for his victories over German and Sarmatian tribes, leading some to suggest that year as the occasion for the creation of the equestrian monument. We know that Marcus Aurelius celebrated a triumph in 176 C.E. Some art historians reconstruct a now-missing barbarian on the right side of the horse, as seen in a surviving panel relief sculpture that originally belonged to a now-lost triumphal arch dedicated to Marcus Aurelius (left). However, more likely in this case we may read it as the gesture of clemency ( clementia), offered to a vanquished enemy, or of restitutio pacis, the 'restoration of peace.' Richard Brilliant has noted that since the emperor appears in civic garb as opposed to the general’s armor, the overall impression of the statue is one of peace rather than of the immediate post-war celebration of military victory. The emperor stretches his right hand outward, the palm facing toward the ground a pose that could be interpreted as the posture of adlocutio, indicating that the emperor is about to speak. Relief from honorary monument to Marcus Aurelius, 176-180 C.E., marble 350 cm (Capitoline Museums, Rome)The pose of the horseman is also helpful. Further, the use of the statue in the Medieval, Renaissance, modern, and post-modern city of Rome has important implications for the connectivity that exists between the past and the present. that was originally dedicated to the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, referred to commonly as Marcus Aurelius (reigned 161-180 C.E.), the statue is an important object not only for the study of official Roman portraiture, but also for the consideration of monumental dedications. A gilded bronze monument of the 170s C.E.

Few examples of these equestrian statues survive from antiquity, however, making the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius a singular artifact of Roman antiquity, one that has borne quiet witness to the ebb and flow of the city of Rome for nearly 1,900 years. The statues themselves were, in turn, copied in other media, including coins, for even wider distribution. In ancient Rome equestrian statues of emperors would not have been uncommon sights in the city-late antique sources suggest that at least 22 of these “great horses” ( equi magni) were to be seen-as they were official devices for honoring the emperor for singular military and civic achievements.

Overpeinzingen by Marcus Aurelius