(Re)Modeling Motherhood in the Early Augustan Period

Abstract The Portico of Octavia was a colonnaded square adjacent to the Theater of Marcellus that included public libraries, meeting space, and art. The complex, named for a mother and son, reveals the effort to craft motherhood into a public institution in the early Augustan period, when members of his family monopolized military commands, dominated religious life, and patronized a physical transformation of the city. A legend of a statue of Cornelia participates in this effort. While only the base survives, it reveals that a bronze of a seated woman was not labelled Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, until the Augustan period. The figure thus helps invent a tradition of public statues for women, and Octavia uses comparison with this exemplary widow to legitimize her own public role. When Marcellus died in 23, the complex was transformed into a memorial, with a lasting impact on Octavia’s image as a grieving mother.