SPEAKER 1: We're here in the British Museum,
and we're looking at the head of Augustus from about 27 or 25
BC.
SPEAKER 2: So who's Augustus?
SPEAKER 1: Well, Augustus of course,
became the first emperor.
He, of course, was part of the triumvirate.
So lots of people know the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra
through Shakespeare etc.
And, of course, he defeated Antony at the Battle of Actium,
and that was when he was able to assume the position.
He didn't become Augustus until later
on when he finally defeated all the other rivals.
SPEAKER 2: So he goes from being Octavian,
who's one of three in charge of Rome, to defeating his rivals,
including Antony, and--
SPEAKER 1: He's given the name Augustus.
It's an honor that the Senate give to him.
And with that is a shift.
He's saying, well, this is a change from the past now.
He can't do the same kind of promoting himself in the ways
he had before-- in battle struggling
against the other people that wanted to rule.
So here he's saying, well, I'm ruling now,
and I'm changing the propaganda.
SPEAKER 2: Going back to looking at this statue in front of us,
it's not necessarily the kind of empire builder
that we would imagine.
This is quite stripped down.
I'm mean, he's a young man.
He's got a kind of contemplative look.
He never seems to be meeting your eye no matter where
you stand.
SPEAKER 1: I've walked around him a few times now.
He won't look me in the eye.
SPEAKER 2: But he has these very piercing eyes,
which are actually made out of glass.
So they really stand out from the dark bronze that we see.
SPEAKER 1: That's something that you
see on other antique sculptures as well.
SPEAKER 2: This is really well preserved with a lot of detail
for something that's so old.
SPEAKER 1: And The fact that it's bronze
is extremely unusual.
Because, of course, not many bronze figures
would have lasted from antiquity, because people
would usually melt the metal down
and use it for another purpose.
SPEAKER 2: And there's this fabulous story
about why this particular head is so well preserved,
which is that it was actually part of statue that
was put up in Egypt.
And at one point the Kush Empire,
these enemies of the Romans who were in charge of Egypt
at the time, invaded.
They knocked down the statue.
They took it away, and it was like, ah-hah.
Thumb your nose at the Roman Empire
by burying the head of the emperor.
SPEAKER 1: And cutting the head off a statue
is symbolic for cutting the power--
the source of power of the emperor himself.
And what they did with it was very unusual.
They buried it underneath the temple where they worshiped.
So they were actually all standing on his head
and treading on him whenever they went to worship.
So that's a good way of trampling him under their feet,
always reminding him, you're beneath us.
SPEAKER 2: The thing that strikes me
about this is he's portraying himself
in a very specific way, obviously.
And there's this connection to Alexander the Great
through the youth and the tousled hair and, of course,
Alexander the Great being the ultimate role
model for the young military genius.
And this is clearly a tradition that Augustus
is tapping into here.
But he's also giving himself quite a bit of dignity
with this portrayal, He's got the slightly furrowed brow,
but just enough to imply a focus, not a worry.
SPEAKER 1: And that's interesting,
because at this time when he's creating this new image
he was trying to create a shift in society.
He didn't want it to be warring, infighting senators trying to
up themselves and promote their own prowess.
He was bringing it back to moral outlook,
down to the individual.
And he took the name of Principate,
so he's the first amongst equals.
And he tried to lead by example, talking about family values.
And the imagery he took on, he was promoting that as well.
And it's interesting to talk about his youth,
because he used this image until he died.
So he died at l think '76 or something like that.
And he never got another [INAUDIBLE] or anything.
SPEAKER 2: So the idea of the state portrait in Britain--
there's images of Queen Elizabeth
and they're everywhere.
SPEAKER 1: We age her.
On our coins we have aged her like every 20, 40 years or so,
we put a couple of wrinkles on her and make her a bit fatter.
SPEAKER 2: Not so much with Augustus?
SPEAKER 1: No, and then every emperor
afterwards took that approach.
So they could maybe depict themselves as an old person,
but they would never age themselves any further
than their original image.
SPEAKER 2: It's also worth remembering
that what had come before this was
the Roman Republic-- the Senate.
And the idea was that Roman citizens had a say
and voted on things.
And this is Augustus who's breaking from that mold
and making it an empire.
So he's the first among equals trying to connect back
to that republic idea, but also putting himself slightly
over it.
And this is slightly bigger than life size,
so he would have been a little bit bigger than anybody.
SPEAKER 1: Anybody else, definitely.
But he was everywhere.
This image would have been everywhere.
And it was in towns as far off, flung
afield as Egypt, the furthest corner
of the empire at that time.
And it's that the statue actually
stood in for the emperor himself.
So he would be able to preside over court hearings
and pass judgments in his presence in the statue.
SPEAKER 2: So the idea of imbuing a statue
with a bit of the personality of the person
that it is portraying--
SPEAKER 1: The power that dwells inside the statue.
SPEAKER 2: And, of course, we don't know what he looks like.
But this is a quite realistic seeming portrayal.
A man could look like that.
He's quite attractive.
SPEAKER 1: He's very sympathetic.
SPEAKER 2: He looks like someone who
would give you a fair trial.
SPEAKER 1: And the fact that the head
has been removed from the statute
by the Kush-- they are attacking that power.
They're attacking the statute.
And remember, that statute is Augustus
in all intents and purposes.
And they managed to behead him.
So unfortunate for him, they had his head cut off in the statue,
but lucky for us, because it's been
preserved in the sands of Egypt.