Bearing in mind the basic aspects of public honour and private commemoration outlined above focus is now on modes of representation.
Materiality, technique and the choice of material as giving meaning to
portraits are often overlooked. Material enhanced the aesthetic appeal
of a portrait and it carried cultural, contextual, social and economic
properties that changed with time.
Some materials, such as Egyptian red porphyry and black basalt, were
restricted in use to the imperial house, while other materials were so rare
and expensive that only a few rich patrons could afford them. It is clear
from a passage in Pausanias’ description of the Olympieion in Athens,
that the ancient viewer would pay attention to the material from which a
portrait statue was made: “before the entrance I say, stand statues of Hadrian, two of Thasian stone, two of Egyptian”.

The choice of material was also subject to function and use. Painted portraits and portraits in wood, silver or bronze were relatively easy to move around and they could be carried along in processions. When the emperor’s image was borne in cultic procession for example, a small local community would have to hirelabourers to carry it.

A wooden, bronze or silver statue or statuette was obviously easier to handle than a marble one. An inscription from Ephesus on the southern analemma wall of the theatre records how the equester C. Vibius Salutaris paid for a number of gold, gilded and silver statuettes of deities and personifications as well as silver statuettes of the ruling emperor Trajan and his wife Plotina to be carried in procession from the deposit in the Artemision to the theatre. In the theatre they were placed on marble bases made especially for them, whenever the council met.
A funerary relief in Chieti shows how statues of deities were borne on fercula
in processions and statues of the emperor must have been carried in
the same way. Stone statuary was only suitable for permanent display.
The wide range of materials used for portraiture is epitomized in one
of Pliny the Younger’s Letters to Catius Lepidus. The letter describes
how a mourning father tried to find comfort after the premature death
of his son Regulus:

He chose lately to mourn for his son; accordingly he mourns as nobody ever mourned before. He took it into his head that he would have statues and busts of him by the dozen; immediately all the artisans in Rome are set to work. In colours, wax, bronze, silver, gold, ivory, marble, the young Regulus is depicted again and again.
The materials mentioned in this letter form a good point of departure
for a discussion of the materials used in private and imperial portraiture.

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