Comment on Thorvaldsen's Small Silver Head - A Ruined Tondo Portrait
[The author’s note in the text] Criminals could obtain protection by owning a statuette of the emperor, and if an officer could reach the shrine where the standards ornamented with the imperial portrait were kept, he was protected against mutinous soldiers just as the church altar afforded sanctuary during the Middle Ages, se J.P. Rollin, Untersuchungen zu Rechtsfragen römischer Bildnisse (Diss.), Bonn 1979, p. 143ff.
Last updated 26.11.2015