An image of a ‘Barbarian’

The object of the month is a plaster cast of a marble head made between AD 106 and 112. The body to which this head was attached is now missing, but from similar statues cast we know that the statue would have shown a dejected young Dacian prisoner with his hands bound. Although the series of sculpted Dacian captives was set some 12 metres above the ground, clear visual clues told viewers instantly that these were barbarians, not Romans. The captives wear long tunics and baggy trousers; their hands are bound; and they wear long hair and a beard (elders) or moustache (young men). For Romans and civilised members of the empire, a moustache was the height of barbarity.

The head shows us some common Roman stereotypes about northern Europeans. The young man has a heavy brow and long, wavy hair with a fringe that sits just above the eyebrows. His moustache is thick, representing the Roman belief that Dacians were ‘shaggy’ barbarians with an unkempt appearance. The piece exhibits excellent workmanship, with careful attention to detail, for example in the full lips and cascading locks. It is a typical high-quality product of the best Roman marble workshops employed on projects sponsored by the emperor.

A word about casts
The objects in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum’s Cast Gallery are high quality plaster or bronze reproductions of Greek and Roman sculptures. Casts allow us to bring together, in one building, masterpieces from the Greek and Roman world that are scattered across many separate museums in Europe and North America. Many of the plaster casts in the gallery were made in the 19th century and are valuable antiques in their own right.