Budapest Régiségei 34. (2001)
STUDIEN = TANULMÁNYOK - Beszédes József: Depictions of an early portraittype of emperor Nero on some gravestones from Pannonia = 17-29
to be of great help in dating. Although the layout of the hair is quite schematized it nevertheless has individual features which reveal the imperial prototype. The coiffure type with „S" shaped locks combed low on the forehead, parted in the middle, and with curls running towards the sides of the face from the middle, continuously framing the forehead without any break, first appears on portraits of Nero from the beginning of the AD 50's (Fig. 3a-b). n This hair-style type is completely missing on portraits from the reign of the Flavians but turns up again at the very end of the 1 st century on the first portrait type of Trajan. 14 The most detailed study on Nero's portraiture is that made by Ulrich Hiesinger. 15 He defined five separate portrait types and three different coiffure types on the basis of Nero's sculptured replicas and those on continuously dated and well characterized coinage issues. He dated the first coiffure type to between AD 50 and 59, 16 the second one to between AD 59 and 64," and the last one to between AD 64 and 68. 1S Basically the same classification appears in the work of Marianne Bergmann and Paul Zanker 19 as well as in a study by Dietrich Böschung. 20 These studies differ from the classification of Ulrich Hiesinger only in the way that the first coiffure type is divided into two separate types between AD 51 and 54 and between AD 54 and 59 (Fig. 3b). 2i The type that can be dated to between AD 54 and 59 is the so-called „accession type" or „Cagliari type", which is the best defined and most widely represented coiffure type of emperor Nero. The last two Nero hair-types break radically with earlier types. The coiffure pattern of type 3 consists of a row of parallel curls extending leftwards across the forehead while the hair is parted at a point above the corner of the right eye, removing the central parting. The last coiffure type of Nero (type 4) is similar to the previous one but has no parting above the right eye. The entire row of front curls extends across the forehead in a continuous parallel series. 22 It seems very likely that hair-style of Q. Veratius reflects Nero's 2nd coiffure type - the so-called „accession type" - that dates between AD 54 and 59. One of the most famous sculptured replicas of this type is the veiled head in the Terme Museum in Rome, found on the Palatine 23 (Fig. 4-5). The center part, the so-called „Mittelgabel" and the S-shaped locks running in opposite direction from the part towards the sides without any break are clearly visible just as on the gravestone of Q. Veratius although in a more geometric simplified form. The locks arranged in rows on the head of Veratius do not pose a problem since it is a result of simplification and the same varient appears from that time on Nero's coins as well (Fig. 6-7)?* A marble head from Olbia /Sardinia/ belongs also to this coiffure type (Fig. 8). 25 A provincial portrait of the same type was found on Samos at Tigani with other portraits of the Julian-Claudian family (Fig. 9). 26 The above-mentioned horizontal rows of curls can be clearly seen and among Nero's sculptured replicas here can be detected the best. Hopefully, these examples are sufficient to demonstrate that the hair-type represented on the gravestone of Q.Veratius reflects Nero's „accession portrait type" (type 2, AD 54 - 59). Thus, the gravestone can not be dated to earlier than the middle of the AD 50's while the upper dating limit is - as mentioned before - the year AD 62, when the legio XV Apollinaris was transferred to the East. This early Neronian coiffure type appears on gravestones in other parts of Pannónia as well. One of the best examples is a fragmentary tombstone from Budapest that came to light in 1898 - together with other gravestones from the 1 st century - from Corvin Square, about 3.5 km south of Aquincum (Fig. 10-11). 21 The upper part of the gravestone ended in a triangle and the bust of the deceased was placed in a niche. He holds a scroll of paper in his left hand while the right hand is on his chest. The niche is framed by a festoon placed on rosettes. Below, between two spirally decorated columns, there is a horseman with a rectangularly-shaped shield. This representation suggests that the deceased served in a cavalry unit. His coiffure is quite detailed. Its main features are the long „S" shaped locks combed onto the forehead, arranged in different directions left and right from the axis of the nose forming a fork-shaped part in the middle. The gravestone was dated at the turn of the 1 st and 2nd century by the scholar who first published it, Bálint Kuzsinszky. 28 Harald Hof mann placed it among the oldest tombstones with a protome from Pannónia and dated it to the reign of Claudius. 29 Arnold Schober suggested a date in the 1st century, 30 while Alice Burger placed it in the Julian-Claudian period in her study on gravestones representing horsemen in Pannónia. 31 Tibor Nagy was of the opinion that the gravestone was raised to commemorate a cavalry man who died during the Sueb-Sarmatian wars in AD 92/93. 32 He used the festoon framing the niche as a dating critérium, which was according to him typical of the end of the 1st century and inseparable from the „girlandomania" which had revived on Flavian wall paintings. 33 However I believe that the festoon motif - which is otherwise rather rare on gravestones from Aquincum can not be used as the only evidence for dating, namely because this is a Hellenistic decoration and was in use over a long period during the Roman imperial period as well. The use of the festoon motif can be demonstrated in north Italy and the Rhein region well before the Flavians. Both territories were important from the point of view of l sl century funerary sculpture of Pannónia. According to Hermann Pflug's study on north Italian portrait gravestones, the festoon motif is not quite common in the Po region and can be dated mostly to the first half of the 1 st century AD. 34 /5
