Nero Was Obese???

I went back to that cool AI poster of all the emperors statues someone posted recently & already the first chin was showing...

 

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Especially fermented grapes that came in bottles. I've read that he and friends got a lot of inspiration for his poety from the effects of enjoying "liquid grapes."

 

Nero. AD 54-68. AR Denarius (3.57g). Rome mint. Struck circa AD 65-66. Obv: NERO CAESAR AVGVSTVS; Laureate head right. Rev: SALVS; Salus seated left on ornamented throne, holding patera and resting hand at side. Ref: RIC I 60; RSC 314.

 

Roman Empire Sestertius - Emperor Nero - Roma Seated
Bronze, 33 mm, 22.48 gm, Catalog: RIC 356
Struck: AD 67 Rome

Obverse: Laureate head right
(IMP NERO) CLAVD CAESAR AVG GERM PM TRP XIII PP
Reverse: Roma seated left on armor and holding long scepter
Large S C at sides, ROMA in exergue

 

From Suetonius (via the excellent website of Bill Thayer):

"He was about the average height, his body marked with spots and malodorous, his hair light blond, his features regular rather than attractive, his eyes blue and somewhat weak, his neck over thick, his belly prominent, and his legs very slender. His health was good, for though indulging in every kind of riotous excess, he was ill but three times in all during the fourteen years of his reign, and even then not enough to give up wine or any of his usual habits. He was utterly shameless in the care of his person and in his dress, always having his hair arranged in tiers of curls, and during the trip to Greece also letting it grow long and hang down behind; and he often appeared in public in a dining-robe with a handkerchief bound about his neck, ungirt and unshod."

Later in his reign:

 

With my art-historical hat on, I'd say that Nero wouldn't have suffered these coins to be disseminated unless he (or his court etc) approved the messages they were conveying; he could have 'airbrushed' the double chin away, if he had wanted to. Therefore his chunky form and fat body, which to us look sometimes even comical, must be serving some purpose - that of portraying messages about the years of plenty that Rome is (supposedly) enjoying, the abundance and the affluence of the empire.

Nero does not need to be the powerful military hero, precisely because his reign is (so the message implies) secure and fruitful. It was a similar sort of message to that which some had set out to convey previously (Ptolemies and other so-called tryphe-kings) and exactly contrasting with the sort of late-Republican verism which had been in favour not that long prior, but now might look fusty and old-fashioned, and which, besides, were largely inaccessible to young rulers of the empire.