–56.
102 BMCRE 3:356, no. 919, pl. 65.4; 537, no. 1879, pl. 99.1.
103 Supra n. 57.

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The sculptural portraits, however, lack explicit attributes, because most of
the heads are incomplete parts of statuary or busts. Although Sabina’s princi-
pal portrait type has been linked to ideal statuary, theomorphic portrait stat-
uary of Sabina has not been considered specifically in this regard. Sculpture
composed of portrait heads atop stock mythological statues demonstrates
the Roman reinvention of traditional forms that implies both an awareness
of the past and an ingenuity in repurposing it. The statue of Sabina as Ceres
(Demeter) from Ostia’s Baths of Neptune, an example of this genre of portrait
statue, is assembled from parts (fig. 22).104 This statuary type appeared in
Rome in the late first century Ce, although its origins in late classical Greece
or imperial Rome are disputed.105 As a statue to honor not only empresses
but also elite women and others of lesser status, the Ceres type gained popu-
larity in the second century under Hadrian and the Antonines.106 Of the 63
extant Ceres portrait statues, nine depict empresses, and 17 represent private
women; the statues were more prevalent in the west as 28 are from Italy, with
20 from north Africa and 14 from the Roman east.107 As a portrait statue with a
geographic range and varied distribution among social ranks, the Ceres type
firmly places Sabina among the women of the empire.
The divine attributes of the poppy and wheat are barely visible held
against the shear mantle gathered tightly across the body standing in a lilting
pose. Although heavily attired in two layers of clothing, the contours of the
figure are apparent in the sheathing of the mantle over the tunic. The Ceres
statues feature a more open pose, active stance, and exposure of the figure
through the taut drapery.108 The Ceres statues differed in demeanor by seem-
ing less passive or retiring than other types. It also served more frequently
as an honorific statue than as a funerary commemoration.109 For prominent
women, some of whom served in the only public office open to women as
104 Wegner 1956, 127–28; Carandini 1969, 195–96, no. 65, figs. 263–65; Adembri and Nicolai, 2007, 120 (P.
Germoni); plus, two fragmentary statues of Sabina as Ceres in the Ostia Museum (no. 1242 + 1963; no.
1244 + 1964).
105 Alexandridis 2004, 229–31; Fejfer 2015, 99–100.
106 Donzelli 1998, 90, fig. 8, for a graph of the chronological and geographical distribution of the statues; Fejfer
2015, 104 n. 90, on the “wider social make-up” of women being honored with public statues in the late first
and second centuries CE.
107 Alexandridis 2010a, 271, fig. 10.8; Fejfer 2015, 99.
108 Alexandridis 2004, 55–61 n. 517; Alexandridis 2010a, 267–68, 271–72; Fejfer 2015, 99–101.
109 Wrede 1981, 213–19; Fejfer 2015, 99.

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Figure 22 (left)
Portrait statue of Sabina as
Ceres. Ostia, Museo Ostiense,
inv. 25 (photo: Carole Raddato
Collection, American Academy
in Rome, Photographic Archive).
Figure 23 (right)
Statue of a matron as Venus
Genetrix. Ostia, Museo Ostiense,
inv. 24 (photo: Carole Raddato
Collection, American Academy
in Rome, Photographic Archive).

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priestesses, this statue offered an attractive and dignified image in a more
conspicuous manner. It made such women more visible, at the same time that
its costume was unfamiliar, archaic or foreign, to most viewers.110 The Ceres
statue type, whether deriving from fourth-century Greece or emerging as a
Roman innovation, alluded to a higher realm, the sphere of elite culture, if
not a direct link to the deep Hellenic past.111 The elevation of women in the
public spaces of their cities could not have occurred without their transfor-
mation into the statue of Ceres (among other types) because of restrictions
on women’s public appearances and activities. A realistic image of a matron
would have confronted the social taboos and anxiety about women out
of place.112
Sabina, however, seems to appear only in the guise of Ceres, rather than
being assimilated into the goddess, as in her depiction of the Alexandrian coin
and others. Yet, as befitting the empress, she was acclaimed as Nea Demeter,
the new Demeter, in inscriptions at Eleusis where a temple was erected in
her honor.113 Sabina’s statue, however, appears very similar to a number of
statues honoring private women with figures wrapped in tunics and mantles
and holding wheat sheaves and poppies. The difference between Sabina’s
representation and those of other women lies in the portrait head. Many of
the statues of private women bore realistic portraits, although a few were
more idealized, though, with a period hairstyle (to show that it is, after all, a
portrait). An example of a related portrait statue of a matron, although in the
guise of Venus Genetrix, is telling—more so than in many of the Ceres portrait
statues with damaged or missing heads (fig. 23). This example, also in Ostia,
is identified by some scholars as Sabina without any basis.114 What differenti-
ates the pair is the facial structure, the space between the eyes as well as their
shape, and the length of the nose, along with the more defined marks of age in
the Venus Genetrix portrait. Clearly the latter statue depicts an older matron
with a fashion hairstyle, a turban of braids worn in the Hadrianic period.
110 Fejfer 2015, 89, with previous literature.

111 Alexandridis 2010a, 259; Fejfer 2015, 103–4. Note that a diadem of wheat sheaves adorns Sabina in
some coins.
112 Fejfer 2015, 102 and 104.
113 Mikocki 1995, 193–95; Matheson 1996, 188; Donzelli 1998, 88–89.
114 Wegner 1956, 127 (not Sabina); Carandini 1969, 134–36, figs. 10–12 (for Sabina); Adembri and Nicolai 2007, 130
(P. Germoni; for the identification as Sabina).

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Although related to the earlier second-century coiffures, no empress wears
braids coiled in a turban style.
Sabina’s portrait head, however, matches the classicizing style with its
austere clarity and regular large features on a smooth face. With wide cheek-
bones, eyes carefully framed by broadly arched brows and lids, the strong
nose, and small mouth, the features are recognizable from Sabina’s portrai-
ture although in a more abstract form with omission of detail. The head and
body of the sculpture form a seamless whole of youthful beauty and grace.
The conformity of head to body has distracted scholars from the statue’s
divergence from those of private matrons that appear as assemblages of
mismatched parts. The high degree of idealization in Sabina’s portrait has
suggested that this is a posthumous portrait dated to 137–138 Ce on the basis
of coins and the representation of the Apotheosis of Sabina in the Porto-
gallo relief.115
Art historians and archaeologists have attributed the idealizing aspects
to Hadrian’s Hellenic revival in general and ideal sculpture in particular.116
Yet a more direct line of transmission is found in the idealized portraiture
that was already embedded in sculptors’ cosmopolitan repertory. From the
fourth century Bce, the Greek portrait represented women with a standard
set of youthful and refined features familiar from the statuary of Aphrodite.
Rather than a likeness of an individual subject, the ideal portrait privileged
beauty as the most significant feminine attribute.117 In female portraiture of the
Greek east in the empire, the ideal portrait persisted, although with a range
of formats: the traditional ideal portrait with an Aphrodite hairstyle, a hybrid
type with idealizing facial features combined with a Roman-period hairstyle
or another with the reverse, individualized portrait features with the goddess
coiffure.118 Images with idealized or generic faces were produced in the Roman
west in various periods from the first century Bce, but have occasionally been
relegated as anomalies (poorly executed portraits) or depictions of divinities
rather than of mortal women. See, for example, the Hadrianic head bearing
115 Wegner 1956, 127–28; 128 (on the Portogallo relief’s veiled head); 129 (on the Palazzo Massimo veiled head);
also Adembri and Nicolai 2007, 120 (P. Germoni).
116 The literature is vast, but see Graindor 1934; Spawforth 1999; Boatwright 2000; Vout 2006; Opper 2008,
32–61, 98–129.
117 Dillon 2010, 120–22, 166–67.
118 Dillon 2010, 162–63.

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Figure 24
Head of a woman. Vatican City, facial features of a bland classicizing
Vatican Museums, Galleria Chi-
aramonti, inv. 1352 (photo: DAI
statue contrasting the high-piled
Rome, no. 87 Vat 69). period coiffure (fig. 24).119 In Roman
portraits, individualized features
were also incorporated in idealized
portraits, as exemplified by Sabina’s
imagery.120
Though we are accustomed to
scrutinizing these heads that seem
bland, undifferentiated, or without
detail at close range, ancient view-
ers more usually saw them from a
distance—that is, from below the
high pedestals bearing full-figure
statues. Parsing the width of chins or
drillmarks in pupils would have been
impossible, if not beside the point.
Inscriptional plaques on bases oriented those who could read; for others, the
architectural setting and accompanying statues established identities and
meanings. For some, the representation of Sabina as Ceres may have recalled
imagery on coins; for elites and members of the imperial court, Hadrian’s
participation in the Eleusinian Mysteries may have been relevant.121 In the
initial project to catalogue and classify the works, scholars have focused
on the minutiae of style and form because, after all, they are often all that
is extant as fragments of sculpture, from either full-length figures or busts
without bases and their inscriptions and, most particularly, archaeological
contexts. Rather than facial features, the other components of the statue,
its figure type along with dress and gesture, inscription, and context were as
important, or more crucial, for ancient viewers.122 Although the face has been
the focus of scholarship, portraits of imperial women in the generic or ideal
119 Fejfer 2008, 353, fig. 276 (Vatican Museums, Galleria Chiaramonti, inv. 1352); Buccino 2017b, 25, figs. 40–41.
120 Fejfer 2008, 351–52.
121 Brennan 2018, 80, 213–14.
122 Dillon 2010, 99–102.

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style did not necessarily need to render a recognizable likeness with distinctly
specific features.123
Hair: Plain and Coiffed
The pedigree of Sabina’s principal style requires closer consideration. The

front of the coiffure is leveled for locks centrally parted that are brushed
back in thick tresses coiled in a twist on top. The effect appears more natural,
that is, less processed or highly styled with forms that lie low on the head. In
comparison with the Vaison hairstyle, it produces a de-escalation of effects
without the height in the front and sturdy plaited nest dominating the head.
The coiffures that grace Sabina’s portraits in the final years of Hadrian’s reign
have been said to evoke ideal sculpture, but idealizing motifs had long been
present in Roman portraits, as discussed above. In the first century CE, impe-
rial women, such as Livia and Antonia Minor, were depicted with waving
hair arranged from a central part, and this style was also found in the private
portraits of maidens and matrons.124 For one example from many heads so
adorned, a portrait in the Capitoline Museums from c. 10–20 CE portrays an
anonymous girl with hair groomed in this way (fig. 25).125 That straight or wavy
hair combed back was ubiquitous in the empire (if not the longue durée of
antiquity), we need only consider a fragmented portrait of a girl from Athens
from later in the next century (fig. 26).126 Women also appear in this manner,
varying only in the stylistic degree of linear carving or plastic modeling of the
strands or the depth of waves at the temples. The powers of an immortal were
not required to create this style: merely a comb to part the hair and sweep it
back close to the temples and to be clasped it into a tail or wound into a bun
123 Dillon 2010, 135–36, 160–63.

124 Fejfer 2008, 355.
125 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 45, no. 54, taf. 68–69, on the similarity of the hairstyle to that of Antonia Minor,
but this head portrays an anonymous girl with a simpler style. It may also be that the Julio-Claudian coif-
fure with hair arranged from a central part, although with ringlets massed at the sides, derived from the
default style of women and girls.
126 Zanker 2016, 222, no. 84, for a late Antonine date of c. 180 CE and a provenance in Athens; Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1911 (11.212.5).

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Figure 25 (left)
Portrait head of a girl. Rome,
Capitoline Museums, inv. 1850
(photo: Archivio Fotografico
dei Musei Capitolini; © Roma,
Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai
Beni Culturali).
Figure 26 (right)
Fragment of a portrait of a girl.
New York, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, Rogers Fund 1911, inv.
11.212.5 (photo: https://www.
metmuseum.org/art/collection/
search/248586; public domain).
in the back. We may consider this a vernacular or default style of women in

antiquity across the western and eastern Mediterranean.127
The simplicity of grooming and ease of styling made it popular, both for
coiffures on marble heads and, we assume, on the scalps of Roman girls and
women. It also offered versatility with the options for fixing the hair in the
back up in a bun or a down in a ponytail or loose slipknot of braids. For maid-
ens, the plain and severe geometry imparted a sense of modesty and moral
rectitude. For matrons, the low-lying locks framing the face and the ease of
care attracted those without the means or interest in more extreme hairstyl-
ing. Yet public debates on morality typically resounded on women’s bodies—
and hair—that needed to be kept under control. Luxuriant hair or wayward
locks emitted an erotic charge controlled through conduct, social convention,
and the styling of the hair itself, whether the tiered coiffures that fortified
heads or the primly fastened locks restrained in place.128 Women’s hair and its
styling communicated social position or aspirations, moral worth, and partic-
ipation in a cohort that shared not only standards of grooming but, perhaps,
127 The “melon” hairstyle should also be placed in this category of traditional hairdressing that persisted from
the late Classical period into Rome; Dillon 2010, 114–16.
128 Bartman 2001, 5, on the erotic allure of female hair and the need to maintain social control.

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Figure 27
Portrait head of Sabina. Rome,
Capitoline Museums, inv.
338 (photo: Forschungsarchiv
für Antike Plastik, nr. Fit-
tCap69-94-08; arachne.dainst.
org/entity/448404).
also values and attitudes.129 The satirists and poets parlayed the social conse-
quences of unruly locks, and acclaimed the lofty hairstyles of the late first and
early second centuries with allusions to celestial spheres above or towering
edifices closer at hand.130 Clearly the high-piled styles increased their wearer’s
visibility and presence.131 The default style of grooming with its simple part
and swept-back locks went unnoticed by the poets.
Sabina’s so-called goddess locks appear to be a version of the plain or
default style with a more modest twist atop. Both the fore and aft of the
coiffure are flatter, lower on the head than that of the tiered Vaison style. The
low-slung chignon is composed of hair gathered, twisted and rotated into a
mound (fig. 27). It seems to be held in place by the pure tension of the of the
twist, yet the band or diadem stabilizes it.132 Less processed or constructed
129 Hebdige 1979, 102–6, 113–17.

130 Mart., Ep. 2.66; Stat., Silv. 1.2.113–14; Juv. 6.501–5.
131 Olson 2008, 71.
132 For Janet Stephen’s reconstruction of the hairstyle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPwVwSwvAI.
The band is anchored to the hair by sewing locks, as is the coiled parts of the chignon, in this “deceptively
simple” style.

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(that is, not braided or set with fixatives) than the Vaison coiffure, Sabina’s
hairstyle in her principal portrait type appears “deceptively simple.”133 What
signaled the rarefied presence of Livia as goddess in the early first century
may no longer have registered as such in the early second century CE. The
original association of the centrally parted tresses with goddesses became
diffuse as the style circulated among imperial and private portraits, and the
imagery of the emperor’s female relatives and the women of Rome merged.
The appeal of retrospective Greek styles to express political ascendancy has
been well studied: the portraiture of Livia, for example.134 The taste of the
second century exhibited a curatorial flair for redesigning established styles:
recall the Metropolitan Museum portrait, possibly identified as Sabina, with
its deployment of motifs from the mythological model broken up to be reas-
sembled in a collage (figs. 18, 19). Although it is undeniable that the sculptural
heads of Sabina’s principal type display grace and an understated elegance,
the hairstyle seems limited in impact and scope.
Since the presence of the Hellenic past has so thoroughly characterized
the art of Hadrian, this matter—though poised on a few silken strands of
hair—ought to be given consideration. Was the Hadrianic revival to be seen
as a creative endeavor that would have had to revise, reclaim, and transform
Hellenism for the world of the second century? These are large questions,
perhaps, better to be asked of Hadrian’s building programs and renovation of
Athens, his promotion of the Panhellenion, enthusiasm for Greek cults? For
the portraiture of his wife, however, the evocation of past forms recedes at
closer range. The motifs that may have once contributed Hellenic or height-
ened significance had become commonplace in Rome: the diadem appeared
on heads of anonymous or unrecognizable women (nor did it consistently nor
clearly accompany the signal honors of imperial women), the centrally parted
hair had long been worn as a vernacular or default manner of hairdressing for
women and girls, and matrons without high rank were commemorated in the
form of goddesses. These symbols or stylistic features provided a high thresh-
old for allusion or significance due to their ubiquity.
133 Supra n. 132.

134 Supra n. 17.

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Conclusions
Sabina’s imagery was prolific. The steady production of the mint in Rome
and the provinces brought her miniature profiles into the hands of many. Her
sculptural portraits appeared in an array of more types than any of the Flavian
or Trajanic imperial women preceding her. Differences in her portrayal on
coins and in marble statuary no doubt reflect the divergent aims of the vary-
ing media: in the coins Sabina also appears in portrait types that evoke former
empresses, while the extant sculpture favors a novel look. The coins demon-
strate the circulation of several of the four (or five) portrait types in circula-
tion at the same time; they were also produced (intermittently) throughout
the reign. Should we not assume the same, a spectrum of Sabina images, for
the marble heads? Coins can provide dates for portraits, and there is now
dating criteria from Sabina’s provincial coinage. More significantly, though, is
the persistence of the Vaison type as it displayed the tiered hairstyle worn by
Roman matrons. Sabina, thus, calibrated one of her looks to be in step with her
peers, and retained this look in one of her portrait types.
The hairstyle of her principal type commands the most attention in the
art historical and archaeological scholarship. The centrally parted tresses
appear as a less sumptuous manner of hairdressing, although with a “decep-
tively simple” twist atop. The lower, looser locks may have provided a point
of contact with the default style of Roman women (recall the Ceres statue as
well), but with a heightening of effects. Sabina’s hairdressing registers as real
but rarefied, that is, as seemingly natural and uncultivated yet also sophis-
ticated and refined at the same time. It is precisely this effect of effortless
elegance that makes Sabina’s locks so attractive and appealing to modern
viewers. The absence of ornament fashioned from highly processed hair
and its relaxation from the rigid plaited constructions set Sabina apart from
Roman women in this singular portrait type. Sabina’s signature style was not
emulated by women in Rome or the provinces. That its low-slung locks evoke
the ephemerality of hair may not have merited admiration from those whose
hair was trained to stand upright on their heads. It is remarkable that Sabina’s
beauty is noted in a poem inscribed on a statue in Egypt in November of 130

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CE.135 A member of her retinue visiting the Colossus of Memnon at dawn, Julia
Balbilla praises “lovely Sabina”:136
Ἔκλυον αὐδήσαντος ἔγω ᾽ πυ λίθω Βάλβιλλα |
φώνα(ς) τᾶς θείας Μέμνονος ἢ Φαμένωθ. |
Ἧλθον ὔμοι δ᾽ ἐράται βασιλήιδι τυῖδε Σαβίννᾳ, |
ὤρας δὲ πρώτας ἄλιος ἦχε δρόμος. |
Κοιράνω<ι> Ἀδριάνω πέμπτῳ δεκότῳ δ᾽ ἐ|νιαύτῳ,
(φῶτ)α δ᾽ ἔχεσκε(ν) Ἄθυρ εἴχοσι | καὶ πέσυρα.
Εἰκόστῳ πέμπτῳ | δ᾽ ἄματι μῆνος Ἄθυρ.
I, Balbilla, when the rock spoke, heard the voice of the divine Memnon or
Phamenoth. I came here with the lovely queen Sabina. The course of the sun was
in its first hour, in the fifteenth year of Hadrian’s reign, on the twenty-fourth day of
the month Hathyr. [I wrote this] on the twenty-fifth day of the month Hathyr.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the three anonymous readers whose thoughtful
comments and criticism immeasurably improved this article. I am also grate-
ful for Hans Rupprecht Goette’s assistance in acquiring images, and for Corey
Brennan’s in providing the text of Julia Balbilla’s inscription. Most of all, I am
greatly appreciative of the editor’s sustained attention and care during the
publication process (and also for helping tracking down images of provin-
cial coins).
135 Brennan 2018, 131–37.

136 Bernand and Bernand 1960, no. 31 G, in elegiac couplets.

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Is Beauty Divine?

A Reassessment of the Portraiture of Sabina

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/27031297

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132 Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 2020 · v.65

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12 Carandini 1969, 173–74, 224 n. 37, fig. 172.

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The Vaison Portrait Type: Sculpture and Coins

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29 SHA, Hadr. 11.3.

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33 Fittschen 1996, 42.

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40 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 11.

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51 Abdy 2014, 75.

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Provincial Coins and the Principal Portrait Type

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Figures 13 and 14 (middle, left and right)

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67 Fittschen and Zanker 1983, 11; Fittschen 2000, 514.

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88 Anguissola 2015, 255.

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94 Fejfer 2008, 107, 119, 126–27.