To what extent do the minor arts simply imitate large-scale monumental works in miniature?

Discuss with reference to EITHER the Grand Cameos or the Boscoreale cups.
Large scale monumental works can be found in many types across Rome and the provinces, from the
continuous series of images arranged in a seemingly logical sequence depicted on the columns of
Trajan and Marcus Aurelius,1 to the more figurative depictions of imperial power such as in the
Roman foundation myths depicted on the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias. 2 Whilst these large monuments
were commissioned with the purpose of being seen, and, often, in order to propagate an often
imperial message, the minor arts were designed and commissioned for a different reason. The minor
arts can here be taken to represent more personal objects, and often on the more expensive and
luxurious end of the spectrum, including, nut not limited to, vases and cups, oil lamps, mosaics, and of
course cameos. The distinction between ‘large-scale’ and ‘minor’ appears to come not only from the
size of the object in question but also its visibility, and the sphere in which it was shown. It is telling,
for example, that coins are often not included in studies of the minor arts, though their size is far from
our interpretation of ‘large-scale’. The fact that coins were widely circulated and seen across the
empire thus sets them apart, and even if physically they were minor, they could have a large scale
impact, especially when attempting to deliver an imperial message. The minor arts, here with a focus
on cameos, which featured a raised relief image in a contrasting colour to its background on items
such as engraved gems, jewellery or glass vases, could be used to present a more personal message,
and thus, as will be demonstrated, could stray from the model presented by large-scale monuments,
though remaining within the bounds of imperial iconography. Through examination of the Gemma
Augustea, the Blacas Cameo, the Great Cameo of France, and the Gemma Claudia, the changes from
the imperial iconography seen in large-scale monumental works that the private nature of cameos
allowed will be made clear.
The Gemma Augustea cameo (Figure 1) is included here as the date of its creation is highly
debateable. It is definitely dated after 10AD, but there is a high probability that it was commissioned
at the very beginning of our period, after Augustus’ death in 14AD. 3 The two-layered onyx cameo
depicts two layers which highlight figures and iconography; the upper layer depicts three much
debated imperial figures and a host of deities and personifications. The lower layer shows captive and
defeated barbarians and victorious Romans, like many of the battle scenes portrayed in historical
reliefs such as the Arch of Trajan during the Roman Empire. This dichotomy between a peaceful
Roman scene and gruesome battle, both intended in some respects to glorify the imperial family, can
later be seen in the Arch of Septimius Severus at Lepcis Magna, upon the pillars of which military
victory against a besieging barbarian force is shown, whilst on the entablature on each of these two
sides of the arch were placed the scenes of triumph, but in Augustan art this iconography is rare. 4 The
style of the barbarian depiction, much like the emotive and distressing portrayal seen on the column
of Marcus Aurelius, is unusual in a period in which peace was propagated after the civil wars between
Octavian and Antony. It is not to say that this cameo is entirely juxtaposed with large-scale Augustan
monuments, as the much-destroyed Actium monument in Nikopolis shows, but messages that the
imperial family under Augustus and his immediate successors disseminated are largely concerned
with peace and legitimacy rather than military prowess. If one looks, for example at the Ara Pacis, the
closest one gets to any representation of military victory is the altar itself, which was commissioned
by the Roman Senate in 13BC to celebrate the victorious return of Augustus to Rome after three years
in Spain and Gaul.5 In the more private setting of the cameo, then, which Jeppesen argues was

1
Trajan’s Column, made of Carrara marble, can still be found in Trajan’s Forum in Rome, and the
Luna marble column of Marcus Aurelius depicts his victories in the Danube and is said to have been
set up by his son, Commodus, after his father’s death (a nearby inscription attests that it was completed
in 193AD) dedicated by the Senate and people to the Emperor
2
The Sebasteion at Aphrodisias was a grandiose temple complex dedicated to Aphrodite, the Julio-
Claudian emperors and the people and was decorated with a lavish sculptural program of which much
survives, built from c20AD-c60AD
3
Gemma Augustea cameo is a two-layered onyx cameo now found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum
Vienna, dated to anywhere between 9-20AD, 19 x 23 cm
4
The Arch of Septimius Severus in Lepcis Magna (Figures 5 and 6) was a quadrifonal arch erected in
203AD, showing military reliefs and a triumphal procession
commissioned by the imperial family themselves, possibly on the instigation of Augustus before his
death, the imperial family can eschew their peaceful self-projection and instead celebrate wars won. 6

While the lower register deals with the wars that brought peace, the upper register represents the
imperial family in a more familiar way, and is arguably a scene more influenced by large-scale
monuments. At the centre of the upper layer are depicted two larger seated figures, identified as
Roma and Augustus. Roma is surrounded by military paraphernalia, much like the bellatrix seated on
the spoils of war who has been frequently identified as Roma (by Galinsky, for example) on the Ara
Pacis (shown reconstructed in Figure 2).7 Though Roma on the Ara pacis is badly preserved, on the
Gemma Augustea, she is more modestly dressed than later depictions of Roma on numismatics for
example, upon which a breast is often bared (see the Neronian Figure 3). 8 This could be for a number
of reasons; not only has it been argued by Mclanan that this is Livia depicted as Roma, explaining a
more modest attire, but also the Leges Juliae of 23BC highlight the moral programme Augustus
pursued.9 This modesty may have been reflected on the Ara Pacis, and so could signal another area of
imitation, but due to the poor preservation, this is purely speculative.

Less speculative is the depiction of Augustus, in which he holds a sceptre, a symbol of his legitimacy
as emperor, and sits with an eagle at his feet, a symbol of the god Jupiter. Augustus is portrayed in
Hellenic heroic style; he is semi-nude which is usually a convention reserved for heroes or deities.
Pollini has argued that in this private work, and thus free from the constraints of official ideology,
which held that the princeps was first among equals, a cameo could use Hellenistic traditions that
presented him as divine, saying that ‘reflecting the desire for a type of power incompatible with the
official ideology of the Principate, the Gemma expresses the underlying monarchical tendencies in the
Augustan regime’.10 I would argue that this is an inaccurate denigration of the depiction of the
emperor as god-like or divine, especially if this cameo was commissioned after his death. The life-size
state of Augustus as Capitoline Jupiter found in Cumae portrays Augustus enthroned, as in the
Gemma Augustea, and is modelled on a statue of Zeus the Olympian by Phidias, a 5th-century BC
Greek sculptor (Figure 4).11 The dating of the gem is the issue here, as if the cameo was cut before our
period begins, this depiction of the Emperor as god-like would indeed have been revolutionary,
whereas if it came after his death in 14AD, the portrayal may have been imitating large-scale
monumental works such as the statue of Augustus in miniature. A similar divine depiction can be seen
on the Blacas Cameo, which shows the profile head of the Roman emperor Augustus and probably
dates from shortly after his death in 14AD (Figure 5). 12 He has the aegis, an attribute of Jupiter, over
his shoulder, again relating him to the divine. Through literature such as Seutonius’ Divus Augustus,
we know that Augustus was deified after his death, and this depiction mirrored those such as the cult
statue of the deified Augustus, now found at the Ephesus museum in Selcuk. 13 It is clear that there
was some influence from major works such as the Ara Pacis and the Prima Porta statue type that
influenced the cameos discussed so far, but the private nature of the Gemma Augustea and Blacas
Cameo allowed the divine attributes of Augustus to be portrayed much more explicitly, and the more
5
Ara Pacis was an altar on the West side of the Via Flaminia in Rome dedicated to Pax, the Roman
goddess of Peace and commissioned by the Roman Senate on July 4, 13 BC to honour the return
of Augustus 
6
K.K. Jeppesen, The Identity of the Missing Togatus and Other Clues to the Interpretation of the
Gemma Augustea, in Oxford Journal of Archaeology 13 (1994), p339
7
K. Galinsky, Venus, Polysemy, and the Ara Pacis Augustae, in American Journal of Archaeology 96
(1992) p459
8
Neronian sestertius from around 66AD, depicting the Emperor Nero on one side and Roma seated l.
on cuirass, holding Victory and parazonium with two shields behind, and one breast bared
9
A. Mclanan, Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses, p50
10
Pollini, J., "The Gemma Augusta: Ideology, Rhetorical Imagery and the Creation of a Dynastic
Narrative," in P. Holliday, Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (1994), p260
11
Marble 187cm high statue portraying seated Augustus as Jupiter found in Campana and now in the
Hermitage Museum
12
Blacas Cameo, a three-layered sardonyx cameo engraved with a portrait of Augustus wearing the
aegis and a sword-belt, now in the National Museum in Paris
13
Marble statue depicting deified Augustus from after his death in 14AD found in Asia Minor and now
in Ephesus
militaristic aspect of Augustus’ rule to be emphasised, in a time when publicly the imperial family
were propagating peace.

The Grand Cameo of France (Figure 6) is the largest Roman imperial cameo to have survived, and thus
provides an excellent example to draw comparisons with large-scale monumental works from.14 It is a
five-layered sardonyx cameo engraved with twenty-four figures, divided into three levels; on the
upper level are dead and deified members of the Julio-Claudian family, with Divus Augustus,
surrounded by Drusus the Younger and Drusus the Elder flying on Pegasus, whilst the middle level
portrays the imperial family. The date of the engraving is more difficult, and these difficulties are
linked to the uncertainty that surrounds the characters depicted. Curtius claims that it was engraved
in 37AD, after Gaius' accession, 15 and this argument is persuasive given that Tiberius was quick to
dismiss his immortality, yet here is portrayed with the aegis of Jupiter, and, as Balsdon states, ‘after
Julia Augusta's death in 29AD Tiberius refused to sanction her consecration (Tacitus Annals 5.2), yet
on the cameo Julia Augusta appears…as Ceres’. 16 Furthermore, the Agrippina the Younger's hairstyle
suggests the date for the cameo between her marriage to Claudius in 49AD and the accession of her
son Nero in 54AD. With dating difficulties aside, the cameo clearly depicts the imperial family and
promotes a message of dynastic, continuous and legitimate rule in a turbulent time, with the memory
of the civil wars still relatively fresh. Although it is difficult to compare the divine imperial family here
to many large-scale monuments, as from the reigns of the Julio-Claudian emperors from Tiberius to
Nero, few remains of larger sculpture have been preserved, again there are clear influences from the
Ara Pacis and statue types. The divine representation of Augustus has been fully discussed already,
but the representation of the imperial family is something that is found time and again in both
miniature and large-scale Roman art. The Gemma Claudia (Figure 7) shows a similar portrayal, though
in portrait rather than full body relief, depicting two cornucopiae (with the now familiar imperial
eagle stood between) from which four portraits are seen, two for each. 17 On the left are the
Emperor Claudius and his new wife Agrippina (as Cybele, the goddess of fertility) and opposite them,
Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder. The family portraits, with Agrippina the Elder in the guise of
Roma, with the helmet and weapons surrounding her, again imply dynastic legitimacy, which can be
seen in the Grand Cameo of France and indeed the Ara Pacis. The south wall of the Ara Pacis (Figure
8) has been the subject of much debate as to the identities of the members of the imperial family, but
Augustus, as identified by his hairstyle and face, Agrippa (as identified by Loewy in 1926), Tiberius,
most probably Livia, and Antonia can be seen. 18 The large relief of the imperial family, whoever is
depicted, highlights the need to demonstrate dynasty, and this is a message that is imitated in minor
art works, as seen in both the Grand Cameo of France and the Gemma Claudia. The legitimacy of the
imperial family was still somewhat unstable under the Julio-Claudians, and thus by showing the lasting
and continuing dynasty, the imperial family showed their unity and staying power.

It is clear that cameos took inspiration from large-scale monuments at this time. The difficulty in
answering this question lies in the fact that many of the cameos remaining are from the Julio-Claudian
era, from which we have few large scale monuments such as the arches, altars and columns which
remain from the Flavians onwards. Yet even with the little evidence we can use, it is clear that
imperial messages at least are imitated on minor works of art; the dynasty of the imperial family,
closeness of the emperor to the gods, and military strength that can be seen from the Prima Porta
statue type to the Ara Pacis are all depicted through the iconography of the cameos studied. That is
not to say that this is simply imitation in miniature, however, as the private nature of cameos meant
that the imperial family (for whom, due to the expense and subject matter of the cameos, one can
assume by and large the works of art were commissioned) could propagate a message that was more
personal. Thus Augustus, the bringer of peace, could be depicted as a victor against pathetic and
emotive barbarians on the Gemma Augustae, and the emperor could be depicted as divine in a less
14
The Grand Cameo of France (French: Grand Camée de France) is a five-layered sardonyx cameo
from (arguably) post 37AD, at 31x26.5cm and is now found in Paris at the Bibliothèque Nationale
15
Curtius, O.C. pp150ff
16
J. Balsdon, Gaius and the Grand Cameo of Paris in The Journal of Roman Studies 26 (1936) p153
17
Gemma Claudia is a five-layered onyx cameo of around 49AD depicting Claudius and Agrippina and
largely believed to be Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder though some have argued the right portrays
Livia and Tiberius
18
Loewy, E. (1926), Bemerkungen zur Ara Pacis in Jö Ar 23, pp53–61
oblique way than some representations such as the Augustan Prima Porta statue type. Therefore,
although there was obvious inspiration from large-scale monument iconography, this was not mere
imitation, but rather an enhancement and movement of public imperial ideals into the private sphere.

Left: Figure 1, Gemma Augustea

Right: Figure 2, Roma on the Ara Pacis

Below: Figure 3, Neronian coin

Left: Figure 4, Augustus as

Capitoline Jupiter

Right: Figure 5, Blacas Cameo

Below: Figure 6, Grand Cameo of France

Left: Figure 7,
Gemma Claudia

Right: Figure 8,
South wall of the
Ara Pacis