This article deals with self-representation of Maxentius, who ruled over Italy and North Africa between 306 and 312. It focuses on the imagery and language that was distributed through coins and ...portraits during Maxentius’ reign, as well as their reception under Constantine immediately after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312). It argues that Maxentius revitalized the tradition of a princeps at Rome in order to play upon sentiments of neglect felt at Rome and the time. In coinage, this was most explicitly done through the unprecedented use of the princeps title on the obverse, which initially may have caused a misunderstanding in the more distant parts of the Maxentian realm. The idea of the princeps was captivated in portraiture through visual similarities with revered emperors, especially with Trajan, and through insertion of Maxentius’ portraits in traditional togate capite velato. When Constantine defeated Maxentius in 312, he took over some of the imagery and language that had been employed by his deceased adversary. Constantine, too, presented himself as a princeps. This not only shows that Maxentius’ representational strategies had been effective, but also brings to light how Constantine managed to deal with the memory of someone who had been one of Rome’s greatest benefactors.
Abstract
Portraits of Roman emperors are traditionally recognised by their unique coiffure patterns, a method that runs the risk of ignoring portraits that do not cohere to the standardised image of ...the emperor. This article investigates whether it is possible to recognise and distinguish emperors using the facial features of their portraits. By using a technique called transfer learning, it utilises existing deep-learning facial recognition models, augmented with images of Roman imperial portraits, to provide a new empirical foothold in the debate of Roman emperor recognition. The results of the experiments demonstrate that by only a limited amount of training, such a so-called “pre-trained” model (i.e., InceptionResnet-V1) is able to correctly classify most images in the dataset of Roman emperors. As such, this article has made a first step towards applying facial recognition models to the study of ancient imperial portraiture.
The early Augustan Age witnessed an increase in building activities and overall interest in mainland Greece which has primarily been understood from the perspective of Roman appropriation of Greek ...culture, or from that of local Greek independence and “re-Hellenization.” Taking late Republican Athens as an extensive case study, this article shows that, when moving beyond either a top-down or bottom-up vision, developments in the late Republican and early Augustan Age can be properly contextualized as being part of a continuous strategy of Roman leaders and the Athenian elite to negotiate power and influence within a shared field of references.
Roman Imperial Portraits Dataset (ripd) Heijnen, Sam; Hekster, Olivier; Hermsen, Thijs
Research data journal for the humanities and social sciences,
06/2022, Letnik:
7, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Abstract
Portraits of the Roman emperors have been a focal point in the study of the ancient world. However, questions on how this medium developed over time and/or how perceptions of the emperor ...changed over more than four centuries of imperial rule, are constrained by the availability and accessibility of the material. This article introduces the Roman Imperial Portraits Dataset (
ripd
) to allow researchers to study the portraiture of Roman emperors through a more quantitative approach (Heijnen & Hekster, 2021). The dataset has systematically brought together more than 2,100 extant (i.e. published) portraits of the Roman emperors into a single dataset that can be used for further study. The article also introduces a web application with the aim to allow researchers and interested parties to work with the data(set) in an user-friendly manner.
Trajan’s status as a model emperor is perhaps most famously expressed in Eutropius’ catchphrase “More fortunate than Augustus, better than Trajan” (Eutr. Brev. 8.5.3). Modern scholarship has ...similarly stressed Trajan’s exemplary status, assuming that Trajan’s virtues were already a point of departure by which to measure second- and third-century emperors. This article challenges that notion; it argues that Trajan’s status as a model emperor was a late-antique literary construct. Trajan only entered the repertoire of exemplary emperors during the course of the fourth century to become the model emperor in the very late-fourth- and early-fifth century. This development depended on the historical context and ideological demands, as well as on the availability of the then-existing material discussing and depicting the historical Trajan.
This article seeks to address the question how the Tetrarchic system of four rulers could be presented as legitimate in a society that had never seen this political constellation before. What were ...the different modes of presenting Tetrarchic rule and how did they help in making the new system acceptable? The article argues that new power structures needed to be formulated in familiar terms, not only for the rulers to legitimate their position, but also for the ruled to understand such new systems. As a result, imperial messages during the Tetrarchic period were strongly influenced by traditional modes of representation from earlier periods. Traditions which were inherent in specific media and locations were determining factors for the way in which a new political system could be presented. The result was a much less coherent ideological Tetrarchic message than is often assumed. The image of group identity was regularly lost in a more complex and messy mode of formulating power. The new and innovative aspects of a collegiate rule by four emperors was less important than linking the power of those rulers to what was traditionally expected of the portrayal of Roman emperorship.
Hairstyle plays an important role in the identification of Roman imperial portraits in the historical and archeological context. This makes sense because, at the time, hairstyle and facial hair were ...considered important in projecting an image of authority and legitimacy, and this image is expected to be applied consistently. However, deep learning face recognition models have shown that said portraits can also be recognized without explicitly focusing on the hairstyle. In this paper, we demonstrate that such models still achieve reasonable recognition rates if the coiffure and facial hair of the Roman emperor portraits are removed from the input image by replacing the relevant areas with average face image data, generated from the Roman emperor's dataset. The comparison of the recognition performance between the datasets with and without coiffure and facial hair shows that these features are not essential for reasonable recognition rates for a face recognition system.
Abstract We present trends in incidence, early treatment and survival of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL) between 1989 and 2008, based on population-based data from the Netherlands Cancer ...Registry. Incidence rates were stable at 5.1 per 100,000 person-years for males, but increased from 2.3 to 2.5 for females, especially for females aged 50–64 years (from 3.6 to 4.3). Patients were less likely to receive chemotherapy within six months, i.e. from 29% to 24% among males and from 25% to 21% among females. Five-year relative survival increased from 61% in 1989–1993 to 70% 2004–2008 for males, and from 71% to 76% for females. The relative excess risk of dying decreased in time to 0.7 (males) and 0.9 (females) in 2004–2008, reference 1989–1993, and increased with age to 2.9 (males) and 1.8 (females) in patients aged 75–94 years, reference 30–64 years. The increasing incidence among females aged 50–64 coincided with the introduction of mass screening for breast cancer, which resulted in a large group of women under increased surveillance and possibly led to increased detection of CLL. The increase in survival might be underestimated due to possible decreased or delayed registration of indolent cases and the retroactive effect of the introduction of new therapies.
Background: We present survival outcomes of patients registered in the Dutch population-based Eindhoven Cancer Registry (ECR). Patients and methods: Data on patients diagnosed with a melanoma between ...1980 and 2002 were obtained from the ECR. Data on vital status up to 1 January 2005 were obtained, up-to-date survival rates were calculated using period analysis. Multivariate analyses were carried out using Cox proportional hazards model. Results: Ten-year crude survival rates were 82% for women and 60% for men (P < 0.05). Thin melanomas (Breslow thickness ≤ 2.0 mm) had 5-year crude survival rates >74%, for melanomas >4.0 mm these rates were <65% (P < 0.05). In the early 1980s, 5-year relative survival rates were 84% and 62% for young (<60 years) women and men, and 66% and 69%, respectively, for the elderly (aged 60+). In the period 2000–2002, these rates had improved to >90% for females and to >72% for males. Multivariate analyses showed increased hazard ratios with increasing age and Breslow thickness, being male, having a melanoma on the trunk or unknown sites and having a nodular melanoma. Conclusions: Despite the absence of improvements in treatment options for melanoma, survival improved significantly, except for elderly males.
Over 80% of all deaths in the Netherlands concern people aged 65 years and older. Elderly patients who have been diagnosed with a life‐limiting illness have many unmet healthcare needs in the last ...phase of their life. For this exploratory population‐based study, data from the Eindhoven Cancer Registry were retrospectively analysed to determine possible trends in the number, patient characteristics, treatment and survival of patients aged 65 years and older newly diagnosed with stage IV cancer (n= 9028), a group of elderly in the palliative phase of cancer. During 1996–2006 a substantial increase of 81% in the number of elderly patients newly diagnosed with cancer stage IV was found. Over 70% of these patients received primary cancer treatment, irrespective of serious comorbidity (in 61% of them) and a short life expectancy (most died within 12 months except for those with cancer of the prostate). The vast increase in the number of the elderly who need palliative care contributes to awareness among healthcare professionals about future demand. They enable anticipation and planning sufficient end‐of‐life care capacity, but also to develop care planning programmes for these older palliative cancer patients. Research needs to be done on aspects of the symptom burden, role of palliative treatment, psychological, social and spiritual needs and end‐of‐life decision‐making. Registration of additional data on these aspects of (palliative) care is suggested.
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