Realistic Style. A major Roman achievement in the sphere of sculpture from the republican age is what is known as a "veristic," or realistic, style that aims at a genuine, if sometimes unflattering, likeness of a real individual. An early instance of Etrusco-Roman sculpture with realistic tendencies is the life-size bronze statue of Aulus Metellus of about 100 B.C.E. in the adlocutio (speaking) pose of an orator. With his "unidealistic" features—cropped hair, furrowed brow, arched eyebrows and thin mouth—and inclusion of prosaic details such as the lacing on his boots, the statue has an air of realism and directness absent from much Classical Greek sculpture. A key motivation behind "realism" in Roman sculpture is the commemoration of one's ancestors in funeral ceremonies as outlined by the historian Polybius (circa 202-120 B.C.E.). While these masks were probably...