Standard from Pollentia

Roma in Hispania

This bronze standard is dated to be from the end of the 2nd or beginning of the 3rd century. It belonged to a school for young men in the Hispano-Roman city of Pollentia (Mallorca). Emperor Augustus created such institutions to prepare high-born youths in the empire's provinces for civic life. Here they would have been taught Roman values, beliefs and customs to ensure their integration in the new society. Their education also entailed participation in mock combats and the processions that preceded them, bearing standards like this with the school's insignias: the genius of youth, and the protective goddesses Isis, Fortuna and Diana the Huntress. The circles on the sides, now empty, may have contained portraits of the emperor and the princeps iuventutis, his successor. Their effigies would have allowed the young pupils to fulfil their duty to worship the emperor, which Augustus dictated should also be part of their civic and religious education.