Cameo gem with busts of Maximianus Herculeus and Maxentius. Rome, about 306-310. Chalcedony or sardonyx, in gold setting

Two male busts are carved in dark stone against an opaque white background. The man on the left of the cameo is frontal, with head turned right, bearded and mustached; his chlamys is fastened at his left shoulder—apparently an arbitrary choice of the gem cutter—with a round brooch. The man on the right appears younger—beardless and without mustache; he is slightly behind his senior and slightly lower. Whereas the older man's hair and beard are in short curls, his hair is in wavy strands. Pupils and irises of both men are incised.

The gold setting consists of a frame with two grooved loops at the top for suspension; three beads (beryl, emerald, and green glass) hang from wires attached by rings to the bottom. At back the stone occupies the full height of the frame, but at bottom front a horizontal strip, about 3/16 inch deep, has been cut away for insertion of a gold plaque with the roughly incised inscription DiocL(etianus) MAXiM(ianus) AVG(ustus). The gold of the plaque has the same appearance as that of the frame, and the edge of the cameo does not seem recently cut; the epigraphy of the inscription is antique, though careless. The plaque was apparently inserted in ancient times, but probably not when the gem was made (Richter, 1971).

The subjects are usually identified in accord with the inscription (e.g., Richter [1], 1956) as with Diocletian and Maximian. Recent objections have been based on the fact that the inscription is incorrect: it should read avgg (Niemeyer, 1968; von Sydow, 1969). Richter (1971) was aware of the blunder, but considered it unimportant. Poulsen (1974) further insisted that the images do not correspond with other accepted portraits of these Tetrarchs, including their coin types. His alternative, that we have Claudius II Gothicus and his brother Quintillus (A.d. 268-270), is not convincing, however, any more than is Calza's (1972) suggestion that the men are Caracalla and Geta (a.d. 211-212).

There is, in fact, no reason to reject the gem as a product of the Tetrarchy in terms of its style of execution, its use of materials, or its expressivity. If the authority of the inscription is rejected, the two rulers so represented are most likely to be a senior-junior pair, as in the porphyry group in Venice (Calza, 1972, no. 28). The older man resembles a togate figure in Syracuse (Calza, 1972, no. 39), already identified by Niemeyer with Maximianus Herculeus; in this case, the younger man should be his son Maxentius, whose extremely broad face is distinctive (cf. Calza, 1972, no. 107). Maxentius invited his father to break his retirement and join his own revolt in 306; in view of Maxentius' early assumption of a beard on his coins (Calza, 1972, pis. lxiv-lxv; only fig. 211 is beardless), the cameo was probably executed about this time.

Said to have been found at Rennes, France, in the heart of Maximian's domains.

bibliography: Richter (1), 1956, no. 11; Niemeyer, 1968, p. 88; von Sydow, 1969, p. 145 n. 64; Richter, 1971, no. 594; Calza, 1972, nos. 24, 38; Poulsen, 1974, pp. 31-32.