This 56cm marble bust is in the Louvre. He is depicted as a middle-aged man with a bowl-type haircut. His nose has been broken off. The Museum's website (
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"The emperor Trajan is represented here in bust, according to an archetype created at the beginning of his reign, which came close a troubled period. This context explains the strong reference to the effigies of Augustus: the serene countenance of the emperor, built according to classical principles of balance and moderation, echoed his desire to establish a new era of prosperity and stability in the Roman Empire.
Trajan (98-117. BC)
This bust cut under the breasts in a new provision in Roman portraiture is the Emperor Trajan in heroic nudity. The hair is ordered and flexible short locks, brought in a separate fringe and swollen in the middle. The face, facing left, is austere gaze is fixed and mouth tightly. A few wrinkles around the eye and neck folds reflect the weight of years in this otherwise highly idealized portrait.
Optimus princeps
Trajan, the Roman army officer, was chosen by the emperor Nerva as his successor. This adoption procedure terminates the succession crises that erupted in the hereditary dynasties and threatened the stability of the Empire in the second half of the first century AD. AD In this troubled context, the image of Trajan and wants to be reassuring guarantor of stability, and to do it borrows directly in an obvious symbolic maneuver, the iconography of Augustus. Indeed, we recognize a certain kinship in the arrangement of the hair and the modeling of the flesh straightforward. This is a portrait that is the expression of a political ideology along with the representation of virtues and morality of the prince away from the arrogance and the excesses of previous emperors, his face calm but resolute discusses self-control. Trajan has already arisen here optimus princeps ("great prince"), under which was granted in 113: a man of duty in the service of Rome, and a rigorous and exemplary officer.
Return to classicism
This portrait is part of a series derived from an archetype created in the workshops and dated Roman officials, according to the arrangement of hair, the beginning of the reign of Trajan. The treatment of the hair strands in triangular chopped specifically authorized to do in this model an original bronze work. The high quality of the bust in the Louvre suggests that this is an accomplishment in a formal workshop and chronologically close to the prototype. The symbolic reference to the image of Augustus was a complete performance that evokes the idealizing Augustan classicism: the economy means that presided over the completion of this bust, sensitive in the brightness of the flesh smooth, treated with simplicity, and an indication of the eyebrows by a simple marble ledge where hair is not mentioned, gives the work character and ample full of majesty. However, the few references naturalists (wrinkles, folds of things) belong more to the art of the Flavian period. This portrait is a true synthesis, expression of naturalism timed by the symbolic legacy of Augustan classicism."
Wikipedia (
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"Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against a revolt on the Rhine led by Antonius Saturninus.
In September 96, Domitian was succeeded by Marcus Cocceius Nerva, an old and childless senator who proved to be unpopular with the army. After a brief and tumultuous year in power, a revolt by members of the Praetorian Guard compelled him to adopt the more popular Trajan as his heir and successor. Nerva died on 27 January 98, and was succeeded by his adopted son without incident.
As a civilian administrator, Trajan is best known for his extensive public building program which reshaped the city of Rome and left multiple enduring landmarks such as Trajan's Forum, Trajan's Market and Trajan's Column. Early in his reign, he annexed the Nabataean kingdom, creating the province of Arabia Petraea. His conquest of Dacia enriched the empire greatly — the new province possessed many valuable gold mines.
His war against the Parthian Empire ended with the attack of the capital Ctesiphon and the annexation of Armenia and Mesopotamia. His campaigns expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent. In late 117, while sailing back to Rome, Trajan fell ill and died of a stroke in the city of Selinus. He was deified by the Senate and his ashes were laid to rest under Trajan's Column. He was succeeded by his adopted son Hadrian.
As an emperor, Trajan's reputation has endured — he is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived nineteen centuries. Every new emperor after him was honored by the Senate with the wish felicior Augusto, melior Traiano ("[be] luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan"). Among medieval Christian theologians, Trajan was considered a virtuous pagan, while the 18th century historian Edward Gibbon popularized the notion of the Five Good Emperors, of which Trajan was the second."