An Emperor with Many Faces: Nerva

Presenters

Raffaella Bucolo, Verona University

Abstract

Sculpted portraits of Emperor Nerva, who ruled for just over a year, are few and almost all were recut from the image of his predecessor, Domitian. Recut as they were, these heads’ previous identity did not always—sometimes intentionally—allow a proper characterization of the new traits, which is why these portraits tend to display a variable range of facial features and hairstyles. This fact hinders close comparisons with Nerva’s portrait on metropolitan coinage, which most scholars believe repeats a well-defined single type. The discrepancy between coin image and the intention of a recut portrait is even more difficult in the provinces. The surviving sculpted portraits of Nerva in the provinces are few and all show great variations, which provoke difficulties in identification. This paper examines a provincial portrait, now in Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, whose identification as Nerva is doubtful and sometimes rejected. Examination of provincial coinage sheds new light upon that.

This paper aims to deepen our understanding of the many different faces shown by Nerva, especially around the empire, trying to use this interdisciplinary approach adopted by the RESP Project also to secure the identification of sculpted portraits that to this day remain anonymous.