A Marble Cuirassed Torso of an Emperor, Roman Imperial, Flavian Period, 3rd quarter of the 1st Century A.D.

probably representing Titus or Domitian, standing against a fragmentary support with the weight on his right leg, and wearing a tunic, leather corselet and kilt, and bronze breastplate decorated in relief on the chest with a gorgoneion and on the abdomen with a Roman soldier and a barbarian captive flanking a military trophy, the pteryges ornamented with various motifs including a gorgoneion, an eagle with outspread wings, a ram's head, a lion's head, and an exploding star.

Sotheby's London, March 27, 1961, lot 151, illus.
Sotheby's London, July 6, 1964, lot 175, illus.

 

Cornelius Vermeule, "Hellenistic and Roman Cuirassed Statues," Berytus, vol. 15, 1964, no. 85A, pl. 18,5
Klaus Stemmer, Untersuchungen zur Typologie, Chronologie und Ikonographie der Panzerstatuen, 1978, p. 19, cat. I 19, pl. 10,1
Helga Herdejürgen, Stadtrömische und italische Girlandensarkophage (Die antiken Sarkophagreliefs), 1996, p. 80

The relief decoration on the lower part of the cuirass shows the tropaion or trophy, a memorial which, after ancient Greek custom, a Roman army would erect on the battlefield on the very spot where the enemy had turned to flee. On this sacred spot, which was consecrated ground, some of the enemy's weapons, helmets, shields, and other pieces of armor were suspended from a wooden cross. Defeated barbarians such as the one recognizable on the present torso by his trousers and long beard, would be put on display next to the trophy.