Lullingstone Portraits - Pertinax and father?


Salon IFA reports that Martin Henig, FSA, has written that he has come across


‘an interesting and highly plausible article in a German Festschrift that concerns the two very well-known marble sculptures from the Lullingstone Roman villa. In a paper entitled “The Roman portraits from the villa of Lullingstone: Pertinax and his father, P Helvius Successus” (pages 47 to 53 in Ganschow, T and Steinhart, M 2005. Otium: Festschrift für Volker Michael Strocka, Remshalden) Richard de Kind points to the very striking resemblance between the second deliberately damaged Lullingstone portrait and a portrait head in Aquileia generally held to be a portrait of Pertinax before his succession to the imperial throne in AD 193.


Pertinax served as Legatus Augusti after Ulpius Marcellus, and it is possible that Lullingstone served as a luxurious retreat for the governor during his brief sojourn. The bust was damaged as a result of an unofficial damnatio memoriae by soldiers who resented his firm discipline and were unable to find the fleeing governor. The other portrait is explained as probably that of his father, P Helvius Successus, and is mid-second century in date. If this highly plausible paper is correct, we have here a very important marble portrait, one of only a handful from Britain to portray an emperor.’



SALON - the Society of Antiquaries of London Online Newsletter

Salon-IFA 143: 3 July 2006

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