Artistic Personification of the Historical Victories of Emperor Augustus in Hispania Province

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant lecturer-Department of Greek and Roman Archaeology- faculty of archaeology- Ain shams university

Abstract

The dawn of the Augustan age (27 BC-14 AD) witnessed a conflict that was unique in the history of Roman Spain as a planned and fully organized campaign. This conflict resulted in the subjugation of the tribes and the completion of the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula two centuries later. In fact, Augustus did not achieve a decisive victory in his military campaign (26–25 BC) in Hispania; rather, it was Agrippa who achieved the final victory in 19 BC. Nevertheless, the portrayal of the conflict in contemporary literary and artistic sources definitively determined Augustus' military success. Augustus’s presence in the campaign seems to have been motivated by political and ideological considerations, justified by the constitutional settlement he reached with the Senate in 27 BC, which confirmed his continued military superiority and his declared program of pacification. The research then targets the political and military changes in the state of Spain during the Augustan era. The Spanish campaigns, the “Cantabrian War” in the Augustan era, did not receive sufficient attention whether in literary sources or in art. Zanker wrote that the Cantabrian War was not celebrated in art, but the truce was the result of victory. Therefore, the celebration of the establishment of peace in Spain is a celebration of military victory, and it played its role in supporting the images of the Augustan regime like the rest of his victories. The image of Spain and its people developed in art in the same way that it developed in literature.

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References

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