The victory over Pompey at Pharsalia in 49 B.C. left Julius Cæsar in supreme control. Brutus and Cassius led the Republican forlorn hope, and Cæsar himself was murdered in 44 B.C., but he had achieved his end. He had pointed out the only method of consolidating Rome’s vast conquests and bringing peace to the sorely tried State. Augustus realized at once the impossibility of reverting to the discarded republican form of government. In its place he set up a veiled despotism which enabled him to control all the energies and resources of Rome’s great empire. As Imperator, Augustus made himself commander-in-chief of the armies; as Princeps Senatus, he was leader of the Legislative Assembly of the Senate; as Tribune, he acted as the representative of Roman democracy; as Chief Pontiff, he was the head of an all-powerful ecclesiastical organisation. With the advent of peace Rome was able to turn her energies to art. The consequences were immediate in all departments of culture. It was the patronage of Mæcenas, the chief minister of Augustus, which placed Virgil in a position to write the “Georgics.” By 19 B.C. the “Æneid” was written in honour of Augustus. It was Mæcenas who provided Horace with the farm among the Sabine hills, where the Roman lyricist and satirist wrote all his later works. THE RISE OF ROMAN PORTRAITURE The effects of this social and political revolution upon sculpture could not be more happily illustrated than by two portraits of the men who brought them to pass. The “Julius Cæsar” is the well-known portrait bust in the British Museum;[1] the “Augustus” is the equally famous life-sized figure in the Vatican. [1] See Furtwängler, “Neuere Fälschungen von Antiken,” p. 14. In the first place, both are portraits. This emphasizes the prime fact that the branch of sculpture chiefly affected was portraiture. It is not difficult to surmise why this was so. In all other branches, whether athletic statues, dramatic groups or sculptures of the gods, earlier Hellenic and Hellenistic artists had produced works which the unimaginative Romans could never hope to equal. The copies of, and variations upon, the works of the Greek masters so fitted Rome’s needs that little or no effort was made to produce new works of the same class. But in portraiture this was not the case. In the nature of things portraits cannot be so directly affected by an earlier artistic method. The sculptors of Rome soon found that the methods of their Hellenic masters would not yield the results required. The true Greek portrait sculptor had never aimed at the realistic and life-like representation which was the one desire of the matter-of-fact Roman patron. As we have seen, the Greek had refrained from elaborating expression. He portrayed an ideal type rather than an individualized man or woman.