Augusto e la domus Augusta nelle isole minori della provincia Sicilia: Lipara, Gaulus, Melite

The paper examines the statues and dedications of/to Augustus and the Julio-Claudian family found in the Maltese islands and the Aeolian Islands, as evidence of the local reaction to the Augustan model and the “conscious globalization” processes it implies, in an island context. Besides some “crude altars” with simple dedications to Augustus, and a few other epigraphic clues, the record from Lipari is circumscribed to two statues (a “colossal” togatus from the first two decades of the 1st century AD, known only by a drawing by Jean Pierre Houel, and an iconic acephalous statue of Formia type, of Tiberian age); both lack contextual and epigraphic data diriment for identification, though an imperial subject is all in all plausible. In contrast, from Gozo and Malta there are more informative sculptural finds, in the former case (the “Schulterbauschstatue” of Ceres Julia Augusta consecrated by her priestess Lutatia) thanks to the association with the dedicatory inscription that makes explicit its subject, commission and meaning; in the latter case (the Julio-Claudian cycle from the Roman Domus in Malta) thanks to the contextual connection between the sculptures and their iconography. The completion of the Gaulitan statue of Livia with a head of the empress in the “Cerestypus”, illustrated by Houel, is proposed, which could be recognized in a portrait of Livia of alleged Sicilian provenance, purchased in 2000 from the British Museum. In the case of the two Maltese portraits of Claudius (one from the Roman Domus cycle, the other decontextualized, now housed in the Louvre Museum) we note the probable reworking from portraits of Caligula (already recognized by Erik Varner for the Louvre portrait). More precise analysis pushes one to discern more articulated dynamics behind the surviving dedications and honorary or cultic statues and to identify, for the most important among them, the initiative of members of the local elite who through honors, veneration and loyalty to the emperor and to the domus Augusta asseverate their own role both within their cities and in the imperial network.