Egyptian Trophies of Roman Emperors

Throughout the history of the Roman Empire, in Roma and other cities that served the imperial residences, the tradition of exhibiting trophy works of art in public places was preserved. The purpose of such expositions, first, was to demonstrate Roman power, which did not exclude recognition of the aesthetic value of a number of exhibited monuments, as well as sacral motivation associated with believing in the supernatural power of exhibited religious objects. The appearance of trophy collections in the Roman Empire, their availability for viewing, the beginnings of systematization, of course, are of great interest to historians of collecting and museum and exhibition activities. However, in most cases, researchers give attention to the exposure of Greek artefacts from the Classic and Hellenistic periods. In the same cases when collections of objects exported by the Romans from Egypt conquered in 30 BC., were subjected to art and museological analysis, they were considered together with artifacts of the socalled «Egyptianizing» style created outside Egypt. And, at the same time, they separated them from the Greek collections of the Ptolemies moved to Rome, confiscated from the royal palaces of Alexandria. This study is based on the attitude of the Romans to all artefacts delivered from Egypt as trophies, that is, to the part of booty that was exhibited to the public, being in a certain way assembled and arranged in the right order, sometimes with the addition of inscriptions and decorative details. This approach allows us to consider Greek and Egyptian monuments exhibited together in a wide range, from obelisks and sphinxes, to statues, paintings, objects of religious cult and works of flimsy plastic. The history of Egyptian trophy collections can be traced from the time of Octavianus Augustus to the reign of Theodosius I (30 BC – 395 AD).