Editing Portland Vase (section)

===Scene 2===
[[Image:Portland Vase BM Gem4036 n4.jpg|thumb|right|230px|Scene 2]]
Interpretations include:
* A divinatory dream by [[Hecuba]] that the [[Judgement of Paris]] would lead to the destruction of [[Troy]]<ref name="Corning Museum of Glass 2011 u436">{{cite web | title=All About Glass | website=Corning Museum of Glass | date=December 1, 2011 | url=https://www.cmog.org/article/portland-vase-iconography | access-date=January 13, 2024}}</ref>
* [[Ariadne]] languishing on [[Naxos Island|Naxos]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Journal of the Classical Association of Victoria |url=https://classicsvic.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/billot.pdf |access-date=3 March 2024 |website=Classical Association of Victoria}}</ref>
* The woman languishing is [[Octavia Minor]], abandoned by Mark Antony, between her brother Augustus{{sfn|Roller|2010|p=178}} (left, as a god, as on the contemporary [[Mainz Gladius|Sword of Tiberius]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/gr/t/the_sword_of_tiberius.aspx |title=The sword of Tiberius |publisher=British Museum |date=29 September 2011 |access-date=16 December 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120913161441/http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/gr/t/the_sword_of_tiberius.aspx |archive-date=13 September 2012 }}</ref>) and [[Venus (mythology)#Epithets|Venus Genetrix]], the ancestor of Augustus and Octavia's [[Julia gens|Julian gens]].{{citation needed|date=August 2017}}

====Octavian theory====
[[File:Portland Vase BM Gem4036 n3.jpg|thumb|left|Detail, with the figure who might be [[Octavian]]]]
Another variant theory is that the vase dates back to circa 32 BC, and was commissioned by Octavian (later Caesar [[Augustus]]), as an attempt to promote his case against his fellow triumvirs, [[Mark Antony]] and [[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (triumvir)|Marcus Lepidus]] in the period after the death of [[Julius Caesar]]. It is based on the skill of the famous Greek carver of [[engraved gem]]s [[Dioskourides (artist)|Dioskourides]], who is recorded as active and at his peak circa 40–15 BC and three of whose attributed cameos bear a close resemblance in line and quality to the Portland vase figures. This theory proposes that the first two figures are Gaius Octavius, father of the future emperor, and [[Atia (mother of Augustus)|Atia]], his mother (hence Cupid with the arrow) who had a dream of being impregnated by Apollo in the form of a sea serpent (ketos), note the snake's prominent teeth. The onlooker with his staff, could be [[Aeneas]], a hero of the Trojan Wars who saved his father by carrying him over his back (hence his hunched position, and his Trojan beard) and who is believed to have founded Rome, and from whom the [[Julian gens]], including [[Julius Caesar]] and Attia, claimed descent, witnessing the conception of Rome's future savior as an Empire, and the greatest of all the Emperors.{{citation needed|date=August 2017}}

On the reverse is Octavian, [[Octavia the Younger|Octavia]] his sister, widow of [[Mark Antony]] (downcast flambeau, broken tablets) and [[Livia]], Octavian's third wife who outlived him. These two are looking directly at each other. Octavian commanded she divorce her then husband and marry him with a few weeks of meeting, she was mother to the future Emperor [[Tiberius]].{{citation needed|date=August 2017}}

This vase suggests Octavian was descended partly from Apollo (thus partly divine, shades of [[Achilles]]), whom he worshiped as a god, gave private parties in his honor together with [[Minerva]], Roman Goddess of War, from the founder of Rome, and his connection to his uncle Julius Caesar, for whom as a young man he gave a remarkable funeral oratory, and who adopted him on his father's death, when he was only four. All the pieces and people fit in this theory and it explains most mysteries (apart from who actually made it). It would have been a fabulously expensive piece to commission, so that few men of the period could have afforded it. Several attempts at creating the vase must have been made, as modern reproduction trials show today (see below). Historians and archeologists dismiss this modern theory as gods and goddesses with mythical allegories were usually portrayed.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}