Classics

Rendering Caesar

Mary Beard on Western art’s fascination with Roman emperors

by Alastair J.L. Blanshard •

January–February 2022, no. 439

Twelve Caesars: Images of power from the ancient world to the modern by Mary Beard

Princeton University Press, $49.99 hb, 376 pp

Classics

Rendering Caesar

Mary Beard on Western art’s fascination with Roman emperors

by Alastair J.L. Blanshard •

January–February 2022, no. 439

A sculpture of Julius Caesar by Andrea di Pietro di Marco Ferrucci, c.1512–14 (Wikimedia Commons/Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913)

We know exactly when the first image of a Roman emperor arrived in Australia. It came as part of the goods on board the ill-fated Batavia, which ran aground off the west coast of Australia on 4 June 1629. This shipwreck went down in infamy following the mutiny of a group of the survivors and the subsequent murder of, at least, 110 men, women, and children. Eventually, the survivors were rescued and the horror of the actions of the mutineers was revealed.

Alastair J.L. Blanshard

Alastair J.L. Blanshard has held positions at Merton College, Oxford, the University of Reading, and the University of Sydney. He is currently the Paul Eliadis Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Queensland. His area of research interest is the ancient Greek world and its legacy. He is the author of Hercules: A heroic life (2005) translated into Italian, German, and Dutch, Sex: Vice and love from antiquity to modernity (2010), Classics on Screen: Ancient Greece and Rome on film (2011), and The Classical World: All that matters (2015).