The Statue of Augustus from Prima Porta, the Underground Complex, and the Omen of the Gallina Alba

The new excavations of the villa of Livia at Prima Porta have focused attention on the architecture and art of this imperial villa. The statue of Augustus from Prima Porta and the garden paintings from the underground complex have long been the most famous exemplars of their types. Recently new studies have treated these works of art in relation to their setting. ¹ But there is one source of information in particular which has not received the scrutiny in this regard that it might and that is the remarkable omen which gave the villa its name in antiquity, ad Gallinas. Although this omen is sometimes mentioned to explain the odd name, scholars have not examined in any detail the relationship of the omen to the art and architecture of the villa. In fact, the omen of the gallina alba is the foundation augurium of the villa-garden itself. ²

In this essay I intend to examine the ancient literary sources concerning the villa; the only information given by the sources about the villa comes in fact by way of the omen. First the individual components of the omen and the surrounding body of augury and myth will be examined and illustrated where possible in the monuments. Secondly I hope to illuminate the symbolic interrelationships between this augural imagery and the iconography of three features of the art and architecture of the villa-garden: the statue of Augustus, the underground complex, and the laurel grove. This imagery and symbolism played an essential role not only in the decoration of the villa, but formed an important part of Augustan ideology.

The iconographical connections of the statue of Augustus and the underground complex of the villa-garden should be sought first of all in the ideology inherent in the statue itself. ³ Two attributes in particular give this message: the laurel branch in hand and the cuirass. Since one knows how important the laurel was as an age-old symbol of Apollo and as a new emblem of Augustus and since one is aware how pervasive the Apollonian propaganda became in Augustan ideology, ⁴ it is no wonder that H. Kähler (1959, 12–13; 28; pl. 32) found the laurel integral to the sacral character of the statue’s image and hence restored the laurel branch in the hand of Augustus on the statue from Prima Porta.

Kähler is not the only scholar to attach the laurel to the Prima Porta statue of Augustus. ⁵ E. Simon restored a laurel branch in the left hand of Augustus rather than the right and in a recent summary of Augustan art this view was adopted. ⁶ There is also numismatic evidence for Augustus holding a laurel branch in connection with the triumph. While the certainty of a particular statue type behind the coin image is more problematic, ⁷ the coin in fact represents the historical event itself. On the reverse of a denarius from the great Actium series of coins Octavian is represented as Triumphator and Imperator standing in the quadriga and holding a large laurel branch in his right hand. ⁸ On the obverse Victory, standing on the ship’s prow, holds a palm in her left hand and in her right the laurel crown which Octavian would have worn in the triumphal procession. Likewise Tiberius in the Augustan tradition stands in the triumphal quadriga and holds a laurel branch in his right hand on an aureus of a.d. 13/14. ⁹ At least one scholar (Neudecker 1988, 90) believes that the program of the statue of Augustus of Prima Porta is probably to be seen in connection with the triumphal ceremony.

If Augustus indeed held a laurel branch in hand, the branch could only have come from the famous laurel grove of the villa of Livia ad Gallinas. The foundation augurium and legend of the Augustan laurel branch and indeed of the villa-garden itself as mentioned above is the omen of the gallina alba from which the villa took its name in antiquity...