Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/50

30 with spear on shoulder; also by the medallions struck in his honour, giving him the actual title of ΗΡΩΣ; on all of which his head appears with the short, close-clustering curls of the Thessalian hero. But to descend to sober reality, if anyone capable of judging of likenesses will refer to the plaster-cast of the "Gemma Augustea" (the noted Vienna cameo representing the Family of Augustus ), he will at the first glance recognise the same bust (identical in pose, chevelare, and benign expression) as belonging to the woman seated on the ground with her two little boys standing by her, on the left hand of the Emperor. She is holding up a cornucopia, and wears round her neck a heart-shaped bulla. As to her personality, there can, in this composition, be no room for doubt; she is Antonia, daughter of M. Antony and Octavia, niece to Augustus, and wife of the hero of the scene, his beloved step-son, Drusus; whilst her two children are the afterwards so famous Germanicus, and the Emperor Claudius. Again, let the same critic minutely examine the head of the same princess on the reverse of the beautiful gold medal struck in her honour by either her grandson or son (where she is figured under the form of Ceres Legifera, holding the long flambeau and cornucopia of the beneficent goddess, with her head in the same pose as in the cameo just quoted), and he will feel his first impression converted into certainty. Or, if further evidence be wanted, let him compare the fine Marlborough cameo (figured in Raspe's Catalogue at No. 11256, but there mis- called an Agrippina), where also Antonia appears with the attributes of Ceres, and he will discover, one might almost say, the actual cameo upon which the paste we are considering was moulded. Lastly, if none of these means of forming a judgment be at hand, let him but cast his eyes upon the lovely Townley "Clytie rising from the sunflower" (to retain the familiar name), now so deservedly popular through its elegant reduction in Parian, and he will immediately recognise the head on the Axelodunum relic in the marble bust that deifies the same virtuous lady as an Isis reposing on her lotus flower.

Antonia's claims to such eternity of fame were