Document Type

Honors Paper

Advisor

Darryl Phillips

Publication Date

2026

Abstract

Most people commonly imagine gleaming, unpainted, white marble under the lights of a museum gallery. However, Roman sculpture was far from how we commonly view it today; the Roman world was full of painted statues. How and why was Roman portraiture stripped of its color? This thesis discusses the development and use of Roman honorific portraiture over the course of the Republic, and the existence of polychromy within the Greco-Roman world. Furthermore, this paper also explores how color was erased from the historical narrative and argues that the understanding of Roman sculpture as polychromatic must be reincorporated back into the study of Classics to understand its true iconographic implications.

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The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author.