Robed Figure from Periate

Hollow-cast bronze sculpture representing a life-size male figure covered with a long toga. The head is from a different piece than the body, and is more crude, of small dimensions, with prominent cheekbones and sunken eyes which look upwards in an absent gaze. Only the left hand, with long, thin fingers and thick rings on the ring and little finger has been preserved. Both the head and the hand were joined to the body with stucco. This piece depicts an important figure of whom there was a desire to highlight his civil role, both for the gesture of his hand and the ostentation of the rings, symbols of power and prestige. It probably adorned the main room of a villa, a statio militar or a mansio. Nevertheless, it has been suggested that in the place where it appeared, in which an honorary inscription has also been located, there could have been an oppidum (indigenous fortified settlement, after which a Roman town would have developed), where the "accitanis veteres" -members of a special order, linked to the order of Acci- would have resided, and it has even been suggested that the inscription dedicated to Lucius Aemilius Propinquus could be the pedestal which held the Robed figure from Periate. Nevertheless, some surface ceramic materials do not seem to back this hypothesis. It is also surprising that the abovementioned inscription could be dated in the 2nd century and the sculpture in the 3rd century. This matter, in any case, is open to discussion. Javier Arce believes that it represents Claudius II Gothicus who governed the Empire between 68 and 70 AD.