Blacas Cameo

[4] It is one of a group of spectacular imperial engraved gems, sometimes called "State Cameos",[5] that presumably originated in the inner court circle of Augustus, as they show him with divine attributes that were still politically sensitive, and in some cases have sexual aspects that would not have been exposed to a wider audience.

[8] Within the very controlled conventions of his portraits, this image indicates his old age; the face has been described as "strained, ailing, yet ideal and noble",[9] and having "a distanced air of ageless majesty".

The aegis is here imagined as a kind of decorated goatskin cloak with a hole for the head, which appears (improbably small) at Augustus' shoulder.

[17] As in other State Cameos, and Augustan monuments like the Ara Pacis, the style is strongly neo-classical and idealistic, and in contrast to the realism that marked Roman sculpture, especially in portraits.

[18] In the Blacas Cameo the idealizing style is perhaps associated with one of the few Roman artists whose name we know, Dioscurides of Aegeae in Cilicia, who Pliny the Elder and Suetonius say carved Augustus's personal seal, which is now lost, though other gems apparently signed by him survive.