Varying Images of the first Roman Emperor

Why is it that Rome’s first Emperor can be seen to adorn Egyptian art andarchitecture as Pharaoh throughout the province? How might the contextof such images help our understanding of the population make-up and rea-sons behind such portrayals?These are the questions I wish to answer through exploring the varying images of the first Roman emperor. Whenever Augustus is mentioned images of power such as the Prima Porta are first to come to our minds.1 As one of the most well-known Imperial statues it is often our first thought regarding portraits of the young,militarily successful leader of the Romanworld. It is this image which has been seen throughout modern scholarship as the epitome of the traits Augustus wished his subjects to see, and therefore the one which resonates most strongly in our minds as the defining image of the emperor.2 Yet various scholars who address provincial images pay little or no attention to Egypt and the array of portrayals available.3 This may be because of the peculiar nature of Egypt: for some Classicists, it is Egyptologists who should be researching the images and wrestlingwith the complex iconographic system that had developed through centuries of Pharaonic and Ptolemaic rule; the other side believe it to be the remit of Classicists, who can use such images to understand how the province was ruled. It therefore straddles an uncomfortable – though entirely artificial – division in academic approaches. With thanks to Will Leveritt for the rendition of the cartouches (fig. 5). 1For the purposes of this paper, references to Augustus also include the time up to 27 BC when he was still known as Octavian