Some Roman portraits show a fork in the form of an inverted upsilon in the middle of their fringe.1 These hairstyles with the Y-Motif were used in Roman portraiture for over 250 years.2 Despite their popularity, they were not created on the initiative of the imperial house. It was a citizen trend, whose success led to it being recovered years later by members of the imperial family. As it first appeared in the Roman world with the private portraits of some youths,3 it can be affirmed that the expansion of this iconographic fashion took place as a ‘bottom-up’ phenomenon (for this matter, see Bergmann, 1982; Fittschen, 1993a, pp. 207-208; 2010a, p. 239; D᾽Ambra, 2013, pp. 521-522, p. 524; 2015, p. 48; Fittschen, 2015, p. 67; Maderna, 2017, p. 419).

The earliest Roman portraits with Y-Motif were made in the time of Augustus. They all depict unknown young men who look very like Gaius and Lucius Caesar (for the portraits of Gaius and Lucius Caesar: Fittschen, 1977, pp. 34-40; Fittschen and Zanker, 1985, pp. 21-25. Pollini, 1987; Boschung, 1993a, pp. 52-54; Goette, 1993). Two of them are from Greece.

A funerary stele from Athens (Fig. 1) represents a young man (Datsulis-Stavridis, 1984, p. 168, fig. 14, 4-6; Moock, 1998, p. 158, no. 390, fig. 53b-d; Kaltsas, 2002, p. 325, no. 682), dressed in the standard Greek civilian way: tunic and himation. His hair is short at the front and long at the back,4 which indicates that it is the representation of a delicium (for this type of hairstyle, see most recently Fittschen and Zanker, 2014, pp. 42-45, no. 41). The centre of his fringe is parted in the form of an inverted upsilon.

A portrait of a young man found at Thessaloniki (Fig. 2) displays a narrow ⅄ in the middle of his fringe (Κampouri, 1985, p. 92, n. 12, no. 2; Despinis, Stephanidou-Tiveriou and Voutiras, 1997, p. 122, n. 16; 2003, pp. 60-61, no. 197, figs. 551-554; Fittschen, 2005, pp. 156-157; Fittschen, 2021, p. 8, n. 61; p. 68, n. 17; p. 136, n. 22). He is wearing a strophion, which suggests that he carried out religious functions.5 Below that hoop, a groove runs round his head from the back to the area of his temples. This formed a surface prepared for an applique to be attached, either another strophion or some kind of crown (see for example Romualdi, 1987, pp. 47-48, no. 1, figs. 25-28; Johansen, 1995, pp. 84-85, no. 32 with illustrations; Fittschen, 2021, pp. 20-22, no. 6, figs. 4-5. For a similar working technique: Harrison, 1953, p. 41, no. 29, fig. 18; Kovacs, 2014, p. 66, A16, figs. 15, 2; and 16, 2; Hanslmayr, 2016, pp. 51-54, pp. 154-155, A23, fig. 27; Fittschen, 2021, pp. 67-68, no. 38a, fig. 40). The addition of this second adornment must have been a later updating of the portrait. The boy may have achieved another honorary position and that implied the inclusion of the new attribute (for similar cases: Fittschen, 2021, pp. 34-35, no. 16, figs. 14-15; pp. 50-54, no. 26, fig. 28; pp. 67-68, no. 38, fig. 40).

The Y-Motif also appears on the portraits of three young men from Écija (Fig. 3), Italica (Fig. 4) and Osuna (Fig. 5) (for the head from Écija: Hernández, Sancho and Collantes, 1951, pp. 205-206, figs. 660-661; p. 326, n. 818; Sichtermann, 1954, pp. 388-389, figs. 59-60; Fabbrini, 1966-1967, p. 144; Boschung, 1989, p. 121, no. 60; León, 1995, p. 76; 2001, pp. 264-265, no. 80 with illustrations; Fittschen, 2005, p. 157, n. 15; Beltrán, 2008, pp. 526-527; León, 2009, pp. 208-209, figs. 276-277; López, 2017, p. 79; Ojeda, 2019, p. 326; Fittschen, 2020-2021, p. 41; López and Ontiveros, 2021, p. 71; Beltrán et al., 2022, p. 356, n. 17. For the head from Italica: León, 1995, pp. 76-77, no. 20 with illustrations; 2001, pp. 266-269, no. 81 with illustrations; Rodríguez, 2004, p. 537; Fittschen, 2005, p. 157, n. 15; Beltrán, 2008, pp. 526-527; León, 2009, p. 210, figs. 278-279; López, 2017, p. 79; Ojeda, 2019, p. 326; Fittschen, 2020-2021, p. 41; León, 2021, pp. 137-138, fig. 52; López and Ontiveros, 2021, p. 71; Beltrán et al., 2022, p. 356, fig. 44, 1. For the head from Osuna: Engel and Paris, 1906, p. 375; Paris, 1908, p. 5; 1910, p. 152; Beltrán, 2008, pp. 524-528, fig. 14; López, 2017, pp. 78-80, no. 73, fig. 32, 1-4; López and Beltrán, 2018, pp. 599-600, figs. 1-5; Ojeda, 2019, p. 326; López and Ontiveros, 2021, p. 71, fig. 4; Beltrán et al., 2022, p. 356, n. 18). They have traditionally been interpreted as copies of the image of a Julio-Claudian prince. I do not agree with that. The three Y-Motifs differ in their shape and in the locks of hair that form them. The comparison of the profiles of the three portraits makes clear the great differences between them, which impedes a typological link. The absence of exact copies of the three heads among the known portraits of the young Julio-Claudian princes, and the fact that they are not replicas of each other, means that they are better identified as unknown young men in the Augustan period (León, 2009, p. 209; Ojeda, 2019, p. 326).

A fourth portrait from Baetica with inverted upsilon was found in the Regina forum (Fig. 6) (Griñó, 2009, pp. 70-71, no. 31 with illustration; Nogales and Nobre 2010, pp. 182-189, fig. 5a-b). It has a veil and one of the usual haircuts for young men in the Roman age. Long loose locks of hair are combed forward and practically reach to below his temples. Similar hairstyles can be seen in a veiled portrait in the Boston Fine Arts Museum (Comstock and Vermeule, 1976, p. 216, no. 342 with illustrations), in the portraits of the Chersonnesos-Herakleion type (Fittschen 2021, p. 119 no. 71, fig. 74) and in a portrait of an unknown young man in the Vatican Museums (Kaschnitz-Weinberg, 1937, p. 292, no. 713, fig. 107).6

A portrait now in Bochum, from an unknown provenance, also displays the Y-Motif (Fig. 7) (Imdahl and Kunisch, 1979, pp. 36-45 with illustrations; Giebel, 1984, p. 119 with illustration; Bol, 1990c, p. 171, p. 176, fig. 33; Lahusen, 1990, pp. 650-651, no. 181 with illustration; Meyer, 1995, p. 115; León, 2001, pp. 264-265; Hölscher, 2011, p. 44, fig. 3). In its lower part it was prepared to be fitted to a body. The edge at the back of the neck shows that the body must have been dressed.7 Considering the documented cases of Augustan portraits with the ⅄, a statue dressed with a tunic and himation or a toga are the most likely options.

The seven young men with the Y-Motif dated in the Augustan period may have sought a direct link with the works of Polykleitos. Therefore, they did not only exhibit the ⅄ in the centre of their fringe, as was usual in the master’s sculptures (see supra n. 1). The imitation extended to two other aspects. First, in some of the portraits (Figs. 5 and 7), the rest of the hair was also represented in accordance with Polykleitos’ model. Second, to a greater or lesser extent, they all display a physiognomy that depended on the work of the sculptor from Argos.8

Polykleitos’ influence in the Augustan portraits of young men with the ⅄ may be explained within the iconographic programme of the aurea aetas (Zanker, 2003, pp. 171-196). Classical Greek art was a model for this political-cultural movement in the time of Augustus (Zanker, 1988, pp. 629-631; 2003, pp. 248-252; see also La Rocca, 1988, pp. 17-21). The Prima Porta-type of portraits of the Princeps are a good example of how that iconographic policy was applied.9 By means of a polykleitisation of the form, Augustus was represented in them as the ideal model of society in his time (Zanker, 1974, p. 43; 2003, pp. 103-104; for the Polykleitan influence in Augustus’ portraits: Zanker, 1973, pp. 45-46; Fittschen, 1991, pp. 176-178; Boschung, 1993b, p. 64; Smith, 1996, pp. 41-45; Zanker, 2003, pp. 103-105; Hölscher, 2011, p. 13, pp. 43-44; Borbein, 2012, pp. 142-147; Boschung, 2015, pp. 90-91). The message was tremendously effective. The youths of the saeculum aureum hastened to follow the example of the Princeps and also included Polykleitan notes in their portraits. In this way, through the Y-Motif and the polykleitisation of physiognomy, these young men demonstrated their adhesion to the new regime publically.

The portrait from Italica (Fig. 4) poses another argument to support this hypothesis. It was found in the theatre and it is likely that it belonged to the Augustan phase of the building.10 Although no inscription has been found as proof, it might portray a relative (the son?) of one of the local euergetists who paid for the construction of the theatre: Lucius Herius, Lucius Blattius Traianus Pollio and Caius T(itius?) Pollio.11 They were all pontifices primi creati Augusto (see the summary in Caballos, 1994, pp. 74-75). A public building funded by priests for the cult of Augustus seems the perfect place to exhibit a portrait whose iconography clearly displayed the commitment of the youth to pro-Augustan policies.12

In the reign of Claudius, the Y-Motif is first documented in the portraits of a member of the imperial house. Curiously, it appears in connection with a woman. In the four extant portraits of the Parma-Neapel type of Agrippina the Younger, the ⅄ is clearly shown in the centre of her forehead (Figs. 8-11) (the two fundamental studies of the Parma-Neapel type are Trillmich, 1982; and 2007a, pp. 51-52; see also the summary in Boschung, 1993a, p. 73 and the brief comment in Sande, 1985, p. 195). The adoption of this iconographic motif by the empress must have been motivated by the dynastic struggles between Julians and Claudians. The former supported the succession of Nero; the latter that of Britannicus. To justify her son’s candidature, Agrippina argued that Nero was a direct descendant of Augustus by the maternal line (for the problems of the succession in the time of Claudius: Kraft, 1966; Levick, 1975; Andreae, 1994, p. 241; Griffin, 1994; Koster, 1994; Trillmich, 2007b, pp. 436-440; Bergmann, 2013, p. 334 and 343). In this historical context, the Y-Motif probably acted as an Augustan symbol, which was re-used by the empress to display publically her blood ties to Augustus and thus legitimise the succession of her son Nero.13 The memory of those youths, who by means of their Polykleitan portraits with inverted upsilon declared their loyalty to the policies of the Augustian period, must still have endured in the Rome of the decade of the 50s AD.

The popularity of Agrippina the Younger must have been the reason for the presence of the ⅄ in the case of a veiled female portrait from Cordoba (Fig. 12) (Poulsen, 1933, pp. 12-13, figs. 7-9; Santos, 1950, p. 58, fig. 13b; Vicent, 1965, p. 25; 1989, p. 24, no. 3 with illustrations in p. 25; León, 2001, pp. 192-193, no. 52 with illustrations; Beltrán, 2008, p. 526, n. 49). The resemblance to the empress demonstrates the Claudian chronology of this portrait. The young woman may have included the Y-Motif as a way of emulating the empress. Whether or not it also involved the support of a pro-Neronian policy is a question without an answer.

The retrospective tendency was an iconographic fashion that affected some Roman portraits from the time of Hadrian onwards. It consisted of the intentional search for highbrow references to the Greek past by means of imitating models from the Classical period or the start of the Hellenistic age (for the retrospective tendency in Roman portraiture: Fittschen, 1989; 1992; Danguillier, 2001, pp. 129-130; Krumeich, 2004; 2008, pp. 161-165; Fittschen, 2010a, pp. 238-239; 2013, p. 151, n. 32; Horster and Schröder, 2014, p. 236; Fittschen, 2021, p. 45, p. 106; Ojeda, 2021, pp. 83-85; Kovacs, 2023, pp. 187-188). Four retrospective portraits are known with the Y-Motif. They all emulate Greek models in the 5^th or 4^th centuries BC.

An Antonine portrait of a man found in Thessaloniki shows a parting in the shape of an inverted upsilon in the centre of his fringe (Fig. 13) (Despinis, Stephanidou-Tiveriou and Voutiras, 2003, pp. 158-160, no. 270, figs. 818-821).14 His physiognomy and long hair brings to mind Phidias’ works. Very similar forms can be seen in the heads of the Milles-Neapel type (see supra n. 1) and on some figures in the Parthenon frieze (Berger and Gisler-Huwiler, 1996, p. 165, fig. 137, 46).

The Antonine portrait of a young man with the Y-Motif found in Veria (Fig. 14) (Fittschen, 1999, p. 89, no. 70; Saatsoglou-Paliadeli, 2001, pp. 266-272, figs. 5-8)15 seems to coincide with the previous example from Thessaloniki in its references to classical models. This is suggested by its resemblance to the Apollo in the eastern Parthenon frieze (Berger and Gisler-Huwiler, 1996, p. 163, fig. 136, 39) and the images of boys in Attic funerary reliefs (Bergemann, 1997, p. 161, no. 123, fig. 48, 4 and pp. 164-165, no. 271, fig. 50, 3).

The same iconographic tendency can be found in a portrait of an adult male with the ⅄ from Cyrene, made in the time of Marcus Aurelius (Fig. 15).16 If his right profile is compared with Figure no. 45 in the eastern Parthenon frieze (Berger and Gisler-Huwiler, 1996, p. 165, fig. 137, 45) or with the funerary relief of Tynnias (Bergemann, 1997, p. 161, no. 107, fig. 95, 4), the connection with classical Greece is evident.

An adult man of the Severan period, whose portrait displays the Y-Motif and classical reminiscences, may come from North Africa (Fig. 16).17 It suffices to compare his physiognomic scheme with the so-called Phocion (Pandermalis, 1969, pp. 59-65, figs. 17-19)18 or with an unknown person in a funerary stela in Athens National Museum (Bergemann, 1997, p. 161, no. 126, fig. 84, 1) to see the influence of classical Greek sculpture in the 5^th-4^thcenturies BC. The large central fork in his fringe directly recalls the one that can be seen in Herodotus’ portraits (see for example Richter, 1965, p. 146, no. 8, fig. 800).

It is not difficult to imagine the reason why these four men added the Y-Motif to their hairstyles. By means of that typically classicist detail they efficiently completed the classical notes of their physiognomies. The aim may have been to show, through their portraits and as clearly as possible, their sympathy with the Greek past in the Classical period.

Gallienus was depicted with Y-Motif in his portraits of Type Louvre (Figs. 17-19) (for the portraits of Gallienus of Type Louvre: Fittschen, 1993b, p. 214 and pp. 221-222). The use of this iconographic detail by the Princeps can easily be explained within the context of the Gallienic Renaissance (for the phenomenon of the Gallienic Renaissance: Alföldi, 1929; Rodenwaldt, 1931, pp. 318-327; Mathew, 1943; Himmelmann, 1962; Fittschen, 1975a, pp. 22-25; 1978, p. 23; Rössler, 1997; Ismaelli, 2012, pp. 263-266. For the origin of the term Gallienic Renaissance: Fittschen, 1993b, p. 225, n. 91). This cultural movement involved a search for past stylistic or iconographic points of reference as a way to achieve social renovation.19 Gallienus and his court may have been the centre of this romantic current, conceived to alleviate the systemic crisis of Rome in the middle of the 3rd century AD. The Gallienic rebirth of the ⅄ fits well into this trend. It would have enabled Gallienus to establish a link with the Polykleitan Augustan youths.20 Like them, with his portraits displaying the inverted upsilon he declared his enthusiasm for the possibility of reliving a new saeculum aureum.21

Some contemporaries of the emperor must have shared his utopian dream. A male portrait found in Same seems to display a similar physiognomic scheme and a fork in his fringe resembling an inverted upsilon (Fig. 20) (Hood, 1958, p. 12, fig. 14; Daux, 1959, p. 659, fig. 1; Kallipolitis, 1960, pp. 141-154, figs. 1 and 4, pl. 7-11; 1965, pp. 117-130, figs. 1-2, pl. 7-8; Massner, 1969-1970, p. 317; Pandermalis, 1972, p. 134, n. 14; Wegner, 1979, p. 112 and p. 162; McCann, 1981, p. 636, figs. 19 and 21; Meischner, 1982, p. 402, no. 2, fig. 4; Lahusen and Formigli, 2001, pp. 306-307, no. 190 with illustrations; Meischner, 2001, p. 18, fig. 18; Varner, 2004, p. 211). Unfortunately, Gallienus’ murder in AD 268 put an end to any hope of returning to those prosperous years of Augustus’ reign.

The main questions posed by Roman portraits with the Y-Motif can be answered quite precisely. When? This motif appears in portraits from the time of Augustus to Gallienus’ reign. No evidence has been found dated later than the third quarter of the 3^rd century. Where? They have been found in different regions of the Empire, from Hispania and Italy to North Africa and Greece. Who? Some members of the imperial family and also unknown individuals were portrayed with the ⅄. Why? The inverted upsilon was a polysemous iconographic motif. It carried four different connotations in Roman portraiture: a) a Polykeitan quirk indicating affiliation to Augustus’ political programme; b) an Augustan icon intended to legitimise the succession of Nero; c) a classicist detail to express a liking of classical Greek culture; and d) a nostalgic reminiscence of the aurea aetas of the early imperial age. The number of portraits with the Y-Motif may increase in the future.22It remains to be seen whether this will allow a fifth meaning to be added to this list.