What's going on here?

Right.

So I should preface, uh, this answer with saying that whilst the Parthian standards is the most popular interpretation, there have been, uh, scholars and academics who have suggested there, this is a different return of a different set of standards, because the Parthian standards are not the only standards to be returned to Rome and to Augustus during his lifetime.

And he makes this clear in his Res Gestae in chapter 29, uh, when he talks about how, um, several military, uh, standards were returned, having been lost by several Roman commanders.

But he does emphasize the Parthian standards as being particularly important ones.

And I think the Parthian standards make the most sense, not only because we can read the iconography of the figure, this non-Roman figure wearing a tunic and trousers, um, having potentially a diadem on his head.

These details would've been much clearer when it was painted.

So wh- where does this one fit?

And why don't we dive straight in? So tell us, first of all, when and where was this statue set up? Who set it up? And who got to look at it?

Pleasure to be here, James.

Yeah, the Prima Porta statue is absolutely fascinating.

And it's kind of the example par excellence when we think of Augustus and the imperial image.

The statue was found on the 20th of April in 1863 at a site about 15 kilometers north of the city of Rome.

And it was discovered to be the site of the Villa of Livia.

So the wife of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, and also the mother of the second emperor of Rome, Tiberius.

Let's hear about what's going on around it first, and then we'll turn to the Parthian standards.

And yes, we talk about the, the conspirators and how they will portray themselves as liberators later on, but, Hannah, uh, kind of on these last questions to get a clear sense of Caesar at that time, is actually just how popular was he with the elite, with the everyday people, and with the soldiers? I think let's go through them one at a time.

So that's a really good point, 'cause as we've already mentioned, as you pointed out, Tristan, that those involved in the assassination are a really sm- small minority, and that Caesar has enlarged the Senate with his own supporters.

So ostensibly, everything the Senate has been doing, all these honors they've been giving him, they're just feeding the beast.

And it's perhaps we're seeing the foreshadowing of the Senate as it will be under Augustus and the early Principate, where it becomes quite sycophantic.

And by the time Augustus is succeeded by Tiberius, he doesn't really know what to do with the Senate.

He wants to make it functioning, and they're just like, "Tell us what to do.

We'll do what you say." So we might see this beginnings of the yes man sort of syndrome.

[laughs]