The pieces in this exhibition convey a great sense of what it must have been like to encounter these works in their contemporary setting.

Ovid’s playful poetry made him a favorite among Rome’s elite, but angered Emperor Augustus. Just as he was producing his finest work, Ovid (43 BC – 17 AD) was exiled to the darkest corner of ...

But Augustus died, and within decades the situation was very different. In 39 AD, when Caligula was emperor, religious intolerance erupted in Alexandria. Non-Jews had placed statues of human gods ...

Our head comes from this time, a year or two after Augustus became emperor. It was once part of a full-length statue that showed him as a warrior, slightly larger than life-sized. It's broken off ...