Bronze statue of a camillus (acolyte)

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As soon as he took power, the emperor Augustus set in motion a program aimed at restoring the time-honored values of virtue, honor, and piety. Religious cults wererevived, temples were built, public ceremonies and sacrifices filled the calendar. Men of every rank chose to be portrayed in the act of pious sacrifice. The popular type of sculpture seen here showed young boys who served as acolytes at religious ceremonies. The identification of this figure as a camillus, an attendant at sacrifices who was chosen from the noblest families, is based on comparisons with other stages and reliefs, most notably those of the famous monument, the Ara Pacis of Augustus. According to Roman tradition, a camillus had to be below the age of puberty, and both parents must be alive. This statue may have been dedicated at a sanctuary by the boy’s parents, in recognition of his service to the gods. Alternatively, its refined decorative qualities may signal its use as an adornment within a religious precinct, for instance in a dining room for priests. The figure’s eyes are inlaid with silver, the lips with copper, and the tunic with strips of copper to suggest woven or embroidered bands of color. He likely held ritual objects such as a container for incense in his left hand and a jug for wine or a ladle in his right.

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Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially "the Met", is located in New York City and is the largest art museum in the United States, and is among the most visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is by area one of the world's largest art galleries. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains an extensive collection of art, architecture, and artifacts from Medieval Europe.

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