Political Upheaval · 27 BCE · Turning point
Roman Empire Founded
2053
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ago
0
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Works dated
127 BCE–73
Augustus transformed Rome into a marble city and invented the full apparatus of state visual culture: monumental portraiture, historical relief, triumphant architecture, and the idea that art can narrate political legitimacy across an empire. Every subsequent imperial visual culture, from Byzantium to the British Empire, follows this template.
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