Una “nuova” Livia da Leptis Magna: osservazioni sul contributo delle botteghe attiche nell’elaborazione e diffusione dell’immaginario imperiale

the paper focuses on a very fine peplophoros fromleptis Magna, now in the local archaeological Museum,which was briefly mentioned in two wide-rangingstudies about the iconography of livia (Freyerschauenburg1982, Bartman 1999), but more recentlyomitted by a. alexandridis (2004) as unidentifiable.in spite of difficulties in respect of the lack of provenanceor restoration record (it was probably foundduring the “new excavations” conducted by E. VergaraCaffarelli 1954-1960), stylistic and some iconographicdetails confirm that the body and portraithead can belong together. the head combines a veryidealized, classical face with a hairstyle which is aTypenklitterung of two portrait types of livia, i.e. minglesthe Noduszopf- and the Mittelscheitelfrisur. Whilethe head was personalized by using the well-knownNodus motif, the body was also adapted to an iconicsubject by substituting calcei muliebres for sandalsand adding an inserted portrait head. it is one of theearliest copies of the “Demeter Capitolina” type andsurely of attic workmanship, as certain stylistic featuresand the (Pentelic) marble used for the body confirm.Given livia’s prominence at leptis at the verybeginning of tiberius’s reign, the likeness is identifiableas Julia augusta (mater patriae) in formamCereris. several copies, most probably of attic workmanship,of statues of divinities from the Classical period,combined with portrait heads, are knownfrom Greece and italy (especially Campania), as forexample those of the agorakritan types Nemesis andMunich-syon house. they confirm how attractive theiconography of such fifth-century athenian modelswas to the Julio-Claudian artists, allowing them todepict virtues and female excellence by pairing romanprincesses and Greek goddesses. this encomiasticformula could have originated in athens itself,alongside the reshaping of civic and cultic topography,in the attempt to integrate the imperial powerand its representatives into the local religious landscape.the cultic association of emperors and theirrelatives with traditional deities (more frequently expressedthrough inscriptions and epitheta in the Greekworld) probably provided the background for therecreation and successful dissemination of classicaliconographic models by attic sculpture workshops,as in this classicizing statue from a far-away Northafrican city, from as early as the beginning of thetiberian period.