Augustus had no son, and adopted his two grandsons, Gaius and Lucius, as his own and prepared them to succeed him as Roman emperor. Not surprisingly Augustus had numerous portraits of them made, very much in his own likeness, if only to familiarise the people with his favoured successor.
This portrait was formerly thought to be of Augustus himself but is now believed to be one of those grandsons, Gaius. As it turned out, both heirs died young so never became emperor as Augustus wanted
Rome, Vatican, Sala de’ Busti 273
Purchased in 1884 from the Paris Beaux Arts
Hekler: Greek and Roman Portraits, 163
Amelung: Catalogue of the Vatican Museum II (1908), 474, pl. 63
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 116, no.613
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 895, no.535
De Grummond in Journal of the History of Collections, vol.3, no.2 (1991), 170
Found at Ostia in British Council excavations in 1818
