A PAIR OF WHITE MARBLE RELIEFS OF A ROMAN EMPEROR AND EMPRESS

As Douglas Lewis has noted, this imperial pair seems very likely to represent the mid-second-century consorts, Lucius Verus and his wife Lucilla. When the emperor Hadrian (AD 76-117-138) at the end of his life appointed Antoninus Pius as his successor, one of the stipulations was that he adopt this subject, Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus (AD 130-161-169), as “Lucius Verus.” He in fact did succeed Antoninus (AD 86-138-161), albeit in association with the famous Marcus Aurelius, who outlived him (AD 121-161-180). Lucius married Marcus’ daughter Lucilla (AD c. 148-c. 182) in 164; her bust portrait on a bronze sestertius looks remarkably like her present marble relief, while a three-dimensional bust of Lucius, at Rome, seems almost identical with this relief profile, especially in its prominent nose, moustache, and full beard. A conspicuous feature here is his victorious wreath of laurel or oak, which Lucius would have earned through his campaigns against the Parthians in 164-165. Edward Gibbon characterized the age of the Antonines as perhaps the happiest chapter in human history, and indeed Lucius was one of its most appealing protagonists: fond of belles-lettres, sports, and good living, he expired from a premature stroke in the province of Venetia, en route to the empire’s northern frontier. Lucilla remarried the senator Claudius Pompeianus in 169, but was implicated in a conspiracy against the emperor Commodus in 182, whereupon she was exiled to Capri and eventually executed.