纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 035奥古斯都头像(4)

（单词翻译）

It was a cult¹ sustained by constant propaganda. All across Europe, towns were named after him. The modern Zaragoza is the city of Caesar Augustus, while Augsburg, Autun and Aosta all derive² from Augustus. His head was on coins, and everywhere there were statues. But the British Museum's head is a head from no ordinary statue, it takes us into another story-one that shows a darker side of the Imperial narrative³, for it tells us not only of Rome's might, but of the problems that threatened and occasionally overwhelmed it.

持续不断的宣传让百姓保持着宗教般的狂热。整个欧洲都有以他的名字命名的城镇。现代的萨拉戈萨曾被叫做凯撒奥古斯都之城。奥格斯堡，欧坦和奥斯塔都是他名字的变体。他的头像被印在硬币上，雕像也随处可见。但大英博物馆所藏的这具头像并非来自某座普通雕像，它涉及另一个故事，而这个故事向我们展现了帝国的阴暗面:在展现罗马威仪的同时，它也揭开了笼罩在帝国头上的阴影。

This head was once part of a complete statue that stood on Rome's most southerly frontier, on the border between modern Egypt and Sudan, probably in the town of Syene near Aswan. It's a region that has always been a geo-political fault line, where the Mediterranean⁴ world clashes with Africa. In 25 BC, so the writer Strabo tells us, an invading army from the Sudanese kingdom of Meroe, led by the fierce one-eyed queen Candace, captured a series of Roman forts and towns in southern Egypt. Candace and her army took our statue back to the city of Meroe and buried the severed⁵ head of the glorious Augustus beneath the steps of a temple dedicated⁶ to victory. It was a superbly calculated insult. From now on, everybody walking up the steps and into the temple would literally⁷ be crushing the Roman Emperor under their feet. And if you look closely again at the head, you can see tiny grains of sand from the African desert still embedded⁸ in the surface of the bronze - a badge of shame still visible on the glory of Rome.

这尊头像来自曾伫立在罗马国境最南端的一座全身像，位于今埃及与苏丹之间，很可能就在阿斯旺附近的沙伊尼镇。这里向来是国际地缘政治的断层线，地中海文化与非洲文化在此短兵相接。根据作家斯特拉的描述，公元前25年，苏丹麦罗埃王国的军队在强悍的独眼女王坎迪斯的带领下，攻占了埃及南部的数个罗马城市。他们把雕像蕴含麦罗埃城，修建神庙庆祝胜利，并将伟大的奥古斯都的神圣头颅埋在了神庙的台阶之下。这是一次极有预谋的侮辱。自此以后，每个踏上台阶，进入神庙的人，都将罗马皇帝踩在自己的脚下。今天，如果你近距离观察，还能看到青铜表明镶嵌着来自非洲沙漠的细小沙粒。这是罗马帝国荣耀之上的耻辱标记。