Laudator Temporis Acti

Peter Parsons, City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007), p. 69, with notes on pp. 232-233:

More widely dispersed were imperial portraits, painted (like the mummy portraits) in coloured wax on wooden panels, a form of secular icon.³⁵ Such perhaps were the 'little images' of Caracalla and his deified father Severus and his mother Julia Domna dedicated (according to an official survey) in many temples in the city of Oxyrhynchos and in the surrounding villages; each entry puts this dedication first, and then the accumulated offerings of the faithful ('1 purple throw, rotted and useless; 1 bronze folding mirror; 1 bronze platter; 2 statuettes of Zeus and Hera ...').³⁶ No mention of Geta here: because these images were made before his public career, or after his disgrace? or because he had been brushed out? One group portrait still survives, painted in lively colours on a wooden disk 12 inches in diameter: Julia Domna with fashionable coiffure, Severus a crowned and bearded figure of godlike benevolence, in front the two sons: the podgy adolescent on the right survives intact, diadem and all; his brother to the left (and this must be Geta) has the face scratched out. Indeed, scratching out was not enough. The face is covered with a green-brown deposit which (according to the original publication) gives off a bad smell when moistened. It seems that a loyal hand daubed the disgraced prince with animal excrement.³⁷

35 Colours and wax for imperial images in the early fourth century: 55.3791–2.

36 12.1449 (BL 1; 7; 9; 11) (lines 1–17 = SP 2.405).

37 On this tondo (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Antikensammlung 31329) see Heinen (1991). Reproduced here as ill. 20.

Id., illustration 20:

20. Damnatio Memoriae. Emperor Septimius Severus and family, Greek style: painting on wood. The face of the younger son, Geta (lower left), was scratched out and daubed over after he was murdered by his brother Caracalla (see pages 68-70).