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Volume 97 No. 3
July 1993
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The Cartoceto Bronzes: Portraits of a Roman Aristocratic Family of the Late First Century B.C.
John Pollini
The "Cartoceto Bronzes," an important group of four over-life-size, gilded bronze figures (two equestrian male and two standing female statues), have been dated from the second half of the first century B.C. to the latter part of the first century A.C. Portrait comparisons indicate that past identifications of these figures as members of the Julian or Julio-Claudian family are incorrect and that a previously overlooked late Republican-early Augustan portrait in the Museo Gregoriano Profano in the Vatican appears to portray the same individual as one of the Cartoceto equestrian sculptures. The group would appear, therefore, to represent members of a prominent Roman aristocratic family of the late Republic/early Principate. One possibility, supported by some circumstantial evidence, is the family of the Domitii Ahenobarbi, who had marital ties with the Augustan and Julio-Claudian house.
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