Maráz Borbála: Marcus Aurelius bronz császárportré a római kori Lugioból. (Pécs, 1997.)

the head of the equestrian statue on the Capitol Hill that is otherwise the most strikingly similar one of all the representations known so far. The face is melancholicly transfigured and it represents a young man about 30 or 40, yet not tired of struggle, a stoic scholar. The expression of his face is kind and meditative with eyes gazing slightly upwards, into the distance. The Lugio (Dunaszekcső) bronze portrait of the emperor was cast with the „lost wax" method; the face must have been patinated in the course of its completing. Judging from the intact edge of the slightly fragmentary neck it can be supposed that it may have been intended for insertion into a statue. The back is roughly worked, which was customary in the case of statues intended for niches. This representation of Marcus Aurelius, one of the magnificent masterpieces of Roman portrait-art was completed in the middle or late 2nd century AD. Both the exquisite modelling and the high level of technology of the casting suggest that this almost complete portrait is unlikely to have been made in Pannónia. Hardly any sculptor or bronze-metallurgist having such art and skills may have worked in this area unyielding another bronze sculpture of similar quality from the Roman period. The portrait found in Lugio (Dunaszekcső) must have come to its later find-place at the Pannonian limes from a workshop of art either of Italy or of an eastern province of the Roman Empire. Among the several Marcus Aurelius representations there were only two bronze ones known previous to the revealing of the Dunaszekcső head. This third bronze representation of Marcus Aurelius can be regarded as one of the most splendid relics of art not only in Pannónia but in the whole Roman Empire as well. The quotations in the text are from the following editions: The Communitigs with himself of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Emperor of Rome, together with his speeches and sayings. A revised text and a translation into English by C.R.Haines. The Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Univ. Press - London, Heinemann, 1961. The Scriptores Históriáé Augustae. With an English tanslatwn by David Magie, 1. vol. The Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Univ. Press - London, Heinemann 1960.