The Face of Constantine: on the Reuse and Reconfiguration of Roman Portraiture.

By Eden Binjaku

At the start of this year, a 42-foot tall 1:1 replica of the Colossus of Constantine was placed in the Capitoline Museums’ Villa Caffarelli Garden (Fig. 1) to be displayed for at least one year. LiDAR scanning and photogrammetry was utilised by The Factum Foundation (a Madrid-based digital preservation NGO) to scan the original statue’s surviving fragments and recreate it in modern materials that would recall the effect of the original.

Figure 1: The reconstructed monumental statue depicting the Roman emperor in the garden of Villa Caffarelli, part of the Capitoline Museums. Photo: Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.

In 2022 the work was first exhibited at Fondazione Prada’s “Recycling Beauty.” This show explored the reuse of Greco-Roman antiquities aiming to “consider the past as an unstable phenomenon in constant evolution” that affects our present and future (Fondazione Prada). In two rooms, the replica is juxtaposed with the original fragmentary right hand and foot, suggesting the work’s reactivation.

The reuse of fragments and reconfiguration of Roman portraits, especially in public, political, art, has many precedents in ancient Roman practices. The replica sitting at the boundary between a national museum and outdoor space in our present Rome is not located too far from its original location, nor is this its first time being reused.

Constantine was declared emperor after his father’s death and by declaration of his troops in A.D. 306. In the subsequent eighteen years, he fought his rival emperors, finally gaining the mantle of western Roman emperor after defeating Maxentius at The Battle of Milvian Bridge in A.D. 312. By A.D. 324, he was sole emperor. His portraiture references his victories over his predecessors through employing reuse and reconfiguration.

Surviving in fragments (Fig. 2), There is general consensus that the Colossus of Constantine (AD 312) was once a statue of Maxentius in the guise of “Jupiter Maximus Capitolinus,” which was recut to Constantine’s features, as a political statement. Constantine placed Damnatio memoria (memory sanctions) on the fallen Maxentius, a process in which an emperor is condemned from public accounts and honor, having his portraits defaced, and name erased from monuments. Rather than total erasure, however, Constantine sought to superimpose himself and also appropriate parts of his rival’s legacy. Varner’s study identifies Maxentius’ original physiognomy within details of the portrait, as well as areas that were later cut to render Constantine’s features, arguing that the visibility of elements narrates the transfer of power and Constantine's intentions for how he is represented in his reign. The original statue of Maxentius, was in fact carved from a Colossus of Hadrian, therefore Constantine also adopts the legacy of the “Good Emperors” (in which Hadrian is included) and supremacy. The reconfigured face’s prominent nose in side-profile is consequently replicated as a portrait type, acting as a specific statement in the minds of the Roman public.

Figure 2: The surviving portions of the statue of the Roman Emperor on view in a courtyard of the Capitoline Museums. Photo: Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images..

The Colossus stood in the apse of the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine, in the Roman Forum. Construction began under Maxentius in 308 A.D. but was completed by Constantine in 312. The Colossus’ reconfiguration allows Constantine to receive the legacy of Maxentius’ architectural achievements. Maxentius’ desire to be seen as “conservator urbis suae” is then transferred onto Constantine as he expropriates his predecessors’ architectural plans for the Roman Forum: The Basilica, the Hadraitic temple, and a temple of Romulus especially which use spoila from previous emperors and relate to the origins of Rome.

If one further investigates Constantinian structures and portraits, the theme of reconfiguration and reuse of spoila is also employed in other examples such as within the Arch of Constantine, which declares victory over Maxentius while recutting frieze portraits from “Good Emperors” that sits along the Triumphal Route that connects it to the Roman Forum.

The present replica sitting on the Capitoline hill - unlikely to be coincidental - is exhibited in proximity to the Roman Forum, and on the hill which the Via Triumphalis would have ascended at its close, reaching a Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. The foundation remnants of this temple are visible in the Caffarelli Garden, where the replica stands today. Considering the Colossus’ long legacy of deliberate messaging through reconfiguration, it would be interesting to further analyse this curational choice, tracing the layers of meaning embodied in the work and how they transform and interact according to current motivations.

Bibliography:

Davic, Angela. “Constantine Replica Statue Lands in Rome.” The Collector Website 2024, “Home,” then "News.”  https://www.thecollector.com/constantine-replica-statue-lands-in-rome/.

Omissi, Adrastos. “Memory Sanctions as Creativee Processes in the Fourth Century AD,” in The Cambridge Classical Journal 62 (2016): 170–99. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26431020.

“Recycling Beauty” Exhibition, Fondazione Prada, 2022. https://www.fondazioneprada.org/project/recycling-beauty/?lang=en.

Varner, Eric. “Memory sanctions, identity politics, and altered imperial portraits,”  in L’Antiquité Classique, edited by S. Benoist and A. Daguet-Gagey. (Metz, Centre Régional Universitaire Lorrain d'Histoire, 2008): 129-52.

Varner, Eric. “Maxentius, Constantine, and Hadrian: Images and the expropriation of imperial identity,” in  Using Images in Late Antiquity, edited by S. Birk, T. Myrup Kristensen and B. Poulsen. Oxford, Oxbow Books, 2014.