The Statue Monument of Oecumenius: A New Portrait of a Late Antique Governor from Aphrodisias

Abstract

Ancient portraits are best interpreted with their busts or statue bodies and in the contexts in which they were set up and experienced, but such fully preserved monuments are not common. This article is the first publication of a new late antique portrait from Aphrodisias in Caria that has a statue body, an inscribed base, and a precise ancient setting. It was set up in honour of a provincial governor named Oecumenius, and his chlamydatus statue is now the most complete example around which others of this characteristic type of late antique statue can be understood. The monument also has wider connections outside Aphrodisias and raises interesting problems of historical interpretation in the period around a.d. 400.