CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

See 'Archaistic statue of a maiden', the Lever collection, G. B. Waywell, The Lever and Hope Sculptures, Berlin, 1986, no. 4, pl. 5 and 'Statue of Peplophoros with Archaising Head', Hope collection, ibid., no. 18, pl. 51 for two other heads in the archaising style dating to 1st Century B.C.-1st Century A.D. The archaistic style became popular in the Augustan period, with archaistic statuary appearing on coins of Augustus and becoming, to a certain degree, synonymous with Imperial rule. At the dawn of the Roman imperial period, a new artistic programme was sought, and 'all Greek styles, archaic, classical, and Hellenistic were combined to create a new Roman art' (M. Bieber, Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age, New York, 1981, p. 182). The emergent style reflected Roman admiration of Greek artistic achievements, yet this cultural appropriation also demonstrated Rome's supplanting of Greece as the dominant political and cultural force in the Mediterranean.